Starlight Web (Moonshadow Bay #1) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,56

the Amityville haunting had been a hoax. This wasn’t.

“I know what you mean. All the way down this hall, I’ve been having more and more trouble forcing my hand to the doorknob. Shifters definitely can’t rival witches for feeling and measuring energy, but we do have an innate sense of whether something is dangerous, and my alarm bells are clanging loud and fast. This whole setup—the entire building feels like one large entity to me.”

And that was it—that was exactly what I had been feeling. “You’ve hit on something. I think…give me a moment.” I closed my eyes, leaning against the wall, trying to focus on what was going on around me without allowing the energies to have any access to taking over my body. Possession could happen quickly and easily, and while I was a powerful witch, it had been quite awhile since I had used my magic.

I listened to the undercurrents gliding through the hall.

First, the top layer was ours—our nervousness and curiosity, our intrusion into a world that wasn’t ours to intrude into. We were floating on the top like cream rising to the surface. Below that came the energy that had rolled in with the storm. Storms—be they rain, snow, lightning, or wind—had a life of their own and their essence had a very strong lifeforce to it, though it was alien to most of the energy signatures coming from corporeal beings.

Beneath our energy and the snow came the energy of the building. And there the murkiness began. That energy was clouded in shadow, spreading out like long disjointed fingers, reaching out greedily, looking to snatch up whatever it could find and suck the marrow from the bones. These energy tendrils were tenacious, they were strong, and they were not easily driven back.

I followed the vines of energy, trying to find their core—their center. There were spirits here, I could feel them, but they were almost like finger puppets. They had once belonged to themselves, but now they were mere illusions—masks this entity wore. Even the corpse candle—it too was just one mask of whatever was at the center of this building.

I caught my breath as one of the vines froze, then turned toward me. “Oh no, you don’t,” I whispered. “Mind your own business, creature.” I quickly dropped out of trance and shook my head, jumping away from the creature before it latched hold of me.

“Cripes, this is bad.” I was breathing hard, trying to maintain my composure. “The spirits here? They’ve been absorbed by whatever this creature is. The entire building is part of its persona now. In fact, the building gives form to it.”

Caitlin shook her head. “I don’t think I want to stay inside. What if it swallowed them? People just vanish into thin air every year. What if…” Her voice dropped. “We need to wait outside,” she said in a strangled voice, staring over my shoulder. “There’s something coming toward us down the hall and it’s not the guys.”

I slowly began to turn, easing around as gently as I could. I didn’t want to spur it into running at us full tilt. Sure enough, there was some sort of creature coming toward us—it was tall and gangly, with rubbery legs and arms, and it had a triangular-shaped head. The creature was gray—eraser gray—and had large black eyes that looked dead.

Get out of here. Now. The voice echoed in my head, a warning so strong that I grabbed Caitlin’s hand and began dragging her down the hall.

“Outside, now!”

The creature began to run toward us, loping faster than I would have imagined possible.

We managed to stumble out the door and I slammed it behind us. We backed away from the building, watching closely to see if the creature was going to follow us. But the door stayed closed. I was shaking so bad that I could barely breathe.

“What the fuck are we going to do now?” I asked. “I’m not going back in there without help.”

“I have no clue what—wait…what’s that noise?” Caitlin said, whirling to look behind us. “There’s someone coming!”

I glanced at my phone. Almost three. “Maybe it’s Killian,” I said, hoping to hell that I was right. We waited, huddling near the van, and then in the strengthening snowstorm, I saw Killian’s SUV emerge from the driveway, into the open. I was never so glad to see anybody in my life.

Chapter Twelve

“Thank the gods,” I said, running toward the SUV as he eased in beside the van. He jumped out,