Scott McCall's Arc

Chapter 18 of 30

The loft was quiet again. The binding circle held, but the air felt watched. Then Stiles' phone buzzed against the table. He flinched, picked it up, and listened. His father's voice came through tight and low. A new body. Down by the river. Stiles set the phone down slow. "Another one," he said. "Riverbank." Lydia's hand went to her mouth. Across the room, Malik glanced up from the coins lined on the steel table. His face didn't move, but his eyes did. The look was small and certain. Told you. Scott stepped between them. "What is it, then? Say it." Malik's fingers brushed a worn metal disc near his elbow — a boat etched into dark blue, waves curling under it. Old. Older than anything in this room. He had been carrying it a long time. "Those weren't murders," Malik said. Lydia stiffened. "Then what were they?" "Drownings. Not in water. In memory." Stiles frowned. "That's not an answer." Malik turned the emblem face-up. "It feeds on what people can't let go of. Guilt. Grief. Regret. Once it finds the anchor, it pulls them under." Scott's voice dropped. "And you?" Malik met his eyes. "I stop it from choosing freely." He tapped a coin. "These aren't threats. They're warnings. A chance to break the anchor before the ferryman takes you." Stiles went very still. His hand opened on the table, empty. The coin he'd thrown away. The protection he'd drowned himself. Scott looked at the river-mark in Malik's palm, then at Stiles' empty hand. The predator had a name now, and a shape, and a hunger. Not Malik. Something older, already moving. Scott pulled his jacket from the chair. "Then we go to the river," he said. "Before it picks the next one." Outside, the thing on the roof shifted, and was gone.