Page 56 of Lion's Share
“We’ve been trying to hide from everyone — Agent Morse, Linda Fields, Dr. Rosenthal and her team. But what if instead of running and hiding, I confront the shadow stalker directly?”
He stared at me like I’d just suggested I should jump out of a plane without a parachute. “Sidney, that thing killed two of the Hendersons’ goats and almost got the other ones. What makes you think you can face it and survive?”
“Because it’s hunting me specifically,” I said, then turned away from the window so I could look directly at him. “Which means it wants something from me. And maybe, just maybe, that gives me some kind of leverage.”
Another wave of telepathic input washed over me, but this time it wasn’t from any human mind. It was cold and alien.
Hungry.
Magic-touched. Light-bringer. Must feed. Must consume the bright-burning before it grows too strong.
I gasped and staggered backward, nearly tripping over the coffee table.
“What?” Ben was at my side at once, his strong hand a steadying touch on my arm. “What’s the matter?”
“I heard it,” I whispered. “The shadow stalker. It’s not just hunting me because I have magical abilities. It’s hunting me because it needs to feed on magic to survive, and I’m the strongest source it can find.”
Ben’s face had gone pale, the dark stubble on his chin standing out starkly. “That’s not leverage, Sidney. That’s making yourself prey.”
“No, don’t you see?” I gripped his arm, my thoughts going about a hundred miles an hour as I tried to grapple with concepts that had never passed through my mind before. “If it needs my magic to feed, then I’m valuable to it alive, at least temporarily. And if I can figure out how to control these abilities instead of just having them happen to me randomly….”
His frown had only deepened, and I could tell he wasn’t at all thrilled with the plan I’d begun to formulate. “You want to use yourself as bait. No way.”
While I appreciated his concern, I knew I was the only person who had even the slightest prayer of making this work. “No, I want to draw it away from town before Dr. Rosenthal’s team stumbles onto something they can’t handle.” I moved toward the stairs. “But first, I need to change into something more practical than jeans and sneakers.”
“Sidney, wait.” Ben caught my hand just as my foot touched the bottom step. “Even if you’re right about this, you can’t face that thing alone. The griffin said he’d protect Silver Hollow, but — ”
“Then we need to find the griffin,” I said. “And we’ll convince him to help me end this before anyone else gets hurt.”
As if in response to my words, a distant roar echoed from somewhere in the forest — not quite like a lion, not quite like an eagle, but something that combined the fiercest aspects of both.
The DAPI team had found something in the woods.
From the sounds of it, something had found them right back.
And if the look on Ben’s face was any indication, he had absolutely no intention of letting me go out there tonight.
Chapter Seventeen
Ben had thought that convincing Sidney to let him go into the forest alone would be the hardest part of his evening. She’d argued with him, had said it was crazy for him to go out there by himself. But he knew he wasn’t the shadow stalker’s prey, and that was why she needed to stay home. As long as she was inside, she should be safe.
Probably.
But now he realized coming out ahead in that particular argument had only been the first hurdle. Now he had to actually find the damn griffin.
According to her, the majestic creature had a talent for appearing when you least expected it and vanishing the moment you actually needed its help. He’d been hiking through the woods for nearly an hour, following the barely there trails that Sidney had shown him over the past month, listening for any sound that might indicate where the DAPI teams were conducting their search — or where a griffin might be hiding.
Something about the forest seemed almost electric tonight, as if the very air was charged with potential energy. His phone had lost signal altogether about twenty minutes into his hike, which wasn’t entirely surprising, given Silver Hollow’s spotty cellular coverage. However, the way his flashlight kept dimming and brightening told him his cell phone’s defection was something much more than simple equipment failure.
A branch snapped somewhere to his left, and Ben froze. The sound was too heavy to be a deer, too deliberate to be random forest debris falling. He clicked off his flashlight and waited, letting his gaze adjust to the darkness, since the moon hadn’t risen yet and would be less than half full even when it did appear.
Alien eyes gleamed at him from between the trees.
The griffin stepped into the small clearing where Ben stood, its leonine body moving with predatory grace despite its size. Up close, the creature was unbelievably impressive — easily six feet tall at the shoulder, with wings that spanned at least twenty feet when fully extended. The eagle head tilted as it studied him, dark eyes full of an intelligence that was both alien and yet oddly familiar at the same time.
“I was hoping I’d find you,” Ben said, keeping his tone low but conversational. He’d learned from Sidney that speaking normally seemed to work better than trying to whisper, which the creatures apparently found suspicious.
The griffin made a low rumbling sound that wasn’t quite a growl, wasn’t quite a purr. Ben felt rather than heard the response in his mind — not words, exactly, but concepts and emotions that his brain struggled to translate. Was this easier for Sidney, since she apparently carried some magic within her that allowed her to attract and communicate with these creatures?
