Page 111 of Kiss Slay Replay

“Ugh!” I tilt my head back. They’re on the beams. They’re crawling all over the ceiling.

Everyone who isn’t caught up dancing observes the sprites in utter shock. They’re stunned into inaction. They watch the creatures while slack-jawed, wide-eyed, wine spilling out of their glasses.

Except for this one guy. He looks a lot like Steph’s dad, so I’m guessing he’s her uncle, and I know he’s an idiot because he reaches down, slips off his shoe, and lifts it up over his head. He shouldn’t do what he’s about to do, but he does it anyway. He smacks his shoe down on the table, onto one of the sprites.

SPLAT.

He lifts the shoe. Ribbons of thick yellow goo cling to the sole. The sprite is splayed out, limbs bent at vile angles. Its head is cracked open, revealing a pink meaty center.

I gag.

The sprite nearest to the dead one jumps up and down, obviously very upset. It hisses, spits, gnashes its little thorn teeth. It gets the attention of all the other sprites, who join in when they see the body.

I must now possess some perverse tolerance, because a few days ago, to witness something like this would have fried my circuits, would have cracked my sanity clean in half. But after the Eyeball Man, the Top Hat phantom and his ravens, zombies, aliens, why would I be fazed by hundreds of tiny shrieking flower sprites?

Together, they’re louder than the music. The DJ finally notices that something’s going on. He takes off his headphones.

The sprites point at the uncle, and I already know what’s coming, and that it will be gruesome.

They’re on him. They’re not eating him, I don’t think, but they do appear to be biting him. Leaving small marks on his face and hands and neck, any exposed skin. They pull his hair—what little is left of it. Paw and scratch and poke with their hands—no bigger than dimes but their nails are sharp enough to draw blood. He tries to swat them away, but there are too many of them. They’re nasty. Relentless. They pry open his mouth and yank out his teeth. They peel back his eyelids, hold his lashes tight like reins and scrape out his eyes.

A woman, probably his wife, tries to pull them off, but now they’re on her, too.

In the background, it’s still Dexys Midnight Runners. “Come on, Eileen, ta-loo-rye-aye / Come on, Eileen, ta-loo-rye-aye…”

Jace and his dad run over, wanting to help but not sure how.

I hear Ravi on the phone behind me. “I’m at a wedding at the Lakeside. We’re experiencing an attack. It’s…no. No…I’m not sure what they are.”

The dance floor clears out, and I drag myself and my bum leg across it, my shin destroyed courtesy of Luke’s intoxicated dancing. I need to get to the kitchen. We need to leave through the kitchen door because there are more flowers out front, more sprites.

“What’s happening?” Steph asks, backing up against the sweetheart table. Her bouquet is there, shaking violently. She eyes it—transfixed—as it shimmies closer.

I hobble toward her. “Steph! No! Careful!”

The bouquet levitates. Steph’s hands go right in her mouth, defaulting to the nervous nail bite.

“Steph!” My screaming finally snaps her out of her fear-trance, and she grabs the bouquet, swings for the fences. She lets go, and it rockets through the air for about four feet, before hitting Vicky Moldando’s big blond head. It falls into Vicky’s hands, and she looks down at it, confused.

The center rose burps, basically, disgorging one of the yellow blobs square into Vicky’s face. The mucus covers her eyes, her nose, her mouth. The sprite frees itself of the membrane, sliding down onto Vicky’s chest.

“Oh my God! Get it off me! Get it off! Oh my God, get it off!” She leans over, thrashing around, but that just upsets the sprite, and it clamps on, digs its nails in—tiny but fiercely strong. “It’s hurting me! It’s hurting me!”

Steph breaks down in sobs as I take her into my arms. “Out the back. Get as many people as you can and go out through the kitchen. All right? Through there. You’re—”

I’m interrupted by chaos.

Someone had the terribly misguided idea of opening the doors to the reception hall, letting in hundreds, possibly thousands more sprites birthed from the floral arches. The sprites cyclone through, pull hair, nibble earlobes, poke and prod. They tear the world apart. Smash glasses. A few of them are using cutlery as weapons. The guests retaliate. The floor is littered with dead sprites, their pink innards leaking out, making the surface slick.

The crowd rushes away from the front doors, and a few people fall. They’re trampled by the rest of the guests. Danny stumbles past me carrying a wounded Jace. “Willa! I’ll come back for you.”

“Don’t,” I tell him. “Just keep going.”

But he’s already gone, swept into the mayhem. I spot Tanya—she’s got Ravi’s jacket over her head, and she runs toward the back hallway, toward the kitchen.

“Tanya! Tanya, wait!” I follow her, try to keep up, but my shin is swollen black-and-blue. I have more questions. Does it matter when in the day I go through the wormhole? How will I know if I find it? How will I know if it’s about to collapse? How do I know it hasn’t already?

“They’re killing him! They’re killing him!”