Page 48 of Reap & Sow

Eda jumped. Kit stepped into the middle of the street like a dog on high alert, spine straight as he looked back the way they’d come.

Another scream. Another.

Between the walls of the bailey and the Botanic Gardens, Eda saw only a sliver of the action at the entrance to the street. People ran past in a steady stream, tripping over themselves to get away from something. Saints, what was happening?

Cries of terror swelled into a shrill crescendo. A few people dove into the same side street as Eda and Kit, running straight past them.

“What’s going on?”

Kit stood silent and still. His head tilted, listening for something.

Suddenly, he spun, grabbed her hard enough to bruise. She was shoved back against the bailey. Alarmed, Eda made to protest, but the words died in her throat.

Among the running crowd at the end of the street, a young girl tripped and fell. A woman—her mother?—heard her cry. She turned back, but it was too late.

A hulking four-legged creature skulked into view, as if from a waking nightmare. It pinned the child down with a paw-like hand. The girl’s cry abruptly died, crushed beneath its weight. She flailed in terror. Her mother screamed.

Eda’s entire body ran cold. Lordfather, take me.

The creature was equal to the size of a man. Bigger. It reminded her vaguely of a huge starved dog. Its body was a study in repugnance: a curved, knobbly spine, sinewy torso, and backward-facing hock joints. But only moments of staring were enough to realize an even worse truth.

The thing had a human face. Or near enough—a round skull and deep-set eyes, pointed ears not unlike Kit’s. Despite a smattering of thin hair atop its back and buttocks, the creature was all grayish wrinkled skin. Its open mouth was wet, large canines exposed to the air. When it dragged the girl closer by its claws, blood bloomed through her little pinafore. Glittering eyes bulged in pleasure.

Eda gripped Kit’s arm. Without him, she feared she’d fall. Her legs had turned stiff with shock. Monster, a primal voice warned. Fiend, supplied another.

The girl’s mother lurched toward her child, but even as she tried to reach her, the fiend’s jaws clamped over the girl’s head. It shook the child like a dog with a bone, her arms and legs flailing, a human rag doll. Blood, blood everywhere, and the noise—

Kit cupped Eda’s head and pressed her roughly to his chest so that she couldn’t see. She gasped into his doublet. No, she thought, because there was nothing else to think of. No, no, no.

A horrid, toneless wail rose above the rest. The child’s mother.

“We’re getting out of here.” Kit steered her in the other direction.

Eda had the presence of mind to say, “Stop.”

“What?”

“The warning fires—test them.”

“Now?”

“Now,” she bit out, lightheaded, “while the Blades might still blame it on the fiend.”

Kit’s eyebrows jumped. He glanced toward the feasting creature down the street. “As you say, darling. Just keep that mantle on. Put some distance between you and the damned thing.”

He exploded in a ball of black smoke, twining up into the air as a large crow.

Eda watched him anxiously as she hurried along the street. Kit swooped low over the bailey, close enough that his tail feathers stirred the flames—but the warning fires continued burning a merry orange. Nothing.

She checked behind her. Her stomach flipped violently.

The girl’s mother knelt wailing over a bloody headless lump on the cobbles. Around her, people were crying, running, holding a finger to their brow to ward off evil. And the fiend was gone.

Where did it go?

Kit came back around and landed atop the bailey. At once, the nearest warning fire bled from orange to icy blue. All along the wall, one after another, each fire changed color in a perfect consecution. Somewhere among the turrets of the keep, a horn rattled the air.

So they do work.