Chapter Four

  Tad shuffled backward, tightening his grip under the unconscious man’s knees, and pushed the door open with his hip. In front of him, Simone had her hands under the man’s armpits, and she grunted out instructions.

  “Right! To the couch!”

  It took a second for his brain to translate that right actually meant his left. He glanced over his shoulder as he navigated the unfamiliar landscape of Simone’s darkened living room. His hands started to slip again against the slack fabric of the man’s sweatpants, and he had to quickly readjust his grip. As he was hiking up his hands, he bumped into a side table, and pain burst through his leg. He grit his teeth, grimacing.

  “Almost there,” Simone coached.

  He glanced behind them, spotted the sofa, and shuffled faster, pulling Simone in his haste. At last, they reached the couch, and he was able to relinquish his burden. He set the man down onto the cushions with less care than he ought to have and, once free, he sank into one of the wicker chairs with a groan. Simone snapped one of the table lamps on, and its harsh light flooded the small room, making him squint.

  “Take off his pants,” she said, throwing the words at Tad as she rushed from the room.

  With aching muscles, Tad pushed himself out of the chair again, setting to the task of yanking the green sweats off the other man. As the torn leg came into view, his breath caught in his throat.

  Where there should have been tendons and muscle, instead, there were broken shards of darkness that streaked up his calf like corrupted crystal. They were as deep and as black as starless space and pitted like rotten apple skin. Blood and dirt were caked on the fabric of his pants, but there was none on the leg itself. Just those impossible faceted ends of nothingness. Tad’s hand glanced against the darkness, and he yanked it back.

  It was like touching the edge of a vacuum—cold, hungry, and alive.

  He hurriedly pulled the other pant leg around the man’s sneaker. Then, not knowing what else to do, he draped the ragged pants over the man’s crotch to protect his modesty.

  Simone bustled back into the room, her arms filled with jars that clinked as she moved. She set them down on the glass top of the coffee table and turned to examine the unconscious newcomer.

  “What did you get yourself into?” she murmured, then turned to Tad. “Grab my wand, will you?”

  For a second, his mind stuttered over the word wand, but then he realized she meant that twisted root she had earlier. “Where’d you leave it?” he asked, hoping the answer wouldn’t be back at the basement.

  “In the front seat.”

  He limped back outside and rummaged around in the chaos of the passenger seat until he found the wand. It was gnarled and blunt, with a cage of twisted roots near one end. He picked it up and closed the cruiser door. It was just after midnight, and the night was silent as the grave. Tad had never been one to be afraid of the dark, but now as he strode back up the walk, gravel crunching under his boots, he couldn’t stop himself from scanning the darkness for shadows that lurked just beyond the weak porch light. His heart pounded in his chest, and the cool night air tasted metallic, tinged with an underlying note of unease. Once he was safely inside the house, he closed the door firmly behind him, then locked it for good measure.

  “Are you sure it can’t get out?” he asked Simone when he handed her the root.

  She shook her head, taking it from him and poking at what was left of the man’s leg. The man groaned, shaking his head from side to side, but otherwise didn’t wake.

  “The circle I ran around the basement should hold for now,” she said, her attention on the man in front of her. “but not forever. I’ll make some calls when the sun comes up.” She opened several of the jars and started applying the foul-smelling insides to the man’s skin above the black shards.

  “Help me,” she commanded, grabbing the man’s leg and lifting it so it bent at the knee. Tad took over holding the man while she applied more of the stuff from the jars to the underside of his leg. His arm shook, and he struggled to keep the man’s leg in the air. He was grateful when she told him he could put it back down.

  She put her hand on the man’s head, looking grim. “He’s burning up,” she said, getting to her feet, looking both determined and lost.

  “Should we call 911?” he asked.

  She shook her head and started searching through the jars on the table. “They wouldn’t be able to do anything about this,” she said. “Hell, it might even start some kind of epidemic for all I know.”

  His fingers still burned from their contact with the man’s leg, and Tad clenched them tightly. “Is it contagious?”

