by Dave Ferraro
Chapter Seventeen
Shanna walked along the hallway slowly, stifling a yawn. She’d been having the hardest time falling asleep in the infirmary. Amelia was hooked up to machines that beeped all the time, the bed was uncomfortable and Felicia kept coming in to check on them every half hour, just when Shanna would feel about ready to fall asleep. Not that Shanna really wanted to. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that awful smile that the monster gave her. She shuddered.
“Jesus Christ, you’re keeping me up,” Rachel had said after Felicia had left them for the fifth time, and Shanna had tossed on her bed, to its squeaking protests.
“Sorry,” Shanna murmured, looking over at the girl, who had pushed her pink frilly sleep mask up over her forehead.
“Why don’t you get some warm milk?” Rachel suggested, softening. “My mother swears by it.”
And so here she was. Warm milk didn’t sound very appealing, but it was that or ask Felicia to give her something to put her to sleep. And who knows what that would do? What if the creature just outright attacked her then, and she couldn’t wake up because of the medication?
Stop it, Shanna ordered herself as she pushed open the door to the kitchen. You’re freaking yourself out.
Running her hand over the wall, Shanna illuminated the kitchen, as well as the figure hunched over the counter. The cigarette smell gave her away before she could properly see who it was. “Valor?”
Valor turned to smile at her as she tapped her cigarette into the ash tray at her elbow. “Hello, Shanna. What are you doing up so late?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Shanna retorted, offering a grin as she retrieved a mug from the cupboard and poured in some milk. She hesitated as she put the mug into the microwave, unsure if she would like warm milk. But she decided to set aside her reservations and give it a try as she recalled her other option.
“Warm milk?” Valor asked.
“Yeah,” Shanna shrugged, taking a seat next to her. “Rachel suggested it.”
“Mmm. She seems to have a suggestion for everything, that one does.”
Shanna chuckled. “Yes, she does, doesn’t she? But she has a big heart…beneath all that makeup and perfect hair and…sarcasm.”
Valor raised an eyebrow. “I’m happy to hear you’re making friends.”
“So, what are you doing up?”
“I don’t know,” Valor said. “Just waiting to hear that Hunter is making some headway, I suppose. It’s hard to go to sleep when others aren’t.”
“You feel responsible?”
Valor nodded. “I suppose. Or guilty that I would be little help cross-referencing runes and symbols. Maybe even a little helpless.”
“Helpless? You?” Shanna snorted in disbelief as the microwave beeped, announcing that her milk had been warmed. She retrieved it and returned to her seat beside Valor, watching the milk for a moment before taking a tentative sip. She licked her lips a bit after the first taste, then nodded to herself and sipped at it more eagerly. It wasn’t half bad. It was kind of comforting, in fact.
“I feel helpless more and more these days,” Valor admitted, watching Shanna.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I have a hunter missing an arm, one with a concussion and the rest being attacked when they go out to rent a movie.” She sighed. “I don’t feel like I’m preparing you guys very well.”
“I think you are,” Shanna said. “I mean, if we weren’t prepared, the werewolves would have picked us off.”
“Maybe. But I think I need a more rigid system of training in place. I’m not doing you any favors by letting you guys train on your own, with a few trainers and lecturers coming in at random. We need more structure, to really develop you to the next level.”
“Okay,” Shanna said slowly. “What are you thinking?”
“Regular classes here at the mansion,” Valor replied, letting out a mouthful of blue smoke. “I could probably get a good team of scholars together for the job. Mythology, demonology, magick, weapons training, cryptozoology, martial arts. There are plenty of opportunities that we haven’t taken advantage of, and we have the resources right here. I don’t…I don’t know what I’ve been thinking, letting you guys run around loose.”
“You didn’t know what would be best,” Shanna said, finishing off her milk. “You have to kind of learn as you go, right? There’s never been a team of hunters like this before. You’re doing the best you can.”
Valor smiled lightly. “You know what? You’re pretty smart, Shanna Hunt. I knew I liked you from the first time you turned me down to join the team.”
Shanna waved the compliment away. “See you later, Valor.” She stood up and walked over to the kitchen door.
“Good night.”
Shanna hesitated at the door. “Do you want me to turn the light off again?”
Valor considered for a moment. “No. Leave it on.”
Smiling, Shanna left her and made her way slowly back to the infirmary. She did feel more drowsy than when she’d left, so perhaps there was something to the milk. She smirked. Not that she would admit such a thing to Rachel.
Slipping into the infirmary, Shanna stepped past Amelia’s bed, where the hunter lay with wires hooked up to her, a steady beeping coming from a device beside her. She looked so vulnerable like that, no semblance of the strong sorceress that she knew at all. It was eerie, almost like looking at a completely different person altogether.
Shanna slipped into her bed and pulled the cool sheets up to her chin, wincing as the bed squeaked under her weight as she shifted. She turned to the right to see if Rachel had noticed, but the girl seemed to be fast asleep, her mouth agape and her pink sleep mask firmly in place.
Relaxing, Shanna leaned back into her pillows. She was surprised that Valor was so shaken by recent events. She was usually such a voice of reason, of authority, that it never really occurred to Shanna that she was learning as she was going along too. Of course, Shanna had been young when her own parents had been killed, so she hadn’t gotten that early glimpse into adult life, discovering that her parents weren’t the perfect people she’d imagined them to be, with all of the answers. All she’d had was a distant aunt whom she’d rarely seen. Most kids got to see their parents make mistakes, and realized that no one was perfect. This was really Shanna’s first glimpse into that realm with an adult she respected. It made her give pause. Valor was just like her. In fact, hadn’t Valor been a hunter once? Shanna could one day be just like Valor.
