I can feel Baine advancing, others following behind her. My land recoils from their touch: the driveway twists back on itself, lengthening and dividing until there are many paths through the woods, none of which lead to the House. The trees crowd close, bending low as lovers, and the briars sharpen into green coils of barbed wire. The ironwork beasts on the front gates lick their metal lips and in the woods the real Beasts lift their heads.
A certain dark eagerness runs through me—let them find out what happens to trespassers around here, let their bones rot in my woods—but then I realize: if there are still Beasts aboveground, then there’s still a way through this door. If Arthur could do it, why can’t I?
I’m in the kitchen, running for the back door, when the screaming starts.
I fall twice on the way out of the house. The floor is uneven, groaning and popping beneath my feet like the deck of a sinking ship. I wonder if the whole thing is going under, if the cellar will open like a mouth and swallow it down.
A mottled white creature streaks past my ankles when I open the front door. The hellcat, disappearing into the trees. At least one of us still knows when to cut and run.
I make it down the front steps and across the lawn, following the screams. I see the Beasts only in peripheral glances: a sinuous flash of scaled flesh, a cloven hoof striking the earth, the flick of a forked tail. Ghostly white creatures that move between the trees without displacing a single leaf or snapping a single twig. They’re chasing toward the front gates, pouring over the land with a sickening hunger that makes me think of those old stories about wild hunts led by the devil himself.
My feet hit the bare clay of the drive. The old sycamore is gnarled and black overhead. There are people in dark clothes coming toward me up the drive, but I’m not worried about them, because suddenly there is a Beast between us.
It emerges from the trees, trailing fog. This one is almost deer-shaped, except its spine is far too long and its antlers branch too many times, like a tree uprooted. Maybe I’ve gotten used to them, or maybe I’ve lost my mind, but it doesn’t seem as awful as the first Beast I saw. There’s a grace to it, an elegant horror that reminds me, disconcertingly, of Arthur’s drawings.
One of the men walks ahead of the others. He can’t see the Beast, but he must sense it. Some ancient, animal instinct turns his face pale and sweaty, makes his eyes dart from side to side. I want to shout a warning, but it’s too late: the Beast is loping to meet him, leaving a line of dead earth behind it.
It doesn’t attack. It merely moves through the man, like a cloud breaking around a hilltop. For a moment I think he’s been spared. Then I hear the hollow snap of bone. The screaming starts again.
The people behind him scatter, ant-like, scurrying toward him or away, talking into radios, receiving answers in bursts of static—except one. The starlight shows me a sleek bob, the gold flash of a watch. Elizabeth Baine continues up the drive to Starling House without faltering or slowing. I can feel the weight of my keys in her hand.
She walks past the fallen man—now clutching his ankle and emitting a high, childish whimper—without looking down at him. She sees me, maybe catches the glint of my sword, and her smile stretches Cheshire-like in the dark. As if she isn’t surprised or concerned. As if, even now, with her men falling around her and the land rising against her, she doesn’t believe anything could truly stand between her and her desires. I wonder what it would be like, to move through the world without bothering to distinguish your wants from your needs, and a weird envy unfurls in my belly.
Baine keeps walking, keeps smiling. There’s something wrong with her face. There are dark gouges clustered around her eyes and mouth, glistening, oozing a little.
Another scream splits the air, followed by a muffled shot, then silence. She doesn’t look back. But even if she had, she wouldn’t have seen the second Beast prowling behind her.
Hateful. Beautiful. A vulpine jaw and a sinuous body. The wrong number of legs ending in too many talons. Black, black eyes, fixed on Baine. Its body brushes through the woods, and I see leaves curling and dying, bark turning soft and wormy, pale shelves of mushrooms blooming from the trunks of trees.
A wrenching, splintering crack cuts the air. The old sycamore makes a mournful sound before it begins—gently, with great dignity—to fall.
Baine still hasn’t faltered or flinched. She’ll die with that damn smile still on her face.
There is a moment here I’m not proud of, where I hesitate. Where I’m the House again, watching Baine fly toward me like one of those dark-flecked birds that crash sometimes in my windows. I feel nothing but distant pity for these fragile, foolish creatures. But then I remember I’m a person, about to watch another person be crushed to death, and my legs start moving.