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But he didn’t listen. He leapt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
My arm shot up. Pebbles rained down on me. Mei-Ling, getting into position on the hillside above. She wouldn’t let me down.
“Back!” he shouted, bounding forward again.
“You get back, old man. ” I took aim, my eyes zeroing in on his throat.
But then I realized he wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t attacking me. Instead, he lurched past, shoving me aside. He waved that yellow stick, shouting again. “Get back. ”
I spun. “Oh God,” I yelped. A Draug. Close. “What the…? Crap!” I skittered back, scraping my arm along the rock. “Where’d that—”
“Fool thing. ” He clouted the Draug on its head, then jabbed it with his prod. “Get back. ” There was an electrical zzt sound followed by the stink of burnt flesh.
The Draug hunched and held its head, and the keeper prodded it all the way back into its pen.
I could only gape at the man as he returned. “Aren’t you afraid?”
He gave me a funny look. “Of that thing?”
“Yes, of that thing. ” I’d almost been killed by such a thing twice now. Had known several girls who had been killed.
He shoved his cattle prod between his belt and waistband. “It don’t scare me. ”
My eyes shot to the pen. “But they
could kill you. ” They writhed madly now, riled up, sensing aberrations—a new human, unusual activity, singed flesh.
“So could you. ”
I looked at him, dumbfounded. I guessed I could kill him. Probably pretty easily, especially if I could get that cattle prod out of the equation.
He sucked at his teeth and spat. “It’s just a dumb beast,” he told me, and it sounded like he meant his matter-of-fact tone to be reassuring. “Think of ’em like livestock. My father did this job, and his father before him. Probably easier than working livestock. ”
He headed toward his stone hovel, and I hopped into step, catching up and following close. “How come they don’t kill you?”
“You got a lot of questions for a girl who’s nobody’s spy. ”
I tried my best innocent smile. “It’s because…I’ve got a curious mind?”
He stopped at the front door and gave me a frank look. “Maybe that’s it. ”
I repeated my question, rephrasing it. “So how come you’re safe with them, but they’d kill me?”
“How come this, how come that. ” He went inside and pulled a chain, lighting the room’s single hanging bulb. There was a small fireplace along the back wall, a cot in one corner, and a sink, ancient stove, and old-fashioned fridge in the other. Long cords dangled from a lone wall socket in what looked like a major electrical hazard. The place was dim and smelled musty and damp.
I did a quick scan, looking for a cleaver, or machete, or ax that he might bust out and use to slaughter me, but didn’t see any.
“Well? You gonna sit?” He filled a banged-up kettle with water and put it on the stove. “Or did those things in the castle whoop your bottom too hard?” He cackled at his own joke.
I ventured all the way in, pulling a three-legged stool from what I guessed was his dining table. “No, I can sit. ”
“You’re not scared, are you?”
“Should I be?” It took no time for my eyes to adjust to the gloomy lighting, and I stared openly now.
He cackled again. “It’s why you’re alive. The Draug, they feed on fear. ”
