* * *
Leslie
stumbled backwards as the wolf began to change, growing until it was ten feet
tall at the shoulder. Its forelegs
became scaled, ending in reptilian claws.
Armor-like plates grew on its back and the top of its head, and two-foot
long quills grew in between the plates and down the tail. A wild conglomeration of animals, only the
head and hind legs still looked lupine.
A wolf of monstrous proportions,
Ember had said. But this was worse. This was so much worse.
Leslie pivoted on one foot and ran
like she’d never run before. Goldeyre
lumbered behind her. He roared, and the
sound shook the glass in the windows of nearby houses. His massive form was slower than Leslie,
built for power instead of full-out speed, but not by much. If she took so much as one misstep—Leslie
forced the thought out of her mind and ran.
She sprinted past the last row of houses, her lungs burning, her heart
pounding in her chest, and made for the dark stand of trees. Savannah would be waiting on the other side
of the creek.
Leslie reached the trees, but she
didn’t slow down as their green branches enveloped her. She barreled on ahead, ducking under branches
and jumping over fallen logs. Twigs
scraped her arms and face and tugged at her hair, threatening to slow her
down. She slipped, falling to one hand. She pushed against the damp soil and kept
running.
Finally the bridge spanning the
creek came into view. Savannah stood
leaning against the bridge wearing her bike helmet, waiting for Leslie. Her bike was propped up on its kickstand.
“Get on your bike!” Leslie yelled,
waving frantically. Savannah looked up,
startled. Leslie repeated, “Get on your
bike!”
Savannah scrambled onto her bike
just as Leslie ran across the bridge, her sneakers pounding against the wooden
slats. “Leslie, you’re bleeding!”
Leslie slapped the scroll into
Savannah’s hand. She looked at her
arms. Trickles of blood ran down from
the scrapes she’d gotten. “That doesn’t
matter,” she panted. Now that she’d
stopped running her sides ached and her legs trembled. “Run, quick.
Get away. He’s too big to get
through the trees, so he’ll have to go around.”
“What do you mean?” asked Savannah.
Crashes reverberated through the
trees. Leslie spun around. Trees toppled to the ground at the edge of
the park in a chorus of thunderous cracks.
“Or he’ll just tear them down,”
Leslie mumbled.
“What was that?” Savannah cried.
Leslie’s mind snapped back in
focus. She whirled on her sister. “That doesn’t matter. Run!”
Savannah forced her eyes away from
the thrashing trees. She opened a
Pringles can she’d strapped to her waist and slipped the scroll inside. Then she kicked her pedals into place and
rode away up the bike path.
Leslie waited until she could see
Goldeyre’s monstrous wolf head as he barreled through the trees. Then she turned and ran. Come
after me, she thought frantically. Don’t catch Savannah’s scent. I’m the one you want.
* * *
Savannah pedaled uphill
frantically. It took all her
self-control not to slow down and turn back to look at whatever was tearing
down the trees, but her first priority was securing the scroll. Just
let Leslie be okay.
She broke out of the cover of the
trees, emerging on a road bordering a farm.
The farm’s fields were bare, lying fallow until the next season. She sped down the road, going downhill
towards the ocean to gain momentum, looking for a break in the farmland’s
fence. If she could just cut across the
farm, she’d reach another residential area and be able to find safety there.
The trees behind Savannah groaned
and cracked, their leaves and branches shaking like they were in a high
wind. A roar reverberated through the
air, and Savannah peeked over her shoulder as she rode. A monster, a mass of fur and scales and
spikes, loped towards her, its bloodshot eyes gleaming.
“Oh crap,” said Savannah. Adrenaline spiked through her body, and she
pedaled faster, raising herself up out of her seat to force the pedals
down. What is that thing?
Savannah spotted a hole in the
farm’s fence, and she took it.
Immediately the terrain became bumpy, forcing Savannah to slow
down. “Oh crap,” she repeated. Tears pricked in the corners of her eyes as
fear numbed her limbs. She could feel
the creature getting closer, could feel its breath on her back. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
Another roar tore the air. A clawed limb reached out and batted Savannah
off her bike. She flew through the air,
landing hard on the ground. Her bike
landed on top of her. A sharp pain shot
through her leg, and she screamed.
* * *
Leslie heard the roars, heard the
trees crashing around her, and kept running.
She could practically feel Goldeyre breathing down her neck and knew at
any moment his jaws would close around her.
She broke out of the trees. The
sun was low in the sky, and one irrational thought tore through her mind: run
to the ocean.
Savannah’s scream ripped through the
air, drawing Leslie up short. She forced
herself to turn, to ignore her screaming instincts, forced herself to look.
Goldeyre, in his monstrous meshing
of animals, stood over Savannah at the edge of a farmer’s field. He snarled, showing long white fangs, and raised
one scaled claw.
No,
no, NO! Leslie stumbled towards
Savannah. There was no way she’d make it
in time. He wants the scroll—he wants the scroll for the spell, and the spell’s
not there.
“I opened the scroll!” Leslie
shrieked at the top of her lungs.
Goldeyre turned towards Leslie and
stared at her with one bloodshot eye.
“I opened the scroll!” Leslie
yelled. “I broke the wax seal, and I
felt a shock. I thought it was static
electricity, but that was stupid because paper
doesn’t conduct electricity!”
Goldeyre was motionless for a single
heartbeat. He stepped over Savannah and
leaped towards Leslie.
Leslie spun around and ran towards
the setting sun. Her lungs were on fire,
her head swam, but still she ran. She
crossed the highway with Goldeyre in close pursuit. Car tires squealed as drivers slammed on
their brakes, and Leslie was vaguely aware of a car whizzing by in front of
her.
