Touch of Evil - Cecy Robson Page 0,29

that hard to push, not like that flat stone it took Emme’s force to set aside. It’s more like how a human would shove a heavy piece of furniture across the floor.

Each motion, each budge forward, releases more of that smell, like opening a window and allowing the air to drift through in pungent bursts.

In a blur of soft motion, the layers of spells dissolve into one, stacking on top of each other to form a semi-circular wall of stone, the size of a small track field swarming with bugs. The insects topple all over themselves, scurrying through the wet sand at my feet where it’s safe and where mounds of fresh food await them.

It’s kind of cool. These bugs, lake critters, whatever you want to call them are different from what I’ve seen around Tahoe. You get used to the spiders and everything that burrows through the forest floor. For years, the paws of my beast have uncovered them as they kick through mounds of soil, rock, and dirt.

These little guys don’t get to see the outside world. They get only specks of light from the moon and sun. I envy them, in a way. They don’t have to belong. They’re never judged. They just eat and live, like I think the rest of us are supposed to. Sure, there’re bigger and badder things waiting to suck them down. For the most part, though, they just go along with their lives.

Yeah, they are cool. Maybe the rest of us can learn a thing or two from them.

Emme doesn’t warm up to them like I do. To her credit, she’s not screaming. Don’t get me wrong, she looks like she’s doing a really bad version of an African tribal dance, one that would get her kicked out of the tribe and possibly stoned, but a heck of an effort regardless.

She kicks at the air, flaps her arms, and shakes out her hair. I march over to her, brushing off some of the larger, livelier bugs intent on nesting behind her ears and making babies.

“You all right?” I ask.

“No,” she squeaks. “My skin is crawling.”

I help her out of my flannel and give it a shake. “No worries, it’s just the bugs. Hey, look. These two are stuck together at the ass.”

She glares at me. This time, it’s not so cute. “I think it’s intentional, Bren.”

I give them another good look. “Oh, yeah.” I elbow her playfully. “Must be mating season down here at the lake.”

She covers her mouth like she’s ready to puke. “Must be,” she moans.

The moisture in the air clings the top Emme’s wearing closer to her skin. She has on one of those padded bras that women with smaller curves wear.

It kind of surprises me. Emme doesn’t need that. She’s cute and nice and yeah, sexy, all on her own. I offer her back my flannel shirt, hoping in a way that she doesn’t take it.

Emme is breathing really fast, her small chest lifting and falling as she trembles and continues to freak out. Her hands open and close as she threads them through the sleeves. She glances at them and rubs them together, carefully at first, then harder.

She looks up at me with her palms open. “They’re sticky. Why are they sticky?”

I don’t bother telling her it might be bug juice from all the crawlies she smacked at, she can probably guess as much. She does though, make a valid point.

Everything is sticky here, especially the air. Odd, since cool moisture is all we were exposed to on the way down. And it’s not like Tahoe is known as a humid region. Hell, the only way to find humidity around here is by sticking your ass in a sauna.

My heels dig into the sand as I back away from the wall and the last few bugs find a new home. With the exception of the few moonbeams poking through the sandy ceiling, the opened area is plenty dark.

The surrounding walls resemble drifts of loose volcanic rock, nothing like the tough surfaces we avoided as we trekked through the cave. There’s a light coat of dust, enough to muffle that scent I keep latching onto, yet not enough to erase it completely.

I take another deep breath, picking through all the aromas travelling through my nose, from the trickles of lake water, to the thin exoskeletons of the bugs, to Emme’s perfume, and back to that smell. There’s a bitterness to it, almost as pungent as the salty