Page 18 of Monsters of Midnight

The birds rode the wind, letting it lift them. They were beautiful and free and soared without a care in the world.

Suddenly an eagle hawk flew into view, sweeping down by the window and getting so close to the glass I could see the green intelligence in its eyes. It looked straight at me before it swooped away again. I looked around in the sky, but I couldn’t see where it went.

The hawk came back, and this time I could see around its ankle was a small golden chain. Just as I was about to say something to the ladies, three small blackbirds came and began attacking the hawk, shoeing it away.

Katrina came up just then with a small bottle of essential oils. “You’re going to want to rub this on your temples and on your wrists and on your neck,” she said. “The acupressure points. Not all of them, of course. I mean, there’s so many across the entire body. It would take a long time and require you to get naked.”

I looked up at her, holding up my hand for a second to get her to calm down on the speech. “Did you see that?” I asked, pointing out the window.

She glanced out, but now the sky was clear. The hawk and the black birds were gone. “Nothing is there.”

“There was a hawk being attacked by black birds.” I stepped closer to the window, peering around.

“A hawk?” she moved up next to me.

“Yes, and it had a gold chain on it,” I said.

Lady Albright came closer to us. “You saw a hawk with a gold chain on its ankle?”

“I thought the gold ankles were invisible,” Katrina commented, glancing over Lady Albright.

“They are,” Lady Albright mused. “It must be her fire fly powers coming into her body and into her eyes. She’s able to see things that are cloaked.”

“What are you guys talking about?” I asked.

“It seems like you have one of the rare forms of fire fly power, which is being able to see things others can’t see or that are purposely trying to be hidden.” Lady Albright peered at me.

“So, it’s almost like x-ray vision?” I asked.

“Yes, it’ll help you a lot. You’ll turn into a very powerful witch,” Lady Albright said.

“Was the hawk spying on us?” I asked, still trying to figure out exactly what level of danger the hawk represented.

“Yes. Hawks are part of the DGC’s spy network,” Katrina said.

“It’s not really a spy thing,” Lady Albright said. “It’s more like what they do to take care of the people on the ground. Make sure they know exactly what’s going on.”

“Yeah, but why would they be sending people out here to look at us? Surely they can just ask Ryder?” I asked.

“Ryder’s brother just killed a fae, or had a fae killed and stole from the DGC. So, they are not going to be too solid on just letting Ryder wander around with no checks and balances,” Katrina said.

“What you may not realize,” Lady Albright commented as she took a bottle of oil from Katrina and brought it over to me. “Ryder is the only thing standing between this world and the world of the monsters. The monsters can take over our place and earth anytime they’d like to, if they were smart enough and powerful enough. Ryder creates a barrier between our world and their world, and through Ryder’s efforts, this world stays safe. So, he’s very, very important to the DGC. Magnus was always their back up but clearly Magnus isn’t such a good option anymore.”

“Speaking of which we’re going to need to tell them about her and her powers,” Katrina said, nodding toward me. “We can’t be seen to be hiding her and they’re going to know she was exposed to Cade, so they’re going to want to debrief her.”

Great. Seems like the DGC was coming. This wasn’t my jam at all.

Chapter 10

RYDER

“How are we going to get these, boss?” Ratchet asked.

“Well, we can’t do what we did last time,” I responded. Ratchet almost died when I’d had him burst into flames to convince the monsters I was their god. We definitely couldn’t do that again. There had to be another way to make them leave.

“I’m willing to try it again,” Ratchet said. “The only problem is Cade’s here and Cade’s got his brother and Cade’s brothers is the god of these monsters.”

“Not only that, but I don’t see a rift in sight,” I muttered. “How the hell did they get here?”

---