  She shook her head. “No, well, at least I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of something like this happening. No one has ever come away from an encounter like this alive.”

  Tad lowered himself back into the chair he was starting to think of as his. His head was pounding. “What was that thing?”

  She opened a jar, sniffed the contents, made a face, then recapped it and sighed. “A Hunter.”

  Succinct.

  “What does it hunt?”

  “Everything,” she said with a humorless laugh. Tad could hear a note of hysteria in her voice. He opened his mouth to ask if she was okay when the man behind her suddenly sat straight up, gasping like he’d been underwater. The man opened his mouth and started to scream.

  She turned, eyes wide, face full of alarm. “Henry!”

  But the man’s eyes were sightless. Wherever he was, he couldn’t see or hear her. She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down. “Help me!” she cried over her shoulder.

  Tad leapt to his feet, but the world swayed, and he was forced to put out his arm to steady himself. His ears were ringing. He could vaguely hear Simone calling his name, but it still took several seconds for things to snap back into focus. He forced himself to go to her side and put his good arm across the man’s chest, using his weight to hold the other man down. Everything was fuzzy. His head hurt. He felt like he was going to vomit.

  Simone had turned back to the coffee table and was frantically pulling tops off jars until she found what she was looking for. She dipped two fingers into the thick yellow liquid inside and smeared the goop on the man’s forehead. The smell hit Tad square in the face, and he gagged. Underneath him, the man calmed, though he was still lost in whatever dream had claimed him.

  “You can let go of him now,” she said, recapping the jar. Her voice seemed to come from far away. Were the lights always that dim? He struggled to stand upright, and she seemed to focus on him for the first time.

  “Tad? Are you okay?”

  Tad blinked at her, trying to focus on her face and failing.

  He fell face-first onto the floor.

  ---

  Greer ran like her life depended on it. She didn’t have time to consider that it might actually be true. Her feet pounded against the compacted dirt road, their frantic rhythm an echo of her heartbeat.

  Her instincts drove her up the road toward her grandmother’s house, but it was hard to see where she was going. Chris was behind her, and the light from his phone’s flashlight bounced and jiggled as he ran.

  A loud alien chittering erupted in the night air, followed by a very human shout. She glanced backward. Chris’s shirt was torn at the shoulder, flapping against his arm as he ran, but he wasn’t hurt, and that’s all that mattered at that moment. Behind him, she could only see darkness, but she had no doubt that the thing, the creature, was there.

  The unfamiliar noise rolled out of the night again, and she quickly faced forward. She leaped over a jutting rock, only to trip on a depression in the road. Her momentum jerked her off her feet, and she pitched forward, falling to the ground in a tangle of limbs, hair, and knees. Her chin smacked hard on a rock, and she tasted blood and dirt. She looked up as Chris’s long legs loped past her prone figure.

  “Wait!” she cried out to him as she struggled to her feet.

  He glanced behind him. When he saw her on the ground, he turned and ran back. He grabbed her hand in a tight, hard grip and pulled her forward while stealing glances behind them.

  Hand in hand, they raced along the road. They rounded the bend, and suddenly the looming trees were gone. In their place, she could see the stars blinking in the western skies above her grandmother’s house. To their right, the light pole stood sentry on its private knoll- the only light on the property. Up on the hill, the house stood dark and silent, waiting for them.

  Greer tugged on his hand, and together, they veered off the road and scrambled up the bank to the house. It was steep, and she slipped more than once on the grass, losing her grip on his hand. Chris grabbed her arm and pulled her along, dragging her behind him as he raced up the incline. The pole light shone brightly in the dark, lighting their way to the house.

  “Inside!” she cried, pointing to the darkened house.

  He grunted in assent, and they bolted across the lawn. It wasn’t until they were finally on the porch, their shoes slapping loudly on the concrete, that she realized they were no longer being chased. She put one hand on Chris’s arm as he opened the screen door, the hinges squeaking loudly in protest.

  “I think it’s gone,” she gasped, bending at the waist as she tried to catch her breath.

