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a small black dot on his forehead from the powder burn.
    â€œCome on!” Jacob shouted in my ear, grabbing the barbed wireand pulling it up as much as he could. I squeezed underneath, not caring that I was raising a fresh crop of welts across my buttocks and back. Jacob yanked me up and we ran, up a rise and into the thick woods that surrounded the camp, snow up to my knees, then past it. We ran until Jacob stumbled over a downed tree trunk and fell headlong into the snow. He floundered up, coughing.
    â€œWe have to keep going,” I wheezed, even though I’d fallen against a tree myself, heart thudding. We were so far away we could no longer see the lights from the camp except for faint bars of the spots painted on the clouds above us. Above the shouts, I could hear the howling of dogs and the frantic yelling of soldiers behind us.
    â€œGuess we’re not the only ones who got out,” Jacob said, clambering to his feet. He tried to put weight on his ankle and whimpered. “Dammit.”
    He sank back and sighed. “You better run. I’m not going to make it far on this, in the middle of the night, in the snow.”
    I shook my head, reaching down and stripping off my bloody stockings. Jacob’s eyes widened slightly. “What are you doing?”
    â€œCalm down,” I said, thrusting the stockings at him. “You’re a doctor, right? Make yourself a splint.”
    I broke off a branch from the fallen tree as Jacob did the same, aligning the two pieces of wood on either side of his ankle. “Not that this’ll do any good,” Jacob said. “I still can’t outrun a pack of dogs.”
    â€œLet me worry about that,” I said, turning the sharp end of the stick toward my thigh. I drove it into the puncture wound left by the barbs, widening it and causing fresh red blood to spurt, landing in fat, steaming droplets on the snow.
    â€œStop that!” Jacob cried, lunging for the stick, but I was alreadydone. I tossed it to the side, letting the wound bleed freely, putting my scent in the air for the dogs.
    â€œDo me a favor,” I said to Jacob, wincing as the deep wound stung in the cold air. “Don’t ever tell anyone about this. Especially about me.”
    â€œWho would I tell?” Jacob spread his hands. “Even my teacher at the temple who showed me that trick would find this hard to swallow.”
    â€œGood trick,” I said. Jacob shrugged.
    â€œIt’s just an all-purpose way to banish a dubbyuk. An evil spirit who looks like a man.” His head snapped up again as the dogs howled again, closer. “Are you one of them? Is that why you weren’t infected when you were bitten?”
    â€œAn evil spirit?” I said. “No, I’m flesh and blood. More or less.”
    Jacob grabbed me suddenly, pulling me into a hard embrace, and then let me go. “Look after yourself.”
    â€œI always do,” I said. “This is both of our lucky days, Jacob. And I mean it—don’t tell anyone about me, or this night, and especially not about the thing that looked like a man back there.”
    He nodded at me, then turned and limped into the forest. I ran, leaving a trail of fresh blood for the dogs, hoping for different reasons that I’d never see Jacob or the man at the fence again.

CHAPTER
6
    OUTSIDE MINNEAPOLIS
    NOW
    The sedan bottomed out in a rut, undercarriage scraping icy dirt. The jolt brought me back to reality, and I saw a lone farmhouse rising out of the icy, stubble-ridden field beside the road. The windows were lit up, the only light as far as I could see. When the car rolled to a stop and I got out the freezing wind pulled all the breath out of me.
    The driver jerked her head, wrapping her arms around herself as another gust almost pulled me off my feet. “Inside,” she said. “Where it’s safe.”
    â€œSure,” Leo muttered to me as we followed the girl through thefurrow