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The hairs on my neck stiffened, begging me not to turn around. If it was an aphid, the water protected me. But I’d heard that accented whisper, the unforgettable flap of a cape. I could feel his oily presence.
My pulse raced as I slowly turned my head and looked over my shoulder.
The muscles in my neck strained and stiffened as I stared over my shoulder, my fingers tensing in the water around my hips.
The silhouette on the shore stole my breath, every ounce of it. The dark outline of a man was cut out of the black backdrop, his features cloaked by the hood of the cape. But I didn’t need to see the face to identify the source of my two-year nightmare.
My body went cold, and my stomach caved in. I spun to face him, my panic escaping in a piercing shout. “Jesse!”
This wasn’t real. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t. The Drone was dead. Which meant I’d been pulled into the spirit world. Jesse should’ve heard me. He’d promised to guard my mind, to make sure I’d always find a way back to the living.
The looming shadow reached up and slid back the hood. My backbone began to buckle. One by one, the bones of my vertebrae crumbled as a mutilated face came into view. I hurdled into nightmares, reliving the threat of fangs. The snap of demonic wings. The pungency of sulfur. The lava river engulfing the Drone’s fall. Bend, bulge, collapse. My spine melted, and water washed over my shoulders.
I wasn’t dreaming. My body pulsed with wakefulness, shivering beneath the warm water. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t stuck in the spirit world.
With a monster.
I couldn’t pull my gaze from the disfigurement. From hairline to collar, his cheeks and jaw drooped with loose, melted flesh, the skin beneath his black eyes sagging hideously.
He prowled closer, the sable ringlets of his hair snaking around his cloak-covered chest. “You look healthy, Eveline. I’m very pleased.”
Unable to move, unable to come to terms with what I was seeing, I shouted again. “Jesse!”
The Drone’s laughter erupted around me just as the visceral hum of aphids annihilated my insides. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Was Jesse fighting them off? A telepathic battle writhed in my stomach. With the pinch of each aphid death, more moved in.
But the tree line remained comatose. Where had Jesse run off to? Could all this be happening in my mind? Maybe he couldn’t hear me screaming because I was stuck in some other dimension? My muscles trembled to find him, and my hand shot to my forearm, releasing a blade.
With a steely breath, I aimed it at the Drone’s chest and sent it hurdling across the distance.
He blurred to the side. If I blinked, I would’ve missed the movement. But I hadn’t blinked, and I still missed him by a fucking foot. Goddammit, I wanted to see him bleed, to see if he could bleed.
I went for another blade and threw again. It hit the loose folds of his cape, and I swear I heard a rip in the fabric before it vanished in the tall grass behind him.
I kept throwing. He kept dodging. My fingers flexed in frustration, my breath sharpening. I wasn’t far from the shore. I should’ve hit him at least once.
Dead or alive, he still had more power than me, to outmaneuver my attacks, to laugh in my face with each failure. Which he did, his demented enjoyment crackling through the air.
I reached for the next blade and… Fuck!
I’d run out. My blades scattered the shore, kicked away by the Drone’s boots. Could ghosts do that? His feet should’ve floated through the steel.
Where the hell was Jesse? The animal clinic was too far away to alert Roark, the cinder-block walls too thick to penetrate. But I tried anyway. “Roark!”
The area surrounding the building held still.
The Drone crossed his arms, and a terrifying smile morphed his mouth into fangs, melted skin, and insanity.
The thought of Jesse alone and in need of help flooded my blood with adrenaline. My heart rate blew up, and vicious energy surged through my body. Should I leave the protection of the water without weapons?
It wasn’t just my life I risked. The cure. The future child.
Where were the others? Still guarding the perimeter?
“Georges! Tallis!” I bellowed their names until my throat burned, pausing every few breaths to listen for the boom of their rifles.
More silence. Where were the aphids? Their vibrations strummed from… I couldn’t locate a position. The threads buzzed from everywhere and nowhere.
I concentrated hard and tried to reign them in, pushing my command along each insectile lifeline with urgency. Leave. Leave. Leave.
The effort sucked me dry in seconds. Without masculine energy from skin contact, I was powerless. Spots invaded my vision. Ice spread through my veins. And wet warmth trickled from my nose, followed by the scent of copper.
