Page 75 of Witch Unexpected
Bramble and Brie peeled off to the left while Jessie and Poppy dove into the throng of dancers. Sloane led me toward the steps to the balcony above.
I hurried so I was abreast of her. “It would help if I knew what I was looking for.”
She threw a wry smile my way. “Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it. It’s not easy to describe.”
“Are they ghosts?”
“No, these fuckers are something else.”
The space above the balcony was more intimate, with booths for the humans to snuggle up in. There was a small dance floor at the back and a bar beside it. What was it with this place and sticking bars right by the space twirling humans would be?
Sloane was on high alert, neck swiveling side to side as she scanned faces. People looked up at us, but their gazes slipped away like water off a ducks’ back. We were truly invisible to them. Some kind of enchantment, no doubt.
My gaze drifted over booths to the bar and then the dance floor, where a group of women were strutting their stuff to a track I hadn’t heard yet. Nothing interesting there. I was about to look away when the wall behind the women bulged. Black pores appeared on its surface, and red shit seeped out of them, hovering in the air and pooling into a huge red globule that looked like blood. The women threw back their heads, swishing their hair and swinging their hips, oblivious to the thing right behind them.
“Sloane!” I grabbed her arm.
“I see it.”
It moved toward the group and began to circle them.
“That’s a revenant?”
“Wait for it…” she said.
The blob expanded and bulged, sprouting limbs, a body, and a face, smooth and eyeless with a wet yawning mouth. It hovered closer to the women.
“Well?” I looked at Sloane. “What do we do?”
“We wait for it to pick its prey.”
Had I heard her right? “We what?”
The thing stopped by a woman with blonde hair and a red smile, then it lunged. The woman jerked, but the motion could have been mistaken for a dance move. She stopped dancing and said something to her friends. They nodded, and she peeled away and headed for the restroom.
Sloane hit her comm. “Sector two. Balcony level. Restroom.”
She was already headed after the woman, and I had to jog to keep up with her stride. She pushed open the doors to the washroom. The lights flickered ominously. Perfectly creepy.
Sloane pressed a finger to her lips in warning as we took the short corridor leading to the main washroom. She slowed and peered around the corner, then jerked back with a nod.
The door swung open behind us and the other Elites entered. The lights flickered again as Sloane turned to her team and held up three fingers, two fingers, one.
They charged past me, following Sloane into the main restroom.
Bramble and I made up the rear. I froze as my brain short-circuited on what I was seeing. The woman was pinned to the tiles by a naked, crimson figure that looked like a man…a skinless man with red shit pouring out of his back. Tendrils waved in the air like viscous ribbons. Every muscle and sinew was on display, its body pressed to the woman’s, hand gripping her head as it kissed her.
The woman’s arms spread wide, hands starfished, legs kicking as if desperate to break into a run. But the revenant held fast, its body heaving as it… What the fuck was it doing?
The Elites fanned out behind it and began to chant, low and urgent. The air grew thick and began to vibrate with energy. I took an involuntary step forward, but Bramble gripped my shoulder and tugged me back.
Shit, it was hypnotic. Powerful. Whatever they were doing was magnetic. The creature, the revenant, must have felt it too because it tore its mouth from the woman’s and twisted its head 180 degrees to look at the witches with its dark socket eyes. It had slits for a nose, and its mouth was a sloppy maw, dripping with blood.
An unfinished face.
It made a strangled sound of distress, and the witches chanted louder, closing in on it. Its jaw unhinged and a blast of energy shot out, propelling the witches back. Sloane hit the wall, and Brie ended up with her ass in the sink, but they didn’t stop chanting and closed in on the revenant once again.
It shrank back and wrapped its hand around the human’s throat. The threat was clear—come any closer, and I snap her neck.
