was we’d come here to do. His jaw was tight, and a look of determination had come over him.
It was hard to feel comforted by someone who appeared to be on the verge of a killing spree, no matter who that homicidal urge was directed towards.
The uneasy sensation continued to make my heartbeat flutter, and more than once I checked behind us. But every time the road was empty. These guys weren’t just a group of idiot redneck fanatics. They’d found me more than once while I was driving, and they’d been able to capture Hank. Werewolves could smell humans coming, so it begged the question of how they’d managed to bag a full-grown male werewolf.
This wasn’t amateur hour, and Wilder and I were going to need to be smart and careful. I was glad I’d joined him, now, because careful didn’t seem to be a major concern to Wilder.
It took me a minute to admit to myself that I was also frightened of seeing her again. The mysterious female figure who appeared to be haunting me. With her face burned to charcoal ruin, I couldn’t figure out who she was or what she wanted from me. All I knew was she scared the crap out of me, and I refused to believe she was all in my mind.
Crazy people see the dead following them.
I wasn’t crazy.
I followed Wilder as we made our way off the street and passed the edge of town where the sidewalk literally ended and the gravel shoulder of the highway began. The light from the church got brighter as we drew nearer. They certainly weren’t trying to be subtle about their presence here, which made me wonder yet again why they were in Franklinton at all, if they weren’t trying to hide. There was no way to find this place when I looked online, but now that we’d arrived, it was lit like an airport landing strip guiding us in.
It took us almost fifteen minutes to get from the town limits to the site of the church, but once we had the place in view, I could tell why we hadn’t seen anyone in town. And I immediately regretted not mapping out a Plan B.
A dozen cars, everything from beat-up pickups to a shiny new Mercedes, were parked in a neat row in the paved church lot. Not a lot of people, but it was probably the entire remaining population of the town.
Living in the south, I’d seen more than my fair share of churches, but all the same this one took my breath away. It wasn’t as big as a megachurch, but it dwarfed the small-town chapel that had likely once been in its place. I guess that website of theirs drew in a lot more donations than I’d suspected.
The building was a good three stories tall, and the entire exterior was pristine, glittering blue glass, the kind used in huge office towers. Around the front were evenly spaced magnolia and gardenia trees, their white flowers all in full bloom, giving the air a fragrant sweetness of honey and lemon that overwhelmed any other scents and brought a flood of memories swirling back to me.
La Sorcière had taught me all about the magical properties of flowers. Both gardenia and magnolia promoted peace. But gardenia was also used to protect from outside influence. These zealots could pretend to be oblivious, but I suspected the trees hadn’t been planted just because they looked pretty.
My theory was confirmed when I glanced between the magnolia trees and saw the tall stems of pretty purple flowers swaying lightly in the night air.
“Wolfsbane,” I announced.
It was long believed by magical practitioners to protect against vampires and werewolves. Thankfully not all herb lore was accurate. But its presence alone was all I needed to know they weren’t fooling around. They had fail-safes in place.
Fuck. “Why the hell is the church lot this full after four in the morning?” Too early for regular service, too late for midnight mass. Right on time to be weird and concerning. It also put a serious damper in my plan to scout the area. With this many people around we wouldn’t be able to check the perimeter and look for signs of Hank. Fuck times a million.
Wilder’s focus faltered as he realized our plan was now ruined, and he regarded the lot, taking in the number of cars and the fact all the interior lights of the building were blazing. The church being busy at this