Creatures Read online

  “So you think the alchemist kept his smallest creations up here?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And his most dangerous ones he locked down in the dungeon.”

  By the time it was dark and the first stars poked out of the night sky we made it out onto the roof. The cool fresh air felt good. I wondered if Jake had made it home all right, and if things would get back to normal after this all blew over in a few weeks. Somehow, I didn’t think they would. Somehow, I knew that Vater’s return changed everything. I kept these thoughts to myself, however, not wanting to scare Beth any further.

  We closed the small square door behind us and stretched in the snow, breathing the fresh night air. Right now the fresh air felt great, but I knew that after a few more hours out here we would be freezing.

  “Connor,” said Beth.

  “Mmm?”

  “I think there’s something on the roof with us.”

  A hulking shape moved down from the nearest roof peak and came toward us. We scrambled away. All I could think of was one thing: Vater had found us.

  “Wait, children, waits you,” said a voice. It sounded strange, and had a hissing quality to it. I knew that voice and I stopped, but with one leg up to run. It was Waldheim’s voice.

  “Bit cold up here for a walk, Dean,” I said as cheerily as possible. He was in lizard form and it must have been freezing up here for him. He was wrapped in heavy coats.

  “Indeed,” he said. “I’ve waited up here for hours. I expected you to end up here at some point, after that adventure that left you on the balcony yesterday.”

  I nodded. He came closer and we stepped back, out of lunging range.

  He halted and looked at us. “Normally, I’m only in this forms when I’m angry, I know, and today is no exception.”

  We watched him warily as he rose up, standing on his hindlegs with his tail balancing him from behind like a meercat.

  “But I’m not angry with you, childrens.”

  We watched as he pulled a backpack out of his coat and held it out to us. We didn’t come forward.

  “Don’t blames you for being wary. A good instinct for any of our kind.” He tossed the backpack at our feet in the snow. “You’ll find some supplies there, a flashlight, some rope, food, a blankets. It isn’t much. Perhaps it will help.”

  “Thanks,” we said.

  “Harsh lessons you’re learning for ones so young,” he said and sighed. As he sighed, his eyes lost some of their yellow luster and his teeth shrank. He turned around and headed back over a roof peak.

  “Good luck,” he said, and he was gone.

  We dug into the backpack and were delighted to find sandwiches and a thermos of hot coco. Beth immediately pulled out the blanket and draped it over herself. I let her take it without protest. After all, I could always grow a coat of fur if I became too cold.

  But still, I kept thinking about the blanket. Beth pulled it around her tightly, and I rubbed at the soft dark material. I looked around at the snowy rooftop. Slowly, I smiled.

  “That isn’t your nice smile,” said Beth, eyeing me suspiciously. “Hands off the blanket, Connor.”

  I shook my head, my smile turning into a grin. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The Trap

  The moon came out full and bright. There is a full moon for four nights every twenty-eight days. Thirteen full moons each year. In our family, we always knew the phase of the moon, like some people always seem to know the weather forecast. I could feel the burn of the moonlight on my skin. It made me feel kind of hot and itchy, despite the bitterly cold night air.

  Beth didn’t feel any of this warmth. She continued to complain about the loss of the blanket right up until when Danny and Thomas came out of one of those small square doors and ran out into the crusty snow drifts. They spotted us almost immediately and Danny gave a single, loud bark.

  Beth was in position behind me, closer to the door. She ran down the nearest slope toward me. When she got to the bottom, I gritted my teeth as she leapt across the flat section. It really was an amazing leap. She had told me she could do it, but I hadn’t really expected her to make a seven foot jump like that while sliding down a roof on bad footing. But she did, and landed easily on the far side.

  Seeing Beth so close got the dogs excited, and they came on barking.

  We turned and scrambled away, up a roof peak. We got to the top and turned to look back. There was a sort of valley between them and us now with the flat bottom that Beth had leapt over. Danny and Thomas didn’t hesitate. They rushed down the slope to the bottom. It was only at the last second that Danny hesitated. Maybe he saw the grin on my face. I couldn’t help but grin down at them while I watched.

