Shadow Rising

“You don’t think he fell down there and died, do you?” Aaron asked.

We were all standing at the precipice of the crevasse, staring down into the all-consuming blackness.

Birch shook his head. “He doesn’t, you know, smell dead.”

My friends grimaced.

“What?” Birch said defensively. “He doesn’t.”

“And we know for sure he’s down there?” I asked Cora.

She nodded, definitively. “That’s what the tracking spell showed us. Celestial magic doesn’t lie.”

“Maybe he’s injured?” Juniper suggested.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I replied, crouching down and slinging my legs into the hole.

Retta grabbed me by the shoulders, stopping me in my tracks. “What the hell are you doing, numbskull?” she screeched.

“Going down to look,” I replied. “Elkie are like cats. We always land on our feet.”

“And, like cats,” Retta added, “you have a tendency to fling yourself into small spaces without thinking about how to get back out.”

I folded my arms. “What’s your brilliant idea then?”

Retta pointed to her shimmery dragonfly-like wings, then to Cora’s bright-red feathered ones. “How about leave it to the people who can, you know, frickin’ fly to take a look?”

I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Well, yeah, I guess that could work too,” I said, feigning nonchalance as I clambered back from the crevasse’s edge.

Retta and Cora stepped forward and gave their wings a flap. Retta’s looked so fragile in comparison to Cora’s, and she flapped them about a thousand times faster. All Cora needed to do to take flight was pump her wings a couple of times, and coast on the powerful downdraft.

I held my breath as my two winged friends floated slowly into the crevasse. Then I paced back and forth, wringing my hands with anguish. I was much better at throwing myself into danger than waiting while people I cared about embarked on perilous activities.

When I couldn’t wait any longer, I peered down into the crevasse.

“Guys?” My voice echoed into the blackness. “What’s going on down there?”

“We’re fine,” came Retta’s brusque reply. “Stop micromanaging.”

I paced back away.

“We’ve found something!” Cora’s voice floated back up through the hole.

My heart began hammering as I raced back to the crevasse’s edge and looked down. “Is it him?”

“Either him or a dead demon-badger,” Retta exclaimed. “Talk about ripe.”

“We’re coming back up,” Cora called.

I waited on bated breath, more than a little concerned I was about to be exposed to a rotting badger carcass, when the tips of Retta’s and Cora’s wings emerged from the gap. Then they hovered all the way out of the crevasse. Between them, dangling like a rag doll, was a slumped figure. Definitely not a badger. Definitely Elliot.

Aaron and Birch hurried forward to take him from Cora and Retta so they could land, then laid Elliot down onto the mulchy earth.

“Is that him?” Juniper asked me.

I nodded. He looked a state. Thinner than when I’d last seen him, and streaked with dirt.

“Is he breathing?” Aaron asked in a worried voice.

I touched his skin. It was ice cold, but as a Vanpari, that told me practically nothing.

“He doesn’t look hurt,” Birch said curiously. “Just a bit hoboey.”

At that moment, Elliot’s eyes suddenly pinged open. It was like a horror movie. We all screamed and stumbled back with shock.

Quicker than my brain could comprehend, Elliot took off, becoming a black blur in the dark night.

“Jeez!” Retta screamed, clutching her heart.

“He was playing dead!” Birch exclaimed.

I didn’t waste a second. I couldn’t fly like the cool kids, but I could sure as hell run. I streaked off after Elliot, my Elkie speed proving to be well matched against that of a half-starved Vanpari.

“Elliot, stop!” I shouted into the trees, pounding along as fast as I could go. “We want to help you!”

“We know Nik!” Juniper’s voice came from somewhere beside me.

I looked to my left. She was running along beside me, following the path that the blur of Elliot was cutting between the shrubbery.

Suddenly, the bushes bounced back into place. He’d stopped running.

Juniper and I halted.

I scanned the tree line. Even with my Elkie sight turned all the way up, it was hard to see anything. But then I picked out a shape crouched in the branches of one of the trees high above us.

“He’s listening,” I whispered to Juniper, gesturing with my head toward where Elliot was crouched.

“I’m going to call Nik,” Juniper announced to the trees. “Don’t go anywhere.”

She pressed some buttons on her cell phone. The sound of ringing came through the speakers.

Just then, footsteps came from behind us. It was Birch. He’d led the others to us.

“Put it on loudspeaker,” he told Juniper, reaching for the phone.

“I know how to do it,” Juniper replied, slapping his hand away.

She hit the button and the sound of a ringing phone echoed through the woodlands. The call connected.

“Hello?” Nik croaked.

“Nik,” Juniper said. “We’ve found him. We’ve found Elliot.”