Page 30 of A Pack of Pumpkins
“No!” I shout, but it’s too late. The blade jabs into Victor’s side, lightning-quick.
“Ah!” Victor yelps, stumbling and dropping his cigarette.
I lunge forward, but the man is gone.
Just… gone. When I whip back to Victor, he's holding his side, but there’s no blood, no tear in his clothes. No wound.
“What the fuck was that?” Victor gasps. “I swear to God, I felt this pain! Shit, do you think my appendix just burst? Is the appendix on the left or the right?”
“Shut up,” I growl.
And Victor does, because I don’t lose my temper. Not out loud. Not like this. My emotions are usually written in ink, bound in paper. Not flung into the air like bats.
I scan everything. Nothing.
Victor, of course, doesn’t stay quiet for long. “Hey… my cigs are gone.”
I grunt, not caring.
“I’m serious. I just had them in my pocket. Right before that pain.”
“Probably fell,” I mutter, glancing around.
“Or he’s got ’em,” Victor says.
I whip around just as Victor points to the beachbelow.
There's the man. Standing at the water’s edge. One hand in his trouser pocket. The other holding a small white box.
Victor’s cigarettes.
“Who the fuck is that?” Victor growls, rage rising fast.
“I don’t know, but—” I don’t get the rest out. He’s already heading for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
I follow. Furious or not, Victor’s still my packmate. He doesn’t understand how impossible this is. The alpha I saw stab him should not have been able to reach the beach that fast. We shouldn’t even be able to see him. It’s too dark even with the moon. And yet, somehow, he glows faintly—like the night makes space for him.
By the time we hit the beach, he’s gone again.
Victor walks right to the water’s edge. A few feet out, the cigarette pack floats on the surface.
I turn back to Victor who is staring toward the tree line, eyes locked on something in the woods. I follow his gaze.
The unknown alpha stands between two large oaks at the foot of the bluff that lead into a small wooded area. He turns, disappearing into the trees. Victor bolts after him. I sigh and follow.
When I catch up, Victor’s between the two trees, stock-still.
“Victor?” I approach, cautious. Then I see what he’s staring at.
Tombstones. Four of them. All in a row.
“What the fuck,” I whisper. Each one carved with names, pack roles, and dates. All alphas. All members of the same pack—Blackthorn.
Sorcha Doyle. Seamus Smith. Cormac Byrne. All three have the same date of death, October 29, 1903.
But Finian O’Connell? His death date is the same month and day.
October 29, 1904.
