Chapter 7

10 Hours until Dawn

Shannon and Tom were in the main village. They'd made it there and found a bench near the spot where Shannon had drunk all of Jana's Doldric and ended up having a sensory breakdown. She had her head in her hands while Tom rubbed her back. Her breathing came in fits and starts and Tom was doing his best to hide the fact that he was sweating profusely.

"So you think the beast of Stoneybridge is affected by the blood moon and that's why it killed Rick?" Tom asked.

"No, if it were affected, it would have killed us both." Shannon replied, gathering herself after a minute. "It definitely saw us, but it left us alone. It killed Rick because he went to hurt it. Also, did you not see the proportions of it? That thing is definitely a member of the big cat family. Felines aren't affected by the blood moon."

"Okay, so it's not a cousin of Maddy's." Tom shrugged. "But what kind of big cat is it? I've never seen anything that big before."

"It was as black as the night around us, so I could barely see it." Shannon shook her head, the answer serving to madden her with its elusiveness. "It had a mane around its neck like a male lion though. Since I don't know of any lions that are black and that big, I'm putting my money on a hybrid."

"I thought I saw spots on it, but I couldn't see much with most of my face pressed into the ground like that." Tom shrugged. Shannon looked up at that moment to see that he was holding a tissue over his nose to stop the bleeding and his left eye was nearly swollen shut. It was then that she realised he was also standing off balance.

"Tom, you're hurt!" she got up and moved to take a look.

"It's fixable and I can walk." Tom guided her hand away dismissively. "After tonight, we'll both probably end up in straight-jackets anyway."

"That's true enough." Shannon shrugged as she got up from where she'd bent to take a look at his leg.

"How's Rhydian doing, anyway?" Tom asked. Shannon pulled out her phone and was met with the sight of an empty room.

"He's gone!" Panic started to slowly fill Shannon. If Rhydian had escaped, that meant he was at just as much risk as Jana, and everyone else was in twice the danger.

"Can you pan the camera up or rewind?" Tom asked. Shannon rewound the footage only to see Rhydian's red-eyed wolf form using its head to push one of the wine shelves into just the right place. Once it was in position, the wolf jumped. Splinters of rotten wood rained down into the wine basement and the wolf's back end could be seen flailing as the front end scrabbled for purchase above ground. Eventually, he freed himself, let out a howl and was gone.

"Well, that's something I'll have to explain to my parents." Shannon muttered.

"Are you two okay there?" Shannon and Tom jumped a mile as an old lady's voice came from behind them.

"We're fine." Shannon said as she and Tom turned instantly to face her.

"Well from your paranoia, I'd say your injuries are more than just teenagers messing around." The old lady nodded knowingly. As Shannon took in her appearance, she almost wanted to laugh. The woman looked to easily be in her late sixties with ash white hair and a hand-knitted hat and cardigan. She was the stereotypical look of a sweet old grandma and was the friendliest face they'd seen all night.

"We aren't paranoid!" Tom defended a bit too quickly.

"If you say so, dear." The old lady rolled her eyes as she took out some battered old photos with an almost relieved look. It was like she was just relieved they were still there.

"I'm sorry we're on the defensive a bit." Shannon said to her. "We've just been through hell and back."

"Well, that's to be expected tonight." The old lady sat on the edge of the bench, shrugging as she did so. She said it so casually that it took a second for them to process the meaning behind her words.

"You know what's going on?" Tom couldn't believe it.

"My late husband was a Wolfblood." The woman shrugged again before tucking her photos away. "If you don't already know what that is, you'll be learning soon enough. But something tells me you're not just on a date tonight."

"Our friends are Wolfbloods." Shannon told her after a second. If this woman had been married to a Wolfblood, she was clearly no danger to them. That was unless she'd decided her husband was boring in bed and that murder was quicker than divorce. Not that she'd say that out loud.

"Aren't you the girl who was on about the beast of Stoneybridge and then suddenly shut up about it?" The old lady took a second to look at Shannon more closely.

"It turned out that it was two of our friends in wolf form." Shannon shrugged. An almost relieved look crossed the woman's face.

"Well, that's all well and good then." She turned to the two of them and fixed them with another knowing look. "You still want to be careful in those woods though. You never know if what you find in there will be friendly."

"What do you mean?" Tom asked.

"Young man, I know your friend was lying just then about the beast being two Wolfbloods. A Wolfblood can't bite a sheep in half."

"It bit a sheep in half?" An intrigued look crossed Shannon's face. The lady reached into her bag and pulled out a photo album. She flicked through it until she came to the one she was looking for.

