Cherry stops and points down into the crater.
“There she is.”
Our ghost escort backs away from the hole and keeps going to the end of the block.
The only things in the bottom of the crater are the Imp and the burned and rusted chassis of a school bus. She sits on the bumper in her blue party dress, idly stabbing the ground with the knife.
I start down the steep crater wall, walking sideways to keep from sliding. Pieces of broken pavement and loose dirt tumble down around me. The Imp looks up and screams. A full-on animal scream, nothing held back. She raises the knife and rushes me. I get down to level ground as fast as I can and pull the 8 Ball from my coat.
She freezes in her tracks. Takes a couple of steps back. I stay frozen. In a few minutes, she decides I’m not going to charge her, so she goes back to the bus bumper and stabs the ground harder than before, digging up fist-size clods of packed dirt.
When I get close enough to hear her, she says, “Are you here to kill me?”
“You think that because of the 8 Ball. The 8 Ball kills you?”
She looks at me.
“Qomrama Om Ya.”
“What is it?”
“It’s not yours.”
“I know. It’s Aelita’s.”
“No. She had it but it’s not hers either.”
“Is it yours?”
She shakes her head.
“You’re not one of his. Who are you?”
“One of who’s?”
“The cruel one.”
“King Cairo?”
She jams the knife angrily into the ground. It goes in up to the hilt. I forgot how strong she is.
“I’m not allowed to say.”
“You can tell me. I’ll make sure the cruel one doesn’t hurt you.”
“I can’t.”
“Tell me which who and I’ll stop it.”
“The old one. He watches through the dark.”
“Lucifer? Is it the old Lucifer’s?”
She gets up and walks away. I follow her.
“If it’s not Lucifer who watches you through the dark . . . Another ghost? God?”
The crowd of spirits spreads out around the rim of the crater. They back away from whichever direction the girl faces like she’s a four-foot-tall icebreaker.