Page 38 of His Human Believer

I hold up both hands. “You’re right. I’ll remain here, with the kids.”

Something in his face eases. “Thank you for understanding.”

“But Vidar. When it’s done,” I say, wagging a finger at him, “you come find me. I don’t care what hour it is.”

“I will come and find you,” he promises.

Halloween winds down slowly.

The little ones go first. Sela’s been asleep on Hannibal’s shoulder for an hour with her felt horns squashed sideways. Mitry hits the wall in the way four-year-olds hit walls — sugar-drunk and furious about being tired, sobbing with rage in her mother’s arms about a pumpkin that isn’t even hers.

Riley finally stops the live stream and stands in the middle of the drive with her tablet at her side and looks up at the sky like a woman who has accomplished something important.

The gourds are burning down. Some have gone out. The ones on the lake are still going, reflected, all the way across the water.

And the moons are nearly touching now.

They cast an unusual glittering, pink-red across the land. The houses and landscaping, the paths, and the faces of the beings around me, all of it washed in something between silver and rose. There are no shadows anywhere, because two light sources at that angle cancel each other out.

Beings have stopped pretending to do anything else except watch in awe at the alignment above them. They’re just standing along the drive that circles the lake, which has the best view. Some beings are in their yards and others on balconies. All of them with their heads tipped back.

“Have you seen Dagr?” Avery questions, casually, from beside me.

“Not for a while.” I scan the drive. “The last I saw him, he’d left Mitry with you and was with Kari and Loge.”

“Kari and Loge are over there.”

I look and see two small Hyrrokin still dressed as humans in pale cloth, faces powdered gray, eating candy on the community center steps.

“He probably walked somebody home.”

“Yeah.” Avery’s already turning. “Riley! Have you got Dagr on your map?”

Riley checks the live route map and lets her know that she does not have Dagr tagged on it anymore.

And now we’re concerned because how is that possible?

It goes wrong in stages and each stage is worse than the last.

Somebody saw Dagr near the community center, but that was twenty minutes ago. No, actually that was an hour ago. Chloe thinks he came past the dragon house, but she was handing out treats and it was busy. Bestla says she saw him but then realizes it was another teenager who looks similar to Dagr.

Avery calls his comm but doesn’t get an answer.

She calls it again.

“He never turns it off.” Avery frowns. “Margaret, he never turns it off because the whole condition of him being out here tonight was him having that on.”

Avery strides over to her husband and tells him the problem. Team Molten Lava is instantly activated.

That’s all it takes. Bergelmir is on comms, and Skoll is scouting for the teen, and then Idun joins in the search. A security vehicle lights up at the far end of the drive. The whole vibe of the night changes so fast half the community is still standing in the road looking at the moons, unaware.

And I am not panicking yet because I truly believe they will find Dagr hiding out somewhere he shouldn’t.

But then somebody checks the back gate to the preserve.

I hear it come over the comm at Hannibal’s shoulder, tinny and flat, and I am close enough to hear every word.

“Cap. Rear gate’s standing open.”