Sova's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The next seal went wrong at the last stitch. Sova felt it — a cold thread slipping between its wingtip and Petra's fingers, small as a needle, quick as a fish. Then gone. The crack closed anyway. The gemstone on Sova's chest brightened, then dulled a shade darker than before. Something had come through. Sova sent Petra back to the reef and followed the cold. The trail was not a smell or a sound. It was a smear. Where the thing had passed, color sat wrong on the grass, like a wet thumb dragged through paint. Sova flew low and tracked the streak across the pond, over a fence, and into a lane where a fox in a white shirt and blue jeans was picking up a dropped basket. "Osterfuchs." Sova hovered at his shoulder. "Something came through the crack. It went this way. Did you see it?" The fox straightened. His ears turned before his eyes did. "Cold spot passed me a minute ago. Didn't look at it. It went that way." He pointed one orange finger down the lane. "Toward the little white barn. The petting zoo." "Thank you." "Sova." His smile was gone. "There are lambs in there." Sova flew. The petting zoo sat in an open field, tidy and white, a wooden fence around a patch of grass. The smear went under the gate. Sova landed on the top rail and stopped. If it saw Sova, it might bolt deeper, or worse, sink into a warm animal. Sova needed a scout it could not hurt. A small black kitten sat licking one paw beside the trough. Its coat was the same nothing as a night sky. Its eyes were two white circles. Void, not flesh. Shadow could not bite shadow. "Kitten." The kitten looked up. "Something is inside the pen. It is made of shadow. I need to know where." The kitten yawned, showed one small fang, and trotted through the gate like it had been asked to fetch milk. Sova watched from the rail. The kitten crossed the grass, stopped by the barn wall, and sat. Its tail flicked once. Then it looked directly at a patch of shade under the eaves and stared. Sova followed the stare. The shade was too thick. It had edges. As Sova watched, the edges lifted — thin dark fingers, then a long thin arm, then a head crowned in a mess of curling black wires. Two white eyes opened in the dark of the face. The figure stepped from the wall without sound and moved along the barn toward the open door of the pen where the sheep slept. It did not see Sova. It did not hurry. Sova's gemstone dulled another shade. Sova stayed on the rail and did not move. Rushing a shadow would only teach it to run. Sova needed a plan before it touched anything warm.