LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Of Glass and Hounds

The Old Bone Woman ... She's got a lot of magic, so she can stop them, right? Even if she can, she's stuck in her house. A lot of the monsters at Belle Lake will be sitting ducks.

Not sure what I'll be running into, I stay invisible as I head to the spot Grim showed me, the one he said to go to, so I can get to Belle Lake. And he's right. I take another step and BANG! I'm there.

No bodies. That's a plus.

Then I see Grim. He's standing next to a tree, staring off into the dark.

I take off the necklace, suddenly becoming visible, and ask him, "What's going on?"

He jumps and then realizes it's just me. Finally, I get to scare the crap out of somebody.

"You guys need to get out of here," I start up. There's no use beating around the bush with this one. If the Stone Hounds aren't at the lake yet, it won't be long before they stomp through here. When he doesn't follow me, I urge him, "I'm not kidding around. We have to tell the Old Bone Woman and get everybody out of here."

Grim shakes his head.

"Grim, the Stone Hounds —"

"—are killing monsters," Grim says. "We heard. Some monsters came here. Well, a bunch. I said they were killing monsters, right?"

"Wait ... How many monsters?"

"A whole lot," Grim says. "Even ones that the hounds haven't come after have heard about it and have shown up here. Monsters are everywhere. We've never had them all in one spot like this."

Oh shit. I know why the Stone Hounds aren't here yet. They're herding the monsters here. Dammit.

"The Old Bone Woman ...You have to get her—"

"She's trapped in her house. I'm pretty sure I told you that before."

We don't have time for this.

That's when I hear screaming, and I know we're out of time.

Grim doesn't even think about it. With his lights whirling around him, he takes off toward the sounds. And so do I.

I see the red eyes before I see the hound itself. It's got something pinned to the ground, ripping into it. The thing it's tearing up screeches like a mouse caught in a trap.

All of a sudden South bursts out from the shadows. A bunch of smaller Nøkken run with him. South charges forward, slamming into the hound, knocking it back so the little whatever it is safely ducks away into deeper shadows. The cemetery hound snarls at South. Several other of the water-horse things fan out around the bigger Nøkken, to protect him if he needs it. From the looks of things, he may not need much help yet. His silvery hooves flash as he rears, slashing at the hound in front of him.

I start to yell out to South to take out its eyes. He can probably get both of them in one swipe, but then it dawns on me. This is nothing new. I didn't know how to get a cemetery hound off my back, but these guys have been around practically forever. South knows exactly what to do to these guys to take them out if he wants to. I've only had the hounds after me for a little bit, but the monsters here have had to put up with these assholes for centuries, probably a lot of centuries.

But South doesn't kill them. Killing them would mean bringing the Stone Men down on them. But what South doesn't realize is that things have changed.

That's when I see a shit-load of red eyes in the dark. Imaru was right.

"Run," I say to Grim. It is our stand-by plan, and it's kept us alive this whole time. He doesn't disappear. He doesn't POOF! us to somewhere safe.