A Cursed Moon
Page 19

“Are you sure? We didn’t pass anything even remotely resembling a road.”
“I’m positive. The smell of exhaust cleared out.” I frowned. “Didn’t you notice?”
She gunned it. “I haven’t scented anything since we left the club. How are you picking up anything with all the decomposing foliage around?”
“Tracking’s the one thing I was always good at, Ceel— Stop!” I pointed to a break in the trees blanketed with ferns. “Right there.”
Celia made a hard left and stomped on the accelerator to push the sedan up the small incline. She swore as the Lexus tore over drying wood and something hard slammed beneath the undercarriage.
I threw open the car door when the wheels spun. “We’re making noise, babe. Come on. We go on foot from here.”
Celia rushed out. “Maybe you should howl, and call the pack.”
“And give away our location to these ghouls?” I shook my head. “They’ll take it out on Dan and kill him for sure.”
Celia started to say something but then nodded reluctantly. “I guess you’re right.”
We abandoned the path and jetted through the thickening forest with me leading the way. We might have hit the three mile mark when the air charged with the aroma of crushed herbs. Magic . . . more specifically, witch magic. I bit back a snarl, knowing we’d found the idiot forcing the spirits to rise.
We slowed to a stop. Celia crouched beside me and stole a wary glance, her tigress eyes replacing her own and taking in the darkness. “This is where the dead are being raised,” her husky voice murmured. “I can smell the witch. She’s near.”
“Yeah, I know. Problem is, she knows we’re here, too.” I scanned the area, sensing the magic build like a small wave. “We must’ve triggered some kind of alarm.”
The cold breeze stilled and the air crackled as if electrified the further we advanced into the dark forest. Celia nudged me and motioned to the sky. Dark clouds condensed like billowing smoke, swallowing the moon and the scattered stars littering the hemisphere. In a slasher flick, we’d be slated for our dooms and an audience full of movie goers would be screaming at us to snag some garlic, a crucifix, find the nearest church, or just plain run. The slasher himself was about to break through the trees and get us.
Maybe. But let him try. No way was I ditching Dan.
Our beasts moved us like shadows, becoming one with the forest and blending us into the encroaching darkness. My coursing blood pounded hard in my ears. Dan’s scent of blood and fear intensified, inciting my beast to growl. He was still alive, and hurt.
Celia must have scented my increasing rage, and urged me to go faster. We leapt across a small brook where Dan’s paisley hanky was left abandoned on the other side. I bent to lift it when the air charged once more.
Tarragon filtered through my nose and made me sneeze, cutting off my building snarls. Mist trailed from the rows of sweeping firs, cloaking the forest floor and edging its way across the thick ferns like a giant tarp. The hair on my body stood on end and my eyes caught view of Celia’s blanching face. She knew what the mist possessed.
I just hoped it wouldn’t possess us.
My head turned slow enough that I felt my tendons and muscles slide beneath my skin. Silver trickles of light illuminated from the ground, gradually lengthening until they formed into legs, torsos, arms, heads. Bodies of dead men and women. Pale versions of their former selves. Spirits.
“Oh, Jesus. Sweet Jesus,” Celia whispered.
Cold sweat trickled down my spine while The Exoricist, Poltergeist, and every damn movie dealing with possession flashed through my mind in goddamn blue-ray, director’s cut glory. I swore when they circled us, not sure how to get us out of this. Aric was right, I’d rushed in too quickly. And I’d f**king dragged his mate in with me.
Celia startled when I gripped her arm. It was my way of assuring her that I’d protect her with my life. Thing of it was, that didn’t mean I’d manage to save hers. She trembled beneath my hold, or perhaps it was me doing the shaking. This shit was seriously messed up.
At least a dozen transparent bodies closed in around us. I stilled as the sudden whiff of their pain cut through the rapidly freezing air. My building panic faded and retreated deep into my core . . . and an odd sense of peace washed over me like a soothing shower. “They’re not going to hurt us, Ceel.” I didn’t know how I knew. I just did. My wolf had risen to his feet within me, alert, but not in furious defense of hungry spooks about to devour our souls.
Something beckoned me to turn around. The spirit of a young woman, maybe twenty-five or so, with long, dark hair approached us, carrying a small bundle. Her expression held the grimness of someone who experienced a rough life and an even more wretched death. I didn’t want her to show me what she clutched so caringly in her arms. I clenched my jaw harder and harder with every step she took until I thought I’d snap it from the tension.
She was a lot smaller than me. Her small bundle rested inches from my stomach. I wanted to grab Celia and bolt past her, except the spirit begged me without words not to turn away. She wanted me to see, to feel, in a way her suffering would no longer allow. Slowly, she unwrapped the faded gray blanket, likely light blue when it had mattered. I expected to find something out of my most ghoulish nightmares—a hideous face, disfigured, amputated, or equally scary as hell. It wasn’t. In her arms lay a baby, nuzzling close to his mother’s chest. Thick lashes grazed his chubby cheeks. Tiny lips pursed together. And a dimple dabbed his small perfect chin. He was . . . cute.
Was cute.
He opened his large eyes, blinking away sleep.
The mother raised him to me, insisting I hold him. But that was no longer possible. He was dead.
And so was she.
Celia leaned over the baby, smiling as best she could. Tears ran thick in her voice. “Your son is precious.”
The ghost smiled and nodded while her cheeks streaked with her pain.
To our right, the ghost of a young soldier smiled and waved. He shuffled forward, walking with an unsteady limp and dressed in a tattered WWII army uniform. I swore again, taking in the growing numbers rising from the mist. The spirits the witch had raised tonight had had their fill throughout the years. Their victims—men, women, and hell, even babies had suffered brutally at the hands of these ass**les.
Celia’s fury flared with mine. I placed my hand on her lower back and urged her forward. “We gotta get rid of the evil spirits and kill the bitch who raised them.” I jerked my head back toward the woman and her baby. “It’s the only way they’ll get their peace.”