“Oh, that can’t be good,” Leeze said softly, one hand holding her bow, the other wrapped around her pendant.

  “Kule,” Rogar hissed.

  “Hey, not my fault,” Kule said defensively.

  “Both of you, shut up,” Syl said. Her eyes scanned the surface of the water, looking for a ripple that would signify the Lake-Wolf’s presence.

  “Lake-Wolf. Of course, it would feel at home in a lake,” Dena said, and quietly slapped herself on the forehead.

  “What if we’re wrong,” Edar said, fear in his voice. “What if it’s not a Lake-Wolf?”

  “What else could it be?” Reylo asked, standing up.

  “Anihazi,” Edar whispered.

  “What? Not that again?” Rogar said.

  “Why would you suddenly think that Edar?” Syl asked. “The skies are clear. Our Ancestors can see us.”

  “My grandmother spoke of this. People vanishing without a trace. One minute, there. The next… gone.”

  “But you said they need the clouds,” Syl pointed out.

  “Do you think we could have this discussion somewhere a little less… I don’t know… in the open?” Leeze asked nervously.

  “You’re right,” Syl agreed. “You said one of the doors was open? Let’s get inside.” Would a building even stop the Lake-Wolf, or the Anihazi, or whatever it was? Maybe not, but at least it would buy her time to figure out what to do next. “Which one?”

  “This one,” Rogar thumbed over his shoulder to the building right behind them. “Door’s around front.”

  “Let’s go,” Syl said, but Leeze led the way. The girl was eager to get inside.

  Leeze was already pushing open the front door and slipping inside as the others rounded the corner. She came back outside almost as quickly, her face drained of blood, and emptied the contents of her stomach on the grass.

  The suddenness of her actions stopped the group in its tracks.

  “What is it Leeze?” Dena asked.

  Syl rushed through the open door with her Sho-Val in hand, not waiting for Leeze’s answer.

  “Syl, what is…?” Dena’s words choked off as she followed her friend in. “Oh my…” she said, before turning and staggering back out.

  Syl’s stomach threatened to push its way up her throat, but she forced it right back down. She’d seen some terrible things while helping her parents. But none of that compared to the scene in front of her now.

  The room looked like a tornado had hit it. A tornado of blades. Blood was everywhere, carpeting the floor, painting the walls, and even coating the ceiling. Five bodies lay in pieces around the room in various states of dismemberment, and Syl could almost taste the hate and anger in the air.

  A big part of her wanted to follow Dena and Leeze back out of the house, but somebody needed to figure out what happened to these people. So Syl kept her stomach down—her emotions with it—and brought the analytical mind her parents had trained to the forefront. She needed to look at this like any other case.

  Not like it was really difficult to figure out what had happened. There was no doubt in her mind it was the Lake-Wolf’s work. But these kills were different. The previous attacks were all quick and clean. A single cut, or a torn-out throat. Nothing this messy.

  “Was it mad we escaped?” Syl whispered to herself. It didn’t seem like her imagination that she could feel an aura of anger in the room. Like a lingering smell. But that was the thing with imagination, wasn’t it? The question she’d been asking herself since she’d sensed the Lake-Wolf back in the village. Would she really know it was just her imagination if she was crazy?

  A slight tap on her shoulder brought her mind back to the present. A small circle of crimson, as if…

  She looked up and barely stepped aside as another drop of blood fell and pattered on the floor. If the blood was still dripping, that meant the killings were recent. Possibly within a few minutes of the group arriving.

  The Lake-Wolf was still close.

  Syl scanned the room as something in the back of her mind wouldn’t let her leave. Something she was missing. Something nagging at her, but she couldn’t quite place it. It wasn’t until she turned, frustrated, and looked at the door that it started to click.

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  The door was open but undamaged. She leaned forward to inspect it, and there was nothing suggesting it was forced open. How did something as big as a Lake-Wolf get in without breaking down the door? The room was in tatters, but there was no sign of how the creature had gotten in.

  “Unless somebody just left the door open?” she asked herself. That was the most likely answer, but it didn’t sit right with her. “There should be some kind of sign the Lake-Wolf…” and that was it. What was nagging at her so badly? The same thing that made Vacksin so mad back at the village.

  Syl turned and looked at the room. At all the blood. And no tracks. Not a single one.

  Two people were in pieces at the far side of the room, and the floor between them and Syl was thick with crimson. It would be impossible for something to cross that space without leaving a mark.

  “Unless it can fly?” she whispered. “Or… unless it’s not a Lake-Wolf?”

  Syl immediately turned and left the building. Dena and Leeze were still recovering from the scene, and nobody else had dared follow her in.

  “How bad?” Rogar asked her while the others kept watch.

  “Bad,” Syl said. “And recent. Probably just before we got here.”

  “So, the Lake-Wolf is still close?” Rogar’s hand tensed around his bow.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Syl said cryptically. “We need to check the other houses.”

