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“Run, Mommy! Now!”
Teresa barely heard her baby’s voice over Ruthie’s hollow scream. Ruthie’s mouth stretched impossibly wide, tearing the papery skin and creating a cavernous hole in the woman’s face.
Tiffany tugged Teresa’s hand. Teresa’s body stiffened. Her heart palpitated. She regarded the hypo, its contents glowing and pulsing inside. Tiffany ran away.
Ruthie stood and lurched toward Teresa on unstable legs. Teresa unfroze and sprinted to the door and out into the night, where the cold air smacked into her, icing her lungs.
“This way!” Tiffany darted across the town square toward the dirt road leading to the abandoned funeral home.
Teresa’s lungs burned. Her legs ached with each forward push. Her foot splashed into a mud puddle, soaking her slippered foot. She tripped. Her body pitched forward, and she landed on her stomach. The syringe flew from her hand and clinked and clattered on the rocks a few feet away.
“No, no, no!” Teresa gasped for air and crawled over to the glass syringe. Gravel poked and pierced her knees. The glass remained intact.
Ruthie screamed. Teresa chanced a look. A stick-like figure lurched along about ten yards behind her. How could Ruthie move so fast? Teresa launched to her feet and took off.
“Mommy! This way!” Tiffany leaped over the ditch at the side of the road and dashed into the forest. Teresa dug deep and pushed herself through the woods. She dodged tree trunks and finally came to the old cemetery near the abandoned funeral home. She dropped to her knees.
“We made it,” Tiffany said in a gleeful whisper. She enveloped Teresa in a cold hug. Tiffany pulled away and twirled in a slow circle. Then Teresa saw them. Fuzzy green lights bobbed and danced in the night. Their green glows illuminated the headstones, tree trunks, and even Teresa herself.
“Do you like them?” Tiffany asked. She reached out a hand and poked one. It puffed away, leaving behind incandescent smoke.
“What are they?” Teresa asked. She held out her free hand to touch one. It landed in her palm and tingled against her skin. Others floated over and landed on her or hovered close by. They covered her torso like a sweater vest.
“They’re lost souls,” Tiffany said. “They are drawn to you.”
Lost souls also collected around the barrel of the syringe. When she moved, they darted away, but drifted close again, like moths drawn to light.
“They want to free her,” Tiffany said. She stroked the syringe. “Let’s get inside.”
Teresa glanced back just as Ruthie jumped across the creek and took two steps before she seemed to meet resistance. A crackle of electricity coupled with Ruthie’s pained screams disturbed a handful of nesting birds. She pushed forward and stumbled four more steps. Her body smoked. She clawed at her arms and torso like she was covered in bugs and ran back across the creek. She paced along the bank like a hungry hyena.
“She can’t stay in here,” Tiffany said. “You have to have a soul, or be one, to cross over.”
“She has no soul . . .” Teresa dropped to her knees again and moaned. “What have I done to her?” She watched Ruthie lurch and stumble along on legs so thin it seemed they should snap off at the knees.
“You did what needed to be done so we can be together again. You do want to be together again, don’t you?” Tiffany’s dear sweet face held a sad, expectant expression.
“Yes, of course, baby.” Teresa looked over at Ruthie. “But I’ve destroyed her.” She looked at the hypo in her hand. Could she stick the needle into Ruthie and give it back? A tear coursed down her face, and she sobbed. Tiffany touched her cheek.
“Don’t worry, Mommy,” Tiffany said. “She will be just fine, and you and I will be together again.” Her hand left a cold trail on Teresa’s skin. “Time to come inside.”
Teresa nodded and followed Tiffany. At the door, she cast a glance at Ruthie one last time and at the lights of the lost souls dancing and bobbing. So many of them. She looked at the soul in her hand and stepped through the doorway.
The meager light in the living room dimmed until Teresa could see nothing. Then torches on the walls sprouted flames, lighting the cave with a warm, flickering glow. Tiffany was gone.
“Tiffany?” Teresa called.
A deep and resonant voice answered. “She’s gone to bed.” The words filled her chest and caressed her heart. “She is a child and tires easily.”
A man wearing nothing but a loincloth stood by the pool at the back of the cave. Dark hair caressed muscular shoulders, which flexed when he turned around and met her stare with yellow, predatory lion’s eyes. With his physique and only a loin cloth covering his necessary elements, he belonged on the cover of a romance novel about cavemen.
A half-naked man in a darkish place? A flicker of fear shuddered through her. She backed away from him.
He laughed, deep and rumbling. A soothing sound. “Don’t be afraid—I know my appearance can be . . .off-putting.”
Off-putting? He was gorgeous, ageless in his beauty. Teresa relaxed but only a little.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The man only smiled. His bright white teeth tapered to sharp points.
“You have what I need.” His voice slithered like ribbons of silk falling to the ground.
Teresa gripped the barrel with both hands and held it against her chest. She backed away from him. “Tell me who you are.”
“I’m the one you’re helping,” he said. “If you wish to see Tiffany, to be with her, you must give me the zoe.”
Teresa retreated until she hit the opposing wall where the door should have been but wasn’t anymore. While she was distracted by the sudden realization she was trapped, the stranger pounced and penned her with a hand on either side of her shoulders. She looked into his eyes.
“You don’t . . . you don’t scare me,” she said. It was meant to come out strong, but it came out breathless. She couldn’t avert her eyes.
“I’m the one who has given you the ability to see your daughter, to spend time with her.” His voice filled her, warmed her. Heat flushed her skin. Teresa closed her eyes and swallowed hard.
“I’m the one who will return her to you.”
His breath on her neck. His lips on her mouth. A small moan escaped her. She wanted to resist, but she couldn’t. She tried to lift her arms, to push him away, but found herself pulling him toward her instead, returning his kiss. Everything inside her screamed no, but she couldn’t stop.
His hand enveloped hers, and she released the hypo. He pulled away from her, leaving her breathless and ashamed.
“Go home now.”
“But Ruthie . . .” she said. “And Tiffany. I want to see my baby.”
“Ruthie no longer wants you.” He smiled. “You will see Tiffany again very soon.”
The uneven cave wall at her back changed shape, and the door to the outside took form. She took the knob in her hand. Everything in her wanted to say, no more, she couldn’t do this, but when she met his eyes, she asked, “How many do you need?”
The stranger smiled. Something in the expression made her cringe.
“Seven bloods, seven souls. Six more.”
Ruthie’s soulless shell no longer prowled outside the cemetery. Teresa staggered home in a daze. Her mind couldn’t understand what she’d just done. What she’d just seen. None of this was real. It couldn’t be. She would wake up in the morning and none of it would have ever happened.