Page 20 of Witch Unexpected
Pfft. Who needed a guy?
Sam was sidling up to a window, jaw tense, hair looking artfully windswept. Man, he had good hair.
Crash!
Wren let out a squeak and leaped into my lap. I stared at the screen where the dynamic duo were still outside the shack where the monsters were holed up. Okay, so the crash hadn’t come from the TV.
Wren whimpered, and I stroked him absently as I pulled myself off the sofa. He scrambled up to my shoulders and then down my back, clinging to me like a furry backpack as I padded to the lounge door.
A gust of air brushed my cheek, cold and uninvited, because all the windows were closed.
My skin prickled.
Intruder.
Elijah’s warning to stay put filled my head as my body slipped into fight mode, aware of danger even before it consciously registered. My hands sparked weakly as my power reacted to the threat, wanting to protect me, even as the amulet muted it.
“Cora…” Wren whispered in my ear. “It’s something bad. Something really bad.”
Yeah, I could feel it. It was needles pricking my nape and a fist closing around my lungs. Bad shit. Evil shit.
My scalp crawled, and another gust of air hit me, this one like ice. I hissed and drew back as a moan cut across my ear.
“Cora!” Wren gripped me tighter. “Bad, bad, bad.”
Something moaned in my other ear, and then fire raced across my cheek.
I jerked my head back, hand going to my face to come away wet.
I was bleeding.
I’d been cut.
Wren let out a shriek.
Fucking ghosts? It had to be. Malignant ones, because the regular ones didn’t hurt the living. They just wanted to move on, but malignant were a different breed. An evil breed.
I ducked to avoid the icy kiss of another spirit and squeezed my eyes shut, willing my sight to activate so I could see the fuckers attacking me. It was another of my special skills—the ability to see spirits even if they went into stealth mode.
The world went gray, and the spirits bloomed silver and red. Malignant, just like I’d thought. These arseholes were pure evil, the souls of the really bad people—murderers and psychos. Souls that had become twisted by feeding on innocent spirits. These two had lost all humanoid form and were nothing but teeth and claws.
They rushed me with yawning jaws, eager for my blood. The Reapers responsible for collecting these bastards needed to do a better job.
I blasted the nearest one with a lightning bolt and dove out the way before its buddy could rake me with its phantom claws. Claws that, as I’d just experienced, could cause harm.
Wren’s talons dug into me as he held on for dear life. But he was the least of my worries because the hallway behind the malignant had gone black, and a heavy silence settled on the world, as if someone had pressed their palms to my ears.
The blackness seethed and writhed, and the malignant backed away from me, melting into the wall and vanishing, leaving me facing the darkness alone.
I needed to move, wanted to move, but I was paralyzed. Limbs frozen, heart slamming against my ribs, and something else, something fluttery and live inside me tugged as if it wanted to be free.
Come with us.
Join us.
Be us.
A face pushed out of the darkness, young with dark hair and a screaming mouth, then a black hand shot out from behind it, and long fingers curled over the face to pull it back into the seething mass. Another face pushed out to the right. Its blue eyes rolled in its head as if disorientated, and its red-lipped mouth moaned, but once again, black fingers morphed out of the darkness to wrap over the moaning mouth and wrench the face back into the void.
