Shadow started bleeding from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. The dark liquid dripped down his face, staining his shirt, pooling at his feet. His body was trembling, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
He couldn't stay here.
Eva saw it. She turned to Wolfen, who was also bleeding from his left eye, though not as badly. His hand pressed against his temple, and his jaw was tight.
"Go," she said to Shadow. "Get out of here. Now."
Shadow opened his mouth to argue, but more blood spilled out. He nodded once, his form flickering, and then he was gone—swallowed by black liquid that rose from the ground and pulled him under.
Eva turned back to Goliath.
Wolfen stayed. He wiped the blood from his eye and straightened his posture. His body was still fighting the Pulse, still resisting, but he was standing.
"What's the point of me even coming if I have to leave?" he muttered, more to himself than to her. "If I leave, you'll probably mess it up."
Eva didn't argue. She didn't have time to argue.
She looked at Goliath. The creature hadn't moved since Shadow left—his massive head still turned toward them, those ancient pits of eyes still fixed on their tiny forms. He was far away, but he could see them. She knew it.
"He knows we're here," she said. "But why isn't he saying anything?"
"We're the ones who came here uninvited." Wolfen's voice was steadier now, the Pulse still pressing on him but no longer overwhelming. "We're supposed to do the talking."
"Can he hear us?"
"I don't know." Wolfen paused. "Probably."
"Speak."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere—not loud, not soft, but present. It pressed against their skin like the Pulse did, like the heat did, like the weight of the land itself.
Eva took a breath. Her hands were still shaking.
"I don't think you know who I am." Her voice carried across the distance, small against the immensity of the creature before her. "I'm Lily's older sister. Her older sister's clone, actually. And I wanted to read you the letter Lily left behind."
She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket.
Wolfen's eyebrows rose. "How many letters did Lily write?"
"A lot." Eva unfolded the paper. "I'm going to read it now."
She read:
"You promised."
"You big fat lazy cool lizard."
Wolfen stood there, processing. Then he turned to Eva, his expression a mixture of confusion and disbelief.
"Are you making that up?"
"I'm not making it up." Eva looked just as confused. "That's what she wrote."
Goliath started walking.
The ground shook with every step—earthquakes that cracked the dunes, sent ripples through the silent sea, made the black rock formations sway and crumble. He moved toward them, each step covering miles, his massive form blocking out the sky.
He stopped when he was close enough that they could see the individual scales on his face, the cracks in his hide, the blood still weeping from his spines. His eyes looked down at them.
"Lily used to talk about you a lot."
Eva's chest tightened. A small smile touched her lips—the first real one in a long time.
"What do you want?" Goliath asked.
"I—" Eva started, but the words caught in her throat. She had so much to say, so much to ask, and none of it came out.
Wolfen stepped forward, his voice steady, clear.
"We're looking for a guy named Andrew Angstrom. He's opening portals to other universes, bringing bad guys here, trying to kill us. We need your help finding him."
"How do you expect me to help?"
"Well." Wolfen spread his hands. "You're massive. You're leaking massive amounts of Pulse without even noticing. The more Pulse a person has, the more they can sense around them. I'm guessing you can tell where pretty much anything is."
Goliath was silent. His eyes fixed on Wolfen, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then Wolfen felt it.
Pulse—not the leaking, ambient kind, but something directed, intentional—flowed through his body. It pushed past his defenses, slipped through his veins, wrapped around his bones. His bleeding stopped. His strength returned.
He stood taller.
And then he noticed Eva.
Her body was absorbing Goliath's Pulse. The leaking energy that had been flooding the land, saturating the air, was being pulled into her. She didn't even seem to notice. Her skin glowed faintly, just at the edges, and her breathing had deepened.
She was taking it in like it was nothing.
Goliath's voice came again.
"The person you're looking for is far from here. The Falkland Islands."
Wolfen nodded slowly. "Good. That's—"
"He's there?"
"Yes."
Eva looked down at her hands. They were still shaking, but different now. Stronger. Warmer.
"Goliath," she said, "why did Lily call you a big fat lazy cool lizard?"
Goliath was silent for a long moment.
"She used to call me that to annoy me." The voice was almost soft. "I was never annoyed. I would never, in a million years, dislike being called that by Lily."
Wolfen grinned. "Can I call you that?"
He said it like a joke. Like a throwaway line. The kind of thing he always said.
Goliath's spines started radiating black energy.
The Pulse that had been leaking outward, saturating the air, the ground, the water—it all stopped. It reversed. It pulled inward, drawn back into Goliath's body like water into a drain. His mouth opened, and energy began to leak from his throat—dark, crackling, building.
The air started blowing fast.
"WOLFEN!" Eva grabbed his arm.
"I thought it would be funny!" he shouted over the wind.
"It was NOT."
Black liquid rose around them—Shadow's emergency extraction, triggered from wherever he'd gone. It swallowed them before the energy could reach them, pulled them under, dragged them away.
---
They emerged in the Underworld.
Eva stood in the middle of a glowing field, her heart pounding, her hands still clutching the letter. Wolfen was beside her, brushing dirt from his clothes.
"Wolfen." Her voice was flat.
"It was funny."
"It was NOT."
She turned and walked away.
Wolfen watched her go, a small smile on his face. Then he looked down at the letter still in her hand, at the words Lily had written for a creature that had loved her.
"You big fat lazy cool lizard."
Eva shook her head, still smiling.
"Lily," she muttered, "you really were something else."