Oaktown was not a town of alleys. It was a town of backyards and breezeways. But behind the old, brick-fronted buildings of Main Street, there was a single, long, service alley. It was a place of overflowing dumpsters, of rattling, rusted air-conditioning units, and of deep, permanent, shadowed gloom.
At 1:53 AM, the rain had finally stopped, leaving the asphalt slick and the air sharp with a cold, metallic tang.
The shadows in the deepest part of the alley, behind the Oaktown Bakery, congealed.
It was not a man walking in. It was... an arrival.
The darkness... thickened. It pulled itself together, coalescing, rising from a puddle of oily, black water on the ground. It rose, unfolding, to the impossible height of nearly seven feet.
It was a figure. It was wrapped in a cloak. But the cloak... it was not cloth. It was a tattered, ancient, grave-soiled rag... that seemed to be made of solidified shadow. It moved in the non-existent wind. It was... alive.
The rain had stopped, but a single drip of water fell from a gutter above, landing on the Figure's "shoulder."
It did not get wet.
The droplet hissed and steamed, evaporating on contact with a cold that was so profound, it burned.
This was the Husk. The Minion. The scout.
It stood, perfectly still, for a full minute. It was orienting. It had been called. It had been pulled across the Veil by the Beacon.
It tilted its "head." Under the deep, dark, pointed cowl, there was no face. There was just... nothing. A deeper, more profound, hollow blackness.
Except... for two.
Two dim, pinprick, red-ember points of light. They were not eyes. They were coals. They were the dying, hungry embers of a fire that had burned out a thousand years ago.
It tasted the air.
It was not a smell. It did not breathe.
It sensed. It tasted the... energy... of the town.
It could feel the... heart-fires. Hundreds of them. The small, weak, flickering, tasty lights of the sleeping humans. They were... appetizers.
But...
It tasted... something else.
Residue.
It was strong. It was... delicious. It was the power. The Immortal power.
It glided. It did not walk. Its feet, hidden beneath the tattered, shadowy rags, made no sound on the wet asphalt. It flowed from the alley, a piece of the night detaching itself and moving.
It moved, not toward the people. It moved toward the power.
It was drawn, like a shark to blood, to the high school.
It stood, a seven-foot hole in the night, across the street from the student parking lot. The lot was dark, save for a single, flickering, yellow-white security light.
It was... here.
The police tape, a faint, plastic yellow, fluttered in the breeze. The smell... the taste... it was overwhelming.
The Husk tilted its head back, as if in ecstasy. It breathed in... it tasted... the event.
The fear of the girl. The rage of the bully.
And... the detonation. The power. The Immortal.
It was... beautiful. It was terrifying.
The Beacon... it was this. This... this was not a fledgling. This was a nova.
The Husk... it was a minion. It was a... jackal. It was hungry. But it was also... afraid. The power that had been unleashed here... it could unmake the Husk.
Its orders were to find. It had found.
But... it was... weak. The crossing... the crossing had taken... energy. It needed to... feed. It needed to sustain itself in this bright, sharp, awful world. It needed... an appetizer.
It turned... away... from the school.
It glided back, into the shadows of Main Street.
Its orders... were to find. But its nature... was to hunt.
Its red-ember eyes... they scanned the sleeping, vulnerable, flickering town.