Page 12 of Witchbane
The snarling howl of not-werewolves echoed through the night and I couldn’t help but shiver. Something was chasing him. And my gut said anything chasing him had to be bad.
“Get in,” I said, trying to keep my voice down, even while I peered through the dark to see what was headed my way.
He didn’t stop to question, just took a running leap toward the backseat of the car, slamming the door shut behind him. I closed mine too, and gunned the engine, taking off into the night, wheels spinning for half a second as something large appeared in the side mirror. A glimpse of glowing eyes and huge teeth, breath misting out a dozen feet in front of it as it raced toward us.
My heart hammered as the beast, demon, whatever the fuck it was, nearly kept pace with the car despite me pushing the speed to over sixty miles an hour. The car swerved, not really meant to go zero to sixty that fast, but I managed to keep it on the road. The monster took a swipe at the car, and I felt something hit the back. The sound of scraping metal pierced my ears and the car almost fishtailed with the hit.
I screamed even as I fought to keep the vehicle on the road to escape the attack. How the car kept moving when I felt like the engine would explode had to be some sort of magic. I drove hard, hunched down, gripping the steering wheel as if it would save us as long as I didn’t look back.
We drove through the dark for a long time. Until the sounds vanished and the empty nothingness of the road turned into towns and a city. I had no idea where I was, only that my racing heart began to calm and I was tired enough I could barely keep my eyes open. I pulled into the lot of the first discount hotel I could find, hands trembling on the wheel as I guided us into a parking place.
When I peered into the backseat through the rearview mirror, I expected to see the child, or perhaps another monster. Who picked up strange beings on the side of the road after all? Only the child was gone and a cat remained, curled up in a nest of my jacket and my open suitcase. He wasn’t a normal house cat type of cat, or even any sort of zoo related creature I’d seen in any book. But he was out cold.
I stared at him for a minute or two before getting out to make my way into the office to get a room. I needed sleep. And prayed that whatever was after him wouldn’t chase him this far. When I returned with a key to grab my stuff and escort my rescue inside, he was gone.
I stood beside the car, staring into the backseat and then out into the night, wondering where he’d gone, and if he was safe. It was a sick feeling of worry not knowing if he’d run off because something had appeared, or if he didn’t want to expose me to the danger. I listened hard to the night. The normal sounds of a city around me, cars, white noise, etcetera, left me to believe that he’d gone on his own, not because anything chased him.
Since I was barely able to remain on my feet, I grabbed my stuff and made my way to my room; a thousand questions running through my brain. It took four attempts to get the keycard to work on the door. I stumbled inside, happy the room didn’t smell, and fell on the bed. Tired. So tired.
The fact that the cat/boy/fae had appeared in my room a day later at a completely different hotel had been startling, but since he’d been in his cat form, we’d made fast friends over a chocolate bar and some pizza. It hadn’t been a tense moment. He’d never put me on edge, but something right then, in that dream, gave me a sense that something was still watching us. Maybe even searching for him?
I’d have thought I’d dreamt it for a while if not for getting up the next morning and finding giant scratches ripping through the trunk of my car. The gouges had been unfixable, and I’d later have to replace the entire trunk lid to keep it from popping open at random. Oberon had stared at the mess of it for a bit, face expressionless, then vanished for a few hours, returning with the pieces to fix it. He hadn’t asked and I hadn’t offered any explanations.
The prickle of magic on my skin echoed the sensations of crawling bugs. At first, in my sleep, I could ignore it, attributing it to the dream of Robin, but I’d never felt magic like this with him. Until the intensity grew demanding enough that I turned my head and opened my eyes. Liam was awake, staring out into the darkness of the camper, but still wrapped tight around me. I knew it wasn’t time to be up yet. I glanced in the direction he was looking, wondering if Robin had appeared, but found a ripple of shifting magic sitting in the middle of the trailer.
A portal. Fuck.
I sat up, wide awake and instantly terrified. The portal snapped shut as if a door had been slammed. “Liam?” I whispered.
He tugged me back down. “Sleep.”
“Am I dreaming? Did I dream that?” Had I done that? Opened the portal? Was I the reason so many had opened around us? “Did I open that in my sleep?” I hadn’t even perfected opening them while I was awake. “Fuck.”
Liam peppered my face with kisses. “Sleep. We will worry about it tomorrow.”
“But I’m opening portals in my sleep?” What if I opened one in bed with us? Or near the pack and they wandered through? My heart flip-flopped in my chest with a thousand terrifying possibilities.
“Maybe they will take your mother and Elaine?” Liam said.
“Ha ha. Not funny,” I said.
“I’ll contact the fae again tomorrow. See if we can get any movement from them.”
“Movement. Yeah. A big pile of shit is usually what they give us.”
Liam laughed. “Yeah, but hey if we can control this portal thing, we can go get Nicky and the Volkov and come right back.”
“Not sure it will be that easy. Underhill is huge.”
“Yeah, but you’re a superhero.”
“More like a super fuckup,” I grumbled.
Liam tugged the blanket over us. “I believe in you. Believe in us, yeah?”
I sighed but let the weight of him settle against me and the furnace of his body heat lull away the anxiety. He was better than one of those weighted blankets. “Wake me up early.”
“For sex or cake?” He wanted to know.