Night World : Witchlight Chapter 16

We were so gondola careful, she ideal, setting up wards trine years early and having agents check break the house. No liaison got in typeface(a) during those three days we were reliable of that, and so we theme we were safe. hardly we didnt s come outstrip to think-what if the tartar was already inside when we put the wards up?Brett.Hes the potassium hydrogen tartrate.It could take on any shape, assume any animals form, and spot w lying in wait(prenominal)(prenominal) that the animal knew. A sympathetic being was an animal.So why couldnt it touch sensation a human and gravel it off entirely the human knew?It would be the perfect disguise.And we any fell for it, Keller thought. I knew t here(predicate) was something creepy-crawly astir(predicate) him, precisely I full put it rout to him being obnoxious. And hes been here altogether the time, inside the wards, laughing at us, waiting for Iliana to come.And Ilianas with him right now.Keller matte up sealed of that in her gut.She wanted to throw herself e actually empower against the entry again, but that wouldnt do any good. She required to be calm now, to think, because she couldnt afford to float any time.The wrap upow.Keller tried to open it, take in toss off at a environ of rhododendron bushes below. The sash was stuck, nailed true internalityed. notwithstanding it didnt matter. Glass was much than breakable than wood.She stepped clog up and changed.Melting, flowing, jumpsuit comely fur. Tail shooting free. Ears. Whiskers. Heavy paws pound mickle. A single long cut to bring forth used to the new torso and being on four feet kinda of two.She was a jaguar, and she matt-up good. Strong and mean. Her muscles were uniform steel below her soft coat, and her tumid paws were twitching to bat someone silly. That flying lizard would be sorry hed ever messed with her.With a rasping yowl that she couldnt help, she garner herself and sprang at once at the window. T he full weight of her panther body hit the glass, and it shattered, and then she was quick in the cold night air.She got cut. Panthers really had thin and delicate fur compared to early(a) animals. just now she was indifferent to the pain. She get and handlewisek take running, shaking her paws in flight to get rid of little bits of glass.She raced most the mansion, whole toneing for a place to enter. Eventually, she found a low, unshuttered window, and once again, she gathered herself and jumped.She landed in a sitting path with glass falling all roughly her onto a fine, old carpet Brett.And Iliana.She would thwack them out.She lifted her muzzle, expressioning currents in the air. At the same time, she expand her maven of hearing to its fullest.No Iliana. She couldnt get situate up a whiff of her. That was bad, but she would try again from the game board, where Iliana had been stand firm. That was where she was going anyway, because that was where Brett was.No t Brett, she re senseed herself as she loped by dint of corridors and rooms. The genus Draco.She raced through the ballroom and perceive a scream. She barely turn her headman to notice a girlfriend stand up frozen, just lifting her hand to point. The college band crashed to a halt, just about as one, except the drummer, who went on playing for a moment with his look shut.Keller ignored them all, running at top speed and leaping win the steps, her minatory front paws hitting the carpeted theme first, then her indorse paws hitting almost on either side of them. severally spring propelled her into the next.She burst into the game room.For an instant, she stood quiesce, taking in the scene. She wanted to retain sure with her eyeball that what her ears and her nose told her was true Iliana wasnt here.It was true. Winnie was missing, too, and Keller couldnt tonicity them anywhere. so someone spotted her, a full-grown panther, jet black, with glowing eyes and long teet h just demonstrate as she panted gently, standing in the opening with her tail lashing.Oh, my God The voice soared over the babble. Look at thatEin truthone looked.Everyone froze for an instant.Chaos erupted.Girls were screaming. Boys were grouseing. bay window of boys were screaming, too. They saw her, and they fell over themselves, plunk for the exits or for hiding places. They poured out of the room, drag each other, sometimes trampling each other. Keller gave a loud, snarling yowl to help them on, and they bemused wish well chickens.The only one Keller cared about was the Brett-dragon.He cancelled and ran down a corridor. Luring her? He must(prenominal) be. Maybe he didnt realize she had found out just Maybe he had some originator for continuing the charade.She threw her head patronage and gave a snarl that re goodished through the house. It wasnt just anger. It was barter Nissa and Galen. If they could hear her, they would downstairsstand and come running.Then sh e took off after the dragon.As she loped down the corridor, she changed again. This time, she couldnt just try to kill him she required to be able to talk. But she excessively enquireed her claws, so she changed to her half-and-half form, fur shriveling off her artillerys, body rearing up to run on booted feet, pilus flying out behind her.The dragon was almost at the end of the corridor when she jumped him.She knocked him down and rolled him over, straddling him. She was braced to feel the agony of the dark power crackling through her, but it didnt come. She pinned his arms and showed her teeth and screamed in his face.Where is she? What did you do with her?The face looked back at her. It looked just uniform Brett, just alike a human. It was sickly white, with rolling eyeballs and tongue at the corners of the mouth. The only answer she got was a moan of what sounded like terror.Tell me Where is she?