Page 7 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
I look up at the church again. The shadows. Theymoved, didn’t they? I didn’t imagine that.
No one from the Citadel has much in the way of imagination anymore.
“I’ll go alone then,” I say, and like when I was looking at that wall, the stranger gone, I feel an odd disconnect between my mind and my body. I’m already following him. I’m already on the way.
“Isaac,” someone says, and when I turn my head, Rae is standing close, dark eyes searching my face. “What did you see?”
“A man. White. Taller than me.”
“You’re sure he was human?”
“Yes.” I spit the word. I know the difference between human and not.
“Let him do whatever this is alone,” Blake calls, further back.
“We’ve got time,” I say. The sun is still relatively high. “It’s a good position to scout from. See if anything else is moving in this town.”
Rae’s sigh is resigned. Dane grumbles. After a moment, she shifts on her feet. “You really think this is a good idea?” she asks me.
Oh, definitely not. The risk to our lives isn’t that high, I think, but it’s not nothing, and staying in the town centre would almost certainly be safer. If that man I saw isn’t alone, we trulycouldbe lambs to the slaughter.
But curiosity has its hooks in me, rending me open. Not just about the man—though I can’t fight this sudden urge I have to set eyes on him again—but about this unnatural town. If we spot no movement at all, something is certainly wrong here.
“We need to see if the area is clear,” I say, “and this is the easiest way. We can search the church properly tomorrow, when we have more light.”
It’s up to Dane, of course, but also it isn’t. On paper, he’s our leader, but all of us, save perhaps Autumn, know that things are different on the ground. He’s older and good at killing. That’s why they chose him.
Things can change in an instant here. They often do. And in reality, either the most experienced person or the person who most likes to kill takes charge.
I’ve been on both kinds of teams. Dane doesn’t mind the killing—at this point, I’d say neither of us does—but he doesn’t revel in it.
“Fine,” Dane says. Blake sputters, outraged, already knowing what he’ll say next. “Let’s go.”
The path becomes steeper the closer we get to the church, and it takes almost half an hour for us to reach the gates. Dane has moved to the front. He comes to a sudden stop as he steps through the wrought iron, and as we all take in the sight that greets us, we halt, too.
“What the fuck?” Rae mutters.
I’ve seen nothing like this in any town we’ve visited before. Hundreds of places, large and small, but this—
The graveyard is destroyed. All of it. Grass has grown over dirt mounds, gravestones toppled and shattered, and the force that must have taken is beyond my imagination.
Blake makes a quiet sound in the back of his throat, and it takes the rest of us a second to catch up. It isn’t just that the graveyard is destroyed.
It’sempty.
I don’t step off the path, but I lean over to look at the grave closest to where I’m standing. A coffin lies within, wood splintered and rotting. No bones. There’s nothing to indicate a corpse was ever entombed inside.
“Is this usual?” Autumn says quietly to Rae.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rae replies. Quickly. Too quickly. Autumn knows it too, eyes sharp, and her frown only deepens.
I was wrong about the doors being closed. They’re open. Well, one is. The other lies across the steps in broken pieces.
“Let’s check inside,” Dane says.
Otto and Blake move with him, and Otto is the first to gingerly climb over the mess and into the church. Blake is next to be swallowed up by darkness.
I can’t see or hear any other signs of movement within. If the man is here, chances are he’s hiding, and I doubt we’ll find him today. He knows this town better than we do.
