"They're coming."
A fresh gust of fear erupted inside her, heart drumming as she spun. Off to her left, Detective Keenan had already realized that time had run out. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him pull his gun, but her focus was on the silhouettes that had just appeared above the farmhouse, a pair of wraiths who flitted back and forth on gusts of wind, watching their progress through the drifts.
Jake tugged on her hand, forcing her to look him in the eye.
"Keep going," he said. "As fast as you can."
Then he went back for his mother. Miri saw Allie reaching for his hand and Harley lumbering after them with Isaac in his arms. She felt the burning in her calves and thighs from clambering through the snow and she knew they were never going to make it … knew they were all going to die.
A tiny breath escaped her lips-perhaps it was the last of her hope leaving her-and she turned to look for her father's ghost. He had vanished once more, still trying to keep out of reach of the ice men so that he would never have to endure the torment of their frozen hell again.
"What are you doing?" Keenan snapped at her. "Move your ass!"
The detective managed to shuffle sideways through the snow so that he could watch the figures gliding through the storm above the house and still have his gun at the ready. It slowed him down, that move, but he seemed ready to fight for Miri and the others. The only thing that kept her moving was the idea that lagging behind would put the man in further danger, and he deserved more than that.
She glanced back at Jake and Allie as she broke a fresh trail across the snow. They'd covered half the distance to the road, but the cars still seemed a thousand miles away in this storm. Fear kept her warm, and a dread that clutched at her insides and made her want to weep for all the days she had not yet lived.
Miri glanced over her shoulder and regretted it, for the ice men had multiplied. There were four of them now, and two had begun to slink through the air currents and the dwindling snow, descending toward them.
No, Miri thought. Nononono.
She ran right through her father's ghost, a shudder going through her at the contact. It startled her so much that she lost her footing and tumbled into the snow, kicking at the white stuff as it slid into her collar and down her back. Her father's ghost was intangible and yet she had felt a warm frisson of contact as her flesh had passed through him, and when she inhaled sharply she realized that she could smell his cologne. The ghost of a scent she had long forgotten.
It was that-having forgotten that precious, sensory piece of him-that broke her heart afresh.
"Daddy!" she shouted, realizing what he meant to do.
The ghost of Niko Ristani stood between his daughter and the ice men that scythed down through the eddying snow. Detective Keenan fired twice, shots that punched through the ice men, blowing holes in their bodies and driving them back half-a-dozen feet. They'd been staggered.
Miri rose to her knees in the snow. Jake and Allie were on either side of her now, helping her up as she watched the snow rush in to fill the demons' wounds, restoring them.
"Keep firing!" she called.
Her father's ghost turned to them all. "You can't kill them."
"I can slow them down!" Keenan said, firing again.
Harley lumbered past them all, never slowing, his grim face set on the singular task of getting Isaac to safety. The boy remained silent in his arms, perhaps knowing how little hope they really had.
A loud metallic bang sounded across the yard, echoing off the house and the snow. Side by side with Jake and Allie, knees pumping and heart thrumming, Miri looked back again to see that one of the bulkhead doors had clanged shut behind one of the ice men, and even now another emerged from the side of the bulkhead that remained open.
She looked ahead. They had perhaps twenty yards to cover before they reached the street, where they would at last be able to really run and where the cars were waiting. They were the longest twenty yards she had ever seen, the most impossible twenty yards imaginable.
The ice men from the bulkhead hurtled toward them across the snow, following the trail they'd broken like bloodhounds. No longer were they teasing or dancing or playing; the time for killing had arrived.
"The storm is … dying," Allie said, trying to catch her breath. "They're in a … hurry, now."
Keenan fired at the things that chased them over the snow, staggering them, blowing off the left side of the face of the one in the lead. It seemed for a moment ready to drift apart, the lower half of its body turning to swirling snow, and hope sparked in Miri's heart. Then it shook itself, solidifying, and turned its single remaining eye on Keenan with such frigid malevolence that Miri screamed.
