Zach scanned the thinning crowd of Saturday night revelers and caught sight of her. Knight stood at the corner of Jackson Square and Chartres Street, waiting for the crosswalk light to change.
Their eyes met, hers so bright tonight he could make out the color of her irises from here. She nodded slightly in acknowledgement. Traffic cleared and she started across. Suddenly she stopped, causing the drunk behind her to nearly topple over. She lifted her face slightly to the breeze, as if to catch a scent. The way an animal in the wild did at the presence of a hunter.
In the blink of an eye, she turned and headed in the opposite direction. He swore and leapt to his feet. “She’s bolting,” he said, snatching up his phone and starting after her. “I’m in pursuit.”
Knight was faster than he would have imagined she could be in her long gypsy skirt. Zach darted across the street, dodging vehicles and earning the blare of horns, all the while trying to keep her brightly colored scarves in sight.
Into the park she went. Zach followed, pressing. When he cleared its iron gates, he caught a glimpse of red rounding the corner of the cathedral.
He was closing the distance between them.
Zach pushed harder. Feet pounding on the pavement, heart and breath coming fast and hard. She ducked onto St. Peter Street, going behind the church, onto Royal. Only moments behind, he too made the turn. And stopped cold.
The fortune-teller had disappeared. Zach drew his eyebrows together. How could that be? Had she ducked into a shop or— No. Everything on this little strip of Royal Street was closed, locked up for the night. Like another world from where he had just been, quiet, eerily peaceful. Empty.
But not.
Zach made his way forward. Something electric rippled over his nerve endings. The hair on his arms and at the back of his neck stood up.
Knight was here. He felt her presence.
Zach made the corner, heading back toward the Square. Moving slowly now, scanning dark doorways and shadowed alcoves, tuning out everything but the place inside him that had ahold of her.
He stopped at the entrance to a short alleyway. Cobbled. Old-fashioned streetlights, casting a feeble glow.
Gotcha.
He stepped into the alleyway. “Brite,” he called, “I don’t want anything from you but the truth.”
Nothing but silence, deep and somehow unnatural. He took several more steps forward, his senses jumping like crazy.
“Was that you I heard in my head?” he asked. “Telling me to use my light?”
Go. Run. The voice in his head. Urgent, rising to a screech. Now!
Zach responded automatically. A rustling stopped him. Followed by a soft gasp. The sound of a struggle.
“Brite!” he shouted and swung back.
And spotted her. Pressed deeply into a shadowed alcove.
No, not in a shadow. Covered by one, he saw. Blacker than the blackest night, pulsing with energy. Pressing her back, seeming to swallow her. Her face stood out pale white against the darkness of her attacker; she looked to be in agony.
“You! Back off! Now.” He drew his weapon and charged forward. “Police! Step away and—”
Zach flew backward, lifted off his feet by an invisible force. He smashed into a cafe table and chairs, toppling them and sending him sprawling. Pain shot through his shoulder and he saw stars.
But he hadn’t lost his grip on the gun. He dragged himself to his feet, stumbled forward, gun out.
“Police! Step away from the woman now or I’ll shoot!”
The shadow evaporated.
Brite Knight sank to the cobblestones.
Zach ran to Knight’s side. She lay in a strange, twisted position and he eased her onto her back. Her head lopped to the side and her saw the strangest wound right below her collarbone. Circular, like a cross between a bite and a hickey. She didn’t seem to be breathing. Panicked, he searched for a pulse and found none.
“Mick,” he shouted, hoping she was close enough to hear, “ambulance! Now!”
He started CPR. Counting. Thirty pumps, blow air in. Nothing. Thirty more. Still nothing. Then again.
“Zach!”
Mick. The sound of sirens. He kept pumping, mind racing.
You’ll get us both killed, Half Light.
Not a who, Zach. A what.
The paramedics arrived, pulled him away from her. Zach knew they weren’t going to be able to help her. Whatever that thing had been, it’d made sure of that. She’d been dead before she hit the ground.
Mick caught his arm. He looked at her, drowning in regret. “She said I’d get her killed. And I did. It’s my fault, Mick. My fault.”
“Slow down, partner. What happened?”
“It killed her. This thing, it—”
“Whoa, dude. A thing?”
Mick was waiting. Gaze steady on his.
He had to tell her. No more lies and evasions. “This is going to sound nuts.”
“Try me.”
He told her, starting from his pursuit of Knight. Relaying how he had sensed her presence, called out to her. “I heard what sounded like a scuffle. And that’s when I saw her. And it.”
“This . . . thing?”