The place felt…creepy, she admitted to herself. Trenna tightened her grip on the hilt and kept the sword raised behind her head. She was keenly aware of Reece keeping two steps behind her, shining the flashlight in front of them so they could see their way past the monolithic structures that were the vats and molding equipment. She could also tell without looking that he had his pistol out, as if it’ll do any good against those things.

You never know, a second little voice told her. What if some of those gang members show up?

Good point, she praised her conscience. Now shut up and let me do my job.

Their breathing echoed inside the metal building. Here and there she noticed evidence where the police had been. The chalk marks on the concrete floor were almost as numerous as the markings Hinojosa’s aunt had made a few yards away.

She paused to get her bearings, looking up at the cavernous ceiling. The gah were still there. Hiding. Waiting. Anticipating.

Reece closed the distance between them and placed his mouth directly behind her ear. “How will we get them to show themselves?” he whispered in a voice so soft, she barely heard it.

She answered with a single shake of her head and a shrug. She didn’t have a clue. Most of the time, it became a waiting game to see who would break first. Most of the time, the creatures would grow tired of the impasse and break cover first. But there had been a couple of instances where, after hours of fruitless waiting, she’d given up and gone home. Then going back a few hours or a few days later to try again before coming away successful.

She hoped to hell this case would be the former and not the latter.

“Sometimes they come when called,” she whispered back. “Stay here.”

She moved closer to the remains of the circle and pentagram the old woman had drawn, stopping in the center of it. The crosses and other paraphernalia that had been there were gone, leaving just the chalk marks. Her skin was beginning to tingle, letting her know the gah were either here, or they were aware of her presence.

“All right! Show yourselves! You know I’m here! Come out and fight me! You know you want to! You don’t want me anywhere around this place because you’ve claimed it for your own. But I have some bad news to tell you. This place isn’t going to be around much longer. They’re tearing it down. Do you hear me? They’re tearing this place down and building something else here! It’s going to become a place where hundreds of people will flock to on a daily basis, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it! If you try, you’ll use up all your energies, and then where will you be? So you have two choices! Come out and face me now, or go back into hiding and never come out again! How do you like the sound of that, eh? You can face me now, and be defeated in a glorious array of energy! Or crawl away like worms, and never show your entities again!”

The wind picked up almost instantly, swirling in small tornado-like funnels around the floor and sending dirt and other debris flying across the vast room. Trenna smiled. She had their attention, and they weren’t happy. That was a good sign. Angry gah acted spontaneously, without thought or logic, and that made them especially vulnerable.

“Come on!” she yelled again, lifting her sword. “Let me see you! I command you come out and show yourselves! You call yourselves gah? Real gah are mighty! Strong! You’re so pathetic, you won’t even appear!”

The small tornados came to a halt yet continued spinning. Gradually, as they grew larger, within their dark centers, faces slowly appeared. Blackness upon darkness. Faces that were neither human nor alien or demon, but a mixture of all three. A fleeting memory of the first time she’d seen these faces came to her. She’d been with her mother. Her first encounter. Her first kill.

The faces still haunted her, but no more than a bad dream.

Lifting the sword a bit higher, she planted her feet on the floor and braced herself. “Tukie ahmeon turitt!”

A scream split the air, then two. Then hundreds. The noise nearly deafened her as it rebounded and echoed within the building. She glanced sideways at where Reece stood, making certain he was out of range of her weapon when she started wielding it, when she suddenly froze.

He glowed. He literally glowed with a silvery aura.

She was aware of her mouth hanging open in shock. No. He can’t be…