  The trap worked perfectly on Thomas, he went right into the blanket that we had stretched over an opening in the roof and dusted with snow. The ground seemed to swallow him up. He gave one of those “ Yipe-Yipe-Yipe,” cries that young dogs do when surprised or hurt. He fell two floors, wrapped in a frosty blanket, and crashed down into an atrium below us.

  Danny had a bit more time to try to avoid the trap. He slid down the roof on his butt, not able to stop himself. What he managed to do was leap at the last moment across the hole to our side. He scrabbled for a grip on the slippery roof, something dogs aren’t well built for. That’s when I came down the roof to meet him.

  He snarled at me, giving me a mouth full of fangs. I snarled back, and to my surprise and his, my mouth was full of fangs too. I thought for a second my vision had blurred, but in a moment I realized it was the long white whiskers that had sprouted out of my face, which now grew into a snout. Just as Danny got his footing on our side of the roof, I reached him, and I gave him a hard shove with my forepaws.

  He toppled backward off the roof and down into the atrium. The two growling figures scrambled amongst the bushes that had broken their fall.

  “Are they hurt?” asked Beth, coming up behind me to peer down at them.

  The two of them circled below us like dogs at the bottom of a tree. Danny limped noticeably. They looked up at me and growled something unpleasant to each other.

  I kicked a load of snow down into their faces and gave a whoop of laughter. “They’re fine.”

  Beth gave me a concerned look. I know she wasn’t quite sure what to make of this rodent version of Connor.

  “Come on,” I said, reaching out a paw to her. She looked at it for just a second. Reluctance showed in her eyes. But then she took my paw and I pulled her up the roof slope. My claws could dig into the snow and climb the roof faster than I ever could have as a human.

  “You did a great job making that trap, Connor,” she said, “That was very clever.”

  “You did a great job as the bait. That was an amazing leap you made.”

  “But what are we going to do now?” asked Beth. “They’ll just come back, with reinforcements.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s time to use that rope Waldheim gave us.”

  Beth sucked in her breath and looked over the side. “It’s so far down, Connor.”

  “Trust me.”

  We made our way across the roof to the edge. It was the back of the mansion, closest to the woods. If we made it into the trees we could sneak back at any point during the night to win the race in the morning. Vater had not said we couldn’t leave the mansion, he had indicated very few rules, and so I wasn’t going to play by any assumed ones. I realized now that he had probably wanted it that way.

  We heard a tiny door slam somewhere.

  “Someone’s on the roof with us,” hissed Beth.

  “It’s time to get out of here, they are closing in,” I said quietly.

  We came up to a statue we’d seen before, a scary-looking snow-crusted thing that looked like a wild beast wrought in iron.

  “I thought that thing was on the other side of the roof last time,” said Beth, not liking the look of it.

  “Maybe it’s a different one, I said, and proceeded to tie th
e rope to its base.

  I tossed the long length of it over the side. “You first, I’ll hold it,” I told her.

  She looked at me and rope doubtfully.

  There was another door slamming sound, and some thumping sounds somewhere over the peaks. I heard someone give a whoop, as if they had slipped on the treacherous snow-covered shingles.

  “Go!” I hissed.

  Beth went over the side. Again I was surprised by how light she was. She looked at me one last time with those super cute eyes of hers. “Don’t let go,” she said, and she was gone.

  Before she had gone down ten feet, the statue moved behind me. A huge rough hand with claws like black iron landed on my shoulder. The claws closed and dug into my flesh. I was lifted, gasping, into the night air.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Meeting Your Maker

  I turned to look into the face of the thing that had me, and I knew fear then like I never had in my life. It was Vater, but in his animal form. I knew in an instant then what he was, and what he always had been. His animal form was that of a wolf, of course.