Jake shouted her name and she turned to see the two who'd come off the roof knifing toward her from the sky. Her father's ghost shot through the air and latched on to one of them, pulling it aside, drawing its attention as he slid off into the trees and the demon followed. The other kept coming, long fingers reaching for her, knives made of ice that she could practically feel cutting her flesh. Something tugged deep within her, as if it had already begun to feed on her spirit before even touching her.
And then Jake plowed into her, knocking her into the snow again, covering her with his body. She saw his eyes go wide and vacant and a bit of frost form instantly on his skin as the demon dug those dagger fingers into his back. Hot blood spilled onto her and Jake grunted, his eyes full more of sorrow than of pain.
Isaac screamed, fighting Harley's grasp. Tearing loose, he dropped to the snow and started back toward Miri and Jake.
"Kid, don't do it!" Harley managed, before he swore loudly and pulled out his gun.
With his long stride, Harley covered the distance in no time. Miri watched as the ice man stopped its attack on Jake and turned hungrily to Isaac. Rage flashed in its white-blue eyes, a black spark that went impossibly deep, as if its eyes were bottomless wells falling away into the winter limbo from which the demons hailed.
The demon flew at Isaac, arms outstretched.
Harley knocked the boy aside, set his feet firmly apart, and fired his gun twice at close range, obliterating the ice man's head. The rest of it blew apart in a spray of ice crystals and wet snow.
Feet crunched in the snow and Miri looked up to see Allie standing above her and Jake.
"My boy," Allie said, falling to her knees.
Jake groaned and slid off Miri, landing on his back, blood melting the snow around them. Isaac threw himself on top of his brother, whispering things to him that the others were not meant to hear.
Harley shot at another, and Miri saw that there were more of them now, gliding through the air overhead, circling on frigid currents like winter's carrion birds. Keenan had made his way over and now they made a small cluster, so close to the road but impossibly far.
"Don't let them … " he managed, turning to Miri, his eyes alight with purpose. "Protect Isaac."
Miri nodded, turning to Allie. "Stay with them."
Something moved to her right, at the corner of her eye, and she turned with the hope that her father had come back, only to see an icy wraith darting at them, much withered by the lessening of the storm, eyes hard and soulless as it slashed at Harley's chest and arms. The huge cop roared in pain and dropped his gun, staggering away.
Miri lunged for the gun, her motion taking her out of the path of an attack that might have torn her head clean off. The wraith that had set its sights upon her slid past her and she felt ice form on her exposed skin and the breath dragged right from her lungs as she landed in the trodden snow and scrambled for the gun.
Her father's ghost stood beside her, barely there, the sketch of an image in the dark, but his eyes were fierce.
"Keep fighting," he said. "The storm is fading."
Another dived at her and Niko Ristani's ghost lunged at it, diverting it upward, the two fragile creatures attacking each other. The demon ripped at the insubstantial nothing of her father's spirit and Niko-though dead-let out a shout of anguish, pounding at the ice man's face. He could not touch his daughter, could not kiss her forehead the way he always had when she was a girl, but he could strike these unnatural things. As Miri watched, the ice man began to tear her father's ghost to ribbons, and she leaned forward, and seemed almost to inhale the essence of him … and then the wind gusted, and the ghost was gone, leaving the demon to flail at thin air.
As she turned, gun in hand, she heard Allie crying out and saw the ice man that had tried to kill her-latch on to Isaac, its dagger fingers digging into his skin as it began to drag him into the air.
"No!" she cried, taking aim but afraid to fire for fearing of hitting Isaac.
With a cry of pain, Jake reached up and grabbed hold of Isaac's ankles. Fresh rivulets of blood trickled down his back and pain radiated from his wounds, but the pain was good-it kept him awake. Gritting his teeth, he held on to his brother and felt himself rising to his feet. Jake stared up into Isaac's terrified eyes, knowing that he couldn't let go and knowing that if he didn't, he might break his little brother's bones. Above Isaac, the ice man sneered down at them, baring rows of long, sharp, icicle teeth and staring with those bottomless, nightmare eyes.
Jake shouted for help and his mother was there beside him, grabbing Isaac by the belt and then by the hand, giving Jake time to get a better grip, wrapping one arm around Isaac's leg and battering at the demon's grip with the other. One of its arms cracked and Jake let out a roar of triumph.