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  Chapter Sixteen

  Chocote dipped hor s!

  Ay was gnawing at my stomach as I crept through Burning Creek. The streets were empty apart from the occasional car, and the less occasional hobo sleeping on the side of the road. The night was cool, but the weather ractically a hot summer day pared to the chills that were rag up and down my spine.

  About fifty feet in front of me, I could just make out .

  Marmade and moldy toenail clippings!

  He was almost invisible, wearing that stupid bck trench coat in the middle of the night. I thought he’d lost me more than once, only to spot him passih a streetlight at the st sed. But I didn’t dare get any closer than this. If he caught me following him…

  The white-haired corpse would be mine!

  …it would lead to awkward questions that I didn’t feel like answering. He wasn’t the one killing people around town. I khat. But the fact that I was stalking him like this would make it look like I didn’t trust him. If there was ohing oh I didn’t want, it was…

  To go another round with Zombiesaurus Rex!

  …to ruin my retionship with . Adopted or not, ghul or not, he was my big brother! I just o prove to Grandpa Teddy that he was i. Thehing could go back to normal.

  We were close to the ter of town by now, and in the distance I could see the old blocky architecture of downtown Burning Creek giving way to the trees of Arden’s Park. paused, then looked around. Panic made my heart do a backflip, and I dove clumsily into a nearby alley.

  “Careful!” Ethan, who was still riding on my shoulder, griped as I rolled and sprang bay feet. “Y to squish me or something?”

  Ign him, I poked my head back out into the street, thehed a sigh of relief. hadn’t moved. He stood outside the entrao the park, looking at it as if he were debating whether to go in or not.

  What’s going on, bro? I thought, watg him. Give me a hint here!

  He stood like that for a long time before apparently making up his mind and heading into Arden’s Park. The park was even darker thareets. There were lights along the path, but they were spaced further apart, and the trees blocked out the moonlight. My stomach squirmed a little at the sight. This would be the perfect pce for a hungry ghul to find his victim. A te night jogger, or maybe a homeless person sleeping on a bench. Unsciously, I reached down and touched Sptsy. I o hurry before —

  Stop it! I yelled at myself inside my head. He is not the killer!

  Before those thoughts could return, I hurried into the park after him. I still kept my hand on Sptsy, though.

  “I wanna ask you something!” Ethan blurted out, making me jump.

  “Quiet!” I hissed at him. “Are y to give us away?”

  “I wanna ask you something,” he said again, more quietly. “Why are you so against killing ghuls?”

  His question hit me like a fming brick, and before I knew what I was doing I had stopped in my tracks to gre at the microscopiace.

  “What the grilled bananas is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  Ethan shrugged, blissfully oblivious. “You kill maiams all the time, don’t you? Killing a ghul wouldn’t be any different.”

  “It is very different!” I snapped.

  “How?”

  “There’s…” I hesitated, then looked up at , who had gotten so far away that he’d nearly vanished into the darkness. I started jogging after him again.

  “Welllll?” Ethan needled me. I ignored him for now.

  A few mier, we reached the ter of the park. There, a fountain with a statue of Samuel Ardetler who had given Burning Creek its name by p five hundred barrels of oil into Caterwaul Creek and then lighting it on fire—stood in silent watch over his empty memorial. stopped again, and I barely had time to duck behind a row of bushes before he spotted me.

  This was it. I could feel it. Whatever was going down tonight, it would happen here. With butterflies doing the Maa in my stomach, I peered between the leaves to watch.

  Then I waited.

  “There’s a big differeween maiams and ghuls,” I whispered a mier. Ethan perked up again, his earlier question probably already lost in the hurrie of his hyperactive little brain. “A kon has to do something terrible to bee a maiam. Ghuls are just…born that way.”

  “But they both hurt people,” Ethan pointed out.

  Ahead of us, had sat down on the edge of the fountain and was staring bnkly into the shadowy woods. What was he waiting for? The suspense was freaking killing me!

  “Yeah, they do,” I relutly agreed. “But that doesn’t make them the same. Maiams are monsters. They want to hurt people. Ghuls…they act like monsters, but they’re really not. They might feed on fear, but it’s not because they want to. They have to, just like kons have to feed on ughter. They’re just trying to survive.”

  “But if they kill people—”

  “They don’t have to kill people,” I interrupted him. “Just like I don’t have to make someone ugh themselves to death to feed on their ughter. Even fhul, killing somebody is a choice.”