  He looked behind them, then closed the screen door and turned around in a half-circle, looking past the porch columns for the thing in the darkness. She straightened, sucking in lungfuls of warm, humid air, and tried to make sense of what had just happened.

  Christ asked the question she was thinking. “Why did it stop?”

  He walked to the edge of the porch, and she grabbed for him reflexively, afraid to let him out of her reach. He looked back at her, his expression unreadable and his eyes pools of darkness in the dim light. “It’s okay,” he said, dislodging her hand. Worry and fear caught in her throat, and she could only watch as he moved to the porch’s edge.

  The night stared back at them.

  “It’s quiet,” he said his voice barely a whisper.

  “What?” She didn’t understand.

  “Nothing out there is making noise: no peepers, no owls, nothing. I don’t think—” He stopped talking and slowly backed away from the edge of the porch toward the door. “It’s still here,” he hissed.

  Fear jolted inside her, rushing from her heart to her toes. Her skin crawled with it. “Where?” she whispered back, fighting the urge to fist her hand in the back of his tee shirt.

  He pointed in the dark. “There, just beyond the light.”

  She strained her eyes, trying to see what he saw.

  Then, she saw it.

  It was a mass of darkness, somehow darker than the night around it. She couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was, it was too indistinct in the low light, but it was roughly the size of what she imagined a bear might be. It prowled the edge of the lawn, and now and again, its inhuman skin caught the light and reflected it.

  A hard chill like ice ran down her spine. “Why isn’t it coming after us?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  They watched it pace along the yard’s perimeter for a long moment before Chris started forward. She rushed after him in a panic. “What are you doing? Don’t go out there!”

  “Shh,” he said, waving her away and keeping his eyes on the beast. “There’s something strange about this.”

  She hesitated, not knowing if she should follow and leave the relative safety of the porch. Lightning flashed in the western sky.

  “He’s insane,” she muttered and hastily ran after him.

  When she caught up to Chris, she cast furtive glances into the night around them as he led them in a straight line from the door across the flattest part of the yard, their steps cautious and slow. As they neared the yard’s edge, she did her best not to let the fear gathering in her chest show, but the closer they got to the edge, the more scared she became. Her ears buzzed as her blood pressure soared. Chris held a rock the size of his fist in his hand, and she felt a hysterical bubble of laughter build inside her at the sight of it.

  If that was the best weapon they had, they were as good as dead.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance as the beast stopped prowling and watched them approach. Chris stopped a dozen feet from the creature, careful to keep the flashlight’s beam trained on the grass. It paced in front of them like a tiger in a cage. Up close, it looked more like a man on all fours with the hind legs longer than the front. It had black rotting skin that was stretched too tightly over a jutting network of bones. It grinned at them, revealing a mouth filled with rows of needle-like teeth. There were no eyes in its head, only a sloping empty forehead.

  For a moment, the man and beast just stared at one another. Then, the beast’s head swung from Chris to Greer. Despite its lack of eyes, it skewered her beneath its gaze and trapped her like a pinned butterfly. She felt light-headed, and the buzzing in her ears increased tenfold.

  “Why isn’t it chasing us?” she whispered.

  He brought up one arm and cradled her shoulders tightly, pressing her into his side. “I don’t know,” he said, slowly backing away from the creature and dragging her with him. “But I don’t think we should stick around to find out.” He propelled them back toward the house, never taking his eyes off the creature. The beast screamed, watching them go, but it didn’t make a move to follow. It just continued to prowl like a caged animal at the edge of the darkness.

  Chris glanced behind them at the house. “For whatever reason, it doesn’t like this house.”

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  She laughed nervously. “I don’t blame it.”

  Her heels hit the edge of the concrete porch, and, for the first time in a long time, she felt a wave of relief to be at her grandmother’s house. Chris dropped his arm from around her shoulders and headed for the door. He paused and looked back at her. “I think we need to talk.”

  Thunder growled loudly in the sky, and she blew out a breath. She glanced back at the creature and shuddered. “I think you’re right.”

