“Oh!” she gasped, eyes snapping open.
“What is it?” John was beside her, steadying her with a hand on her back.
Grant approached, still buttoning his shirt. “Got something?” Sherrie was giddy, blood rushing through her veins, mind racing as if she were on speed. “It was…wow!” She shook her head and tried a more lucid explanation. “I was outside of myself. I felt…everything, all around me.”
“Great. So, look for him. Must be some kind of connection or you wouldn’t be here. Reach out.
Hunt.” The panther touched her arm lightly, and the moment he did, a jolt of energy shot through her. From John’s hand on her back to Perron’s hand on her arm, an arch of electricity crackled like lightning.
Sherrie gasped. Her gaze flew back and forth between the two men to see if they felt it too. Both pairs of eyes were as shocked as hers must be. John frowned, while a big smile curved the corners of Grant’s mouth.
“What the hell?” John pulled his hand away, breaking the connection. Immediately, the electric charge fizzled and popped out like the delicate filament in an incandescent bulb breaking.
Sherrie blinked, stunned. Her body still thrummed with residual energy, and she felt she could fly to the moon and back by simply leaping off the ground like some comic book superhero: Shifter Avenger—
able to track down and destroy evil psychic monsters with her magic mojo.
Once more she closed her eyes and opened her mind. It was even easier this time to expand her consciousness and float outside herself. She searched the strands of life around her, the flora and fauna that covered the mountain, until she found a dark strand like a polluted stream in the landscape. It marked the natural fabric like a stain, and she followed the thread, searching for its source, already recognizing the evil vibration of the being she’d encountered in Liberty’s mind.
As she neared her goal, she stopped. She could sense his smoggy presence, very close now, but was afraid to draw his attention to her like the eye of the evil dude in the Lord of the Rings movies. Could this being actually harm her here on this astral plane if he discovered her searching for him? It seemed his power was more of the mind than the body, and Sherrie wasn’t about to get herself imprisoned in a coma like Liberty. She drew back and waited.
She focused on her quarry, felt his looming form near her—dark and dangerous, saturated with evil like pus oozing from a wound. Adrenaline rushing through her urged her to run, even though she wasn’t in the physical world. This experience was vivid, like the sex with Grant had been. Her mind’s eye was wide open, taking in the landscape around her. She began to get a sense of the place in the world where The Bad Man’s corporeal form existed. There was a rocky outcropping, a deep ravine, a stream of water trickling over mossy stone, the mouth of a cave. If she saw the physical place, she would recognize it.
Sherrie turned her attention to her opponent, testing the thin thread of consciousness that had led her to him. He was like a monster tied to the other end of the string. If she pulled too hard, he might come roaring down on her. But she wanted to find out as much as she could about him without letting him become aware of her presence.
Anger was the first element she registered. Misery, hatred, self-loathing and rage shimmered along the thread that connected them like two kids on either end of a tin can phone. This was one unhappy creature, however powerful he might be, and Sherrie began to get a picture of why he was sucking up energy like a vacuum cleaner. Revenge. He wanted to become insanely powerful and hurt those he felt had done him wrong.
She wasn’t sure how she knew this, but Sherrie knew in her gut she’d discovered the elemental truth about The Bad Man. There would be no reasoning with him. His goal was simple. He wanted to inflict as much damage as possible and prove himself a superior being over everyone who’d ever demeaned him.
Sherrie moved closer, wanting to catch a glimpse of the man, not just feel his essence. That slight movement drew his attention to her. He emerged from the shadows of the cave and stood staring at her with eyes that burned like fire. She inhaled a sharp breath and stepped back then stood frozen, staring into his fiery gaze.
“You’re here.” As in her interlude with Perron, the words bloomed in her mind. “At last.”
“You were expecting me? Who are you?” She searched his face for something familiar, but found nothing. His appearance was so average—a man of medium height and build, receding brown hair revealing a lined forehead, a plain nose and mouth and no unusual characteristics that would draw anyone’s attention. He was so normal that a person could look at him and through him and forget him in the next instant. Only his burning eyes betrayed his anger and his power.