sweet and foul.
I moved upwind into the trees, away from the graveyard. Drawing on Beast's instinct, night vision, and svelte, lissome grace, I moved between the thickly growing trees, silent, not a leaf cracking beneath my boots. Sweat trickled beneath my leathers. I carried the vamp-killer in my left hand, the Benelli in my right, the butt stock collapsed so I could hold it one handed.
As I walked, the sickly sweet smell of death grew, and beneath it, an even older scent -
blood left to rot, the sacrifice for whatever dark magic had been done here. Floating along under the blood and death scent was the ozonelike taint of witch magic. Magic only recently spent. Magic still fresh and potent, smelling of piney woods and mushrooms, roses and fresh-turned earth, with a hint of brine, the scent of an earth witch with strong abilities and affinities for growing things and with the soil itself. Or maybe two earth witches, working in tandem. And under it all was the scent of dark rites. Fear, blood, and sacrifice. My hands clenched on the weapons and I relaxed them only by an effort of will, focusing my attention back on the scent signatures and what they might mean. I didn't like this. Not at all. The musk of my own fear-sweat joined the heat-sweat trickling down my sides. I unfolded the stock and held the Benelli at ready, able to fire one-handed if needed for a close-range shot, or quickly brace it with my left arm for a more distant one.
I didn't smell the fresh odor of anyone, maybe not since Ada. So the magic had been set on a timer or a trigger, warded for scent so no one could find it, and was only recently initiated. Since I hadn't smelled the site or the magics when I was here last, it had likely been under a stasis spell, but that didn't mean that there wasn't someone coming soon.
Or someone approaching from downwind of me. The back of my neck itched, an uneasy worry. I remembered the smell of angry vamp at the city park rising site. He had come back to see what rose, to inspect his scion.
Holding Beast close to the surface, I moved through the trees with catlike grace, slowly lifting and placing each foot. As I moved, I felt for my direction and decided I was heading vaguely north. Beast was better at knowing her bearings than I, but worse at translating and communicating her directional sense. I was sweating heavily, the new leathers' mesh pockets not a big help without a bike-generated breeze.
A tingle of broken magic brushed across my skin. I stopped. I had found a new ten-foot-wide circle in the trees, the shells still covered by debris from the hurricane. I sniffed, parsing the various scents, analyzing. Something was different here. Vamps rose on the third day after they were turned and died their first death. But from the smell, this one had been in the ground a lot longer. Long before Ada. Something said this was important.
Both instinct and experience told me that the many kidnappings of the witch children were about these vamp risings. With the thought, fear started to rise but I crushed it. I couldn't give in to emotion until the children were safe. I would not. I forced my mind back to the puzzle.
Why would witches and vamps work together to steal witch children? Why graves with crosses? And why leave a newly turned vamp longer in the ground? It was senseless. It had something to do with the curse and the curing process - but what? Stopping, I leaned against a tree, my vertebrae pressing through leather into the rough bark. I listened, sending out my senses to taste, scent, hear, feel everything on the night breeze.
Traces of magic floated along the skin of my hands and face, appearing tattered, smelling scorched. In Beast-vision, the traces looked much like the broken wards on Molly's house.
Ahead, something groaned softly and breathed through thick tissue, the sound making me think of a congealed mass. I tossed the vamp-killer lightly up and down in my hand, making sure of a firm, sweat-free grip. Ever more slowly, I moved deeper into the woods, staying downwind. The four crosses on my chest began glowing palely, alerting me to the presence of a vamp.
Something coughed. The sound was human, or almost, long and retching. A glob of something gooey was spat and my stomach wanted