Dispells Shadow influences

We’d only gotten to eat a few when one of the haunts simply walked up to our table and began to say mean things to Maggie.
No.
When one of the haunts was pushed to our table to confront Maggie.
This time, I sensed a change in the air. Someone was working energy against us.
Outside, partially concealed in some greenery, was a hulking, furry shape that looked like my shadow. I could sense that dark clarity flowing from it in a torrent, strong enough to push the creep toward Maggie, urging the creature to attack.
I felt myself begin to surge to my feet, a growl bubbling in my throat.
But Maggie put her foot on my head and pushed down.
Maggie was tiny, even for a human, even for one her age. She was a surprisingly tough-minded child, but she could not have stopped me from rising and running even if she’d been her father’s size.
My Shadow faced me calmly, something arrogant and mocking in its stance, in the angle of its head. It was crouched like a hunter, ready to leap.
And it was trying to hurt my little girl.
But I couldn’t leave her side. What if it pushed the haunt to break the rules and physically attack her and I wasn’t close enough to intervene?
So I didn’t advance on the threat. I stopped using my breath to growl and instead focused it into working energy, reaching out for light and softness to counter the black ice of My Shadow’s malice.
The dark energy pushing the haunt rolled back from mine like fog before an oncoming car, and just then, Maggie threw a handful of salt into the haunt’s face.
The haunt recoiled from the salt, more than from the pain the body it possessed suddenly experienced, and I directed energy toward it, urging it to back away. If the haunt left Maggie, I could deal with My Shadow directly and make it depart. I’d gotten its scent now, the smell of its hostile intent. I could follow it into, through, and out of every shadowy realm to which it could possibly flee.
The haunt retreated before Maggie’s defiance and my breath, and I began to move, to eliminate the true threat before it could make another attempt on Maggie.

Brief Cases, Zoo Day, Page 420-421


Then I caught it again—the scent of black ice, the vibration of violent energy, rolling forward like mist around the haunts behind us. I could hear the dark whisper of thought behind that energy as well, enveloping the haunts like fog.
Kill the child.
I saw the haunts at the rear of the group, nearest the source of dark energy, begin to clench their fists and reach into their pockets for objects with which to hurt and tear.
Sudden rage filled me. My Shadow was a creature of evil the likes of which I had seldom faced. It was trying to get the haunts to violate natural Law, to physically attack a little girl. Certainly, if they did, I could intervene —but only by hurting innocent children who had committed no sin but to be unprepared to face spiritual threats they had likely never imagined.
My deepest growl rumbled from my chest and into the air with my breath, beginning the work of disrupting that dark energy and serving as a warning to the haunts at the same time.
The weight of small human bodies had begun to shift, but they settled back again at the sound of my growl. For a moment, I thought that they might break and leave Maggie in peace—but then their leader, the girl with the tearstreaked face, turned to me and sneered.
“Guardian,” she said. “You know the Law. We are within our rights.”
I growled lower. I needed to be closer to them to protect them from the influence of My Shadow. I took slow steps forward, growling out more of my breath, until I stood before the haunt, almost eye to eye. I was working energy in earnest now. Excess power skipped along the tips of my hairs in a glow of blue starlight, and the dark energy once more recoiled before light.
The haunt hadn’t even realized what was happening. It thought I was trying to threaten it. “I know the Law. As should you,” it said. It pointed the child’s finger past me, at Maggie. “That is my prey. Stand aside.”
I could send these creatures fleeing with a roar, but that would only scatter them. It wouldn’t stop them from continuing their pursuit later.
“It’s okay, boy,” Maggie said. “I got this.”
I looked at her, falling silent.
This child was about to walk into the darkness with a dozen predators, knowing full well the danger she faced—and knowing equally well that there was no promise that she would emerge victorious. Her heart was pounding, her eyes a little wide, but she stood with her feet planted and her expression set in stubborn calm.
Maggie was not heart-stupid at all when it came to courage. She had chosen to forge her own destiny in this meeting.
So be it.
I bowed my head down low to the ground in respect. I could, at least, be sure that nothing else disturbed her during her confrontation. I moved past the haunts, brushing excess energy gathered in my fur against several of the taken children who were still touched by darkness, wiping it away. I got to the doorway My Shadow must use if he wished to interfere, and settled down by it to wait.

Brief Cases, Zoo Day, Page 425-426