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“Let me out!” Brad shouted.
The Nocs laughed and together heaved the coffin into the hole. Pinfeathers squawked and fluttered up from the lid while the box landed with a crackling thud. A rush of ash burst forth from the grave. Brad howled.
Isobel drew in a sharp breath, her heart pounding so hard that it started a ringing in her ears. She gripped the base of the stone angel that hid her as if, somehow, it could give her strength.
This was insane. They were going to bury him alive, and she couldn’t do anything about it. Why had she followed them out here? What did she think she could do to stop them? What could she do to stop any of this? It was just her. And the Nocs.
They would shred her to bits.
“Please! Let me out!” Brad screeched.
Isobel forced herself to look again. She watched Pinfeathers morph out of his bird form. He took shape standing at the foot of the grave, staring down. Like buzzards, the other Nocs gathered in, positioning themselves around the opening.
“Please!” Brad shrieked, banging again, scratching.
Unable to bear it any longer, Isobel burst forth from her hiding place. She had no plan. She had no idea what she could possibly do to save Brad. Up until the moment that she reached the grave, she had nothing but the pure rush of adrenaline. Then, without thinking, she snatched up one of the shovels from the mound. Brandishing it like a club, she swung the shovel blade-first into the back of one of the unsuspecting Nocs.
The shovel hit its mark—and kept going. The blade swiped cleanly through him, caving his body with a crash. The creature shrieked before toppling into the grave, where he burst apart against the coffin lid.
Isobel stared at the place where the Noc had shattered, shocked at her own actions.
A collective howl arose from the other Nocs. In turn, each of them loosened into their purple-smoke selves, re-forming into the shapes of maddened birds.
Isobel swung the shovel freely amid the frenzy of feathers and wild flapping. The murder of crows screeched and cawed. She batted at them blindly. Panicked, they scattered. Isobel twirled, raising the shovel again. Something jarred it in her grasp.
White hands clasped the shovel’s handle on either side of hers. Pinfeathers towered over her, his bloodred shark’s teeth gritted in rage, his porcelain face a mask of fury.
“You!” he bellowed. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
That was it. Detaching one hand from the shovel, Isobel reared a fist back and let it loose. Pinfeathers arched away from the attack, releasing the shovel. Thrown backward, Isobel felt herself tip into the open grave. She hit the lid of the coffin inside with a bone-jarring slam.
Over the lip of the grave, Pinfeathers’s wiry frame appeared.
“Why did you come back?” he seethed.
Isobel spat ash from her mouth. She wiped sweat and grit from her eyes and leveled a defiant glare up at him.
“Time and again!” he snarled, livid, yet somehow . . . concerned? “You should have left when I gave you the chance!”
Isobel tightened her hand around a wad of dirt. She unleashed it at him. He hissed, recoiling as the spray caught him in the face.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell tower began to chime the hour. Loud, brazen bongs ricocheted through the cemetery. It was a sound that gripped her, wrung her with its meaning.
Midnight. It was midnight.
“Help!” came a raw gurgle from the pine box beneath her.
Isobel whirled. Hands and knees on top of the coffin, she cleared away the top layer of dirt and broken bits of Noc.
“Cheerleader!”
Isobel turned to glare over her shoulder.
Pinfeathers knelt down at the edge of the grave. He stretched one clawed hand out to her. “Take my hand. Leave him!”
Isobel grabbed for the shovel that had fallen in with her and, grasping it, swung it at Pinfeathers. He caught it easily, his forearm stretched firm along the handle.
“Stop fighting me and come!” he growled.