  A faint beeping rang through the park, and I realized ’s watch was going off again. He shut it off, stood up, and removed his N.O.S.E. I tensed up a little as his skin shimmered, turning him back to his true kon form, but this was ay park in the middle of the night. He should be fine.

  “They’re born that way,” I said again. “Nobody deserves to die for how they were born.”

  ’s body shimmered again, and I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Was he somehow wearing two N.O.S.E.s? Even if that were possible, why would he…

  His skin became sickly pale, and his ears grew long and pointed. His teeth sharpened visibly, and his eyes became as silver as freshly minted s. In the space of a few seds, the brother I knew had disappeared, and was repced with a face I hadn’t seen in so long that I’d almost fotten it.

  “What?” I asked, too stuo say anything else. “What the what?”

  For some reason, had let his NuYu pill wear off and bee a ghul once again.

  While my brain was still stumbling over itself, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, a sound caught my attention. My head whipped to the side, as did ’s, just in time to see a sed figure emerge from the darkness.

  It was anhul. A female this time.

  “Paura?” called out to her, his voice raspier than it had been before. “What are you doing here?”

  “I should be asking you that!” she replied.

  I held my breath as they approached each other, until they were standing face to fa opposite sides of the fountain. Suddenly, I uood everything. This was the ghul who was killing people around town! Somehow, knew who she was and had e here to front her about it. That was why he’d let himself ge bato a ghul, I realized. So that this girl, whoever she was, would reize him too.

  They began to talk.

  “Pastrami!” I cursed. They were close enough to each other now that they didn’t o yell.

  “What is it?” Ethan asked.

  “I ’t hear them!”

  The two of them were gring at each other now. I had the feeling there was about to be a fight.

  “I help with that!” Ethan said, and before I could stop him, he’d leaped from my shoulder and flown away. I could only wat horror as he zipped through the air, out into the open.

  They were going to see him! It didn’t matter if or the girl saw him first, either way our cover would be blown and this would be all over. But the two ghuls were so focused on each other that the glowing blue doofus flitting bad forth just above their heads didn’t even catch their attentiohan hovered there for a sed, and then zipped upwards into a nearby tree.

  “Pickle fish finger raspberry jello soup!” I whispered. His glow was still pinly visible up there. All it would take was one gn the wrong dire, and…

  I had to do something before that happened. Quietly cursing up a buffet, I snuck out from behind my bush, creeping as stealthily as I could around the fountain’s perimeter. With every step, I expected to hear one of them yell, “Hey, someone’s eavesdropping on us!” a dogpiled on by two angry ghuls. But whatever it was they were arguing about, I may as well have been on a different—

  “That isn’t you!” the girl yelled.

  I froze, kneeling out there in the open, my blood frozen with terror.

  “That’s not your decision to make!” yelled back.

  They hadn’t seen me! Pushing through the panic, I crawled as quickly as I could over to the tree where Ethan was hiding. Lobster thermidor, I’d almost wet my pants! I looked up and saw that Ethan was still hiding iree, glowing like a single Christmas light. I shook my head to work out the rest of my jitters, and then reached up and grabbed the lowest branch. It wasn’t a huge tree, but it felt strong enough to hold my weight. Hauling myself up, I gave the two ghuls a nervous look, and then tinued upwards.

  Soon I had reached the limb Ethan was hiding on. With salms, I straddled the brand eased my way out onto it. Ohh, this was bad. This was very, very bad! If either of them looked up, there would be nowhere for me to hide! That meant my only choice was to get out there as quickly as I could, grab Ethan, and the back to cover.

  I was close enough to see him now. Sitting in the crook between two smaller branches, Ethan was watg the arguing ghuls and kig his feet as if this were nothing more dangerous than movie night at Aesop’s pce.

  “Ethan!” I whispered.

  He looked up, finally notig me. “What are you doing up here?”

  “What am I doing?” I hissed. “What are you doing? Yoing to get yourself killed!”

  He scoffed. “Yeah, right. It’s yantic white butt that’s breaking the branch.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  He pointed behind me, and I ed my neck around to see…

  Oh, sami and earwax sad.

  The branapped with a deafening CRACK! Ethan took to the air. I wasn’t so lucky. Down I went, my legs still ed around the branch, until I crash nded on the hard pavement below.

  Right iween and the hul.