Darkness Hunts(8)

I wouldn’t be so sure of that, stranger.

He cocked his head sideways. If he’d had features, I think they would have appeared . . . amused. If you are so confident that you can save her, why don’t we play a little game?

There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of me playing any sort of game with a featureless freak on the astral plane. I swung Amaya again, her kill, kill, kill chant crystal clear in the back of my thoughts. For the moment, my desire for control was stronger than her need to attack, but I had to wonder if that would always be the case, given she’d already tried to take me over once before.

I’m not interested in playing games. I just want you gone.

Ah, but this game involves saving the woman’s life. We both know you are interested in doing that, huntress, or you would not be here.

He was right, of course, but I saw no point in admitting the obvious.

He nodded in the woman’s direction and continued. She has twenty minutes of life left on earth. If you can find her in that time, I will let her live.

Twenty minutes? That’s hardly fair.

Life is never fair. He shrugged. That is the offer. Take it or leave it.

And if I don’t take it?

Then she dies as I have planned, and you will be left to wonder if you could have done the impossible.

And with that, he was gone, taking with him the uneasy sense of trouble. As the charm’s fierceness died to a more muted glow, I imagined Amaya sheathed, then knelt beside the woman.

Miss? Are you all right?

She didn’t respond to the soft question, so I lightly touched her shoulder. She jumped, then shimmied away from me, her brown eyes wide and staring.

It wasn’t so much the fear in her expression that surprised me, but rather the mark burned into her forehead. It was raw and weeping, as if it had only just been done. It was also K-shaped, with a tail that looped, reminding me oddly of a serpent. Two wounds marred her wrists, slicing up the center of her arms. While these were neither raw nor weeping, they’d split the skin open and looked painful. Two red marks also appeared to ring her calves, but from where I stood I couldn’t really see if they were open wounds or not.

Adeline had said you couldn’t be harmed on the astral plane, and yet this woman had been injured, and one of those wounds lay right where the stranger had been touching her. I doubted it was a coincidence.

Who are you? Her mind voice trembled with the fear so obvious in her pale features.

I’m a friend, I thought softly. There was a man attacking you—

Attacking? She frowned. What do you mean, “attacking”? We were having sex, for fuck’s sake!

Sex? On the astral field? How the hell was that even possible? That’s not what it looked like. Besides, you were screaming in fear.

She gathered the remnants of her clothing. Just because I don’t like it vanilla doesn’t mean it wasn’t sex.

I frowned. She was making all the right sounds, but there was something not quite right about her eyes—something beyond the fear. It was almost as if someone else was staring out of them.

I shivered. I need to know where you live, Miss—

Like I’m about to tell you that! And with that, she disappeared.

I swore softly, then closed my eyes and imagined myself back in my body. I whooshed back with surprising speed, my eyes springing open as I gasped in shock.

“Returning swiftly can be quite painful when one isn’t used to traveling on the astral plane,” Adeline commented. “Lie there and rest. I’ll bring you your tea.”

“No!” I jerked upright, and immediately regretted it as my stomach jumped into my throat. I swallowed bile, then added, “We don’t have time.”

Adeline stopped and frowned down at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I came across a woman being attacked by a man with no features.” I pushed to my knees, but the room spun around me, and it was all I could do not to fall back down. “He gave me twenty minutes to try to save her on this plane.”

“Meaning she wasn’t actually being attacked on the astral plane. What you saw was merely a reflection of what is happening here.”

“If that’s the case, he’s branding her with a hot iron and pulling her brains out.”

Adeline went pale. “Then you’re definitely dealing with a dark traveler.”

“Yes.” I pushed to my feet, then flung out an arm to steady myself, only to catch Azriel rather than the wall. The fingers that wrapped around mine were gentle steel, and heat leapt from his flesh, warming the chill from my body and lending me some much-needed strength.

“How are you going to find him if he has no features?” Adeline asked. “Did he give you any clue as to his identity? Did the woman?”