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He glanced down and saw that the face of the creature below hiaze away, he saw the weapon in its hand It was a knife of soer, but even as he reached down to pry it froers of the dead Sandman, he realized it was not metal, but bone Or, perhaps, a tooth As he brandished it before hi, two inches in girth and at least seven in length

What has teeth like this? he wondered

The question only , ht of the weapon in his hand lent hihoutfoil, but he had no doubt he could stab soain he saw that Kitsune and Frost had moved closer to the middle of the massive cathedral chae and were staring upward at so As Oliver walked toward thes crunched underfoot

Not sand

He paused and looked down Scattered across the floor of the castle were shards of what he first took to be crystal He crouched and reached to pick one up, careful in case they ht cut him Only after the piece of crystal was in his hand and he had held it up, studying its intricacies and its beauty, did he realize that it was not glass that he held, but diamond

"Holy shit," he whispered

Standing, he started toward his coritty remains of the dead Sandmen, were shards of dia as his arain Now he saw that the thing that had drawn the attention of Frost and Kitsune was the source of the diaantic lamp or chandelier, from the looks of the structure of it The top of it was still there, but it had been shattered in a thousand fragments or more, which had showered down to the floor

"What was it?" he asked

Kitsune slowly turned to him, her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths beneath her black tunic, and her expression was entirely open and unmasked In her face and her eyes, he saw fear

"It was the prison of the Sandinal Sandman The monster

"And now he is free"

Collette stood in the shoith her hands against the tiles and her back arched, letting the near-scalding water sluice down her body The house was old and the winter tended to seep in, especially at night In the cold air, steam billowed all around her and filled the entire bathrooood to breathe it in, to have the hot water pelting theher to relax after the day she had had It may not have been the worst day of her life but it certainly felt that way

She could still recall the content It seemed so absurd nohen she was filled with such exhaustion and regret and worry Though she would have given anything to avoid it, the task of delivering the news to Julianna had ended up in her hands The woman was not only her brother’s fiancée but Collette’s friend, and to see the feelings of betrayal in her face had been painful

Julianna had cried, there in the back of the church, already in her wedding dress and more beautiful than she had ever been Collette had held her hands, but could not escape the feeling that she was guilty by association, because Oliver was her brother Still, she had stayed, twisting her bridesown in her hands, and tried to convince Julianna that Oliver wouldn’t ever have done this to her if he could have avoided it

The words had felt hollow coly she believed the crowd that the service would have to be postponed, and when the florist had coh Oliver was dead instead of , and when the cellist had come in to say that the musicians would still need the balance of their fee-- only to be nearly dragged from the room by Julianna’s ive her strength

Never in her life would she hear the word aard and not think of this day

And yet, all along, as she cohts were of Oliver For everyone else, the presuotten cold feet and run off superseded any fear for his safety; but not for Collette

The detective from the sheriff’s department, Halliwell, had phoned forty-five h he had followed up on all the leads they had given hi No one had seen Oliver today No one had heard from him

It had been what Collette expected And yet to hear her suspicion confir in the shower s of apricot shampoo, she felt weakened by the memory of Halliwell’s voice on the phone She had told them Oliver would not have left Julianna at the altar like that If he had changed his mind, he would have tried to coe of the news If Oliver was gone, he hadn’t gone willingly

She had seen hi found it in disarray Perhaps he’d even taken out a coat and a hat, gloves and a scarf It had been too long since she’d lived with Oliver to knointer coat he wore, what hat he ht take with him

Collette did not believe for a moment that Oliver had just run off and abandoned Julianna So had happened to him, she was sure But if she had told that cop, Halliwell, what she’d seen, he would have assuht, that Oliver had taken off Noshe’d been out of this house, Collette knew Oliver better than anyone, and she’d looked in his eyes and seen the honor there Regardless of his doubts, he wouldn’t have run

And where would he have gone, on foot, in the middle of a blizzard?

"Oh, God, little brother, where are you?" she whispered in the shower, and a spash her

Collette turned the water off and ran her hands through her hair, squeezing some of theherself and trying to push her worry away It did not work very well At least the police were actually looking for Oliver now and not just assu he had jilted his bride The Wessex County sheriff’s departe police and the Maine state police The cops had even interviewed poor Friedle to see if he knew anything about Oliver’s disappearance Ridiculous, of course, but they didn’t know that Collette was just happy they had not waited any longer to start looking for him