photorealistic masterpiece, but the wild brown hair and floating scarf around the boy in the picture’s neck made it clear he was hovering off the ground. Ken had drawn the house, complete with purple shutters, far down below. The boy’s face was a pale white with awful red eyes that seemed to glow, if the jagged lines coming off them were any indication. What alarmed Colt the most were the perfectly pointed teeth that filled the boy’s grinning mouth.
“Were all his teeth like that?” he asked, gesturing to his own mouth.
“Not always. Only when he started flying.”
“But Richie wasn’t scared of him?”
Ken frowned and seemed to be distressed for the first time since they’d started talking. “He couldn’t see the teeth. Only I could.” He pulled out another sheet of blank paper and started drawing again.
Colt knew when a kid was shutting down. He’d been the kid in the equation enough times, so he stood to leave. “Thanks, Ken. We’re gonna get Richie back, okay?”
“I hope you do it soon.”
“Why?” Colt asked warily.
“Because when a Lost Boy gets too old for Neverland, Peter Pan eats him.”
Colt gulped. “I’m not gonna let that happen to Richie. Any chance I could take your drawing with me?”
“Knock yourself out.”
Colt snorted. “Thanks.”
Once he’d slipped the drawing into his pocket, Colt wandered back over to Christie and Anette, who were both speaking quietly. Christie had her arm around Anette’s shoulders, and Colt wanted to offer her some words of comfort, but if a ghoul really had taken Richie, he knew it wasn’t necessarily the kind thing to do to make her a promise he was extremely unlikely to be able to keep.
“So, he told you about the teeth?” asked Christie.
“Yeah. He told me about the teeth.”
“I’ll put in another call to Gwen,” Christie said, squeezing Anette’s shoulder. “Maybe she can get us in tomorrow.”
“Who’s Gwen?”
“She’s the only therapist Ken trusts,” Anette said, rubbing her eyes.
Colt nodded. “Do you guys have a picture of Richie? Something I can give the sheriff?”
“I’ll text you one, gimme your phone,” Christie said, holding out her hand. “That way you can’t go disappearing on us again.”
“Never tried,” Colt admitted, handing his phone to her. He slipped it back into his pocket when she was done. “Is there anything I can do? Anything you guys want me to pick up while I’m here?”
“You’ve done enough, sweetheart. I can’t thank you enough for coming,” Anette said, standing to give him another hug. “Don’t be a stranger, alright?”
“I won’t,” he promised. With a few more hugs and a promise that he’d report back as soon as he got any news from the sheriff, Colt left to find Roland. If ever there was a time to flex his muscle as the new Alpha, this was it.
Although, if there was a ghoul hunting kids in Rhode Island, he had a feeling that for once, he and Roland would be on the same page.
Chapter 6
Roland had been staring at the drawing for the last few minutes without saying a word, and Colt couldn’t tell if he was lost in thought or thinking about commissioning a full-size version to hang above his fireplace.
“Ken said ‘Peter’ sang a creepy song that woke him up before he took Richie,” Colt said, crossing his arms. “Any of this ring a bell for you?”
“It’s a variant,” Roland murmured, tossing the picture on his desk. The sheriff was one of those people who was perpetually busy and always eager to remind him of it, but it was the first time Colt had ever seen him look his age. “A rare one. So rare even I’ve never actually seen it, just heard the stories.”
“What kind?” Colt asked. He was pretty sure he knew all the main ones. Lupines, specters, tanks.
“A changeling,” said Roland.
“What, like the creeps the fairies replaced human babies with?”
“So you’re not entirely illiterate,” Roland said dryly.
“My mom had a taste for the darker bedtime stories.”
“A changeling isn’t a fairy, but they fly and they never age past twelve or so, so they might as well be.”
“Please don’t tell me this thing sprouts wings and sheds pixie dust.”
“No, they project psychic illusions to lure their victims. They’re not any stronger than the other variants, but their psychic abilities make them formidable, to say the least.”
“Psychic abilities? They can do more than move shit with their brains?” That seemed like more than enough to Colt. He had enough trouble with the ones who just smashed everything in sight.
“The song that little boy