Tyger Tyger by Kersten Hamilton

away.
    "Fear Doirich, the Dark Man." Finn had a knife in his hand, and Teagan didn't know where it had come from. He didn't look a little scary anymore. He looked a lot scary.
    "Finn!" Mr. Wylltson said sharply. "That's not necessary—"
    "It is." Finn moved between Teagan and the goblin. "This thing isn't human. It doesn't follow your rules. You heard what the man said, goblin. Get out of this house. You're not welcome here."
    "Finn?" the goblin spat. "The
Mac Cumhaill?
Keep the girl while you can. I'll take the little one first. He'll cry the longest." It spun toward Aiden.
    "No!" Teagan shouted. Finn threw his knife as the goblin lunged. Mr. Wylltson shoved Aiden aside, and the
sídhe
caught his arm instead of Aiden. Tea saw Finn's knife sink hilt-deep into its back. And then it exploded. The force picked Teagan up and slammed her against the wall. She scrambled across the floor to Aiden, who was holding his ears.
    "Where's Dad?" Aiden asked.
    Finn's knife was lying in the middle of the floor. There was a misting of what might have been blood in a spatter pattern on the wall, but the goblin and Mr. Wylltson were gone.
    Finn snatched up his knife and headed for the door.
    "Where are you going?" Tea said.
    "After them. Come on—it's not safe here."
    Teagan grabbed Aiden's hand and followed Finn, barely keeping him in sight. He was waiting for them by the gate to the library park.
    "Is this where the bad guy took Dad?" Aiden asked.
    "I think so," Finn said. "But we can't follow them in. It will be dark soon." Even as he spoke, the air under the trees began to shimmer like a heat mirage.
    "That don't look good," Finn said.
    "What is it?"
    "I've never seen anything like it, but something is happening, that's sure," Finn said. "We'd best get out of sight."
    "My wild house!" Aiden dropped to his knees and scrambled into the overgrown trumpet vines. "We can hide in here."
    "Get in quick, Tea. I'm right behind you." There was plenty of room in the wild house, but it was a little hard to see out.
    "Good. It's good to have iron bars about us." Finn's knife was still in his hand. "The
cat-sídhe
don't like it, at least. Hush, now, not a sound."
    Two shadows stepped out of the shimmering air. They were shaped almost like humans, but their heads were rounder, with ears like cats'.
    Aiden sucked in his breath, and Teagan put her arms around him. He was trembling as he turned to hide his face in her shirt, but he didn't make a sound.
    The shadow men grew darker as they walked toward the gate. They didn't move like humans. Their joints seemed to be in the wrong places, as if they were intended to walk on all fours rather than upright, and they had a strange bounce in their step. They passed within feet of Teagan, close enough for her to see that their hands were on backwards—the thumbs where a human's little finger would be—and that each long digit was tipped with a claw.
    People walking down the sidewalk didn't seem to notice them. None of the drivers on the road turned their heads to look.
    The taller shadow walked into the middle of the street, bent over, and stuck its head into the pavement as if it were looking for something beneath the surface of a pond.
    A pothole the shape of the shadow man's shoulders appeared in the asphalt, and at least one driver saw it. He swerved to avoid the hole and narrowly missed a woman on a bike. She smashed into a parked car and fell sideways into the gutter.
    The shadow man pulled his head out of the street, and the pothole disappeared. The smaller shadow man walked over to the cyclist, who was cleaning gravel out of her palms. It tipped its head one way, then another, as if it were studying her. It reached down, and for a moment Teagan thought it was going to help her up, but its hand didn't stop at her skin. It went right into her chest, all the way up to its wrist. It twisted something, then pulled its hand out.
    The taller shadow watched, and when the short one was done, they