Page 38

Sam tried to wrench his foot free, and the ghoul wrenched it back with several times the force. Sam managed an awkward hop, but his remaining foot tangled in overgrown weeds and he fell to the dirt. A garbled noise that sounded like Sam spit from the ghoul’s lipless mouth. The ghoul stood to its full height, its ugly hairless head blocking out the sun so that its face was a black and featureless shadow. Déjà vu washed over Sam. The ghoul turned and marched, dragging Sam along the ground by his heel.

He twisted, kicked, writhed, and the ghoul walked onward with huge loping steps, as if Sam wasn’t even bothering him. His golden knife was in his hand, and Sam clutched it so tight the metal handle dug painfully into his palm. As the ghoul dragged him around the corner at the front of the house, Sam lunged sideways and got the corner in his grip. His entire body stretched, and the ghoul’s garbled s am sam Sam sAm SAm SAM rose louder until he was shrieking it.

Its bony fingers slipped on Sam’s sock, and the sock along with the shoe slid right off. The stretch abruptly ended, and Sam fell onto his side, a rock jamming between his ribs. He scrambled away, prone, then on hands and knees. The ghoul’s screech crashed over him. A tsunami wave come to drag him under and never let him up for air ever again.

Weeds mixed with loose gravel beneath Sam’s arms and legs. A burst of fragrant wild jasmine hit his nose. A revving engine roared, challenging the ghoul’s high-pitched screech with a mechanical roar of its own. A pale blue blur flew through Sam’s peripheral vision and into the side of his house.

Rubble and dust kicked up into the air. Sam ducked and laid his hands over his head as rubble rained down on him. If any of it landed on him, he couldn’t feel it, his body too keyed up with adrenaline. Sam rolled onto his side to look behind him.

A pale blue, no longer shining-new, SUV pinned the ghoul to the collapsing wall of Sam’s house. Clenched fists beat on the bonnet in fury as the ghoul attempted to twist itself free. The metal creaked and bent beneath battering fists, but the ghoul couldn’t budge itself. Panting, Sam dragged his gaze from the ghoul to the driver.

For some reason Sam couldn’t even begin to understand, Fionn was there, eyes wide, face flushed. The window at his side was shattered, and he looked crazed and manic as he turned to Sam. “Did I do a good thing? I feel like I did a good thing.”

Sam didn’t have an answer for him.

The backdoor nearest Sam opened, and Roan leapt out, face contorting in wild pain, and then he fell to his knees next to Sam.

Shaking, Sam got to his knees as well. “You’re here,” Sam said, dazed.

“I feel sick,” Laurence said thinly from the back seat of the car.

“Car sick?” Fionn asked.

“Crash sick!” Laurence called back. And for some reason, they both laughed.

The ghoul roared, and a thin fist came down on the windscreen, caving it in.

“Get out!” Sam jumped to his feet, only for his leg to buckle beneath him and crash right back down to the ground. Roan caught him, saving him from planting face-first into the gravel. “Fionn!”

Sam heard the mechanical sound of someone frantically trying to open a door that wouldn’t yield. “It’s stuck!” Panic edged Fionn’s voice. He sank down, trying to avoid the fist pounding the windscreen to pieces, but any second now, the ghoul would be through that, and it would be Fionn’s head beneath that fist.

Sam gripped the arm wrapped around his side. “Roan?”

Roan released Sam. “Leave,” Roan urged. He grasped Sam’s jaw and forced him to look at his own car, mere feet away with the car door open, engine still running. “Leave,” he repeated.

“Eric’s here, and Ivan and Jasper—”

A cry of pain cut Sam off.

Roan rose to his feet, and Sam saw the pain that twisted his features as he threw himself toward the car.

He’s struggling to hold this form , Sam realised. He roughly struck his own thigh, and when he got to his feet, what felt like iron rods shot through his ankle. He gritted his teeth. His knee quaked but didn’t buckle again.