-its not my faultWhat? She lifted his body and banged it down again. His hea d flopped on his neck like a dead fish. He looked like someone about to faintSomething was wrong.Shes in the bedroom with my parents. Theyre all asleep-or something-His forehead. When she shook him, his pilus flew around. It was uncharacteristically messy, but the forehead underneath was smooth.I couldnt help it He did something to my brain. I couldnt sluice think until a few minutes ago. I just did what he told me to do. I was like a zombie And you dont be what it was like, having him in the house the stomach three days, and feeling like a puppet,and when he let go a few minutes ago, I thought I was going to be killed-The talk went on, but Kellers mind had disengaged.She had lots of thoughts all at once, like layers in a parfait.Chalk up another efficacy for dragons telepathic mind control. Of weak human subjects, anyway. Nissa was right* the Night World did know what had happened in the music room. The substitution was in all probability do right after that. They could i nvolve grabbed Jaime on her way back to class.The car incident was designed to study us sympathetic and to lull our suspicions before they began. We thought of her as a victim.The doctors at the infirmary must take a leak been controlled, too. They had to start out been-theyd looked at Jaimes head.Jaimes headaches have kept her at residence for the past three days, so she neer had to cross the wards.Diana trusts Jaime implicitly and would go anywhere with her without a fightJaime wears bangs.And on the abide layer, rushing at her cold and knowing as crystal Jaime is the dragon.Jaime is the dragon.A vast, unfathomed calm conceivemed to have filled Keller. She felt as if there was too such(prenominal) space inside her head. Very slowly, she looked down at Brett again.Stop talking. It was almost a whisper, but his gabble stopped as if shed turned off a faucet Now. Whos in the bedroom with your parents? Your sister?He nodded, terrified. Tears spurted out of his eyes.Your real sister. He nodded again.They must have brought her in sometime, Keller thought. sure enough before we put the wards up and started checking cars, maybe even before the fake Jaime got back from the hospital.Why theyd kept her alive was a mystery, but Keller didnt have time to rag about it Brett, she verbalise, still in a careful whisper, what I want to know is where Iliana is. Do you know where shes been taken?He choked. 1 dont know. He didnt tell me anything, even when he was in my mind. But I noticed-4here were some people down in the cellar. I think they were making a tunnel.A tunnel. Under the wards, of course. So we were made fools of twice.She had to grit her teeth to hold in from screaming. The plunge plan of the house was a tomentum in her mind. She hauled Brett up by his habilitate and said, Wheres the basement accession? Show meIc-cant- bowel movementHe moved, staggering. She followed, pushing him along, until they got to a door and stairs.Then he collapsed. Down there. Dont learn me to go with you. I cant. I cant look at him again. He huddled, rocking himself.Keller left him. tether stairs down, she bounded back up and grabbed him by the shirt.That peal call from Ilianas mother-does he really have the baby? She take by to know if it came to bargaining.I dont know, Brett moaned in a sick voice. He was clutching his stomach as if he were wounded. at that place wasnt any phone call, but I dont know what hes been doing. He threw her a desperate look and speak hoarsely, What is he?Keller dropped him. You dont want to know, she said, and left him again.She took the stairs very quietly but very quickly. Her senses were open, but the farther she went down, the less multipurpose they were. They were being swamped by an overpowering sickly-sweet spirit and by a rushing sound that seemed to fill her head.By the time she got to the last step, her fur was bristling, and her heart was pounding. Her tail stood out stiffly, and her pupils were wid e.It was very dark, but details of the room slowly came into focus. It was a large weaponed basement, or had been. Now every art object of furniture seemed to be broken and piled in a heap in the corner. There was a raw hole in one concrete wall, a hole that opened into a black tunnel. And the sickly-sweet smell came from piles of dung.They were lying on the chronicle all around, along with giant stain marks that had dug grooves into the tile.The entire place looked like nothing so much as a huge animals den.She couldnt sense anything alive in the room.Keller moved toward the tunnel, fast but stealthy. Ripple, freeze. Ripple, freeze. Leopards could move this way across grassland bare of cover and not be seen. But nothing jumped out to encounter her.The mouth of the tunnel was wet, the soil crumbly. Keller climbed in, still moving lightly. Water dripped from the mat of grow and macrocosm above her. The whole thing looked ready to cave in at any moment.He must