Page 63 of Hunted

“That is a lie, and you know it.”

“It’s absolutely not, andyouknow it.”

“Could you two not do whatever this is right now?” Tallin asked, “We’re kind of in the middle of a life and death situation.”

“Right, sorry,” I said, as a sudden wave of embarrassment moved through me.

I still hated Valerian’s plan, but he had made up his mind, and having the monster go after one of us meant the other could rest and try to figure something out. I agreed, but only because I had to. Valerian didn’t wait. He took off running just as the light hanging over my head went out, allowing the darkness to continue to spread once again.

I backed away from it, watching the darkness congeal and manifest, watching in stark horror as the creature manifested itself. My blood drained from my face as the monster came into view. It wasn’t a shadow anymore, but a physical creature with features that were now easy to make out.

Its arms were long, and dark, like blackened bones. Its body was wreathed in a ragged kind of robe that did little to hide some of its more skeletal features. It stared at me from behind the darkened holes in the wolf’s skull it had for a head, the tall, broken antlers rising from its head completing its sinister look.

It stared at me, then with a sickening, bone-crunching crack, it turned its head to look at Valerian who was starting to run off. This was it. The moment it was going to choose which one of us to go for. I was already backing up and moving in the direction opposite to Valerian. The creature turned its head to look at me again, that sickening crack accompanying each of its movements.

“Tallin,” I said, “Get ready to run, okay?”

“I’m ready,” he said, “Whatever happens, I’m here—I won’t leave your side.”

“You have no idea how much that means to me.”

“Tell me when all of this is over, okay?”

“I will.”

The creature took a step toward me, then another, and another. It was coming for me, and not for Valerian. I was about to yell after Valerian, when something happened that made all the blood in my body turn to ice. The monster shuddered, its entire body shaking, and cracking, its bones crunching as they shook. All I could do was watch, my mouth falling open, as asecondmonster of identical size, build, and height emerged from within the first.

Before my very eyes, the creature that had been chasing us across worlds had made a copy of itself. One of them was walking toward Valerian, while the other walked toward me, leaving Tallin to cry out in frustration, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Tallin,run!” I yelled.

The little Winter Sprite turned tail and made a run for it. I followed, throwing myself onto my hands and my feet and taking on my wolf form as quickly as I could. I turned my neck up and howled, throwing my voice into the night sky as far as I could throw it, hoping that Valerian would hear it and make a run for the clearing we had decided to regroup on.

There was no time to try to figure out how this had happened, no time to question it, or curse myself for having agreed to this plan. No one could’ve known that this creature had the ability to split itself in two.

“Head for the hill!” I heard Valerian call out, and I made a run for it, putting my head down and following Tallin down the path.

He made a left turn, breaking off the path and going up the hill. Already I could see Valerian, running at full pelt to escape the darkness creeping up behind him. It was coming for me, too. Worse, now there were two of them, which meant we had even fewer angles of escape.

By the time he reached the hill, Tallin and I were already there, both of us staring down the hill, watching the dark tendrils and the monsters within them steadily advance toward us. Valerian stood beside me, breathing sharply to catch his breath.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Tallin asked. “There’s two of them!”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But that was a bad idea.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Valerian said, “Splitting itself like that could only have made it weaker, not stronger.”

“So, it’s gone from fully invulnerable, to only slightly invulnerable.”

“It’s not great, but at least it’s shown its hand here and now, when we can do something about it.”

“It’s the something part we’re having trouble with,” Tallin put in. “We didn’t know what to do against one of them, let alone two.”

“Make no mistake. We are dealing with the same creature, not two of them.”

“Tell that to my eyes.”

“Valerian,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know how we get out of this.”