The man was watching them.

  Dave tried not to let the man see that he had noticed. He sat next to Charis on the ground and shivered; the cement under his thin slacks felt like a slab of ice. He devoured another prepackaged bear claw and licked the icing from his fingers before daring to shoot the man another covert glance.

  The dark figures were hanging out in the inky shadow of the store’s nursery section, quite a ways away from the little group of travelers. They seemed to be fooling with the large potted plants, probably workers getting ready for morning customers. Dave didn’t know why the figures bothered him but he just couldn’t shake the feeling that they were staring at his back.

  Charis noticed. “What is it?”

  “Don’t look!” he whispered, his tone stopping her from turning her head.

  Suddenly her voice went cold and professional. “Where?”

  “By the nursery. Three or four guys. I think they’re watching us. Or maybe I’m imagining them. Actually are there even people there? I haven’t decided whether this is real or not yet.” He almost turned his own head to look, but hesitated. What if they were real? If they were, he didn’t want to let them know that he was on to them.

  What if they weren’t real? What if Charis and everyone weren’t really there, and he was sitting alone outside a Super-Mart in some forsaken dustball town talking to himself? He frowned. It would explain his success with the hot chick. No REAL hot chick would have hung around him this long.

  Charis took a deep breath and rested her hands on the concrete ball she was sitting on. She seemed to be tired, letting her head bow slightly, but the expression on her face told Dave that she was concentrating. Her eyes flew open and looked warily at Scott. “We’ve got creepers. East, in the Nursery department. I feel three, and two more back inside. They’re not human.”

  Dave felt a little better. If she’d somehow sensed them, then maybe he wasn’t crazy. Of course, if he was making her up then his relief was unfounded. Then again, if he wasn’t making her up, how the hell did she sense anything by closing her eyes like that? Magic powers or something? There had never been any mention of magic powers from the government or the Space Force. He shook his head, sighed, and ate another bear claw. He’d given up on trying to make sense of anything. It seemed real, so insane or not he had to treat it as real.

  Scott’s glance slid sideways, covertly scanning the area in question. He was standing facing the store so he had the best chance to catch sight of something. The invisible golden symbol on his forehead glowed briefly and he dipped his chin in a barely perceptible nod. “I see two. Shadow men. They can’t come into the sunlight; but they could be sending word back to the Mountain as we speak. We have to go. Now.”

  Nobody argued with him. Trying to act as casual as possible, the group stuffed their breakfast back into bags and backpacks and got to their feet to begin the long stroll across the parking lot. It was difficult not to look back. When they heard the hum of an electric vehicle approaching, the hair on the back of Dave’s neck stood on end. He knew that feeling. He’d lived with it day and night for weeks.

  “They’re coming,” he whispered roughly.

  “Good morning people,” they heard a cheery, normal human voice coming from the direction of the vehicle. Yet that icy, unnatural feeling of danger remained, filling the air around them like a stench. When they turned to look they saw a chubby middle-aged man in a security uniform riding in a glorified golf cart with a flashing orange light on top. He had blue eyes, a big smile, and a giant black bat clinging to his shoulders like a child-sized backpack. The demon snarled at them, its yellow eyes gleaming gold in the flashing orange light.

  The demon reared back its head and howled as soon as it saw the gold symbols on their foreheads. The cry echoed through the trees, making Dave wince. Far away he heard answering howls as legions of Black Things came to life in the Super-mart parking lot.

  “Good morning, sir,” Scott answered breezily. None of them slacked their pace, pretending as if they all hadn’t heard the cat’s scream and the answers.

  The man in the cart drove alongside, eying their bags and new clothes suspiciously. Dave still had price tags hanging from his jacket. “You young folk are not from around here are you?” He didn’t give them a chance to respond. “Would you please show me the receipts for those items?”

