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The smell was growing fainter, and if I didn’t move now, I might lose my chance.
Argh. I was just going to have to go for it.
I hauled ass for the tree line, running like someone trying to escape, but I needed to find the woman before she vanished. If I could see her again when I was in my human form, I might believe I hadn’t conjured her out of the dark recesses of my imagination.
What was worse, though? A real charred dead woman stalking me, or her being the creation of my messed-up mind? That wasn’t the easiest question to answer.
I was thankful I’d had the foresight to put on shoes before going outside. Not that the twigs and brambles would do much lasting damage to me, but it was still a lot more comfortable to run when your feet weren’t getting torn to shit every few steps.
The sulfur smell got more powerful the farther into the woods I got. I knew I was heading in the direction of the older homestead, a slightly crumbling house used for storage these days and not much else. If she was real, was she hiding there?
Was she something that needed to hide?
I tried to think of a logical explanation for what she might be. She’d smelled human…well, she’d smelled like barbequed human. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. With the brimstone stench and the burnt flesh, there was a lot of stuff to throw me off her true nature.
A fae, maybe? I didn’t have much exposure to the fairy races, only a bog fae who had tried its hand at living in the swamp. Nasty bastard. But nothing like the creatures Secret had told me existed in the world just outside the reach of human eyes and imagination. There were things out there people still wouldn’t believe today, in spite of what humans now knew about the supernatural.
Could this woman be one of those things?
Demon. My brain offered up the alternative, and it was enough to draw me up short and make me think chasing her might not be the best idea.
Demons were something I was woefully unprepared to deal with, and between the smell and the appearance of this woman, I was starting to think she might be exactly what I most feared.
But didn’t demons try to blend in? Wasn’t it their common practice to take over a host body so they could move about unseen within humanity? My burnt stalker stuck out like a sore and terrifying thumb. No one could miss her if they came within a hundred feet of her.
Maybe she was powerfu
l enough she didn’t need to go unseen. Maybe she was here on a mission.
“Fucking hell.” I looked back over my shoulder to the warm yellow glow of the mansion. In the woods behind it the lights of the small pack cabins twinkled like fireflies, and the sound of early revelry was floating towards me from The Den.
This was the stupidest idea I’d ever had, running headlong towards something that might be a demon. Was I trying to get myself killed? Save the Church of Morning the trouble? One dead werewolf, you’re welcome.
I turned my head to the woods for one last look, and there she was, face-to-face with me.
She opened her mouth, her teeth shockingly white against the charcoal black and red of her skin.
“Yooouuurrrrr turrrnnnn.” Her breath crackled like a fire.
Her fingers grazed my arm.
I screamed.
Chapter Eleven
The moment the sound escaped my mouth, she vanished.
But not before I felt the caress of her crackled, rough fingers against my cheek. She was real, she was so real. And I didn’t care if she could disappear in a puff of smoke, or whatever she was doing. For all I knew she was putting on the One Ring à la Frodo Baggins and disappearing from sight while still standing right in front of me.
Well. That was an unsettling thought.
My hands were shaking, and my heart was in my throat. No doubt someone at the house had heard my scream. People would be here any moment. I didn’t have much time.
I held one hand out in front of me like I was trying to touch the darkness, though I was secretly terrified I might brush up against her.
Gathering my wits about me, I muttered the words La Sorcière had taught me during my first years in the woods with her. She’d told them to me in French, but as time passed I learned it didn’t matter what language you spoke a spell in. The important thing was the intent behind it. I could have spoken in absolute gibberish, and as long as my focus was sharp, the spell would work the same.
“Cloak of night conceals your face, but eyes that shine can see the space, where secrets dwell you cannot hide, the light that blooms will cast dark aside.”
