Creatures of the Night

by Grace Collins

  For the past hour, Cassia has been trying to teach me about their world, despite the fact that we’re supposed to be going through the books she gathered from the library. The truth is, I was too embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t read and hammered her with questions instead.

  “You guys can communicate without talking?” I ask.

  “Sort of. It’s kind of like telepathy, I guess. But only when we’re in our wolf forms.”

  “When I first saw Eric, he spoke to me, but I was the only one who could hear him—the first time, anyway.”

  Cassia nods. “We can channel different frequencies. Each one accesses a different species. When Eric saw you, he was confused because you didn’t smell like a hollower. He spoke in different frequencies to see which one you’d respond to.”

  “And I heard the human one?”

  “Yeah. I think he tried the shifter one first, but it didn’t work.”

  Somebody wanders through the wooden doorway, shoots me a scowl, and takes a seat on one of the bar stools. I avert my gaze.

  “Do you think they want me because of the sacrifice?” I ask.

  “It’s the only thing we have to go off right now. Which reminds me, we should really keep focused. I’ve only gotten through three books within the past few hours, and I’ve got a whole stack in my bag.” She empties her backpack onto the table, books spilling out. “Here, take this one.”

  “Yeah . . . uh, I sort of can’t really read,” I mumble, cheeks warming. “Charles didn’t want me to learn.”

  Cassia’s mouth opens, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Those hollowers are real idiots.”

  She pulls out a piece of paper and a pencil, scribbling words on it before sliding it over to me. “Here. Flip through the pages, and if you see any words that look similar to these let me know.

  Rituals, sacrifice, or immortality.”

  I smile gratefully, grabbing the book, opening it, and running my finger along its musty pages. These books look delicate and old. In my mind, I see Elias running his fingers along the spine, flipping through the pages in the chair by the fire.

  Flipping page after page, I try to find similar-looking words until I reach the end, then I pick up the next book, for once feeling like I’m doing something constructive and useful. That’s something I like about Cassia—she doesn’t make me feel like some useless burden the way Eric does; she makes me feel like I have something to offer, as if they need me as much as I need them, even though I know that isn’t true.

  We sit there for what feels like forever, moving through endless pages of endless books, when finally I spot something. I nearly read past it, my fingers instinctively turning the page. But an alarm goes off in my head and I quickly flip back, scanning the word to be certain.

  “Cassia,” I breathe, running my fingers along the letters.

  Sacrifice. “I think I found something.”

  Cassia leans over, head turning to read upside down. She glowers in concentration, then looks up at me. “I think you did.”

  “What does it say?”

  Her eyes go back to the book. I watch as they go from left to right, tracing the words, mumbling incoherently to herself.

  “What is it?”

  “We should find Elias.”

  “Is something wrong? Is it . . . bad?”

  “It’s . . . interesting.” Cassia starts packing up the books again.

  “Come on, I’ll explain when we meet Elias. He needs to know about this.”

  Cassia doesn’t even bother to wait for me, spinning on her heel and flashing out of the bar before I can even blink. I scramble, trying to keep up with her as she weaves through the village for the tree line, pausing when I reach the edge, eyes to the sun still sinking in the sky, and then head in after her. I don’t stop to think about why going into the forest could be a bad idea, or about running into a hollower, because the curiosity pushes me forward. Thankfully, we reach our destination before any hollowers can reach us.

  Elias and Eric stand in the center of a clearing. Their eyes turn to Cassia and me, faces filled with surprise. Elias’s chest is broad and muscular, scars and scratches across his stomach, his skin shimmering with perspiration. Eric is in a similar state, but it’s Elias I can’t stop staring at.

  “What happened here?” Cassia asks incredulously.

  I survey the clearing, the smell of smoke rising to the sky. The trees around us are charred black, leaves burned, mixing with the brown of the dirt below.

  “Some kids started a forest fire,” Elias says.

  “Again? ”

  “Again.” Elias nods, looking at Eric, who shrugs his shirt over his head. “Is something wrong?”

  “Milena found something in the books.” Cassia speaks so fast she nearly stumbles over her words. “About the sacrifice.”

  Elias goes rigid. He picks his shirt up off the ground and pulls it over his head. “What is it?”

  “I think we should wait until we’re somewhere a little more private.”

  Elias nods. “We’ll meet in my office.”

  ~

  Elias’s office feels a lot bigger without Harrison’s looming presence. I sit on the opposite side of the desk to the others, nervously twiddling my thumbs and wishing more than anything that I could read more of the words etching deep frowns on their faces.

  “Impossible,” Eric mutters under his breath.

  “But what if—”

  “There are no ifs,” Eric says. “You know I’m right. We’re missing something important.”

  “Eric’s right,” Elias says, “it’s impossible.”

  “What’s impossible?” I demand. “Can someone explain to me what’s written on those pages?”

  Elias sighs deeply, looking back down at the book. “You remember when you first got here, and Cassia told you about shifters and hollowers?” I nod. “She mentioned wispers too. Do you remember?”

  “She said there weren’t any left.”

  “There aren’t. Wispers went extinct long ago.”

  “What are wispers, anyway?”

