Maybe there was a nest nearby, or a cave, a den where the creatures lived. Maybe there were babies that the flying beast had been trying to protect.
I thought of Tucker, my stern warning for him to stay inside with all the windows and doors locked, Samwise there with him. I’d do anything to protect my boy. Was that the motivation behind these creatures? The primal instinct to protect their flock? I stopped, pulled a small notebook from my pocket and started jotting down ideas.
Just then the wind shifted, lifting my hair. It spun the fog around me, hissed through the treetops and stirred the leaves that lay on the ground. A small pile of leaves turned into a miniature dust devil at my feet, swirling, moving.
I glanced up. Then froze.
There, at the side of the path, the fog and the leaves had been brushed aside, revealing a shoe and part of a leg, sticking out from beneath a shallow mound of leaves. And over there, poking out from the leaves was another shoe.
Just off the path there lay a body, stiff and unmoving.
Dead.
Chapter 28
Secret Message
Ash:
The Legend howled through the wood, leaked through the cracks in the walls and the crevices in between the windows. It called my name, so insistent and loud that I found it hard to concentrate. Meanwhile, a soft knock sounded on my sitting-room door, a sylvan voice on the other side, begging entrance, speaking smooth words of repentance. Sienna. She wanted in. Ross stiffened and stared at the door but didn’t move.
I raised a hand of assurance. “She won’t harm you,” I told him.
“Ash,” Sienna’s velvet voice called from the hallway, “I didn’t mean to frighten your human. I just—I just couldn’t help myself.”
Ross took a step backward, closer to the window.
“I would never take anything that belongs to you. I didn’t know he was yours.” Another soft knock. Rhythmic, part of a song. “Let me in. Please.”
I walked toward the door, felt Ross retreating inside himself, building walls and digging trenches, laying out an assortment of grenades, painting his skin in camouflage black and green.
“She’s lying,” Ross said.
I paused at the door, laid one hand on the wood, listened for the vibrations that were always present, knowing there was a secret message between her words.
“We’re blood cousins.” Her siren voice called to me, sweet and tempting. “But you don’t have to open the door if you don’t want to—”
The drumming of knuckle against wood continued, beating hypnotic and pure. I could feel myself being lulled into an enchantment, but suddenly I didn’t care. I wanted to believe; I knew that even now her face had shifted. The voice, the face. It couldn’t be, but I felt that it might be and that was almost enough.
Lily, my dead wife, was on the other side of the door.
“No, Ash, don’t!” Ross said. “Don’t let her in—”
But the pain and the longing fell on my shoulders, sparks and the fragrance of a meadow at dawn. It might be Lily, risen from the dead, back from the Land of Dreams.
One hand on the doorknob.
I turned and pulled.
Hoping.
Chapter 29
Chameleon Skin
Thane:
The back door opened, just far enough for River and me to slip through. Wearing the chameleon skin of fog and bark, we dashed away from the Driscoll mansion, both of us knowing that we wouldn’t have much time. At best, Sienna would be able to distract Ash for a few minutes. Hopefully, that would be long enough for us to sneak back into the woods and dispose of the body.
“You should have done this last night,” I snarled as we circled around the side of the house. “Before you met me at the edge of the forest.”
“Hindsight and wishes don’t bring dinner,” River answered, his mood sullen.
I kept low to the ground, running rather than flying, changing my body into that of a mottled gray fox. River loped at my side, now wearing the skin of a ring-tailed cat. As soon as we had both crossed the road and passed the crowd of teenage boys, we made a patchwork quilt of our animal bodies, adding wings and horns and claws. Then we flew through the wood.
That’s when the scent grew stronger—the stench of that human carcass blooming clear and ripe. It was nearby, sure enough, just a little bit farther.
We zipped through the forest, knowing that what we sought was up ahead, just around the next bend. I dropped my animal skin as I flew, replaced it with the garments of home. Gray flesh, wings of taut vellum membrane stretched wide.
Then I cast a Veil—knit from years of study and training, not a haphazard, shapeless creation like those made by the Blackmoors. My side of the family, the Underwoods, were the true craftsmen. We might not have been as good as the Blackmoors at casting enchantments, but we far exceeded them when it came to hammering Veils.
Before long, my handiwork glittered around us, strong and sturdy enough to provide shelter and privacy for what we had to do next.
Chapter 30
Monsters