Nightrise

shattered, the glass frosting collapsing out of the frame. A second shot and the mirror disintegrated.

    "Get in!" the voice urged again.
    Jamie took one last look at his brother. Scott was lying facedown on the pavement, one hand outstretched, the other folded beneath him. The dart was still hanging out of his cheek. His eyes were closed. There was nothing Jamie could do for him. He fell forward into the car.
    He wanted to know who was driving but he didn't have the strength to look up. He was half in the car, half out, but already they were moving. He felt his feet being dragged along the road and reached out with one hand, searching for something to hold on to, something to help pull him in.
    A hand reached down and grabbed his arm.
    "Hold on!" the voice commanded.
    They were reversing. Jamie heard a third shot, then a howl of an engine and more blaring horns as other cars swerved all around them. But the traffic had lost its shape. To Jamie the other cars were just blurs of color, ricocheting off each other, firing off in every direction. The neon lights spun round and round. He thought he saw four huge playing cards — the ace of hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds — light up, one after the other. The giant lollipop turned in the hand of the clown. A bright red shop sign flashed on and off: ez cash super pawn.
    Somehow he was in the car. He could feel soft leather pressing against his face but his feet seemed to be clear of the road.
    After that, he remembered nothing more. As he drifted into blackness, all he knew was that, somehow, he had gotten away.

    ***
    Don White was waiting in his office when Colton Banes got back. Kyle Hovey was with him. His jacket was torn and blood had spread all the way up his arm.
    "Did you get them?" Don asked.
    "We got one of them," Banes replied.
    "That's too bad." Don had a half bottle of bourbon. He poured himself a glass. 'You're still going to have to pay me for two." Neither of the two men said anything. Don White assumed that meant they agreed.
    He lifted the glass and drank. "What happened?" he asked.
    'You never told us about the dog," Banes murmured.

    "I didn't know about the dog."
    "It doesn't matter." Banes said slowly. "We have one of them. And the police will be looking for the other."
    "Oh, yeah? And why is that?"
    "He'll be wanted for murder."
    Don White looked surprised — or tried to. It was always difficult to read emotion in his face. There was too much flesh. "Whose murder?" he asked.
    Banes smiled. 'You shouldn't have asked."
    The sound of the bullet was very loud in the confined space of the office. Banes had shot Don White through the heart. For a few seconds, the man that Jamie and Scott had known as Uncle Don inspected his whiskey as if acknowledging the fact that, sadly, he would never now drink it. Then his hand fell.
    The liquid spilled. He sat back, unmoving in his chair.
    Colton Banes took one last look at the corpse. Then he slipped the gun back into his pocket and the two men left the room.
    FOUR
    Tenth Street
    Jamie opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in Reno. He wasn't even in America. Somehow, impossibly, he had been transported to a deserted beach that stretched out along the edge of a black, lifeless sea. Was it day or night? He looked up but the sky seemed to be caught somewhere between the two. Jamie gulped for breath. He was still in the grip of his first panic, the knowledge that he was somewhere far away and utterly strange, that he was on his own. There was nobody in sight. Nothing.
    Just the beach and the sea and, in the distance, what might be an island, rising up to a needle point high above the waves.
    "Scott!"
    He called out the name but the single word seemed to die on his lips. That was more frightening than anything. He could shout as loud as he liked but there was no one to hear him. He wasn't just lost. He was completely abandoned. Where was he? Even the deserts of Nevada had offered more life and color than the place he now found himself.

    And yet…
    He had been here before. He knew where he was. Jamie drew his legs toward him, wrapping his hands around his shoulders, not so much to keep himself warm but to create a sort of protective cocoon. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to relax. Yes. It had been a long time ago, maybe years, but he knew this place. The island…The last time he had come here, there had been two boys making their way toward him in a boat made out of straw. He had wanted to meet