The hob squared his shoulders and used every ounce of power in his squatty legs to huff, puff, and drag the bin away from the brick wall. He revealed a wall of climbing green vines, where no plant should have been able to grow.
Alastor followed the unnaturally bright trail of green down the rain-slicked wall. Down to a second, narrower alleyway that had been masked by the bin. Down to the source of the vines—a pool of dark emerald-green elf blood.
Nightlock shrieked and scampered behind him, clinging to the boy’s leg. Snot streamed out of his nose as he shook.
“Master, Master, no!” he moaned as Alastor dragged them both forward to peer into what had been this elf’s home.
The alley was only feet deep, but was kept impossibly clean and tidy. Stretches of shining fabric were draped overhead, likely to keep out the rain and snow. There was bedding for sleep and a worktable and bench. Half-finished pieces of jewelry and precious stones were abandoned, untouched. They gleamed, calling to Alastor. That was the elves’ true magic: everything they touched became irresistible.
This was not a robbery, he thought. If it had been, they would have taken the gold. He let his vision fall back upon what was left of the elf’s body.
Its long, pointed face had been slashed nearly off. Ribbons of bloody cuts ran down the creature’s body—the deepest in his chest, where his two hearts once beat.
Alastor felt ill. Beyond ill. True, in the past he had seen battles, ordered the death of criminals Downstairs, and he had tormented his own brothers with their worst nightmares. But this…this was brutal. This violence was frightening, even to him.
“What could have done this?” Nightlock moaned. “By the realms!”
The shadow beside them dove forward with a ferocious roar. Alastor was all instinct, swinging the boy’s arm around, sending a white-hot surge of power rippling up to his clenched fist. The blast connected with the ghoul’s jaw, snapping it hard to the right. Its face, all twisted and wrinkled green flesh, was nearly all teeth, its mouth enormous enough to fit the boy’s head inside.
Eight eyes rose through the flaps of skin where a man’s eyelids might have been. Stringy black hair slapped the boy’s face as the ghoul tried to land a blow to his stomach.
“You attack me?” Alastor growled, sending another surge of pure, crackling power to the boy’s fist. “You dare to challenge me?”
The ghoul stood nearly two heads taller than the boy; its limbs could stretch and contort on demand, which was the only reason it was able to reach behind itself and pull a jagged blade from the belt draped over its wrinkled, pocked skin. Alastor caught the hilt and let his magic pour from him, melting the metal down until it disintegrated entirely.
“Return to Downstairs,” Alastor commanded, pouring his crackling, rageful power into the ghoul, “and—”
For the first time, Alastor noticed that the ghoul’s control collar had been removed. That explained why he had become vicious enough to attack, he supposed. Under his brother Bune’s herding and influence, the ghouls were nothing more than collectors of the magic that came from young humans’ fears. He searched for the bottle they used to store the energy, hoping to drink it to replenish what he had used tonight, but there was none.
Curious.
The ghouls sent children dark dreams, or, when the malefactors were in dire need of magic, were allowed to pass through the mirrors to hide beneath beds or in closets. They did not attack malefactors. With or without their collars, they did nothing without the command of one fiend—Alastor’s brother, Bune.
“Who do you serve?” Alastor asked, shifting the boy’s hand until it closed around the ghoul’s neck, which was splattered with emerald elf blood. “Why have you come here?”
The ghoul leaned forward, meeting Alastor’s gaze in an outrageous show of impertinence.
“I serve,” it gasped out, “the true, worthy heir, my master—”
Bune.
One last surge of power burst through Alastor and out the boy’s hand. He held on to the ghoul as it screamed, burning from the inside out until there was nothing but ash floating in what had been the elf’s home.
“Bune,” he whispered, scattering the remains of the ghoul with the boy’s feet. He had not been Downstairs when the curse was cast—at least he could name the villain. What was this feeling inside of the boy’s chest—this unbearable tightness? “I knew it would be so.”
“My lord and master!” Nightlock said, crawling out from under the workbench. “How—how fearsome! This hob did not know you possessed so much power, that you h-had recovered so much of it already.”
He had. Human “junior high,” as it were, was an excellent breeding ground for misery. Alastor had feasted on the feelings of frustration, anger, and hopelessness he’d felt there. But he did not tell the hob that he had used too much of it. Already, he felt his grip on the boy loosening in a dangerous manner. Now, unless the boy signed a contract, there truly would be no escaping until the night of his thirteenth birthday.
He could not let Bune defeat him.
His brother had always gone two steps beyond cruelty. Alastor believed that humans deserved whatever ends their foolishness brought to them, but Bune believed that they should be destroyed, and their realm and its magic claimed once and for all.
He had been the one to lock Pyra inside the tower for not being able to manifest her animal form. Bune had taunted her, bruised her, told her that it was only by their father’s mercy she was still alive. As their father’s heir, Alastor had been able to swear to her that he would free her once he had the throne.
But he did not have the throne, Bune did.
Which meant that Pyra was in far more danger than he ever imagined—if his sister was still living at all.
On the third night, the dream returned.
The panther with its gleaming black coat and sinewy limbs did not make an appearance, but the vision was scorched with fire. It lit something beneath my skin until even my nostrils were drenched with the rotten-egg smell of sulfur. Its words seemed to stroke down my spine like its soft, silky tail.
Do you hear the singing bone? Do you hear the singing bone?
Heading to school that morning, just before the bus turned into the drop-off lane, I finally built up the nerve to ask Nell about it. Ever since the tour groups had enthusiastically agreed to work with the House of Seven Terrors on a regular basis, she’d lost that pinched look on her face whenever she spoke to me.
As I said, to win favor from others, you must grant them a favor.
I brushed Al’s words aside, waiting as Nell thought it over.
“A singing bone…that’s something from folklore—fairy tales,” she said. “My mom told me about it once, and I think there are a couple of variations of it. It usually goes something like, a jealous brother or sister will kill one of their siblings and hide their bones. But when the bones of the victim are found, they sing the truth of what happened.”