  Charis glanced at Scott. Normally they would play along with the host, since at full power they could destroy his demon and any other creature that might come snooping around without second thought. But now, with their OFP almost gone, they couldn’t risk the waste of energy. Yet they had to get rid of this host. Something had to be done.

  They both glanced at Dusty.

  His smile was both an answer and a little victory gloat. How many times had he told them that when push came to shove, they’d be glad to have a fully manifested Edor along? He was not only the oldest creature in their group but, being completely inhuman, he also stored the most OFP. He’d barely been depleted by the little show he’d put on back in the city.

  The short Edor skater turned suddenly, gliding on his skateboard away from the group and into an arc that brought him across the path of the security guard. The human put on the brakes, startled, but before he could reach for his radio the white-haired Edor raised his hand, fingers held in a strange symbol. White tattoos that Dave hadn’t ever noticed before gleamed like traces of silver all over Dusty’s lower arms, wrists, and hands.

  “Sleep,” was all Dusty said.

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  The human’s head immediately lolled back, the cart stopped, and he began to snore. Out cold.

  The demon on his back shrieked in rage, but it seemed stuck to its human. It couldn’t get free or do anything to them.

  Unlike the humans, Dusty likewise couldn’t do anything to the demon. He sneered and gave it the Bird, then kicked his skateboard back to his friends. “We should go. Fast.”

  “I agree. Everyone, grab hands.” Charis grabbed Scott’s new ripstop coat and Ebenezer’s cloak.

  In moments with Charis propelling them at insane strides across town, they saw the bus stop ahead, their connecting bus already waiting. Every step they took ate up fifty or more feet; Dave felt like he was flying. It was hard not to shout with exhilaration. Charis, however, looked strained. Still at a distance from the bus stop they suddenly returned to normal walking speed and she almost stumbled and fell. Dave caught her.

  “You alright, Char?” Miradon asked.

  “Almost out of power. At least… gotta… rest.”

  “Save what you have left. Come on,” Scott started to run, and the bus hissed and began to close its doors. “Shit! It’s early! Run!” He started waving his arms at the bus. “Wait! Wait! Hold on!”

  They barely made it. The bus opened its doors again for them and the driver examined their tickets, then nodded for them to join the crowd. There were a lot more people on this one, but the group managed to stay more or less together near the back.

  “Oh my God, that was close,” Charis breathed a sigh of relief as she flopped into her gray plush seat near the window. Dave sat next to her without asking, on the isle side next to a dour looking man in sweat clothes. Ebenezer sat on the other side of the aisle, and Dusty sat behind Ebenezer with Scott.

  The other travelers on the bus barely spared them glances. Most were sleeping or watching their phone screens with headphones on. The less savory persons had small demons attached to their bodies but Dave ignored them. The parasite monsters just glared at his group with malicious glittering eyes until their hosts looked at them nervously, then looked away.

  All except the semi-homeless guy at the front of the bus. He was singing along with a trio of demons that all sounded drunk. The man was filthy and obviously hadn’t washed in months. When the travelers had passed him on the way in he had giggled at them and pointed, and now kept giggling and looking their way. Everyone was doing their best to ignore him.

  “Do you think they ID’d us?” Miradon whispered.

  Dave startled. He had just realized that Miradon wasn’t speaking English anymore at all; it was a very strange sibilant language that rolled off the tongue, but somehow Dave had understood it perfectly. He blinked hard a few times, stuck his fingers into his ears, and hit the side of his head three times, but it didn’t make it transform into English.

  “Don’t think they did,” Scott replied quietly in the same weird language, shooting a wary glance in the direction of the Mountain. “I’m sure this place will be crawling with scouts in a few minutes but we should be out of range before troops arrive. I think we got out of that by the skin of our teeth.”

  “It’s fine,” Charis added in the weird language, “the Mountain is held by The Guiding Light and has been for millennia. As far as I know they don’t like the Zhai much. The two don’t communicate.”

  Dave had to clarify. “And it’s the Zhai who are after us now?”

