the skin-walker's attention so close to discovering her? What would happen if that sinister, pulsing energy enveloped her fragile spirit form? Looking upward, she realized that she would soon discover the answer whether she moved or not. The cone of shadow swept back and forth no more than ten feet above her hiding place.
Victoria gathered her resolve, took one last look at the dark predator, and ran.
She felt the attention, the malice, the raw power of the skin-walker descend upon her immediately. The shadow energy filled her vision, swirling like the murky trails of a fever dream. Unbearable heat swept through her. She fled before it, hoping that the witch could not take a spirit form herself and pursue her. For all she knew, her damnation had been guaranteed when she first made her move, and it was only a matter of time before she was overrun and devoured. The skin-walker had no doubt mastered more than the art of transformation that gave her that name. If an ignorant foreigner like Victoria could walk so easily in the spirit world, her enemy must know every path and every crevice it contained.
The desert flora whisked by beneath her, hardy plants dozing in the cool of the evening. Stars grew brighter in the sky as Victoria's vision began to clear. Soon, the burning sensation faded to a dull heat, and even that vanished over the next ridge. Relief washed through her in its place, but she dared not stop just yet. Even if the witch's power was fading, Victoria wanted to put as much distance between the two of them as she could.
Finally, when the lights of Albuquerque became visible on the horizon, she allowed herself to stop. The cone of darkness had faded into the night behind her along with any sensation of the skin-walker's awareness. Even better, she could see the route she and Cora had taken out of town, meaning she could find her body again. Assuming she had a body to return to, anyway.
Finding it was even easier than Victoria expected. It sat slumped in the saddle just as she expected. She took a moment to marvel at seeing her own body from this perspective. If she didn't know better, she would have taken herself for a man at first glance, some young American frontiersman searching for his fortune among the lawless towns and endless horizons. Mounted on his trusty steed like some time-displaced knight from the court of King Arthur, he rode forth with a gun on his hip and a swagger in his stride. How her parents would have started to see her dressed in such a fashion.
Victoria laughed at the thought, then jerked her head upright. The laughter came from her own lips. Blinking in surprise, she lifted her hands for inspection. Somehow, without intending to do so, she had slipped back into her body in the midst of her musing. She stretched her arms toward the stars with a groan. Her joints were stiff and cold, and she massaged life back into them with her fingers.
The cliff still blocked her way. Rubbing her eyes, she peered to either side, looking for the shortest way down. To her right, the cliff stretched on for several hundred yards before arching back westward. The opposite direction saw it slope gently downward for some distance before meeting the ground below. That seemed the more likely route, so she turned her mare left and tapped her heels into the animal's ribs. The mare responded with a shake of its mane as it began plodding forward. Victoria's legs ached with the motion, but she gritted her teeth and shifted her weight in the saddle.
The daylight had waned to nothing but a thin yellow ribbon on the western horizon. Victoria looked at it as she rode, wishing for a moment that she had followed Cora back to town. The hunter was undoubtedly planted at one of her tables, a jug of whiskey within easy reach, fleecing some local cowboys for their month's wages. Victoria wondered if she'd gotten into another fight and if she'd survived it with all of her parts intact.
Reaching the bottom of the slope, she turned her mare eastward and eased her into a trot. The night was young, but she didn't know how many miles she had to cover before reaching her destination or what she would find there. If it was only the skin-walker and her vampire accomplice, she would consider herself lucky. Her satchel rested