Zara’s golden retriever was on his hind legs, paws scrabbling desperately at the front window, nails squeaking against the glass. His harness hung crooked, the lead trailing uselesslybehind him. His eyes were wild, foam flecking his mouth as he barked, frantic, at the sight of us.
“Mitch?” I breathed, horror slicing through me.
Because Mitch never went anywhere without Zara.
Ever.
And if he was here alone…
Something was very, very wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LIORA
We followed Mitch at a run, the dog far faster than us, but stopping to turn around every so often to make sure we were coming.
A shriek split the sky, and ice filled my veins.
“We need backup!” Agnes shouted behind me, veering off to bang on the front window of the pub.
I barely clocked the startled shouts from inside The Tipsy Thistle as I tore after Mitch. The golden retriever was a streak of pale fur in the gathering dusk, barreling down the cobbled lane toward the loch. My lungs burned, the cold air slicing down my throat, and my boots skidded on damp leaves as the pavement gave way to the rougher track that edged the water.
“Mitch!” I yelled. “Slow down, buddy, come on?—”
He didn’t slow. If anything, he pushed harder, nails digging into mud as he veered off the main path toward the trees that lined the shore.
The loch spread out beside us, a black mirror under a bruise-colored sky. Out toward the island, the water seethed and foamed, as if something massive was turning beneath the surface. A low, eerie whinny carried over the water, the sound somehow both horse and nightmare all at once.
Kelpies.
“Holy hell.”
Behind me, pounding footsteps grew louder as people followed. Agnes reappeared at my side, breath puffing in white clouds.
“Graham’s getting the others,” she panted. “Keep going! Mitch, good lad, show us where!”
Mitch answered with a sharp bark and plunged into a stand of trees where the ground dipped away more steeply than I’d realized. I skidded to a halt at the edge of a narrow gully that slashed down toward the loch like a wound, its sides slick with moss and loose rock.
Mitch stood halfway down the slope, paws braced, barking frantically at a crumpled shape in the shadows below.
“Zara,” I breathed.
My sister lay twisted near the bottom of the gully, one leg at a wrong, horrible angle, her dark hair fanned around her head. Her cane lay higher up the slope, wedged against a root, useless.
“Z!” My voice came out strangled.
“Liora, don’t—” Agnes started, but there was no stopping me.
I went after my sister.
My boots lost traction almost immediately. I half slid, half fell, branches whipping at my arms as I careened down the steep incline. Something sharp raked my calf, another jabbed into my hip, and then I hit a patch of wet leaves and went down hard on my backside.
“Oof—bloody hell—” I tumbled the last few feet and landed in an inelegant heap next to Zara, breath knocked clean out of me, head stinging in pain.
For a moment, everything was just pain and the taste of mud in my mouth.
Then I heard her.