Page 46 of Misfit Monsters
I dash after him, my pulse skittering with the memory of him falling during the morphball game. He was fine then, but we don’t know what this creature can do.
As I run past the humans, my new leather jacket flapping at my sides, their fear washes over me like a deluge of pickle juice. Then a more potent wallop smacks me from up ahead… from the unknown being crashing through the bushes.
“Stop!” The cry bursts out of me before I even think about it, but Raze listens. He skids to a halt a couple ofstrides short of the shrubs, his claws already extended from his fingertips.
I hold out my hands in a calming gesture both for him and the being shuddering a few feet away. “It doesn’t want to attack anyone. It’s not feeling aggressive, only scared.”
The other men come to a halt behind me.
“Mirage,” Jonah says. “You can alter perceptions—can you make these people forget they saw this thing—and us?”
“Faster than a fox fleeing a hound!” Mirage replies cheerfully.
I focus all my attention on the strange creature in the bushes. I can only make out some tufts of fur, the edge of what might be a wing, the lash of what I assume is a tail. It’s not terribly large, only the size of a standard poodle, but the humans wouldn’t have known what to make of it.
I keep my voice as soothing as I can. “Hey there. We won’t hurt you. We just want to find out what’s going on. We’ll make sure those people don’t yell at you anymore.”
Thankfully, whatever Mirage is doing allows me to keep my promise. No more yelps or hollers split the air. Door hinges squeak—I think he’s persuaded the humans to go into the building.
The sour flavor of terror starts to recede.
“Very good,” I murmur. “We’re going to come around the bushes so we can see you better. I promise we’ll give you lots of space.”
Hail scoffs under his breath. “This is ridiculous.”
“Let her try,” Jonah says, quiet but firm.
I move first, backing up a few steps and then easing through a gap between the decorative bushes. The shadowkind creature gives off a brief quiver of renewed anxiety, but it stays huddled next to its temporary shelter rather than bolting.
I’ve never seen a being like it before, but lesser creaturesdo come in a wide range of appearances. This one gives me the impression of a bedraggled cat that’s ballooned far beyond its ideal size, with crooked ears, one useless leathery wing, and not just a tail but two slim appendages whipping back and forth from its belly.
The men follow me, hanging even farther back. The creature starts to cringe away.
I hold out a hand toward it beseechingly. “You’re safe. We’re only going to look at you. See, we’re staying all the way over here.”
It relaxes slightly. Mirage lets out a low chuckle. “Beating the beast with sweetness.”
At the edge of my vision, Jonah sends a smile my way. “Thank you, Peri. You’re doing great.”
Hail takes on a bored tone. “What the fuckisthat thing?”
The moment he’s asked, the answer changes—because the creature does. All at once, its legs shoot up, its chest expanding, the wing vanishing into its side and a ring of spines jutting out in its place. It surges up and out to nearly my own size.
I can’t help flinching backward with a shiver of surprise. “I didn’t think lesser beings could change their forms.”
Jonah’s brow has furrowed. “They normally can’t. I’ve never seen one do that before.”
Raze’s voice comes out uncertain even in its gruffness. “Neither have I. It’s definitely what I smelled before—and its scent just changed too.”
Even Hail sounds a bit taken aback. “It hardly looksdangerous, in any case.”
Nope. Now the thing looks like a bedraggled, swollen, spiky bulldog on stilts—incredibly weird, but wobbly as a newborn foal.
“We don’t know thatthiscreature caused any problems,”Jonah says. “There could be something much bigger going on. I’m going to ask it to show us the rift it came through.”
I’m confused about how he thinks asking is going to work until a string of sorcerous syllables tumbles off his tongue. The hairs on the back of my neck rise even though the command isn’t aimed at me.
But this is one of the reasons Rollick sent Jonah with us. There isn’t any other way we could convince the creature to lead us to the place where it emerged from the shadow realm.
