“You have one hour, no more. Find Sienna and take her with you,” I said, my brow lowered, my words ending in a low growl.
Thane gave me a brusque nod of assent. Then with a huff, both he and River threw their shoulders back, cast their wings wide and set off through fog-veiled skies. They flew in the flight pattern of the hunt, less than a handspan apart as they headed back toward the Driscoll mansion, not bothering to conceal themselves. Sienna would be waiting for them there, then together the three of them could go anywhere.
As long as it wasn’t here.
Once my cousins were out of sight, I glanced down. There it was, just beneath us. The stench of death rising from the forest floor, strong and dangerous. Human flesh, rotting. I saw the body then, plain and clear, legs sticking out from a haphazard pile of leaves, barely concealed from any human that might happen to wander down the trail.
This alone was enough to call attention to us, to bring the humans after us, just like Ross had warned. It was enough to make us the hunted instead of the hunters.
Part 3
The best way to make your dreams
come true is to wake up.
—Paul Valery
Chapter 36
A Great Hairy Beast
Maddie:
A few lamps cast light about the small living room, though not enough to quench the darkness that seeped in every window. I leaned against the cabin door, my heart hammering. A scratching noise sounded outside, followed by a whimper. I held up my hand, motioning for Tucker to hold still. Then I cracked the door open. Samwise bounded in, a blur of black-and-tan fur, sometimes dog, sometimes something else.
I locked the door, then slid to the ground.
A dead body still lay back in the woods. Despite everything that had just happened, I had to let the authorities know.
One hand instinctively reached to my pocket and pulled out my iPhone. I couldn’t even remember putting it back, thought I must have dropped it somewhere back in the woods, when I’d been fighting—
What the hell had I been fighting?
I shuddered, felt something crawling around inside my skin, in my mind. Something oily and dark and rancid was trying to figure out where I was.
That beast is inside me.
I dropped the phone with a clatter and pulled up my jacket sleeve. A six-inch ragged scrape ran down the inside of my left forearm. Blood and bits of torn flesh and something like speckles of silver. That monster had marked me with a rough swipe of its long tongue.
“No!”
My jacket fell to the floor and I ripped off my shirt as I ran to the bathroom.
“Mom, what is it? What’s wrong?” Tucker jogged after me, the dog at his side.
I glanced back at the two of them. Didn’t he see it? Couldn’t my son see that Samwise wasn’t a dog anymore? Even now I saw the hackles on the dog grow as his back hunched up and his chest widened. It looked like he was preparing to go into battle.
With a twist of my wrist, I turned on the hot water, let it run in the sink, grabbed the soap and started scrubbing my arm, wincing when the water got too hot.
“Tucker, look in the medicine cabinet. Quick! See if we brought any disinfectant or rubbing alcohol or anything—”
He climbed on the toilet, awkwardly reached over me, rummaged through the few items in the cabinet that we had brought with us. He pulled them out one by one. I lifted my arm out of the water, doused it with mouthwash, then hydrogen peroxide. My arm was bleeding, the peroxide foaming up, turning a sickly shade of green.
Tucker ran into the other room and left me alone with the dog.
We stared at each other. His tail wagging, his mouth opened in a grin.
A memory came back: a nightmarish monster that had pawed through my every hope and dream. A great hairy beast had come lumbering through the forest, taller than the sky; it had swept the shadow monsters away. Then it had taken me in one hand and carried me back up the trail—
Samwise.
“It was you, boy. Wasn’t it?” I asked, kneeling down. He padded closer, nuzzled my free hand, pushed it open and licked it. I pulled his big head next to my face, then kissed him on the nose. “Good boy,” I whispered.
He licked me on the mouth and I laughed.
Tucker ran back into the room then, his hands full. He poured his loot on the bathroom counter: aloe vera and Neosporin and gauze bandages. And my iPhone.
“Someone’s talking,” he said as I spread a thick layer of Neosporin over the scratch.
I pressed my ear against the phone while he held it up. I didn’t remember dialing any numbers but I must have.
“This is nine-one-one. What is your emergency—”
The patrol car arrived sooner than I expected. San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Lights flashing outside. Someone pounding on my door. When I opened it, I found myself face-to-face with 250 pounds of backwoodsman-in-khaki.