Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch Page B

the air
    above her, a massive shadow blotting out the moonlight. Then there was a scream and the agent in front of her disappeared, wiped away like someone swept out to sea. He was there, and then he was gone, and in his place was a great dark mass crouching between Glenn and the three remaining agents. The agents moved toward it immediately —then stopped as the mass unfolded, rising up into the cold air until it reached its full height.
    When it did, Glenn’s eyes went wide and one of the agent’s guns dropped into the snowbank with a crunch.
    Whatever it was, it was at least seven feet tall with a broad chest, long arms, and legs roped with muscle. Its hands were bunched into fists; when they unfurled, Glenn saw fingers topped in claws.
    On the ground in front of it, the agent with the knife lay on his back. There was a gash in his bulletproof armor, and the snow around him was soaked with blood.
    The other three agents froze, looking one to the other until one of them edged closer, reaching for their fallen comrade. He stopped when the creature released a low growl. There was a rumble in its throat and its muscles tensed, ready to spring at them.
    “No!”
    The thing’s head snapped toward Glenn. In the half-light, she couldn’t make any sense of it. It seemed misshapen, huge and angular.
    It regarded her for a moment and then turned back to the agents. It was too late. Glenn looked down into the snow; she didn’t want to see this.
    There were no sounds of movement, though, and no screams —
    just a deep intake of breath and then a roar that was unlike anything Glenn had ever heard. She could feel it pulsing through her body, deep into her bones. It made some primitive part of her go cold.
    When it finally stopped, Glenn managed to look up. The three agents had abandoned their friend and fled into the woods, leaving him lying in his widening pool of blood. The thing crept up to his still body, hunching over it, its claws dripping blood. A moan resounded through the thing’s body as it reached out to him.
    “Leave him alone!”
    It turned toward her. Glenn squeezed Kevin’s hand in hers and shut her eyes. She could feel the heat of the creature and smell the wild stink of it as it approached, drawing to within inches of her. The hot wind of its breath blew on her face as it leaned in.
    Every muscle in Glenn’s body went rigid as she waited to feel teeth and claws. But instead, it spoke.
    “Come,” it said in a low rumble. “Come with me, Glennora
    Amantine.”
     

     
    The creature that killed the agent took Glenn and Kevin into its arms and raced through the forest. Glenn could only see flickering shadows and feel the wind and the branches as they whipped by. The roar from moments ago echoed in her mind.
    They were moving deeper into the land beyond the border. Glenn let her head fall back and peered up into the sky, hoping to catch sight of stars that would give her a better estimate of how far they had come, but they were moving too fast and the forest was too thick.
    “Where are you taking us? My friend needs a hospital. We have to go back!”
    The creature picked up speed again and leapt into the air with a grunt, flying over a crack in the earth that had to be ten or twenty feet across. Glenn shut her eyes as the earth came rushing up to meet them, the cold wind tearing through her hair. They hit the ground with a jolt and then were off again without a pause, speeding through woods more wild and overgrown than any Glenn had ever seen.
    Glenn didn’t know how long they ran, but when they finally
    stopped, the creature set her down on one side of a long scar in the ground, and itself and Kevin on the other. Glenn could hear water running between them.
    Glenn sat in a patch of moonlight, but the opposite shore was shaded by overhanging trees and was too dark for Glenn to see anything more than the creature’s immense shadow hunched over Kevin’s body like an animal preparing to feed. It leaned forward