Page 58 of Misfit Monsters
What provoked their rage? I’ve had to put up with these dopes for days, and even I’m not that pissed off.
We have to be missing something.
The atmosphere of the forest resonates through me, reminding me that I’m a creature of the wilderness myself. I focus all my senses on the rampaging beasts.
What’s driving them? Is there a threat they’re reacting to?
What I see leaves me colder than before. There’s just… nothing.
I can’t pick up any actual fury in the creatures’ violence. No impression of instincts kicking in, no signals of panic or protective agitation.
All my own instincts about wild places tell me this is a totally mindless frenzy.
To my right, Mirage springs in front of Periwinkle to pounce on a ferret-sized beast that hurled itself at her. Raze rips open yet another being among the several smoking bodies already littering the hillside.
The few remaining creatures seem to recognize that the tables have turned, though I still don’t observe any signs of distress. They simply wheel in tandem and sprint up the hill the way they came.
Raze halts over the corpse he just savaged and shifts back into humanlike form, his chest heaving.
Jonah glances around. “Is everyone all right? Any injuries?”
“A few scratches,” Raze rumbles. “Nothing that won’t heal quickly.”
My bewilderment comes out in rancor. “We’re all fine. But what the fuck happened there? Aren’t you supposed to be wielding your vast powers to harness the demented beasts, sorcerer boy?”
Jonah cuts his gaze toward me with a twist of his mouth. He isn’t happy with the results of this battle either, even if we “won.”
He drags in a rough breath before answering. “I tried. My sorcery wouldn’t catch hold.”
Periwinkle’s forehead furrows. “Is it because they’re the strange kind of shadowkind? But you were able to control that one before.”
“I was. It did take more effort than usual, but it wasn’t impossible.” Jonah’s expression darkens. “The only cases I’ve ever come across where sorcery was completely ineffective… it was because another sorcerer had already imposed control.”
Ah. So we can blame more humans for this mess? What a shocking surprise.
Mirage has bounded up the slope and is peering over the crest. “They ran east. Should we follow them?”
Jonah’s revelation and everything I know about the patterns of the natural world collide into a knot of certainty at the base of my throat. “If we want to get to the source ofthe problem, we need to follow their trail backward and find out where they came from.”
And which mortal asshole pointed them in our direction.
22
Periwinkle
Night is falling through the forest. The trees have turned to silhouettes, the sky to slate gray. The lumpy ground keeps making its best attempts at tripping me.
At least I can feel the dips and ridges through the shadows. Needing extra guidance, Jonah aims the beam of his keychain penlight at the terrain just ahead of him.
Mirage and Hail merged with the shadows ages ago, and Raze only flickers out occasionally to give us glimpses of the trail to follow, but the sorcerer has to rely on his two legs. It doesn’t seem fair to leave him tramping onward as if he’s alone.
Unfortunately, my feet and ankles have joined the conspiracy against me. The pangs shooting up from them are sharpening by the minute. We’ve been backtracking the trail of that violent pack of shadowkind for hours.
The pain stirs memories I don’t want: noxious metals pressed into my skin, muttered words weaving right into my mind.
Jonah said the creatures that attacked us were probably controlled by another sorcerer. A sorcerer who sent shadowkind rampaging through the forest.
Not exactly a gesture of friendship.
