I lifted my flashlight, we all did, trying to find Hado. I didn’t think we’d have much luck since he was a Shadow and, in a cave this deep, there was nothing but shadows.
Then I saw something move, a darker shape in the darkness. Two cool moon-gray eyes glowed back at me, standing nearly my height.
“Hado?” I asked.
He shifted, and I could see the hook Abbi was talking about. It looked like a scythe, the shine of it disappearing into the meat of him before curving up through him like an oversized darning needle.
A chain connected the hook to the floor, leaving him barely enough slack to stand.
I took a step, just as Thrum called, “She is here!”
An explosion of light spread across the walls, blindingly bright. When I could see again, the ceiling was undulating with bodies. The Hush hissed and clacked, moving fast down the curve of the walls on silver strings, skittering on shadowy feet.
Fear and anger spiked through the connections that tied us, and the answering mental howl of every werewolf nearly brought me to my knees.
We are coming, we are coming, we are coming,the voices promised, as the connections grew stronger, tighter.
“This now,” Mother Hush’s voice sang from the darkness, “this, your slow and rotting death. This, your final breath.”
The Hush were fast, but Elmer was faster.
The old guy shouldered his gun, taking aim at the ceiling. “Run!”
I ran toward Abbi, Lu a step ahead of me.
Elmer squeezed the trigger. The clap of sound was agony in the enclosed space.
I yelled, but couldn’t hear my own voice over the ringing in my ears.
Abbi’s mouth fell open in a surprised “O,” and Hado lunged against the hook and chain that held him to the stone floor, trying to put himself between Abbi and the monsters falling from the ceiling.
Except the monsters weren’t falling. Elmer fired off another shot, and a thick haze of smoke clouded the ceiling and filled the chamber.
No, not smoke. Rooroo dust.
“Out!” Josie yelled, her mouth at my ear. She hucked a glass jar against the floor, and it burst, sending more dust into the air.
The chamber filled with the blood-chilling screams of the Hush.
Lu reached Abbi before me, pulling her forward across the demon circle. As soon as Abbi crossed, copper fire burned through the spellwork, and thunder rolled beneath our feet.
That wasn’t good. Couldn’t possibly be good.
I grabbed the silver hook caught in Hado’s shadowy form.
The hook burned cold in my grip. I yelled and yanked on the Hush-forged metal with numb hands.
Hado snarled, more cat than man. I pressed my hand against his side—his muscles clenched beneath soft, velvet fur—and shoved, sliding the hook out at the same time.
Hado howled and sprinted away, running after Abbi, running after Lu.
I was frozen. I couldn’t release the hook, had no control over my own hands.
The voices in my head crashed, too many wolves, too many hunters, too many connections.
The Hush gibbered and shrieked.
The world was a rock tumbler, and I was nothing but sand.
