Page 33 of A Hunter Cursed
The vast landscape that seemed to extend for miles in all directions was bleak gray, craggy, with rivers of what might possibly be lava in the distance that lent an eerie orange glow to the horizon. Closer to him were giant pools of steaming, bubbling black tar. Incongruously, light snow seemed to be falling. Jeremiah narrowed his eyes. No, not snow, ash. Reaching up to touch one of the flakes, he yelled in horror and scrambled back as he saw his hand. He had no skin! Frantically, he gaped at the rest of his body. He looked like one of those goddammed anatomy posters that showed the muscular structure of the body.
Panting in distress, he looked around, searching for something, anything to explain what was happening. That was when he realized his wolf was also gone. For the first time since he hit puberty, he was completely and utterly alone in both body and mind and that truly scared him.
A skittering behind him had him crouching low in preparation to attack as he searched the shadows. Something was moving, something large.
It came at him in a crablike scuttle. Human in shape, like Jeremiah, this creature was also without skin, but unlike Jeremiah, the thing was dripping black ooze. It slowed its approach, seeming to move cautiously now – a little forward, a little back – staying low to the rocky ground.
Jeremiah held his position, watching, waiting to see what the creature would do. The thing eyed him for a moment more before it opened its mouth and let out a horrible screeching sound. Covering his ears, Jeremiah watched as the creature skittered off once more, jumped for a rock ledge, and scurried up the side.
More of that awful screeching rent the air behind him and Jeremiah lurched around once more. Fucking hell! There were people in that pool of black ooze. A hand, the fingers clawed, reached up trying to break through, a face completely masked in black slime, its mouth, open in a silent scream. More faces joined the first, black coated masks of agony and torment, screaming into the void. The sound of their suffering surged around him in a wave, the tar bubbling and undulating over writhing body parts. The sight was horrifying and Jeremiah unconsciously took a step back and then another and another, trying to get away. He was forced to stop when he hit the rock ledge and he suddenly realized he couldn’t feel it. He should have felt the unforgiving stone against his back, but he felt nothing. Taking stock of his senses, he realized he could hear and he could see, but that was it. He should have smelled something, tasted something on his tongue – the putrid stench of brimstone, or perhaps the lingering hint of ash – nothing. He poked at an exposed tendon on his arm and again, felt nothing. He was dreaming, he realized, almost collapsing with laughter in his relief. He was dreaming, and soon, he’d wake up and be able to laugh some more as he shared this story with Keegan about his overactive imagination in conjuring up such a horrific place.
Chapter Eighteen
The first thing Keegan had wanted to do after leaving the facility, was to talk to Jeremiah about everything she’d learned from the angel, the memories that had been unlocked. She’d called him, but had been dumped into his voicemail, so leaving a message, she then decided to head home. Collapsing on her bed, she would have thought the frenzy in her mind would have kept her awake, but within minutes, she was asleep.
Blinking awake, she reached blindly for her phone and attempted to focus her bleary gaze on the screen. No missed calls, no texts from her wolf. Checking the time, she frowned. He’d had an overnight patrol, so it was possible he was still sleeping though it was rather late – almost dinnertime. But considering she’d slept a lot longer than she’d originally intended, it wasn’t such a stretch to assume Jeremiah was catching up on his sleep as well. After all, she thought smugly, grinning to herself, he’d exerted himself quite nicely the night before.
Shooting him a quick message to call or text once he was awake, Keegan rolled out of bed and, still smiling, headed for the bathroom. A shower would do wonders to wake her up.
She had just rinsed the shampoo from her hair and opened her eyes when it happened, a vision sucking her in while still awake. The walls of her shower seemed to dissolve away to reveal a dark and desolate stretch of road.As before, the pavement cracked in front of her, the asphalt buckling to release a hiss of steam, and then bubbling black tar oozed out, but this time when she felt a presence behind her and turned to see Jeremiah, he no longer provided a sense of safety. Standing with his back to her, she felt a choking sense of fear. Not for herself but for him.
Her hand reached out to him as she said his name, her voice sounding distant to her ears. He turned, and Keegan screamed. Those gorgeous, piercing blue eyes were gone. In their place were only empty sockets oozing black tears.
