Thunder Moon (Nightcreature 8)

“The word was ‘spirits,’ ‘‘ he said. “Keep away spirits.”

“What does that mean? Ghosts?”

Crrrrraack!

“Ian?”

He said something that I couldn’t understand.

“Say again.”

While I waited for the line to clear, I moved closer to the table, to Claire and the photo of my great-grandmother and someone else.

I knew that face.

I picked up the print, turned it over, but I don’t know what I expected to find on the opposite side. “Where’d you get this?”

“In one of the old cabinets with all the others.”

“Is this a trick photo?”

“How do you mean?”

“A combination of one image and another.”

“No. Why?”

The woman in the photo was Adsila. But in this picture my great-grandmother was perhaps twenty-five. Adsila’s grandmother was a baby. Adsila wouldn’t be born yet for over half a century. So how could she be standing next to my great-grandmother in an antique photograph?

All sorts of things fluttered through my head along with the static still coming from the phone. Time travel. Aliens. Ghosts.

Then, all the pieces came together. “Ian—”

“Hold on,” he said at the same time. “There’s someone here.”

Suddenly I could hear him quite clearly, his footsteps on the bare floor, thumping down the steps, opening the door.

“Adsila. Hi.”

“Ian!” I shouted, and Claire jumped. The pile of photos in her hand scattered across the floor.

“Too late, Grace,” a voice whispered over the phone.

I dropped everything and ran.

Chapter 35

Through the corridors, up the stairs, out the front door, and into the light. Down the street to the clinic, up to the second floor, through every room.

He was gone, as were my great-grandmother’s papers. How had Adsila managed that so fast?

I glanced out the window and understood. Where my truck had been was a great big empty. I reached for my cell, but I’d dropped it in the basement, so I went to Ian’s phone, but it was dead.

“Nice touch, Adsila.” Or should I say “Quatie”?

Someone pounded up the steps and my hand went to my gun, but it was only Claire. She bent at the waist and tried to catch her breath. I snatched her cell phone out of her hand and dialed Cal.

“I need everyone on the lookout for my pickup truck,” I said the instant he answered.