The Intuitives(76)

Like Mackenzie, Daniel performed his part of the ritual by memory, bouncing his knee once in a while to keep Sketch alert. At the fifth such reminder Sketch glared up at him, but Daniel returned the look with a warning glance of his own, and Sketch grudgingly sat up straighter.

As they neared the end, Sketch finally perked up, the runes on the floor beginning to glow with the same magic he had seen the night before. Sure enough, a pinprick of darkness appeared in the space over Sam’s head as she opened her arms in the air. Slowly, just as it had before, the portal began to expand.

“Yes! There it is!” Ammu said, his voice quiet so as not to startle them but intense, nonetheless, in his excitement.

Daniel continued to sing softly as the portal expanded. It was the size of a golf ball, and then a baseball, and then a softball, and Daniel felt himself starting to get excited despite his exhaustion when Sketch suddenly slammed back into his legs, almost making him lose his balance.

Daniel looked down in confusion. Sketch was scrabbling backward on the floor, trying desperately to get away from the portal, but Daniel’s legs were in his way. He was panicking too much to realize the problem, continuing to shove himself against Daniel’s legs as he started shouting.

“Close it!” he yelled. “CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT!”

The creature on the other side was shoving its way into the portal, but even though it hadn’t yet breached the final barrier, Sketch could already see it in his mind’s eye. Its long, rat-like head was rotting away—what passed for flesh draping in tatters off the muscle and bone underneath. One eye was hanging out of its socket, blackened and dead, while the other glowed red with hatred. It was as large as a full-grown wolf, which was the only thing protecting them for the moment as it clawed and scrabbled at the tight fit, trying to wedge one razor-clawed appendage past its head to help pull itself along.

Sam sat frozen in place, staring at Sketch’s sudden panic, her eyes wide with fear, while Kaitlyn just watched in confusion, a puzzled look on her face, glancing back and forth between the empty portal and Sketch’s obvious terror.

Mackenzie, however, was already moving. As soon as Sketch screamed, she dropped to the floor at the edge of the circle and tried to smear the chalk away with her hand. When that didn’t work, she tore her T-shirt off over her head, wadded it up between her hands, licked the fabric for good measure, and rubbed it viciously across the closest rune. In response, the portal shuddered, shimmered in the air for a moment, and then vanished, just as it had the night before.

Mackenzie stood up, unperturbed by her public disrobing—the sports top she had been wearing under her T-shirt still covered her as much as she was used to anyway while working out in a gym full of soldiers.

“Is everyone OK?” she asked, calmly pulling the chalk-smeared T-shirt back on over her head.

Sketch nodded vigorously, gratefully, his eyes still as large as saucers.

“What was it, Sketch?” Ammu asked, his eyebrows knitted together in obvious concern. “What did you see?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice still shaking, “but that was not a gryphon.”





41


Consequences



“What are you drawing?” Mackenzie asked, but Sketch just shrugged.

He sat in the middle of the couch in the boys’ suite, where everyone had gathered after dinner by unspoken agreement. Mackenzie sat on his right, looking over his shoulder at the art pad on his lap. His pencil glided idly across the page, the image taking shape only slowly, one line here and then another way over there, so that it was hard to tell how any of it was connected.

Daniel sat at the far end of the couch, sitting crosswise so he could rest his back against the arm of the sofa. He stretched his legs out behind Sketch, who sat forward, close to the edge, hunched over his drawing. Daniel had offered to play HRT Alpha with the younger boy, but Sketch hadn’t seemed interested, so instead he had retrieved his guitar from his room. He reclined casually, his legs crossed at the ankles, slowly picking out the tune of “Why Worry” by Dire Straits. When he reached the chorus, he began to sing softly, the peaceful quality of his voice matching the soothing words, almost like a lullaby.

Kaitlyn smiled, sitting on the coffee table facing him, having pulled it away from the couch so she and Sam could use it as a bench.

“Are you going to draw us what you saw today?” Mackenzie asked, trying again, but Sketch shook his head adamantly. That thing, whatever it was, belonged in the dark sketchpad for sure, if he ever decided to draw it at all.

“Why do you think that happened, anyway?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sam’s voice was bitter with resentment. “Rush left. He was the one who could feel it, so he was probably the one calling it. Without him, God only knows what we’re going to bring through. Lizard people, maybe, or giant bugs, or brain-sucking slimes—”

“We get it. Thanks,” Mackenzie said, raising one hand and begging her to stop. She was worried Sketch might panic again, but he ignored Sam’s catalog of disaster, his pencil still floating over the page, pausing occasionally as he tilted his head this way or that and then starting back up again, filling in small portions of the drawing here and there in a way Mackenzie still couldn’t comprehend.

“We don’t know it was that,” Kaitlyn said, her voice thoughtful.