"Why would you have a picture like that?" Tom was getting more freaked out by the second. The image showed a sheep lying on its side. Its mid-section was gone, replaced by grass that was scarlet with fresh blood. The blood was clearly still pouring out from the two halves of it, which appeared to have been separated by multiple bites.

"I have that picture, my dear, because it was left in my back garden." The woman turned some pages backwards to show a young kitten that was easily the size of a grown cat. It was rolling on the sofa and playing with a squeaky fish toy.

"Is that…" Shannon was at a loss for words.

"Eleven years ago, a circus came to Stoneybridge." The woman told them. "They'd just found that cat and were going to use it in their act. I couldn't bear the thought, so I stole him and raised him. I didn't realise how big he'd get though." She flicked through and showed them a photo of a medium-sized big cat standing in a bathtub and looking none too pleased about being showered off. It was black as night with dark brown rings of fur that highlighted its black spots.

"You had that thing as a pet?" Tom couldn't believe it. This woman was clearly insane.

"He was surprisingly docile." The woman smiled at the memory. "The problem was, he needed to be with his own kind. I tried to find countries where there would be others like him, but he was a hybrid. There weren't others like him living wild and he couldn't stay at my place any longer. He barely fit in the bathtub as it was. If I took him to the vets like that at just a year old, they'd ask all sorts of questions."

"You took that when he was just one-year-old?" Now it was Shannon's turn to look amazed.

"He was barely halfway through growing and he was already the size of a small adult lion." The woman closed the photo album and sighed. "I had to release him up on the Moors in the end. About a month afterwards, he left that ram in my garden."

"You kept a hybrid big cat as a pet for a year and no one did anything?" Shannon was just wondering how all the people who ever called her crazy would react to this news.

"He'd never bite the hand that feeds him." The woman was oblivious to the fact that Shannon and Tom had backed up by two paces.

"So, why are you out tonight?" Shannon asked.

"Well, with this blood moon thing going on, I just had to check on him." A vacant look had crept into the woman's eyes. "I had to see how he was doing."

"Oh, he's fine. You can trust us on that." Tom muttered. The woman turned round and gave him a puzzled look.

"He saved our lives." Shannon admitted. "There's a bad person trying to hunt our friends and he wanted to use Tom as bait. Your family pet came along and helped us."

"Oh, I am pleased." The woman's face broke into a radiant grin. "By the way, I never got your names."

"I'm Shannon and this is Tom." Shannon told her.

"I'm Sylvia Weathers." Sylvia reached over and shook Shannon's hand. "My 'family pet' as you put it is called Echo. He's a Jaglion. We were going to go with Tiddles when we first got him, but it just didn't seem to fit with his growth spurts and fangs."

"Yeah, that just wouldn't fit very well." Tom muttered.

"Well, it's good to know he's okay." Sylvia got up and shook Shannon's hand again. "If you're both still alive after tonight, it would be great to chat again."

"That's comforting." Tom rolled his eyes. "What do you mean 'if'? Please tell me you can't predict the future."

"The future is a blank page, my dear." Sylvia winked at him. "When I first got Echo, I thought he was just a regular tortoiseshell cat. I couldn't have predicted he would grow like that. Just out of curiosity, how big did he get?"

"He's bigger than us." Shannon told her.

"Well, he must be eating well." Sylvia grinned.

"You could say that." Tom nodded.

"I'd best not keep you too long." Sylvia said as she turned to leave. "If he's okay, I'll be heading home. By the way, if you see my son Kyle tonight, tell him that I'll see him in hell." For the second time, Shannon and Tom had to take a second to process what the woman had just said.

"Hang on, do you mean Kyle Weathers as in the man that goes around doing anything dishonest he can to get glory and make money?" Tom asked.

"That's the one." Sylvia nodded. "I'm very disappointed with him. If Jesus Christ appears to me and asks me to sacrifice a child, he's as good as gone."

"We've had the misfortune of running into him." Shannon said.

"Echo never liked him and I say it's with good reason." Sylvia continued. "I told him to always treat animals with respect. Now, he just goes around caging wild ones and selling them to zoos for money." She looked like she wanted to continue, but suddenly a howl cut through the air and startled everyone.

"We need to be going." Shannon said quickly. "It was lovely to have met you. Thanks for the information."

"Take care of yourselves, kids." Sylvia gave them a brief wave as she started heading back towards her house. "Don't fall down the wrong path and try not to get yourselves killed."

"Thanks for the advice." Shannon called as she and Tom started towards the source of the noise. Now they just had to round up Rhydian.