The rips didn’t want to.
“Look at them.” Hallie began to tremble. “They know who they want.”
The rips moved in one accord, approaching Hallie at the same rate the riverboat approached the veil. I put my body between them, as if I could hide her from fate, but this time we couldn’t run.
I wanted to call out for Poe, but I didn’t want to tip Teague off about his allegiance, especially if something happened to me and Hallie was left on the boat with him. I looked over my shoulder. Too much was happening at once.
“Stay as close to me as you can,” I said over my shoulder to Hallie.
Her breathing sped up. “If I go to them, she can’t use me. She won’t have any reason to hurt you or anyone else.”
The rips were ten feet away.
The veil was fifteen.
“Hal, don’t be reckless.” Where was Poe?
“It’s true, isn’t it, Mother? You don’t want to lose the Infinityglass, but you’re afraid of the rips. What did you see when you were with them last? How did you manage to get away?”
Teague tore her gaze from the rips, which were now two feet away from Hallie.
The veil was right behind them.
I couldn’t hold back the current any longer.
“Poe!” I tried to rein in the power of the water.
He burst out of the cabin with the knife in his hand.
“Throw it!” I roared. “Now!”
It left his hand in less than a second, tumbling end over end.
I set the current free.
Chapter 27
Hallie
The rips were coming for me, their pull terrifying and seductive. Impossible to resist.
The veil floated a few tantalizing feet away from my mother, but even though she had her own exotic matter, she didn’t have duronium. Going with them was our only out. I’d just have to have faith that I’d come out on the other side.
And then Dune bellowed Poe’s name.
His knife flew through the air, slicing its way into my mother’s shoulder at the same time the veil swallowed her whole. She stumbled, gagging violently and clutching her head, her eyes rolling back.
As one, the rips swiveled their focus toward her.
Mother flew into the air as if jerked by an invisible string. Once there she floated, parallel to the ground. I would remember the look on her face for the rest of my life. Tears of furious defeat, and eyes wide with terror.
That’s when I realized this possession was different.
Because she was still in the veil. Dune was holding the current steady.
Her body absorbed the rips, and not just their faces. Their bodies, too. We watched as they consumed her. Witnessed her skin melt away, heard her bones break, as she assumed each form.
Every single rip on the boat entered the veil, one by one, reshaping my mother into their images as they did. When they were gone, there was a flash of light and a terrible ripping sound. One keening scream.