woman in crackling light.
Her body lifted off the ground as the power poured out of the sky. The lightning—tinged with red now as though stained with blood—curled around her, shaping itself into a ball. The Fellows cursed in fear. A woman screamed—it sounded like Stephanie. I felt like screaming myself. Then the light became too bright to look at.
After a couple of seconds, the light faded enough for me to squint at it again. It had formed a sphere about three feet across. It rose into the air, drawing itself off the lightning rod as if unimpaling itself. The old woman had been reduced to blackened bones. The grass where she had lain was not even singed, although the lightning rod glowed white hot.
The churning ball of burning gas and lightning hovered above the old man.
“Sweet Jesus,” someone said. “What did he do?”
I knew the answer already. He’d summoned a predator right in front of me.
I looked at my ghost knife. My spell was written on laminated paper. Even if it could kill that creature—and that was a big if—I was sure the heat and power of the thing would destroy my spell.
I wasn’t ready to do that. It was my only weapon, the only spell I’d created myself, and I didn’t have the spell book anymore.
The old man shouted something at the predator in German. “He’s telling it to search the woods around the house,” one of the Fellows said. “He’s telling it to kill everyone it finds between the house and the iron fence.”
“But what the hell is it?” Russian Accent asked.
It was Kripke who answered. “I think it’s a floating storm.”
The predator floated toward the cottage. The old man shouted at it, then shouted again, his voice more insistent and aggravated.
“He’s telling it to hunt,” Kripke said, volunteering information like a good little employee.
The floating storm did not change direction. It hovered above the spot where the thick black power cable connected to the guesthouse. Blue arcs jumped from the wires into its body. The old man shouted at it again, sounding like a grandfather trying to control a toddler from the comfort of his easy chair. The predator ignored him.
The porch light suddenly went out, and the blue arcs stopped. A couple of flickering tongues of flame appeared on the cottage roof.
Once the power was off, the floating storm glided toward the woods. The old man scowled at Tattoo, who responded in German. The old man shrugged. They both laughed and shook their heads like boys who had launched a firework in the wrong direction. The predator was out of their control, and they thought it was funny.
Tattoo walked up to the lightning rod, which had cooled to merely red hot, and grabbed it with his bare hand. Both men started toward the house.
The predator floated over the bare trees, making shadows sweep across the grass. “Professor,” one of the Fellows said, “I think we should be getting inside.”
She didn’t move. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Um, can we go now?” Kripke said. “It’s not safe to be out here.” No one moved. “Please?”
Professor Solorov sighed. “Let’s go inside and find some candles. We may be here awhile.”
They stepped back, leaving me a clear view of the predator as it moved away from the house. Had it sensed Catherine and the gunmen searching the grounds of the estate? It didn’t even have any eyes.
Catherine needed to know this thing was hunting her. She had a cell, but I didn’t know her number. I had to risk going into the woods to warn her, and I didn’t have much time.
I pushed the window closed. I heard a muffled “Hey!” Footsteps came toward me. Damn.
I backed off the steamer trunks and crouched behind a little round table that smelled of mold. A man knelt by the window and shined a flashlight inside. The light was too dim to illuminate the pitch-blackness of the basement, but it didn’t matter. I’d been spotted.
A second man knelt by the window. I heard one of them tell the other that he’d seen the window close. While I silently cursed my stupidity and impatience, they yelled for more people. I couldn’t keep hiding here. If I was going to warn Catherine, I’d have to move before they got organized.
I pivoted away from the window and bumped into something sharp and metallic. It clattered to the floor, then a stack of somethings crashed in the darkness. Not that it mattered now.
I reached the window I’d cut open and pulled it from the frame. The way looked clear. I climbed up, sticking my head and neck through.
A foot squelched in the mud nearby and I threw myself backward. A shotgun blast tore through the window frame, spraying wood splinters like shrapnel.
I fell back onto the legs of a chair, rolled to the side, and ducked behind a stack of copper pots.
Fat Guy knelt beside the open window and peered in, shotgun in hand. “I saw him,” he said to someone over his shoulder. “I didn’t get him, though.”
I had the sudden urge to leap forward and punch him in the face with every bit of strength I could muster. The son of a bitch had shot at me. I clenched my hands into fists to calm my trembling and hung back in the darkness like a coward.
Whoever he was talking to grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him back. “The fat lady said he had a gun.”
Fat Guy shrugged the hand away. “I saw his hands. He didn’t have no gun. Get inside and get down there.”
