Page 61 of Curse of Darkness
I can’t hear a cursed thing as I stride along the terrace where the statues stand. “What?”
Finn frowns, turning one way and then the other. Lightning flickers in distant clouds, but nothing moves.
Even so, he sets his hand to rest on the hilt of his sword. “Something’s wrong.”
Orlagh said there was a storm up here. Once again, she was warning me. “What?”
He prowls through the fog carefully, tilting his head this way and that. I follow, placing careful footsteps exactly where he placed his.
He freezes. “Vi, how many statues were here earlier?”
I think about it, my heartbeat starting to race as my memories provide an alternate answer to the reality. “Thirteen.”
There are fifteen still forms lingering along the rail.
One of them laughs. “Well spotted, half breed.”
Finn whips the Sword of Mourning from its scabbard, the steely whine of its passage cutting through the air as the figure leaps for him.
Their blades meet and his shears straight through the other. Without pausing, glowing steel cuts right through the shadowy figure.
It folds in on itself and as it hits the floor, the cape collapsing into nothing more than material.
“Behind you!” I scream as a second figure launches itself off the railing, a spear held high.
With its cowl and cloak, all I see is a flash of vicious teeth and glowing eyes before Finn stabs back under his arm and buries the sword in its gut. It curls over his shoulder, but he shrugs it off, feet dancing as he whirls the sword into a defensive position.
The flame tattoo on his forehead is glowing.
I’ve never seen it do that before.
The second the body hits the ground, it bursts apart in clumps that shudder and writhe across the ground.
“What the fuck?” Finn whispers, nudging one with his boot.
Instantly, it bursts into a raven. Dozens of them shake off a black ichor and leap into the sky, cawing as they vanish into the clouds.
“What was that?”
“Go!” Finn yells, shoving me in the back. There’s a gold ring around his blue irises, the flame between his eyes burning like a brand. “We need to get to the beach now!”
“What in the Darkness were they?” Did Kato send them?
“Trouble.”
Distant howls echo in the storm as we skid onto the beach, looking for our boat. I stare into the murky clouds but can’t see a thing.
“Come on!” Finn grabs my arm and hauls me into the frigid shallows. “Get in the boat!”
There’s no sign of the creatures making that howling noise.
“But what about—?”
Finn picks me up around the waist and dumps in the front end of the boat. Grabbing hold of the edges, I curse under my breath as he leaps in behind me.
“Can’t you hear that?”
“Hearwhat?” Even as I say the words a shiver trembles over my skin. There’s a hint of drums somewhere in the distance. Not the ones that march you to war, but the sound of something on the hunt.
