“That’s a long time.” Owen pouts a little, and reaches out to pluck on the collar of my costume. “I was just getting used to our little games.”
Erin underestimated the size of my bust, and I’m suddenly very aware of how much cleavage is showing between the brown folds of fabric. My décolletage flushes red as Owen’s finger brushes skin, however briefly.
Piers sticks out his hand. “Shake on it. Go get something to prove you saw the al, and we’ll lay off you until after winter break.”
“Avery!” Erin cries as I reach out and clasp Piers’ hand without any hesitation.
“Deal,” I say. I head toward the door, unwrapping the cupcake as I go. The other students start whispering as I walk off.
I hear Erin coming up behind me. “Avery, please, come on,” she says. I take a bite of the cupcake. “This is stupid.”
“I’ll get much more work done when they’re not doing shit to me all the time,” I tell her.
“You don’t have any weapons!” Erin follows me out of the dining hall, where I shush her so I can sneak around the group of professors and upperclassmen in the entrance hall. Once we’re out of sight, she starts up again. “Avery, please. You could be killed.”
“We’ve got those spears we made in PW in the dorm,” I reply. “Think those will work against an al?” I stop and stare blankly out one of the dark windows. “What exactly is an al, anyway?”
Erin is lost for words. “You—you don’t even know what it is?”
I’ve already started storming back up to our room at the top of the stairs. “Well then, at least I know where I stand.”
She argues with me all the way to the residence wing and even inside our dorm, where I ignore her as I grab the spear I made, testing its weight. I dig under my bed for the rope we made in survival a couple weeks ago.
“And all the doors are being guarded,” Erin continues fretfully, following me around the room as I change clothes and grab more gear. “How do you expect to get out? Avery, please, this is stupid.”
I calmly walk to the window of our room and slide it open. “Kinda chilly,” I say thoughtfully. Erin follows behind me as I go back to my dresser and grab my hoodie.
“Avery. Avery. Avery!”
“Erin!” I snap, and she falls silent. “I’m going. Now, are you going to tell me a little about this monster, or am I just going barging out there blind?”
She purses her lips and watches me tie one end of the rope to her bedpost. I give it a tug; feels secure. I throw the other end out the window.
“This is insane,” she mutters, pulling me back from the edge of the window and dropping to her knees to fish for her notes under the bed. She rifles feverishly through a few notebooks while I tap my foot impatiently. I’m about to give up and just slip out on my own anyway when she finds what she’s looking for.
“Be careful,” she says, pressing the papers into my outstretched hand. “And whatever you do, find it before it crosses the river.”
I nod, take the paper, and squeeze myself out the window and into the night.
Chapter Twelve
Saint M is situated up in the mountains a few miles away from a local village. I haven’t been down there since I arrived at the school. I’ve been too busy, and the last time I was there the residents weren’t exactly the friendliest. I distinctly remember owing the taxi driver some cash, and would rather avoid another conversation about why I still won’t have it.
Normally, there would’ve already been several teachers down in the village. Tonight, however, most of the staff was up at the school for Halloween. By protecting their students, they left the town vulnerable. Now most of the professors are walking that direction, leading the students that elected to hunt alongside them.
As soon as my feet hit the frosty ground outside, I duck into the shadows and stay hidden. I stick around outside the school long enough to overhear a professor giving the students directions, and now I’m off on my own.
I read the notes Erin gave me between snippets of moonlight. Ideally, I would’ve had time to study these creatures and their patterns, their tracks, the distinct markings they leave. All I have are notes about how als steal babies from new mothers, and that, according to the illustrations, they’re gray, vaguely humanoid beasts with hunched shoulders and faces that look like a cross between a bat and an ape.
The ugliness of their faces are outmatched by the long, hooked copper claws sprouting from their fingertips. I don’t want to end up on the wrong end of those. I’ll have to be careful.
Armed with only my limited knowledge and a hungry need to prove myself to Piers, once at for all, I pick my way to the village. It’s very cute, I guess; a weird mix of ancient and modern. There are normal brick buildings with sloping roofs alongside little thatch-roof huts, and cars share the road with horses pulling carts. The whole place is decorated for Halloween. People in costumes roam the streets. I slip into a crowd of costumed people chattering in Romanian—which I’ve learned only a little of in survival class so far—and keep my eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.
Even if I did speak Romanian, I couldn’t just go around asking people if they’d seen a monster, as few people can actually see them—or would recognize one if they did. It’s a little different here, in the old country. Some of the older generations still believe, and even claim to see, the creatures still. They know what we are, what Saint M does. But everyone else … I wonder what they think all the gruff-looking people do up at the academy.
Travelling alone means I get to the town faster than most of the other hunters. I’m lucky to come across some school-age kids practicing their English down one of the alleys. Heavily accented, one tells the other that the “strange lady” living on the outskirts of town near the forest claims she saw a hunched, long-haired creature pass by her window. Bingo. A couple dollars buys me directions to the cottage.
I’m about to head for the outskirts of town when, at the end of that same alley, soft footsteps overtake me and one of the other kids pulls me to the side into the shadows.