  Once inside, she flicked the light switch and took a deep breath, turning to him, but he was already moving to the windows. He peered outside, pushing aside the curtains and shielding his eyes from the light with his hands. Outside, lightning lit the sky as the heavy band of rain finally reached the hill, hammering the small farmhouse.

  “Can you see it?” he asked, his voice tight with tension.

  She closed the door and joined him at the window but couldn’t see anything but her own reflection. “Hang on,” she said, crossing back to the door. She hit the switch, dousing the light, and came back to stand at the window next to him. She strained her eyes against the dark but then shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “Nothing.”

  “Are there any windows on the other side of the house?”

  She pointed to the stairs. “There’s a few on the landing.”

  He raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Alone, she considered what he might be looking at: the clothesline, garden shed, the ancient old lilac at the edge of the yard, the field beyond all of it. There wasn’t much to see and too many places for the creature to hide.

  The idea that maybe she could see something from the back door occurred to her, and she walked with purposeful steps through the dark room to the pantry. From there, it was easy enough to feel her way along the wall to the back door. Her hand closed over the knob, and she pulled it open.

  She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t the creature six feet from her face. She shrieked and backpedaled, tripping over a laundry basket in her haste to retreat. She crashed to the floor, sending the folded shirts and socks across the floor.

  For its part, the creature screamed and clawed at the air in front of the door. The rain lashed the back of the house, puddling on the floor in front of the door.

  Chris ran down the stairs, calling her name, his boots thumping loudly against the old wood treads. He burst into the pantry and skidded to a stop when he realized the back door was open.

  The creature, seeing him, screamed again- an angry, hungry sound.

  She scrambled backward on her hands and feet, putting as much distance between it and her as she could. It paced back and forth, chittering angrily as the rain pelted its black leathery skin. Chris rushed forward and grabbed the edge of the door, pushing her legs out of the way with his booted foot so he could close it.

  It dawned on her.

  “Wait!” she called, grabbing his ankle.

  Startled, he froze. “What’s wrong?”

  She watched the creature through the curtain of rain. It stared back at her with its awful eyeless face. Her gaze traveled down to the white stones at its feet. “It can’t cross,” she breathed.

  Chris stared at her, his face unreadable in the dim room. “What?”

  She pointed. “The stones! Look! Just like the creek! It can’t cross them.”

  He peered into the rain. The humped backs of the milky fist-sized stones were almost luminous in the dark, despite the dark and the rain. “What are they?”

  “The house ward,” she said, climbing to her feet. She was still shaking, but most of the fear was gone. “It must still be active.” That was surprising, and she wished fervently that she could talk to her mother just then. “I don’t know how long it will last with Kat dead, but for now, at least, we got lucky.”

  He watched the creature prowling on the other side of the ward, then turned to her. “Are you sure?” He was only a shadow amid other shadows, but she could feel his eyes on her.

  She crossed to the door and closed it. The creature screamed on the other side. She quickly latched it and stepped away, her hands shaking. “Why else didn’t it come inside when it had the chance?” she said with more bravado than she felt.

  He sighed in the dark. Without the door open, the room was pitch black. “I guess,” he said.

  She ran her hand along the wall for the switch but accidentally bumped into him instead. She hastily apologized and tried to step backward, but his warm hands came up and caught her before she could move away.

  Her breath caught in her throat. After the terror of the last few minutes, his warmth was intoxicating. She took an involuntary step closer, wishing for something she couldn’t put into words. His hands slid along the skin of her forearms, inching toward her elbows. She felt rather than heard him take a deep breath.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  Reality crashed over her like cold water, and she took a swift step backward. “Right,” she said, the word coming out clipped and tight. She put her hand out, searching for the switch again. Finding it, she flicked on the light. She then moved past him into the kitchen, avoiding his gaze.

  “Greer-”

  “The phone’s over there,” she said, pointing across the room as she moved to the stove. “You should call your grandpa at least, so he knows where you are.”

