Page 187 of Flirting with Darkness

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FROM THE DEPTHS

Icy water crashed into me, stealing my breath, sending me stumbling backwards. My calf hit something hard, and for a wild moment, my arms windmilled as I tried—and failed—to keep my balance.

With an “Oof,” I landed on a rock, my backside stinging.

The water ebbed, sheeting off me as I blinked it out of my eyes.

And blinked and blinked.

And kept blinking, because…Please gods say I’m not seeing this.

In the pool stood a creature.

At the top, regarding me, was a long head, pale, bone white. Hollows and holes gave way to nothingness, and I could see all the way to its interlocking jaw.

It was askull,not a head. From the long shape, it could’ve belonged to one of the horses that farmers near Briarbridge used to pull their ploughs.

Except I’d never seen a horse with sharp teeth made for tearing flesh.

And horses’ eyes weren’t glowing pits the colour of a frozen lake.

They bored into me, and I couldn’t look away, but I took in the rest of it in the periphery of my vision.

Instead of a mane, strips of flesh and straggly pond weed hung from its neck, some bloody, some rotten, most long enough to reach the pool and float across its surface. Its powerful shoulders rose above the water, bare bone pale against dark flesh, mottled with moss and green scum. As it strode from the depths, I caught a glimpse of hooves with wicked sharp edges.

Ma’s wails rose, losing their words, but gaining in volume, pounding in my head.

Over it, one thought circled:Not a creature. A monster.

For long moments there was only my heaving breaths, the drip of water from my hair and clothes, and the slow unfolding of the monster as it rose, taller and taller.

I could’ve sworn it stood on four feet, but when it stepped into the shallows, it rolled its shoulders back and where had just been hooves were now clawed fingers with thin membrane webbed in between. And those shoulders were no longer the powerful quarters of a horse, but the square shoulders of something that was almost, but not quite, a man.

Rose. You need to move.

I blinked. Some corner of my mind wasn’t frozen in shock, and it was right.

My muscles creaked as I scrambled against the rock, pushing myself to my feet as one hand went to my waist. Where there was no dagger. Damn it.

Fists would have to do. I had to protect Ma.

But my actions must’ve alerted the thing to the fact it had lost the element of surprise, because where its movements so far had been unhurried, now its hand darted towards me.

I’d barely formed a fist when those clawed fingers closed on my forearm.

Four pinpricks of pain opened up in my skin, one for each of those terrible claws.

Letting out a ragged cry that was all my pain and fear, I punched its wrist. My knuckles groaned as I hit again and again, but its grip didn’t loosen, even as my knuckles grew raw and bloody.

I kicked and stamped. I tore at its rotting flesh. I roared at it to leave us alone.

Ma still sat there, rocking back and forth as she started her song again. A lament forme.

I’d gladly die if it bought her a chance to survive. “Run, Ma. Run.”

But she didn’t even get up.

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