I came to coughing and spluttering. My chest was too tight, an enormous pressure squeezing my ribs like a steel band. My skin was too cold, my mouth too warm, and a million stars burst before my eyes when I tried to open them. A groan built in my throat, and even that effort hurt. It felt like I'd gargled rock salt and then washed it down with a little battery acid for good measure.

My body was limp, my muscles about the consistency of a cooked spaghetti noodle. I didn't even have the strength to turn my head before I vomited and inhaled some of the stuff, which only made me choke again.

"She's back," Dad breathed. "Thank you, merciful God."

"Try thanking Murph, she's the one who did mouth-to-mouth," Harry said. "Can you turn her head so she doesn't drown?"

"It's not a good idea," Murphy said from much closer. From the weight on my legs, I guessed she must have been straddling me. "She could have a neck or spinal injury."

But a moment later, she turned my head ever-so-slightly, letting a little of the sick slide off my face. A rough sleeve cleared away the rest, and Murphy made soft shushing sounds as I began to cry.

"We've got you, Molly. You're going to be okay."

"What the hell were you two doing here?" Harry demanded. He'd come to stand behind Murphy, playing the dark, imposing shadow to her shiny, golden savior. "You were supposed to be home."

"Harry, we don't have to-" Dad began.

But Harry wasn't done. He raised his voice, speaking over Dad's objection. I cringed into the tile floor, avoiding his eyes as he knelt next to me, putting his face close enough to mine that I could smell his aftershave.

"Yes, we do, Michael. It took Mercy. She could be dead. We have to know what she knows."

"Mercy?" I echoed. It took me a while to fish the word out of my brain, and even longer to realize exactly what Harry's statement meant. Then I was arching off the floor, trying to force my noodle limbs into motion. Mercy. That thing had Mercy. She could be hurt. Dead. Contorted into an ungodly shape by a demon using her as a sock puppet.

Murphy pushed me down firmly. "Settle down. You were mostly dead there for a while. We found one of them crouching over you, and by the time Harry blasted it off, you weren't breathing. We need to get you downstairs and have someone check you out. Michael's right, Harry. This can wait."

"What did you see?" Harry pressed.

A starburst of agony went off in my head. I'd definitely seen something but the harder I tried to focus on what, the hazier it became. I couldn't think around the pain, couldn't force my mouth to move to describe what little I did remember. Small piteous sounds filled the hall. It took a moment to realize that I was the one making them.

"That's enough, Harry. Let's find a backboard and get her downstairs. She needs help, not an interrogation."

Murphy's weight disappeared, and I flopped over onto my side, ignoring her cry of protest. My nose was level with the floor, so I got a very good look at the bloody drag marks that smeared the off-white tile. Something pale and crescent-shaped was sticking out of the grout inches away. A fresh wave of nausea rose to choke me when I realized exactly what it was. A fingernail. Mercy's fingernail.

And the rest of the finger lay limp and pale only a few inches further back. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Why the hell had I come up here in the first place? What the hell did I think I could possibly accomplish by coming here? Now she was gone, dragged off by God only knew what. She might be a bloody pile of meat in some alleyway by now. There could be next to nothing left of her by the time we caught up, just like her parents. We'd only had bone fragments and clumps of hair to bury under Dave and Allison's headstone.

"Mm...baaf..." I said. My tongue didn't want to cooperate, and I had to clear my throat before I could try again. "My...bag..."

"It's near the stairwell," Dad said, clearing my hair away from my face, which only succeeded in spearing vomit across my cheek. His hands were calloused and warm, and I wanted to lean into them, to pretend none of this had ever happened. "What about it?"

"Phone...case..."

"Phone case?" Murphy repeated, sounding dubious. "I didn't think you could use a cell phone."

"Can't," I said, struggling into a sitting position. "It's just our hiding place. No one who knows what we are will think to look at it, and a vanilla human will toss it when they find out it's busted. It's the best way we could think to hide it."

"Hide what?" Harry asked.

"Hair," I whispered. "We destroy the stuff on our hairbrushes every day, just like you said, but we kept a lock or two from our last haircut, just in case. We wanted to be able to find each other if something bad happened."

Harry let out a curse, pacing away from me as Murphy helped me to my feet. I swayed like a drunken reed, afraid even the smallest gust of wind would knock me sideways. What exactly had I seen that had caused this much psychic feedback?

"What's wrong?" Murphy asked, frowning at Harry's retreating back. "That's a good thing, right? You can use it to track her down."

"If she's in the mortal world. If she's not being held in a circle of some kind. If she's not already dead. But that's not really the biggest problem. Molly has Mercy's hair and vice versa. That means that whoever has Mercy might also have a lock of Molly's hair to work with."

Dad paled. He understood what that meant. Murphy hissed a fervent, "Fuck" under her breath.

"O'Toole can drive her out of the city," Dad reasoned. "He could take her to Indiana or Michigan. It could be enough."

Harry shook his head. "There won't be enough time for that. I have to keep her close. I could have a split-second warning before an entropy curse lands. If I'm in contact, there's a possibility I can redirect it."

"We'll take my car," Murphy said, getting a tighter grip on my shoulders. I had half a foot on her, so she had to be standing on tiptoe to do it. "Harry, you're in the back. Michael, you're riding shotgun. And O'Toole?"

I turned my head in time to see one of the other detectives step from the shadows. He was big and brawny but looked somehow untried when surrounded by veteran cops and a brooding wizard.

"Yeah?"

"Distract Rudolph. If he tries to follow, break his nose for me."

O'Toole grinned. "It's already broken, ma'am."

"Break it more."

O'Toole's eyes sparkled. "Yes, ma'am."