Page 34 of Suncatcher

Just a storm. She started to relax and roll over until she heard it again. Something moving.

She bolted upright. Snagging her revolver from its holster beside her bed, she crept toward the window she’d left cracked. The sleepshirt she wore only reached her upper thighs and the cool night air prickled her exposed skin.

The roof creaked above her when she reached the casement.

Before the intruder could, Pearl yanked the window open, shoving her weapon ahead of her as she twisted out and up.

Rain poured from the ends of shaggy hair and shiny horns. Driz stared down at her over the edge of the roof.

“The hells?” Pearl muttered, lowering her weapon. She glanced out into the night, but this was the back of the building and not the side that faced the main street. “Get in here before anyone sees.”

Driz squeezed through the window, her large shoulders and wings scraping against the protesting wood. Pearl backed away and gave her plenty of space. And suddenly a seven-foot-tall, dripping gargoyle stood in her room.

“You’re fucking lucky my mother’s with Spencer tonight,” Pearl hissed. “What’re you doing here? How’d you find me?”

“I saw you enter this building once.”

Pearl narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been spying on me?”

“No. I followed you the night we met. To make sure you got home safe.”

“You did?” That didn’t matter. Pearl shook her head and refocused on the present. “Why’re you here?”

“Humans flooded your fields.”

Pearl froze. “Who?”

“I do not know. They crept through the night and opened the doors from the river.”

“Doors from the…you mean the locks?”

“The water doors,” Driz clarified. “I do not know what you call them.”

The rain would set back the harvest some. But if the locks opened uncontrolled, it could wash away far more. Pearl pushed past Driz to stare out the window, but she couldn’t see through the night or the rain. “Tell me exactly what happened,” Pearl demanded as she fumbled for her teeth on the dressing table, slotting them into her mouth.

“Five men. They opened the doors and tried to run.”

“All the doors?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.” The fields would already be gone by now.

“We closed them.”

Pearl paused in her frantic dressing. “What?”

“The doors. The locks. We closed them. The first field is covered in water, but I closed the canal doors so only some got into the second.”

Pearl stared at her. “Who’s we?”

“Another human. One of yours. A man from a house.”

“He saw you?” Pearl asked, alarm ringing through her.

“He did.”

“What happened to the intruders?”