  “Wispers were . . . special,” Cassia says. “They age like shifters and look like humans, but they have gifts.”

  “Gifts?”

  She nods. “Wispers were born with a gift the same way a shifter is born with another form. Some gifts were completely useless while others were extremely powerful. It was luck of the draw, really.”

  “Like what sort of gifts?”

  “We don’t know much about them,” Eric says.

  “They went extinct a while ago.” Elias runs a hand down the side of his face, looking back at the book. “There isn’t much information around anymore.”

  “I think I read something in the book about a list of abilities they had.” Cassia looks down at the book, flipping through a couple of pages. She puts her finger on a page and begins reading aloud. “Here.

  Telepathy, mind reading, mind control, breathing underwater.”

  I shiver. “Those all sound pretty powerful.”

  “It also says one had the ability to sing people to sleep. You see, they come in all shapes—some are completely useless.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they could do,” Eric says. “They’re not around anymore. None of that matters.”

  “What does that have to do with the sacrifice then?” I ask.

  “That’s where things get weird.” Cassia looks back at the book.

  “It says that in order to gain immortality, the blood of all three species must be combined and consumed. One shifter, one human, and one wisper.”

  Their eyes rest on me, gauging for any reaction. “I don’t see how this helps.”

  “It doesn’t,” Eric says. “Not really, it just makes things more confusing.”

  “They had Eric, a shifter,” Elias says. “And it wouldn’t have been hard to find a human. All they needed was a wisper.”

  “You’re saying—you think I’m . . . a wisper?”

  “You’re definitely not a
wisper.” Elias shakes his head.

  “Then why did they wait so long to kill me?”

  “That’s why this is so confusing,” Cassia says. “Wispers don’t get their gifts until they turn twenty. Before then, they’re about as useful as humans. For some reason, the hollowers were going to use you as a wisper.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense.” Charles waited for my birthday to attempt to murder me even though he could have done it the day I was born. “What if I’m . . . what if I’m not human?”

  “You are,” Elias says, leaning forward. “We know you’re human.”

  “But how?”

  “If you were a wisper, you wouldn’t have heard me speaking inside of your head that night in the tunnels,” Eric says. “And if you had a gift, you’d know.”

  “What if it was a useless one, though? One I wouldn’t even notice?” I ask.

  Eric shakes his head. “You’d still know. When wispers get their gifts, it’s an incredibly painful experience—excruciating. It’s a similar sort of pain us shifters feel when we shift for the first time. It’s not something you’d easily forget.”

  I let out a breath of relief. I don’t know why, but the reassurance that I’m completely human steadies me. If I’d found out another thing that uprooted who I thought I was . . .

  “What now?” I ask. “The hollowers are wrong, then. Can’t we somehow prove it to them, so they’ll stop coming after me?”

  Eric’s eyes brighten. “That might not be a bad idea—”

  “No,” Elias says. “The hollowers are barbaric but they’re not stupid. They must know Milena is human, which means we’re missing something. Nobody is going to the hollowers until we find out what that is.”

  Eric scowls. “Don’t be foolish, Elias.”

  “I’ve made my decision.”

  Tension lines Eric’s shoulders but Elias stares back, unbothered. “Fine.” Eric glares. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Elias.”

  “Cassia, come with me. Eric, take Milena to get appropriate wear for the weather up north.” They both stare at him, confused. “We’re going to see Ana.”

  “You want me to babysit her and take her shopping?” Eric deadpans.

  “I want you to protect her and get her appropriate wear for the mountains,” Elias says, as if he couldn’t possibly understand why that’d be a problem.

  “Great.”

  Elias ignores him, stepping through the door and motioning at Cassia to follow. She nudges Eric on her way past. “Be nice.”

  “No promises.”

  And then they’re gone and I’m left alone with the one person I’m convinced actually wants me dead.

  ~

  “Can you keep up?” Eric complains. “Quit dragging your feet.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t have superhuman abilities,” I say, leaning against the wall of a wooden cabin to catch my breath.

  Thankfully, the village is mostly empty; the only people loitering around have normal eyes, which means they’re human. So far, shopping has consisted of me standing by as Eric rakes through piles of clothing and throws the occasional item haphazardly into an oversized backpack. Something tells me this job would have been quicker if Eric had done it alone.

  “Why do I need all of this stuff, anyway?” I ask, eyeing the thick wool coats atop the pile. “It isn’t that cold here.”

  I’ve never seen so many different types of clothing before.

  Back home, we rarely got new garments. We didn’t have the resources. Wilhelm was the one in charge of distributing them to people in the village. He also did repairs, but we always had limited supplies. Here, there’s a wider variety of clothing. But from what I’ve picked up from conversations, it seems as though shifters trade their acts of service to the village for goods.

  “It snows in the mountains,” Eric says, taking another turn.

  We’re on our way back to the castle and I couldn’t be more grateful.

  “We’re not in the mountains.”

  “Wow. Pretty and smart, who knew?”

  I frown. “Are we going to the mountains?”

  “No, Elias made me take you shopping for nothing.”

  “Is Ana in the mountains? And who is she?”

