My limbs felt like someone had tied lead weights to them but even so, I started swimming. No use in Avery and Griffin jumping in and getting wet and chilly too when I could get my own self out.
And then something appeared in the water between me and the bridge—something huge.
26
Kaitlyn
I knew what the thing in the water was, though I had never seen it up close before. The Guardian was a water serpent—some said related to the Drakes—which lived in the lake surrounding the Nocturne Academy castle. The lake was supposedly so deep nobody had ever found the bottom—like Loch Ness in Scotland—and the Guardian lived in its inky depths, making certain nobody who didn’t belong got into Nocturne Academy.
As I stared at the huge, dinner-plate-sized eye which had surfaced above the black water and was staring at me, unblinking, I remembered reading that the Guardian lived on a strict diet of a special kind of fish that were kept stocked in the lake. Supposedly, it had no interest in eating humans or Others.
That was what I told myself as the eye, with its slitted vertical pupil like a reptile’s, blinked once, slowly, and a truly gigantic snout surfaced to join it. God, the Guardian really did look like an enormous alligator or crocodile, I thought uneasily, as I continued treading water in the cold, sludgy black liquid that filled the lake. Like one of those prehistoric ones you read about that had died out over a hundred thousand years ago—and a good thing, too—because they were huge and could swallow an entire person in one bite.
Its skin was greenish-gray and roughly pebbled. And its jaws, though not as elongated as a gator’s or a croc’s, were wider and filled with long, shining teeth which stuck out of its lipless mouth like a bristling yellow necklace.
“That’s the Guardian,” I heard Avery saying to someone from the safety of the bridge which I couldn’t reach since the massive head was between me and the wooden structure. “It only guards the castle—it never eats anyone.”
That’s right—it doesn’t eat anyone—doesn’t eat people, I reminded myself, though my brain felt almost as numb with fear as my body did after being submerged in the cold, inky water. It doesn’t want to eat me—it probably just came to see what all the commotion was about!
But then the wide black nostrils flared and inhaled—so strongly I could feel the pull of them, like a vacuum cleaner sucking. The Guardian’s eyes—which had been a dull bronze when it first surfaced—turned suddenly blood-red.
And then its jaws parted.
“Oh my God, Avery—do something!” I heard Emma shriek. “I don’t care what you said about it not eating people—it’s about to bite Kaitlyn right in half!”
“Give me something to poke myself with!” Megan was shouting. “Or wait—Griffin, where are you? Don’t jump in—bite me and help me work some magic!”
And then all of them were drowned out by a claxon-roar which came from above.
A vast black shadow blotted out the sun and the Guardian—which had been swimming towards me with its huge mouth open—suddenly froze, its red, slitted eyes rolling upwards.
I looked up too and saw an enormous black shape with wings like sails blotting out the sun. I couldn’t see much else because of the dazzling sunlight behind it, but when it extended one huge, taloned claw and reached for me, my paralysis broke and I screamed and tried to swim away.
I dived under the water again but the enormous appendage found me anyway. A long muscular arm with a claw-hand that had fingers as long as my forearm plunged into the black water and wrapped around my waist. It pulled me up and out of the water and I heard the flat sound of the vast wings flapping as it rose into the air and headed for the bridge.
I was sobbing now, with pure undiluted terror, and my heart was beating so hard it felt like it was shaking every part of my body with each terrified thump. Through my tears, I saw that all my friends who were standing on the bridge had awed looks on their faces. The flapping of the vast wings was blowing their clothes flat against their bodies—they looked like people standing beside a running helicopter. Megan and Emma’s long hair was being whipped all over the place as though they were standing in the middle of a hurricane.
The enormous claw-hand that held me extended towards them and I saw fear on their faces but not a single one of my Coven-mates backed away. Instead, they all reached for me and caught me, just as the talons released their grip.
I tumbled into their arms, sobbing, and they caught me. Megan and Emma held me close while Avery and Griffin seemed to be saying something to the beast—to the Drake?—which had grabbed me.
It answered in that alarm-claxon voice it had, though I couldn’t’ tell what it was saying, and then flew back out over the lake, where I heard it roaring some more—presumably at the Guardian. The Guardian seemed to be roaring or growling back, though again I couldn’t understand the words.
I was too mentally unraveled to process any of what was happening at the time. All I could do was cry and shiver as Emma and Megan held me between them. I was cold…so cold and so tired I could barely move. The sudden dunking in the lake and the terror that had followed seemed to have used up the last of my reserves.
I remember thinking, I wonder if you can die of just being too tired and too scared to go on.
And then everything faded to grey and I didn’t remember any more.
27
Ari
The minute
