End of Days (Penryn & the End of Days, #3)

by Susan Ee

Suddenly, they all stop. Their bat-like faces lift into the air, their ugly nostrils sniffing madly. One of them shakes its head like a dog shaking off water. The one that was about to reach my neck with its claws backs off, letting me go. The ones climbing over the door can’t back off fast enough. All around me, I sense terror. They all run away. It takes me a second to realize that I’m free and still alive. In the headlight beams, a pair of legs walk toward the rush of hellions who are running from the car. The beam of light creeps up the person’s body as the legs move toward me until I can see who it is. It’s my mother. The hellions run. Away from the school, away from the people, and especially away from my mother. “What the hell?” I stare, dumbfounded. Then the smell finally hits my awareness. It reeks here. The windshield is splattered with Mom’s rotten eggs. Old yellow-and-black goo oozes across the windshield like a giant bird dropping. The smell. They’re running from the smell. They’re running with the same terror that the hellions did from the demon in the Pit when he hissed at them. Does the smell remind them of their evil bosses? Do they assume an angry demon lord is coming when they smell rotten eggs?