  He shot her a look that told her that he knew what she was doing, but he crossed to the front door anyway. On the wall beside the door hung her grandmother’s old rotary phone. He picked up the old-fashioned receiver and started dialing. She glanced at the set of his shoulder in the reflection of the window above the sink as she refilled the stout belly of the kettle.

  She was being stupid, she told herself. It was just the tension of the moment. She didn’t feel anything for him. It didn’t matter that they’d grown up together. Time had passed. They were different people. She shut off the water and carried the kettle to the stove. Setting it down, she lit the burner with one of the matches in the jar above the stove. Outside, she could hear the rain pelting the windows in the back, sounding like pebbles hitting the glass. She pictured the creature in the rain, pacing in front of the door, hungry. Then, before she could help herself, she remembered the feel of his hands on her skin and shivered.

  Behind her, he hung up the phone with a sigh, snapping her from her thoughts. “The line’s out,” he said, folding himself into one of the benches at the table.

  She swallowed thickly. How would they call for help now? She glanced at him as he took off his hat and rubbed his face. There were shadows under his eyes. Those eyes followed her as she searched the cupboards for her grandmother’s tea tin. She felt the weight of them on her back.

  “Are you a witch?”

  She froze, her hands on the pitted metal tin. Then she recovered and shook her head, putting the tea on the counter. “No.” She turned, bracing herself against the counter at her back. He was watching her, his face serious.

  “Why did you come back?” he asked. “Don’t give me that bullshit about closing up the house. Tell me the truth.”

  She bit her lip. Would he believe the truth? She took a deep breath. “I think Grandma cursed me,” she admitted.

  She suddenly found herself wishing for something she couldn’t put her finger on. A fresh start? A do-over? Something that would make him stop looking at her like she was a disappointment. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, hugging herself tight, wishing she was home.

  “Why does it matter if I’m a witch or not?” she asked belligerently.

  Lightning split the sky, and thunder cracked in the darkness outside. Chris smiled wryly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He fisted a hand in his shirt and lifted it up. Two symbols had been cut into the skin of his belly. Not symbols, she forced herself to admit. Runes. They’d been crudely cut too. She could see the scar tissue bunched along the lines like they’d been made with a dull blade.

  “Because,” he said, “if you were a witch, I’d have to kill you.”

  ---

  Tad came to in the bathtub, as naked as the day he was born. He gasped as consciousness flooded through him. He tried to sit up, but his muscles were boneless, and all he managed to do was slosh water onto the floor.

  “Steady now,” a male voice said.

  Tad looked toward the sound of the voice and found himself face-to-face with Henry. He was lying on the floor, propped against the wall opposite the tub. His pants were back on, but he looked worse for the wear with deep, sagging wells under haunted eyes. He pushed his yellowing acrylic glasses up with a nicotine-stained finger.

  A glance around the room told him they were the only ones there.

  “She’ll be back in a minute,” Henry said. “Once she figured you were gonna survive the night, she went to change her clothes.” He gave Tad a critical look. “You’re a lot heavier than you look.”

  Tad had no idea what he was talking about. His head throbbed, a slow, relentless pounding that muddled his thoughts. “What time is it?”

  Henry shrugged. “Four, five am.”

  Christ.

  Tad sank back into the water. It was still warm, and he let the heat seep into his sore muscles. White gauze was wrapped around his thigh, holding something thick against his skin. Oddly enough, the wound didn’t hurt anymore. He fingered the gauze, and a thought occurred to him. “What were you doing out there?”

  Henry opened his mouth, then shut it again. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “The site is unstable,” Tad argued. “You could’ve been killed.”

  Henry smiled mirthlessly at him. “I’m sure some would argue that would be an improvement.”

  Too late, Tad remembered the man’s leg, and he felt his face warm. “I didn’t mean it like-”

  “It’s fine,” the other man bit out. He paused, then looked away from Tad. “She says I have you to thank for getting me out of there.”

  Tad’s face felt like it was on fire. “I just did what I had to do,” he mumbled.

