Page 3 of Beasts of Shadows #1

Nari,

We are the bottom of the barrel out here. As such, we need to stick together. Here’s my freshman notebook. Please try not to spill anything on it.

There are seven layers of power around campus. I ranked them below in order of strongest to weakest.

Gods : Gods are primordial beings that specialize in controlling various elements of the Mortal Realm.

Gods were mostly hands off beginning two-thousand years ago, officially taking a more controlled role over mortal affairs following the disaster that was the Second World War.

(Gods are broken into different pantheons, based on geography, but all answer to Calea, the Celtic winter goddess).

Demigods : the children of deities and anything other than another deity. (Deities have not been born since Macha’s curse. See Macha and the Hound for further details).

Nephilim : Born from the Union of any high-ranking creatures, save for demigods and deities. Rare, but not uncommon. In the absence of demigods, Nephilim spent ages acting as the go-between for deities and mortals. (Nephilim is more of a title than a being).

Phantasms : Bogeys, dragons, trolls, mermaids, fae–any and all shades. Not quite immortal, but they can live for hundreds of years at a time.

Conduits : Mortals or witches blessed by the gods. Often more powerful, acting on the needs of the deities. May be seers, high priestesses, or vessels.

Witches : Born from the line of Dare, witches hold some (albeit, very little) divine authority. Witches may be born with special abilities, such as prophecy.

Mortals : Beings with little to no genetic divinity. They are the weakest link, and people will try to weed them out.

—Reema

P.S. Do not let Cat use this notebook as a coaster. Again.

∞∞∞

I don’t look back. I can’t.

My legs burn, like they’re about to tear away from my body.

The woods feel endless—black trees stretch like claws, humid air gnawing at my throat.

Somewhere behind me, someone screams.

I don’t know who it is. Just when they stop.

Moonlight flickers through twisted branches. Shrill, inhuman shrieks bristle the woods—not quite bird, not quite beast.

Branches whip my face. The dark swallows everything.

I burst through slick leaves into a clearing. Foliage crackles under my Converse as I lunge over a gnarled root. I hit the ground hard, roll, scramble back up. Every sound makes me twitch—a low growl, the flap of wings, the unmistakable sound of something sniffing.

Another scream rips through the forest—closer this time. It’s wet and sharp and ends too fast. I can picture them: claws, or teeth, or worse. Devouring.

I duck beneath a low branch, my heart pounding like it wants to crack open my ribs. I try to focus. What are the parameters of this game? Is there a finish line? A safe zone? Or just… survive until dawn?

Just have to stay ahead. I have no clue what happened to the others that cleared the stadium, but I’m certain I’ve been free of hunter and prey for the last two minutes.

I’m not a runner—I barely survive gym class.

Water. I need water.

I stumble down a small embankment to a trickling stream. I gulp it down, splash my face.

Collapsing onto the forest floor, I wrangle the silver dagger free of its casing in my cargo pockets.

These pants do nothing for running. If anything, they limit my mobility.

With a few swift swipes, I cut the bottom half off.

The newly minted shorts will definitely chafe my skin if I continue running, but at least they won’t slow me down.

I peel off my jean jacket, too, thankful for the way my baby tee lets the cool night air caress my heated flesh.

I’ve stalled too long. With another splash over my cheeks, I rise and creep away from the site. I don’t want to give any of the hunters long enough to track me down.

Assuming no one is hunting me right now. Each step is slow and stiff, but caution might give me a head start.

The silence splits.

A sickening, wet pop echoes through the trees behind me, followed by a low, rattling hiss that doesn’t belong to anything natural. I freeze. I tighten my grip around the dagger.

Branches splinter. Leaves scream. Something moves with speed that shouldn’t be possible on two legs—or four.

I spin just as it breaks through the brush: tall, emaciated, its skin pale and stretched like wax over bone. Its mouth gapes open in a vertical split from chin to forehead, rows of teeth glistening like tiny knives.

It lunges.

“Fuck this,” I breathe, dropping to the ground and rolling sideways.

It gives me enough leverage to pop back up, slicing.

My silver dagger meets its ribs, carving a glowing gash through its side.

It screeches, the sound more psychic than audible—a pressure in my skull like it’s trying to crush my thoughts into powder.

What the hell is this thing? I definitely need to read up on my mythozoology.

I slump against a tree and watch the thing melt into the forest floor.

I scan left. Then right.

I force my jaded feet to continue their fruitless trek toward safety.

