Honey to Soothe the Itch (5 page)

The same caustic stench from the ghost spots rose off his skin.

Real
stench. She gagged, her lips and nose curling in a futile attempt to keep the chemical sewage rolling off this creature out of her lungs. 

His teeth gleamed in the dim parking lot light. “The hubris of your kind.” He shook his head, tisking. “Calling yourselves Fates. You see the future but you know nothing.” He grabbed her arm.

“Let go of me!” The man made no sense and she hyper-focused on his fluorescing mouth, ignoring everything else. His teeth glinted, sharp and too bright. They’d rip her apart if they got near her skin.

She really was dying. Will die. The weirdness in her head bled into the real world and this man was its manifestation. All the spots, all the phantom smells—they were about to kidnap her. For
real
.

Her vision jigged like she’d changed the channel for a microsecond and then switched back to what she had been watching before. But in that microsecond, in that very brief flash when she saw something she knew wasn’t really there, she saw the man lean forward to bite her shoulder.

Bite and rip flesh and take himself a right good snack.

Her chest tried to fill with air and her throat tried to constrict to make as loud a high-pitched noise as it could, but only a whisper came out: “Ghoul.”

He grinned at her with his razor-sharp teeth. A loud sniff rushed into his nose. “You smell tasty, luv. I might take myself a nip now, before you finish activating.” He licked his lips.

“Activating?” She
wasn’t dying of a brain aneurism. She didn’t know why, or what it meant, but the word held truth.

Ratty fingerless gloves clamped over her mouth and nose. “You’re a bit of a freak, aren’t you? Can’t hold still. Stay normal for a moment longer, darling.”

“Let her go!” Gavin jumped the lot fence, his feet pumping as he landed.

New panic flooded in, different from what she felt for herself. The ghoul will kill Gavin. The scene played through the pressure behind her eyes: He’ll lock onto her friend’s throat. He’ll feel a surge of hunger and he’ll salivate like an animal. Then his hands will cook Gavin’s flesh.

Run
! she signed.
Go
!

The slow dread of certainty fizzled through her consciousness, as heavy as the stink wafting off the man. Something bad was about to happen. Something as terrible as this ghoul.

Gavin halted like he’d run into a wall. He gagged, bending forward. The stench must have hit his nose.

“He your boyfriend?” The hand over her mouth loosened.

“Please don’t hurt him.” The ghoul could take her, but Gavin had a life ahead of him. He’d do good. Become a wonderful doctor.

The ghoul’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted again as he peered at Gavin. He flicked his chin toward campus. “You better listen, little normal. Better run. Before my mates find you.”

Gavin stepped back, both his mouth and his hands working but not making sense.

“Run!” Rysa screamed. He had to get away. She’d make sure—

Then the world flickered hot yellow again and Gavin was gone. The ghoul stood on her other side, anger dancing though his eyes.

“Do
not
do that again!” He slapped and caustic chemicals burned her cheek. Yanking hard, he dragged her toward the break in the fence framing the walk to the road. “Claw me one more time and you’ll be lucky if you keep your arm, you stupid cow.”

She didn’t remember clawing him. She didn’t remember Gavin running away, either. What did she do? She’d had another blackout and lost more time.

Nothing made sense.

The man dragged her through the lot gate and into the street. He pushed her forward with one hand, the fingers of his other tapping in the air as if he played an invisible piano. The tips glowed and smoldered one at a time, turning on and off as he pressed each imaginary key. “Quiet now, luv.”

A dark-gold hatchback with rusted side panels and blistered paint weaved down the street. A blue van, just as ratty, rushed from the other direction.

The man inhaled, his chin up. “Time to meet the family, princess.”

Games of Fate

Kris Austen Radcliffe
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