  The door opened, and Simone bustled into the room carrying a thick comforter. Relief flickered across her face when she saw him awake, but it was fleeting. She dropped the blanket carefully, keeping it clear of the water he’d splashed onto the floor, and knelt beside the tub.

  He covered himself with his hands, heat rushing to his face. Being naked in front of her wasn’t exactly the way he’d imagined this day going.

  “How’s your leg?” she asked briskly.

  “Fine,” he said honestly, though his voice was thick with exhaustion. “What happened?”

  “You passed out.” Her eyes narrowed, and he recognized the sharp, cutting look—his mother had perfected the same one. “You should’ve said something,” she snapped. “I can’t fix what I don’t know about.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “Exactly,” she said, cutting him off before he could finish. She grabbed a towel from a stack on the floor and shoved it at him. “You’re done here. You need to go home.”

  “What?” He stared at her, unsure if he’d heard right.

  She stood and turned her back to him, crossing her arms. “I shouldn’t have let you get involved. This isn’t your fight. I already called your dad—”

  “What?” he interrupted, standing quickly, water sloshing wildly around his legs. He grabbed the towel and started drying off, panic and anger prickling in his chest. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because Joe’s dealt with this kind of thing before,” she said, her tone clipped. “It’s bad enough I have to clean up whatever mess Henry caused back there—”

  Henry started to protest, but she cut him off with a glare. “Uh uh.” She thrust an angry finger at Henry. “You and me are gonna have words later.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Henry spat at her.

  “That’s not true,” Tad said, scowling at Henry as he wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out of the tub. “You’re the reason we went out there in the first place.”

  Henry glared at him. “Stay out of this, kid.” He turned back to Simone. “Look, I don’t know what you think you know, but this-” he waved his hand at them, “has got nothing to do with me. Now, let me go,” he said, “or I’ll call Joe and tell him you’re keeping me here against my will.”

  Storm clouds passed over Simone’s face. “Nothing?” she hissed. She took a step forward and jabbed a finger toward his legs. “You call that nothing? Forget Joe; you’re going to answer to the Council.”

  Tad unwound the gauze from around his leg, and a foul-smelling heavy packet of something fell to the floor. Under the harsh glare of Simone’s bathroom light, the broken lopsided circle of the creature’s bite was lighter than the rest of Tad’s skin. Where the teeth had pierced his flesh, the skin was gray, almost silver. But other than discoloration, there were no outward signs of the wound. No blood. No holes. It didn’t even hurt.

  He dug the nail of his thumb into the skin, pressing hard.

  Nothing.

  “For what?” Henry’s voice cut through the silence, rough and venomous. He stretched his uninjured leg out in front of him. His face was pale, his breath uneven, but his eyes glinted with defiance. “Tell me, what did I do that was so horrible?”

  “You went Under!” Simone thundered. She stood over him, arms crossed, her presence taking up far more space than her small frame should allow.

  Tad glanced up from his leg, the tension between them pressing against him like the cramped walls of the bathroom.

  “And what?” Henry shot back, his lip curling as he shifted slightly, the movement making him wince before he masked it with a glare. “That’s a privilege reserved only for witches? Get off your high horse. It’s not a crime to go Under.”

  Simone clenched her jaw, the muscle in her temple ticking as she stared him down. “Why were you there, anyway?”

  Henry leaned back against the wall, his head tipping to one side, his smirk taunting despite the sheen of sweat on his face. “None of your fucking business.”

  “Henry—”

  “I said it was none of your business!” he growled, his voice raw but steady, his fingers curling into his torn pant leg as though holding himself together.

  Simone muttered a curse under her breath, sharp and low, her shoulders tense.

  “What was that?” Henry snapped, his gaze narrowing despite the exhaustion creeping into his features.

  “Nothing,” she bit out, her voice cold and tight.

  “No—if you’re gonna say it, say it to my face, Simone,” he said, sitting up straighter as if to reassert his control, though the motion was stiff and pained.

  Simone threw her hands in the air, her voice bursting out. “Jesus, Henry!”

