Chapter Fourteen

Black Annis feels the weight of this strange, changed world on her shoulders. She has been feeding steadily, and she grows stronger. But things are not as simple as they used to be. The children are more plentiful in this modern mortal world, but they are also more carefully guarded. They sleep behind bars and sheets of glass and locked doors. The very effort of getting to her prey makes her hunger more intense. Yes, things used to be easier.

And the chime child.

Black Annis sighs and looks around at the walls of her lair with her glowing eyes. Already she feels the need to tear flesh from bone once more – as her strength grows, she feels an increasing compulsion to feed. She would never have resorted to snatching a child from the streets in broad daylight otherwise. And now she has been detected by a chime child. Annis shakes her head. She cannot afford such risks any longer. This local guardian is certainly a threat – the boy cannot have faced a great number of adversaries so soon in the dark time, and yet he was fearless and strong. He had even managed to inflict an injury . . . Black Annis reaches up to her cheek, where the wound still gapes. Yes, she cannot underestimate this boy.

Black Annis reaches down to her skirts, unties the fresh pelt and unfurls it slowly. Studying the skin carefully, she holds it up to her mouth and gnaws at the last pieces of flesh. Licking her blue-black lips, Black Annis stretches out the pelt, now stripped clean, and hangs it out to dry next to the others.

It could well be her last meal for a while.