14

 

 

We were running.

The pine and hemlock forest pressed close on either side, making the sun flash sporadically as I ran across the dirt-packed trail, which really wasn’t a real trail but more of a break in the forest tree line.

It was late in the evening, the sun nearing the horizon, and I probably had only a half-hour left of good light before I’d have to rely on my night-vision so I wouldn’t accidentally gouge my eyeballs on those sharp branches. The wind hitting my face and lifting my hair was chill, carrying the scent of wet earth, decomposing leaves and growing things.

The werewolves have my grimoire.

I ran faster, promptly tripping. Pain iced through me and I lunged to catch myself before I pitched face-first into the dirt. Damn. I wasn’t built like a wolf, stumbling every time my front foot came down too hard. I didn’t have the elegance and lightness of foot to go through the underbrush and tree roots without getting my boot caught.

I cursed myself, straightened, and shot forward. Anger pumped through me, fueling my thighs with the strength to keep pushing, to keep going.

My thighs burned with every step, my feet throbbing from the several blisters forming inside my boots. My boots weren’t made for running long distances. They were made to look awesome.

I went as fast as I could, following Tyrius whose nose was a good five inches above the ground as he tracked the dog scent of the werewolves, like a miniature blood hound.

The mutts took my grimoire.

I’d never heard of werewolves trying their hands at magic, especially not dark magic. Why the hell did they want my book?

Technically it wasn’t my grimoire. Well, it had belonged to the dark witch Evanora until I stole it from her. But without the grimoire, I couldn’t summon Degamon. I didn’t trust myself to do it without the book. If I missed just one Latin word, misplaced a single candle—Degamon could break the summoning circle and kill me.

Yeah. Not good.

Without the book, I couldn’t ask the demon if he was the one killing the half-breeds. There was also the possibility the demon wouldn’t give me a straight answer, but I had my ways of finding out the truth. I hoped.

Okay, so things weren’t going the way I’d planned. So sue me.

Panting, I leapt over a tree trunk and I kept running. I wasn’t a werewolf, but I still enjoyed the freedom and the high of a run. More so when it was away from the wave of humanity and in the deep woods of the Hudson Ridge Reservation. The air was clear and carried the scents of pine, hemlock, and earth rather than exhaust, fried grease, and dirty human bodies.

But after running hard for thirty minutes without stopping, it wasn’t so much fun anymore.

Suddenly, Tyrius doubled over, and I thought he was going to be sick.

“Tyrius!” I ran to him. “Are you okay?”

Still doubled over, the cat merely waved a paw at me and said, “Cramp.”

I walked around him, trying to catch my breath. My clothes stuck to my front and my back like I’d taken a shower with them on.

“I’m going to get a splinter if we don’t slow down,” wheezed the cat. “You forget that I’m not wearing boots. These babies are soft-padded,” he said, gesturing.

“I want to reach them before dark,” I panted. “It’ll be hell to track them in this forest once the sun goes down.” The thought of trying to track a pack of werewolves in these spooky woods after dark sent a chill through me. Werewolves were hard enough to fight in daylight. It would be nearly impossible to beat them at night and in their familiar forest grounds.

But darkness wasn’t always bad. In my case, the cover of darkness would help conceal me as I attempted to sneak into their camp and steal my book back. That’s if they even had it with them. God, I hoped they did.

Tyrius lifted his head and sneezed. “They came through here, all right. That dog stench is potent.” He titled his head. “One of them took a piss against that fir tree right there.”

I made a face. “That’s too much information.”

“Suck it up, woman,” said the cat, his voice hard. “How do you suppose I’ve been tracking them all this time? With my major in Logging? Werewolves tend to mark their territory excessively. They don’t want strangers or another pack in their forest. It’s one of their ways to warn you to turn around and get the hell out. Besides,” said the cat, puffing out his chest proudly. “I’m your work cat. Remember? So, let me do my damn job. No judging.”

A smile quirked my lips. “I’m not judging.”

Before leaving Kora with my grandmother again, as a precaution just in case the werewolves decided to show up there, we’d made a call to Tyrius’s best palls, Mani and Bemus. We’d found out the werewolves were planning to have a funeral ceremony for their alpha, Steven, and their other fallen pack member by cremating them in one of their settlements in the Hudson Ridge Reservation. It was in upstate New York, and an hour north from my place. The baals had also informed us that one of Steven’s pack was seen carrying a very old book.