Cresting the treetops about two miles away are Van Ritten’s towering spires. Its moody exterior does nothing for my nerves, and I eye the gothic fencing eclipsing the rest of campus. Anyone who tries getting past those walls tonight won’t live to regret it.

It’s brutal, having sanctuary just ten minutes away, but the only way through those doors before sun up is in a body bag.

The air changes. It gets denser. Colder. The sounds of the other predators just stop . Silence falls, thick and sudden.

I’m not alone.

I shuffle behind a tree, counting to a hundred to ease my heart galloping.

Someone giggles. It’s a decidedly feminine sound, and immediately followed by others.

I tighten my grip on my dagger, eyes slicing through the darkness.

A shadow, darker than the dark itself, moves between the trees. Watching.

Is it the boy from the stadium? Has he been following me this whole time? Playing with me? Maybe he sent the wendigo ahead to—.

No. The writhing mist takes shape. It’s not the blue-haired boy at all.

It’s worse.

Fucking bogeys. They grow from children that never were—haunting the living in revenge for what they’ll never have.

There are two glaringly unusual things about their presence. The first is that I’m hardly one of their usual targets. I’ll be nineteen in four months. Long past the age to fear boogeymen.

Not only that, but I was always told Shadow people are solitary creatures. But this is clearly a pack. A whole group of them swells into the clearing. Inky arms stretch toward me. Then hiss, like the swift crackle of a candle being extinguished.

“Go ‘way,” I choke out, sliding my thumb over the dagger’s blade.

“Nari,” the girl giggles. The words slither over me like a whipping breeze on the beach.

“What do you want?”

“To see what you’re made of,” the plural voices whisper all at once.

The humanoid before me parts her misty lips in a silent, mocking laugh.

Then, the darkness swells around me, breaking into additional shifting shadows modeled vaguely after people.

I lash out, but how can you fight against the strength of your own fears?

My dagger phases through their spectral presence, winding on the ground; my punches absorbed in the pulsating silhouettes. Like a tickle, my captors just laugh.

Someone grabs my arms. Another grips my legs. I didn’t even think bogeys could become corporeal. Shows how sheltered I’ve been from this world.

“Let me go!” I scream, thrashing against ghost-cold limbs.

The pack does not. They lift me, throwing me over what I can only assume is a shoulder. My flailing screams are swallowed like a buffet by my captors.

Never in my life have I felt so terrified or helpless.

“The sea is beautiful in the night,” someone snickers at my ear.

“Hope you can swim,” another prods. More giggles.

“They swim where you’re from, don’t they?”

“Plot twist—she’s a mermaid.”

“I guess we’ll see just what, exactly, she is,” the voice from my room cuts above the others, silencing their teasing. “And why they want her gone.”

“I’m nobody!” I shriek, twisting and turning and only rubbing my wrists and ankles raw. If I’m bleeding, I cannot feel it over the adrenaline pulsing in my veins.

“If that’s the truth,” the leader says, her shapeless face looming before mine for just a second, “it would be very disappointing.”

I’m lifted over the dramatic rocky bluff, with at least a fifty-foot drop between me and the crashing water.

“No! No! ” I scream, with one last ditch effort to wiggle free.

But I’m fucked. Over the edge I go. The last thing I hear before plunging into the icy abyss is the haunting crow of the leader.

“Professor Sumner sends his regards!”

∞∞∞

I fight the lashing waves, praying I don’t slam headfirst into the cliff. A blow like that would snap my neck clean.

I break the surface long enough to draw a gasping breath before being dragged back down.

Are the bogeys watching? Waiting for my corpse to float, proof for Professor Sumner of a job well done?

Who the fuck is Professor Sumner? What did I do to piss him off?

I’ve barely been here five hours.

I writhe, kicking my tied legs like a mermaid, hoping it’ll be enough to push me through the surface again. If only for a second to get more air.

Bubbles slip from my nose. Panic sets in. I don’t know how much oxygen I can spare. I can barely keep track of where I am—the surf is too brutal. It’s tearing my body in two.

Vision dims at the edges. I blink, desperate to stay awake. My leg brushes the bay floor—just for a second. Then the waves rip me away. Water floods my nose. I’m too delirious to be afraid.

It’s fitting , I think dimly. Everything comes like molasses. My body, broken from fighting the surrounding liquid, is too fatigued to keep lashing. This is the end.

It’s fitting to share the same fate as Ravi.

Something splashes above me. There’s a blur of white.

Before I succumb to my fate, I think: I deserve this.