Page 51 of Death's Daughter
Devon points at something through the windshield. Not in the street, but across it.
It takes me a moment to follow his direction, to understand. I look past the road, the ice-covered blades of grass in the front lawn of the Delta Pi Gamma sorority, up to the porch and then farther up still, to the open window on the second story of the bungalow, where white curtains billow outward like flags of surrender.
To the blond girl dressed in leggings and a purple Beecher tee staring sightlessly ahead as she walks out, barefoot, onto the peaked roof overhang.
Not a spawn of any variety, as far as I can tell. But a student.
Her feet slip a little on the wet shingles, but her arms don’twindmill for balance and she doesn’t slow down. She doesn’t even seem to notice.
“Jesus,” I breathe. “She’s not going to—”
Devon yanks at his seat belt, scrambles out of the car.
I follow suit, shoving my door open. Right as I get out of the car, the girl reaches the edge of the roof and stops abruptly. Her toes curl over the edge of the slanted roofline.
Oh thank God.I barely have time to process the sense of relief, the release in my chest that allows me to inhale.
Then she pitches forward.
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“No, no, no, no!” I’m shouting at the girl, as if there is any convincing to still be done.
Her fall takes barely a second, maybe two. She just… collapses forward, like a tree cut at the base. It isn’t a jump, nothing so active as that. Just face-first toward the ground.
She hits the frozen ground with an audible thump, as I race toward her, slipping and sliding across the asphalt, a step or two behind Devon.
It’s only the second story. People can survive second story falls, right?
Devon reaches her first and stops short. I have to sidestep, almost twisting an ankle, to avoid slamming into his back.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
But following his gaze, I see what he sees. People may survive short falls on a regular basis, but this girl will not be one of them.
She missed the grass, assuming she was aiming for it. Or anything. Instead she is sprawled face down on the concrete sidewalk leading up to the sorority house. She didn’t try to brace herself ortuck into the fall or even turn her head to one side. And the damage is so much the worse for it.
Bright red blood is pooling under her head, which looks oddly… lumpy. As if her forehead and scalp have been pushed backward. And that prickly, tingly sensation of magic against my skin is even stronger, this close to her. It feels like standing next to a torrent of water, where you can feel the power of it surging, even if it’s not touching you.
“Someone…” I whisper, unable to force the words past the horror clogging my throat.
“Yes,” Devon says.
One ofusdid this. One of us isfeedingoff her. Sanguine spawn, for her blood. One of Life’s offspring, using her energy to renew the ground, even though it’s winter. Or an Oneiros feeding off her dream, blending a nightmare with reality until she dies from it. There’s a reason humans have recurring dreams about falling.
But odds are, it’s the War spawn I’ve been searching for. This would certainly count as violent.
And with that recognition, the moment of horror shifts to a wildfire of grim, relentless fury, like one of those blazes started by a simple firework.
“Where?” I demand, through gritted teeth, even as I turn, searching for an unfamiliar figure, a challenger reveling in the chaos and suffering they’ve caused.
But there’s no one on the street, no one lingering by the cemetery or hanging out on a porch next door.
“I don’t know,” Devon says tightly, shifting to look as well. “I didn’t see—”
“Oh my God, it’s Izzy!” The scream comes from inside thesorority house, followed by the loud thumping of feet and more loud exclamations.
“What happened?”