  The other man pushed himself to stand, using the sink to hold himself upright. “Stop treating me like I’m a goddamned screw-up! Who else do you know that can do the things I did!”

  She stared at him, shocked. “You got a kid killed!”

  He scoffed. “Please. He deserved it,” he raged. “You know it; Joe knows it. How long had he been ragging on me? On Maggie? You all knew he was doing it, but none of you fucking hypocrites would lift a finger to help. It was only when I did something that you jumped in to ‘save the day’,” he air quoted.

  “I saved your life,” Simone snapped, her voice cracking under the weight of the words. She took a step forward, eyes blazing, her fists clenched at her sides as if bracing herself for the fight she’d been holding back for years.

  “I didn’t need your help,” he bit back, the fire in his tone clashing with the weakness in his body as he clung to the sink for balance.

  “Oh, so you had it all under control?”

  “I’m not going to talk to you about this.”

  Tad moved quietly, grabbing his discarded clothes. While Simone’s back was still turned, he shoved his legs into the jeans and then pulled his shirt over his head.

  “Whatever,” she said, shaking her head. “I just need to know why you were there; then we can all move on.” She sounded like there was nothing she wanted more in the world than to be rid of both of them.

  “I told you,” Henry spat. “It’s none of your business.”

  Simone glared at him. “Jesus, you haven’t changed! Always chasing the magic! Were you there because of the curse? Trying to refill that pathetic spell stone you have?”

  Hurt flashed across Henry’s face. “I made this myself,” he said, clutching the stone that hung around his neck, then his face soured. “Not that any of you would’ve helped.”

  Regret briefly glinted in Simone’s eyes. “You don’t need a spell stone,” she said, but her tone had lost its bite.

  “Because I’m not a witch?”

  “Yes,” she said bluntly.

  Henry’s face shut down, his expression unreadable. Simone turned to Tad, her jaw tight, her tone brisk. “What did you see down there?”

  He blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift to him. It took a second to gather his thoughts. “A basement,” he said finally.

  Her lips pressed into a thin line, impatience written all over her face. “Not that,” she said curtly. “The Under doesn’t just show you what’s there—it twists things. You see what you expect or what it wants you to see.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Did you see anything out of the ordinary? Something that didn’t make sense?”

  “The Hunter—” he began, but she cut him off with a sharp gesture.

  “I know about that,” she snapped. “Anything else?”

  He frowned, trying to think. “It was hot,” he said eventually. “I burned my hand on a beam.” He held up his palm, showing her the shiny pink skin under his thumb.

  She stepped closer and squinted at his hand, then shook her head. “There’d been a fire. That’s not surprising.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “The fire’s been out for days. Bobby told me that yesterday. It shouldn’t have been hot.”

  She studied him, her brow furrowing. “That could just be the Under reflecting what you expected to see—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “It surprised me. I didn’t expect the heat.”

  “Okay,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t really taking it seriously. “Anything else?”

  “The roots,” he said suddenly, the memory surfacing like a cold splash of water.

  Her expression froze, her body going unnaturally still. “What roots?”

  “There were these black roots everywhere,” he said, his voice slower now as he tried to piece it together. “Tiny little things, but they were moving.”

  Simone’s gaze snapped to Henry, her tone sharp. “Did you see them?”

  Henry looked up, his exhaustion plain on his face. “I was a little busy trying not to get eaten.”

  Simone’s jaw clenched, and she turned back to Tad, her eyes sharp and demanding. “Tell me everything.”

  He shrugged, uneasy under her stare. “They were just little roots.”

  “Where were they?” she pressed, her voice tense.

  He thought for a moment. “On some of the beams. The stones too.”

  Her hand shot out, grabbing his arm with surprising strength. Her expression hardened, a flicker of something almost like fear behind her eyes. “Were they on the basement wall?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, a bit.”

  Her grip loosened instantly, and she dropped his arm as if burned.

  “What is it?” he asked, alarmed.

  Simone’s gaze darted to Henry, her voice low and grim. “We might have a problem.”