Tibb is an inhuman creature created by the Malkin and Deane witch clans during a rare truce between them. He can see things at a distance, and can see into the future.
I could see nothing at all, but I could hear him—claws scratching and scrabbling, biting into wood. Then I realized that the sound was above, not below me. I looked upward just in time to see a dark shape moving across the ceiling like a spider, to halt directly above my bed. Unable to move anything but my head, I started to take deep breaths, trying to slow my heartbeat. To be afraid made the dark stronger. I had to get my fear under control.
I could see the outline of the four limbs and the body, but the head seemed far closer. I’ve always been able to see well in the dark, and my eyes were continuing to adjust until I could finally make some sense of what threatened from above.
Tibb had crawled across the wooden panels of the ceiling so that his hairy back and limbs were facing away from me. But his head was hanging down backward toward the bed, supported by a long, muscular neck, so that his eyes were below his mouth; and those eyes were glowing slightly in the dark and staring directly toward my own; the mouth was wide open, revealing the sharp needlelike teeth within.
Something dripped onto my forehead then. Something slightly sticky and warm. It seemed to fall from the creature’s open mouth. Twice more drops fell—one onto the pillow beside my head, the next onto my shirtfront. Then Tibb spoke, his voice rasping harshly in the darkness.
“I see your future clearly. Your life will be sad. Your master will be dead and you will be alone. It would be better if you had never been born.”
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Attack of the Fiend)