I phase into the spirit realm, bottled storm in hand. Ethereal mist presses in on me from every direction. Supposedly, ghosts can find their way through it by instinct. Some stay here for decades, unraveling, their fragmented thoughts contributing to the haze.
My Laura wouldn’t do the same. She’ll be at the station,
Since the last werewolf outbreak twenty years ago, sightings of the unpleasant beasts have become blessedly rare. So, it was a surprise to find one lounging in our new neighbor’s yard.
Two other canids lounged around, too: a mutt the size and color of a dirty mop, and a sleepy bloodhound.
She turns as I approach. Girl in a tan hoodie with wisps of long blond hair. The way her hood is up, I assume she’s wearing an IdentMask, and I’m right. Black haze conceals her face. Her eyes are red, glowing Xs, and her mouth a sewn-shut line. It’s a cheap, basic mask,
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This city was no place for a werewolf.
The sound of heavy boots thundered behind him, and Clawson Fangsworth dodged down a dark alleyway. His bare, hairy feet squelched in a puddle of questionable substance. There was the filth, for one thing. On all fours, any werewolf worth his silver bullets could outpace a copper on his tail
“I can’t find anything wrong with you, Frank.” The doctor leaned back in his chair to look at his clipboard over his wire-frames.
“Come on, Doc. There’s got to be something. This ain’t normal.” Frank put his head in his hands. “I’m tellin’ you, I’ve been hearing music for three days straight.”
An end-of-a-hot-day smell lingers in the air and the scattered clouds turn gold as I set off from my apartment. Easy route for my first run through the neighborhood in too long. The August weather is nice, and I revel in the familiar rhythm of feet pounding pavement.
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He didn’t see me watching him. Even if he’d noticed, he would have assumed I was flirting rather than reading his mind.
I climbed off the bar stool and followed him. I couldn’t allow him to make it back to his apartment. Once he crossed the threshold of his hallowed abode, I’d have to be welcomed inside.
What a nightmare—the squealing brakes, the shouts, the crash.
It was enough to jolt Jenny out of bed and out the door in record time. She wasn’t sure what drew her to the old mansion, only that she had to go.
Leo had always hated that place.
When she finally focused on me and our desolate surroundings, her blue eyes widened and fear swept her features. Even so, her face held the beauty of perfection: pale and delicate, looking silver in the moonlight, just like I knew it would.
“I am offering you a better fate than the one you chose for yourself.”
The field beside my childhood home attracts starlings. When I was young, I’d sit on the wooden fence and watch them. My father was always working in the garage behind our house, but whenever he saw me there, he’d stop and join me.
“Those are murmurations,” he’d tell me as dark clouds of starlings rose against the gray winter sky.
What is it about living teenagers that makes breaking into places after hours so appealing to them? I mean, look at me. I get rules. Don’t be seen, don’t be heard, don’t make mist unless the forecast calls for it. And curfew? I follow curfew every night. I’m only allowed out after dark, anyway.
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This close to a master bloodfencer, the crude piece of metal in my earlobe burned like hell. I itched to take it out, but it was all that guaranteed my sanity.
Sweat slicked the grip of my hydropistol as I watched Lord Dreadsower, the bloodsucking, self-proclaimed deity of this town, swoop into the alleyway to meet my partner.
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