Iron Night Read Free

thinking the way I preferred, which was like a regular human guy, and the pieces fell together. “Holy shit. You’re going to feed Titus to a troll?” I felt appalled.
    â€œThis is why we don’t name or pet the goats.” Chivalry said blandly.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    We ended up walking a small path that zigzagged down the hill until we were standing on the rocky shore right under the bridge. This close to the bay, with nothing as a windbreak, I was deeply grateful that I was wearing Chivalry’s jacket. Icy winds and exposed bellies weren’t a good combination.
    We stood in the dark for a few long minutes, listening to the sounds of lapping water and the occasional early car driving over the bridge. Once something flapped over my head and I thought that I caught sight of a bat, but that was it.
    â€œChivalry,” I finally whispered.
    â€œWhat?” His voice was so low that I almost couldn’t hear it.
    â€œShouldn’t you, you know, call the trolls?” I’d never seen a troll before, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to now, but I also didn’t really want to keep standing around indefinitely on slippery rocks in the dark. My balance had improved somewhat, but I just knew that every additional minute increased the odds that I would somehow end up in the bay.
    â€œThey already know we’re here,” he said softly. “They’ve known since we pulled into the parking lot.”
    â€œReally?” I asked. I glanced around us nervously.
    â€œOh yes,” he continued, his brown eyes boring into the darkness. “In fact, they’re already here.”
    I glanced around, still not seeing anything. A low but sharp sound suddenly echoed around us, one that reminded me of being back in Cub Scouts and watching a few of the adults attempt to start a fire using two rocks to strike a spark. Then I finally caught some movement to my left, and I watched as a huge shape, easily nine feet tall and built like a fifties refrigerator, seemed to detach itself from the bridge tower itself and move closer to us. The sharp sound continued as it moved toward us, and I struggled to keep standing right where I was and not look terrified, though I couldn’t help glancing over to Chivalry a few times, who managed to look completely nonchalant as it came over.
    It took me a minute to realize what I was seeing, but then I realized what my eyes were actually telling me. Whenever the shape moved a step, I’d lose track of it again until it took another, because in the moment when it was still, it blended perfectly into its background. It was like in
Predator
, which was not a comforting thought to have.
    Eventually it moved until it was just about two feet from us, then came to a halt, disappearing again. I could smell it now that it was close—strong, very salty; not necessarily a bad smell but not a good one either. It was like getting close to the seal exhibit at the aquarium.
    There was more movement and then something seemed to shift in the upper part of it, and suddenly, as if some kind of hood had been pushed back, two glowing green eyes came into view, each as big as a golf ball. They were set in a long, inhuman gray slab of a face that looked like it had been chipped out of granite, and a mouth suddenly gaped open below that, huge and black, but with big, long teeth that gleamed like pearls.
    Beside me, Chivalry nodded once. “Good morning, Brynja.”
    The glowing eyes focused on my brother, and, in a voice that was so low and grinding I could feel it rumble in my feet, like a Leonard Cohen CD with the bass turned way up, it said, “
Velkommen
, son of Scott.”
    â€œHas everything gone well this month?” Chivalry was as polite as last week, when the seventy-five-year-old head of the historical society, Mrs. Forbes, had stopped by for a lunch-and-gossip date with my mother.
    â€œ
Ja
,
ja
. My family and I have been