Blood Moon (Book Three - The Ravenscliff Series) Read Free Page A

I have never known her name.”
    “Then where is she now? How did she get out of here?”
    The gnome moved away from the hole, wringing his little hands.
    Devon looked around some more. An armoire with one door open. Clothes hung from hangers inside. Robes. And long sheathlike dresses.
    “This is inhuman,” Devon muttered. “Keeping someone in here like this.”
    But she was gone. Clearly there was another way in—and out.
    “How did you bring her food?” Devon shouted back over his shoulder to Bjorn. But there was no answer forthcoming. The gnome was clearly torn between loyalty to Devon and service to his employer, Mrs. Crandall.
    Then the teenager spotted something in the far corner of the room. A shadow. An outline of something.
    He approached, holding the ball of light beside his face so he could see.
    It was a door. A sliding panel that led from this room into another.
    He slid the panel as far as it would move and stuck his face inside to get a good look around. It was completely dark. He moved the ball of light in closer.
    And suddenly, revealed by the light, Devon saw a face, just inches from his own.
    The face of a wild-eyed, crazy-haired woman, laughing silently at him.
    “Whoa!” Devon gasped, taking one step backward.
    Now the woman’s laughter was heard. She seemed terribly amused that Devon had found her, as if they’d been playing a game of hide-and-seek. She cackled hysterically, then turned and darted off into the darkness behind her.
    For a moment Devon was too shocked to follow. But once he’d shaken off his daze, he held the light out in front of him so he could see where she’d gone. He observed that the panel led not into another room but to a staircase, and he caught a glimpse of the woman’s feet as she scurried up the steps. Her footsteps faded out as she climbed upward into the house.
    “Don’t follow her,” came Bjorn’s voice.
    Devon looked over his shoulder. The gnome was leaning through the hole, distraught.
    “Do you think I’ve come this far to just let her go?” Devon’s voice was loud and insistent. “Bjorn, that woman knew my name! She clearly knows who I am!”
    “She is mad,” Bjorn warned him. “Insane. You can see it in her eyes.”
    That much was true. That face—it had been terrifying. Devon couldn’t tell if the woman was twenty or ninety. Long white hair…pale skin…bulging eyes…that maniacal laugh. Crazy she certainly was, and probably dangerous.
    But his Nightwing intuition was telling him to pursue her. Danger there might be, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He was Nightwing. One-hundredth generation and all that.
    “Mrs. Crandall will be furious,” Bjorn reminded him.
    Devon turned and scowled at the gnome. “If it’s your job you’re worried about, Bjorn, I can’t help you there.” He looked back up the secret staircase that led somewhere into the great house. “This is just something I have to do.”
    “Oh, do be careful, my young friend,” Bjorn fretted, his voice trembling.
    “Look,” Devon said, “in the last few months I’ve handled two renegade Nightwing and assorted demons of all shapes and sizes. I think I can handle one crazy lady.”
    But this one crazy lady seemed to know something that none of the others had.
    She knew who Devon was, and where he came from.
    Yes, he could handle her, Devon thought—but could he handle what she knew ?
    Somehow , his intuition told him, what I am about to learn will change my life.
    With the ball of light held aloft, Devon started up the stairs.

    He was inside the walls of Ravenscliff.
    That was what he realized as he continued climbing the stairs. Narrow, twisting passageways, the space so small that he couldn’t extend his arms fully in either direction. Looking around, he saw that the woman could have gone any which way. The stairs frequently veered off in different directions, leading all through the great house. By now Devon was certain that he must be on the second floor, as