“I got it.” I fished Lorde’s leash out from under the seat, then levered my way out the door.
Being over-large and jammed into this tin can made exiting the cab feel like I was squeezing myself out of a toothpaste tube. The sun was a furnace just pumping out the heat. At least I’d had a chance to change into the jeans.
Lu watched me with a little smile on her face, then hopped easily out of the cab. She slid her fingers into her back pocket and dug out her slim wallet. She should probably put on a hat, but before I could suggest it, she was at the pump, taking the nozzle to the tank.
Lorde shook, and her tags jingled.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s stretch those legs.” I clipped on her leash and stepped aside so she could jump down.
“You coming?” I asked Val.
His gaze came back from a distance and he frowned. His wolf was standing now, still staring into that distance. “No,” he said. “I think… I think I’ll stay here.”
I turned an eye toward the sky, across the busy road where storm clouds built a reef of grays across the horizon. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but something in the air made my gut tighten.
Lorde whined and pulled on the leash. “Okay, girl, let’s find you some grass.”
I took her to the wide grassy area, glancing back at Lu every now and then.
Lorde, nose to the ground, seemed fascinated by the smells.
My gaze kept returning to the Route and the clouds beyond it.
Interstate 44 had been built right on top of the Route, so the traffic moved quickly here, but there was something strangely slow about everything else, as if the air were molasses thick and time had lost its tick. Maybe it was the brewing storm, the fall of barometric pressure messing with my senses.
Maybe it was just the age of the place—the squat concrete building covered by advertisements for beer, cigarettes, and energy drinks that hadn’t been popular in years.
No. Something was off. Something was wrong.
The flicker of a shadow to my left pulled my gaze that way, but it winked out of my line of vision before I could catch it.
Lorde finally lifted her head and scented the air. She growled softly, then whined.
“Come, on, sweetheart.” I tugged on her leash, itchy to move. “Let’s go back to the truck.”
The wind picked up suddenly, a push of heat and moisture carrying the stench of sunbaked concrete and gasoline fumes.
It shoved my hair away from my eyes, and a voice whispered: “I taste magic.”
Not a ghost. I knew ghosts. They didn’t speak in this kind of fluting whisper.
The wind fell, drawing the heat away with it, and then whipped again.
“Blood and thread. Strange, the key upon her skin.”
The wind grew hotter, slashing at my exposed skin, face, neck, arms.
I couldn’t move. My heart hammered like I was running, but my feet would not lift. Panic poured cold gasoline over my nerves but my body didn’t fire.
Lorde tugged the leash taut, whining.
I yelled for Lu, and she turned…slowly, so slowly, like a dream. Like a nightmare.
A shock of cold smacked me hard in the chest. I stumbled backward, blinking as if I’d been asleep standing.
“Move!” Valentine’s eyes flashed red, then he was running toward Lu.
Now I could see them. A howl, a stampede, a wailing charge of spectral creatures, nearly invisible to the eye, rushing across the parking lot, flying over the dirt and pavement like ribbons of smoke and teeth and claws on a hurricane wind.