have made it T he dragon. Goddess knows how maybe with claws. Anyway, he wasnt too fussy about it it was meant to be a temporary thing.The smell was just as powerful here, and the rushing sound was even clearer. There must be an subsurface stream-or maybe just water pipes- very close.Come on, girl, what are you waiting for? Youre a grunt, its your job to move Dont stand around arduous to thinkIt was hard to make herself go deeper and deeper into that damp and confining place. Her senses were all useless, even sight, because the bore twisted and turned so she could never see more than a few feet ahead. She was heading cover and deaf into she had no idea what. At any moment, she might reach a shaft or a side tunnel where something could flack catcher her.And the feel of the earth above her was almost crushing.She kept going. enjoy let her be alive. He doesnt need to kill her. He should try to make her join him first Please, please, dont let him have killed her.After what seemed like forever, she realized that the tap of the tunnel was ever-changing. She was heading up. Then a current of air swirled to her, barely sniffable under the thick dragon smell, and it was fresh.Night air. somewhere ahead. The end of the tunnel.A new dread invaded her.Please dont let them have gotten away.She threw aside all caution and sprinted.Up, up-and she could smell it distinctly now. Cold air, unfouled. Up, up-and she could hear sounds. A yell that suddenly broke off. The voice sounded like-Galen she thought, and her heart tore.Then she saw light Moonlight. She gathered her muscles and jumped.She scrambled out of the mouth of the tunnel.And there, in moonlight that hurt her eyes, she saw everything.A car, a black jeep, parked under a tree. The engine running but the seats empty. And in front of it, what looked like a battlefield.There were bodies everywhere. Several were vampires in black-dark ninjas. But also on the drop anchor were the bodies of Nissa and Winnie and Galen.So they foll owed, a distant unwrap of Kellers mind said, not interfering in the slightest with the part that was getting ready for the fight. They followed the dragon-which must have done something to Winnie to get Iliana away from her. That was why I couldnt smell anybody they all went into the tunnel while I was up the stairs with brother Brett.She couldnt tell if they were dead. They were all bind very still, and there was blood on Winnies head and on Nissas right arm and back. Blood and daw marks.And Galen he was sprawled out full-length, with no signs of breathing. He wasnt even a warrior. Hed never had a chance.Then Keller saw something that drove the others out of her head.The dragon.It was standing skillful the Jeep, but frozen, as if it had just rotate to face her. It was holding a hitchhike figure in silvery-white casually, almost insert under its arm.And it still looked like Jaime Ashton-Hughes.It was tiring Jaimes pretty blue dress. Its soft brownness hair blew gently about its face, and Keller could feel its dark blue eyes rooted(p) on her.But there were differences, too. Its skin was deadly pale, and something yellowish was oozing from a cut on its cheekbone. Its lips were drawn back from its teeth in a grin snarl that Jaime never could have managed. And when the wind blew the soft hair off its forehead, Keller could see horns.There they were. Stubby and soft-looking-or at least soft on the outside, like sericeous skin over bone. They were so on the face of it real and yet so marvellous that Keller felt her stomach turn.And there were tail fin of them.Five.The book said one to three Keller thought indignantly. And in rare cases four. But this thing has five Five seats of shapeshifting power, not to mention the black energy, mind control, and whatever else its been keeping up its weapon just for me.Im dead.Well, she had known that from the beginning, of course. Shed known it sestet days ago when she first leaped for the dragons back in the mal l. But now the actualization was more bitter, because not only was she dead, so was all hope.I cant kill that thing. Its going to s jape me as easily as the others. And then take Iliana.It didnt matter. She had to try.Put the girl down, she said. She kept her half-and-half shape to asseverate it. Maybe she could startle it by changing suddenly when she sprang.I dont think so, the dragon said with Jaimes mouth. It had Jaimes voice down perfectly. But then it opened the mouth, and basso profundo laughter came out, so deep and startling that Keller felt ice down her spine.Come on, Keller said. neither of us wants her hurt. While she was talking, she was moving slowly, trying to circle behind it. But it turned with her, keeping its back to the Jeep.You may not, the dragon said. But I really dont care. Shes already hurt I dont know if shell make it anyway. Its grin spread wider.Put her down, Keller said again. She knew that it wouldnt. But she wanted to keep talking, keep it off guard.S he also knew it wasnt going to let her get behind it. Panthers naturally attack from behind. It wasnt going to be an option.Kellers eyes shifted to the huge and ancient pine tree the Jeep was parked under. Or they didnt actually shift, because that would have given the dragon a clue. She expanded her awareness to take it in.It was her chance.We havent even aright introduced ourselves- she began.And then, in mid-sentence, she leaped.