Page 91 of The Hive Queen

My smile fades as I take in Amalia. “Nice to see you again, kid.”

“Hey, Uncle Marc, sorry I bailed on dinner the other day.” She ducks her head, then looks at Flint. “You okay, Grandpa?”

“I’ve been better,” Flint says without a hint of warmth in his voice. “I could just eat you up right now.”

Amalia’s gulp can be heard loud and clear over the mic, and Mayn’s murmur of delight follows.

I gesture to the pack Amalia wears. “Let’s see the Shard.”

She shrugs off the bag and pulls the box from within, opening it to reveal the crystal spearhead I dug out of the danguri demon’s crawl space.

Reaching back into her bag, she pulls out a bundle of rods the length of my forearm and snaps them together into a long handle. She affixes the Shard to one end with a piece of thick wire and stands with it in her hand.

It looks a bit like a high school theater prop that will break the first time it’s tested.

“That’s the big magical weapon?” Johannsson shakes his head. “Doesn’t look like much.”

I’d thought the same when I first saw it, too, but it’s sharp and made for stabbing, so it can’t be all bad.

“The drone has stopped in front of an old house,” Mayn says. “It looks like it was abandoned, and the windows are boarded up.”

“Make Out Mansion,” Johannsson and O’Hara say at the same time.

When we all turn to look at Johannsson, he shrugs. “Not my fault none of you got lucky in high school.”

“I didn’t go to high school here,” Sharpe says.

“Ancient beings.” Flint points at me, Pen, and himself.

“School is for losers,” Amalia sniffs.

“Sir, do we take the drone down now?” Mayn asks.

Sharpe looks at Flint, who shakes his head.

“Wait to see what happens.” Sharpe motions us forward. “We’re coming to you now. If you see the Hive Queen, do not engage until we’ve arrived.”

We hurry through the woods to close the gap between us and the forward team.

As we join the hunters, Mayn glides over to us. “The drone just went inside the house.”

She points a dozen feet through the trees to where broken steps lead up to a black hole where double doors once stood.

Make Out Mansion looks nothing like I expected. Trees encroach all the way up to the sagging front porch, making it difficult to see all of the house, but it gives the impression of mass.

The brick exterior crumbles from years of neglect, with vines growing through the mortar. The bottom two floors jut out on either side of the entrance in straight lines peppered with narrow, boarded-up windows. Trees block the view, preventing us from seeing just how far the house extends, but we can see enough to know that it’s immense.

Triangle gables on the third-floor hint at German architecture, while wrought-iron balconies speak of a different era. In the back, a tall tower juts up, the top of its roof like teeth fending off the return of nature.

Nothing about this place inspires desire. It looks downright haunted.

“Why is this here?” Sharpe shakes his head. “It’s a fire hazard.”

“The owners refuse to tear it down,” Johannsson explains. “It belonged to the family who founded Clearhelm.”

“There’s a dungeon in the basement,” Troy adds. “Rumor says it’s where the founders kept their sacrifices, and every year, they’d spill the blood of the innocents in exchange for the next generation’s power and fortune.”

“The family was tried and sentenced to death, but not before the last heir sacrificed his own child to the family’s patron demon.” He points to the tower at the back. “That’s where the widow’s ghost still walks, searching for her baby.”

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