Page 48 of Soul of Shadow #1

Charlie tore out the front doors of the school. She turned right, running down the steps and onto the lawn. Then she dove into the nearest bush.

A draugar was coming. Maybe even more than one.

And in the thirty seconds she’d had to formulate a plan, the only thing she could come up with was keep it away from the dance .

After all, the last draugar she faced had been able to interact with the human world; what was to stop this one from ravaging the entire crowd of students and chaperones in the gym?

Before leaving the school, she’d shut the v?tte in a broom closet. He had squeaked with obvious disapproval, but she whispered through the door that she didn’t want him getting hurt. That he was to wait there until she returned.

If she returned at all.

But she couldn’t think about that right now.

She needed to plan. Her best bet for keeping the dance safe, as far as she could tell, was to hide on the front lawn and distract the creature before it even made it in the front door.

She hunkered down in the dirt, not caring that her dress would be filthy.

Several minutes passed. She had no idea how long it would take the draugar to arrive. How far away the nearest one would be. Perhaps it was skulking around in the forest near Elias’s house, but there had been one hanging out in the parking lot the day before, hadn’t there?

She peered out of the bushes in the direction of the football field. The hole in the hedges was still there, though it looked like someone had done a poor job of trimming it, as if to smooth over the damage. It looked like a mangled topiary.

Something flickered at the edge of her vision.

She shrunk back into the bushes, leaving just enough room in the branches and leaves to track whatever was moving in the distance.

It was a dark, looming shape that slunk through the trees bordering the parking lot.

Charlie squinted, trying to make it out in more detail.

Then, it darted out of the trees and into the rows of cars, passing beneath a streetlight.

She saw graying bone and long, pointed tusks.

The draugar had arrived.

She had a decision to make: how to best distract the beast. How to ensure it didn’t make it through the front doors of the school.

She tracked its progress through the parking lot, following the hood of its ratty cloak, which stuck out just above the cars’ roofs, even though it was bent over.

When it reached the last line of cars, it hesitated, then stepped out onto the grass.

Charlie reached into the hidden pocket that held Sophie’s knife and pulled it out. Then before she could second-guess herself, she leapt out from the bushes, twigs scratching her bare legs, and yelled, “ Hey, ugly! ”

The draugar’s head shot around, sunken eyes landing on Charlie. It opened its jaws, giving a blood-curdling roar, and took off toward her .

Charlie didn’t stick around to watch its impossibly long legs—each the length of her entire body—quickly close the distance between them. She sprinted down the hill, toward the football field—the same as her last draugar chase, but in reverse.

Bony footsteps pounded the grass behind her.

Even without glancing over her shoulder, she could picture the creature’s long, gnarled hands, its deadly sharp fingers, the racing, hypnotic movement of its skeletal limbs.

It wasn’t fair. Undead creatures were supposed to be slow, like zombies. Not swift as racehorses.

She had no chance of escaping on foot. She knew that; she just wanted to draw the creature as far away from the school as possible before the fight began.

She made it to the bottom of the hill and across the dusty path that separated the lawn from the football field.

A chest-high chain-link fence ran the perimeter of the field.

She made a beeline for it. The draugar was closing in; its footsteps were loud, crushing the pebbles on the dirt path.

Charlie slammed her hands onto the fence, trying desperately to hold on to the knife at the same time and ignoring the scrapes the metal left on her palms. She pushed off the ground, swinging her legs up and over the fence as she silently thanked her years of circus training.

Her feet landed on the other side of the fence, and she took off across the football field.

She didn’t make it more than four strides before a bony hand closed on her wrist.

Thankfully, it was her left wrist. Charlie didn’t miss a beat; she whirled around, slashing the knife at the draugar’s arm and praying that Sophie was right and it really could cut through anything.

She was rewarded with an anguished scream from the beast as the blade sliced cleanly through, severing its hand from its arm.

For a moment, she just stared in amazement. The draugar raised its bony stub of a wrist up to its face, as if it couldn’t believe it, either.

Charlie shook herself out of her stunned surprise. Attack now. While it’s still distracted.

She bent low and slashed toward its left thigh.

Unfortunately, the draugar saw what she was doing and it spun, moving its leg away and backhanding Charlie with its one remaining skeletal palm. The slap burned and sent her to the grass. She fell squarely onto her stomach, Sophie’s knife slipping from her fingers.

“ No. ” Charlie scrambled to grab the knife, but the draugar stepped on her wrist, crushing it beneath its skeletal feet.

