“They will come back, Silas,” Miss Lupescu whispered. “Too soon, the sun will rise.”
“Then,” said Silas, “we must deal with them before they are ready to attack. Can you stand?”
“Da. I am one of the Hounds of God,” said Miss Lupescu. “I will stand.” She lowered her face into the shadows, flexed her fingers. When she raised her head again, it was a wolf’s head. She put her front paws down on the rock, and, laboriously, pushed herself up into a standing position: a grey wolf bigger than a bear, her coat and muzzle flecked with blood.
She threw back her head and howled a howl of fury and of challenge. Her lips curled back from her teeth and she lowered her head once more. “Now,” growled Miss Lupescu. “We end this.”
Late on Sunday afternoon the telephone rang. Scarlett was sitting downstairs, laboriously copying faces from the manga she had been reading onto scrap paper. Her mother picked up the phone.
“Funny, we were just talking about you,” said her mother, although they hadn’t been. “It was wonderful,” her mother continued. “I had the best time. Honestly, it was no trouble. The chocolates? They were perfect. Just perfect. I told Scarlett to tell you, any time you want a good dinner, you just let me know.” And then, “Scarlett? Yes, she’s here. I’ll put her on. Scarlett?”
“I’m just here, Mum,” said Scarlett. “You don’t have to shout.” She took the phone. “Mister Frost?”
“Scarlett?” He sounded excited. “The. Um. The thing we were talking about. The thing that happened in my house. You can tell this friend of yours that I found out—um, listen, when you said ‘a friend of yours’ did you mean it in the sense of ‘we’re actually talking about you,’ or is there a real person, if it’s not a personal question—”
“I’ve got a real friend who wants to know,” said Scarlett, amused.
Her mother shot her a puzzled look.
“Tell your friend that I did some digging—not literally, more like rummaging, well, a fair amount of actual looking around—and I think I might have unearthed some very real information. Stumbled over something hidden. Well, not something I think we should spread around…I, um. I found things out.”
“Like what?” asked Scarlett.
“Look…don’t think I’m mad. But, well, as far as I can tell, three people were killed. One of them—the baby, I think—wasn’t. It wasn’t a family of three, it was a family of four. Only three of them died. Tell him to come and see me, your friend. I’ll fill him in.”
“I’ll tell him,” said Scarlett. She put down the phone, her heart beating like a snare.
Bod walked down the narrow stone stairs for the first time in six years. His footsteps echoed in the chamber inside the hill.
He reached the bottom of the steps and waited for the Sleer to manifest. And he waited, and waited, but nothing appeared, nothing whispered, nothing moved.
He looked around the chamber, untroubled by the deep darkness, seeing it as the dead see. He walked over to the altar stone set in the floor, where the cup and the brooch and the stone knife sat.
He reached down and touched the edge of the knife. It was sharper than he had expected, and it nicked the skin of his finger.
IT IS THE TREASURE OF THE SLEER, whispered a triple voice, but it sounded smaller than he remembered, more hesitant.
Bod said, “You’re the oldest thing here. I came to talk to you. I want advice.”
A pause. NOTHING COMES TO THE SLEER FOR ADVICE. THE SLEER GUARDS. THE SLEER WAITS.
“I know. But Silas isn’t here. And I don’t know who else to talk to.”
Nothing was said. Just a silence in reply, that echoed of dust and loneliness.
“I don’t know what to do,” Bod said, honestly. “I think I can find out about who killed my family. Who wanted to kill me. It means leaving the graveyard, though.”
The Sleer said nothing. Smoke-tendrils twined slowly around the inside of the chamber.
“I’m not frightened of dying,” said Bod. “It’s just, so many people I care for have spent so much time keeping me safe, teaching me, protecting me.”
Again, silence.
Then he said, “I have to do this on my own.”
YES.
“That’s all, then. Sorry I bothered you.”