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No way in hell could I go up to my room--they could easily break through the flimsy lock. Favonis was my best bet. I'd rigged her with an automatic key and kept my keychain hooked on my belt loop just for situations like this. I'd spent my life ditching danger of one sort or another with my mother and had learned a thing or two along the way.
I tossed the bag of food to the side and fumbled for my key, but even as I hit the shadows surrounding my car, a noise cut through the night behind me--a sharp scream, choked off before it barely began. I whirled, only to see Snarly Dude turning tail to race back across the street into the light. He slipped once on a spot of black ice, righted himself, then disappeared into a truck and squealed out of the parking lot.
As I squinted, trying to figure out what the hell had happened, another sound echoed in the parking lot--a sickly gurgle--and the scent of blood washed over me. As I backed toward my car, another shift in energy cut through the night and whatever the hidden force was vanished.
Gone . . . and so is the man who cried out.
Crap. Gone? Where the fuck could he have gone? He'd been right behind me. I slowly edged my way toward the shadow that had engulfed him. The scent of blood hung thick but when I shone my pen flashlight on the ground, I could see only a few drops scattered red against the snow. I looked right and left--there was no place he could have disappeared to, but the man had definitely pulled a disappearing act. Not voluntarily, though.
I scanned the other side of the street. Nothing.
What the fuck is going on, Ulean?
I don't know, Cicely, but that's what we're here to find out.
What was the thing that took him? Vampire?
A pause, then, No . . . not vampire. Do not be so quick to blame the Vein Lords. This . . . is much darker than vampire signature. Dangerous, feral . . . hungry in a way the vampires cannot even begin to match.
Cripes. Vamps were at the top of the food chain--predators, often without mercy. If this was worse than they were . . . I didn't want to know what it was.
Without another word, I sucked in a deep breath, retrieved my dinner, and headed up the stairs toward my room. New Forest had changed all right, and I had the feeling I was just skirting the tip of the iceberg.
Chapter 2
The next morning I stared up at the rambling three-story house that had been my only home for the first six years of my life, and sucked in a deep breath, shivering in the twenty-two-degree morning.
I couldn't wait to see Aunt Heather and my cousin Rhiannon again. They were the only family I had, and they were good people. I knocked on the door and Rhiannon answered.
It had been nine years since I'd seen her, but my cousin looked the same--just a little older. Tall, willowy, with flaming red hair just like Aunt Heather's. But one look at her face told me something was wrong. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she looked like her head hadn't touched a pillow for a while.
"What's going on?"
She shook her head. "Heather disappeared."
Fuck. I was too late. "But I just talked to her a few days ago."
I leaned against one of the columns of the front porch as Rhiannon came out to join me. She was wrapped in an oversized fuzzy robe, and she stood, staring across the lawn at the wood, her eyes flickering like two amber cabochons.
"I came home from work yesterday and she was gone. Vanished. Like she'd never been here."
I winced. Heather had been more mother to me than my own mother.
"Did you call the cops?"
"For all the good it did. They won't file missing person reports for forty-eight hours, and they tried to convince me that she went on a trip and forgot to tell me." Rhiannon pressed her lips together so hard they turned white. "Heather left her purse and her keys in the house. Her car's in the driveway. She's out there, Cicely." She nodded toward the forest. "I know it."
I crossed my arms, shivering as I surveyed the ravine buttressing the edge of the vast lawn. Veil House--my aunt's home--was situated on a triple-sized lot at the end of Vyne Street, a half-empty cul-de-sac. The lawn bordered a thicket of trees, which rode the ravine down one side and up the other. A copse blended into a wooded glade. The wood was thick with firs and cedars, but a pall hung over the area like invisible smog and the air felt dusty, like in an abandoned house that had been closed off for too long.
A gust of wind slashed through me and I thought I heard a snarl.
Someone isn't happy you're back. Ulean whisked the air around me, stirring it up into a cloak that wrapped around my shoulders. You are in danger.
From what?
I don't know. The energy is hard to read, but this is the same sort of creature we sensed last night in the parking lot. It's deadly and it's powerful, and it's watching you.
Fuck, I thought as I pulled my leather jacket tighter. Danger, I could handle, if I knew what the danger was. Another gust came whipping by, sending a swirling haze of snowflakes up on the porch. Too cold--it was too cold even for December here. New Forest got snow, but not a lot and it never stayed long.
