Dodging it, I continue our foray down this new street. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! It’s no good staying—you can’t shut out shadows. We’ll do what we can to send the weird ones back where they came from!”
Hail lets out a flat laugh. “Don’t make promises we can’t keep.”
“I said we’d do what we can. I didn’t say it’d work.”
But I really hope it does. With every block we traverse and every new cluster of humans we send hurrying out of the city, the gloom of the shadowy atmosphere wears at me. The porridge is congealing.
What ifweend up stuck in this stuff? Who’s going to dig us out?
I grit my teeth against the ache creeping up my ankles and keep walking.
At the next cross-street, Jonah jerks to a stop with a strangled sound. Mirage leaps to his side first and shivers before tutting his tongue. “That’s not playing nice. Hail might need to put that one on ice.”
“What?” Hail demands, striding over. He and I come into view of the full scene at the same time.
My gut lurches. A shadowkind creature like a scaly, eight-legged rat is squirminginsidethe carcass of what used to be a sheepdog. The dog’s head lolls against the road. Its shaggy fur is drenched red around the gouge that runs down the middle of its belly.
The shadowkind creature is drenched too even as it tries to cuddle up to its victim’s innards. Its razor claws rake through more flesh as it snuggles deeper.
It doesn’t look as if it wants to eat the animal. The faint emotional vibes it’s giving off taste oddly warm and sweet, like melted toffee. Like it wanted to show its devotion by getting up close and personal—and that was a little too close for its target’s comfort.
More humans are venturing out into the street farther down. Raze scoops up the corpse-creature combo and tosses them under a parked van that’s starting to slump on its tires.
“What was that?” a man calls over.
I paste my smile back on. “Nothing to worry about! Just a few hitches with the new atmosphere. We’ll get them cleared up as quickly as we can!”
As Mirage ushers the current crowd of humans onward, a damp flick against my ankle brings my gaze snapping down.
The furry, bipedal snake has followed me. Before I can react, it twines around my calf. With those two clumsy paws, it manages to catch hold of the bottom of my dress and scramble up to wrap its tail around my arm next.
I wince and move to shake it off, but it blinks eyes that are way too wide and pleading to belong on a snake’s face at me. With an emphatic wriggle, it flings itself up to my shoulder and slurps its puppy-ish tongue across my jaw.
Jonah is staring at me now. A choked sound bursts from his throat. “Um, Peri, are you adopting a new pet?”
“I think it might have adopted me.” I grasp the furry but sinuous body and try to peel the creature off, but it lets out a whine that’s as puppy-ish as its tongue. The waft of eagerness to please, tangy with desperation like well-sugared grapefruit, washes over me.
I’m probably a sucker, but I find myself saying, “Maybe I should hold on to it. There might be something different about the creatures coming from this new version of the rift. Rollick will want to study them.”
Hail clicks his own tongue chidingly. “You just don’t like to make anything sad.”
“At least it’s not burrowing into anyone’s intestines.”
For now,I add silently.Let’s hope never.
A beast that seems much more inclined toward intestine removal hurtles out of a building a couple of blocks ahead of us with a reverberating roar. Its arrival provokes a chorus of human screams.
Raze mutters a curse vehement enough that I wonder if I should cover my new snake-puppy’s ears—does it evenhaveears?—and charges off to deal with the actual monster.
As the rest of us rush after him, my heart thumps. Could I generate another ring of light like the one that surrounded Viscera to stop her from committing any more city-smashing? Maybe I could stretch it around each group of humans to fend off any danger?
But that first ring required all of my men concentrating alongside me. I’m not sure that’s the most practical use of our current manpower.
Especially since having Raze simply heave the aggressive creature away while Hail freezes its legs solid seems to solve the problem pretty efficiently.
The humans keep stampeding down the street anyway. A few more shrieks ring out when my new self-declared pet lifts his fuzzy serpentine face from my shoulder to peer at the people passing by.
“He’s just curious!” I tell them. “He’s a nice one.”
