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Tim shook his head. “I’ve been away from my corner long enough, but I thought you had to know what I saw when I was taking a shortcut through the Meager.”
Ben pursed his lips. “Go on.”
Tim’s hands fidgeted faster with his cap as he bit his lip. “You know I’m not one to tell tall truths, My Lord, and I’ll swear on my grandmother’s grave that I saw the ground around theremoving.”
My face took on a similar appearance to our frightened guest while Ben had a more grim visage. “Moving over the graves?”
Tim nodded. “I think so, but I didn’t stick around to find out. I just thought you’d want to know.”
“Very much so,” Ben assured him as he placed a hand on the lad’s shoulder and guided him to the door. “And until I give the command, I recommend you stay out of all the hallows in the city.”
Tim’s eyes grew even more frightened, but he turned at the door and nodded. “Just as you say, My Lord, and I’ll be sure to pass the message on.” He plopped his cat on his head and hurried out, leaving behind an uneasy silence.
“What exactly is the Meager?” I asked the native.
“That is the cemetery we landed in after your spectacular entrance into my world,” Ben revealed as he cupped his chin in one hand. “And the hallows are a shortened name for the Halls of the Imperator, but we should hurry there as quick as we can.”
He pulled a thick cord near the door and Tully made an appearance. “Would you hitch Ferox up to the carriage?” Tully smiled and swept his arm down the hall. Ben closed his eyes and chuckled. “I should have known.” He turned to me and offered me his arm. “We’re away on another adventure. That is if you care to join me.”
I scurried over and latched myself onto his arm. “How could I miss a nice wholesome adventure in a creepy graveyard?”
We hurried out through the back door and found Ferox impatiently waiting for us. A few moments later we found ourselves far down the road with the sun dipping toward the horizon. Shadows lengthened and darkness crept out of the spaces between the buildings.
And my stomach was growling.
Ben smiled down at me as it made a second complaint. “That reminds me that we haven’t had a proper meal since breakfast.”
I clapped a hand over my stomach and glared down at it. “Shut up or you’re going to wake the dead.”
Ferox slowed to a stop, but not because we had arrived. A group of a dozen people stood on the side of the road some fifty yards from the graveyard entrance. There were enough of them to block much of the street, and our horse was forced to stop.
Ben stood up and searched the faces. “What’s the matter?”
One of the men separated from the group and hurried over to us. His face was pale and he pointed up the street with a shaking hand. “It’s the Meager, sir. There’s things in there that came out of the graves.”
Ben pursed his lips. “How long ago?”
The man shook his head. “Not more than a half hour, but what does that matter? We’ve sent someone for a troupe of soldiers, but they haven’t come back yet.”
Ben hopped down and held out his arms to me. “Then we had better hurry.”
“Hurry with what?” the man questioned us as Ben helped me down. The stranger’s eyes bulged out of his head as we slipped past him. “Wait a minute!” He rushed up and grabbed Ben’s arm, arresting his movement. “You don’t mean to go in there, do you?”
Ben set his palm over the man’s hand and smiled at him. “There’s nothing to worry about. We know how to handle these creatures.”
Ben slid out of the man’s grasp and hurried us past the group. I looked over my shoulder and watched the man rejoin his compatriots. He talked too low to hear, but his excited face and the shocked expression on the others told me all I needed to know.
We soon reached the tall fence that surrounded the quaint little burial plots. Even Ben wasn’t tall enough to look over the rotten wooden boards, so neither of us could see inside until we reached the wrought-iron gate. The shadows of the aging day were even longer and darker inside the cramped interior of the Meager, and the uneven ground filled with gray stones and trees blocked much of our view.
I stood on my tiptoes and examined the area. “You see anything?”
“Yes.”
His voice was more tense than I expected, and I looked up at his face to find his eyes had a soft red glow to them. I couldn’t help but lower my quivering voice to a whisper. “What is it?”
“More ofthem.”
I didn’t need to ask him whattheywere. There were more of those things in there.
