Bodog stares at the broken bits. His brow wrinkles deep, and his hands flex against his knees. “Bad.”
A gnarled finger points toward the mess. “Deceit.” He turns. His eyes lift to mine. “Terrible pain.” He then peers at Kera, who has grown still with fear. “What disaster have you wrought?”
Her face pales. “Nothing.”
Bodog stabs his finger toward the mirror. “You did this.”
I put a protective hand on Kera’s arm and step forward, staring Bodog down. “She didn’t mean to do anyth—”
“Her future,” he interrupts even as he shrinks away from me. “Her doing.”
Kera steps back as if he hit her. “No.”
A dark condemnation appears on the little man’s face. “Yes.”
Trembling, her hand rises to her lips. The slow shake of her head is joined by a sharp sob. Grandma and Grandpa arrive, and amid Grandma’s demand that Grandpa get rid of our destructive guest, I grab Bodog by the shoulders and force him to look at me. “Show me what you saw.”
“Only Bodog sees.”
Grandpa crosses his arms against his bulldog chest. “Okay. I’ve about had it. Reggie’s shooting at shadows and now this. What kind of trick are you playing?”
“No trick.”
The force of Bodog’s assertion chases away the derisive tip to Grandpa’s lips. Stepping forward, Grandpa crouches, and when he nudges an oddly twinkling shard, an electric charge skitters from one piece to another. He jerks his hand away, and our eyes meet. I can see my sudden apprehension reflected in his hazel eyes. An understanding crosses between us. This is the beginning of something more. Something bigger. Dangerous.
I turn to find Kera gone.
Bodog tugs at my shirt, bringing my attention to him. His fingers clutch at the fabric, and when he speaks, his voice is edged with distress. “The truth fights to be seen.”
The truth? What truth? I really hate it when he talks like this.
“The truth fights to be seen,” I murmur. “Fights to be seen…”
I rub my arms, stilling the prickle of power humming under my skin.
That’s it! Kera and I are fighting to hold back a terrible power that’s within us. My sudden catch of breath grabs Grandpa’s attention. “This isn’t about Bodog, it’s about Kera and me, about the new powers we took from Navar.”
An ear-piercing screech shakes the house timbers. We all look at each other. “And that’s no imaginary shadow,” I say.
“It’s here,” Bodog rasps and slinks into a corner, his eyes wide with fear.
“What’s here? What is it?”
Bodog doesn’t say, he only crouches into a tight, frightened ball. “It will not stop,” he rasps.
Another quick series of shotgun blasts sound.
“George?” Grandma’s voice rises in panic.
Grandpa’s muscles tense from jaw to toe. The hardened soldier is back. He wraps his arm around Grandma and pushes her toward the door. “Let’s get you into the cellar.”
“I’m not going into the cellar without you.” Defiance colors her words.
I can see the lie before Grandpa says it. He pats her arm. “We’re all going.”
As Bodog whimpers and covers his ears against another shotgun blast, my mind whirls with possibilities. Bodog believes Kera let some kind of evil out. It’s ridiculous. But then…my gaze lowers to the shattered mirror. What if she’s no longer as innocent as she appears?
Another quick boom of a shotgun fills my ears. Kera’s out there.
“Kera!”
I spring into motion, push past my grandparents, and race down the hall.
“Dylan! Stop!” Grandpa shouts. “We don’t know what we’re up against.”
I ignore him. He’ll understand. There isn’t time. I have to find Kera before she gets hurt.
Pounding Hearts
I slam through the back door and trip down the stairs, yelling Kera’s name. The yard stands quiet and empty. The only sound comes from the back gate thumping in the evening breeze.
I vault over a pile of lumber and jig around the old motorcycle Grandpa’s fixing up in his spare time. Busting through the gate, I come to a bone-jarring halt and snap my head to each side, searching the dirt path that runs behind the house. My whole body feels like a spring, ready to uncoil. Where is she?
“Kera!” My call bellows sharply into the lengthening shadows.
Another screech ripples on the air. Not a human sound—it’s too deep, too strong. It rumbles in my chest, rattling my ribs. The ground shakes—dirt rises, pebbles jump—as if a herd of elephants is charging my way. I take a few steps toward the road and jump back as Leo tears around the corner of the fence.
Eyes wide, he pumps his arms and spins his long, skinny legs in the fastest dash I’ve ever seen. As he rockets past, he yells, “Run!”
I peer down the road and see Kera speeding my way, zigging this way and that, calling down thick branches as she passes. Behind her, a massive beast pounds the ground, easily snapping through the tree limbs. Its angular head bobs under a three-horned crest rising from a ruff of feathers. Little spikes poke down the bridge of its snout, which ends in a wickedly curved beak. Its front legs splay into sharp bird talons; its powerful back legs end in alligator claws that rip into the ground. The heavy tail whips back and forth.
The beast gets so close to Kera its breath stirs her hair. Its thickly breasted chest rises and a pair of huge feathered wings snap wide. Its front talons reach toward Kera.
I don’t think. I don’t plan. I dart forward, snatch her arm, and spin her away just as the beast grabs for her. With our hands firmly clasped, I haul her at breakneck speed in the opposite direction and rapid-fire a series of fireballs behind us. If I hit the beast, the scorching heat didn’t faze it.
The wingtips sweep back. Strong feet pound the ground as it adjusts direction. I tug on Kera’s hand and make for the woods, but she resists. “That’s where it came from,” she pants.
We head for the barn and dart inside. Slamming the door closed, I call on a thick carpet of entangled roots to grow up and around it, fusing the door to the ground. “This isn’t a good hiding place,” I say, but Kera’s already heading up the ladder to the hayloft.
“It’s after me. Only me.”
“How do you know that?” Just in case she’s right, I grab an old chamois lying over a stall railing, rub it up and down her arms and push it into a pile of hay near one of the far stalls before following her ascent. If we’re really lucky, whatever that thing is will get distracted by the scent and give us time to plan our escape.
“It chose me over Leo.”
“I’d choose you over Leo.”
“I’m serious.” Her voice breaks on a thread of pure fear.
“Okay, okay.” My attempt at trying to calm her isn’t appreciated, so I ask the obvious question as I place a hand on her buttock and force her higher. “What is that thing?”
“A monster.”
A massive bump to the door startles a yelp out of Kera. She freezes as claws scrape against the wood and roots.
“No kidding? Where’d it come from?”
“The woods.”
I give her another nudge. “I think we would’ve known something like that was living in our backyard before now.”
“It’s from Teag—a winged tri-top, but I don’t understand how that can be.”
“Why?”
“They are tiny creatures,” she huffs as she scampers the rest of the way up the ladder, “that live in the trees.”
I saw one the first time I went to Teag. It was a tiny bird-lizard thingy that scampered along the tree limbs. “Well, it’s not tiny anymore. It looks like something out of a Tim Burton version of Jurassic Park.”