about unseen within humanity? My burnt stalker stuck out like a sore and terrifying thumb. No one could miss her if they came within a hundred feet of her.
Maybe she was powerful enough she didn’t need to go unseen. Maybe she was here on a mission.
“Fucking hell.” I looked back over my shoulder to the warm yellow glow of the mansion. In the woods behind it the lights of the small pack cabins twinkled like fireflies, and the sound of early revelry was floating towards me from The Den.
This was the stupidest idea I’d ever had, running headlong towards something that might be a demon. Was I trying to get myself killed? Save the Church of Morning the trouble? One dead werewolf, you’re welcome.
I turned my head to the woods for one last look, and there she was, face-to-face with me.
She opened her mouth, her teeth shockingly white against the charcoal black and red of her skin.
“Yooouuurrrrr turrrnnnn.” Her breath crackled like a fire.
Her fingers grazed my arm.
I screamed.
Chapter Eleven
The moment the sound escaped my mouth, she vanished.
But not before I felt the caress of her crackled, rough fingers against my cheek. She was real, she was so real. And I didn’t care if she could disappear in a puff of smoke, or whatever she was doing. For all I knew she was putting on the One Ring à la Frodo Baggins and disappearing from sight while still standing right in front of me.
Well. That was an unsettling thought.
My hands were shaking, and my heart was in my throat. No doubt someone at the house had heard my scream. People would be here any moment. I didn’t have much time.
I held one hand out in front of me like I was trying to touch the darkness, though I was secretly terrified I might brush up against her.
Gathering my wits about me, I muttered the words La Sorcière had taught me during my first years in the woods with her. She’d told them to me in French, but as time passed I learned it didn’t matter what language you spoke a spell in. The important thing was the intent behind it. I could have spoken in absolute gibberish, and as long as my focus was sharp, the spell would work the same.
“Cloak of night conceals your face, but eyes that shine can see the space, where secrets dwell you cannot hide, the light that blooms will cast dark aside.”
My fingertips tingled like they’d been asleep and were only now waking up. My fingernails glowed a faint orange color, and then red flames burst from my palm, engulfing my whole hand in crimson flame. It might have been scary to anyone who had never seen it before, but it was painless. At worst it made my palms a little itchy. Nothing compared to how much it could hurt to shift into my wolf form.
The light from my spell pierced the darkness in a way no flashlight could, casting a wide circle of warm red light around me.
“Go,” I whispered. Four small orbs appeared and darted off, one in each direction. If they found what I was looking for, they would shoot up like a flare gun, guiding me to exactly where I needed to go. They would only react to something I wanted to find, so if they bumped into anyone or anything else, they’d whizz right by it.
Once the orbs vanished into the trees, the flames faded from my hand and my skin was normal once again. It was a handy spell in that it only used up my own energy and didn’t need blood or other ingredients like bigger magic demanded. Just some words and focus.
It meant I could use the incantation to find my keys.
Not that I’d ever done that.
Okay, I’d done it a half dozen times. But only because I was utterly hopeless at leaving my keys in places where I would remember them later. What good was being a witch if I couldn’t use my magic to benefit myself from time to time?
The longer the orbs were gone without sending off sparks, the more worried I became. Either she wasn’t real, or she was a demon who had vanished into the ether. Both options frightened me to no end.
But she’d touched me. I’d felt her ruined skin on my cheek.
There was no way I was imagining that.
“Genie?” A quiet voice broke through my reverie, and I glanced back to see Magnolia approaching through the trees. Behind her