Raven Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The shape by the window shifted again. It wore Raven's nose, then split into two. Now there were two tall figures in the dim room. One stood by the hearth. One stood by the barred door. Both tilted their heads the same way. Both watched her with one red eye. Raven gripped the chair leg and pressed her back to the wall. The entity had copied itself. Only one was real. Touch the wrong one, and she was certain it would kill her. She watched them. The one by the hearth breathed. Its ribs rose and fell. The one by the door did not. Dust hung still around its feet. Raven remembered the rotted rabbit that vanished into the stones by the hearth. The real thing had gone that way. The copy was just air and a trick of the light. She took a slow step toward the hearth. The breathing shape smiled with a mouth that was not a mouth. Raven raised the chair leg and swung at it. The wood struck something solid. The shape screeched and tore open. Green pus sprayed the wall. The false figure by the door flickered and was gone. Raven swung again. Her arm shook, but she did not stop until the thing lay still on the floor. The door burst inward. The table she had braced against it skidded across the boards. A tall creature filled the doorway, skin pulled tight over bone, flesh torn and leaking bright green. Golden eyes burned above jagged teeth. Black claws dripped blood. Wide bat wings scraped both walls. It stepped over the dead shape without looking down. Raven backed against the wall. "I killed it," she said. "It's dead. Leave me be." "You are marked," the creature said. Its voice was flat. "The thing at the cathedral hunts you. It will not stop." It looked at her with no heat. "I smelled the hunt on you. So I came." Raven's throat went dry. "The witch told me. A life for a life. That's the price." "Yes." The creature folded its wings. "Bring it a life. Then the door below the cathedral opens. Then the hunt ends." It tilted its head. "I can carry you there. Across my own plane. Faster than the woods." "And what do you want for that?" "A share of the library," it said. "When the door opens, I go in too." Raven looked at the dead shape on the floor. She looked at the broken door, at the dark woods beyond. The skeletal thing from the cathedral was still out there, still hunting. She could run until it caught her. Or she could take the ride and find a life to trade. "Fine," she said. "Take me to the cathedral." The creature's claws closed around her arm. The cold room tilted. The cottage fell away, and the woods with it.