Twigs cracked at my left one after another, amid stumbling footfalls and the panting, whimpering breaths of a distressed individual.
I spun toward the sound and shoved my hand under my shirt to close it around the grip of the handgun holstered inside the waistband of my jeans. The Bond Arms Mini derringer was small enough to fit inside my palm but let me fire .357 rounds as well as shotgun shells, thanks to its interchangeable barrels. I hoped I wouldn’t need either today, but I rested my hand on the gun just in case.
A girl staggered out of the woods and stopped several feet away, her body shaking, eyes wild and golden-brown hair disheveled. Her large blue eyes flicked to me, and she froze. Her pallid skin grew whiter.
“Lindsey,” the girl said, her voice dry and brittle.
“Do I know you?” Pretty sure I didn’t, but she gaped at me like I was her long-lost relative.
A chill swept over my skin. This girl resembled me. Not like we were twins, but enough we could’ve passed for sisters. The pale girl gasping for air was more slender where I had curves and looked younger, but otherwise…
The girl scuffled closer and stretched out one ghost-white, dirt-encrusted hand to me. Her face had transformed into a mask as if she were drugged or entranced.
“You don’t belong,” she intoned. “You never will. Accept your fate or the forces allying against you will consume your power and your soul.”
My power? She couldn’t know about me being the Janusite.
The girl’s knees trembled. She swayed on her feet, eyes rolling back in her head for a couple seconds before she seemed to return to reality, her gaze suddenly sharp and clear and locked on me. “You can’t win. He won’t choose you this time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The one you love. He won’t choose you.”
Finger-size marks bruised her neck.
I took hold of her shoulders. “Did someone hurt you?”
“He sent me to tell you. He made me come.” She shuddered. “Swore he’d punish me if I disobeyed him. The way he punishes…”
She bit down on her lip, tears gathering in her eyes.
I studied her face, her bloodshot eyes, her skin that seemed drained of life. No human whackjob had done this to her. “Who hurt you?”
The girl swayed again, her eyes unfocused. “He calls himself N—”
She fainted into my arms. I hugged her to me with one arm, feeling for a pulse in her wrist with my free hand. The rhythmic surge of blood pushed against my finger, weak but there. I fumbled in my pocket for my cell phone, then remembered I’d left it in my purse back in the shop. Dammit. I shouted with all the volume my lungs could muster.
“Help! Somebody help!”
Tris blipped into view beside me. One second not there, the next visible.
I jumped, my heart racing. “Thank God. Help me get this girl back to the shop. She’s not well.”
Tris glanced at the girl and his lip curled. “Cripes, lady, what’d you do to her?”
“Nothing. I found her this way.” I glared at him and said, “Help me.”
He slapped a hand on my shoulder and we zipped away, emerging a split second later on the gravel path right outside the shop’s main entrance.
“There,” Tris said, “that’s my good deed for the day. I can’t take you to the hospital, seeing as it’s past the boundary.”
“What about the vortex?”
His nostrils flared as his gaze bounced from the girl in my arms to the woods and back again. “Dark magic did this, I can taste it. Ain’t no coming back from this kinda sickness.”
“Please, Tris, can’t you try?”
“Can’t. Too dangerous.” He gulped, his own face paling when he glanced at the girl. “I’m sorry.”
The leprechaun vanished.
Motion in the trees snared my attention.
A tall, black-robed figure loitered at the edge of the woods, at the periphery of the parking lot. The hood of the figure’s robe concealed his face.
Before I had time to wonder why I assumed it was a man, the figure winked out of sight.
In my arms, the girl began to twitch, foam spilling from her mouth.
“Stan!” I shouted. “Call nine-one-one! Hurry!”
