Part 50 (2/2)

He'd abducted her.

They were in the woods... deep in the woods. And tomorrow was Halloween. She was insane if she trusted him.

But then again, his eyes held some strange power...

And emissary of a demon would have power, right? Logically, she didn't believe in demons. But h.e.l.l, logic was gone, and evil was out there.

She shook her head. ”I can't trust you! I need to get to Finn.”

”Megan, Finn will come to you, I swear it.”

So earnest, his words were so earnest. He stood then, as if determining he had to trust her. He disappeared into the woods, silent as a cat in the night.

Finn will come to you.

Right. Finn would come to her. Because someone else had kidnapped Finn. And everyone would believe that they had disappeared on purpose, afraid of repercussions from the fire which had surely gutted half the hotel. It had all been so well planned out.

Lucian had said that something would happen. That they'd never be playing at the hotel at midnight on Halloween.

So...

Had Lucian caused the fire? Mike had tried to tell her that Lucian was evil. Mike had tried to help her tonight. Maybe they had been drawn into the dead heat of the fire while trying to escape the smoke.She set her hands upon the tree trunk, trying to use the support to help her to rise. She came to her feet.

But then she paused.

She could hear... footsteps?

Soft crunching... like something moving the dying leaves of autumn that littered the forest floor. Someone was coming. Someone moving stealthily. Creeping up on her, slowly, carefully.

A hooded figure, bearing a knife held high, burst into the clearing, running straight at her.

Megan screamed in terror and turned to run.

From behind her, she suddenly heard another scream. She turned, and heard a fierce, deep snarling sound.

She turned back.

The fog had settled over the clearing. But she thought she saw...

A dog.

A giant dog. Ripping into the caped ent.i.ty that had been running toward her with the knife.

”This is insane,” Finn said. They were in Lucian's rental car, curving around a winding road in the gray darkness that not even the moon could penetrate. ”Why would Megan have driven out here?” He looked at Lucian suspiciously. ”I don't care who or what you are, but if anything happens to Megan, I'll find a way to kill you before I die, so help me.”

Lucian cast him a glance that was chilling. ”We're trying really hard to save your fool lives-and others as well, since the rebirth of a demon could be deadly to hundreds of people for decades to come.”

”Why would Megan be in the woods?” Finn insisted angrily, refusing to be cowed, no matter the ice fire in the guy's strange eyes.

”I have a friend who went to see that she wasn't taken,” Lucian said.

”Great. You have a friend. And he can throw people around the woods as if they were pebbles as well?”

”She's safe with him.”

”In a cabin in the woods?”

”Obviously, yes-they were trying to take her tonight. So, obviously, yes, my friend went to make sure he could take her before they could-and he checked out the cabin in the woods to make sure he could find a real safe house.”

”This is just so much bull!” Finn accused him, his growing fear for Megan giving him the adrenaline and strength to fight both his instinctive fear for himself, and the words that were being said. ”Dammit, Lucian, who are you? What the h.e.l.l is going on? This has got to be some really insane murder plot. Demons, s.h.i.+t! What are you?”

Lucian stared at him, his own temper obviously at a peak.

”You want the truth? The absolute truth? h.e.l.l, yes, there are demons out there. Demons, boogiemen, monsters, and more.”

”And how do you know that? How do you know that for fact?”

”How do I know?”The car jerked to a halt at the side of the road.

”How do I know? Because I'm a f.u.c.king vampire, and my friend is a werewolf. There, you've got in a nutsh.e.l.l. Now, can we try to get to your wife? Or do you want me to prove what I've just told you?”

Chapter 21.

”Stop. For the love of G.o.d, please stop!”

Megan felt the wind at her back; he was behind her again. He could leap up her, injure her, any second.

Keep running? Run until she could run no more? Wouldn't that be the instinctive thing to do, the way to win? Fight on and on until... there could be no more fight.

But something in the tone of the words caused her to halt. The man had just stopped a maniacal a.s.sa.s.sin from coming after her with a razor-sharp blade. Or had he? Maybe it was all part of an act, and as Mike had said, they shouldn't trust the outsiders any more than they could trust anyone in the town.

Yet, it might be more prudent to prevent injury, and still, there remained that ring of honesty; this man had evoked G.o.d's name.

Would the real enemy have done so? Perhaps yes, the better the deception.

A cold breath seemed to touch her nape. She was caught anyway.

She came to a dead standstill. To her amazement, the man crashed into her; they both stumbled forward, and then down.

He was quickly up on a bended knee, and staring down at her, talking quickly rather than offering any force. ”My name is Brent Malone. I'm a friend of Lucian and Jade. There are others with us, and we believe that you are in serious trouble, far worse than you've even imagined.”

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