The vision broke as Keegan threw herself bodily from the shower, wet skin hitting the tile of her floor with a painful slap. The plastic shower curtain, having wrapped around her body when she tumbled sideways, was wrenched free, the tension rod that held it in place flying down to smack her hard on the hip.
Scrambling across the floor, her wet limbs squeaking and sliding on the slick tile, she ignored the numerous pains of her body, too consumed with the fear choking her. She needed to get to her phone. She needed to find her wolf. Something bad was coming, and its target was Jeremiah.
Someone was pounding on her door, a voice raised, calling her name. Her neighbors, she realized. They’d heard her scream, most likely had heard the fall. Disentangling herself from the clinging shower curtain as she gained her feet, Keegan quickly shut the water off and snatched up her robe, the thick terrycloth fabric proving difficult to pull on over wet skin.
“I’m okay,” she called out as the pounding grew more adamant. “I’m coming.”
Mister Hebert, her neighbor who lived in the apartment directly across from her, and Miss Fontenot, who lived one floor down and under Keegan’s apartment, stood outside, both with matching looks of concern.
“What happened, cher?” Miss Fontenot asked, eyes wide as she looked Keegan over before peering past her to look into the apartment. In her late forties, the woman had a heavy Cajun accent, a love of spandex animal print clothing, and always smelled like cigarette smoke, and weirdly enough, like licorice.
“I fell out of my shower,” Keegan admitted sheepishly, her weight shifting from one bare foot to another and she couldn’t hold back her wince as her hip screeched in pain at the movement. She didn’t want to be rude to her neighbors, she appreciated their concern after all, but she really needed to find Jeremiah. “I’m fine, really. Just a little sore. Sorry if I worried you.”
Mister Hebert, who often reminded Keegan of a bald eagle with the shock of bright white hair on his head and thick, bushy black eyebrows sitting low over his eyes, made a clicking noise with his tongue as he scratched at the bristling whiskers on his chin. “You need to be careful, get yourself some of those slip-proof stickers to put down in your tub.”
Keegan nodded exuberantly. “You are so right. I’m going to get dressed right now and go get some. Thank you for stopping by and checking on me,” she finished, attempting to edge the door shut.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Miss Fontenot asked, her eyes shrewd and assessing as she looked Keegan over. “You look a bit green around the gills.”
Mister Hebert nodded in agreement. “Pale. Too pale. I’d be happy to take you to the hospital. Couldn’t hurt to be looked over.”
Keegan just barely swallowed an impatient groan. “Honestly, I’m fine,” she told them with possibly a too-bright smile. “It just scared me a bit, but I’m not hurt.”
Lie. Big lie. Her hip was aching, her shoulder was smarting, and her knee was throbbing as if it had its own heartbeat, but she didn’t have time to deal with any of that right now. Her focus was entirely on her wolf, and the possible danger he might be in even now.
The duo, thankfully, however, took her at her word. “You don’t hesitate to call if you change your mind,” Mister Hebert offered while Miss Fontenot nodded vigorously. “We’ll be here.”
“Thank you so much,” Keegan told them sincerely before she shut the door and speed-limped to her room to get dressed.
Pulling on shorts with her phone wedged between her shoulder and head, she attempted to call Jeremiah again and swore a blue streak when she was once more dumped into his voicemail. Jamming the cell into her back pocket, she yanked on a tank top, not bothering with a bra, slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops, and headed out, grabbing her keys as she hurried out the door. Her hair was a tangled, still dripping mess, but attempting to brush it out would take too much time – time Jeremiah may not have.
Outside, she yanked her car door open and was slapped in the face with the heat rolling out of it. Normally, she would have waited a few minutes for it to cool down a bit, but she couldn’t afford to delay for even a second. Shutting herself into the oven her car had become after sitting in the sun all day, she cranked the engine over, slammed it into gear, and sped off.
Barely five minutes later, her phone rang. Scrambling to grab it out, she didn’t bother to look at the display as she answered, her voice frantic. “Hello? Jeremiah? Hello?”
