Sweet Shadows

“You’ll pay for this, little huntresses,” he snarls. “When I’m free, I’m coming for you first.”

I’m prepared for this. “I’d be a little ticked too, if a pair of girls took me down.”

One head growls.

“We’re happy to let you go,” Grace says, walking over to her backpack. She reaches in and pulls out the square of paper Gretchen left before diving into the portal. The oracle’s note. “Just translate this for us first.”

Both heads glance at the paper, at the lines of symbols that I can’t read.

“What will you give me for this?” he asks.

“I told you he couldn’t read,” I say to Grace, taking the note from her.

“Guess we’ll just have to send him home without his supper.”

We both face the prisoner and drop our fangs simultaneously.

The creature’s eyes widen—all four of them.

“I can read,” the head on the left says. “Hold it up where I can see.”

I step close enough for him to read the note but keep enough distance to avoid gnashing teeth or something equally dangerous. I hadn’t expected our little game to work so quickly. I don’t trust his easy acquiescence.

Slowly, he reads.

“In the space beneath the sky, between harbor and haunted ground,

Where graces and muses weep at gentle water’s shore,

Be three within three, join life with death in thee,

To find the lost and take up destiny.”

As the creature speaks, Grace types the confusing words into her phone. I let the strange phrases dance through my brain. They seem important—critical even—but not the answer to our current problem. It’s a riddle, obviously, but to what? Leading to where? Not into the abyss to rescue Gretchen, that much is clear.

“Do you know what that means?” I ask the creature. “What is it referring to?”

“How should I know?” one head snarls.

“I read the thing,” the other says. “Now let me go.”

“Sorry,” I say sarcastically, “can’t do that yet.”

“We have a few more questions,” Grace says, putting her phone away and stepping to my side.

“Answer those,” I say.

“To our liking,” she adds.

“And then we might let you go.”

The heads grumble, but the thing knows we have him secured. I glance at the knots just to make sure, before I keep on with the taunting.

“We need to know how to get into the abyss,” Grace says.

“Why?” both heads say.

“No one wants to go into the abyss,” one head adds.

The other echoes, “No one.”

The whole creature shudders.

There is such disgust in his voices that I almost feel sorry for him, for being sentenced to life in what I’m sure is a horrible place. Then I remember that he’s an evil, human-eating monster, and I don’t feel quite so sympathetic.

“Well, we do,” Grace says. “How do we get there?”

I dare to step a little closer. “How do we find a portal?”

“You don’t find a portal,” one head says.

“Monsters don’t look for portals,” the other head says. “We only go back if one of you sends us.”

Well, I suppose that makes sense. From what I’ve seen, the creatures that come from the abyss aren’t terribly eager to go back. That’s why my sisters and I have to hunt them down and fill them with venom.

“Then tell us how you get here,” Grace says. “Maybe if we understand that, we can figure out the reverse.”

Both heads clamp their mouths tight.

I give Grace a sympathetic look. “Guess he wants to go home after all,” I say.

“Yeah,” Grace says. “Too bad we’ll have to make it painful.”

“Do you remember where the pulse point is on this one?”

Grace circles the monster. “I think so. Right”—she points at the thing’s knee—“here.”

“Then if we bite here”—I point at the opposite wrist—“it should take the longest for the venom to work.”

Grace nods. “It will cause the most pain.”

One head remains tight-lipped, but the eyes on the other widen in fear. As I reach for the wrist, he blurts, “There’s a door.”

“Shut it,” the other head says.

“You shut it.” The talkative head focuses on me. “In the abyss, there is a door.”

“A door,” Grace echoes. “As in the door?”

“Yes,” the eager head nods. “The door between the realms is sealed on this side but not the other. There have always been cracks in the seal. When we step through the door in the abyss, it leads to an ever-moving portal. We never know where we’ll come through in the city.”

That makes sense. That’s why portals keep showing up in different places, why we never know where a monster is going to come from.

For the first time, I see the benefit of unsealing this side of the door. At least then we would have only one location to guard.

“So you have no idea how to locate a portal?” I ask. “How to predict where one will show up?”

“No idea,” the helpful head says.

The other one parrots, “No idea. Now be good girls and let us go.”

“Oh, I think we all know that’s not going to happen,” I say.