Page 45 of Misfit Monsters
“Let’s find those weirdo shadowkind!” I declare, planting my hands on my hips with a warble of my new leather jacket. “They don’t stand a chance against us.”
The men go on searching for the strange beings Rollick told us about.
Well, I guess it’s mostly Raze doing the searching. He prowls along the treeline with his lips parted, inhaling every scent that drifts on the breeze. A forked tongue darts past his lips.
Apparently basilisks—which as far as I’ve determined are giant lizards?—have a good sense of smell.
So do foxes, but I don’t know how seriously Mirage is taking our mission. As soon as we stopped, he shifted into his shadowkind form and now is bounding between the tree trunks with whirls and flips, swishing his five bushy tails.
Raze shoots a frown Mirage’s way, but I don’t mind seeing the fox shifter cavort around. When we’re cooped up in the van for a long stretch, he starts giving off a vibe of painful restlessness that makes me think of cheek-puckeringly sour grapefruit.
I’m sure if he notices something strange out here, he’ll say so. In the meantime, we get an acrobatic show.
Would Hail’s powers help him pick up on any unusual shadowkind nearby? He’s ambling along the edge of the forest too, in the opposite direction from Raze.
The fae in movies have those pointy ears. Maybe he’s got super hearing.
He stops and tips his pale face to the beaming sun. Something in his expression softens from its usual icy sharpness.
I catch a trace of butterscotch pudding awe that brings a smile to my lips. “It’s gorgeous out here, isn’t it?”
Hail’s eyes snap to me, his features hardening all over again with a much pricklier emotion that I barely taste before it’s gone. “Of course you’d be thinking about the view. I still can’t see why we got stuck with a cream puff.”
I would protest that cream puffs are delicious and delightful, and also shaped very differently than I am even if some parts of me are on the round side, but just then Raze lets out a grunt of apprehension.
Jonah takes a step closer. “What?”
The massive, sinewy man turns his head where he’s standing about thirty feet down the road. His tongue flicks farther over his lips.
He tenses. “Some kind of creature passed this way—not like anything I’ve smelled before. There’s something about the scent that … doesn’t seem totally right.”
Hail snorts. “Not totally right. I’m sure that description will have Rollick applauding our work.”
Jonah shoots the winter fae a glower of warning before turning back to Raze. “Can you follow the trail?”
The basilisk shifter stalks farther along the shoulder. “It’s faint, but I think whatever it came from started following the road here. The scent gets stronger when I walk this way.”
“Let’s see if we can catch up.” Jonah motions the rest of us into the van. “Raze, you sit up front with the window open. Let me know if I drive too fast for you to pick up the scent.”
I scramble into the back and nab the spot on the bench closest to the driver’s seat. A rumble spreads through the cushions when Jonah starts the engine.
As he drives, Raze tips his head out the open window like an incredibly over-sized Doberman. His eyes narrow against the rushing air. “It’s still getting stronger.”
When we reach a crossroad, we stop so Raze can quickly survey the area. He strides with a purposefulintensity that’s hard not to watch, his muscles flexing beneath his tan skin.
He points to the left. “That way.”
We’ve only been zooming in that direction for another minute or two when a shriek shatters the quiet of the wilderness.
Jonah mutters a curse and presses his foot to the gas. The van roars forward.
We all sit braced and staring out the windshield, even Hail’s icy detachment shattered. As we come up on a small cluster of buildings beside the country road, frightened shouts carry from deeper in the human settlement.
Jonah jerks the wheel to careen onto the even narrower side road. Outside a low brick building, several humans have scattered around a table laid with a checkered cloth and several plates of food.
They were having a breakfast picnic, croissants and scrambled eggs tragically abandoned. Now they’re backing away from a dark shape I only catch a glimpse of amid the nearby shrubs.
Jonah brings the van to a rasping halt on the gravel shoulder of the road and leaps out, but Raze throws open the passenger door even faster. He lunges past the panicked people toward the creature in the shrubs.
