⊹ Book 2 of the Aldergrove Duology ⊹
{ONC 2023 Shortlister}
Desperate to see his dead mate again, Sebastien makes a deal with the Devil. But the price he has to pay is much more complicated than simply handing over his soul.
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⤠ ≻ ◈ ≺ ⤟
Sebastien switched the engine off. They were there. All he had to do was take the hitchhiker down into the crypt...feed him to the phantom, and then this would be over.
He let go of the wheel and looked back at the hitchhiker. "We're here," he told him.
"Here...to be free?" the hitchhiker asked.
"Yeah," Caleb answered.
"Come on," Sebastien said as he got out of the car, but that was when he was hit with the awful stench of rotting flesh. He knew what it was, and it struck him with fear and angst. "Get back in the car!" he insisted, pushing the hitchhiker back in just as he was about to get out. "And you!" he instructed, looking at Caleb.
"W-what's going on?" Caleb questioned as Sebastien slammed the car doors shut.
Something was coming. The stench was getting stronger, and Sebastien's instincts were going haywire. He moved away from the car; he looked left, right, and back at the estate gates. But his eyes couldn't locate whatever was stalking him.
And then came an ear-piercing shriek.
He swung around to face its direction, and when he set his eyes on the creature standing at the edge of the forest, he tensed up, and his instincts urged him to shift into his kludde form.
It looked like a stag with a very long neck...and human-like arms on each side of it. He'd seen it before on his way to the estate, and he was convinced this creature was the stag that the phantom mentioned. But why was it here? Why was it staring directly at him? And why did it look like it was about to charge out of the woods?
The stag's glowing eyes shifted from Sebastien to the car, and as the fog cleared enough to reveal its face, Sebastien saw that the creature was actually some sort of centaur. Half stag, half man. And as it screeched again, it started running towards him.
Sebastien snarled in frustration. The last thing he wanted to do right now was fight, but he wasn't going to let anything take away the phantom's sacrifice.
He morphed into his winged hound-like kludde form and bared his wolfish teeth. With a roar of warning, he charged towards the stag, but it didn't slow down. And it looked like he was going to have to fight it after all.
But just as the stag was about to reach him, it swerved to the side and raced towards the car. He wasn't going to let it get there, though. Sebastien skidded along the ground and turned around, and then he gripped the stag's back leg with his teeth. But as the beast shrieked and tried to kick him off, Sebastien caught sight of the hitchhiker in the back of his car, and the guy was screaming and trying to get out of the car while Caleb struggled to keep him in.
