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FORTY-EIGHT | BIRCH AND OAK
The site of the attack was deserted. Even the last of the curious onlookers had tired of staring, and there was nothing there but half-dried blood and billowing police tape. The wind had picked up, rustling the nearby fir trees and blowing orange and burgundy leaves to the ground.
Skye stilled beside me, dropping my hand as he crept around the bloodied imprint. “I’ve smelt this before.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Not a vampire?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s the same smell that lingered after Pera was attacked. Not a vampire… I’m not sure what it is.”
Kathrena frowned, stepping closer. I was scared to move more than an inch towards the blood: it was less appealing to us once it had congealed, its life force diminished, but the scent of it was still thick and heady in the night air. The sky had darkened fully now, and the glow of the streetlamps
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She Runs with Wolves FORTY-NINE | UNNAMED
“Are you sure you don’t mind waiting?”“Of course not.” I smiled at Kathrena. She was dithering, stood outside the truck but still hanging onto the edge of the door. She tucked her other hand into her pocket; I knew her well enough to know that, whilst she was aiming for nonchalant, her position meant that she was feigning it.“Thank you, El. Will you be okay out here?”“Yes,” I laughed, though it sounded empty, hollow. I was feigning, too – pretending that the attack, and the blood, hadn’t affected me as much as they had.“I won’t be long,” she promised, yet still she hovered by the door.“Kath,” I said, raising my eyebrows and levelling my gaze at her. “Go.”She huffed out a breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just… toni
She Runs with Wolves FIFTY | A BLACK ROSE
My phone felt like lead in my pocket as we recounted Toby’s attack to Aradia and Ezrand. They listened intently, wearing identical, worried expressions that pulled their mouths into grim lines and narrowed their eyes. I’d replied to Skye’s message before we’d come inside, but we’d not had a chance to talk properly yet. He was with Pera, and I had responsibilities of my own. As such, we’d agreed to meet on Monday afternoon, straight after school, in the Hawthorn Central Library. It gave us a safe place to discuss Pera’s attack – and Toby’s – and also provided the perfect opportunity for us to approach Herb.Ezrand heaved out a sigh, leaning forwards and pressing his elbows against the kitchen table. He held his chin in his upturned hands, and slumped his shoulders dramatically. His patterned shirt was too bright for the conversation, dotted with pink palm trees and neon green seagulls. “It’s getting worse, Ar,” he muttered, the top of his head moving up and down in a freakish, comedic
She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-ONE | MONDAY
“And you’re sure it wasn’t there when you woke up?” Kathrena asked, cocking her head at me. We’d gone over the case of the missing note a thousand times on the drive into town – and all of yesterday, too – and it was beginning to wear on me.“Positive,” I sighed. “Look, Kath, it’s probably nothing. The window was open, so it probably just blew under the bed or something.”“But you checked under there.”“Yes, I did. But I’m not Sherlock, I don’t carry around a little magnifying glass everywhere I go. I could’ve missed it.”“Okay.” She levelled her gaze at me. “But Sherlock didn’t have supernaturally charged vision, which is why he needed the magnifying glass. You do, which is why you don’t.”“Fine. I’m certain it hasn’t just blown under my bed. I’m also certain that it was there when I went to sleep, and it was gone by the next morning. But we’re running this subject into the ground, and we aren’t getting anywhere with it. And things do just go missing sometimes, Kath. I’ve lost hundred
She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-TWO | BOOK OF SHADOWS
“She was unconscious for days,” he began. At our blank expressions, he sighed. “For a wolf, that’s weird. That’s bad weird. Werewolves are protectors by nature, so we need to heal quickly – quicker than the average human by a long way. And when we fall unconscious – which is very rare in itself – it’s never for longer than a few hours at most.” He took a breath, and I felt a small sense of pride shoot through me. Skye seemed less nervous around Kathrena already, and, if I was not mistaken, he was taking a beat to add to the drama of his story. Sure, his leg was still jiggling beneath the table, but he was learning. “We think that something was keeping Pera under,” he continued. “Something supernatural, with enough power to control a wolf. And there’s something else,” he added, his gaze dropping to the warped wooden table. Someone had scratched their initials into it, a wonky R and something too distorted to read next to it.“What?” I whispered, touching his forearm softly. The small h
She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-THREE | BLACK MAGIC
“But that doesn’t explain why you think the smudges on the trees are linked,” Kathrena sighed, sitting back in her chair.“Because our witch talks about that, too,” I said, pulling the book into my lap and fiddling with the pages. “In the list of creatures. It doesn’t say what it is, but she has made notes on it. At the end here, look,” I added, placing the book back onto the table, open on the correct page, now, and facing Kathrena.She traced her finger over the words, her mouth moving too quickly for me to read her lips as she muttered them aloud to herself.Skye had flipped up the pages that Kathrena wasn’t reading, his head tilted to the side so that he could see the handwriting, even looking at it side-on as he was. His eyes were narrowed, and I shrugged to myself. Kathrena and I could fill him in, anyway.And I couldn’t deny tha
She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-FOUR | EYE OF NEWT
“I recognise it from somewhere,” I mused, squeezing Skye’s hand as we rounded the cobbled corner and came onto the high street. It was raining, now, the sky edged with black and a miserable shade of grey in between.Kathrena, walking on my other side, laughed. “That’s wishful thinking if I’ve ever heard it, El.”Thankfully, Skye seemed to have completely forgiven my cold comment from earlier, and he squeezed my hand back, throwing me a sympathetic smile. “Well, for my part, I really hope you do recognise it, El. If we need a witch to take down whatever this is we’re fighting, a head start – or any leads at all, really – would be great. I mean, we don’t even know what this thing is. Maybe there’s a second Book of Shadows that Herb doesn’t have access too. Maybe she’s still writing it now, even!”“Or maybe she’s dead
She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-FIVE | TAROT
“Well?” Kathrena asked, probing me for information with a surprisingly gentle tone. One of her fingers was tapping at the wooden bench, though, so I didn’t want to take too many liberties with dragging out my story.I sighed. Herb had pulled me aside as the others had left the library. I’d told them to go ahead, as I’d been planning to return his papers to him, anyway. They’d been of little use to us, in the end: though there had been a few animal attacks in Hawthorn, they all seemed legitimate. We were near a National Park, which bordered the coastline, and it was plausible that the occasional bear might stray. Even the forest that the Clan house backed out onto was home to mountain lions, and that was even closer to Hawthorn’s town centre.There had been no strings, no sightings, and nothing suspicious. But Herb had helped us as much as he could, given that we’d had very little information to
She Runs with Wolves FIFTY-SIX | MIRAGE
My hands were shaking as I scrolled through my contacts list to find Skye’s number. It was dark outside now, and late, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong.Someone had been in my room, and that same someone had left a tarot card on my bed. A tarot card that foretold death.I’d hunted with Kathrena, wanting to push it out of my mind. It was an impossibility: I lived in the Clan house, for goodness sake, where other vampires lived, too. Vampires that, right now, were on high alert for an attacker.I’d gorged myself on animal blood, feeding on a number of larger animals so that I didn’t hurt any of them. But only so many deer and moose could dent the terror that was shaking my bones, and I’d told Kathrena about the card on our way back in from the woods.“The death card is only perceived as negative, you know. In tarot read
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