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The flames bent to the left, the abhorrent wind whipping them sideways and then into a cone of fire.

Hair slapping her in the face, she refused to blink. Vera remained, even as the orange flames bled together. The wind whistled like a banshee’s cry as it churned, creating a shield between her and the circle.

Between her and Vera.

Chapter 42

Teddi

The wind threatened to knock Teddi over. It was bellowing now, its cry so loud she wanted to cover her ears. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t protect herself when there was no one protecting Vera.

Teddi chanted her name. A prayer, a mantra, a cross to hold onto.

The women’s hands raised, each clasped with the woman on either side. Their faces turned up towards the moon as they began to scream.

Even beneath the fire’s howl, her skin broke out in goosebumps. It was a guttural and desperate sound. The cry of a mother in birth. The howl of a daughter in mourning. The bellow of a wounded animal and a starving child.

Trying to stand in the lash of the turning wind, Teddi yelled Vera’s name louder. It only made them scream harder, the shrill a brutal scrape of desperation and need.

“Vera!” She yelled, finding her feet. Another whip of wind and she nearly went down again. “Vera, I'm here!” She howled her own song against the women.

Like a blurry picture coming into focus, something began to materialize by Vera’s side.

Teddi lurched.

A figure, pale and gaunt, began to form.

Fear so deep it buried inside her marrow grew within Teddi. Whatever it was that the women called to was there.

A bundle of blood-red hair was unmoved by the winds. The figure was small but unfinished, much like when she saw the edge of it in the woods. There were no features on its face as it came to stand next to Vera. It was a blur, a whisper, an apparition inside the firestorm and it was going to take her.

Chapter 43

Teddi

It happened so fast. Faster than Teddi could comprehend.

She remembered her hand reaching out. So small in front of the wall of fire as her cry was swallowed in the wind.

The figure touched Vera. Its wraith-like hand traced down her cheekbone in a tenderness that belied the malice emanating from the circle. Teddi knew how quickly it could turn to blood.

Like a puppet on a string, Vera turned to the creature. Her shoulders dropped in a sigh as her lips fell open. As if satisfied with Vera’s reaction, it moved. Not walked or stumbled, but floated on that burning breeze until it sat upon Sheriff Malis’s mutilated body.

Leaning over him, it laid a filmy hand upon his chest. A chest that rose with a fatal gurgle.

The screeching howls amplified like a chorus, hundreds of voices layered over one another, chanting, shrieking in encouragement.

Teddi was forced to cover her ears as she tried to keep Vera in her sight. The wind turned faster, the flames rising high enough to create a ceiling above them, encompassing the circle entirely as it burned orange to unnatural red.

The sharpness of it scratched at her body and face, forcing her eyes closed. Right before she did, she saw the women’s heads fall forward. The screams halted.

She bellowed Vera’s name before silence swallowed the world whole.

Chapter 44

Vera

Something hit Vera’s eye. Rubbing it, she found it wet.