Page 3 of An Invocation of Monsters

I had red hair, a natural vivid crimson that Mom had always told me must be a genetic fluke, and steel-gray eyes. Unlike the kid, I wore black from head to toe: Docs, ripped jeans, a pair of soft, thin leather gloves, and a worn Metallica t-shirt.

“You’re Gillian Gray’s daughter?” he asked, frowning harder.

What was he expecting, exactly?

Maybe it was my nerves, but his skepticism kind of pissed me off all over again.

“Were you expecting some prep school princess?” I didn’t mean to snap it, but having this teenager look at me like he disapproved was a bit much. “Yes, I’m Elle, Gillian’s daughter.”

“I was expecting… never mind.” He came over, extending a hand. “I’m Kase Hickman. The truck is mine and they weren’t sure how much you were planning to bring with you, so I was sent to pick you up.”

Kase tried on a smile that might’ve been as blinding as his shoes in other circumstances, but there was still a bit of wariness and confusion in his gaze as I took his hand and shook it twice, firmly.

He raised an eyebrow at the feeling of my glove against his skin.

“Does the Wendig—”

“Shh!” He made a jerking movement, like he meant to slap his hand over my mouth to keep the words in. Fortunately for him, he stopped himself, but his gaze jerked towards the main street of Dunwich for a moment. “We don’t talk about that here.”

Weirder and weirder.

“My bad.” I tried to smile back, but the muscles of my lips felt tight. “I’ll just grab my bag and we can go.”

I picked up my heavy duffel and strode to the other side of the truck, shoving it into the backseat. I carefully tucked my car keys away in a pocket before climbing up into the passenger’s seat.

Kase pulled the truck around in a wide circle.

“You’re not going to blindfold me?” I asked, and the kid gave me another startled look.

“What? Why would I do that?”

“Well, they did refuse to give me an address and made me park out here and wait for a ride. I figured if the Society was going to go all top-secret on me, there would be blindfolds involved, and maybe you’d drive around in circles for a while so I’d become disoriented and never be able to find my way back…”

Kase looked like he was beginning to regret taking the job. I was finally starting to enjoy myself.

“It’s not that,” he said, the truck roaring into the woods. I glanced out the window at a gnarled tree that looked like it was slowly trying to bend itself in half. “It’s… kind of hard to explain, actually? You’ll understand when we get there.”

Oooookay.

An awkward silence fell between us for the next fifteen minutes, until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Have you ever actually met my mother?” God, I sucked at small-talk. Of course he’d met her already if she was here every summer.

To my surprise, the blinding smile lit Kase’s face again, like a ray of pure sunlight streamed into the truck and bathed him with brilliance.

He looked like… a kid in love. Alarm pulsed through me.

Oh, no. Jesus, no.

Please God, let my mother not have been a cougar.

“I’ve met her,” he said softly. “She was the one.”

Inwardly I sobbed.

“The messiah of a new age.”

Oh, even worse. A cougar messiah.

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