I leapt after him, catching a tree root with my foot and pitching forward. I had one arm loaded with books, and the other was too slow to catch my fall. My head thudded against a mossy stump and the forest flashed before me, bright and colorful. When I picked myself up again, I had lost sight of Jackaby. I tried to follow the sound of crunching branches for a few long strides, but it was useless. I was lost in the woods, totally and entirely.

The clouds were thinning, at least, and through the thick cover of the trees, I could see sparkling patches of stars. The moon hung full and bright almost directly overhead, flooding the woods with light, but offering little help navigating. I crept forward, not knowing what else to do. Should I call for Jackaby? Would that only make me a bigger target? Should I hide?

A flurry of motion nearby set my heart racing, and I flattened against a tree trunk as a uniformed officer careened through the bushes, slapping leaves from his face in a panic. It was O’Doyle, the brute of a policeman with the hawk nose, only he looked far less intimidating now. He was pale, dripping with sweat, and wheezing. He was running with his gun drawn, looking backward over his shoulder every other step. I called out, but he only fired his weapon in my general direction and kept moving.

I ducked instinctively, though the shots were wild and high. I stayed frozen until he had disappeared into the woods, but I wasn’t going to stay to find out what had frightened him.

I pushed through the brush as quickly and quietly as I could, following O’Doyle’s noisy flight. I was squeezing through a small copse of trees when those sounds abruptly stopped. Crouched in the shadows, I strained to hear anything. More gunshots sounded in the distance. I peered around the trees into a small mossy clearing and saw O’Doyle’s feet first. He was lying on his back in a pool of crimson that was spreading across the moonlit grass, but he was not alone. A dark figure crouched beside him, its back to me. Once more, my heart raced and thudded against my ribs . . . until I made sense of what I was seeing. The figure was not the creature—not Charlie. The beast was nowhere in sight.