Head out, out to Fire Lake.

Yeah, who's going to do it?

(Repeat)

THE NINTH.

SAVING GRACE.

81.

Anyone else would be in h.e.l.l.

It is dark-just enough light to see the blistered ceiling, ancient steaming pipes, hollow tanks like metal bulls, the flash of a long blade. The sound is both constant and fluctuating-miles away, then suddenly right on top of her, the sound of his breathing. She is used to this kind of dark echoing terror. Part of her has lived inside it almost as long as she remembers. And this noise-the screaming hum, fading in and out-it isn't so different from the voice in her head. It's as if her singular world has finally become manifest.

She is naked, on her back, strapped to a table. It is redundant, she thinks, to tie down the likes of her.

He has a sword with a dog-faced dragon on the blade. When it cuts into her she sees flashes of light-and part of her begins to long for the blade. A flash A flash. She sees saliva drip from his mouth onto her skin as he leans into it, carving up her flesh. Her own scream is so loud that the rest of the darkness goes quiet.

She knows her screams excite him, and so she gives it her all. She opens her mouth and howls. She can taste and smell her own blood. It begins to pool beneath her.

The more he tears her apart, the more she is complete and strong, using everything she's ever learned. It feels good to know she's tricked this s...o...b..ring, joyful beast and he doesn't even know it yet. She's found a way to finally free herself, and hopefully save Mason, too. This thought makes her happiest, and she screams with all her might, because she loves Mason-more than anyone she's ever known. More than anyone since her father.

And realizing this-at this flashing b.l.o.o.d.y moment, she knows this, too: He was trying to save her.

From the fire. From the demons.

And so he jumped.

They got a hold of her anyway, of course. But now she has them-or at least this one-right in the palm of her hand, so to speak.

The right hand gets you in.

He asks her questions, basking in what he thinks is her pain. But she's already won. It had been difficult at first: not to flinch when he struck her left side. It took more than mere acting, but she managed it, and then screamed out so painfully when he slashed her right breast, that his joy was overwhelming. And now she's bluffed him so well that he leaves her left left alone. alone.

The left hand gets you out.

"Where is my book?"

She screams, gasps, then screams again. He digs in deeper. A flash and she sees his face-the ecstatic brutality of a f.u.c.ked-up child.

He isn't so tough.

For all the talk-how inscrutable inscrutable, how perceptive perceptive the sociopath, how beneficial the lack of empathy-it won't be beauty that kills the the sociopath, how beneficial the lack of empathy-it won't be beauty that kills the real real beast, but lack of imagination. He wanted to carve up the living, most precious side of her-but couldn't make the necessary leap. The body that beast, but lack of imagination. He wanted to carve up the living, most precious side of her-but couldn't make the necessary leap. The body that moves moves is not always the one that is not always the one that feels feels.

"Where is my book?" he says, cutting into her breast again. She screams and gasps, and finally she tells him.

And he knows she is telling the truth.

"How do I get it?" he says. She sobs as if about to pa.s.s out. Then he slices downwards, gouging out her nipple. She is wailing, half her body writhing.

"How do I f.u.c.king get it?"

And finally it comes out of her, like a burst of breath-and both of them go quiet. They turn and look at her hand. It seems, suddenly, like its own ent.i.ty-clenching against the restraints, blood between the fingers....

w.i.l.l.y repeats the words. "The right hand gets you in." Her voice is broken, lost and hollow, and he is sure she is telling the truth. Could a stupider lie ever be told? His joy is overwhelming. He begins to sharpen the blade.

82.

When Mason came to, he was lying on the floor beside the captain's bed. It looked like a meteor had crashed through his window. He tried to get up, but the pain stopped him-that, and a hand on his chest. And now Ms. Pac-Man was staring down at him, smiling gravely.

"Ms. Pac-Man?" he said.

"Her name is Barbara," said a voice. It was Dr. Francis. It sounded like she was over by the window. "She carried you up here."

Barbara nodded. She'd retrieved the beach towel from where Mason had tossed it by the door-weeks or months ago, he didn't know. It was tied around her neck once more. She leaned down, her mouth against his ear. "She's "She's the one," whispered Barbara, her eyes looking across the room at the doctor. "She eats the ghosts." the one," whispered Barbara, her eyes looking across the room at the doctor. "She eats the ghosts."

