Page 21 of The Cursed Sebastian Storm

Sebastian concentrated on the fact that Eleanor had asked him to be there and that he knew what they were going to talk about. He hoped no one asked him why they hadn’t seen him in town for years. The secret-binding probably wasn’t strong enough to make him lie convincingly. He might be able to imply he hadn’t wanted to avoid the town, but that would only invite more questions Sebastian couldn’t answer. Now that the anxiety people had always assumed he had was real, he didn’t think he’d be able to use it as an excuse.

For the first time in years, Sebastian worried about what the people of Moonlight Falls thought about him. He didn’t want to be the reclusive guy people whispered about. He wanted people to like him but didn’t see why they would. They never had before.

James leaned in close and murmured, “Is there anything you want to say about the shades that I wasn’t there for?”

Sebastian shook his head. James had offered to help him explain in case he got overwhelmed during the meeting and didn’t want to talk to the group. Sebastian would have never thought to ask for something like that, but sitting there, becoming increasingly nervous, he was grateful for the option.

The city councilors all walked in together. Eleanor introduced Sebastian to a middle-aged woman named Melinda, who’d apparently known James’s late mother. She gave James a big hug and claimed the free seat next to him.

The other two city councilors were introduced as William and Nora. They sat over by Eleanor, though neither struck up a conversation with anyone. Nora was younger than Sebastian expected someone in a government position to be. She had to be about Parker’s age.

Mila Lopez was the next to bustle into the auditorium. At the sight of Sebastian, she gasped and rushed up to him. He automatically stood from his chair.

“Sebastian.” The woman engulfed him in a hug. “It’s wonderful to see you.”

He hadn’t expected her to be there. It made sense because Mila had always been involved in town affairs, but Sebastian hadn’t thought about her in ages. He hadn’t let himself, but the tight hug she gave him made it impossible to ignore how much he’d missed her.

Shit. Sebastian was going to cry. He was overwhelmed, and it had nothing to do with anxiety. Mila had been so much more than the woman who’d given him rides into town and looked after him when he wasn’t at Storm House. She’d been the only person in Moonlight Falls he’d felt truly comfortable with. He’d spent a lot of time in the library with her throughout his childhood. He wished he’d been able to see her over the last six years and had no idea what to say when he couldn’t explain what had happened to him.

“Oh, dear, it’s all right.” Mila cupped his cheek, looking up at him with tender eyes.

Sebastian sniffed and blinked, tears clinging to his lashes. “Sorry, it’s been so long.”

“Don’t even worry about it.” Mila smiled and released Sebastian, stopping to adjust the collar of his jacket. She glanced briefly at James, maybe recognizing the jacket as his, but she didn’t comment. She shooed Hazel out of her seat so she could sit beside Sebastian. “We have to catch up sometime soon.”

“Mm-hmm.” Sebastian nodded as he plopped into his chair, still too full of emotion for words.

Hazel settled on the other side of the guy with the boots. Two other men had entered while Sebastian had been occupied with Mila, and with all the seats filled, it looked like they were ready to start.

“Welcome, everyone,” the mayor said without getting up, keeping things more casual. “As you all know, we’ve had some serious problems around town and in the forest.” She glanced at boots-man. “I think we can all agree something is changing with the shades around here.”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever heard the kids at school talk about being frightened of the beasts,” said a middle-aged man in a blazer whom Sebastian hadn’t been introduced to. “I don’t think we can keep telling them there’s nothing to fear, but I don’t want to cause a panic either.”

“No, you’re right, Tony. And parents need to be made aware that it’s getting less and less safe after dark.” Eleanor looked around the group. “But before we go making announcements, we need a better picture of what’s happening. Parker, why don’t you start?”

Parker explained how Eli had been violently attacked by a shade about a month and a half ago. The incident was completely unprovoked and seemed like the start of whatever was going on. Before then, people had noticed shades getting more aggressive, but they hadn’t acted completely outside the realm of their typical behavior, so no one had been worried. Even after what happened to Eli, most people seemed to assume the attack was a fluke or an outlier.

Then, in the last few weeks, things had taken a sharp turn for the worse. Unprovoked shade attacks involving physical contact had been almost unheard of before. Now, more people around town were reporting being grabbed and scratched, and there had been several attempted shade bites thwarted by light. The group was counting James being ambushed under Storm House as one of these incidents, and when that came up, Sebastian was asked to tell the group how many shades he had around his property.

He looked at the floor in the middle of the circle, glad he’d gone over what he wanted to say beforehand. “There’ve always been a lot of shades hanging around and peering in my windows. A group of them even live under the house, but recently, there seems to be hundreds of shades lurking in the trees on the south end of my property. They watch me when I go down there. It seems territorial.” He wanted to explain how they responded to the magic in the veins, but there was no way for him to other than to say, “They react badly to magic.”

No one questioned him, and he sat back in relief as Eleanor thanked him for the information. Though she looked less than pleased to hear there were hundreds of shades just outside of town.

“While all of that is concerning,” Eleanor said, pulling the group’s focus back to her. “Attacks and increased numbers aren’t our most pressing problem. I’ve had one report of a shade immune to light. And not just immune to artificial shade-lights like we saw when they smashed out the streetlights in town, but immune to sunlight summoned by magic. And then there was the bear.” She glanced at the man in the work boots.

“Yeah.” He scowled and introduced himself as Carson Lee. “We deal with shades pretty often when we’re logging, but we’re never out at night, so it’s no drama. Until yesterday when a possessed bear attacked my team.”

“Really?” A man, who Sebastian was pretty sure was the local museum curator, leaned forward, shocked. “That was kept quiet.”

Parker looked between them, scowling as deeply as Carson and the mayor. “What happened?”

“It came charging in at us and went for one of my guys. He had to go to the hospital for the bite on his arm, but he’ll be okay. The bear definitely wasn’t acting normal. It came in like it was on a mission to rip us apart. I saw its blackened eyes and onyx teeth myself, and it took an awful lot of shots to take down.”

“Did the shade leave the body?” Parker asked.

Carson nodded. “Floated right out of its fur. My son banished it with summoned light, sent the beam directly into the shade’s chest, and it dissipated.”

Fear made the hairs on the back of Sebastian’s neck stand up. Shades could possess animals, but it rarely happened. They rarely did it because they lost the ability to use their shadow magic while inside a living being. They couldn’t dematerialize, fly, or shapeshift, but they could withstand full sunlight while inside an animal’s body.

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