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She rasped at him.
“What do you want?” he asked. Goddamn he was tough as nails, his voice didn’t even tremble. I was convinced now this might not be bravado at all, he really was this fearless.
The creature froze.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it seemed like she was as stunned he could see her as I was. If I understood her response, she was trying to confirm he was looking at her, and now that he had, she didn’t know what to do.
A low, long wail emanated from her throat, and she reached out both hands for him. Wilder positioned the open car door between them, and took several steps backwards, narrowly avoiding her charcoal fingertips from brushing his chest.
“Christ, Genie, what is this?”
Now his heartbeat was moving a little faster, as he circled around the back of the car, coming to stand beside me. Okay, so he wasn’t totally impervious to fear. Good to know.
The first time I’d ever seen her was in the pre-dawn light, right after I had gone for a run in my werewolf form. In all the times I’d seen her since, I still had no idea who she was or what she wanted.
“She just keeps showing up,” I admitted. “For about a year now. It started right before we met. She sort of pops up, terrifies me, then disappears. I thought I might be imagining her, or going insane, but if you can see her…”
“Yeah, I can fucking see her, she looks like a special FX makeup artist got a little too gung-ho on ‘burnt corpse’.”
That really did sum it up.
“How is she even moving?” he asked.
“Man, I don’t know. Do I look like a Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual to you?”
“Forgive me for asking, Princess, but between the two of us you’re the one who has slightly more experience with the walking dead.”
“I don’t think she’s an animated corpse.”
The creature was watching us with keen interest, but she stayed on the far side of the car, not trying to come any closer.
“She looks like a corpse.”
“Right, but she also recognizes that we’re talking to her. Or about her.” I waved my hand at her and she wheezed back at me. “I think she’s trying to communicate with us but can’t.”
“I guess talking might be pretty difficult if your lungs were burned to a crisp.”
She made a sound then that sent chills ricocheting right through me. The wheezing became choppy and clipped, short huh-huh-huh noises.
“Is she laughing?” I asked.
Wilder didn’t answer, but his hand had gone to my arm and he was squeezing me so hard it hurt.
Headlights appeared in the oncoming lane, haloed by the fog. Wilder and I both glanced up at the same time. He pulled me towards him so we were both pressed against the car, which gave us plenty of safe distance when a truck whizzed past us, honking with annoyance, churning up the fog in its wake.
When the white mist had settled back around us, the burned woman was gone.
Chapter Six
It was close to midnight by the time we pulled into the driveway of my little bungalow in New Orleans. The lights were on inside, shining like a warm beacon into the cold, dark November night. Magnolia’s car was parked on the street out front, and as Wilder and I sat shell-shocked beside each other in the front seat, I could see my friend in the house move through my living room into the kitchen.
She was carrying a basket of laundry.
An abrupt laugh escaped my lips.
While Wilder and I hade been confronting a charred undead monster on the highway, Magnolia had been washing our clothes.
It was ridiculous enough to feel hilarious.
