Page 15 (1/2)

And we just drove off a cliff in a runaway buggy "Are they ically adept?"

"Very"

I leaned back "So let ical kamikaze fanatics, you won’t tell me who they are, why they’re after you, or why you have been restrained?"

"Precisely Could I trouble you for a sandwich? I’m famished"

Dear God, I had a crackpot for a client "A sandwich?"

"Prosciutto and Gouda on sourdough bread, please A tomato and red onion would be quite lovely as well"

"Sounds delicious"

"Feel free to have one"

"I tell you what, since you refuse to reveal anything that eon easier, how about I make a delicious prosciutto sandwich and taunt you with it until you tell hed

An eerie sound ca with long sharp claws crawled across er toroom

The roo to fade into the black walls

Moments dripped by

A small noise ca, as if so one foot before the other

Click

Definitely a claw

Click

I scrutinized the left side of the roo moved

Click Click, click

Closer this tiood It would keep me sharp I kept still Where are you, you sonovabitch

Click to the right, and almost immediately a quiet snort to the left Noe had two invisible intruders Because one wasn’t hard enough

An odd scent nipped at htly bitter herbal odor I’d smelled it once before but I had no clue where or when

Claws scraped to the right and to the left of ht Another in the corner Come out to play Come on, beastie

Claws rakedthere but that hugeand sloping ceiling above it I looked up Glowing green eyes peered at

Shivers sparked down my back

The eyes stared at me, heated with madness

The screws in the air duct cover turned to the left Righty tighty, lefty loosey Srate fell onto the soft carpet The creature leaned forward slowly, showing er now, as if I’d taken a handful of absinthe ood and stuck it up e of the air duct The beast rocked, revealing its shoulders sheathed in shaggy, hunter green fur

Bingo An endar Six legs, each armed icked black claws; preternaturally fast; equipped with an outstanding sense of sue lined with hundreds of serrated teeth One lick, and it would scrape the flesh off my bones in a very literal way

The endars were peaceful creatures The green fur wasn’t fur at all; it was rew from their skin They lived underneath old oaks, rooted to the big trees in a state of quiet hibernation, absorbing their nutrients andrare excursions to the surface to lick the bark and feed on lichens They stirred froht they fed on air

Someone had poured blood under this endar’s oak The creature had absorbed it and the blood had driven it crazy It had burrowed to the surface, where it swarmed with its fellows Then the saic, had herded this endar and its buddies to this highrise and released them into the ventilation system so they would find Saihtened off They couldn’t be stopped They would kill anything with a pulse to get to their target and when the target was dead, they would have to be eli back from endar madness

Only a handful of people kne to control endars