A horse ranch was on the far side of
the highway. Leslie vaulted the
fence. Horses screamed and stampeded, running
away from Leslie and the monster that pursued her. A shotgun blast echoed through the air, but
whoever fired the gun missed. Leslie
ignored all of it. She ran across the
horse pasture and leaped over the fence on the other side. She ran to the edge of the sea cliffs and
stopped.
A white sandy beach spread out
beneath Leslie ten feet below. She knew
people survived jumps from that height all the time, but still she
hesitated. Her legs felt like jelly, and
her entire body trembled.
Leslie could hear Goldeyre behind
her, could hear his pants and growls. People have seen him now. He won’t be able to chase Savannah.
But that won’t stop him from chasing me.
The sun dipped lower. Soon its lower edge would reach the horizon.
Leslie bent low and jumped.
* * *
Savannah lay on the ground,
trembling. What had made the monster
leave? She thought she heard Leslie’s
voice. Had she drawn that thing away?
Savannah tried to push herself up,
but pain shot through her leg and she collapsed. She lay on her back.
A falcon wheeled overhead. Savannah watched its lazy track across the
sky. Suddenly, it tucked into a dive,
pulling out at the last minute and fluttering over Savannah. Its talon reached for the Pringles can at
Savannah’s waist.
“No!” Savannah reached out, and the falcon raked
its talons over Savannah’s arm. She
shrieked and pulled back.
Movement to the left caught Savannah’s
eye, and she looked in time to see a tan blur rocket through the air. The mountain lion landed next to Savannah and
batted the falcon away with one swipe.
It screamed, and Savannah had never been so happy to hear the signature
cry of the cougar.
The falcon landed hard, then flipped
up onto its feet with a beat of its wings.
It launched itself at the cougar, changing as it did so. It grew, and its wings became deformed. The feathers receded from its face, and its
eyes rotated inward until it had binocular vision. Hands emerged from the ends of the wings, and
its legs elongated. It landed on top of
the cougar, half-bird and half-human.
The cougar wrestled with the
half-formed freak, slipping out from under it with the agility born from years
of training. They fought, Ember shifting
from cougar to human and back again, grabbing the falcon-man, flinging him over
her shoulders, sinking her fangs into him one moment and kicking him with her
bare human foot the next. The falcon
stayed in half-form, blocking punches, jabbing at Ember with its beak, clawing
her with his talons. He leaped into the
air, using his half-formed wings to guide his descent as he kicked at Ember’s
head. Ember shifted into a cougar,
twisted out of reach, became a human again, and slammed her elbow into the
falcon-man’s neck. He crumpled to the
ground. Ember nudged him with her
foot. He didn’t move.
Savannah stared at the unconscious
creature. Its feathers stuck out at odd
angles, and she could just see its face.
The beak transformed into a mouth and nose, but other than that the
falcon-man remained half-formed. “What—what
is that?”
Ember flicked her hair into a
ponytail and wiped a trickle of blood out of her eye. “A monster.
An abomination.”
Savannah tried to sit up, but the
world spun around her. She fell back and
succumbed to the darkness.
* * *
Leslie hit the ground hard. She stumbled, and her ankle twinged with
pain. She ignored it and kept running.
There was a crash behind her, and
Leslie knew Goldeyre had jumped down to the beach. Terror flooded through her, and though there
was nowhere left to run, though there was only the sea, Leslie kept
running. Water lapped at her feet, and
she stumbled into the rising waves.
When she was waist-deep in the
water, Leslie turned around. Goldeyre
stood on the beach, his teeth bared and gleaming. He leaped forward, and Leslie splashed deeper
into the water. She lifted her legs,
letting the outgoing waves take her away from Goldeyre. He watched from the shore, the quills on his
back bristling.
Can
he not swim in that body? thought Leslie.
But can’t he just wade out and
grab me? She watched, and she
noticed that though Goldeyre strained his body he could not set a single foot
in the water.
So
I’m safe out here. But I can’t swim
forever! Leslie was exhausted, worn
out from running, and the cold water sapped her strength. She tried to stand. The water was up to her chest.
Suddenly, a strong undercurrent
sucked at Leslie’s legs, and the water around Leslie receded. She looked back just as a large wave broke
above her. It knocked her off her feet,
and she tumbled through the water. Up
and down became intertwined. She tried
to swim, tried to reorient herself, but she was too weak. The seawater stung her eyes and nostrils.
Her hand touched the sandy sea
floor, and Leslie grasped at the sand.
It flowed through her fingers as the undercurrent grabbed her again,
drawing her out to sea. Leslie clawed at
the water as she somersaulted through its depths. Her lungs were on fire. She couldn’t find the surface.
Leslie’s toe caught on the sandy
floor, and she forced her body to straighten up, using the motion of the water
to help her. She reached up, and her
hand broke the surface of the water.
The lower edge of the sun touched
the horizon. A beam of gold landed on
Leslie’s outstretched fingertips. Gold
swirled around Leslie, travelling up and down her body like bubbles of
light. It enveloped her, cushioning her
against the sea, providing her with air to breathe. Then she saw it.
The pathway opened before her, and
she saw worlds and stars spinning around her in an endless stream of
light. It stretched back into the past
and on into the future, image on top of image, light against light. Leslie was tugged forward from the center of
her body, and the light passed through her as she crossed the path, a World
Walker unbound by the Laws of Placement.
Then everything vanished and only
Leslie remained.
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