Tomas Edel's Arc

Chapter 2 of 17

The thing stood in the pit with Tomas. It filled the gap in the wall, the only way out. Its long limbs bent wrong. Fresh drag marks lay between his boots and the stones. If he ran for the gap, he would run straight into it. So he did not run. He froze, the way he froze at the tree line every dawn, and he watched. The creature watched back. It did not lunge. It waited, the same as he did. Tomas understood then that stillness was a language it knew. He kept his weight even. He breathed slow. His hand crept to the pencil in his pocket, the only thing he carried that was not the leash. Above the wall, the bloodhound howled again. The creature's head turned toward the sound. That was the whole opening. Tomas threw the pencil past its shoulder. It struck the far stones and clattered. The creature spun toward the noise, and Tomas dove for the gap. He hit the moss and hauled himself through. A cold grip closed on his ankle. He kicked hard, twisted, and his boot came free in its hand. He crawled out onto open dirt with one bare foot, chest heaving. The hound stood over him, shaking, ears dragging in the mud. Tomas grabbed the leash and pulled the dog back from the wall. Below, the creature did not follow. It bent and set his boot down in the pit, careful, deliberate. It placed the boot in the circle with the small bones and the child's shoe. Then it looked up at him and was still. It had not wanted to eat him. It had wanted to add him. Tomas backed away. He turned and ran, the hound at his heel, until the wall was gone in the mist. He did not stop until a shape stepped out of the trees ahead and blocked his path. A girl. Shaved head. A school shirt stiff with old blood. A stake of pale wood strapped to her forearm, its tip capped in silver. She did not flinch at the sight of him. She looked past him, toward the wall, and read something in his face. "Regan," Tomas said. The word scraped out of a throat that had held silence three years. It shocked him more than the creature had. Regan Dusk did not blink. "You found the pit," she said. Flat. Not a question. He nodded. He pointed back the way he had come, at his own bare foot, at the mist. "It collects," she said. "I know. It isn't a vampire. My stake won't hold it." She looked at his missing boot. "It has your scent now. It'll come for the rest of you." Tomas found he could still speak. The warning he had held so long came loose at last, and it came out as one word. "Run." Regan did not run. She turned toward the wall.