So, after a quick shower and stuffing my weapons belt with as many weapons as I could carry— and while Tyrius stuffed his face with my grandmother’s homemade mini pizzas—we’d jumped in my Subaru and headed north.

“And there’s nothing subtle about crashing through a forest,” said the cat as he sat on the ground and picked at his back paw with his mouth. “Werewolves have incredible hearing,” he said and spat something out of his mouth. “Better than yours and mine. They’re going to hear us coming even before we see them. And if that happens... we’re dead.”

True. The woods were quiet except for the birds, a few chickadees and the occasional loud knocking of a woodpecker. A few squirrels were really ticked that we were disturbing their forest, shouting at us for the first ten minutes.

“I’d also like to take this time to point out that you’re not the smallest of women, you know,” said the cat in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Thanks,” I grumbled, jaw gritted. I wanted to kick him with my boot, but I decided to walk away before I directed my anger and frustration at the wrong person.

Tyrius rolled his eyes and then settled into step alongside me. “I mean, you’re not a petite five-foot-two female. You’re more like a five-foot-nine Amazon bad-ass. And you walk really heavily.”

I frowned down at the cat. “I walk heavily?” I stepped over a fallen branch as silently as I could, only to hear the snapping and crushing of pine needles and leaves under my soles as I trudged up the path.

“Like you weigh three hundred pounds,” confirmed the cat after a moment.

I sighed through my nose. “If I could float or hover like a pixie, I would. But I can’t. I wasn’t blessed with demon wings.”

“Try not to breathe so loudly too,” said the cat as he padded next to me without making a sound, which only infuriated me more. “You’re a total mouth-breather.”

I watched in silence as Tyrius halted and sniffed the ground for a moment. Then his ears swiveled on his head and shot forward, tail high in the air. I smiled. The kitty was enjoying this. Yes, he was infuriating sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade him for a million work dogs. If we survived tonight, I was getting him a work vest that said F-9 UNIT in big bold letters.

There was an added urgency to my stride. I didn’t want to be blamed for these murders. I’d always known sooner or later Degamon would come calling. I was the only Unmarked left.

Crap. I really needed that book.

The forest grew denser around the path. The higher we hiked the darker it got until I could barely see the dark reds and oranges of the horizon through the breaks in the trees as the sun made its last appearance before it finally disappeared completely. A chill rushed through me, and it wasn’t from the cooler air.

We walked in silence for another ten minutes, me trying not to make noise with my heavy walking and Tyrius trudging up the path, barely making contact with the ground like he was floating. Could baals fly?

Darkness grew. It got colder the higher we hiked. I could still see several yards in every direction, but it was nothing compare to the superior night vision all cats had. Which is why Tyrius went first.

The smell of smoke from a fire hit me before I heard them. It was what saved us really.

I halted, blood pounding in my ears as I yanked out my soul blade. Heart leaping into my throat, I exchanged a look with Tyrius and followed him as he veered off the path and hiked deeper into the tangle of trees and underbrush. The werewolves didn’t know it, but their fire was leading us straight to them.

The smell of smoke from the fire was everywhere as we followed the thin trails of it through the thick forest. I couldn’t even smell the werewolves. I couldn’t smell anything other than the smoke. I couldn’t see or even hear the pop and crackling of fire wood, but I could smell it.

The closer we got to the fire, the deeper the silence grew.

A sudden eerie feeling of being watched crept over me. With a second look back, I sidestepped only to jerk to a surprised halt when I found Tyrius sitting on the ground looking up at me. I’d nearly stepped on him.

Clearly seeing the near catastrophe, he scowled and then gestured with his front paw, ushering me to come closer. “We won’t be able to speak after we cross over that big fallen tree over there,” whispered the cat. I had to kneel down to better hear him even here.

I nodded. “Okay,” I said, my voice low so only Tyrius could hear it.

“So what’s the plan?” shrugged the cat. “We go in there, our asses blazing, and then what? How you do suppose we get the book back? And don’t say by asking nicely.”

I showed him my teeth. “We steal it. It won’t be the first time.”

“No,” breathed the cat. “But you were in an empty apartment filled with incense, witch rags, and cauldrons when you did it the first time. Not surrounded by angry and mourning werewolves. The wolves are even deadlier in their grief.”

