This city kept getting stranger and stranger.
I settled down to watch, knowing the chances of me sneaking out of here undiscovered were very small. The only reason I could think that I’d made it this close was that the compulsion, as I was calling it, interfered or disrupted the spooks’ senses. Or maybe Sondra knew I was here on some level and the hooded person just failed to ask about it, secure in their assumption that this was a secret meeting.
It would have been if not for my run in with Sondra, the wolf on the bike path.
It made me question how much of that run in had been coincidence and how much of it had been her rebelling from this person’s compulsion. As a wolf she would have heard my bike coming from miles away. Even under a compulsion she should have been able to avoid getting hit and drawing my notice.
Or maybe not and I was assigning motivations that weren’t there.
It made me wonder if it had anything to do with the disappearances in the city. Whether I was looking at the reason for those disappearances. My first instinct said yes, but there were many things in this world I didn’t understand. It could be something else.
My surveillance would have been boring if not for my rather intense fear of discovery. As far as I could see the group just stood around, not speaking. The only one who occasionally moved was the hooded man as he muttered to himself and occasionally referred to a notebook he pulled out of his pocket.
I remained motionless as he did, fighting the urge to shift my weight from one leg to another. Any movement could draw attention my way.
The puppet master held his hands out and shouted a word. Black smoke drifted out of him, threading its way to each of the people in the clearing, searching and feeling each of the victims.
I tensed as one of them made a sound. A groan of pain was wrenched out of him. The smoke spun, demonstrating an almost sentient alertness. Its tendrils withdrew from the other puppets and converged on the man who groaned.
He was one of the ones who looked human, with sandy brown hair and bland features. They didn’t look bland now as they twisted in agony. Before my eyes, the man appeared to age as the smoke pulsed around him.
I wanted to fly forward, to help, but I didn’t. I stayed pinned to my spot, shaking with fear and disgust. My logical self knew acting now would be fool hardy and beyond dangerous. I had no idea what that smoke was, but given the witches assumptions, I was guessing it was a demon. The non-corporeal type. I knew next to nothing about how to fight it or get it to stop doing whatever it was doing.
My other self, the one who ran on emotion and feelings, the one who was inspired to join the Army so I could serve my country, hated staying where I was. Loathed knowing that I was going to save myself even as I watched a demon suck that man down like a slurpy straw.
The demon finished, its shadows unwrapping from the man as he sagged onto his knees looking like he’d had something vital yanked out of him.
The smoke meandered back to its host, its movement lazy and indolent now that it had fed. It coated the man and gradually melded into his skin.
The man gestured and the group broke apart, leaving only Sondra and the hooded man. He gestured sharply and she fell to the ground with a sharp cry, her shift repeating in reverse and no less painful looking.
When the process was complete, the wolf lay panting on the ground as the hooded man knelt by her side. He bent down and even with my vampire hearing I couldn’t hear a word he whispered to her.
He stood and walked out of the clearing. The wolf struggled to its feet, wobbling as it headed in the opposite direction.
Even when there was nobody left, I waited, not wanting to chance someone returning for something they forgot. Not that I thought the puppets were likely to even remember or care if they had forgotten something, but the hooded man might have and that was enough to keep me pinned in place.
I did not want that black smoke touching me. Some primal instinct warned that it would not be a good thing to be caught in its grasp.
After what I felt was an eternity, but was likely only twenty minutes, I shifted and took a step back, wanting out of there.
It didn’t take long to make my way back to the bike. I kept as quiet as I could in case any of the people from the clearing were hanging around.
Grabbing the bike from where I had stashed it, I took off wanting to put as much distance between myself and this place as possible.
I didn’t know what I had witnessed, but I had a sinking feeling that if the hooded man caught me, I’d be dead before I could open my mouth to say ‘fancy running into you here.’
* * *
I waited until I was several blocks from the bike path before pulling out my phone and dialing the number I’d saved as Brax’s last year.
The phone rang. I wanted this report done and over with so I could find my way home. Whatever that was had freaked me out, and I wanted to be somewhere enclosed where I could see anything that approached. Somewhere I viewed as safe.
“Hello,” a young male’s voice said. I didn’t recognize it.
“Is Brax there?”
“Who’s calling?”