  “We need to leave,” Leeze said strongly, both hands around her pendant. “Before the Lake-Wolf comes back and does the same thing to us.”

  “No, Syl’s right,” Reylo said.

  “Of course, you’d say that,” Leeze spat. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said more gently, “but we obviously didn’t hurt it badly enough last night to stop it from killing. We need to either find Syl’s father or get back to the village.

  “Whatever we do, we can’t stay here,” she finished.

  “No, Syl and Reylo are right,” Rogar added.

  “How can you say that?” Leeze asked, aghast, her hands jerking on the pendant with each syllable.

  “There could be survivors,” Syl said plainly. “If it was you, hiding in a closet somewhere, wouldn’t you want us to take a few minutes to check?”

  Leeze opened her mouth to reply, but she couldn’t disagree. Beneath the fear was a good person. She just needed some encouragement to show herself.

  “Don’t worry, we won’t be long,” Dena said, and gently put a hand on Leeze’s shoulder.

  “Should we split up?” Rogar asked. “We can cover all the houses at the same time.”

  “Are you crazy? Now you’re suggesting we separate?” Leeze asked, the fear bubbling back to the surface. She wasn’t doing well with the bodies so fresh in her memory.

  “No,” Syl said. “We stay together this time. Let’s check the houses one by one, quickly,” she added for Leeze’s benefit, “and then be on our way.”

  “Forward or back?” Kule asked. When everybody gave him a confused look, he went on. “Forward to Teb’s farm? Or back to the village?”

  Syl hesitated.

  “Forward,” Rogar answered for her. “We’ve come this far, and Teb’s family needs to be warned too.” He looked at Leeze as he finished, but she didn’t object. She’d be happy just getting away from the bodies in the house.

  With one last look at the gently floating boat in the lake, the group headed for the next house.

  “Door’s closed,” Kule pointed out. “Might be survivors.”

  That didn’t turn out to be the case. The kills weren’t as messy as the first house, but the people inside were just as dead.

  They checked the other three houses and found similar scenes. Twenty-three dead, if they included the missing fisherman, and no survivors. But Syl’s father wasn’t among them. There was no sign of his body. No evidence he’d passed through the small community. Should she be happy about that? It meant he was still out there somewhere. But how could she be happy about anything with so many dead?

  “Polite Lake-Wolf,” Kule said as they left the final house.

  “How can you say that?” Leeze asked, disgusted.

  “It closed the doors after it finished murdering them,” Kule shrugged.

  “Why can you be so flippant after… after what we just saw?” Leeze asked, fighting back tears. Her left hand hadn’t left the pendant at all.

  “It’s how he deals with it,” Edar answered. “You grab your necklace, he jokes. Let him be.”

  “Kule has a point,” Syl said, her mind working furiously. It didn’t add up. “How or why would the Lake-Wolf close the door? And if it didn’t close the door, how did it get in?”

  “What are you getting at Syl?” Reylo asked.

  “Did any of you see any tracks? In the blood? In the ground around the house? Anywhere?”

  The group members looked at each other and racked their brains, but nobody spoke up.

  “What kind of Lake-Wolf closes doors and doesn’t leave tracks?” Dena asked.

  Syl didn’t answer the question. “Teb’s farm, how much further is it Edar?” she asked instead.

  “We should get there before nightfall,” he answered, but tried not to glance in Reylo’s direction. “If we don’t make it by then, there’s a waystation we can stay at.”

  “Okay, let’s get a move on then. We shouldn’t stay any longer if it’s still around,” Syl said and started down the road.

  “It? The Lake-Wolf?” Dena asked.

  “I don’t know if it’s a Lake-Wolf,” Syl said slowly.

  “Don’t tell me you agree with Edar? You think it was the Anihazi?” Rogar asked, arms crossed.

  “No tracks. No way into the house. How do you explain that?” Syl asked.

  “Fisherman closed the doors after he found all of his friends murdered,” Kule offered. “Then he got in his boat and rowed out to the middle of the lake. Probably thought that would keep him safe.”

  The group reached the edge of the small community as Syl reflected on Kule’s answer. It could explain why the doors were closed. Maybe all of the doors were open and the Lake-Wolf just walked in? It didn’t really explain the lack of tracks… but…

  “Is there anything else you can tell us about the Anihazi attack Edar? Anything else your grandmother said?” Syl asked.

  “No,” Edar said. “She didn’t have a lot of details. She was still very young.”

  “But she said its wings blocked out the sun,” Rogar pointed out. “I think we’d notice something like that.”

  Syl didn’t disagree, but she also didn’t miss Rogar glancing at the sky. Superstition or not, there was something strange going on.

  “We need to make sure the bodies get burned,” Edar changed the topic. “They need to be sent to join their ancestors.”

  “We’ll make sure the rites are observed,” Syl said. “After we get back to the village, we’ll arrange it.”

  “If we make it back,” Leeze said quietly, but everybody heard.

  And nobody corrected her.

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