24. Cricket

For the second time in minutes, Cricket crumpled to the ground, her injured ankle and hoof barking in pain. She gritted her teeth, pressing against pine straw with one hand and reaching for Avery with the other.

She shrieked, kicking wildly with one leg and clawing at the earth as she was dragged across the glade and lifted into the air. Blood runneled down her pale calf in black, twisting lines. The plaited tail of her hair whipped around as she kicked and hissed, unable to reach the monster.

Half the deer skull mask had shattered from the impact of Avery’s tree branch, and one bilious eye squinted at them in fury. The beast curled his lip, revealing blood-stained gums and a cracked canine. “This is even better. Those idiots will see two faun tearing Elizabeth Payne limb from limb.”

“No!” Cricket rasped.

“Troy, you dick!” Avery wriggled and kicked out, landing her heel in his ribs. The beast winced but held tight. “Put me down!”

“Okay.” He released his claws, and Avery grunted as she hit the ground. She was quick to roll over, far quicker than Cricket would have thought—faster than Cricket could even react. Avery flipped onto her stomach, the toes of her sneakers digging into the ground, launching herself away from Troy.

He was faster, though, and snagged her by the ankle. Avery shrieked as she was dragged backward and again raised by the leg, blood now running in a liquid sheet up her shin. She slipped in his grip—No.

Bile surged up Cricket’s throat as she realized Avery hadn’t slipped. His claws had sliced deep, shredding flesh and muscle.

All sound cut out. The woods fell unearthly still as the scene played out before her. Avery’s mouth opened in a silent scream, tears leaking from her eyes, across her temples, and into her hair. The beast, the Georgia Man, Troy, pressed out his chest and threw his head back, howling to the moon. His free hand wrenched twigs from a tree and shoved them into the remains of the bone mask like antlers.

“No.” Cricket pushed her to hooves, stumbled, and caught herself on a knee. Sound crept back in. Avery’s whimpers and cries, Troy’s sharp and manic laughter. “No!” She lurched upright, limping across the glade. Her ears swiveled forward, intent on the threat, as her eyes scanned the ground for any weapon, any tool. Avery’s tree branch lay snapped in half, too far to reach. No rocks, no jagged stones. Nothing but pine straw and dirt. “Let her go!”

“Or what, little deer?” He leveled the full force of his mad gaze at her, yellow eyes bright and feverish. Hungry. He tightened his grip, the muscles in his arm bulging beneath sleek fur. Avery, Gods, Avery. Her face had gone pale when it ought to be flushed from being held upside down. Pale and soft, her eyes glazing over and rolling back into her skull.

Beams of light cut through the trees, closer now. Shouts and hollers echoed and drew near. Troy glanced at the approaching counselors and campers, his grin spreading with lupine ferocity.

“Showtime.”

He swung his arm, releasing his grip on Avery as he did. Cricket lurched for her, too slow on her injuries, too dizzy from being strangled. Avery hit the ground with a terrible thump, rolling onto her side, and Cricket was there a heartbeat later, gathering her into her arms.

Troy prowled the edge of the glade, a low growl rumbling in his chest, primal and terrifying. Instincts warred within Cricket. The inborn faunish desire to run! Predator! Run, flee, hide! at odds with her desire to gather Avery to herself. To keep her safe, to soothe her pain and fear away. It took every nerve, every last bit of will for Cricket to keep moving. She crawled across the glade on hands and knees, reaching for Avery as a Gods-be-damned werewolf watched her every move.

The moment she had her hands on Avery, Troy snapped his jaws and dropped onto his palms, his twisted body gruesome in its shifted shape—humanoid and monstrous. Caught between wolf and man. A froth built at his mouth, those yellow eyes burning behind the deerskull. He looked rabid, bordering on insane with his desire to ruin the faun and for what?

Troy gnashed his teeth, his growl building in volume. The stink of decay washed over the glade, and a beyond-cold lick of fear dribbled down Cricket’s spine. Terror filled the woods, replacing the hot, humid night with a cave-like chill.

“Time’s running out,” Troy jeered. His voice roused Avery from her stupor, and she flopped onto her back, eyes going wide and round at the sight of the werewolf pacing nearer. She screamed, digging the heel of her uninjured leg into the ground, pushing herself away from Troy and into Cricket’s arms.

She hauled Avery close. Pressed chest to back, their frantic heartbeats matched in a terrified cadence. Gods, they were both too injured to run. This was it, there was no escape, no shadowed breezeway to hide in.

“Over there!” A voice shouted in the wood, deep and masculine.

“Oh, my God. Is that … an elk?” Another hollered.

Troy glanced in the direction of the shouts, head cocked as he listened, before returning that vile gaze to Avery and Cricket. He bunched onto his haunches, lips curled back, teeth ready to rend and tear as he prepared to leap across the glade. “Out of time, little deer.”

Avery sobbed, trembling as her attempts to escape gave over to unadulterated fright. Cricket held her tight, brushing hair away from her temple and kissing the tears away. If this was it, if this was how it ended, she wanted her to know—

“You’re so brave, Aves.”

Troy’s growl rose, revving like the motor of a car. Fur bristled along his arms and neck.

