Free Elemental Shadows by Phaedra Weldon Page B

for a fact that wasn't completely true. "Ah…you said they were shorter than you two?"  
    "Yeah. Even shorter than you."  
    I wasn't that short. I was 5'7".  
    "But do they have arms and legs and red pinpoint eyes?"  
    "Eyes? No…uh uh. No eyes. But they do have arms and legs. And they laugh. A lot. Ivan swears he can hear them crying."  
    The laughter….check. I put my hand flat on the island's surface where the book had been. "I think I just saw one too. Only mine was over six foot and it had a laugh like the Uncola guy."  
    I heard Kyle talking to someone whom I assumed was Ivan. A pause and then Ivan's voice came through. "Tell me what you saw, Sam."  
    I described it as best I could, and I also told him about seeing the same kind of face on my phone. And the worms.
    Ivan didn't say anything at first, then. "You saw that thing on your phone?"  
    "Yeah. It looked like it was in my phone looking out at me."  
    "Where are you?"  
    "I'm at Ina's house."  
    Another pause. "Why are you there?"  
    I sighed. "Long story. Just…am I on speaker?  
    "Yeah."  
    "Take me off."  
    He did and I could tell because the background noise shut off. "Hold on," Ivan said and then finally. "Sam, what's wrong?"  
    "It took the Hammer, Ivan."  
    "It…what?"  
    "The Shadow Guy I saw took the damn Hammer."  
    "From around your neck?"
    I gave him a very, very brief run down of what I was going to do, without going into details or telling him about my cleaning spree. Ivan didn't say anything at first. "And you're sure it's gone."  
    "Ivan…the damn thing is gone. I watched it put its hands on it and it blurred and vanished."
    "It blurred. That meant it was traveling, so it's not there anymore. But how did it get into Ina's house? That place is like, super uber warded."  
    "You don't think the thing on my phone was the same as this, do you?"  
    When Ivan didn't answer, I groaned out loud. "Ivan, I've got to get that book back."  
    "It can't use the book, Sam. So there's no issue there. And it was a bad book anyway."  
    "Remember what you overheard this morning?"  
    "Yeah…oh…fuck…"  
    "Now you see why I'm panicking," I picked the phone up and carried it with me to the herb room. "This can't be a coincidence."  
    "It's not. I'm going to text you an address. You need to get here. Cause I think Kyle might have something you need to hear."  
    After transferring the texted address into my GPS, I loaded my stuff and Grey back into the Jeep and headed toward this house. The address put it on Dante Street near Riverbend, which was an area I wasn't familiar with so I needed to follow the route.  
    My phone rang in the middle of me programming the route. It was Pauline's number so I ignored the call and pushed it to voicemail.  
    And of course, Robin called once I was on my way. I answered him but kept him on speaker as I drove. "Hey Robin. I'm on the road. Can I call you back—"  
    "I saw Kathy! Sam…I saw Kathy!"  
    I slowed the Jeep down for a red light. "Robin, Kathy's dead."  
    "No, Sam. She's here. In the house. Rose's house. I was cleaning out some of Rose's things and she was there in the corner and she tried to talk to me."  
    I bowed my head until my forehead banged the steering wheel. Now Robin was seeing ghosts. Which was absurd because I doubted wherever Kathy was, and I suspected it was Alfheim , she wasn't going to show up as a ghost. She wasn't going to show up at all. So either Robin was going nuts, or there was something playing tricks on him. "Baby…describe what you saw."  
    He did.  
    A car horn startled me and I hit the gas to go forward, not realizing the light had turned green.  
    "Sam, you there? Can you come over and see her for yourself?"  
    I looked at the map on the phone. I was close to Rose's house and it was going to take another half hour to get over to Riverbend. I was terrified something awful was happening to Robin now that I had my dad's dementia on my mind. I pulled to the