Page 99 of An Invocation of Monsters

For a few seconds, all I focused on was making sure I was breathing as quietly and evenly as possible.

Then I began to work the covers down, inch by inch, listening to the sound of thuds and scuffles in the parlor, overlaid with a thick, bubbly breathing.

The creature from the woods was here in the real world. Only twenty feet away from me.

The moon was still full enough to cast silvery light on the wasted, pale body. Its back was to me, as the creature was hunched over the coffee table.

I heard the sound of paper being shredded, something heavy tossed aside and rolling across the floor.

Then a huff, the creature’s breath coming in angry gasps. There were more shredding sounds, angry grunts and moans, and the distinct sound of claws raking through wood.

I slipped out of bed, holding my breath as my toes touched the floor.

As I flattened myself on the floor, I prayed the creature’s destruction would cover the sound of my exit. My chest hurt from trying to breathe quietly when all I wanted to do was hyperventilate, but I managed to slip under the bed without notice.

Until my foot hit the nightstand.

The bang echoed through the room, and the sudden silence spoke volumes.

I didn’t just reach for the Void. I tore for it, opening my mind to the other side in a spasm of panic.

I felt the floor vanish and ripped my way through the membrane between worlds, flailing as I dropped into Kiraxis’s empty nest.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the question where was he? echoed, but then all I could think was that I was glad he was gone. I didn’t want him facing this thing after the injuries he’d taken.

I scrambled out of the nest, dashing for the cave entrance, and heard the thing come shrieking into the Void after me. There was a crash of shattering crystal, but I was almost to the entrance.

I ran into the Void, sprinting down the hill towards the lake.

The creature’s furious shrieks fractured the peace of this world, but if I could just get to the water, Drazan would stop the thing.

He could drown it.

But the creature was murderous. I’d escaped once, and I knew that this was the moment when all would be decided. I heard it running after me, ripping up earth with its claws, its breath gurgling manically.

I stumbled when I hit the beach, rolling an ankle on the smooth pebbles. My entire side became one big spasm of pain when I crashed and rolled.

The water lapped at me when I came to a stop, and there was the creature, only inches behind me—

Toth descended like an avenging angel, his wings spread wide and pulsating with furious colors.

He smashed into the creature, driving it to the ground, his claws buried in its back. Dark blood gushed out, soaking into the stony soil.

“You will not harm that which is not yours,” he spat, ripping the creature up off the ground.

He held it in midair, dismembering its limbs with quick, brutal strokes. I cringed, my stomach roiling at the sight of blood spewing forth, and then Toth forced the creature to face him. His claws punctured deep into its neck as he forced it to look at his wings.

Every detail burned itself into my mind.

The way the creature’s gelid, hate-filled eyes took in the swirling colors, and went blank and wide.

Toth’s claws reaching inside its skull, withdrawing a wispy, vaporous white form.

His mouth pressing into a flat line as he looked at that smoky form, held fast.

“Ah,” he said quietly. “I see what they did to you.”

The wispy shape… it was not the shape of a creature. It misted in and out of reality, but when its form was more solid, it looked like a woman.

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