People like the one who owned this house were cautious. They were smart. They rarely got caught unless they went public with letters or phone calls or both.

They had to prepare for contingencies like losing a plaything now and then. They probably had all the answers planned.

A side door opened. It was attached to the house. The man who came in was everything Silas had expected-white, thin, balding, a bit too intense.

What surprised Silas was the look the man gave him. Measuring, calculating.

Pleased.

The man wasn’t supposed to see Silas or the boy. Not until the last moment.

Not until the end.

Silas had heard that some of these creatures could see the death dealers. A few of Silas’ colleagues speculated that these men continued to kill so that they could continue to see death in all its forms, collecting images the way they collected trophies.

After seeing the momentary victory in that man’s eyes, Silas believed it.

The man picked up the kid at the end of the chain. Too weak to stand, the kid staggered a bit, then had to lean into the man.

“You have to beat me,” the man said to Silas. “I slice her first, and you have to leave.”

The boy was still shivering. The man hadn’t noticed him. The man thought Silas was here for him, not the boy. Silas had no powers, except the ones that humans normally had-not on this night, and not in this way.

If he were here alone, he’d start playing, and praying he’d get the right one. If there was a right one. He couldn’t tell. They all seemed to have the mark of death over them.

No wonder the boy needed him.

It was a fluid situation, one that could go in any direction.

“Start playing,” Silas said under his breath.

But the man heard him, not the boy. The man pulled the kid’s head back, exposing a smooth white throat with the heartbeat visible in a vein.

“Play!” Silas shouted, and ran forward, shoving the man aside, hoping that would be enough.

It saved the girl’s neck, for a moment anyway. She fell, and landed on the other kid next to her. The kid moved away, as if proximity to her would cause the kid to die.

The boy started blowing on his harmonica. The notes were faint, barely notes, more like bleats of terror.

The man laughed. He saw the boy now. “So you’re back to rob me again,” he said.

The boy’s playing grew wispier.

“Ignore him,” Silas said to the boy.

“Who’re you? His coach?” The man approached him. “I know your rules. I destroy you, I get to take your place.”

The steak rolled in Silas’ stomach. The man was half right. He destroyed Silas, and he would get a chance to take the job. He destroyed both of them, and he would get the job, by old magic not new. Silas had forgotten this danger. No wonder these creatures liked to see death-what better for them than to be the facilitator for the hundreds of people who died in Nevada every day.

The man brandished his knife. “Lessee,” he said. “What do I do? Destroy the instrument, deface the man. Right? And send him to hell.”

Get him fired, Silas fought. It wasn’t really hell, although it seemed like it. He became a ghost, existing forever, but not allowed to interact with anything. He was fired. He lost the right to die.

The man reached for the harmonica. Silas shoved again.

“Play!” Silas shouted.

And miraculously, the boy played. “Home on the Range,” a silly song for these circumstances, but probably the first tune the boy had ever learned. He played it with spirit as he backed away from the fight.

But the kids weren’t rebelling. They sat on the cold concrete floor, already half dead, probably tortured into submission. If they didn’t rise up and kill this monster, no one would.

Silas looked at the boy. Tears streamed down his face, and he nodded toward the kids. Souls hovered above them, as if they couldn’t decide whether or not to leave.

Damn the ones in charge: they’d sent the kid here as his final test. Could he take the kind of lives he had given his life for? Was he that strong?

The man reached for the harmonica again, and this time Silas grabbed his knife. It was heavier than Silas expected. He had never wielded a real instrument of death. His banjo eased people into forever. It didn’t force them out of their lives a moment too early.

The boy kept playing and the man-the creature-laughed. One of the kids looked up, and Silas thought the kid was staring straight at the boy.

Only a moment, then. Only a moment to decide.

Silas shoved the knife into the man’s belly. It went in deep, and the man let out an oof of pain. He stumbled, reached for the knife, and then glared at Silas.

Silas hadn’t killed him, maybe hadn’t even mortally wounded him. No soul appeared above him, and even these creatures had souls-dark and tainted as they were.

The boy’s playing broke in places as if he were trying to catch his breath. The kid at the end of the chain, the girl, managed to get up. She looked at the knife, then at the man, then around the room. She couldn’t see Silas or the boy.

Which was good.

The man was pulling on the knife. He would get it free in a moment. He would use it, would destroy these children, the ones no one cared about except the boy who was here to take their souls.

The girl kicked the kid beside her. “Stand up,” she said.

The kid looked at her, bleary. Silas couldn’t tell if these kids were male or female. He wasn’t sure it mattered.

“Stand up,” the girl said again.

In a rattle of chains, the kid did. The man didn’t notice. He was working the knife, grunting as he tried to dislodge it. Silas stepped back, wondering if he had already interfered too much.

The music got louder, more intense, almost violent. The girl stood beside the man and stared at him for a moment.

He raised his head, saw her, and grinned.

Then she reached down with that chain, wrapped it around his neck, and pulled. “Help me,” she said to the others. “Help me.”

The music became a live thing, wrapping them all, filling the smelly garage, and reaching deep, deep into the darkness. The soul did rise up-half a soul, broken and burned. It looked at Silas, then flared at the boy, who-bless him-didn’t stop playing.

Then the soul floated toward the growing darkness in the corner, a blackness Silas had seen only a handful of times before, a blackness that felt as cold and dark as any empty desert night, and somehow much more permanent.

The music faded. The girl kept pulling, until another kid, farther down the line, convinced her to let go.

“We have to find the key,” the other kid-a boy-said.

“On the wall,” a third kid said. “Behind the electric box.”

They shuffled as a group toward the box. They walked through Silas, and he felt them, alive and vibrant. For a moment, he worried that he had been fired, but he knew he had too many years for that. Too many years of perfect service-and he hadn’t killed the man. He had just injured him, took away the threat to the boy.

That was allowed, just barely.

No wonder the boy had brought him. No wonder the boy had asked him if he was scared. Not of being alone or being lonely. But of certain jobs, of the things now asked of them as the no-longer-quite-human beings that they were.

Silas turned to the boy. His face was shiny with tears, but his eyes were clear. He stuffed the harmonica back into his breast pocket.

“You knew he’d beat you without me,” Silas said.

The boy nodded.

“You knew this wasn’t a substitution. You would have had this job, even without me.”

“It’s not cheating to bring in help,” the boy said.

“But it’s nearly impossible to find it,” Silas said. “How did you find me?”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” the boy said. “Everyone knows where you’d be.”

Everyone. His colleagues. People on the job. The only folks who even knew his name anymore.