She slowed the arches enough that for a fraction of a second, as each arch passed her, she was unprotected. As the next arch slid to the right, Rose snapped her gun up and fired. The gun spat bullets and thunder.
The wolf dashed to the left, bounded off the oak trunk, and sprinted away, into the Wood. Rose swallowed. At her feet, Emerson whimpered like a child.
“It’s gone,” she told him in a trembling voice. “It’s gone and gone.”
She couldn’t carry Emerson off the hill. She couldn’t even drag him. Her fingers shook. She pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans. It took her three tries to dial the right number.
“Eric Kaplan, Kaplan Insurance. How may I help you?” the voice on the other end said.
“This is Rose. I’m at Dead Horse Oak. I have your uncle, and I need you to come and get him.”
“HURRY, child.” Mémère’s voice urged Georgie up the ladder. He squirmed up the steps into the attic and scooted aside, offering her his hand. She climbed up, carrying one of Grandpa’s guns. They pulled the ladder up and the trapdoor shut with a slap. Mémère slid the latch closed.
It wouldn’t help. The beasts would find them. They both knew it.
“It will be fine,” Mémère murmured. “It will be fine. We’re going to cast a spell . . .”
“They eat magic, Mémère,” George said softly. “They like it.”
She stopped. “That’s what Rose said.”
Porcelain shattered downstairs. Icy alarm shot through Georgie. He jerked. Mémère’s arms closed about him.
Another dish crashed. Something was moving through the kitchen.
“Be very silent, child,” Mémère whispered in his ear. “Quiet like a mouse.”
Silence reigned. A long minute passed.
Around them the attic lay dim, empty except for a few boxes. A fine layer of dust covered the floor. Barely any light penetrated through the wooden slits of the closed shutter that guarded a single tiny window.
Georgie felt the hounds’ magic. It hovered on the edge of his senses, waiting quietly and patiently, waiting for them to use their power so it could pounce.
The eerie sound of claws scratching at the walls nearly made Georgie jump. He clung to Mémère. She bit her lip and hugged him closer.
He couldn’t let the hounds get her. Not Mémère.
But if he opened his mind, their magic would get him. Terror squirmed through Georgie.
Claws skittered on the roof. Something bumped downstairs, directly under them. The beasts knew where they hid. Georgie shivered. His teeth chattered, his fingers and toes gone ice-cold.
A hard punch struck the boards to the left. The scratching grew louder. The beasts dug through the roof, trying to break in.
He couldn’t let them get Mémère.
Georgie fought against his fear and forced it down. He leaned back in Mémère’s arms. It was time to find lost things.
He quested outward, searching the vast darkness before him with his mind’s eye. The hounds’ magic pounced on him in a smothering wave, like a flood of slime armed with a thousand mouths. Georgie choked. Something inside him whimpered. The mouths bit into him with tiny sharp teeth, winding about his legs, spiraling up his body. His mind burned with pain. He quested harder, desperate to be heard before the foul magic drowned him completely. Somewhere impossibly far away, Mémère called his name. Her voice was full of tears.
He reached out to Rose, but she was too far away. He couldn’t get to her. He had to find someone else.
He searched, his mind staggering under the pressure, until he finally saw it, a bright white star shining in the darkness. With the last of his strength, he touched it.
The beastly magic gaped below him, like the mouth of a horrible creature, and gulped him whole.
JACK sat atop the kitchen island and watched Declan search the fridge with a plate in hand. His stomach growled. They’d spent the whole morning in the Wood tracking down the beasts. Declan called them hounds. They couldn’t be killed with a gun, he’d said. The bullets went right through them. The only way to kill them was to tear or cut them apart or to fry them with magic.
He’d tracked the scents for hours, but most of them led out of the Wood, not to it. Declan followed him everywhere. Declan was fun in the Wood, Jack decided. He was quiet and he didn’t do stupid things. But now they were both tired and hungry. He thought Rose would be home with lunch, but she wasn’t here. Instead he and Declan had to raid the fridge.
“It seems we have enough food for a feast. We can even make our own Edger burgers—” Declan dropped the plate. It crashed to the floor with a thud. Jack jumped at the sound.
“Stay here!” Declan barked, his face terrible. “Don’t follow me, don’t leave the house! Do you understand?”
Jack nodded.
“I’m going to get your brother. Do not leave!”
SIXTEEN
ÉLÉONORE cradled Georgie. He lay limp, his skin cold and clammy. His pulse fluttered like a dying butterfly under her fingertips. She tried to reach him again and again, but he had slipped somewhere deep, far beneath her power.
Below her the house shuddered and snapped, loud with breaking wood and heavy crashes, but none of that mattered. She focused on her hoarse whisper, pouring every iota of her power into the words. “Come on, sweetheart. Come back to me. Come back to your grandmère. You don’t want to leave me, do you?”
She sensed only darkness.
“Come back to me, baby.”
Her magic suffused her. A faint glow spread from her face to her fingertips. In the darkness of the attic and in the darkness that had swallowed Georgie, Éléonore became a beacon.
“Come back to me.”
She was so intent on finding him, it took her several seconds to realize that all had gone quiet.
The trapdoor quaked. Someone or something had grasped the pull rope from below and jerked it. Éléonore began to chant soundlessly, gathering the magic around her. She couldn’t flash, not like Rose, but she had the old magic. She wouldn’t roll over and let them rip her to pieces without a fight.
The next tug tore the latch from the wood. The ladder dropped down.
The magic swirled around her like a death cloud. Malevolent streaks shot through her glow, twisting about her in furious ribbons. The spell would take her life in payment for its services, but she had no choice. Anything to buy Georgie a few more minutes.
The magic hovered at her fingertips, itching to be unleashed.
“It’s Declan!” a male voice called. “I’m coming up!”
She saw the blond head rise through the opening. His face was covered in silver spatter.
The death magic vanished, replaced by a single urgent need—to save Georgie.
“Hurry,” Declan called.
“He’s fading!” She thrust Georgie at him. Declan grabbed the body and disappeared down below. She scrambled after him.
Declan rushed through the house. She followed him, stepping over beast carcasses and shattered furniture. Declan swept the kitchen table clean with a brush of his arm, sending dishes and jars to the floor, and deposited Georgie on the table. He briskly lifted Georgie’s eyelid, exposing a tiny line of blue surrounding a black dilated pupil.
“I need a candle,” he said.
Éléonore turned, sliding on gore splashed across the kitchen floor, grasped a candle and a box of matches. She lit the candle with shaking hands.
Declan dug into his clothes and pulled out a small pouch. He pulled a small piece of paper from the pouch, sprinkled herbs on it, rolled it like a cigarette, and set the end on fire. A tangy sweet scent spread through the room. She realized what he was trying to do and swept Georgie up, raising his head off the table. Declan held the burning incense under Georgie’s nose.