torch
everything in the vicinity with its dying breath.
There was nothing to be done for the
creature, but a moan came from the man and Summer turned her
attention to him. He was trying to turn onto his back from being
practically wrapped around a tree. Black stains soiled his shredded
shirt. She assumed the lack of light in the forest was making the
blood look black. Either way, black or red, there was a lot of it.
If he didn’t get some medical care he would bleed out in a matter
of minutes.
She pulled him away from the trunk and laid
him flat, and then ripped off the remains of his shirt to use as a
compress against a nasty gash on his side under his rib cage. She
pulled at his belt until it was free, and then quickly wrapped it
around his upper thigh to slow the bleeding at yet another bad
laceration. She tore several long strips from the bottom of her
nightgown to make another compress for his leg, and then secured
both compresses with more strips from her gown. He rolled to his
side and she jumped a bit, for she could have sworn his face
changed to something fanged and gargoyle-ish and then back to that
of a man. She told herself it was just the lighting playing tricks
with her.
“Are you okay?” Summer asked.
“Not exactly,” he said hoarsely.
“Can you walk?”
“With help, yes, I think so,” he said
wincing.
“My name is Summer,” she said, helping him
to a standing position. She supported much of his weight as they
hobbled forward toward the creature and out of the forest, back to
her cottage.
“Hunter, my name is Hunter,” he said behind
clenched teeth.
She stumbled once under his weight, but kept
them moving. She had a thousand questions for Hunter, but it was
taking every ounce of her strength to keep them upright and
moving.
She would have taken him to the main house,
but there were no lights on and she didn’t want to scare Ms.
Midnight in the middle of the night with a strange, injured man and
an even stranger story. It was a workout, but they made it into the
cottage where she deposited the man on the couch after shoving the
mysterious envelope the sisters had given her out of the way.
She turned on the lights and grabbed her
cellphone, and turned back to Hunter on the couch. She nearly
dropped the phone as his face once again morphed from a handsome
human face to something nightmarish, and back again. She noticed
too that the dark stains were indeed black, NOT red. It hadn’t been
a trick of the light. Her mind flooded with questions and doubts
and she wondered what she had brought into her new home. The only
thing she knew for certain was Hunter was something other than
human.
The look on her face told him he had better
explain things about himself and fast or she’d be no use to him as
a caregiver.
“What…what are you?” she stuttered as panic
started at her toes and worked its way up her body, into her chest
making it incredibly hard to breathe or think.
“I don’t mean to scare you, Summer,” he
said, clearly in a great amount of pain. “I’m a demon and…” That
was all he could utter before passing out, his face morphing back
into something only nightmares are made of.
“A demon?” Summer said out loud to an
unconscious Hunter.
She sat for a moment after Hunter’s
declaration. She thought back on the dragon shadow she had seen at
her window and her meeting with Daniel, the fallen angel who’d
confessed to watching over her all her life. Not to mention the
vampire she’d had a date with earlier that evening.
Now a demon and whatever that creature
was in the woods? Sister Mary Louise certainly never told her
all these things in her teachings. Had she been just sheltered from
these things at the orphanage? Or had she somehow plunged into some
strange supernatural dimension? Maybe she was still asleep? She
almost got up to see if she’d find her body in bed but the thought
of yet another supernatural event like astral projection was too
much to handle.
She
everything in the vicinity with its dying breath.
There was nothing to be done for the
creature, but a moan came from the man and Summer turned her
attention to him. He was trying to turn onto his back from being
practically wrapped around a tree. Black stains soiled his shredded
shirt. She assumed the lack of light in the forest was making the
blood look black. Either way, black or red, there was a lot of it.
If he didn’t get some medical care he would bleed out in a matter
of minutes.
She pulled him away from the trunk and laid
him flat, and then ripped off the remains of his shirt to use as a
compress against a nasty gash on his side under his rib cage. She
pulled at his belt until it was free, and then quickly wrapped it
around his upper thigh to slow the bleeding at yet another bad
laceration. She tore several long strips from the bottom of her
nightgown to make another compress for his leg, and then secured
both compresses with more strips from her gown. He rolled to his
side and she jumped a bit, for she could have sworn his face
changed to something fanged and gargoyle-ish and then back to that
of a man. She told herself it was just the lighting playing tricks
with her.
“Are you okay?” Summer asked.
“Not exactly,” he said hoarsely.
“Can you walk?”
“With help, yes, I think so,” he said
wincing.
“My name is Summer,” she said, helping him
to a standing position. She supported much of his weight as they
hobbled forward toward the creature and out of the forest, back to
her cottage.
“Hunter, my name is Hunter,” he said behind
clenched teeth.
She stumbled once under his weight, but kept
them moving. She had a thousand questions for Hunter, but it was
taking every ounce of her strength to keep them upright and
moving.
She would have taken him to the main house,
but there were no lights on and she didn’t want to scare Ms.
Midnight in the middle of the night with a strange, injured man and
an even stranger story. It was a workout, but they made it into the
cottage where she deposited the man on the couch after shoving the
mysterious envelope the sisters had given her out of the way.
She turned on the lights and grabbed her
cellphone, and turned back to Hunter on the couch. She nearly
dropped the phone as his face once again morphed from a handsome
human face to something nightmarish, and back again. She noticed
too that the dark stains were indeed black, NOT red. It hadn’t been
a trick of the light. Her mind flooded with questions and doubts
and she wondered what she had brought into her new home. The only
thing she knew for certain was Hunter was something other than
human.
The look on her face told him he had better
explain things about himself and fast or she’d be no use to him as
a caregiver.
“What…what are you?” she stuttered as panic
started at her toes and worked its way up her body, into her chest
making it incredibly hard to breathe or think.
“I don’t mean to scare you, Summer,” he
said, clearly in a great amount of pain. “I’m a demon and…” That
was all he could utter before passing out, his face morphing back
into something only nightmares are made of.
“A demon?” Summer said out loud to an
unconscious Hunter.
She sat for a moment after Hunter’s
declaration. She thought back on the dragon shadow she had seen at
her window and her meeting with Daniel, the fallen angel who’d
confessed to watching over her all her life. Not to mention the
vampire she’d had a date with earlier that evening.
Now a demon and whatever that creature
was in the woods? Sister Mary Louise certainly never told her
all these things in her teachings. Had she been just sheltered from
these things at the orphanage? Or had she somehow plunged into some
strange supernatural dimension? Maybe she was still asleep? She
almost got up to see if she’d find her body in bed but the thought
of yet another supernatural event like astral projection was too
much to handle.
She
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