Page 39 of Monster's Melody
When she’d first found it, the history within its pages had ended a hundred years before the shadow-beasts were hunted to extinction.
In the time since she’d taken possession of the book, though, it had added hundreds of pages of history at its back.
Over time, we’d managed to figure out who the Shadow Killer was—a chameleon dragon who’d once upon a time been the mate of a shadow-beast, a mate who had died of a rare disease, sending him spiraling into darkness.
Whatever sort of supernatural Lydrel Zowen had been before his mate’s demise, he became a true monster after it, plowing his way through the realms, tossing people into the shadows and trapping them there, where they were consumed by the darkness.All that anyone knew at the time was that a shadow-beast had gone mad and was hunting and killing indiscriminately.
When even the Varulvka, elite hunters of the supernatural world, had failed to identify the shadow-beast responsible for the deaths of millions, the Supernatural Council had passed down orders for all shadow-beasts to be hunted and executed.
Though she never said it, I knew that Kasi held out hope that a small contingent of shadow-beasts had somehow survived the genocide of their race, and that somewhere, even today, they lived and thrived.
Kasi’s very existence gave her a reason to hope, for it implied shadow-beast survivors, at least in Kasi’s mind.
To me, though, it was simply a matter of genetics.In a truly diverse world, genetics couldn’t be wiped out as easily as simply blazing a path across the realms and exterminating those who had access to the shadows.
Genetics skipped generations, then showed up again, when all memory of that long-ago ancestor was lost.
Perhaps it was time for shadow-beasts to walk the realms once more, thus giving those genetics the spark of life.
In any case, when we all came back from winter break, we were holding our breath a little, waiting for Lydrel Zowen to attack from the shadows once more.
But then, as the weeks passed without a single confrontation, we began to relax.
Life went on.
Classes continued.
Challenges were met, exams were taken and we just lived our lives.
And maybe, for a little while, we forgot we were being hunted by a killer.
Shadow and Miki-Leopard were entertaining us on a daily basis.
Shadow’s attempts to capture Vorzak’s snakes were particularly amusing, especially as I was certain his snakes were taunting her with the way they’d pretend not to notice her stalking them, only to move at the very last second, leaping out of reach of her swiping paws.
Vorzak was constantly cursing to the sound of our snickers, as her shadow-claws inevitably drew blood.
If it wasn’t Shadow making us laugh, it was Miki-Leopard with her attempts to copy Shadow and become a tattoo on Mikaela’s skin.
We always knew when Miki-Leopard was trying again because Mikaela would suddenly start itching.
Today was no exception.We were in the library, having our afternoon “tutoring” session, when Mikaela jerked back from Elliot and started scratching her neck, grumbling under her breath.
“Okay, that is so cute,” I told her.
She sighed.“I’m almost afraid to look.”
“I’m not,” Elliot said with a grin as he caressed the tail wrapped around her neck while attempting to peek down her shirt.“How far down is she?”
The two were in a laughing, tussling match and I was watching with a huge grin on my face when shadows exploded all around me.
The last thing I saw was Vorzak’s alarmed face as he lunged toward me, then the library was gone.
I’d heard Kasi’s descriptions of what it was like to travel back and forth between the two realms, of what it was like to explode from flesh and blood into shadows.
My classmates had described their time in the Shadow Realm, when Lydrel Zowen had ripped them from wherever they’d been in the Academy and thrown them into the shadows.
I’d witnessed Mikaela’s struggles as she’d grappled with the aftermath of torture at the hands of Zowen and the trauma of her dormant shifter side being born in the shadows.