Page 41 of An Inheritance of Monsters

The spirit of a young man practically threw himself onto the beach, and suddenly the singing voice filling my ears stopped.

Crispy got up and moved to the other side, just as the ghost climbed to his feet, his face a mask of agony, and looked at the statue with pure relief.

He began to climb, only inches away from Crispy, who saw nothing at all as the ghost slipped into the yawning hole of the statue’s mouth.

I blinked, resisting the urge to scream, “How can you not see them!” when the ghost had been right there in plain sight.

“Okay, come on over, Juno. Stand behind it, then circle around as you begin the intro.”

Crispy stared at me expectantly, camera ready.

I did as told, drawing my braid over my shoulder again, clutching the Black Book against the fierce wind, but all I could think of while I spoke was that ghost and that unearthly voice.

“Colorless. Utterly bland,Jefe. Come on, you had the spark up at the manor.”

Crispy’s condemnation when I’d finished the intro again made me wince. I circled the statue to start again, and felt a drop of rain on my cheek.

Then another, and another.

Within seconds the rain was pouring out of the sky in sheets, so thick it seemed to fill my nose and eyes as I raced for the backpack and shoved the Black Book into its safe, neoprene confines. The rest of me was soaked to the skin within seconds.

“Hurry!” Sierra yelled, pointing at the sea. The waves weren’t just choppy now; under the pounding rain, the waves were roiling, like they were clashing to be the first to annihilate the shore and everyone on it.

Crispy had ripped off his jacket and wrapped the camera in it, beckoning me. I took his cold, slippery fingers and we raced towards the boulders.

I surpassed him quickly, tugging him along over the smooth shale—he had so much more to carry, and I was about to grab the other pack from his grasp—when I heard that unearthly woman’s voice again.

It was now a wail on the wind.

Crispy’s hand jerked in mine and was torn loose as a sharpcrackfilled the air.

I whipped around, blinded by rain, and saw Crispy flat on his face.

His normally dark skin seemed pasty white, made even starker by his black hair glued to his head. “My leg,” he whispered, lips quivering with pain.

Blood spread in a dark stain across the leg of his jeans, and his calf was twisted sideways in a completely unnatural direction.

Ivory bone gleamed at me through the rip in the bloodied fabric.

Chapter12

Juno

It took both Sierra and I to drag Crispy back to the manor, both of us slung with packs and panting despite the cold and the rain driving into us.

We slipped several more times, Crispy groaning in pain as he tried to hobble along on one leg, but the sight of broken one… well, it made my stomach turn to see the unnatural bend to it, the brightness of bone in the dark.

“I’m so sorry, Crispy,” I gasped as we dragged him through the garden, my shoulder muscles screaming from his weight.

“Not your fault,chica.” He groaned the words, wincing and sucking in a breath as we made it up the porch stairs. “Shoulda watched where I was going—it felt like someonepulledme—”

Sierra practically ripped the knob off the door and we burst into the kitchen.

Almost everyone was gathered there, cupping mugs of tea and gaping at us as we stood dripping blood and rainwater all over the marble floors, our harsh breaths filling the silence.

“We need an emergency boat,” I gasped, helping lower Crispy into a chair hastily proffered by Rosalie. “Crispy’s leg is badly broken.”

Before I’d even spoken, Mrs. Marsh had gone for a large, black plastic box beneath a cabinet. She pulled it out, unlatching it, and everyone peered in to see… a radio.

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