Angels of Darkness

explained something to Cedric. He sat on his butt again, listening to her.
    â€œWas she adopted?” Lucas asked quietly.
    â€œNo.” She wouldn’t have expected him to know that adoptive children sometimes exhibited food hoarding. Now she had to explain more just to keep him from getting the wrong idea. “It happened after her father’s death. It’s not an eating disorder. She doesn’t want extra food; she’s just trying to control her environment. We handled it, but with everything that’s happened she might have relapsed. Please don’t berate her or yell at her for it. It . . .”
    â€œIt makes things worse,” he finished for her. “I know.”
    â€œLet me have her,” she said, suddenly desperate. “Let me have her here with me. I thought I lost her on that fire escape. You have everything else—my freedom, my body, everything—and I just want one thing. Just let me keep my baby.”
    Lucas frowned. He didn’t seem vicious now. “I’m not doing this to be an asshole.”
    â€œI’ll keep her out of the way . . .”
    Cedric snarled at the bushes, baring his teeth, and lunged into the thicket.
    Karina jumped to her feet. Before her knees had straightened, Lucas had leaped over the railing and was sprinting to the tree.
    Emily stumbled back. Her mouth gaped in a surprised O.
    Karina ran but she was so agonizingly slow.
    Lucas reached Emily, pushed her back, out of the way, and crashed through the underbrush.
    Karina lunged forward. Her hand closed about Emily’s shoulder. She grabbed her daughter and backed away, keeping her hand on her pocket, feeling the hard knife handle through the fabric of her jeans.
    Lucas jerked something out of the bushes. Long and green and brown, it writhed in his hand, flailing, the elongated olive tail brushing the ground. He roared, a deep growl that nearly made her jump. “Henry!”
    The thing jerked, its throat caught in Lucas’s hand. He turned and Karina finally saw it: it resembled a freakishly large bearded dragon lizard bristling with inch-long spikes on its cheeks and sides. As the creature twisted, a crest snapped open along its back, the spikes standing up like the razor-sharp fins of some deepwater fish. The lizard creature clawed at Lucas’s arm with long black claws. Blood welled in the scratches.
    â€œA monster!” Emily squeaked.
    â€œNo, just a big lizard.” Karina kept a death grip on Emily.
    Behind her the door burst open. Daniel charged onto the porch. His face contorted. Something brushed past Karina like a sudden draft. The beast jerked and hung motionless, its legs abruptly gone limp.
    Lucas carried the lizard to the porch. “Henry!”
    Henry burst onto the porch.
    Lucas slammed the lizard down onto the porch boards. The creature blinked but lay completely still. Henry knelt by the lizard. His hands touched the back of the creature’s skull. He closed his eyes, focused for a long moment, and glanced up. “Its mind is inert. It didn’t transmit.”
    Lucas looked at him. “Sure?”
    Henry pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Yes. If it transmitted, there would be evidence of a spike in neural activity.”
    Lucas raised his fist and brought it down like a hammer. She barely had enough warning to spin Emily around before his fist crushed the lizard’s skull, flattening it like an empty Coke can.
    â€œDaniel, call the main house.” Lucas turned to her. “Take Emily and go to our room. Don’t come out until I get you.”
    Karina didn’t ask what was going on. She just picked Emily up, ran inside the house, and didn’t stop until the door of Lucas’s room closed behind her.
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    T he day burned down to the afternoon. Emily investigated the room, then she whined about being bored, and finally she fell asleep in the overstuffed chair in the corner. At first Karina listened for every noise and creak outside the door. Her nerves were wound so tight, she could barely sit still.
    If the creature in the bushes had been just an ordinary lizard, Lucas would’ve killed it right away. She had no doubt of it. No, this beast had created an emergency. She had no idea why and that somehow made everything so much worse. Eventually her own anxiety wore her out and she sank into a light sleep, a kind of wakeful drowsiness, where every stray noise made her raise her head.
    The room