Page 20 of Midnight Hunt

The wolf at the front of the cave, a burnt amber and black fur colored beast, transformed in the dimming campfire light. Randolph popped up, already tying a large cotton wrap around his waist. “Professor, I’m so glad I found you.”

“Randolph!” Lochlainn blurted out. He pulled from me, putting himself between me and his RA.Oh no, ooooohhhh no.My body was on fire as I squirmed down under the blankets.

“Professor, there’s been an attack.”

“What?” Lochlainn scrambled, taking something with him but it wasn’t the blanket covering me. “Where?”

“The Grove. Someone’s tried to set it ablaze. We need you. Kahrina and I doused the fire before it could go very far…but wedid a head count, we can’t find Valerie, and it was her room that was set on fire!”

Fuck meeeee.I flinched down under the blankets.Welp.

“Oh,” I could hear the regret in Lochlainn’s voice.

“Not to worry, Professor, some freshmen said they saw her walking out into the woods and no one remembers her coming back. She’s likely out here. We should go find her, though. She’s probably in danger!”

I took a second to consider my options. Randolph, for all he knew, caught his professor fuckingsomeonein the woods. I could pretend I wasn’t there, wait for Lochlainn to say something…or…fuck it?

Fuck it.

I pulled the blanket down to my collarbone and smiled sheepishly at the baffled RA in front of me. “I don’t think we need to worry about me, really. Though, that’s unfortunate cause I did reallylikemy room.”

“Uh, Professor?” Randolph blinked at me rapidly.

“Randolph, we-we-we can discuss this at The Grove, but we need to investigate how this happened.” Lochlainn, one hand to his forehead, the other out like a waving white flag, sighed.

“Well, I mean…uh, Kahrina has a theory?” Randolph’s gaze continued to dart between me and the professor. I sat up, wrapping the blanket fully around me. I glanced at Lochlainn, somehow he’d pulled on pants. When our gazes met, he offered the basket to me. I dug in to find one of my sundresses in it.Did this man raid my drawers? Oh, my poor drawers…fuck.If I needed to replace my clothing, textbooks, or more, I’d have to ask my mom for help.

If she found out I needed money, she’d ask why. And there was no point in lying to my mom.Fuck.I pulled the fabric out of the picnic basket. Lochlainn put a hand to Randolph’s arm and led him from the cave while I got dressed. The campfiredimmed faster as it was just me and my thoughts in the cave. I tugged the soft cotton over my head. Shadows danced around me and a sweet mint filled the air. I swayed on my weak legs, hands fumbling forward till I touched the cool cavern wall. The campfire died with a hiss as I somehow threaded my arms through the straps of the dress. I blinked rapidly. The smokey haze left me disoriented. Turning slowly, I scanned the thick gray and black, unable to make out more than a few inches in front of my face.

Rain fell harder in fat drops over the top of the stone, lightning cracked out through the entryway and nearly burned through my eyeballs. However, as it flashed the whole cave, I locked eyes with a figure on the other side. They stood straight up and down, long a human pulled like laffy taffy. Too much arm and leg, their torso painfully taunt. Their head was crooked at 90 degrees against the top of the cave. I stared at the spot even as the light left and I was returned to an endless darkness.

“Whoever you are,” I whispered, my fingers spreading along the stone behind me for support. “You’re picking the wrong fight.”

“You keep saying that, but I think you’re all bark…and no bite.” Something slammed into the center of my chest. I didn’t even have the lungs to scream. It was too fast. Too hard. Too large, it smashed into the center of my chest and knocked all the air out of my chest. My hands flung out to grab it, but all I had was smoke.

I couldn’t be sassy and retort, I couldn’t back talk, all the spitfire in my body was gone. I gulped down air but my lungs only rattled in response. They were still firmly against my chest, but I couldn’t get my flailing arms around them. Tears welled in my eyes.

“You should have let me burn you at the stake. You would have saved yourself so much pain and suffering. And now, a lotmore people are going to die, just because you wanted to get in between me and my project.”

I stiffened, swallowing the lump in my throat. It came out as a growl, “Project?”

“You aren’t the only one with dreams to supersede their family.”

I took one more rattled breath in, the panic subsiding. Cold, blistering rage bit into my veins as I found my center again. Plants, earth, flowers and roots, the life that connected them all. Their properties and possibilities, what a single drop of their essence could change. Magic slithered down my bones, solidifying my resolve. The hazy black turned to a black cherry as the wraith pinning me to the wall was lit up in my magic. They were unable to suck more air from my lungs, their gaping maw hung ajar. Ruby colored thorns over obsidian branches like that of a haunted thicket. The tips of which dropped into the razor teeth rimmed maw of the wraith and tugged backward. It lashed out but was restrained. Vines and thorns stabbed into its smoke, poisoning it, and turning it physical.

“A necromancer trying to prove themselves to the world,” I steadied my breathing, a cruel smirk crawling up on my lips. “How original. You were the person trapping Lochlainn, the one who wanted to gut him in the woods? And then along comes the hag to ruin all your plans.”

The wraith hissed at me, lightning cracking through the cave again. I focused behind them on the incorporeal visage of their summoner. They were no longer a horrifying, slender being, but someone around my height. Engulfed in shadow, but they were humanoid in build. I suffered the burning of my retinas to make my petty point. Just as my magic locked on their location, I sent it, my little viper of a hex into the smoke and shadows. After the lightning cleared, there was nothing but inky black for a split second. And in that split second, I started my revenge.“I’m going to find out who you are, and you’ll have wished it was Lochlainn who found you first.”

“You’re all talk.” Their words were warbled, struggling to keep the connection.

“I used to be, but you ruined that when you shattered my image. Now I’m just a bloodthirsty hag… why fight it? Why not just prove.” I clenched my fist, the thicket spiraling down their Wraith till it was a prey in a twisted spiderweb. “Them.” I slammed my fist out to the right, the thicket turning into a deadly saw blade. The Wraith didn’t have time to scream as it was rendered to pieces. “Right.”

Light returned to the cave as the stone was shoved open. Lochlainn held a torch aloft, searching for me. “Valerie, are you alright?”

“Just wobbly, all things considered,” I chuckled, winking at him.

I couldn’t tell my sweet, protective bear about the necromancer. If I did, he’d want to keep me close, watch over me…and if I was about to do what needed to be done, then he couldn’t be a part of it. If I wanted to keep Lochlainn, he couldn’t know.Let him keep the image of me in his mind…the only person who needed to know what kind of cruel beast I truly was, was the necromancer…but they couldn’t hide much longer.

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