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She suppressed the urge to reply that she was capable of handling herself. That was not a wise fight to pick, and she could also admit that she was a bit nervous about going too far from the protective shield.
Rowan moved quietly through the forest, tracing with his nose. He stopped often to make sure that she was following as close behind him as possible.
“It’s stronger now,” he called softly. “We’re getting close.”
He was right. Just behind a stand of fig trees, they found what had once been a whole dog. Now, all that was left was the white and gray fur of the animal. It had been dead for a while, Juniper guessed. Probably died the same day its owner was attacked.
Rowan glanced at her. “I’m trying to pick up a second trail, but there’s nothing. This is all we have. Think you can get anything from it?”
She squatted beside the furry remains. She could still get some vision from it. Whatever she got would be short, just the moment before its death. And it was going to consume more mana than if it had been recently killed.
“Yeah, I can,” she replied finally. She held out her hands over the remains. An idea occurred to her for the first time. She craned her head to look at Rowan. “Actually, I could also show you what I see. If you want?”
His eyes widened for a moment. “Really? You could do that? Yes, yes. Thank you.”
Juniper took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She counted her heartbeats, listening to the thrumming of her pulse. She chanted a binding spell and her hands glowed with purple light as her lips worked. And then, she placed her illuminated hands on the dried fur.
She felt the pull into the dead animal immediately. It was always harder with dead animals, who had lost their soul, but had some vestiges left. Those didn’t want any intruders. But she was experienced.
She dropped into the familiar river of the soul. The dog’s was more a stream than a river. It had been dead too long. She followed it until she stopped right on the edge of the memory she sought after.
She remembered Rowan from a distant place and created an orb of pure mana. Everything she saw would reflect in the orb. She turned her palm upward, and said a soft spell. The ball of light floated up toward Rowan’s face.
That done, she left her body and dived into the memory of the poor dog.
We run happily through the forest. For weeks, we have wanted to run through the woods. We miss how the dirt feels against our paws. We love chasing rabbits into their holes. We love how alive the forest is. We miss the hunts.
He has refused for us to hunt anymore. Today, though, he changed his mind, and we raced forward together. Happy, wild, free. What is better than this? We are with him. We watch him leap over fallen trees and we follow his lead eagerly.
We sense something wrong all of a sudden. We stop and we growl angrily, baring sharp teeth in response to an unknown threat.
He stops beside me too. He has also sensed the foul presence that we sensed already. We hunch our backs and dig our paws into the rich soil, prepared to pounce.
“What’s going on, boy?” he calls to us in a shaky, confused voice. We ignore him and turn around furiously.
Something speeds past us and slams into him. It hits him with so much force that it lifts him off his feet before slamming him back into the forest floor.
We start barking furiously and then we rush forward at this thing that is attacking him. We lunge at its leg with sharp teeth, but can’t make a clean purchase. It lashes us and kicks us away.
This thing is not like any animal in these woods. It doesn’t smell like a living thing should. We are afraid of it, but we won’t back down. It turns away from him, annoyed at us for our attack.
It turns toward us and walks forward. It is the worst thing we have ever seen. Our tail goes limp looking at this monster. Its skin is whiter than our fur, much more pale than anything we have ever seen.
Its eyes are red and very old, and its canines extend far longer than they have any right to. It looks like a human, but we have never seen a human that looks like that. Its long, white hair is tattered, sweeping in a tangled mess below its thin waist.
Juniper couldn’t believe what she was looking at. She could feel the terror that boiled out of the dog and pitied it. What they were looking at was something out of her worst nightmares.
Something old, and dark, and evil. Standing before the dog was the oldest vampire she had ever seen. She resisted the urge to leave the vision. The dog’s fear had been a pitiful thing to witness as the vampire regarded it.
She knew what she was looking at, but her mind could not reconcile it. How could there be such an old vampire in Moonwood? How did such an old vampire even exist in the first place?
She didn’t notice when the vampire moved, but she knew the dog’s terror and pain as the vampire attacked it. She had not left the vision early enough, and now she experienced exactly what the dog had faced.
She screamed. A loud, piercing scream that rolled through the entire forest.
Chapter 14 - Rowan
Rowan watched the glowing orb with a sick feeling in his stomach. He knew what that was. That was a vampire. The visage looked twisted and deformed, but he was sure about what he was looking at. That was a freaking vampire.
