The Burning by Susan Squires Read Free Book Online Page A

single moment of fright and relief.
    “What do you want?” her attacker hissed to the tall man.
    “You know what.” The voice of her savior was a deep rumble in his chest. He spoke with a faintly guttural accent, but it wasn’t German. Could he be a match for the monster?
    “You are the Harrier.” The man hurled it as an accusation. What did he mean?
    At that, the tall man stood straight. He did not confirm or deny the charge. “I am your destiny,” he said. His voice was implacable, his demeanor sure.
    Ann shuddered. Such words should be nothing more than melodramatic. But Ann could not imagine anything colder or more certain. If the monster could be dispatched, this man would do it. But then the big man’s gaze strayed from his enemy to her, riveted itself upon her face in the shadows.
    “Not tonight, you aren’t,” the monster crowed, even as a darkness whirled up from the forest floor and engulfed him. Her rescuer jerked his attention back to his enemy and lunged. But it was too late. The darkness dissipated and the creature was . . . gone. Nothing. No trace. She stood, paralyzed in shock, mouth half open and eyes wide.
    The only man left on the path cursed. “Hell and damnation!” He turned on Ann. With an effort she managed to shift her gaze from the place that no longer held the monster to her rescuer’s face. The guilt and old knowledge, the remorse she saw in his expression touched her. How could a man live with such emotions flickering inside him? What thoughts tormented him? She should thank him. Even as she hesitated, a mask descended over that rugged face. Emotion drained away. He seemed to collect himself and grow . . . distant. It was disconcerting.
    A groan rose faintly from a spot down the path.
    Dear God! The injured woman! She hurried past the man who saved her to crouch beside the figure on the ground. The young woman’s breast was heaving, gasping for air. Her eyes stared up in terror; her hands twitched ineffectually at her side. What to do? Two puncture wounds on her neck trailed twin rivulets of blood. A rattle sounded in her throat. Ann wanted to take the girl’s head between her hands, but she dared not.
    “Breathe!” she shouted at her. “Breathe!”
    Her command still hung in the air as the girl’s last breath sighed away. The stare turned glassy. Ann let out a small sound of shock or despair. She recognized the girl. It was Molly who worked in the tavern. No better than she should be, Uncle Thaddeus had said, but no one deserved this. Ann felt the stranger’s presence above her. Somewhere she heard shouts. She turned up toward him. “She’s . . . dead.”
    He said nothing, but looked up, behind Ann.
    Ann turned and saw a crowd of men carrying flaming torches, pistols or cudgels at the ready, coming up the path from the tavern below.
    “You there!” Squire Fladgate, the doughy justice of the peace, called. “Stand where you are. Who screamed?”
    “I did,” Ann said, mustering what composure she could.
    The crowd of men in work clothes clustered around Ann and the body of the girl, and the stranger. Their faces were demonic in the flickering torchlight as they stared at Molly. “The Van Helsing chit has done it now,” a voice from the center of the pack called.
    The squire eased his bulk onto his knees. “We thought it was Molly who screamed. She was working at the tap one minute, and the next minute . . .” He touched his fingers to the girl’s throat, then shook his head. “She’s dead.”
    “I alays know’d the Van Helsing girl was a killer, the mad ones alays are.” This was Mrs. Bennigan. She had reason to hate Ann. In the disturbing onset of her powers Ann had blurted out the woman’s infidelities when Mrs. Bennigan was shaking her for knocking over a tin of nails in the ironmonger’s store.
    “Mad? She’s a witch pure and simple, and she killed Molly!” Ahhh. Mr. Warple. He had his reasons for hating Ann, too. By the time Mr. Warple brushed against