“I’m going to gloss over my past,” I say. “Maybe if whatever this is between us develops, then I’ll tell you all the deets.” Except…he’s a vampire. So…it can’t develop. Right? “Mom and I were on the run for a lot of years after we left Cardiff. I didn’t know what from, until after I’d lost her. I still don’t know exactly what from. Or if it’s the same reason.”
I realize I’m reaching up with my left hand and touching the ring through my shirt. “There’s also no pattern for when it happens. Maybe everything will be fine tomorrow night. That’s also possible. In fact, odds tell me it’s likely. I just want you to know what might happen, for the sake of transparency. You and Lucius and Garrett have placed a lot of trust in me, and I don’t want you to think I held information back.”
“I appreciate that and will take it under advisement.”
I shift in my chair a little and sip my water. “Sometimes, at night, this…thingtries to show up. Only at night. Right now, it’s been the longest stretch of time since I’ve seen it. Several years. Whenever I see it, that’s when I bolt to a new location. It never comes in the daytime.”
He waits me out while I take another bite of chicken. “It has never fully materialized, so I don’t know what it’ll do if it ever does. I don’t stick around long enough to find out. It looks black, kind of like a dog, but huge.Waylarger. Like, I’m talking grizzly bear-large. And it has red eyes. I don’t think it’s from this world. Because, as you proved today, it’d be stupid easy to track me down if it was.” I shiver. “It’s terrifying.”
Looking thoughtful, he studies me. “Gwyllgi.”
“What?”
He picks up his water glass and sips. “There’s a legend in Wales about a gigantic ghost dog, or wolf. Huge, black thing, with red eyes. They call itgwyllgi,but it’s got other names, too. Sometimes known to stalk and attack travelers at night. Other cultures have similar creatures in their mythology, but I find it incomprehensibly coincidental that you and your mother lived in Cardiff, and you’re seeing something straight from Welsh mythos.”
My heart races, pounds so hard I can barely speak. “Are…are youkiddingme?”
“I am not.” His expression is serious, too. “I’d like to offer my help.”
“Is there a way to get rid of it? To predict when or where it’ll show up? To protect myself from it? To know what it wants?”
“That I don’t know. I’d have to research it. There’s no pattern to when it appears?”
“Only that it happens at night.” Now he’s intently watching me, and I realize that while we’re talking, I’ve fished the chain out from under my shirt and I’m playing with the ring. “Sorry. Nervous habit.”
“What is that?”
“It was my dad’s. It’s all I have of his.” I look at it. “I don’t know what the symbols on it mean. Mom used to wear it on this chain, but the night she died, the ring was on her finger. I think someone tried to mug her for it and she fought them, but they still managed to kill her. Which…” I realize that’s a story for another night. “It’s a long story. But Mom was a badass, and I guess he caught her by surprise. Normally, she could’ve held her own.”
He intently stares at it. “May I?”
I finally lift the chain over my head and pass it to him, being careful not to touch his hand as I set the ring in his palm and then lower the rest of the chain, releasing it.
He carefully examines it, studying the sides of it. “You don’t know what the markings mean?”
“No. They’re not any writing or runes I can discover. I showed it to Lucius, and he didn’t know either.”
A handsome eyebrow arches. “Then he’s seen this?”
“Yeah. And he knows about my…what’d you call it?”
“Gwyllgi.” He’s focused on the ring, turning it around, looking inside it for any inscriptions. “Labradorite is known as a stone of transformation, by some. Some think it’s a shield. Others believe it can protect against negativity.”
“So, you’re a gemologist, too?”
He smirks. “I have my hobbies.” His smile fades. “I’ve had a lot of them over the years. Sometimes, hobbies were the only things that kept me sane.” His focus is still on the ring, and he even breaks out his cell phone and takes several closeup pictures of it. “The writing isn’t any language I understand, but there is something very familiar about it.”
Hope explodes inside me. “Yeah?”
Then hope recedes equally fast when he holds the chain to set the ring back in my hand almost exactly as I put it in his. “I think so. It looks like something I’ve seen before, but it’s not any kind of runic language I’m familiar with. It’s definitely not Ogham or Futhark. I’d have to research it, though. Believe me, I know most of the old and modern languages from the UK, and more than a few from elsewhere in the world. It’s highly unlikely Iwouldn’tknow what it says, if it originated in that region. But there is…something.”
I don’t get the feeling he’s just humoring me, either. From the way he’s studying the pictures on his phone, I can tell this is something he wants to help me with.
“Oh.” I pull the chain over my head and tuck the ring under my shirt. “Thanks, anyway.” It shouldn’t bother me so much that he doesn’t know. No one else has known, either.
“I will look into it for you. It feels like it’s something I should know but have forgotten.”
I am touched he’s willing to try. “I appreciate it.” Nope, won’t get my hopes up.
