Page 20 of The Warlock's Kiss

“The werewolves are scary as shit,” Danny said.

“Danny,” Adalynn warned.

“What? They are! We saw one when we were trying to get out of the city. The only reason it didn’t come after us was because someone else shot at it. The thing didn’t even flinch!”

“We’ve heard them a few times after that,” Adalynn said, frowning. “They sound like howling wolves, but much deeper. It’s…I don’t know, otherworldly. And it’s terrifying, especially when you realize they’re communicating with each other.”

“And there are revenants everywhere,” Danny said.

“Revenants?” Merrick asked.

“Walking corpses,” Adalynn replied. “The wolves are scary because they’re so monstrous, but the dead…a lot of them stilllookhuman, but they’renot. They go after anything that’s living, almost like they can sniff out life, and they’re vicious. Like rabid animals. You can damage their bodies, slow them down, even incapacitate them with enough damage—or just the right kind of damage, I guess—but the only way to make sure you stop them is by burning them.”

“What do you mean bythe right kind of damage?”

Adalynn’s brow furrowed, and she lowered her gaze. There was a mild strain on her features now, and Merrick’s heart thumped restlessly in response; he didn’t like causing her distress.

“Injuries affect them sort of like they would a living person. Not that they seem to feel pain, but…you hack into their leg, and their leg doesn’t work right. You know what I mean?”

“Addy had to hit one with the car before we got here so it wouldn’t follow us,” Danny said.

“And it just dragged itself down the road behind us anyway,” Adalyn added. “I was driving almost fifty miles an hour when I hit it. That would’ve killed a normal person instantly.”

Merrick raised a hand and brushed his fingers over his short beard. Their testimony only served as more proof in support of what he’d suspected based on his research—the moon had served as a balance of some sort, as a mystical lock on the forces of magic, on the forces of life and death. Its destruction had disrupted what had previously been the natural laws of Earth.

Adalynn worried her lower lip for a moment. “After the moon broke, Mother Nature wentnuts. There were earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, crazy lightning storms…we even think the coasts got hit by tsunamis. Power went out right away in a lot of places, and it was out everywhere else within a few weeks. No internet, no cell service, no radio or TV. And as if all those disasters weren’t enough, everyone who died just…got back up and tried to rip the survivors to pieces.

“Me and Danny saw that werewolf, but we’ve seen other things, too. There was an impossibly beautiful man who was glowing all golden, and he hadwings, but his eyes were cold. Once we saw these demonic-looking things perched on a roof—I swear, they looked like gargoyles come to life. We’ve seen some…spiritsat night, too. And other survivors have told us about all kinds of other things.”

Irritation and alarm flared in Merrick’s chest; he did his best to suppress them, but the sudden worry was justified. “Other survivors? You don’t have companions out there you’ve not told me about, do you?”

Eyes rounding, Adalynn shook her head. “No, we’ve been alone for months. When it all started, we got out of the city as fast as we could. A lot of people had the same idea. We kept in groups for a while, but as time went on, and resources got scarce, and more and more scary stuff crawled out of the darkness…people got desperate. They gotmean.

“The last group we were with ended badly. A couple of the guys got into an argument over food, and it turned into a shootout. Three people died, and a lot of people were hurt. It only got worse when the dead people got back up. So, we grabbed whatever supplies we could and took off on our own. I kept us away from major cities, using as many country roads as I could find, and we’ve avoided people as much as possible.”

Such was the nature of humanity—even when confronted with inhuman terrors and widescale disaster, they still couldn’t avoid conflict with one another. Her story wasn’t surprising, at least in that regard, and Merrick shouldn’t have felt anything over it…but he did. He felt the immense weight Adalynn carried on her shoulders, felt the fear, the sorrow, the utter weariness in her heart, felt her pain.

And he felt her spirit, her willpower, her protectiveness. Despite her sickness, she’d kept herself and her brother alive through all that. Merrick had some understanding of what it meant to be mortal, of the struggles she must’ve faced, of the fear she must’ve felt, and he was impressed with her for having overcome them.

He wasproudof her.

“How long have the two of you been on your own?” Merrick asked.

Lowering her gaze, Adalynn used her fingertip to push a crumb around in a small circle atop the table. “One hundred and three days.”

The ease with which she’d offered that number suggested she’d kept careful track.

Was that because she knew her time was limited?

Merrick wanted to reach for her, wanted to comfort her, but even ifshewanted that—which was unlikely—he wasn’t sure of what to say or do.

Danny’s mouth opened wide, and he released a loud, prolonged yawn.

Adalynn glanced at her brother, then down to her own plate, which was nearly clear. She seemed surprised, as though she’d not realized how much she’d eaten as she talked.

Her eyes rose to meet Merrick’s. “Thank you. For the food, and for letting us stay the night. We can find our way back to the…parlor? And I promise we won’t break anything on the way.”

If they were going to stay, that was the easiest arrangement; it kept them in a centralized location with little they could damage, and they’d be close to the front door when he kicked them out in the morning. But Adalynn still looked so worn, so tired, so weak. He couldn’t make her sleep on the couch—the cushions were firm, the armrests were hard, and the pillows were overstuffed and lumpy. It was a fine room for sitting with company, if one were inclined to do so, but it wasn’t adequate for comfortable sleep.

---