“Good point.” I squinted through the semi-darkness and the trees beyond. “First, we need to determine that it’s actually here. That the weres have it.”

Tyrius made a sound of agreement in his throat. “Right.”

“I still don’t understand why they took it though.” I exhaled. I bit my lip and listened to my pulse throbbing in my ears. “They didn’t even touch my weapons. Why do you think they brought it all this way?”

“Who cares,” said the cat. “If they have it, we’ll find it.”

“And if it’s not here?” I asked, dreading the fact that we came all this way for nothing, about to face a pack of very angry werewolves.

“We leave.” Tyrius’s eyes met mine. “I don’t know why you’re so attached to this damned book. It’s damned. It’s dark. All it brings you is more crap on top of some more crap. Haven’t you had enough crap in your life of late?”

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the sleeve of my jacket. “I’m not going to go through this again, Tyrius. You know why I need this book.”

“Degamon. The ugly red bastard Greater demon, right.” Tyrius’s expression grew sour. “It better work.”

I hope so too.

Together, we stepped over the large fallen tree trunk that looked like it had been an oak and followed the smoke. The semi-darkness lifted around me as the forest thinned. Shockingly fast, we came to what looked like a clearing, where tall grasses grew instead of trees.

Through a gap in the trees, I could see two wood pyres nearly as tall as me. High red-orange flames wreathed into the air, the smoke filling the clearing and casting the whole place in a hellish glow. The faint scent of burning flesh hit me. Two burning pyres. Two bodies. I knew I was looking at the bodies of their alpha, Steven Price and the second murder victim.

Werewolves were fiercely superstitious and believed the fire’s smoke would help carry the deceased to the afterlife, to Horizon. They also buried the cremated remains, probably right here in this forest. I counted about twenty standing in a circle around the burning pyres, both male and female. Twenty freaking werewolves. Damn.

The fire raged, and the smoke billowed. Tyrius and I crept forward as silently as we could. The wind seemed to want to push the smoke at us, a warning perhaps, to stay the hell away. Maybe it had a point. But it was too late to turn back now. What the hell am I doing?

We tiptoed forward, the smoke from the fire beginning to smother us. My throat burned and I tried not to cough. If I coughed, I was dead. We were both dead. I wondered how Tyrius was breathing through this, but then I realized he was lower to the ground—and a demon.

Smoke rode the air in a thick haze as the fire continued to burn. I pulled up my shirt’s collar over half my face. Eyes watering, my vision burred as I tried to see if any of the werewolves were carrying a backpack or something to put the book in.

I heard sounds. Chants. Suddenly chanting filled the air around us—a quiet whisper, being repeated over and over in prayer. Then the chanting voices took on an edge of vicious, spiteful satisfaction.

A female werewolf stepped forward. Tears trickled down her face as she stood next to the burning pyres. Her lips were moving but I couldn’t hear anything. I slipped to the side to get a better view. The flames of the fire made her skin alight, glowing in a beautiful orange.

And in her hands was the dark witch’s grimoire.

My heart slammed into my chest. She was going to burn the grimoire!

I stood, and a jolt of trepidation spiked through me. Backing up, I saw the same realization in the cat’s face, but then his features crinkled in fear at what he saw on my face.

Tyrius hissed. “No! Don’t you dare! You crazy-ass woman!” he protested, his voice barely above a whisper.

But I wasn’t listening. I had to get it. Without the grimoire, I was screwed. I couldn’t do the spells or the summoning without it. I needed it. I needed it badly.

Heart pounding, I vaulted over a fallen tree trunk—

A dark figure blocked my way.

Fear slammed into me and I halted. The dark form shifted and stirred. Panic tightened my shoulders as I stared at the shadow that solidified into a man. Shafts of black fell from him to reveal an exquisite three-piece pinstriped dark suit and polished black oxford shoes. He looked like a gangster from the 1920s, complete with his dark hair slicked back and glossy. He was taller than me, probably around six-foot-three. And his eyes... god help me... they were blood red.

A cloud of inky darkness rose all around him like a veil. A pulse hit me then, cold and undulated. A darkness like I’d never felt before. This was no werewolf. Or vampire.

This was a demon. And a super powerful one.

“Oh, crap,” I breathed.

And then the demon started for me.