Magisterium

9

Glenn turned to Kevin, bundling his jacket over the wound. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to control her voice, trying to slow it down and sound calm and sure. “They’ll come and we’ll get you on the skiff and to a hospital.”

She turned back again. Where were they?

“PLEASE HELP US!”

Glenn tore off her own jacket and piled it on Kevin’s side, leaning her whole weight into it. She was about to yell again, but just then there was a rustle of branches behind her as the agents came through the trees. A flash of anger hit Glenn when she saw the guns in their hands, but she pushed it aside.

“I’ll go with you; please, just take him to the hospital!”

The agents stood impassively at the edge of the woods. Four huge men in armor, faceless in their helmets.

“What are you waiting for? Please, I know what I did was wrong.

I shouldn’t have run. That wasn’t Kevin’s fault. He didn’t do anything.

Please don’t punish him.”

The agents said nothing. Glenn tried to tear the bracelet off, but her hands, slick with blood, slid off its surface.

“Take it. Take it and help him! What’s the matter with you, just take it!”

One of the agents raised his rifle.

“No,” another said. “Not here. You’ll have to use the knife.”

The agent’s hand dropped to a knife strapped to his waist. It whispered out into the air between him and Glenn as he advanced.

“Please,” Glenn said, backing away.

But the faceless man kept coming. She couldn’t run and leave Kevin; she couldn’t fight. Deep inside her mind she cried out for her father. The agent’s boots crunched through the snow. Glenn took Kevin’s hand in hers.

Just then, a low moan cut through the woods behind Glenn and surrounded them, echoing through the trees.

The agent stopped.

Something large lumbered in the dark behind Glenn. Tree limbs fell. Rocks tumbled. The agent held up his hand for silence. The moan rose again. Closer now, sharper. More like a growl. It had a wildness to it that made Glenn tremble.

“It’s nothing,” one of the older agents said. “An animal. Go on.”

“Leave them here, then,” said another. “Take the bracelet and we’ll go.”

The agent with the knife nodded and reached for Glenn’s

bracelet.

Glenn was dimly aware of something soaring through the air

above her, a massive shadow blotting out the moonlight. Then there was a scream and the agent in front of her disappeared, wiped away like someone swept out to sea. He was there, and then he was gone, and in his place was a great dark mass crouching between Glenn and the three remaining agents. The agents moved toward it immediately — then stopped as the mass unfolded, rising up into the cold air until it reached its full height.

When it did, Glenn’s eyes went wide and one of the agent’s guns dropped into the snowbank with a crunch.

Whatever it was, it was at least seven feet tall with a broad chest, long arms, and legs roped with muscle. Its hands were bunched into fists; when they unfurled, Glenn saw fingers topped in claws.

On the ground in front of it, the agent with the knife lay on his back. There was a gash in his bulletproof armor, and the snow around him was soaked with blood.

The other three agents froze, looking one to the other until one of them edged closer, reaching for their fallen comrade. He stopped when the creature released a low growl. There was a rumble in its throat and its muscles tensed, ready to spring at them.

“No!”

The thing’s head snapped toward Glenn. In the half-light, she couldn’t make any sense of it. It seemed misshapen, huge and angular.

It regarded her for a moment and then turned back to the agents. It was too late. Glenn looked down into the snow; she didn’t want to see this.

There were no sounds of movement, though, and no screams -

just a deep intake of breath and then a roar that was unlike anything Glenn had ever heard. She could feel it pulsing through her body, deep into her bones. It made some primitive part of her go cold.

When it finally stopped, Glenn managed to look up. The three agents had abandoned their friend and fled into the woods, leaving him lying in his widening pool of blood. The thing crept up to his still body, hunching over it, its claws dripping blood. A moan resounded through the thing’s body as it reached out to him.

“Leave him alone!”

It turned toward her. Glenn squeezed Kevin’s hand in hers and shut her eyes. She could feel the heat of the creature and smell the wild stink of it as it approached, drawing to within inches of her. The hot wind of its breath blew on her face as it leaned in.

Every muscle in Glenn’s body went rigid as she waited to feel teeth and claws. But instead, it spoke.

“Come,” it said in a low rumble. “Come with me, Glennora

Amantine.”