  “You ask too many questions.” He looks at me over his shoulder. It’s taken a while, but the unnatural color of his eyes doesn’t frighten me so much anymore. Though he doesn’t like me, something about him makes me feel comfortable. Where Cassia is all smiles and Elias is all mystery, Eric is an open book. He doesn’t wear a mask, and after discovering everyone I grew up with wasn’t who I thought they were, I appreciate it. He doesn’t like me, and he doesn’t care if I know it.

  Suddenly, I’m yanked backward. “You! It’s your fault my son is dead!” a man screeches, grasping me by the collar of my shirt and lifting me off my feet. My shirt tightens around my neck. I flail, feet in the air, choking and grasping at my neck. And then I’m released and fall to the ground. The man who grabbed me lies on the ground, too, his lip split. Eric stands over him, back to me.

  “Give her to me!” the man cries. “She killed my son!”

  “Get out of here, James,” Eric snarls.

  James doesn’t run. He clambers forward and tries to break past Eric, but he’s too slow. Eric pulls him up by the shirt and holds him near his face. “Go now,” he hisses. “And never try anything like that again or you’ll answer to Elias. And I assure you, he’ll be much less forgiving.”

  He drops the man back to the ground. The man’s expression is torn as he glares at me before scampering off into the trees, body morphing in the air until he lands on four paws. My breath shakes as Eric comes toward me. He leans down to pick me up and dumps me on my feet, turns to pick up the backpack again, and continues toward the castle entrance ahead of us.

  “Thank you, Eric. If you hadn’t been there I—”

  He spins so fast I jump in fright. Mere inches away, he glares down at me with vicious, red eyes, teeth bared. “Don’t mistake me following orders for kindness. If it was up to me, I would’ve let him have you. If it was up to me, I would’ve given you back to the hollowers.” He stabs a finger at my chest. “I’ll protect you for as long as Elias asks me to, but the day he decides you’re not worth it anymore, I’ll be the first to let the hollowers know you’re theirs.”

  He drops the backpack and tears off into the forest, leaving me alone at the castle doors.

  ~

  When I was eight, Charles punished me for crying over a pet snail I’d kept in the tunnels for three days. I’d found it while gardening, all alone among the tomato plants, and promised to take care of it. When Charles found it in my room three days later, he squashed it and scolded me for crying. He used to shake his head and scowl at me when I mourned the rabbits they brought back from the hunts. I used to think that my tendency to get upset by violence and death was the reason he wouldn’t allow me to hunt, but now I know the true reason was much more sinister.

  Eric’s words, while harsh, bring me back to reality. I’m petrified of going back. The thought of seeing Charles again fills me with a terror so violent it makes me shake. And yet, by being here, I’m hurting people. Seven people were ambushed and killed because of me—they felt the same terror I did when Charles stood over me with that machete. Somebody brave would run away. They’d give themselves up to the hollowers and accept their fate, for the good of others. Fear paralyzes me, and, like a coward, I lug the backpack up the staircase and into my room. It isn’t empty. Elias stands by the window, his back to me, blocking my view of the night sky. Bathed in the moonlight, he looks angelic.

  He turns around when he hears me, eyeing the backpack in my hands. “Where’s Eric?”

  “He left.”

  If Elias is surprised, he doesn’t show it. “You have scratches on your neck.”

  “I, um, tripped in the forest.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

  “Eric didn’t hurt me.”

  �
�I know he didn’t. He wouldn’t dare.”

  Thankfully, he doesn’t ask who did. “Yeah, well, he sure doesn’t like me much.”

  “He doesn’t have to like you to protect you.” Elias moves toward me, gliding across the floor with the grace of an assassin.

  “You weren’t thinking of leaving, were you?”

  “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re not thinking about it.”

  “Of course I think about it.” I drop the backpack with a sigh.

  “I don’t exactly belong here.”

  “Is that how you feel, or what Eric told you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  I pause, then look up. “I don’t know where I belong anymore.”

  There’s something about his expression that’s comforting somehow, like he understands. But he can’t. Elias is valued here, anyone can see that. “You should have something to eat and get some sleep,” he says eventually. “We’ll leave for the mountains tomorrow night.”

  He’s so close that if I was to reach out, I could touch him.

  “What’s in the mountains?”

  “Ana.”

  “What information are we looking for, exactly?” I press.

  “Anything helpful, really.”

  Irritation flares in my stomach and my mouth runs before I can stop it. “People keep dying because of me, Elias. The people I grew up with are out for my blood, and I’m fighting them with our mortal enemies. It isn’t fair of you to keep me in the dark and hope I’ll be quiet. You said you’d involve me in figuring this out, so involve me.”

  An icy breeze wafts through the window, billowing the curtains. “I don’t want to scare you, Milena.”

  “I’m already scared.”

  The room is dead silent. Elias looks at the window, where light from the village filters in and creates jagged shapes on the floor.

  “Ana is an elder shifter,” he says. “She’s very old, and she knows a lot more about the hollowers and sacrifices than I do. I’m hoping she’ll be able to shed some light on immortalia sacrificium.

  We have to be missing something.”

  “How long can hollowers last without the sacrifice and just feeding on others?”