Nearby, a mound of dirt awaited, pricked by the spade ends of several shovels. Their handles, like needles in a pincushion, stood erect from the pile, ready to be put to task.
In front of the mound, as a marker, loomed a tall, shrouded statue. A long hooded robe concealed the form’s entire head and swathed its arms, which were held open over the gaping maw of the black grave.
Isobel squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. But she didn’t wake up. The scene remained. The screaming remained. It was all the same, only now the Nocs lowered the coffin from their shoulders.
“Let me out!” Brad shouted.
The Nocs laughed and together heaved the coffin into the hole. Pinfeathers squawked and fluttered up from the lid while the box landed with a crackling thud. A rush of ash burst forth from the grave. Brad howled.
Isobel drew in a sharp breath, her heart pounding so hard that it started a ringing in her ears. She gripped the base of the stone angel that hid her as if, somehow, it could give her strength.
This was insane. They were going to bury him alive, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Why had she followed them out here? What did she think she could do to stop them? What could she do to stop any of this? It was just her. And the Nocs.
They would shred her to bits.
“Please! Let me out!” Brad screeched.
Isobel forced herself to look again. She watched Pinfeathers morph out of his bird form. He took shape standing at the foot of the grave, staring down. Like buzzards, the other Nocs gathered in, positioning themselves around the opening.
“Please!” Brad shrieked, banging again, scratching.
Unable to bear it any longer, Isobel burst forth from her hiding place. She had no plan. She had no idea what she could possibly do to save Brad. Up until the moment that she reached the grave, she had nothing but the pure rush of adrenaline. Then, without thinking, she snatched up one of the shovels from the mound. Brandishing it like a club, she swung the shovel blade-first into the back of one of the unsuspecting Nocs.
The shovel hit its mark—and kept going. The blade swiped cleanly through him, caving his body with a crash. The creature shrieked before toppling into the grave, where he burst apart against the coffin lid.
Isobel stared at the place where the Noc had shattered, shocked at her own actions.
A collective howl arose from the other Nocs. In turn, each of them loosened into their purple-smoke selves, re-forming into the shapes of maddened birds.
Isobel swung the shovel freely amid the frenzy of feathers and wild flapping. The murder of crows screeched and cawed. She batted at them blindly. Panicked, they scattered. Isobel twirled, raising the shovel again. Something jarred it in her grasp.
White hands clasped the shovel’s handle on either side of hers. Pinfeathers towered over her, his bloodred shark’s teeth gritted in rage, his porcelain face a mask of fury.
“You!” he bellowed. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
That was it. Detaching one hand from the shovel, Isobel reared a fist back and let it loose. Pinfeathers arched away from the attack, releasing the shovel. Thrown backward, Isobel felt herself tip into the open grave. She hit the lid of the coffin inside with a bone-jarring slam.
Over the lip of the grave, Pinfeathers’s wiry frame appeared.
“Why did you come back?” he seethed.
Isobel spat ash from her mouth. She wiped sweat and grit from her eyes and leveled a defiant glare up at him.
“Time and again!” he snarled, livid, yet somehow . . . concerned? “You should have left when I gave you the chance!”
Isobel tightened her hand around a wad of dirt. She unleashed it at him. He hissed, recoiling as the spray caught him in the face.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell tower began to chime the hour. Loud, brazen bongs ricocheted through the cemetery. It was a sound that gripped her, wrung her with its meaning.
Midnight. It was midnight.
“Help!” came a raw gurgle from the pine box beneath her.
Isobel whirled. Hands and knees on top of the coffin, she cleared away the top layer of dirt and broken bits of Noc.
“Cheerleader!”
Isobel turned to glare over her shoulder.
Pinfeathers knelt down at the edge of the grave. He stretched one clawed hand out to her. “Take my hand. Leave him!”
Isobel grabbed for the shovel that had fallen in with her and, grasping it, swung it at Pinfeathers. He caught it easily, his forearm stretched firm along the handle.
“Stop fighting me and come!” he growled.
Isobel snarled between gritted teeth. She kept her grip on the shovel, and placing one foot against the wall of the grave, she twisted, pushing off, wrenching the shovel handle like a lever. A sharp crack echoed through the graveyard, followed by a howl. Isobel fell free, landing on her backside atop the coffin while Pinfeathers’s snapped arm toppled limp into her lap.
He recoiled with a long hiss. His frame loosened once more, and he became a mix of wisps and bird. He floated above the grave, a dark mass emitting hoarse croaks and inhuman wails.
His wings beat at the air with a broken rhythm, his bird’s body twirling in a spiral, struggling to gain the purchase of flight. His face appeared through the vapor, long enough to roar at her.
Then, as violet mist, he swept away, black plumes escaping his wings, flitting down like fallen leaves into the open grave.
In the distance, the deep chimes of the hour continued to ring, and there was no way to know how many remained to be announced. Isobel threw the hollow, broken arm to one side and returned to the coffin, which had grown silent.
“Brad!” she called. She pulled at the wooden lid. It budged only slightly. Isobel whirled, looking for the shovel. She snatched it up and drove the blade against the side of the coffin. The wood cracked, but not enough. She tried again.
“Brad!”
She hacked the blade against the wood again, and this time a portion of one corner splintered off. Isobel dropped the shovel. She shoved her hands into the hole and pulled upward. The coffin lid came slowly. She conjured all her strength, pulling until at last the lid came free, clattering to the side just as the bell tower’s final chime bonged through the cemetery.
It was twelve midnight exactly.
Inside the coffin, Brad lay silent and shaking, his eyes fixed heavenward. He was dressed in a clean hospital gown, his broken leg bandaged in a thick blue cast. Isobel reached for him, but her hands swept cleanly through, as though he were a hologram.
“Brad!” she shouted.
His shaking intensified.
“Is-Isobel?” he murmured. His eyes stared sightlessly past her, focused on something above her.
She tried grasping for him again, but once more her arms ghosted straight through him.
Something thick, wet, and warm splattered against her arm, stopping her. She looked to see a bright crimson starburst of blood glistening on her forearm. Had she been hurt?
Another splatter came, this one straight into the open palm of her questioning hand.
Isobel looked up. Blood oozed from the statue looming above her.
Great streaks of red coursed the length of its robes, sliding down the folds of its stone gown, pooling in the dirt.
“Isobel!”
Brad flew upward and past her, his limp form yanked from the grave like a rag doll, plucked by an unseen force. He swept up, distorted and stretched, elongating as he was sucked one inch at a time into the visage of the statue. It drew him in, arching the moment it absorbed him completely, Brad’s screams snuffing into silence.
Within the darkened hood, two pinpricks of ruby light sprang to life.
Stone gave way to spilling folds of brilliant crimson. Blood soaking through the stirring fabric of its robes, the figure moved. It turned its head and stepped down from the anchor of its granite base. Isobel stared in motionless horror as the specter rounded the gaping hole in the earth, its blood-dabbled robes fluttering about its shape as it floated more than walked.