The Gift

Chapter 77

Whit

Sprinting through the Shadowland is like skiing downhill with your eyes closed. Pure terror. Our hungry and relentless pursuers might be equally screwed by how easy it is to get lost in this formless landscape, but we're doubly doomed by their sense of smell, which I have no doubt can slice right through fog. Which means…

My sister and I are about to be torn apart and devoured on the cold ground of the Shadowland.

A low moaning cuts through the mist a stone's throw ahead. For a second I'm confused and think that somehow we've gone in a circle and the weird creatures are in front of us now, ready to pounce and start devouring.

But I'm wrong.

"Lost Ones!" yells Wisty.

And then there they are-their ragged shadows, the glinting light of their eye slits. And there are so many of them-dozens of the ghouls converging on us.

"This way," I tell Wisty. "As soon as we see the yellows of their eyes, we're going to the left-hard left."

"I just hope it doesn't put us right back into the mouths of those other killers!"

"Me, too. Left, then right. Stay on my back."

The Lost Ones are looming up and fanning out as we get close, but we're not yet close enough. "Not yet, not yet, not yet," I tell Wisty.

And I brace myself for their cold. Fifteen yards, ten yards, five yards-there it is! The cold hits us like a ton of ice.

"Now!" I yell, and wheel left, my hand holding Wisty's behind me. She's got to keep up. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-"Back right!"

And then, behind us, the moaning suddenly meets the howling and it's as if there's a battle royal going on between all the mummies and werewolves ever conceived.

"It worked!" I yell. "So far anyway. Keep watching for them-everywhere."

And then more happens in the next five seconds than has happened in any other moment of my life, or probably anyone else's.

We hear Byron scream out, "Call them off, you idiot!"

"You call off yours!" replies a female voice, one that makes my heart race and then go cold in the next beat.

"There's a portal!" yells Wisty, pointing at the telltale fog swirl ahead.

"That was Celia's voice!" I gasp, stopping in my tracks.

"Don't you dare," my sister snaps.

And then, though I have ninety pounds on her and a whole lot more muscle and sports experience than she does, my little sister hits me with a flying tackle that takes me out at the knees and drives me straight through the portal.

Okay… it's not quite that simple. It never is.