I spotted a man in a cop uniform and raced up to him. “Help! Please, you have to help me! I’m being chased!”
After approximately three seconds of staring into his baffled eyes, I realized my mistake. He wasn’t a real cop. He was just dressed as one for Halloween.
Hellfire.
“Uh, look—”
“Forget it!” I hissed, glancing back over my shoulder. No sign of Jumbo, but I knew I didn’t have long before he reappeared. “Do you have a phone?”
He gave me another baffled look. “Is this some kind of bit?”
Swallowing a scream of frustration, I pivoted on my heels and started running through the crowd again. I was forced to dodge and weave, the street was so thick with people. I tried twice more to ask for help, nearly begging for someone to let me use their cellphone, but people either looked at me like I was a scam-artist attempting to rob them or laughed like it was all part of the Halloween fun. No one took me seriously.
After the third failed attempted at engaging, I chanced a look back and spotted the top of Jumbo’s head, jutting up beyond a group of people on a ghost tour.
Shit!
I ducked behind a nearby tree, praying he hadn’t seen me. It was dark, I was disoriented, and fear was clouding my judgement. I needed a plan. I needed a safe place to catch my breath. The store was closest. By a small stroke of luck my keys were in the front pocket of my dress, where I’d shoved them after locking up. If I could get there, I could barricade myself inside and call for help. I wasn’t far — I spotted Sweet Somethings to my left, one of my favorite places to pop in for an ice cream cone in the summertime. It was only a few blocks from The Gallows.
Pulling a deep breath into my screaming lungs, I ignored the stitch in my side and began to push my way forward once more. I seemed to be moving against the tide of revelers, a minnow swimming upstream against a near-insurmountable current. By the time I rounded the corner and the shop came into view, I was nearly in tears. My spooky-cool window display was dark, the shop shingle swaying lightly in the wind. I raced for it like a port in a storm.
My hand shook as I shoved the key into the lock. I practically flung myself inside, the overhead bells rattling violently as I slammed the door shut immediately behind me. The sound of the deadbolt sliding home was the best thing I’d ever heard in my life.
I didn’t flip on the lights — the last thing I wanted was to give Jumbo O'Banion a beacon to follow. The shop was dark and totally silent as I moved deeper inside, but I didn’t need light to see. I knew the space like the back of my hand. This was my place. A safe place. My haven, from the time I was small. Nothing could hurt me here.
Someone moved in the shadows behind the espresso bar.
I screamed — a proper, heroine-in-a-slasher-film scream, both blood curdling and ear splitting in nature. Somehow, Jumbo had beaten me here. Somehow, he was inside, waiting for me. Somehow—
Hang on.
The shape in the shadows was way too small to be Jumbo. My scream tapered off as I peered harder, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, I rocked back on my heels, so great was my relief.
“Hetti?” I exclaimed, trading my terror for incredulity as recognition blasted through me. “Is that you?”
My barista rounded the counter and sidled toward me in silence. She’d changed out of her goth getup and was wearing a strange back cloak I’d never seen her wear before. I stared at her face for a long beat, wondering why it looked so strange. After a minute, I realized she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Not even a stitch. Gone was her heavy eyeliner, her dark lipstick. Her thick silver piercings were missing from their various holes. Even her hair looked darker. No longer vibrant purple, but a deep black shade.
“Hetti?” I repeated weakly.
“Convenient you’ve come to me,” she said oddly, staring at me. “I thought I’d have to track you down, get you away from your party. This is easier.”
“W-what?” I blinked. “Listen, there are some seriously bad guys chasing me. Hunter and Holden are in trouble. They might be hurt. We need to call the police, get some help—”
“Oh, no. We can’t do that.”
I shook my head in confusion. “What do you mean, we can’t? We have to. Didn’t you hear what I just said? There are dangerous men after me and I need to—”
“I think you should be more concerned with the danger in here,” she told me, taking a step closer.
I opened my mouth to ask what the hell that meant, but I never got the chance. Hetti’s hand swung up from her side and, when her palm opened, I saw she was clutching a small fistful of familiar shimmery gray powder. Quick as a flash, she leaned forward and blew it straight into my face — delivering my second witchy-roofie in as many months.
Goddess, not again!
My instinctual gasp of shock sucked it up my nasal passages, into my lungs. I stumbled back, catching myself against one of the high top tables, feeling the earth tilt beneath my feet. It had been only a few seconds, but the drug was strong. I was already feeling its lulling effects, my limbs growing heavy, my thoughts clouding over. I managed to steer my eyes in Hetti’s direction as my peripheral vision began to close in, black waves encroaching until all I could see was her face.
Her eyeliner-free gaze was more than a little unsettling as she watched me fall to the floor, her eyes filled with a gleeful sort of light that was only half as scary as the words she muttered after I hit the hardwood.
“Hac nocte resurgemus.”