The Keeper by David Baldacci Page A

think about Delph not being next to me. I still couldn’t quite fathom how it had happened. I even stopped and closed my eyes once, and then opened them, hoping that my nightmare would be over and there Delph would be.
    He would look at me with his silly, endearing grin and say, “Wotcha, Vega Jane?”
    But he wasn’t and so he didn’t.
    I was just a fifteen-sessions-old female from Wormwood who felt like bawling her eyes out because her best friend was gone.
    Only I couldn’t. I had no tears left to shed.
    I looked ahead. The Quag stretched endlessly.
    I looked above and my jaw dropped. The storm was still raging and skylight spears and thunder-thrusts had grown so ubiquitous as to be quite unremarkable. But there was something else in that sky.
    It was a huge flying creature nearly the size of the inficio. I didn’t know if it was ally or foe. Then, as it swooped lower, I got a better look at it. It was a firebird. Its plumage was a mess of brilliant colors that shone like a beacon even in the darkness of the storm. Its beak and huge claws were hideously sharp. Quentin’s book had said that a firebird could be either enemy or ally. I couldn’t afford to find out which right now.
    “Run!” I cried out to Harry Two.
    There was only one possible escape. I saw the opening in the rock up the first ridge. I sprinted toward it, looking over my shoulder for the gigantic bird. But the skies were so dark now and the rain falling so hard that I couldn’t see much of anything.
    We reached the cave opening and I stopped. Rushing headlong into a dark, confined space in the Quag might be the last thing I ever did. I took a moment to light my lantern and reached in my pocket for my glove, gripped the Elemental and willed it to full size.
    I lifted the tuck over one shoulder. With the lantern in my other hand, Harry Two and I cautiously slipped into the mouth of the cave. We had gone about twenty paces when I heard a sound. It was not the growl of a beast, nor could my nose detect a foul odor of any kind. It was more like someone mumbling.
    “Hello!” I called out. “Who’s there?”
    Next moment the mumblings stopped. I did not take this as a good sign. My hand tightened on the Elemental. I crept forward with my canine next to me. The cave was deep and the farther we went into it, the higher and wider it became, until I could easily stand straight up.
    “Hello?” I said again.
    Something raced across the passage in front of us and plunged into darkness on the other side.
    I dropped the lantern and aimed the Elemental. “Come out right now or else I’ll … I’ll hurt you,” I said, my voice cracking embarrassingly.
    Inch by inch the thing came back into view. I picked up my lantern, holding it high and lighting the passage more fully. The creature was small and it wore a hooded cloak.
    “Who are you?” I said breathlessly.
    “They calls me Seamus,” it replied in Wugish. “What be you, dearie, dearie?” He curiously eyed the Elemental cocked in my hand.
    “I’m Vega Jane.” I added, “Could you tell me what you are?”
    He lowered the hood. “Me’s a hob, me is.”
    I knew this as soon as he dropped the hood. I’d read about hobs in Quentin’s book on the Quag. And there had also been a picture. The hob was about half my height, thick in figure with a small but wide jaw, a stout nose, and brown eyes set close above the nose, peaked ears like my canine, only longer and fuller and pinker on the inside. The fingers that had lowered the hood were long, curved and spindly with sharp-looking nails. The bare feet revealed at the hem of the too-short cloak were large and hairy. His cloak was ragged and dirty, and his face, hands and feet not much cleaner.
    “I’m a Wugmort,” I said.
    He inched closer and once more eyed the Elemental. I had forgotten I was still aiming it at him. I lowered it.
    “Why’s you want to hurt things, dearie, dearie?”
    “I don’t, unless they want to hurt me .”
    “Hobs