Wicked Hour by Neill Chloe

Author:Neill, Chloe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

I was fast, but they were faster—proving that four supernaturally enhanced legs were in fact better than two.

As I pushed through the darkness, it worried me that I couldn’t even hear their footsteps ahead—until I realized it was smarter to track them by magic rather than by sound. I reached out for that, caught the sizzling trail off to my right, and pushed harder. It took only a moment to hear the battle, then to smell it.

And then to emerge from the woods . . . and step directly into hell itself.

The woods edged into the cleared land of the Stone farm, furrowed rows of dirt either left fallow for the season or already cleared of whatever green they’d held. Now, in the warmth of late summer, there were only scraps of what had once been growing.

The farmhouse was on the other side of the field, white clapboard and guarded by a windbreak of trees on the opposite side, all of it on a gentle rise that offered a view of the lake.

And ten yards from the tree line, a bonfire that might have sprung from one of Dante’s hellish circles. Wood and brush had been piled six feet high, and the flames licked the sky several feet above that. There’d been chairs, but they were tossed, scattered across the field along with empty beer bottles and an upturned cooler.

Some of the humans were running, screaming. Others were down, blood staining the earth and scenting the air. Five wolves—the shifters from the firepit, including Connor—stood between the humans still on their feet and the monsters who’d attacked them.

They were wolves, but not wolves.

They were beasts. And they were enormous—twice as wide as a human, and nearly as tall as the fire itself. Their bodies were generally wolflike, if wolves stood on two legs, had claws as long and sharp as icepicks, and narrow, gaping muzzles with fangs nearly as long as their claws.

The wicked hour had come, I thought ruefully. But these were no cryptids, no myths. They were as real as I was.

There were four of them. Going by fur: silver, brown, red, and black. But their fur was matted and bare in spots, showing what appeared to be human skin beneath. For all their bulk, they were skinny enough that bone and tendon were visible beneath that thin skin.

Stringy strength, Beth had said, and I understood now what she meant.

And since blood and human and smoke and clan were the only scents in the air, they were undeniably clan, even if their magic was fractured. How had this happened?

They stood together, swatting at the wolves as if they were nothing more than irritating pests, but they didn’t seem entirely certain what to do next. At least until the brown beast stepped forward, raised his muzzle to the sky, and let out a howl that lifted every hair on the back of my neck . . . and had the monster paying attention.

He threw out his hand and sent

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