Dead and Dusted by Lily Webb (most recommended books .TXT) 📗

At first, I paid it no mind as I rifled through Leland’s papers searching for something, anything, that might tell me what the creature was, but when I realized they were just collections of random thoughts about business and notes from meetings that Leland had scribbled, I tossed them aside.

When I glanced down at the object in my lap, however, it took everything I had not to scream — because it was a stony, razor-sharp tooth.

Chapter 10

I stared down at the tooth in horror, unable to move and unwilling to touch it. Given its distinctive stony shape and color, it couldn’t have come from anything but the creature I’d seen in my dreams. But how in Lilith’s name had something like this ended up in Leland’s briefcase? Did he know what these creatures were?

“Selena, are you okay?” Agent Gemwood asked, and I jolted. I’d been so consumed with the tooth that I’d forgotten she was in the room with me. “What’s that in your lap?”

“It’s a tooth,” I mumbled, unable to believe the words even as they left my mouth.

“What?”

“You heard me. It’s a fang, and I’d bet my wand it came from the creature in that picture,” I said and jabbed my finger through the air at the piece of paper Agent Gemwood still held in one delicate hand.

“How did it end up here, then?” she asked.

“That’s a good question. Have you ever seen a creature like that before?”

Agent Gemwood re-examined the photo, but ultimately shook her head. “Honestly? No. Even with all my time at the bureau working with some of the most obscure supernatural species, this is new for me.”

“Really? I’ve seen one before,” I said, and Gemwood’s eyes shot to mine.

“You have? When? Where?”

I hesitated, knowing full well how crazy I was about to make myself sound. Eventually, though, I found my courage. “In my dreams. It spoke to me and said the same thing that the letter you found in Zadie’s room did, about it taking back what belongs to it.”

Agent Gemwood’s eyes shot wide open as if I had electrocuted her. “You left that part out.”

“Yeah, well, can you blame me? Everyone around here thinks I’m falling apart from the inside out, so I didn’t really want to give them more evidence to support it,” I said as I reached for the tooth in my lap, despite the voice in my head screaming at me to leave it alone. We’d come here to prompt a vision, and I wasn’t about to leave the room empty-handed. If the tooth really came from where I suspected, then I couldn’t imagine a better catalyst.

“So, this creature has been communicating with you through your dreams?”

“Only once so far, but I’ve been having recurring nightmares about an avalanche starting on Mount Starcrest and burying Starfall Valley for more than a week now. I’m pretty sure they’re related.”

“Starting on Mount Starcrest?”

I glanced up at her, puzzled. “Yeah, why?” I asked, but as soon as I spoke the words, I understood why she’d clarified. The origin of the avalanche couldn’t have been a coincidence — and neither could the fact that the two people competing to purchase land on the mountain were now dead! “Wait, you don’t think this creature is behind all this, do you?”

Agent Gemwood shrugged. “It’s impossible to say for sure, but all this seems connected.”

“That makes no sense, though. Why would the creature be warning me about what it’s going to do?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers for that either.”

“Well, then I think it’s time to get some,” I said and scooped the tooth out of my lap. All at once, the familiar rush of magic stirring into action around me, concentrating in the palm of my hand that clutched the tooth. My eyes fluttered shut as I let the magic wash over me, transporting me to another time and place. When I re-opened them a few moments later, I stood on the ledge of a mountain looking down at the sprawl of a town below, while a howling sheet of snow swirled around me like a protective barrier.

“They grow too fast. Too close,” a voice said from behind me, and I turned to find a mountainous creature with a pair of eerie blue eyes burning like little blue fires in the night. When my gaze met theirs, they smiled, revealing a horrific set of stony razors. “We cannot trust them.”

“No,” I agreed, and turned back to the scene before me. The lights of what I realized was Starfall Valley twinkled and blinked hundreds of feet below. “But we must try.”

“We already have, and they violated our trust!” the other shouted. “They set foot on our hallowed ground, and they will do it again. You know this. We must protect Nature, sister.”

“They are curious about us and our way of life, nothing more. Once they have satisfied their curiosity, they will leave us be. It has happened before.”

“Fool!” my companion shouted, their voice echoing all around us. “Look at how their city expands! That will not stop, and they will not leave us be! They will come here again, and they will not leave until they’ve run us away from our home and taken everything they can use. They are human; it’s what they do.”

“You are young and brash, sister. You do not yet understand the way of this world. Remember: the humans came from Nature, just as we did. We are no different, and we cannot harm them, or we would harm Nature Herself. We must maintain balance.”

“And you are old and naïve, sister. Remember: They have already upset the balance, and if you are not willing to restore it, then I will,” they snapped, and stomped away through the snow.

“Morea!” I shouted, to no answer. “Morea, return to me at once!” As if the raging nature around us picked up on the anger sparking in me at my sister’s insolence, the snowstorm surged until I could no longer see the town