"See," Cedric continued, laying the book down on a stool and openingit, "it will teach your son to read Latin."On the open page was an illumination of... a beehive, with many small beesand one larger one. The bees' wings fluttered, and the smaller onesmoved in circles around one another. Below it was some text in largeletters; moments after Cedric opened the book, there was a faintbuzzing sound, and then a voice spoke: "Apis. Bee." This is a princely gift," Rodric said, trembling. The wizard. It’s a lovely two hours from wheels up in Auburn to wheels down in southwest Louisiana. I really did pay attention to the flying. Cindy’s after me to get ALL the ratings. That’s a commercial license and instrument rating. We don’t own a multi-engine aircraft, unless you count the Bizjets in the charter hangar up in Birmingham.“You might wanna think about the multi rating, though,” Cindy told me. “Just never know...”It’s funny. I’m seventeen, married over two years, possessor of a baccalaureate. I'm not sure why I chose to ponder such things when my life was in dire straits.I struggled to try to move farther down the dock but my hands felt glued to the coarse splintery surface. Every part of me felt like it was made of lead. ''Jesus fucking Christ, what's happening to me?'' I stuttered out as waves of terror washed over me. It hit like a panic-stricken punch to the chest.This is it, I'm going to die. This fucking monster is going to drag me down into the water where I'll either drown. It was intact, however, undamaged. Almost as if she had taken it off herself. Why would she have done that?The eerie silence was broken by another blood-curdling howl, this one sounded closer and whatever was making that ominous noise was fucking big. It was deep and powerful, guttural, somehow wrong. That wasn’t how a wolf should sound, it sounded more like a bear, but bears didn’t howl like that... Matt fought the instinct to run back to the safety of the house. He had come out here intending.