Page 112 of An Inheritance of Monsters

“What the hell were we supposed to think after Porter vanished?” Sierra’s hands were now on her hips, and from the red flags on her cheekbones, she was really gearing up to give it to me. “All of his crap is still here, but there’s no sign of him! For all we know he’s dead in a fucking corner somewhere—”

I held up a hand. “Okay, stop. I apologize for vanishing on you, but…” I quickly cast around for an excuse that would cover three days of being totally M.I.A. “I was working. Now that you’ve taken on the host position, I’m taking more time to do research on our projects and provide back-up management. You’re doing a great job. I didn’t want to interrupt your work.”

For a moment, Sierra was mollified. Her mouth hung open but nothing came out.

Jack Steele decided to fill the silence for her.

“It’s seriously irresponsible to just take off like that.” He raised his chin, looking down his nose at me. “What if something had happened to you?We’rethe ones who have to deal with it while we’re stuck on this island.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Jack, I had no idea you cared so much.”

It was his turn to flush, with embarrassment instead of anger.

I could’ve kept going—we all knew Jack cared about no one but himself. This was just his chance to be the big man.

I decided not to tell him that his hair gel was flaking and had covered his shoulders with a fine dandruff snow.

“Have you seen Porter, though?” Sierra was subdued now. “We’ve looked everywhere and there’s no sign of him.”

There was no way I was going to tell these people that the last I’d seen of him, he’d been gleefully stripping off his clothes and frolicking like a child through the waves of an eldritch dimension.

I shook my head. “He could be bunkered up, too. He writes books, you know. That’s gotta take some serious time out of the day.”

The next time he wrote a book, it’d read like the ravings of a madman.

I was looking forward to it.

Sierra sighed, glancing nervously at the rain-pelted windows. “I just really hope he didn’t keel over in a room somewhere. This place is weird enough without adding dead bodies to the mix.”

I shrugged noncommittally, distinctly uncomfortable with the turn this had taken. “Yeah… I’ll keep my eyes open for him.”

“You know, when they said this place was haunted, I didn’t really believe it,” she mused. “We’ve been all over, to asylums, hospitals… and I’ve never seen anything that strange. But this place… there’s something about it. There’s something in the air here. Like there’s always eyes watching you from the walls…”

Jack sputtered out a laugh, losing his pompous composure. “Jesus, Sierra. It’s just a creepy, old-ass house. Everyone knows the haunting stuff is bullshit.”

She shook her head. “Come on. Eight of us arrived, and now we’re down to four, and the month isn’t even half over. This doesn’t feel like any place we’ve ever been before.”

I found myself looking at Sierra through a new lens.

Could she possibly be attuned to the Void?

Was I not the only female eligible to be marked by its power?

I disliked the sudden competitive urge that rose in me, twining to the surface of my emotions with a hot, jealous edge.

I would never share my monsters with her. With anyone.

I struggled to shove that jealousy back down, secure in the knowledge that my monsters wantedme. Nobody else would come between us, Void-marked or not.

And I noticed Carson was still leaning against the counter, now wearing an odd little half-smile as he watched Sierra.

“Have you seen anything?” I challenged him, not liking that look at all. There was a strange, sickening tension humming between the four of us.

Carson’s eyes flicked to me, and the half-smile widened. “Not anything unusual, no. This house just has an excellent atmosphere. It’ll probably be the most popular video we’ve ever filmed.”

Jack nodded enthusiastically. “Sorry, ladies, but that Sci-Fi Network spot is ours.”

Sierra rolled her eyes, not deigning to respond. “Did you ever find the Black Book, Juno?”

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