Hidden Moon (Nightcreature 7)

"Like my life?"

"One never knows when the end may come. And the end as we know it is not the end. Nothing dies without being reborn. Death is a doorway. "

I suppose that was meant to be comforting, but it wasn't.

"Page of swords. " Edana pointed to the final card with a frown. "Someone is watching you. "

Balthazar and his minions most likely. They never went away.

She muttered something in Romani that sounded suspiciously curselike, and I glanced up. She stared, transfixed, at her crystal ball. Within the glass, smoke swirled, gray, like fog or mist.

"Here we go again," I muttered. What was it lately with mist?

"Beware the devil" - Edana's eyes and her voice had gone flat, as if she was in a trance - "who is a shape-shifter. "

A shape-shifter?

I lowered my gaze, just as the mist parted inside the crystal ball. At the edges, shadows of different shapes and various sizes milled, none distinct enough to be classified as man or beast.

Until the lean, black wolf appeared in the center of the crystal ball, paw lifted as if it had heard the scuttle of something small and tasty. As the animal tilted back its magnificent head, its eyes met mine.

They were human.

Chapter 25

"What the hell is that?"

My voice was so loud I brought Edana out of her trance.

"What?" She shook her head as if to clear it.

"In there. " I pointed.

The crystal was empty.

She peered at me curiously. "You saw something?"

"Didn't you?"

"I. . . " She paused and rubbed her eyes. "Don't remember. "

" 'Beware the devil who is a shape-shifter,'" I recited.

Her hands fell down her eyebrows flew up. "I said that?"

She glanced uneasily behind me. I did, too. Nothing was there.

"You did. There were shadows, everywhere; then a wolf appeared in the damn ball. " I yanked up the tablecloth, peering beneath the table. "How did you do that?"

There was nothing under the table but Edana's skirt-shrouded legs.

I stared at the ceiling, searching for a camera or a projector; then I stalked to the drapes and yanked them aside. All that lay behind them was a beach-type lounge chair, which had seen better days, and a cooler full of water and Gatorade.

Gatorade?

I returned to the front of the tent. "What's going on?"

"My magic is seeing the future and the past. I cannot make things appear that don't exist. "