As I stood there in the woods, feeling the scattered energy of a heinous murder around me, seeing animals I shouldn’t see, hearing sounds I shouldn’t hear, and hungering for something no sane person should ever hunger for, I knew I was fighting a demon of another kind.
My own personal demon.
No, I wasn’t talking about her, the entity buried within me.
Ever since I first woke up in the hospital bed seven years ago, back when I first felt the changes coming over me, back when I first knew that I would never be normal again, I also wondered something else.
I wondered if I had gone insane.
At what point I had gone insane, I didn’t know. Maybe I’d had enough of my kids fighting. Maybe I’d had enough of Anthony’s skid marks. Or of Danny’s cheating. Or of life itself. Maybe I had checked out long ago, mentally, that is. Maybe my mind was long, long gone.
And hearing a second voice in my head seemed to confirm that. Seemed to confirm my worst fears.
I didn’t want to go insane. I didn’t want to lose my mind.
I took a few deep, shuddering, worthless breaths...breaths that served no purpose other than to calm me down. Except the first few didn’t do anything for me, but the next batch did. Finally, finally, I felt myself calming down. I reminded myself that I’d been hearing voices in my head for over a year now, ever since I’d first heard Fang’s whispered thoughts.
This was no different, right?
But it was different. It was very different. Fang’s thoughts sounded like Fang. I heard his inflections, his tone, his distinct voice inside my head.
These thoughts...
Well, these thoughts sounded like me. Just like me. As if they were my own.
Except, of course, they weren’t.
Deep breaths, Sam.
Breathe, breathe.
Good.
Very good.
I turned in a full circle, hands on hips, breathing and calming down and saying anything I could think of to not lose it right here in the woods above Hollywood.
As I did so, as I calmed my mind, as I did my best to get something out of my head that might never leave my head—Lord help me—I found myself particularly tuned into the chaotic energy around me.
Most curious, I was tuned in holistically, from seemingly everywhere at once.
I forgot about the voice in my head, the demon within me. I forgot that just moments earlier, I’d nearly gone into a full panic attack.
Instead, I saw the scene play out before me.
Not like a movie, exactly, but close. Perhaps a badly edited movie that jumped forward and backward in time, with a wildly swinging camera.
I saw her murder.
All of it.
* * *
She is running alone. I see this in real-time, as if it’s happening now.
Panting, careful of her footing, looking at her wristwatch, looking up into the sky, clearly aware that it is getting late, clearly aware that she might be in a vulnerable position.
I see the shadow keeping pace behind her, too.
It is a smallish shadow. A lithe figure. Dressed all in black and wearing a hoodie. Tendrils of blond hair peek out, flap about.
She is moving far too quickly for human eyes to follow her, detect her. Except that a human’s eyes aren’t following her or detecting her. These are Nature’s eyes. The land’s eyes. Moving fast or slow, supernatural or not, it was obvious to me, as I stood there on the trail, tuned into the scene, that nothing escaped the eyes of Mother Nature herself.
The scene continued playing out before me:
The jogger is fleet of foot, stepping smoothly over roots and rocks, brushing past overgrown shrubs and through high grass. She pumps her arms rhythmically, breathing evenly through pursed lips.
She is unaware of the creature following, a creature that pauses every so often but keeps to the shadows.
A creature who undoubtedly assumed she was going undetected, unaware that her every movement was being forever recorded into the land, seared into the soil.
The female jogger hears something, and pauses, cocking her head to one side, and that’s when her stalker attacks.
It’s not pretty. It’s violent and hard to watch, even for me. Especially for me. The force of the attack drives the girl to the ground. Something dark and shadowy and evil seems to be clinging to her. Not quite clinging...attached. The girl fights at first, but mostly, she screams, and soon she’s not screaming anymore, but jerking violently, all while the little shadow stays on top of her, clinging like a hungry parasite.
It’s over quickly.
I listen to the wet sounds of feeding and chewing and soon the little creature stands...and wipes the blood from her mouth.
This is the first time I get a clear look at the face inside the hoodie, a face that’s illuminated by millions of particles of light.
I recognize her immediately.
I am most curious, however, at the identity of the person who’s approaching from the shadows. Shadows that are alive with light, at least to my eyes.
A tall man is standing there, watching her, head cocked to one side.
I know him well, too.
Chapter Seventeen
I was flying.
These days, I’d learned to pack my clothing into my pants themselves, tying off the whole shebang at the ankles like a makeshift duffle bag, all of which now dangled from one of my longish talons.
That I had a longish talon was still something I wasn’t entirely used to, and if there was any upside to having something dark and evil living within me, this was it:
Flying.
Okay, kicking ass wasn’t bad, either. I was stronger than most men—many men combined, in fact. Truth was, I wasn’t entirely sure just how strong I was. I suspected I could channel—or perhaps funnel—whatever amount of strength I needed for any given situation.
And, if someone put a gun to my head (a gun with silver bullets, of course), I would admit that being psychic and reading minds had its upside. So did having an inner warning system, which had alerted me many countless times to potential trouble...and saved my ass countless times, too.
As I flew over Griffith Park, beating my wings slowly, languidly, feeling the rush of wind on my face—or the creature’s face I had temporarily become, I suddenly realized why I had such gifts. Why I was so powerful. Why I could fly and read minds and do all the crazy things I do.
These weren’t gifts. No.
These were tools.
Tools to keep her alive. To keep her host healthy and viable. To keep me from dying off too quickly. So that she could grow stronger. So that she could plot and scheme.
Bitch.
Beneath me, the park gave way to the glowing dome of the Griffith Observatory, then over the Greek Theatre, then finally down along bustling Hollywood Boulevard. Yes, even from up here, I could see the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and its many brass stars embedded in the sidewalks. If I looked hard enough, I could even make out a name or two. In fact, I might have just seen Cher’s.