FOR A FEW ENDLESS MOMENTS, no one moved. Not even Cheney, who must have sensed the danger instinctively. None of them had ever seen anything like the Klee—had not even imagined such a thing could exist. They stared at it as people always stare at things so foreign and so unlikely, they seem a trick of the mind. They stared at it, as well, with the cold realization that they had come up against something much more terrifying than anything they had encountered before. The Klee stared back at them, immobile against the screen of the dark and the mist. No, not at them, Hawk corrected, catching the glint of its tiny eyes beneath the heavy brow. Not at them.

It was looking right at him.

Perhaps the others didn’t know this, but he was certain of it. He didn’t know why he had been singled out, but he knew he had. Perhaps something about him had caught its attention. Perhaps it had been looking for him all along. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he was the one it was focused on, the one it wanted.

“What is it?” he heard Sparrow whisper.

He had no idea. It was of monstrous size and appearance for something that walked upright and was vaguely human. It stood well over eight feet, its massive body coated with a mix of scales and tufts of long hair and clots of debris that seemed to have grown into its leathery hide. Huge, bowed legs supported its tree-trunk body; its overlong arms hung loose from its shoulders, ridged with muscle. Wicked green eyes peered out from beneath a brow formed of bone grown thick with scars, and there was an intent in those eyes that left Hawk chilled all the way through. Cheney growled deep in his throat and took a cautious step forward, muzzle drawn back, teeth gleaming.

“No, Cheney,” Hawk said at once.

He reached down and touched the dog’s thick ruff to reinforce his command, and he felt Cheney shiver in response.

“What do we do?” Bear asked.

“Back away,” Hawk ordered.

He took one step and then another. Sparrow and Bear went with him, their movements slow and cautious. Both leveled the barrels of their weapons and pointed them at the monster. Hawk took a third step, and his companions did the same.

Cheney had not moved.

“Cheney,” Hawk whispered. “Back.”

Still the dog did not move. He remained frozen in place, his eyes fixed on the monstrosity confronting them, head lowered, ruff bristling, muscles gathered. The mist drifted in curtains across the barren terrain, ceaselessly changing the look of things, conspiring with the darkness to trick and deceive, to cause the eyes to question.

“Back, Cheney,” Hawk repeated, a sinking feeling blooming in the pit of his stomach. Then the mist swept in out of the night, a suffocating blanket that enveloped everything, and the creature facing them was gone.