Page 95 of The Wolfing Hour

The fennel was as dead as the rest, as was Cecil’s string-of-pearls plant, which was devastating, but nothing prepared me for the sight of my beloved lavender.

Dry branches poked like gnarled, grasping fingers from the planter that had, only hours before, been a lush, fragrant bush embellished with fragrant purple ornaments. Dead buds littered the tile floor like macabre confetti.

I reached for the elemental part of me, but there was nothing. No spark of magic. Not even a wisp. My witch was gone.

The demon had severed our connection.

“Why?” I cried out.

Your earth magic was too weak to protect our people.

A single spike of lavender lay on the foot of the chaise lounge. Besides me, it was the only living thing in the room. I reached out to it, dry-mouthed and hopeful.

My left hand was covered in blood. Half my middle finger had been chewed off, the tips of my index and ring fingers were raw and oozing. Deep claw marks marred my arms and legs. Every inch of my body hurt—and yet, based on the damage I could see, not nearly as badly as it should.

Because you let me in. I am protecting us.

I flashed back to last night, to the last thing I remembered clearly. The demon’s words:

Let me protect them. Let me in.

And mine:

Yes.

I’d said yes to the demon, and she’d taken over.

Images played in my head like a movie on a screen. Fast-forward glimpses of scenes from a horror flick, with Demon Betty as the lead actress.

“I’m going home to call Ronan and tell him what’s going on,” I lied to Ida. “Lock your doors and stay inside.”

“You’ll only be in the way,” I told my partners, shooing them out of the garden room. “Go inside the house. Leave me alone.”

More images, more flashes of memory, more horror:

An hour before sunrise, the sun still clawing its way to the horizon. A house—Floyd’s house.

A concrete room spanning half the square footage of the upper part of the house. Three cells tucked against the far wall. A wooden desk with a single lamp.

A wolf.

“Your skin, your eyes, your disgusting face.” Floyd backed up a step, stole a nervous glance over his shoulder. “I was right all along. You really are an evil bitch.”

“Where is Rory?” My voice rang like a gong, the sound reverberating off the bony surface of my skull and rattling my teeth.

“As if you don’t know, you lying whore.” Floyd’s lips curled, revealing wolf teeth like curved knives. Yellow canines sank into his lower lip and drew blood. He didn’t appear to notice. “You and my bastard son took her. You conjured some spell with your dirty magic and ripped her away from her family.”

Angry wolf sounds—guttural growls, vicious snarls—surged from one of the cells. Floyd wasn’t in here alone.

A confusion of sight, sound, and scent.

Muscled, furred bodies fired like torpedoes. Snorting, snarling, snapping. Hungry. Yellow teeth. Brown and gray fur. Eyes like sodium vapor lamps at the dark end of a cavern.

Eight alpha wolves sped toward me, desperate to tear me apart to appease their clay-footed wolf god—who was nowhereto be seen. The slavering beasts were so close the heat of their breath brought condensation to the surface of my exposed skin.

The wolf nearest me snapped at my face, nipping my cheek. Blood dribbled down my face and soaked into my black shirt.

I didn’t move. Not to jerk away from the wolf’s cruel teeth or his hideous breath. I just stared into his glowing eyes. I stared until he whimpered, until the golden orbs burst in their sockets. Stared, stared, stared until the wolf sank to the floor, dead.