What in hell had happened? The woman of smoke was obviously a minion of evil out to kill me. Being the leader of the light, in a battle with the demon horde, seemed to have put a great big, invisible target on my back.
However, the other times I’d always had a warning— what I called a ghost whisper. The voice of the woman who’d raised me, Ruthie Kane—whose death had set this whole mess in motion—would tell me what kind of creature I was facing. Even if I didn’t know how to kill it—and considering that I’d been dropped into this job with no training, that was usually the case—I still preferred advance notice of impending bloody death rather than having bloody death sprung upon me.
I tried to think. It was amazingly hard without oxygen, but I managed.
The woman of smoke had grabbed my silver knife and her fingers hadn’t sprung out in a rash. Not a shape-shifter, or at least not a common one such as a werewolf. When you mix silver and werewolves, you usually wind up with ashes.
Her strength hinted at vampire, though most of those would just tear out my throat and have a nice, relaxing bath in my blood. Still—
I let go of her arm and tore open my uniform so that Ruthie’s silver crucifix spilled free. Vampires tended to flip when they saw the icon, not because of the shape, or the silver, but because of the blessing upon it. She didn’t even blink.
I pressed it to her wrist anyway. Nothing. So, not a vampire.
Suddenly she stilled. The pressure on my throat eased; the black spots cleared from in front of my eyes. She stared at my chest and not with the fascinated expression I often got after opening my shirt. If I did say so myself, my breasts weren’t bad. However, I’d never had a woman this interested in them. I didn’t like it any more than I liked her.
“Where did you get that?” Her eyes sparked; I could have sworn I saw flames leap in the center of all that black.
“Th-the crucifix is—”
“A crucifix can’t stop me,” she sneered and yanked it from my neck, tossing the treasured memento aside.
“Hey!” I lore her amulet off the same way.
The very air seemed to still, yet my hair stirred in an impossible wind.
Dreadful One, Ruthie whispered at last, Naye’i.
A Naye’i was a Navajo spirit. I’d heard of them before. Several puzzle pieces suddenly fit together with a nearly audible click.
The woman of smoke backed away, staring at the stone I had recently strung on its own chain rather than continuing to let it share Ruthie’s.
“You don’t like my turquoise.” I sat up.
Her gaze lifted from the necklace to my face. All I could see between the narrowed lids was a blaze of orange flame. “That isn’t yours.”
“I know someone who’d say differently.” My hand inched toward the blue-green gem. “The someone who gave it to me. I think you call him ‘son’.”
As soon as my fingers closed around it, the turquoise went white-hot, and the Naye’i snarled like the demon she was, then turned to smoke and disappeared.
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About the Author:
LORI HANDELAND spent years waitressing, teaching, and managing a photography studio before selling her first novel in 1993 Since then her books have spanned the contemporary, historical, and paranormal genres. She is the recipient of many industry awards, most recently the RITA award from Romance Writers of America for her novel Blue Moon, which was named Best Paranormal of 2004.
Lori lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two teenaged sons, and a yellow lab named Elwood. She can be reached through her Web site: www.lorihandeland.com There you can join her Full Moon Club and receive a monthly e-newsletter around the time of the full moon with spooky werewolf and fun full moon facts, recipes, excerpts, and more.