  Vater was a werewolf! I felt sure in my heart that he was the werewolf, the one that had given birth to a thousand dark stories over the centuries.

  Vater’s lips curled over his sharp teeth into what I took to be a grin. “You’re cheating, rodent,” he said.

  “You never said we couldn’t leave the mansion,” I said, grunting as I wrapped my paws around his huge arm and struggled. He might as well have been made of iron like that statue of him on the other side of the roof. His arm had no softness in it, nothing but fantastic strength.

  He nodded, giving me the point. “True,” he said.

  He reached down with the other arm and grabbed the rope. He yanked it. Up came Beth to dangle over the roof with me. Vater examined the two of us like a kid that has caught a pair of lizards by the tail.

  Vater wrinkled his nose at her. He looped up the rope with his clawed fingers and drew her nearer. Beth tried to climb down, but he caught her hair with one of his two-inch long, hooked claws. He drew her closer to him, to that snout full of fangs.

  To my surprise, he sniffed her and nodded his head. He gave her a slight shake, which pulled Beth’s hair and she screamed.

  “Let her go!” I snarled at him. All four of my legs and my tail were wrapped around his right arm now, but he still had me by the scruff of the neck.

  “I knew there was something about this one,” he said, eyeing Beth and snuffling at her. “She’s not one of mine. I know that smell.”

  Another voice spoke up, smoothly, from behind Vater.

  “I was going to tell you, Milord,” said Urdo. She stood relaxed at the top of the roof peak behind us.

  Vater turned to face her. His snout twisted into a snarl. “She’s an elf!”

  “Yes, milord,” said Urdo.

  “I’ll not have her kind back here,” said Vater. I could feel his rising anger. He squeezed my neck uncomfortably. “This is my mansion now.”

  He lifted Beth up and held her out over the four story drop to the snowy plain below.

  “An elf,” he muttered, disgustedly. “No wonder I sensed something different about her.”

  “What are you doing?” I shouted.

  “You can stay, Connor,” he said. “You’ve impressed me. I’d say you are the best of the crop that I sowed here so long ago. I see myself in you. Today I declare you to be a full-fledged member of my clan.”

  Urdo clapped her hands together, “Well done, Connor!”

  “A good choice, Milord!” said Waldheim, who’d shown up from somewhere.

  “You can’t drop her!” I shouted.

  “She’ll be fine,” said Vater. “She’s an elf. Her kind don’t weigh anything, and they’re practically made of rubber. She probably won’t even break a leg. You are like me, Connor. She isn’t and she must go.”

  “I don’t want to be like you! Look what happened to your own family!” I snarled at him angrily.

  He looked, for the very first time since I’d met him, surprised.

  “You dare, rodent?” he said, turning his dangerous gaze fully on me.

  “The Stranger came and told you what you were,” I said. “He told you about the Maker. We’re not better than she is.”

  “The book,” he said as if to himself. “I’d almost forgotten it. You are even more resourceful than I imagined.”

  He dropped Beth then, over the side, without a word. She fell, clinging to the rope. It snapped like a whip as it caught her weight. He reached down for the rope to finish the job.

  I bit down on his wrist, as hard as I could. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I couldn’t let him hurt Beth.

  Something huge and pink and sticky came out of nowhere and snapped around Vater’s wrist. It took us all a shocked second to realize what it was. Jake had snapped his tongue out and wrapped it around Vater’s wrist, in what I took as a bizarre attempt to save me.

  After that I felt like I was strapped into a rollercoaster that had jumped the tracks. I heard wild shouts and a strange croaking sound.

  I flew through the air and landed in the snow in a heap next to Jake.

  “Couldn’t stay away, could you?” I said to Jake.

  Jake’s tongue was still stuck to Vater’s wrist. Vater shook his tongue-wrapped arm about like a man who has walked into a mass of cobwebs in the garage. Jake couldn’t speak with his tongue fully extended like that, but he did look at me and grunt affirmatively.

