House of Scales

Chapter 22: Mother

The metal crackled as it came out of the reptile's flesh and gave a glimpse of a crimson glow in the moonlight. Although it had penetrated the creature's head with difficulty, it hadn't been nicked anywhere. I took out the sharp arrowhead embedded in the bone and passed it to my companion, whose bow was drawn tight and ready to shoot again at the fiery beast that was approaching the back garden, pouring its fire out for everything that dared to cross its path.

"We must take cover in the house," Luanne warned, seeing that the arrow couldn't penetrate the creature's natural armour. "We'll give it the slip inside and come out the other end where the others are."

"What about the girl?" I asked, aware that I had seen a shadow behind her when I approached the large oak tree from which that nightmare had come.

"Ursula!" She opened her eyes in surprise, now realising that her panic had allowed her to flee, but she hadn't noticed the defenceless girl behind her.

Where did the little girl go? She was nowhere to be seen. We called her in vain as we walked to the back-garden porch and opened the door to get lost in the house. When the monsters arrived, the little girl seemed to have disappeared without a trace. The blue silhouette that my friend's sweatshirt gave her wasn't seen at night, bathed in the orange glow left by the creature's flames. We couldn't go out the same door, for the lurking jaws that came between the flames devastated any exit we thought to take. We could do nothing but enter the house and take shelter there. Afterwards, we would look for the little girl.

"Let's go upstairs to get his attention," Luanne proposed.

We got to the top floor. We slammed the door of the room, which had a window overlooking the garden, and took shelter behind the frames. From up there, we could hear the hoarse grunts of the beast, and how, from time to time, it flickered through the garden, not daring to enter the house. Something was preventing it from entering, although we didn't know what. Could it be that it had lost track of us? Maybe he thought we were still out there and was trying to find our trail again. We didn't know; we couldn't risk inviting it in.

"I have an idea," she said, with a half-smile," but you're not going to like it."

"Why?"

She didn't bother to answer me. She took one of the arrows from my hand and drew her bow to shoot beyond the corridor of flame that the abomination had spread along the path up to the old oak tree. The arrow whistled in the night to go and dive into the hill a few feet from the tree.

"What are you doing?" I asked perplexed.

The beast seemed to understand my friend's intentions and ran, almost galloping, to the place where the metal had struck the earth. It made more screams and hisses as it moved away from the garden. Taking advantage of the occasion, Luanne looked out the window and screamed at the top of her lungs. Ursula's name echoed throughout the house. She shouted it again and again, confusing the monster that had already come under the oak tree and was wandering around the roots trying to discover what prey had escaped from its terrible jaws or its flames. Luanne's voice alerted her senses and directed her hisses toward the house. She bent down and hid under the window, dragging me with her to hide where the sound had come from.

"What if she comes here?" I asked, trembling in fear.

"We'll have to flee," she spat, standing up again and shooting another arrow full of rage. This one went beyond the garden.

"Ursula, we're inside the house! Come back!"

The tactic, despite its simplicity, gave better results than we expected. The monster didn't seem to be using all its intelligence but was guided by the killer instinct that drove it to burn up anything that moved in its territory. We saw the sharp, flaky tail disappear down the path to the side, leaving it clear for the moment. It would soon be sniffing around to find us, but for the moment it had safely left the road leading to the back entrance of the house. If Ursula was there, she would no doubt have heard us and could now run towards the house down the burnt-out corridor that the great reptile had left. The little sibilant lizards that crowded around the house didn't even come close to the glowing orange and red flashes: I didn't know whether it was for fear of the fire or out of respect for the great chief who seemed to be leading them.