Chapter 17 #2
“What if he had an accomplice?” she suggested. “You weren’t here, but there were rumors last year that Balthazar opened a portal. Bowie and I laughed it off because, I mean, come on, but…I don’t know.”
Rue frowned. “Zar tore through reality? Again?”
She blinked at him. “I’m sorry…what?”
“It sounds crazy, but this is something I can confirm firsthand,” he said. “I’ve seen him do it before, Lenore. It was a long time ago, but I’ve seen it. It’s real.”
And if Zar had done it again?
Ares and Zar weren’t normal—none of them were, by the standard definition of the word, but they were really not normal. A series of near-death experiments forced on them as children had left them…different. Some might even say it’d given them both strange supernatural abilities.
“Where did he supposedly do this? Do you know?” Rue asked.
“I don’t. But it’s also just a theory. Any one of the Black Harts could have made this happen.
They certainly have more than enough funding to pull something like this off.
The creatures are still up for debate, but the fog?
I can see them creating that to get a rise out of the rest of us.
Maybe things got away from them afterward, and the monsters came from somewhere else, but—”
“You think Ellery and Uriel put this together to scare us,” Rue figured.
“It’s the type of thing Ellery would do.”
She wasn’t wrong…
“They also haven’t lost anyone,” she added. “Think about it. None of their family came with, and they’re both still standing.”
“What about Rhys? He’s missing.”
“No one likes Mr. Hart. Not even his sons.”
That was also true.
“Monsters don’t magically appear out of thin air,” he said, then realized what he was saying and grunted.
“Damn it. I guess they sort of do, don’t they?
” Especially if they had come through a tear in reality curtesy of an unhinged Zar.
“But still. If someone was behind the fog, it seems ridiculous to assume they had nothing to do with whatever is hunting us.”
“Nothing is hunting us,” she corrected. “They’re just lying in wait.”
“Which is kind of the same thing.” They were both clearly grasping at straws here, trying to make sense of a puzzle they didn’t have enough pieces to.
Heck, even the framework was missing, the corner pieces far out of reach.
They needed more information. “Ryker wouldn’t have gone along with this if Ellery and Uriel asked him to. ”
He wouldn’t have made Rue watch his mom be devoured.
The sudden screams made them both jump, but they reacted faster than they had the last couple of times, both twisting toward the door and bolting out into the hallway.
Instead of moving away from the sounds, they found themselves sprinting to the stairs, leaning over the side to stare down at the bottom levels.
Footsteps pounded from the floor above, and a moment later, Penn and Bowie appeared, looking just as shocked as they were. The others shortly followed, their heads popping out over the banister one by one, until they all were accounted for.
Rue frowned and glanced back down, just in time to see a body fly a few feet across the room and slam into the railing. There was a sharp cracking sound, and when the man hit the ground, he twitched but otherwise didn’t move.
It was Jesse, the worker who’d killed the Smiths, and probably Cosima.
How had the guy they’d been looking for get down to the main level without being spotted? They’d done such a thorough sweep. There was no way one of them missed him.
Unless…
Someone had let him escape notice on purpose.
Shit.
A growl cut through the air, followed by a clicking sound, like nails tapping against the ground.
Then there was the hiss, now familiar, a sound that was most likely going to haunt Rue for the rest of his life.
A chill swept over him, and he couldn’t look away, even when he desperately wanted to, his mind screaming at him that he didn’t want to see whatever was about to step into view below.
Everyone else seemed to be conflicted in the same way, because a hush fell over the lot of them, everything seemingly going tense and still.
The head appeared first, muzzle low, sniffing the trail of blood Jesse’s body left when it’d been thrown.
A black tongue, at least a foot long, flicked across the floor, licking up the smears as the large creature ambled forward.
Its movements weren’t graceful by any sense of the word, its large mass shifting almost awkwardly as it moved, its four legs somehow still managing to carry its weight almost silently.
If not for the hisses that were coming from somewhere on its body, Rue might not have even known it was down there.
It was definitely not a regular animal.
For starters, half of its face was missing.
The entire left side was gone right down to the bone, the smooth, off-white gleam of a bare skull a stark contrast to the other side, where there was black fur.
The fur was patchy, with clumps falling off here and there.
It had the girth of a bear, but there were also antlers protruding from the top of its head.
When the creature reached Jesse’s body, the man emitted a sound of alarm, but still didn’t move.
With a sense of dread, Rue realized he’d probably broken his spine when he’d hit the stairs and couldn’t move, despite being conscious.
More than ever, he wanted to look away.
Yet he still couldn’t, frozen in place as he watched the creature unhinge its jaw.
That was nothing like a bear either. The bottom part unlatched from the top, showcasing rows of sharp teeth, but it kept going, opening impossibly wide, until its face was practically split in two.
That tongue dragged across Jesse’s face, almost testing him out, and then the creature finally pounced.
The move was almost too quick to follow, like a snake striking. Its jaws were around his neck and head in a split second, and then they closed like a trap had been sprung, a deafening crunch and a burst of crimson across the bottom step signaling the end.
It seemed to swallow the bite whole, not bothering to chew, and then opened its mouth again and moved onto Jesse’s shoulder, exposing the bloody, empty space where a man’s head had only been a moment prior.
Lenore threw up.
Right over the bannister.
Onto the creature.
Rue grabbed her arm and pulled her back, and then they were all running away in a flash, a loud roar vibrating up the stairs after them.