Page 51 of Soul of Shadow #1

“All right,” said Abigail the minute they stepped inside the old house. She ran a finger along the hallway table, then raised it to inspect the thick layer of dust now coating her skin. “This place seriously needs to be condemned.”

“Don’t think that’s possible,” said Charlie, setting the v?tte down on the carpet.

He led the way down the hall. Apparently, he was now completely healed from his brush with the draugar; he waddled without any sign of pain or a limp.

Charlie ushered Mason and Abigail after him.

“Not when most humans aren’t even able to tell it exists. ”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Mason stopped at the entrance to the dining room and stared at the wall of Norse symbols. “What in the Exorcism of Emily Rose is that ?”

Charlie grabbed his and Abigail’s wrists and dragged them farther down the hallway. “I know. It’s creepy as hell. But it’s not what we’re here for.” She stomped down the dusty carpet, stopping only when they reached the foot of the staircase.

“What are we here for, exactly?” Abigail eyed the top of the staircase, which wound into darkness. The v?tte, unperturbed, hopped up onto the first step and began his remarkably quick ascent. “You haven’t told us your grand plan.”

“I’m here on a hunch.” Charlie started up, staying just behind the v?tte. Mason took the stairs two at a time, bounding ahead of her, while Abigail stayed close to Charlie’s back. “If my hunch is correct, we’ll soon have everything we need.”

At the top, Charlie used memory to guide her to Elias’s bedroom. The door was shut but not locked. She turned the handle, stepped inside, and flipped on the nearest light switch.

Which illuminated Elias’s crumpled body on the carpet.

Abigail screeched and leapt backward. “Is he… is he dead ?”

“Nope.” Charlie crossed the floor and stepped over Elias’s body. “This is what happens when he turns into his mare form.”

As she walked over him, she considered—only for the briefest moment—taking the knife in her hand and driving it through his chest. What would happen if she killed his human form? Would he be stuck as a shadow creature forever? Or would his shadow form die, too?

But when she thought about committing cold-blooded murder in front of her brother and friend, her stomach lurched.

And—though she would never admit it to herself—when she thought about murdering Elias…

Her stomach lurched even harder.

She crossed over to his desk. With the hand not gripping the knife, she pulled open the top drawer and riffled around.

Mason was close on his sister’s heels. He paused above Elias’s body, peering curiously down. “This is what happens when he turns into that shadow thing?”

“Yes.” Charlie tried the next drawer, and the one below it.

She found a notebook, which she picked up and rapidly flipped through.

“When he becomes a mare, he can perform all these feats that are impossible when he’s in human form: walk through walls, run impossibly fast, create weapons out of thin air. That sort of thing.”

“And his body just…” Abigail crept forward, nudging Elias’s foot with her toe. “Stays here?”

“Yep,” said Charlie, shoving the notebook back into the drawer and feeling along the back of the wood for a secret compartment.

She was starting to get nervous; maybe Elias hadn’t written the location down.

When she pictured him deciphering the symbols on the trees, she imagined him with a paper in front of him, noting the meaning of each carving.

But maybe he’d done it all on his phone.

Or maybe he had done that on paper but then burned it afterward.

If that was the case, they were at a dead—

The v?tte let out an excited squeak.

Charlie spun around to find that Mason and Abigail were already looking down at the v?tte. He squatted beside Elias’s unconscious form, waving a crumpled piece of paper with one tiny arm.

“Nice work,” said Charlie, crouching to the v?tte and taking the paper from him. She patted his hat twice, and he nuzzled happily into her palm. “Where was it?”

The creature pointed at Elias’s front jacket pocket.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Of course. He trusts no one but himself.”

Heart hammering, she unfolded the paper. This was their best shot. Their only lead to where Elias might be taking Lou. She flattened the paper on her knee, smoothing the edges with her palms. Together, she, Mason, and Abigail bent close to read it.

42.67, -86.2 1

Mason scratched his head. “A math problem?”

“No, you jockstrap.” Abigail snatched the paper from Charlie’s knee and reread the numbers several times.

“They’re latitude and longitude coordinates.

” She pulled her phone out of her purse and flicked open the screen, starting to type.

“I’ll put these into Maps, and… yes. Here we go. ” She flipped the screen around.

“The Oxford Power Plant ?” Mason read. “You mean, the abandoned junkyard over by the beach?”

Abigail nodded. “Or what we think is an abandoned junkyard.”

“Exactly,” Charlie said, pointing at her friend. “Our whole lives, that area has been off-limits. Dangerous and unstable. Fenced in with a hundred warning signs. But we’ve only ever looked at it with human eyes, right?”

Mason eyed the screen skeptically. “You think the power plant is protected by magic? The way this house is?”

Charlie looked at the pin dropped on the map on Abigail’s phone. She stared at it for a few moments, thinking about all the times that she, Lou, and Sophie had played near the fence as little kids. All the times they had peered through its wire, hoping for a glimpse of whatever danger lay within.

It was back. That rush in her chest. The flutter in her belly.

The tingle on her skin, like every pore had come alive at once.

The same feeling that had ignited within her on the night of the first disappearance.

The one she had condemned within herself as being wrong, twisted, a sign of just how broken she was.

But now?

When she looked back up at Mason, the skepticism on his face was gone. In its place :

Pure mischief.

As Charlie’s face stretched into a smile that matched her brother’s, a dozen memories flooded over her at once.

Shared adventures with her twin sister and older brother.

Pranks pulled on their mom. Snails hidden in the cupboards.

A mural of multicolored markers drawn on the second-floor landing.

She remembered then that it hadn’t always been Mason pulling the wool over his sisters’ eyes.

It had often been the three of them—partners in crime and mischief.

Charlie held Mason’s gaze, excitement rippling between them. She raised an eyebrow and said, “There’s only one way to find out.”