Shanna snorted at the thought and turned over, earning another groan from the bed. Everybody was flawed. Even the people watching out for her here. They were equals in the arena against the monsters of the night.
And suddenly Shanna felt that she was weightless. Her eyes snapped open in response as icy fear stole over her. She looked down at her body, lying peacefully beneath her, no sign of the creature yet.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Shanna looked up at Amelia’s bed. Nothing. Amelia wasn’t hovering over her bed like a phantom either, but looked completely normal, sleeping soundly in her bed.
With a glance in Rachel’s direction, Shanna suddenly realized why the creature wasn’t focused on her body yet. It was too busy with Rachel.
Shanna swallowed hard as she made out the black-robed figure sawing away at the threads that bound Rachel to her body. Rachel seemed aware of what was going on overhead, and cursed at the creature with her mind, which began to echo in Shanna’s mind as she concentrated. “Coward! Face me on my own terms and we’ll see how far those nasty nails in desperate need of a manicure get you!”
Shanna snorted, alerting Rachel to her presence. “He doesn’t seem very affected by your words.”
Rachel nodded. “I know. Annoying when they don’t listen.”
The creature suddenly stood up straight, shaking a good amount of sand from his body as he turned to look at Shanna.
Shanna swallowed hard as its red eyes focused on her, its mouth drawing into a wide smile, teeth fitting perfectly in their zigzag so that it almost looked like a solid wall of teeth.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!” Rachel told him, reaching out to grab his arm, the monster shrugging off her hands easily.
He turned back to her and ran one hand over his face, before throwing what looked like sand onto Rachel’s sleeping body.
Rachel’s floating self immediately stopped protesting and seemed to go still.
And then it turned back to her.
Shanna nervously watched it approach, gazing down at her body and the dozen lonely threads left that connected her to her body. What would happen when they were severed? She looked up at its oversized mouth full of teeth, imagining the worst.
When it reached her, it gave pause, meeting her eyes for a moment before raking its hand over the remaining threads, which snapped easily.
Shanna swallowed hard as she felt herself slowly lower to the ground until her feet felt the solid floor of the infirmary. She moved her arms beside her, and realized that she was more free to move than before, without the threads constricting her. And her body still looked peaceful as ever, asleep behind her.
Shanna frowned, then looked up at the creature. But it had turned to work on Rachel’s body again. Why wasn’t it attacking her? Didn’t it want to…eat her?
“What do you want?” she asked.
The creature ignored her, so she drew closer to it. “Why are you doing this?”
Then the infirmary door opened with a loud thump, and it was as if the sound reverberated through the room, a physical force that washed over her body. Shanna closed her eyes and put her hands to her head until the feeling past. And when it did, she found that she was back in her body, staring up at the ceiling.
“What?” she murmured. She sat up and looked over at Rachel, still asleep.
“Did I wake you?” Felicia asked, picking up a stethoscope from a table and walking over to Amelia’s bed, unconcerned.
“Yeah,” Shanna said. “And it’s here.”
Felicia paused and looked around the room, her eyes stopping on Rachel. “There?”
“Last time I saw it,” Shanna confirmed.
Felicia approached the bed slowly, Shanna meeting her there. They stared down at Rachel, who seemed very peaceful as she lay sleeping, not like she was struggling or being attacked by a monster in her dreams.
“And what’s this?” Felicia wondered, touching a few grains of sand that had settled in the crook of Rachel’s collarbone.
Shanna nodded slowly. “Rachel stopped struggling when it threw some of it at her.” She hesitated. “It looks like its body is made of sand. Its hands look like solid sand. Its face seems pebbly when I can tear my eyes away from its teeth.”
Felicia considered. “That description may help the scholars find out what this thing is, and why it’s here.”
“But it didn’t seem like it wanted to harm me,” Shanna added. “As scary as it looks, it just seemed concerned about finishing the job.”
“And making Rachel stop struggling,” Felicia reminded her. “That doesn’t sound very passive to me.”
Shuddering, Shanna nodded as she watched Felicia gently coax Rachel awake, which the blonde hunter did with a loud gasp. “Oh, God,” Rachel murmured, putting a hand to her head. “That was…intense.”
Felicia glanced up at Shanna before returning her gaze to Rachel. “Are you alright?”
Rachel nodded, rubbing her hands over her bare shoulders. “I couldn’t really move after it threw the sand at me. I could barely keep my eyes open. I felt pretty helpless.”
Shanna nodded slowly. Helpless seemed to be the word of the day.
“I think my threads are all cut now,” Rachel added, glancing over at Shanna. “Just like yours. I was floating down to the ground when I woke up.”
“I wonder what it plans on doing next,” Shanna said softly, considering.
“I really don’t want to find out.”
Felicia cleared her throat. “We could hook the both of you up to machines and watch you carefully, in case it does something to you in your sleep. We could wake you at the first sign -”
“I’d rather stay awake for now,” Rachel cut her off. “No offense, but I’d rather not take my chances until I know what we’re dealing with here.”
“Caffeine?” Shanna asked, with a smile.
Rachel hooked her by the elbow and led her from the room. “Lots and lots of caffeine,” she confirmed.
Shanna could tell by the worried set of her jaw that Rachel was really afraid of the creature and what was happening to her, but she put on a brave show. She admired Rachel for her strength in that regard, and tried to mimic her enthusiasm for research as they entered the library, where Hunter and a team of a dozen other scholars sat at various tables, piles of books before each of them as they tried to glean a hint of what was going on with the werewolves. Once Rachel explained their situation with the creature that was bothering them in their sleep, and just how advanced the situation had become, Hunter redirected a few of his men, and gave Rachel and Shanna their own books to sift through.
“Here we go again,” Rachel murmured, opening up a book with a sigh.
Shanna nodded in agreement, then poured herself a cup of coffee and got to work.