The lights were out. The inner lights were no big deal; his mother and stepfather always liked to get to bed early, and Sapp had school tomorrow. (So did Key, but that had never stopped his wandering the night, and eventually, his parents had given up). But his family had never neglected to leave the porch light on for him, however much he protested he didn’t need it.
Even laying that aside, there was something wrong with the silence. It should have been a sleeping house, not one holding its breath in anticipation.
Key turned the knob easily, because no door was truly locked to him after dark. He scraped off his shoes and went to put the groceries away without turning on the light.
Interested eyes watched him, and interested feet followed him—some webbed, some clawed or slimed or bloody. Their owners forgot to stay silent, but Key ignored them as first his parents’ and then Sapp’s bedroom doors sprang open at his touch.
Key put a hand on Sapphire’s empty pillow, slept on but cold. “We had a deal,” he said. “I won’t be seventeen for years yet.”
Someone cleared his throat, and then something like, but not very like, mist rose from the floor. It went liquid and silvery and then solidified into a fine-featured man. He was handsome, of indeterminate age, with blond hair and mustache down to his waist, and clad entirely in leather pockets. In one hand, he held an old fashioned and extraordinarily heavy harpoon.
“Bridge,” Key said, not bothering to hide his irritation even before one of his father’s strongest generals. “What has he done?”
“The king was not the one to abduct them,” Bridge said. “Others came.”
“Then why didn’t you stop them?”
“They were powerful,” Bridge said, “and their appearance unexpected. You were not here to lead us.”
Key’s fist clinched, but he couldn’t be angry. Now that he looked, he could see the signs of recent combat not only on Bridge, but on the lesser monsters as well. Anger steamed from his skin, and he didn’t suppress it. “Noose is here too?” he asked. “And Nix?”
“They are.”
Key’s lips peeled back, not in a smile. His teeth had sharpened, and moonlight glinted in the whites of his eyes and along his talons. “In that case,” he said, in a voice no human had, “it’s time to go hunting.”
Written 5/28/20
