chapter twenty-nine
HADEN
Another surge of electricity builds in my chest as I watch her approach. I try to push it down, but I’m fighting the adrenaline rush of what just happened.
“Haden?” she asks. “Is that you?”
So she’s seen me. There’s no running away now. That would only make matters worse. I don’t know where the thing went—its scent has evaporated from the air—so there’s no point in trying to go after it. She moves even closer. Her eyes lock on mine. She brushes her hands up and down her arms, marveling at the way the fine hairs on her skin stand on end from the electricity that still crackles in the air around us.
She looks up, and I can tell that she’s noting that there isn’t a cloud in the sky.
“How?” she says. “What … what just happened?”
I don’t know how to answer that question. I don’t know the how or why of it all, either. It should be impossible. The shadow beast—that thing that attacked—I think I know what it is, but it shouldn’t be possible. How could it be here?
It was the smell that sent me after Daphne. I was still sitting on the gate, intent on trying to read Simon’s and Mayor Winters’s lips—making a mental note to research how to do that better on YouTube—in order to follow their conversation, when I saw Daphne leaving the party alone. I wasn’t going to follow, noting how Dax would approve of my restraint, when I caught the strange smell on the breeze.
It was the metallic tinge of blood in the air, followed by the wafting scent of sulfur.
It was enough to make me forget about Simon and the mayor. I jumped down into the front yard, following the smell. I bypassed the catering van in the driveway, and noticed that the helmeted man and his motorcycle were gone. My footsteps quickened as I realized the sulfuric scent led in the same direction that Daphne had gone. But it was the scream that sent me running.
I wouldn’t have believed the scene I came upon if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The short girl, Lexie, was cowering against a tree trunk, seemingly under attack by some sort of shadow creature—and Daphne had thrown herself in the middle, using herself as a shield to protect the other girl as the shadow swirled around them. I didn’t understand it. Why would Daphne help this girl, who, for all that I could tell, had been cruel to her all night? The thought snapped away from me as the shadowy thing reared back, as if preparing to take a swipe at the girls. Daphne screamed, and the thing seemed to quiver. For the briefest of moments, it seemed to take solid form. I thought maybe I had just imagined it or my eyes were just playing tricks on me, but I caught a glimpse of feathers and claws before it turned back into a misty shadow again.
“No,” I whispered out loud. It can’t be. A pulse of electricity flooded through my body. I directed it into my arms, then hands, then fingertips, and flung it at the creature. The lightning passed right through the misty creature and exploded against a tree only a few feet from the girls. Lexie wailed, clasping her hands over her head. Daphne screamed. The creature became solid once more, long enough for me to see only the look of shock—or perhaps recognition—in its red eyes as it glared at me. It went misty again and then vanished altogether, evaporating into the shadows that surround the path.
Another surge of lightning crackled up my body. I knew I should go after the creature. It’s not injured. I’d probably only frightened it away. It could attack again. But how could I stop something that I couldn’t strike?
It’s the sound of Daphne’s gasp that made me hesitate. She’d seen me and was approaching tentatively, leaving Lexie looking as though she had fainted against a tree.
“What just happened?” she asks again.
I don’t say anything. I don’t even know what I would say.
“What was that?”
I shake my head as if to say I don’t know. But I do. I recognized it for what it is, just like it recognized me as an Underlord.
But I have no idea how a Keres could have gotten here.
“You saw it, though. Please tell me you saw it?” I can see the pleading in her eyes. She wants me to reassure her that she’s not crazy.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What? You had to have seen the shadow and the lightning.”
“A shadow and lightning?” I ask, edging my voice with incredulity. “That’s what you saw?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, it was more than that!” She throws her hands up in frustration. Deep red stains paint her palms. Her dress is torn. “Geez, security is going to think I’m even more of a loon.”
I swallow hard, but it isn’t the thought of security guards that concerns me. “Are you bleeding?” I try to keep my voice even and not betray any sign of panic.