Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful by Paula Guran Read Free Book Online Page B

“You could have been killed!”
    He spread his hands wide in a placating gesture. “Now, Diana—”
    “ ‘Now Diana’ my eye!” she growled. “Even you would have a hard time getting around a severed spine!” She stood up slowly, shaking from head to toe with released tension.
    “I didn’t wish to wake you,” he said, crestfallen.
    She closed her eyes and took several long, deep, calming breaths; focusing on a mantra, moving herself back into stillness until she knew she would be able to reply without screaming at him.
    “Don’t,” she said carefully, “Ever. Do. That. Again.” She punctuated the last word by driving the dagger she held into the doorframe.
    “ Certainement, ma petite, ” he replied, his eyes widening a little as he began to calculate how fast she’d moved. “The next time I come in your window when you sleep, I shall blow a trumpet first.”
    “You’d be a lot safer. I’d be a lot happier,” she said crossly, pulling the dagger loose with a snap of her wrist. She palmed the light switch and dimmed the lamps down to where they would be comfortable to his light-sensitive eyes, then crossed the room, the plush brown carpet warm and soft under her bare feet. She bent slightly, and put the silver-plated dagger back under her pillow. Then with a sigh she folded her long legs beneath her to sit on her rumpled bed. This was the first time Andre had ever caught her asleep, and she was irritated far beyond what her disturbed dreams warranted. She was somewhat obsessed with her privacy and with keeping her night-boundaries unbreached—she and Andre were off-and-on lovers, but she’d never let him stay any length of time.
    He approached the antique wooden bed slowly. “ Cherie, this was no idle visit—”
    “I should bloody well hope not!” she interrupted, trying to soothe her jangled nerves by combing the tangles out of her hair with her fingers.
    “—I have seen your killer.”
    She froze.
    “It is nothing I have ever seen or heard of before.”
    She clenched her hands on the strand of hair they held, ignoring the pull. “Go on—”
    “It—no, he —I could not detect until he made his first kill tonight. I found him then, found him just before he took his hunting-shape, or I never would have discovered him at all; for when he is in that shape there is nothing about him that I could sense that marked him as different. So ordinary—a man, an Asian; Japanese, I think, and like many others—not young, not old; not fat, not thin. So unremarkable as to be invisible. I followed him—he was so normal I found it difficult to believe what my own eyes had seen a moment before; then, not ten minutes later, he found yet another victim and—fed again.”
    He closed his eyes, his face thoughtful. “As I said, I have never seen or heard of his like, yet—yet there was something familiar about him. I cannot even tell you what it was, and yet it was familiar.”
    “You said you saw him attack— how, Andre?” She leaned forward, her face tight with urgency as the bed creaked a little beneath her.
    “The second quarry was—the—is it ‘bag lady’ you say?” At her nod he continued. “He smiled at her—just smiled, that was all. She froze like the frightened rabbit. Then he—changed—into dark, dark smoke; only smoke, nothing more. The smoke enveloped the old woman until I could see her no longer. Then—he fed. I—I can understand your feelings now, cherie. It was—nothing to the eye, but—what I felt within —”
    “Now you see,” she said gravely.
    “ Mais oui, and you have no more argument from me. This thing is abomination, and must be ended.”
    “The question is—” She grimaced.
    “How? I have given some thought to this. One cannot fight smoke. But in his hunting form—I think perhaps he is vulnerable to physical measures. As you say, even I would have difficulty in dealing with a severed spine or crushed brain. I think maybe it would be the same for him. Have