"Carried me up here ...?" called Mason.

"You were knocked unconscious," said the doctor's voice. "She's very strong." Barbara smiled again, and it started to come back to him....

"Oh, Jesus! w.i.l.l.y!" He struggled to his feet. He could see Dr. Francis by the window. He took a step and crumpled.

"We don't have time for this," said Dr. Francis. She walked over to Mason's new position on the floor and crouched down, holding her laptop. "Look," she said, "this makes no sense."

"What am I looking at?"

"Nothing," said Dr. Francis.

"Where the f.u.c.k is w.i.l.l.y?"

"Listen to me very carefully. The cops'll be here any minute." She c.o.c.ked her head towards the broken window, and only now did he notice the noise-idling sirens, backed-up traffic, a streetcar full of b.i.t.c.hing commuters. "We've got to figure this out!"

"Then don't tell me I'm looking at nothing!"

"Bay and Bloor," said Dr. Francis. "The Bay Street subway station. This was the location of the GPS, right? When we thought that Seth was dead."

"Okay ..."

"After you saw it that day, then the signal got weaker-the same spot, just weaker, until it was gone. I a.s.sumed the trains had run it over. But then today, he shows up and so does the signal. You saw it, right?"

Mason nodded. "So where is he?"

"That's the thing. I was watching the screen while you went after him. But then you collided with that streetcar...."

"Where the f.u.c.k is is he!" he!"

"The last I saw, he was here," here," said Dr. Francis pointing at the screen. "Back at Bay and Bloor. But now the signal's gone again. It doesn't make any sense...." said Dr. Francis pointing at the screen. "Back at Bay and Bloor. But now the signal's gone again. It doesn't make any sense...."

"I know where he is!" said Mason. He jumped to his feet. Barbara caught him as he fell.

"You've got to stop doing that!" said Dr. Francis. "You can't go anywhere."

Mason twisted around and jabbed at the computer screen. "He's right there," he said. "But deeper! He's playing the f.u.c.king depths!"

"What do you mean?"

"The deeper he goes, the weaker the signal? But I know where he is! I've got to call Flores!"

"What are you going to tell him?"

"He's not at Bay Bay station. He's at station. He's at Lower Lower Bay!" Bay!"

She handed him the phone. "What the h.e.l.l is Lower Bay?"

"It's a ghost station."

83.

Mason looked up from his hospital bed "You look like h.e.l.l," said Detective Sergeant Flores.

"Can I see her?" said Mason.

"Not now. She's in surgery."

"How bad is she?"

"Bad," said Flores. "But for some reason he kept to her right side."

"You're saying she didn't suffer?"

Flores walked towards the window. "Are you aware that there was a second victim there-in that ghost station ghost station of yours?" of yours?"

Not my ghost station.

"A girl by the name of Bethany Strohl."

"Dead?"

Flores nodded. "She definitely definitely suffered." suffered."

Mason didn't know what to do here-in this limbo-this private room with a cop, waiting for w.i.l.l.y to come out from under anaesthesia. He had a separated shoulder, two broken ribs and his ankle was sprained again, but he wished the pain were more intense.

"Have you caught the guy who did it?"

Flores looked at him. "We found this at the station," he said, and pulled a Ziploc bag out of his jacket. "Do you know what it is?"

"A scalp?" said Mason.

"That's right! And do you know who it belongs to?"

"Seth Handyman?"

"Who?"

"Setya Kateva?"

"This scalp belongs to a man named Larry Weib. He used to work as a counsellor in the Kingston Pen and was recently run over by a subway train."

"White," said Mason.

"Excuse me?"

"I knew him as Larry White."

"Oh, you did," said Detective Flores. "I think you'd better tell me about it."

And so he did.

Mason told him about Warren and w.i.l.l.y, Soon, Sissy and Seth. He didn't mention Chaz or the doctor, the QT Room or the chip in Handyman's head. But he came clean on everything else. He even confessed to stealing the poet's daughter's horse.

"That's a h.e.l.luva story," said Flores, writing in his notebook.

Mason just nodded. It was the least he could do-w.i.l.l.y still under the knife-confess and keep confessing.