Wildcat Fireflies by Amber Kizer

Author:Amber Kizer [Kizer, Amber]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-375-89824-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

Orphanages, slums, genocides and natural disasters are prime locations to hunt Nocti, for with a mere feathered brush bodies perish in alarming numbers.

Lynea Wynn

January 31, 1973

CHAPTER 22

“I’m okay, you can put me down now,” I said to Tens. My breath clouded the words in a chilly bubble.

Tens grunted.

“Haven’t we done this before?” I tried to smile.

He stopped and gently set me on my feet. “You’re heavier now than you were then.”

I couldn’t be offended by the truth. Back at Auntie’s I was sticks and sickly, painful flesh. Real sexy.

“What happened?” Tens leaned against a tree trunk. The lights of Dunklebarger were still visible through the bare branches of the trees.

“Do you remember when Auntie talked about ghosts? Spirits that didn’t cross over for whatever reason?”

“Like Charles?”

Auntie’s husband, Charles, waited and watched and kept up his protective vigil until the end. Of course, that meant he scared the crap out of me several times before I knew what was going on. “Yes and no.” I sank to the ground and let the cold damp soak up the back of my legs. I felt like I’d gone ten rounds with a T. rex.

“There are old people dying in there, right?”

I nodded, the three-quarter moon beckoning me with its blue cool to believe in magic and in fairies. That wasn’t quite right, though. This hadn’t felt like older energy, not all of it.

“What don’t I understand?” Tens asked.

“It wasn’t old energy in there. Not elderly souls, but kids, teens too.”

Mini and Bodie came running toward us.

“Wait!” Bodie called in a whisper-yell.

I waved to acknowledge him. Tens and I ducked further into the shadows in case his voice carried back to the house.

Mini yowled. Custos barked in response and greeted Bodie with a tongue lashing of the slobbery kind.

“You shouldn’t be out here.” I sounded like the kid’s mother.

“I snuck. All the old folks are real sick, busy dying.” Bodie gasped for breath. His little legs had worked so hard to catch us it took a moment for the words to be put together in such a way they made sense.

“What do you mean, all the old people are …?”

“Dying.” He nodded, still gasping.

“Catch your breath, then talk,” Tens commanded, scooting his back against a tree. Like we had all the time in the world and a surprise rendezvous with a first-grader was perfectly normal.

Mini wrapped herself around my legs, reaching up with her claws to stretch her back, but I didn’t feel any divine information headed my way. She meowed plaintively; maybe it was my imagination, but she sounded quite disgusted with me. She twitched her tail and turned to Tens.

Bodie knelt on the grass, but he stayed out of reach. I didn’t know if that was because he didn’t trust us, or because his instinct was to make sure he could escape any situation. “Mini said we needed to get you back.”

“Back?”

“Uh-huh. To the house. The bells and stuff started dinging. You left and they went crazy.” His eyes widened.

I glanced at Tens.

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