Roan grabbed the ghoul’s arm, and he wrenched it with power. The ghoul screamed as the cracking of bones filled the air. The ghoul grabbed Roan, clawing at his face. Sam tore his gaze away as he got to Fionn’s door and tried to force it open. Laurence had crawled from the back and looked at Sam struggling with the door, then turned about and sprinted to Sam’s car.

A loose fist from somebody – either Roan or the ghoul, Sam didn’t know – smashed into the car’s windscreen, and the entire thing broke apart and rained down on Fionn. All the ghoul would have to do was reach in, and Fionn would be in his grip.

“Here.” Laurence skidded against Sam, thrusting a crowbar into his hands. Sam jammed the tool between the car door and its frame, and he threw his weight into it. Be it adrenaline-fuelled strength or already damaged joints, the leverage was enough to force the door open.

Fionn scrambled out through the gap just as Roan’s growl turned to a yelp. Sam, holding the door leveraged open as Fionn pulled his legs free, watched as the ghoul hooked his fingers beneath the gills at Roan’s neck – that delicate pink flesh – and ripped. A gurgled sound tore from Roan’s throat; his grip on the ghoul loosed as it reached for the other side of his neck.

“Roan!” Sam cried.

The ghoul lunged. Trouser-fabric tore as Roan’s tail emerged, and he fell to the ground, landing on his side. The ghoul, snarling, hooked its fingers into the frame of the car and pulled itself free, crawling onto the bonnet, his limbs all folded up as if he were about to start galloping on all fours. Its eyes fixed on Roan on the ground beneath him, and it leapt on top.

Roan’s skin, which hadn’t been damaged in the slightest by the ghoul on Sam’s ship weeks ago, tore open under the ghoul’s touch now as if he had blades for hands.

“Sam?” Laurence’s voice was fearful.

Fionn grabbed Sam’s wrist trying to pull him away, but Sam yanked free of him.

A fist came down, crushing a collarbone. Another crushed something in Roan’s middle, as if the ghoul was breaking twigs.

One punch will kill me , Sam thought. The ghoul raised a hand to inflict another blow, and Sam’s body moved by itself. His arm flexed, and the dagger still in his hand plunged straight through the monster’s chest. Sam threw himself down, planting his body over Roan’s so that the ghoul couldn’t land that winded-up punch on Roan.

Roan growled, probably furious with Sam for disobeying him and not leaving, but he was pinned and there was nothing he could do about it. Sam’s eyes flashed down and he froze; he was too late in his protection. Long fingers were hooked deeply into Roan’s gills, and one wrench would leave his throat ripped out. Sam felt warm blood bubbling up from already-inflicted injuries as he desperately covered the ripped gills on the other side.

Roan’s eyes blazed in fury. Run , they said. Go now .

Not a chance .

The ghoul made a noise. Choked. Gurgled. Sam lifted his eyes from Roan to see it pawing at its chest with its free hand. Its long fingers gripped the hilt of the dagger, only to slip. And slip. Sweat-slick and wet with blood, the ghoul couldn’t get purchase on the handle to pull it free. And when he managed, just about, to get his fingers to pinch the end, he released it with a jerk, hissing. His fingers blistered, and Sam saw the black markings on the handle had turned red and glowed like coals. It smelled like something was burning.

“I’ll get it for you,” Sam murmured. “But only if you take your fingers out of his gills.”

The ghoul’s eyes flashed everywhere, lidless. Sam bet they were aching in the sunlight, drying out. It made another gurgled noise and another fruitless attempt to get the knife out. And then it pulled its fingers from Roan’s gills without tearing open his throat and grabbed Sam by the back of the head in a grip so harsh his vision blotted with dark spots.

Roan released a panicked sound.

Sam lifted his hand, awkwardly bent over Roan’s body. He balanced on his knees, and his shoulder muscles strained in the awkward angle he was twisted into. Sam’s old, stolen hoodie was now ripped to pieces, and Sam saw that the ghoul was as grey and bony on his body as on his head. The knife was buried right next to his breastbone, just off-centre, and was poised between two defined ribs. Sam angled his hand.

