Page 64 of The Vampire and the Case of the Hellacious Hag

‘Long, long time.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, how did your husband die?’

She looked away and I grimaced. I hadn’t meant to upset her. ‘The Sdonalyasna kill him,’ she said finally. ‘Before many people come.’

I’d never heard that word, but my heart beat hard once. Was she talking about the beast beyond? Did she know what it was?

‘What is the Sdonalyasna?’ I said, trying to pronounce the word carefully but probably failing.

She gave me an odd look. ‘You know! Everyone know. Can’t come in now.’ She cackled again.

My God, she knew what the beast beyond the barrier was! Or, at the very least, she’d given it a name. Maybe I could use that to find more information – and more importantly, it might give me a hint as to what Shadow was. And maybe, just maybe, I might learn how to defeat it because there was a prophecy that apparently had my name on it.

The words were etched into my memory:When the flame-born guardian descends to the night, the veiled city’s mysteries will unfold. Thrice shall the cursed wolf’s mournful howl sound, heralding the coming of the shadow beast. Love shall be her beacon and with its power, the city might endure the destruction that comes.’Thanks for that, Mum.

Sdonalyasna. The word sounded like it could be native, but I realized that finding the language and the specific native group it came from might be incredibly hard.

I supposed I could start with Thomas; he’d said he was Inupiaq, from somewhere up north like Danny from the academy. But the beast beyond the barrier was definitely a southern Alaskan creature.

I didn’t know what group Stan was from, but since he’d been raised mostly by Gunnar and Sigrid, I doubted he’d retained much of his native culture. There were representatives of several native groups from this part of the state in Portlock: Anissa and Edgy were Alutiiq or Sugpiak, which was the group of natives that had lived in Portlock when the attacks first happened. Maybe it was an Alutiiq word; I’d ask them if Thomas didn’t know.

There were also Haida and Tlingit tribal members in town, as well as some Athabascan, Dena’ina, Tsimshian and Eyak, but I didn’t have friends in any of those groups.I grimaced; it might be a word none of them knew. My best bet was Matilda, and she wasn’t the easiest to understand.

I was both excited and frustrated. Matilda had come from somewhere with a vampire husband, dragging the skulls from his family and their friends, and had ended up in Portlock when it was fairly uninhabited. During the scare that had resulted in the barrier being built, the beast had killed her husband. At least that was how I was putting her story together.

Matilda interrupted my musings. ‘Rabbit girl, you stop mean men?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Bring more sugar snack. Matilda want back secret place.’

‘Where is secret place?’ I asked her.

She pointed down at the hill. ‘In.’ She tapped her chest pointedly. ‘Myplace. I want back.’

‘Could you show me and my friends where to go so we can stop the mean men?’

She squinted at me. ‘Bring sugar snack?’

‘Yes, I’ll bring you more treats’

‘Matilda show you.’

‘And my friends too?’ I gestured to the others by the vehicles. They were watching us, looking tense. I made an effort to appear relaxed.

She grunted. ‘And friends,’ she agreed grudgingly.

‘Thank you. We’ll come back tomorrow. Okay?’

‘Matilda listen for call.’ As she melted into the ground, she pointed to where an eyebrow should have been on her face and laughed to herself. Surely her vampire husband had eyebrows? Maybe he’d waggled them at her to make her laugh. I was surprised how much that made my heart ache and I swore I’d waggle them every time I saw her.

I waved to Thomas, Gunnar and Sidnee to show them I was done, then returned to them. ‘What did she say?’ Sidnee burst out before anyone else could.

‘She knows where they are in the mine – it’s her “secret place”. It sounds like they have a ward or some kind of field around the spot, so Matilda can’t get in. She wantsusto get in and stop them.’ I paused. ‘And we need to bring her more doughnuts. We have the council meeting soon, so I suggested we come back tomorrow. I’ll put in an order at the bakery.’

Gunnar looked around; everything was still and dark. ‘There’s nothing we can do here now. Might as well head back, get the council meeting over and done with, then we all have a party to go to, right, Sidnee?’

Her answering smile was faint. ‘I’m not sure…’ she started. ‘So many died. A party seems … crass.’

Gunnar shook his head firmly. ‘It’s what we need. Besides, if we’re under surveillance from the MIB, it’ll be the perfect smokescreen. They’ll see us partying and thinkwe’ve written off the explosion as an accident. They’ll think they’re in the clear, and when their guard is down, we’ll attack.’ He smiled broadly, but there was nothing friendly about his expression.

Sidnee nodded. ‘Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll send out a message to say that the party is still on.’ She chewed her lip. ‘Can you drop me at the hotel on the way to the council meeting? I don’t need to be there for that, do I?’

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