She cried out, tugging futilely on her arm and praying that its foot wouldn’t leave anything worse than a bruise.

It raised its foot slightly, and Charlie seized the opportunity to snatch the knife.

But before she could do anything, a gnarled hand reached under her stomach and flipped her roughly around.

Charlie landed on her back, the breath rushing from her lungs.

The draugar was crouched over her, gazing down with its eerie, sunken eyes.

Up this close, she could see that they were not entirely blank; dim light glowed at the back of the eye sockets, as if candles were set into its bones.

It trapped her left arm with its one remaining hand, pinning her right with its bony nub, pressing her wrist so hard she feared it would crack.

The beast leaned forward, cold, foul breath sweeping over her face.

It spread its jaws wide, tusks flashing in the moonlight, and reared its head back, ready to bite her face clean off —

Something rocketed into the draugar from the side.

The beast howled and rolled over. Charlie couldn’t see what it was that had knocked the creature over, but it must have been incredibly strong. She scrambled backward, keeping the knife clutched in her right hand as she put as much distance between herself and the draugar as possible.

As she watched, a gray-and-red blur rushed through the air.

It descended upon the draugar’s face, presumably clawing at its eyes, but Charlie couldn’t actually discern any of the blur’s features.

It was fast, too fast. It moved in a chaotic whir that reminded her of the cartoons she used to watch of the Tasmanian Devil.

The draugar roared with pain, trying to swat at the creature, but it was moving too quickly.

It dodged the draugar’s attacks, bringing its tornado of wrath down on the various parts of the monster’s body.

Charlie heard a sickening crack and saw one of the draugar’s legs snap clean off.

A glance at the beast’s face revealed chunks of missing bone and broken teeth.

Whatever this Tasmanian Devil–like creature was doing inside that tornado, it was tearing the draugar apart.

Charlie pushed herself off the ground, wincing at the pain in her wrist. Knife clutched in one hand, she staggered forward, ready to help the mysterious blur.

But when she got within a foot of the monster, arm raised to strike, the blur stopped moving—just long enough to whip its head around and hiss at Charlie, baring needle-sharp teeth and glowing white eyes.

But that wasn’t the most surprising part. The part that made Charlie stumble backward, that made her gasp and raise her left hand to her throat, was this:

The creature destroying the draugar was the v?tte.

It was the v?tte, and yet it wasn’t. The tiny, bearded, plump -nosed, innocent little creature that she knew was gone.

In its place was a vicious gremlin. Wild-eyed.

Green skin instead of white. Double the size of the v?tte she knew, like a balloon pumped full of extra air.

Long arms with claws for fingers. Legs had sprouted from the bottom of its body, attached to goblin-like feet.

A previously unseen mouth normally blocked by his beard was filled with shining shark’s teeth.

The only features that she recognized—that let her know that it truly was her v?tte, and not some brand-new creature—were the red hat on his head, the button nose, and the signature gray tunic.

She stared in awe as the v?tte spun back around and continued its job of dismantling the draugar.

It happened quickly. Impossibly so. One moment, the beast had been seconds from ripping Charlie’s face off.

The next, it was on the ground, screaming with agony as the v?tte tore bone after bone from its body.

Within seconds, the draugar was nothing more than a pile of splintered limbs and cracked joints.

The v?tte saved the top for last. With one final, shuddering moan, the draugar’s head was ripped from its body. It rolled twice on the ground and came to rest in the field’s end zone, jaw hanging open.

Beast defeated, the v?tte stood still on the grass for a few moments, chest heaving up and down as it stared at the remains of its victim.

Then, before Charlie could say anything, before she could thank him or chastise him or demand to know how he could have hidden this side of himself from her, he turned and ambled toward her.

With each step, the v?tte began to shrink.

Its arms shortened. Its legs withdrew into its body.

Its claws disappeared, along with the mouth full of horrifying teeth.

Its skin turned from green to the milky white she was used to seeing—revealing a shallow gash on his button nose where the draugar must have swiped him.

His fluffy beard settled back into place.

By the time he reached Charlie’s feet, he was just as adorable as he had ever been.

“What—” Charlie began.

But before she could get the rest of the question out, the v?tte waddled over to her ankle and nuzzled its nose into her skin. Its little arms struggled to wrap around her leg, like a T-Rex trying to give a hug.

Charlie’s heart swelled with fondness.

“You know what?” she said, crouching down. “I’m not even going to ask.” She scratched under the v?tte’s hat. Then, before standing up to head back to the school, she whispered, “Thank you, my friend.”