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Annoyance flared through Jaz, something I felt rather than saw. “What’s wrong with reservation life?”
“Nothing, I’m guessing, but it’s a far cry from the bright lights of Canberra.”
Jaz snorted. “I’ve been to Canberra. The place is all but dead after six.”
“Only if you don't know where all the action is.”
I cleared my throat and said, “Can we concentrate a little more on the hunt? Because it seems to me that the trail of this thing is starting to fade.”
“Maybe her magical scent is,” Jaz said. “But her physical scent lies heavily in both the air and on the ground. It’s actually quite putrid.”
“Demonic scents tend to be,” Monty commented.
I frowned. “I thought we were dealing with a spirit rather than a demon?”
“We probably are—I'm just using the term interchangeably.”
“So there's a difference?” Jaz asked.
“Demons are always malevolent,” Monty said, “and while some can have physical form, most simply possess the body of another. Spirits can either be good or bad—many witches do in fact have spirit guides—and can either be human related, such as a ghost, or be an entity in their own right.”
“This thing isn’t possessing bodies, though,” I said. “It appears to be stripping off their skins and fleshing them out.”
“Which is why I’ll need to go through the library’s databanks and see what I can find,” he said. “Because if we are dealing with one entity rather than two, then it could be something that hasn't been seen for a while.”
He brushed past a couple of scrubby-looking trees and then stopped and swore. “The trail's gone dead.”
“To you, maybe,” Jaz said.
Monty stepped to one side and motioned her forward. She strode past us both and continued on up the rocky slope, her steps light and sure—unlike me and Monty.
As the path grew steeper, I started to struggle, and my breath became little more than a harsh wheeze. It was yet another reminder of just how unfit I was.
After another few minutes, the path flattened out as we neared the summit. Jaz stopped, tension emanating from her body and her aura filled with uncertainty and perhaps a little horror.
“What's wrong?” I stopped beside her, my breath a harsh rasp that echoed through the surrounding silence.
The path widened out to a narrow, stony plateau, beyond which there was nothing but air. Obviously, there was a sharp dip downward. I couldn't see or smell anything untoward in the immediate area, but then, I didn't have wolf senses.
“There's something dead up ahead.” Her nostrils flared as she drew in a deeper breath. “It's not large, and not fresh.”
“Which really doesn't tell us anything,” Monty commented. His breathing was even worse than mine, which at least made me feel a little better.
“Can you feel any sort of magic or evil presence nearby?” she asked. “Because I'm not going anywhere near that clearing until I know for sure this spirit or whatever the hell it is isn't just waiting to attack.”
A smile tugged at Monty's lips. “I have no idea what you're smelling, but there's no sense of magic coming from the clearing.”
“And no sense of evil.” I glanced at Monty. “And that suggests this thing has escaped.”
His amusement faded. “Which means the smell is another abandoned skin.”
“Either way,” Jaz said, “I'm thinking the reservation witch should lead the way from this point on.”
He snorted but nevertheless strode past Jaz and into the clearing. We followed. The wind picked up as we left the trees, blowing my hair around my face and briefly blinding me. I tucked it back behind my ears and looked around. The only thing I could see was rocks and hard earth.
“The scent is coming from the left,” Jaz said.
Monty spun on his heel and headed that way, but he'd barely taken half a dozen steps when he stopped. “It’s skin.”