  They winced at his use of English, glancing warily at the other travelers. Charis leaned toward him and whispered, “you understand us?”

  He shrugged, then nodded.

  Dusty scowled at Dave, really surprised, but continued in English. “Wow. What kind of a mantle does he have on him? Not only does it let him see everything, it translates language too. I’ve never heard of a mantle that could do two different things. No wonder it’s putting out such a huge signal.”

  “We’ll let Castle figure it out later, if we survive long enough to get to the safe house,” Scott muttered. “Don’t worry about it, kid. The Zhai are really nasty. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Who are you calling a kid, pipsqueak? Can you even shave yet?”

  Charis grabbed Dave, and Dusty grabbed Scott before they could lunge toward one another. She sighed and shook her head. What was it with these two? “I wouldn’t consider either of you adult.”

  Dave ignored her, sending another wary glance toward the creatures attached to the humans near the front of the bus. “So do the parasites work for whoever is chasing us? Are they going to…”

  “Keep your voice down!” Scott hissed in that weird language.

  Dave went on, but lowered his volume to a whisper, “…tell on us or something? They’re watching us…”

  “Most of the monsters are strays,” Dusty whispered, although he was using the secret language and it wasn’t clear why he was whispering except that Dave was. “They find a willing human and latch on, kind of like leeches in a swamp.”

  “Willing…?! Don’t tell me that those humans want those things…”

  “Yes,” Charis interrupted him sternly, but quietly. “They want them. That’s why they have them. You can’t have a mazik unless you have invited it in. Most of those demons pretend to be things like ‘the voice of reason’ or ‘your unconscious’ or ‘your inner needs’ or ‘intrusive thoughts’ something, and find a way to make themselves invaluable so the human won’t let them go. It’s a sick destructive codependency, but that’s how they feed. But don’t worry about them. Strays like these won’t do anything to us. When you see a self-motivated one like the bat on the security guy back there, one that does all the thinking while the human just obeys, that’s where you have a problem. Now hold my mirror so I can do my makeup.” She handed a purple sparkle hand-mirror to Dave.

  He did his best to hold it steady for her, though she constantly had to slap him on the arm to move the mirror upward after it inevitably drifted down. After a few more glances at the parasites Dave tried his best to ignore them and attend to his lady friend. Now that he felt Charis might actually be a real person he was feeling chivalrous.

  She grimaced, trying to get a straight black line over her eyelid while the bus rocked. “God, I hate cheap makeup. I left my makeup case in the hotel. And I brought my good stuff too.” She pouted as she glared at the little mirror.

  “You look great,” Dave grinned. “And don’t worry, if you need more makeup you can borrow Scott’s eyeliner.”

  Scott was busily stuffing his face with powdered mini donuts and didn’t feel like leaping across the bus to clobber the fool anymore, but he grumbled through white sugary crumbs that dribbled down the front of his uncool rip-stop jacket, “I’ll kill you man, I swear.”

  “You wish, kid.”

  The older man (who still looked eighteen) did his best to totally ignore Dave, finishing his donuts then pulling his lank no-longer-gelled hair back into a tiny ponytail reminiscent of the last Space Wars movie. He pulled several long strands out, however, and after licking his fingers did his level best to make several strands hang forward like some kind of Anime cartoon bad guy. Inevitably the hair would wilt and he’d lick his fingers and try again.

  Dave stared at Scott for a while, getting his arm slapped as he let the mirror drift down too far, then frowned at Charis with exasperation. “Why do you hang out with this guy? What is he, an escapee from a Catholic school or something?”

  Charis started giggling uncontrollably. After a moment she snorted and admitted, “Actually, yes.”

  Scott turned so that he couldn’t see them and glared out of the window. He thought dark things about how these modern graduates didn’t respect their Team Leaders anymore.

  In the middle of the action, ignored by all, Miradon watched the drama like it was a movie, chewing gum and blowing huge pink bubbles.