Page 41 of Lion's Share
And that’s all it had been — pure instinct. If something was made of shadow, the best defense was as much illumination as possible.
“You said there was one left,” he went on. “Did you see where it went?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “It sort of looked like it was heading toward the forest, but I didn’t see it actually go in. That was around the time when I came inside and locked up everything and started lighting candles.”
“Which was the smartest thing to do,” Ben assured me. Once again, his gaze swept the candlelit room. “Since we have no idea how long the power outage is going to last, I think we’re in for a dark night….”
Chapter Thirteen
Ben knew there was absolutely no question of his going back to the cottage tonight, not with a shadow stalker roaming around out there. When he suggested to Sidney that he should crash on the couch, she didn’t offer even a second of objection, instead telling him she’d get some blankets and an extra pillow for him, and that she knew there were a couple of toothbrushes still in their packaging in the second-floor bathroom.
As she went upstairs to fetch everything, he walked over to the eastward-facing window in the dining room and pushed the curtains aside. Everything was utterly black out there, thanks to the continuing power outage, and even though the stars and the waning moon should have been extra bright with no competition from manmade light sources, the ever-present clouds obscured the sky, making him feel as if Sidney’s big Craftsman-style house was floating in a blank void somewhere, not entirely connected to the earth.
He had to believe that somewhere not too far from here, people were furiously working to get the grid back online, but if this latest pulse had been strong enough, it might have blown something significant, and that could possibly take days to fix.
Not a very appetizing notion, the idea that Silver Hollow might be without power for such a long stretch when an entity that fed on the dark could be out there somewhere, just waiting to strike.
A chill went through him, and he let the heavy linen curtain drop. It wasn’t as if he would have been able to see a shadow stalker out there anyway, not when everything was already black against black.
A creak made him turn his head, and he saw Sidney descending the stairs, her arms full of blankets and sheets and a pillow, a toothbrush in its little clear plastic box riding precariously on top of the pile. “You can use the powder room to brush your teeth,” she said.
“That works,” he said.
She deposited the pillow and blankets and sheets on the sofa after lifting the toothbrush from its perch so she could place it on the coffee table. When she looked up, her face was pale, even in the warm candlelight.
“Ben, I’m scared.”
At once, he went over to her and pulled her into his arms. Maybe just the slightest resistance at first, as if she was ashamed she’d admitted her fear out loud, but then she pressed up against him, her head a welcome weight on his chest as she leaned in.
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I’m kind of scared, too.”
After he made that comment, she lifted her head so she could gaze up at him, the faintest ironic curl at one corner of her full mouth. “The fearless chupacabra hunter is frightened?”
He chuckled. “Like I said before, I don’t hunt them. Anyway, chupacabras are flesh and blood creatures, just like the griffin and the unicorn. Shadow stalkers seem to be something else entirely. I don’t like the idea of one of them being out there. But there’s safety in numbers, which is why I’m here.”
For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Then she gave a reluctant nod. “I suppose you’re right.”
He hadn’t wanted to add that if the shadow stalker was going to attack this place, it most likely would come in through one of the ground-floor windows. Just another reason why he thought it better to be here in the living room. That way, he could be her first line of defense…even if he had absolutely no idea how someone could fight a creature of darkness and shadow, one that wasn’t precisely corporeal in the way that most people thought of such things.
But he knew if he mentioned anything along those lines, Sidney would insist that he sleep upstairs. Not in her room, of course — they’d kissed multiple times, but she also hadn’t signaled him that she wanted to take matters further, at least any time soon. No, he had a feeling there was probably a guest bedroom upstairs where he could have slept.
He didn’t want to do that, though. If anything tried to get in, he’d have to try to stop it.
Exactly how, he had absolutely no idea. Shadow stalkers weren’t the kind of creatures that could be felled by a bullet.
Like vampires, they could only be defeated by the coming of day, which felt a long way off right now.
Doing his best to sound cheerful…but not too cheerful, or Sidney would know for sure that he was faking it…he said, “All we have to do is wait for daylight. After that — well, we’ll be in a better position to see what’s going on with the power and everything else. It will be fine.”
She looked up at him, gray eyes tinted almost golden by the flickering candlelight that surrounded them.
“You really think so?”
“I do,” he said, so firmly that he almost believed it.
Almost.
As couches went, this one hadn’t been too bad. Ben woke up with a slight crick in his neck, but that appeared to be the only real downside to sleeping here rather than in his bed at home.