  I got up painfully, but quickly, and ran to where the rope holding Beth dangled over the side.

  “You defy me to protect this creature?” asked Vater seriously.

  “Yes, I do,” I said, pulling at the rope. I could feel his hulking presence behind me. But I didn’t care.

  When I had her up on the roof with us, I turned to face the frowning patriarch of my family. He had one hand on his chin. The hand was bleeding, but he took no notice of that.

  “Resourceful, tricky, willing to fight, and able to find loyal friends. Hmmm. I don’t want to throw them both out, but I can’t have open defiance,” he said.

  “Milord,” said Urdo, stepping forward. Her boots crunched on the snow. “By clan law, he is allowed to declare her to be under his protection. You made him a full member of the clan, after all.”

  “What?” said Vater, turning upon her. “I suppose next you’ll tell me I wrote that law.”

  She inclined her head, giving the slightest nod. A tiny smile played over her lips.

  Waldheim cleared his throat. “What good is a law, milord, if it isn’t followed? Even if you did write it yourself.”

  “You’re on thin ice yourself, lizard,” growled Vater. “I know you gave them that rope.”

  Waldheim studied the snow at his feet. “Remember that Romeo and Juliet were only thirteen,” he said quietly.

  “Hmph! They were fourteen,” muttered Vater. He eyed everyone in turn. “Very well. I’ll follow clan law. But there must be no further defiance!”

  He turned back to me. I had managed to get Beth up onto the roof with us. She stood behind me and we both looked up at Vater warily.

  He nodded. “You may keep her as a ward, but there had better be no trouble. Somehow I’m sure there will be, but at least I’ve warned you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  One Last Surprise

  When my alarm went off for school, I was ready, but I gave no sign of it. I didn’t even hit the snooze button. I just let it ring.

  It was less than a minute later that my sister Heather came into the room with her dastardly camera.

  “Time for a new brother-blog update!” she said cheerily.

  I had my head pushed under my pillow and had the blankets pulled tightly up to my neck.

  “Get up little loser brother!” said Heather, “It’s show time!”

  I moaned and wriggled a bit under the blankets, enticingly.

  She took the bait and whipped them off me.

&
nbsp; This was the golden moment I’d been waiting for. I sprang up, hissing and snarling, all fangs and bristling whiskers and long pink tail.

  She screamed, and I will tell you from that day to this, it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard her make. It was a long, wailing type of scream, the kind that went on and on.

  Standing on my bed in a crouch, I faced her, while my tail whipped and curled about my legs like a snake. She backed away and dropped the camera. I sprang at her, hissing like a wild beast. I snatched up the camera and followed her with it.

  She scrambled away with more terrified shrieks and I chased her to the bathroom. I was pleased to see her own cat’s tail begin to sprout as she ran.

  “You’re a rat, Connor! A dirty rat!”

  “Are you blind?” I shouted back. “I’m just a huge mouse!”

  “What’s the difference?” she said as she slammed the bathroom door.

  I stood outside and scratched my claws slowly down the bathroom door. She gave a little shriek on the other side. Wood splintered and I knew mom would be mad, but I didn’t care at this moment of sweet revenge.

  Then I had a thought, and I walked off down the corridor and back to my room. I check the camera and grinned. Everything was recorded: Heather’s reaction, her desperate flight and those tremendous shrieks were all there.

  “What are you up to, Connor?” asked Heather’s muffled voice from behind the bathroom door.

  “I’ve got your camera.”

  “Give it back.”

  “Come out here and I will.”

  “No.”

  I messed with the camera a bit more and got it to play back the scene where she was shrieking and running. I laughed to see and hear it all.

  “I’m going to set up a blog for this one myself. This is the best thing you’ve ever shot.”

  “I’m going to kill you, Connor,” she said in her muffled, through-the-door voice.

  “You’re too scared to even come out of the bathroom,” I pointed out reasonably.