And he thrust his palm against the hilt, plunging it the rest of the way into its chest.

The ghoul jerked.

A crowbar whistled through the air, knocking right into the ghoul’s eyes. He gurgled, black blood spilling out of his mouth and chest. Fionn adjusted his grip on the crowbar and struck at the arm holding Sam by the back of the neck.

Sam wretched to the side, a muscle exploding into fiery heat all down the back of his neck, but the ghoul’s fingers came free. It crashed into the ground and twitched several times before it grew still. Fionn planted himself in the foot of space between Sam and the ghoul, crowbar shaking in his hands.

Black, thick ichor continued to seep from the wound in the centre of its chest, and more still seeped from its mouth. Lifeless, dull eyes stared vacantly at the sky above.

Laurence sprinted around the back of the car and skidded to a stop. In his hand was Jasper’s short sword, the end dirtied by black blood. “It’s dead?” Laurence asked cautiously.

It was Roan who moved, rising onto an elbow and peering around Sam’s body and Fionn’s legs at the ghoul. He grunted, but no words came out.

“He says it’s dead,” Sam said, voice gravelly. Neck on fire, he had to turn his entire body to see Roan, his heart hurting as he examined his torn gills. Each breath seemed to pain him greatly.

“I have a medkit in the trunk,” Fionn said. “Swap you, Laurence.”

Fionn stayed rooted in place as Laurence gave him the sword and took the crowbar. He ended up having to use it to break open the rear-view window to get at the medkit. Laurence knelt next to Sam. He dropped the medkit and abruptly seized and squeezed Sam’s hands. “Everyone’s okay,” Laurence said firmly.

Sam became slowly aware of how hard he was shaking. His ringing ears, still sore from the ghoul’s screams, finally let him hear the broken purr coming from Roan. Roan’s hand was against Sam’s leg, holding him.

“Goldilocks is okay too,” Laurence added. “His gills will be healed in no time, right, Goldilocks?” Laurence brought one of Sam’s hands to Roan’s chest, guiding his fingers out to feel the warmth and strength of his heartbeat thudding against his palm. And then Laurence nudged Sam’s chin, very slightly, so he was looking at Roan’s face instead of his torn-open gills.

Roan’s eyes were golden, shining, and filled with concern. But there was no self-worry. No weakness in his gaze. Even though his collarbone was cracked. Even though he had scratches everywhere. Sam stooped and pressed a kiss of relief to Roan’s forehead. “I’m alright,” he said because he knew that’s what Roan wanted to hear from him.

Laurence put bandages over Roan’s bleeding neck and guided Sam’s hand to hold it in place. By the time Sam realised Laurence had left, Ivan was kneeling next to him. His hand was against Sam’s back. Sam turned his entire torso to see Ivan’s wickedly bruised face, a swelling temple with an eye bloodied red, and his arm in a make-shift sling.

“Where’s Eric?” Ivan said, in the tone of someone who had asked several times now. There was panic in his eyes. Fear.

“Back of the house,” Sam said. Ivan stood and ran, Laurence following on his heels with the medkit tucked under his arm. There was a clink at Sam’s back. He turned his entire body to see Jasper examining the ghoul. He, too, had swelling bruises on one side of his face, and he limped heavily as he took a step. There were long, bleeding gashes scraped into his entire tail from base to tuft. One half of the feathered end had been ripped out.

But he’s alive , Sam reassured himself when the injury hurt to look at. Jasper noticed his attention and limped closer. His expression was one of guilt and shame. He bowed his head. “I—”

“Thank you for coming with me,” Sam said before he could apologise. “Thank you for helping fight him.”

Jasper’s expression didn’t change, but he didn’t continue whatever he was about to say.

He said instead, “There’s a corpse in the attic.”