Page 83 of Soul of Shadow
“Right.” Abigail nodded, keeping her eyes on her feet, as if not looking around would somehow make the world go back to normal. “Yes. Okay. You’re right. Let’s—”
Then she let out an ear-splitting screech.
“What isthat?” Abigail gasped, pointing down at the vätte.
“Oh. Right.” Charlie bent over and scooped up the creature, setting him on her shoulder. “Don’t worry—he’s a friend.”
“Afriend?” Abigail looked as if her head might explode.
“He is cute as hell,” said Mason, scratching under the vätte’s beard. “Hey, little man.”
The vätte squeaked in response.
“We’re wasting time,” said Charlie. “We need to go inside the house.”
“What hou—” Mason asked, but when he turned around, his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. “Oh. Wow.”
“Yes. That house.” Charlie started across the clearing. “Now, let’s get inside before a pack of goblins finds us.”
36
“All right,” said Abigail the minute they stepped inside the old house. She ran a finger along the hallway table, then raised it to inspect the thick layer of dust now coating her skin. “This place seriously needs to be condemned.”
“Don’t think that’s possible,” said Charlie, setting the vätte down on the carpet. He led the way down the hall. Apparently, he was now completely healed from his brush with the draugar; he waddled without any sign of pain or a limp. Charlie ushered Mason and Abigail after him. “Not when most humans aren’t even able to tell it exists.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Mason stopped at the entrance to the dining room and stared at the wall of Norse symbols. “What in theExorcism of Emily Roseisthat?”
Charlie grabbed his and Abigail’s wrists and dragged them farther down the hallway. “I know. It’s creepy as hell. But it’s not what we’re here for.” She stomped down the dusty carpet, stopping only when they reached the foot of the staircase.
“Whatarewe here for, exactly?” Abigail eyed the top of the staircase, which wound into darkness. The vätte, unperturbed,hopped up onto the first step and began his remarkably quick ascent. “You haven’t told us your grand plan.”
“I’m here on a hunch.” Charlie started up, staying just behind the vätte. Mason took the stairs two at a time, bounding ahead of her, while Abigail stayed close to Charlie’s back. “If my hunch is correct, we’ll soon have everything we need.”
At the top, Charlie used memory to guide her to Elias’s bedroom. The door was shut but not locked. She turned the handle, stepped inside, and flipped on the nearest light switch.
Which illuminated Elias’s crumpled body on the carpet.
Abigail screeched and leapt backward. “Is he… is hedead?”
“Nope.” Charlie crossed the floor and stepped over Elias’s body. “This is what happens when he turns into his mare form.”
As she walked over him, she considered—only for the briefest moment—taking the knife in her hand and driving it through his chest. What would happen if she killed his human form? Would he be stuck as a shadow creature forever? Or would his shadow form die, too?
But when she thought about committing cold-blooded murder in front of her brother and friend, her stomach lurched.
And—though she would never admit it to herself—when she thought about murdering Elias…
Her stomach lurched even harder.
She crossed over to his desk. With the hand not gripping the knife, she pulled open the top drawer and riffled around.
Mason was close on his sister’s heels. He paused above Elias’s body, peering curiously down. “This is what happens when he turns into that shadow thing?”
“Yes.” Charlie tried the next drawer, and the one below it. She found a notebook, which she picked up and rapidly flippedthrough. “When he becomes a mare, he can perform all these feats that are impossible when he’s in human form: walk through walls, run impossibly fast, create weapons out of thin air. That sort of thing.”
“And his body just…” Abigail crept forward, nudging Elias’s foot with her toe. “Stays here?”
“Yep,” said Charlie, shoving the notebook back into the drawer and feeling along the back of the wood for a secret compartment. She was starting to get nervous; maybe Eliashadn’twritten the location down. When she pictured him deciphering the symbols on the trees, she imagined him with a paper in front of him, noting the meaning of each carving. But maybe he’d done it all on his phone. Or maybe he had done that on paper but then burned it afterward. If that was the case, they were at a dead—
