Prologue

PROLOGUE

The demonic love the taste of little girls. Luna Masterson went to her first sleepover when she was six, armed with a Superman sleeping bag and a pink pillow, pigtails and sour candies. Before she left, her dad pulled her onto his lap.

“Sweetheart,” he said and looked worried. Even though she should have been too young to tell, Luna could see the anxiety running under the lines of his face. “You’re sleeping somewhere other than home tonight. And I know you see things in the dark . . . ”

“You don’t want me to talk to the Tip-Toe Shadow tonight.”

His face broke a little. A man’s face isn’t designed to carry so much emotion at one time.

“Sweetie, I never want you to talk to the Tip-Toe Shadow. He’s a bad thing, and he lies. But especially tonight because I’m not going to be there with you. Do you understand?”

She understood. Her mother didn’t see the shadows, and neither did her brother, Seth. But for some reason, her Daddy could, and it made her feel better. Even a child knows about the word “crazy.”

“All right, Daddy.”

He kissed her hair. “I love you, Luna. Don’t let him use you. Now go hop in the car.”

The night was everything she had dreamed of. They had cake and ice cream, watched a movie, made up silly dances, and fell into bed exhausted. The birthday girl was the first to fall asleep. Luna was the last.

Her eyes were starting to close when she heard it. The surreptitious sound of something slyly skittering her way. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Oh girl Luna,” called a voice. It was high and squeaky like the brakes of a car. “Luuuuuuuuuna. Let’s, mmm, play.”

She didn’t move, tried to act like she was asleep. Something leaned over her face and chuckled.

“Girl is awake. I know girl. I smell girl. Girl smells like fear and dying and oh oh oh!”

Long, tapered fingers ran down her face. She knew them well.

“And more girls, mmm. Lots of choices!” He pranced away from her, and she cracked open an eye. The demon was tall, hunched over as he picked over the girls sleeping on the floor. He was made of nothing but shadow cast onto the wall. Impossibly tall, impossibly thin, he minced around on his tiny Tip-Toes instead of walking fully on his feet.

“Girl smells like happy. Yuck,” he said and moved on to a brunette. “Girl smells like, mmm, anger. I taste it, yes.” He ran his thick tongue over the girl’s face and into her hair. Luna shivered. The demon tottered to the birthday girl and inhaled deeply.

“Girl smells like hurting. Smells like her father. Smells relieved to have, mmm, friends here to fill the father, maybe he chooses one of you, maybe he leaves her alone tonight, maybe he doesn’t come. But he will, oh yes! He will come, and he will look, and he will see her, and you, and all your, mmm, friends, so pretty, so sweet, so little and helpless and small . . . ”

“Stop it!” Luna shouted, and the shadow whipped its head in her direction. Although it had no face, she could feel the burn of its eyes, sense its grin. “Leave her alone. Leave us all alone!”

“Luna, who are you screaming at?” the birthday girl said. She sat up, rubbed her eyes. The Tip-Toe Shadow yelped in glee and nuzzled her hair. She didn’t see it. “Don’t be so loud. You’ll wake up my parents, and we’ll get in trouble.”

“Here comes father!” squealed the demon. It danced around on tiny, broken feet.

“Girls,” her father said warningly, standing in the doorway. Luna looked at him with new revulsion.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch her.” She stood in front of the birthday girl, spreading her thin arms wide to keep him away. She bared her teeth at him, and the groggy girls gasped in horror.

“Luna, what’s gotten into you?” the father asked. He reached for her, and she screamed, hitting and kicking and biting.

“I know what you do. The Tip-Toe Shadow told me you’re a bad man. I want my daddy!”

Luna was never invited to another party at her house or anybody else’s. When Luna the Lunatic’s mother died, her father tried to teach her how to handle the demonic on his own.

“I don’t think they’ll hurt you,” he told his daughter one day. She was sixteen and had just run a demon down with the family car. “At least, not usually. You’re too much fun for them.”

“Thanks, Dad. That’s extremely disheartening.”

He put his arm around her. “Cheer up, sweetie. We can beat this, you and I.”

And they did, for a while, until her world was destroyed and she was left alone.

The darkness comes when she’s all alone.