“No,” Steele said. “Definitely not.”
Ravyn was about to ask him why, because she sensed his response meant more than just giving the rightful owner back his dagger, but there was a loud screeching sound and she dropped the dagger to the floor to slap both hands to her ears this time.
Steele heard the noise too because she could see him turn around quickly, his facial features changing from resting to almost crazed in seconds. On the next screech there was a gust of wind and strong arms grabbed Ravyn. She immediately turned lifting her leg for a quick kick and swinging to land a punch. But that punch did nothing because the person who was wrapped in some dirty-looking strips of cloth with eerie green eyes came at her again.
Screaming came to mind. Also running. But something about those eyes struck her as familiar, just as something about the way this person was moving reminded her of some of the people she’d been seeing on the street lately. Whatever. With fists raised, Ravyn went in for another punch, landing it successfully but then being swept up off her feet by another one of these things.
She fell quickly to the floor when Steele must have intervened because the person made an awful howling sound and then released her. Ravyn went right back to the other one, this time picking up a lamp and hurling it at the person’s head. It reached out a hand, almost in slow motion, but fast enough to catch it.
“Who the hell are they?” she heard herself ask but hadn’t really expected an answer.
Instead she saw Steele swoop in and lift the person up over his head, twisting their body until it exploded in a puff of dust. She coughed and stumbled back, her eyes watered as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Her throat was suddenly tight as one of them wrapped an arm around her neck and pulled her back. It was strong. Even as she smacked at the arm that held her, it lifted her off the floor. She flailed and tried to buck her body forward, to flip it over her and gain control, but it wasn’t working.
That’s when the humming in her ears increased, piercing her eardrums until she felt like her body was being sawed in half by the sharp sound. Her eyes popped open at that moment, but her pupils felt different, bigger, warmer, if that made sense. She stopped struggling against whoever was holding her and stared across the room, through the dust, until her gaze focused on the dagger glowing bright against the dark green material.
Mine. She heard a woman’s voice say, but could only see the dagger. It belongs to me.
“No!” Ravyn screamed the one word and the dagger moved on the table. It trembled, or was that the entire room shaking as if Burgess was experiencing an earthquake?
The arms around her grew tighter, but it didn’t matter, she willed herself to move, to get closer to her dagger and to her surprise it worked. She felt herself and the thing holding on to her drifting across the room toward the table where the dagger sat.
You cannot beat me. I will destroy you.
“Take your best shot,” Ravyn quipped before reaching out her hand and watching as the dagger lifted from the table to float the rest of the distance and plop into her hand. When she closed her fingers around the hilt, her body warmed and something filled her, something new but old, strong and powerful.
She pulled the dagger from its sheath, turned it around and thrust her hand back, plunging the blade into the stomach of the one holding her. It would have made complete sense if she’d immediately fallen to the ground when the thing practically disappeared, but she didn’t. Instead, she sheathed the dagger as her body eased slowly to the floor.
The floor that was shaking uncontrollably. Instinct, or the familiar scent that seemed to be magnified a thousand times so that it now penetrated her lungs, had Ravyn turning around. More of those things were coming through the walls. They walked in tight lines, arms and legs moving like soldiers, strips of what looked like dirty rags hanging from their fingers and feet.
“What the hell?” Steele appeared in front of her at that moment. She had no idea what direction he’d come from but the breadth of his body blocked those things from her sight. She would have been relieved, would have blinked to clear her mind and remind herself once again that she didn’t believe in curses, powers or any of the other freaky things whispered around Burgess. There were only humans, good and bad, nothing more. Until there was more.
Steele’s sunglasses were gone—they hadn’t been there when she came in. But now his eyes were different—they weren’t root beer–brown like they’d been last night. They were orange, bright beautiful orange and his body was...changing.
“Hold on.” Two words, that’s all he had to say.
Ravyn opened her mouth to ask what the hell was happening here, who was he, who were they and a whole host of other questions, but in the next seconds she was lifted from the floor once again and covered by something dark and metallic. And then she was moving, until her stomach plummeted the way it did when she used to ride a roller coaster as a kid. Air whizzed around her, cool against her warm skin and the burning hot surface she was now sitting on. Her fingers closed tightly around the dagger once more, ready to do another slice and dice if need be, but something held her back. That scent and this thing she sat on, they were both familiar. They were both...it was too dark to see anymore, the air around pounding too hard into her lungs for her to focus, her eyelids too heavy to keep open. She fell back and didn’t feel herself
