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powerful legs that ended in the beetle-crushing foot claws Edie was staring at. Its eyes were blank stone like the rest of it, the set of its eyebrows was fierce and angry. A century and a half of weather had stained the stone in streaks of black and gray, and somewhere in the past, a hard frost had expanded the water in a crack in its right wing, and a section had fallen off, giving it a lopsided, battle-worn quality.
    Edie knew she was good—unnaturally good—at not being seen when she wanted to remain unnoticed. But she wished she was even better at it as she watched the cat-gargoyle bend low to the ground and sniff. As it breathed out, she heard a low whistle, like someone blowing across the mouth of a bottle. It moved its head from side to side across the ground, trying to pick up a scent. Edie decided to stop edging backward and tried to make herself invisible instead.
    The cat-gargoyle moved away from her toward the parapet over which George and the Gunner had disappeared. As it turned away to make its sniff-and-whistle noise scenting along the top of the wall, Edie allowed herself a deep breath. She also had a good opportunity to see the sharp ridge of vertebrae running down its back, like a line of giant thorns trying to burst through the taut stone skin. She could see the dense feline muscles bunch and relax as it moved to and fro, as if it were dancing in a slow trance, led by its nose.
    And then Edie saw the woman with the stroller and the spaniel, hurrying through the orange gloom, obviously late for something and unhappy about it. The spaniel was running ahead of the woman, ears flapping happily. And then it stopped and its ears went back and it growled.
    Edie’s first thought was that it had seen the cat-gargoyle six feet ahead of it. The cat-gargoyle turned and looked at the dog.
    The woman snapped her fingers at the dog as she passed on the strip of pathway. “Bramble. Come here. Bramble!”
    Bramble was frozen in a trembling rigor in front of the cat-gargoyle. Spaniels don’t get many ideas, so when one takes hold, they tend to stick with it. And with a horrible feeling in her stomach, Edie realized that the thought Bramble was having was not about being able to see the gargoyle. It was about sensing her under the bush.
    “BRAMBLE! Come!” the woman called. She left the stroller and walked toward the dog and the gargoyle. The gargoyle took a step backward and crouched, drawing its wings open, parallel to the ground, ready to scythe into action. Edie noticed that the ends of the wings had sharp hooks on them. She’d seen a bullfighter once on the TV, and he’d made the same gesture with his cape, stepping back, spreading the cape behind him, hiding the sword, seeming innocent but ready to kill when the bull got close enough.
    The woman walked right past the gargoyle. Edie thought she must have brushed it with her coat, but she clearly could not see it any more than her dog could. She grabbed the spaniel and clipped a leash to its collar.
    “Come on, bad dog, there’s nothing there!” she snapped as she pulled the spaniel away. The dog started to bark back over its shoulder, the bark getting louder the farther his mistress pulled it. The bark ended in a yelp as the dog was swatted over the nose and attached to the stroller, whose occupant had now started squealing and yelling. There was a flurry of wind in the trees above, and the woman grimaced. She pulled an umbrella from the bags hung on the back of the stroller and opened it one-handed.
    “Come on. It’s going to rain. We’ve got to get home. Good dog.”
    The smack on the nose had dislodged the thought of Edie from the spaniel’s mind, and she trotted after the cooing mother who trundled off into the darkness, putting a rain hood over the baby as she went.
    Edie was about to breathe again when she realized something chilling. The cat-gargoyle remained braced and ready to attack—but its head had slowly turned, and it looked back over its