“It’s her,” he continued, “the prophet and one of the guys from the other day.” He paused a beat. “Right, the dark one. You’ll have to look for yourself. He has the markings of a messenger, but he’s not one. He can’t be. He looks mortal.”
Fear crawled like spiders up my spine and burst over my skin, shuddering along the surface.
After another long pause, he said, “Oh, he’ll cooperate. I have several fourth-degree felonies on tape to make sure of it. If he cares anything for the girl, he’ll cooperate.”
I clasped a hand over my mouth. He’d recorded the whole thing. They must have been able to see us through the huge front windows. We were so dead. What would they do to Jared? He would have to go into hiding. If the wrong people got ahold of that recording …
Creepy reporter guy closed the phone and turned to his stunned cameraman. “What’d I tell you? This is going to make my career. I knew I didn’t sell my soul to that man for nothing.” Then, as though he heard the thundering of my heart, the reporter’s head whipped toward us.
Jared jerked me to the ground and covered my body with his. That’s when I realized anger had engulfed him. He shook with it, his jaw clasped shut, teeth bared in fury.
“Who’s there?” I heard the reporter say. Then footsteps crackled along the forest floor.
Jared closed his lids and inhaled deeply, as if trying to control his actions. Then he placed a hand over my eyes, leaned in, and whispered into my ear. “Whatever happens, don’t look.”
“Wait, why?” I whispered back.
But my question was drowned out by a soft growl from Jared, the deep sound prickling my skin with anxiety. When the reporter’s footsteps reached the bush we were hiding behind, a whoosh of air pulsed over me, stirred my hair, and the weight of Jared’s body was no longer pressing into mine. I opened my eyes in complete disobedience and found myself surrounded by a swirling, tangible darkness—thick, hot, and pitch black. It slid over my skin like static in the wake of a lightning storm, then seeped through the brush, a searching fog. It reminded me of the poltergeist, only darker and denser and pulsating with life.
I watched, mouth agape, as the fog slid along the forest floor. Was this what Cameron saw? Was Jared really the grim reaper? Would he leave now? Go back to where he came from?
Before my mind could make sense of what was happening, I turned and looked up into the eyes of John Dell. His mouth twisted into a sneer as he reached for me. I pushed his hand aside and scurried back, my eyes wide as Jared materialized behind him. An instant later, John Dell flew through the air. His body slammed into the side of the van as another technician looked out the open side door in surprise.
I scrambled to my knees to watch. Every move Jared made left a thick, lingering fog in his wake, like he was only part flesh, only part human. He graced the technician with a quick glance then touched his forehead. The man collapsed, falling face-first to the ground. Then Jared looked back at the cameraman. He’d dropped the camera and was inching away, placing one foot behind the other, arms raised in surrender. But Jared was in front of him at once, enshrouded in smoke and shadows. Another touch. Another fall. So quiet, it gave new definition to the word
My lungs, completely paralyzed, burned with their need for air. Were those men dead? Had Jared killed them?
A second later, a sharp crack resonated through the forest, and I looked over just in time to see John Dell fall to the ground, his head twisted at an odd angle, his neck clearly broken.
Jared stepped back as the man crumpled before him, and I slammed my eyes shut, suddenly afraid to look, to see what he was capable of. Then he growled again, like an animal, like an echoing thunder. The inhuman sound sent chills washing over me. I rose to my feet and took a wary step back. As though remembering I was there, he turned. The heat from his anger radiated toward me, hot and palpable. He took a step toward me, his head lowered, his chest heaving, his eyes bright like a predator preparing for its next kill.
And I ran. I gathered every ounce of strength I had and ran like I’d never run before. A blinding fear drove me forward. Twigs and branches lashed across my face as I slipped and stumbled down the mountainside. My heart pounded so hard, I could hear it pulsing in my ears. In the back of my mind, I knew I could never outrun him, but my feet didn’t care. They pushed on, pumping, stumbling, catching, and pumping again. I actually fell twice, like those chicks in scary movies, the uneven terrain almost impossible to navigate. But I scrambled back up and started racing toward the road again.
Glitch’s Subaru appeared like a haven below me. Just a few more yards. He hadn’t caught me yet. Just a few more yards and I’d be safe. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
Then he was there. In front of me. Jared. No longer an apparition of smoke and fog, but solid, flesh and blood, regarding me with a mixture of worry and anger. I skidded to a halt and ended up falling back to keep from sliding into him. When he reached down, I tried to scramble out of his grasp.
“Lorelei,” he said, “wait.”
I scurried out of his reach with a frown, a warning for him not to come any closer. He seemed normal again. Normal. Like he hadn’t just been something … not.
“Lorelei, I can explain.”
Cameron was there in an instant, kneeling beside me. “What happened?”
“Guys!” Glitch came running down the mountain, yelling breathlessly. “Guys, there are three unconscious men up there.” He stopped beside me and bent over, panting. “I swear. I think they’re dead.”
He’d stumbled upon the massacre. That meant he’d been close when Jared went postal. I glanced back at Jared, my eyes wide. “Would you have hurt him too?”
Jared looked down as though unable to face me.
“If you had seen him,” I pushed, “would you have hurt him too?”
Cameron stilled, his muscles tense, his expression wary.
“What are you talking about, Lor?” Glitch asked, huffing from exertion beside me.
“Would you have killed him?” I asked again, my voice a mere whisper, afraid of what he might say.
Keeping his face averted, he said, “I didn’t kill anyone.”
But wasn’t that what he did? Wasn’t that his job? Maybe death came so naturally to him, he didn’t think twice about it. Maybe, when his temper flared, he couldn’t stop himself.
I shook so hard, my teeth rattled. Tears blurred my vision and I swiped at them angrily. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I’d slipped into a state of shock. I’d just seen the deaths of three innocent men. Everything slowed, every sound echoed in my head, and a desperate sorrow swallowed me whole. I knew things I no longer wanted to know, saw things I no longer wanted to see.
When did it all become so serious? So real? Jared wasn’t human. He didn’t belong on this plane, just like Cameron said. He was trapped here because of me. And clearly, he could kill in a heartbeat if he wanted to. I hadn’t taken that knowledge seriously before. Now I had no choice.
I heard voices but couldn’t make sense of what anyone said. Then I felt Cameron pick me up and carry me down the rest of the mountain. Faintly, as if from a dream, I heard Jared call to me. But Cameron yelled over his shoulder.
“Go back to where you came from, Reaper,” he said, his voice angry.
Then we were driving. The inside of the car felt like a funeral parlor. The inside of my heart felt even more dead, a hollow void where life had once thrived. I’d started crying and I wasn’t entirely certain why. Glitch held me in the backseat and Brooklyn sat beside us, petting my hair, whispering promises that everything was going to be fine.
But she didn’t see what I saw. I brought a supreme being onto this plane. A force so powerful, even other supernatural entities were afraid of him. A force that didn’t play by our rules. Didn’t believe in our set of moral standards. And I’d set him loose upon the human race.
Nothing would ever be fine again.
A DIFFERENT ANIMAL
A week later, the investigation into the injuries of three Tourist Channel employees outside a Riley’s Switch residence raged on. Injuries. As in, no deaths. Everything the crew had recorded since their arrival had been