Avery twisted into Cricket. She wrapped her arms around her back and buried her face in Cricket’s chest as she whispered the soothing words Avery should have heard every damn day of her life. “So gods damned brave and beautiful.”

Troy snarled. Avery’s nails dug into Cricket’s back. He launched across the glade and—

An arm the size of a tree trunk swept him out of the air. He let out a high-pitched yelp as his back hit an actual tree, bones snapping like twigs. Pine needles rained down on Cricket and Avery, shook loose from the impact.

His body fell, lifeless, and landed like a sack of potatoes on the ground. A cloud of dust and leaves rose, fluttering back to the earth without fanfare as a terrible stench filled the air.

Avery gagged. She turned her face, and Cricket palmed the back of her head. “No.” Pressing just the tips of her fingers against her skull, she urged Avery to look away. “You don’t want to see this.”

“Is he—?”

Before Cricket could answer, the temperature in the glade plummeted, turning their trembles of fright into outright shivers. A wave of decay and rot followed. Cricket gagged and pressed her nose to Avery’s hair, inhaling the sweet florals and salt that was her as she witnessed a true terror stalk into view.

Taller than Troy, taller than the topmost points of her father’s antlers, the beast that stepped from the shadows was massive and monstrous. A nightmare brought to life.

Shreds of withered velvet peeled from twelve, no, fourteen? Cricket squinted, fighting a roll of nausea as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Fourteen-point antlers warped to sixteen, to ten, to twelve again, as if her brain were trying to make space for this creature in all that it knew of the world, seeking relations to the faun, to earthly elk and deer, and unable to make any singular image stick.

It hurt her eyes, so she stopped trying to count, dropping her gaze away to view the bald skull of its face and blazing, eldritch eyes stacked over a gaunt, massive frame.

Exposed ribs enclosed a hollow chest. Every muscle was sinewy and root-like, the veins of its arms withered in the moonlight.

Without sparing a glance at Cricket and Avery, the terror loped for Troy’s body, grabbing the lifeless douchebag and dropping him over one bony shoulder like a sack of wheat.

Only then did it turn toward Cricket. The blaze in those horrible eyes did not flicker. It did not falter, and she felt, rather than saw, its attention drift to Avery, taking in how she clung to Cricket. How Cricket held her close and dear.

That horrid attention again rose to Cricket, and the creature nodded once before turning to the wood and disappearing into the shadows of the trees.

A frigid, rancid breeze followed, pricking her ears with the barest rasp of a whisper:

“Take care, little sister.”

It was a very, very long beat before Cricket was able to speak again.

“What the fuck was that?”

“An old friend,” a soft, breathy voice answered. Another inhuman appeared from the wood, thin and wispy enough that Cricket half thought she’d drift away on the next breeze. Moon-pale hair rose around a face gleaming ivory white, and though a long bathrobe obscured her feet, Cricket was fairly certain the inhuman was floating. “One of the first to fall through, long, long ago. This world has not been kind to him, but he survives on the stories that are told.”

“I don’t—”

“I will not dishonor him by speaking his name,” the newcomer said. “He does not care for defamation.” She glanced around the glade, large, dark eyes taking in the shards of deer skull, broken twigs, and blood. “Honestly, I am surprised he did not shred that impostor to bits right here.” She cocked her head at Cricket. “He must like you. Avery certainly does.”

At the sound of her name, Avery pressed against Cricket’s hand, still cupping the back of her head. “Sanoya?”

“And my Hidebehind.” Sanoya gestured to the trees. “We heard everything; how terrible for you.” The shadows at her back nodded. Cricket closed her eyes, shook her head, and squinted past Sanoya.

The shadows waved.

“I will happily speak with the authorities,” Sanoya continued. “The humans in these hills have long trusted the word of the moon-eyed.”

“What,” Cricket croaked.

Sanoya drifted closer, bending at the waist and peering at the pair. Her delicate features blurred to nothing, drawing all of Cricket’s attention to the large round orbs of her eyes like a moth to the flame. Deep as the caves riddling the hills, black as night save for the gleaming crescent of a moon serving as a pupil. Eyes she could stare at for hours. Days. Weeks. A lifetime.

“About Avery’s father and that nasty werewolf.” Sanoya straightened, snapping whatever spell had been cast between them. Cricket’s arms tightened around Avery, and she cast a glance around the glade, half expecting to have been caught by those eyes long enough for the sun to rise. “Come along, let us get you back to camp. The students are in an uproar, and Director Murray is about to fall to bits.”

“I don’t think we can walk,” said Cricket.

“That is alright.” Sanoya gently pried Avery away from her, lifting her into a bridal carry with ease. “I am stronger than I look.”

The shadows detached from the trees, melting into the shape of what Cricket could only describe as a black bear crossed with a labrador. It loped up close, nostrils flaring as it inhaled Cricket’s scent. She froze, damned prey instincts kicking in once again, and the Hidebehind sneezed in her face.

“He will not hurt you,” Sanoya said. The Hidebehind grinned as dogs do, soft pink tongue lolling free. “But that tongue has a mind of its own, and you are both so … sweaty.”