the war was hers to wage.
So let it hurt. Let her blood be spilled. This time she wouldn’t try to trick death. She would accept her fate, and in doing so, she would save a man from the evil that stalked him here in the heart of the hollow.
As she lowered her arms, a knife slid from her sleeve into her palm. Resolved, she closed her fingers around it. She saw Ezekiel’s face in the gloom, lit from within by the madness that consumed him.
When his blade fell yet again, she aimed and plunged her own into his chest.
His eyes widened, his hand stilled. His body froze beneath its cloak.
Ezekiel dropped to the ground at her feet, blood flowing like a river from his wound.
Sadie’s breath rushed out. She’d stopped him. There was no longer a reason for the evil to be called up, no need for the poison within it to destroy an innocent soul. The man-sized raven would turn back into what he had been, what he still should be, and life would resume its normal rhythm.
Yet when she turned to watch the separation occur, her heart stuttered.
The raven stood, as solid and malevolent as ever, half bird, half man, staring at her through eyes that glowed red and vengeful.
“What is done cannot be undone, Sadie Bellam. You have your own battle to fight, and he who is me to help you conquer what comes.”
What did he mean, he who was him? Frustration linked with fear even as the creature closed enormous black wings around his body and dissolved into the night.
It started slowly, a mere thread of sound beneath the raging wind. She spun back, but saw nothing. No one.
“Daughter of the witch.” Laughter permeated the silky voice slithering into her head. “Do not be deceived. There is no one in the hollow who can help you. All that you see tonight, your mind has conjured...except for me!”
The voice rose to a roar as another cloaked shape reared up. This one wielded a much larger knife than Ezekiel’s. She saw a gleam of insanity in the eyes that locked briefly on hers.
“Your blade struck a false mark, Sadie Bellam. Be assured, mine will not!”
As the knife pierced her skin, pain exploded in Sadie’s chest. She knew then what it was to die. The taste of it was bitter copper in her throat.
The hollow faded in and out, and her mind spiraled into a pool of black. An iron fist closed around her lungs. She saw claws reaching for her from above.
And woke as she always did—gasping for air on the floor beside her bed.
Chapter Two
“Variations on a theme.”
Standing on the sidewalk outside the pharmacy in Raven’s Hollow, Maine, Sadie rubbed the lingering chill from her bare arms and willed the nightmare that had spawned it away.
But the ice in her veins wasn’t something her mind, or the unseasonal warm spell that had the early October temperatures hovering in the low eighties, could affect. It was simply there, so often in recent days that she was growing inured to it.
“You could exercise before you go to sleep,” her cousin Molly suggested.
“Tried it. Didn’t help.”
“You said the dreams vary. In what way?”
Sadie considered for a moment. “The cast of characters is always the same. It’s the setting that changes. But no matter where it plays out, I wind up on my bedroom floor, gasping for air and checking for blood.”
“It sounds—not like fun. Especially the checking-for-blood part. Do you think you could be possessed? Or maybe channeling our ancestor?”
“You think I’m channeling a three-hundred-year-old ghost?” Even knowing Molly was serious, Sadie quirked her lips. “Okay, I doubt that. And possession’s even more out there. My guess is it’s a residual memory.”
“Of our cousin Laura’s death?”
Dropping both her sunglasses and a firm mental shield in place, Sadie regarded the cloudless blue sky over Raven’s Hollow. “The anniversary of her murder’s coming up in ten days.”
“Yes, but, Sadie, Laura died twenty years ago.”
“I know. Look, this topic’s too uncomfortable for me right now. I need to move past it before I spook myself into doing something ridiculous, like consulting a hypnotist. All I wanted when I came into the drugstore was to show you a preview of tomorrow’s B-Section headline.” At Molly’s level stare, she rolled her eyes. “Yes, fine, and buy a bottle of Tylenol.”
Satisfied, her cousin lifted the ponytail from her neck. “You’ve bought two bottles of Tylenol in the last week, Sadie. You don’t usually go through that many in a whole year.” She frowned. “Meaning you have a problem either at home or at the newspaper. And since you put in three years with the Philadelphia Inquirer and two more with the Washington Post, I can’t see our Mini-Me daily overstressing you. So, home it is. And seeing as you live alone...”
“Right, good, got it.” Sadie waved her to a halt. “Your deductive skills are as sharp as ever—and FYI, the offer for you to come and help me run the Chronicle stands.”
Her cousin’s mouth compressed. “You know I’m not good with people.”
“Molly, you’re a pharmacist. You talk to people all day long.”
“I’m in control—well, sort of in control behind the counter. Reporters have to wade into unfamiliar territory and be cheerful, sneaky, sly, whatever it takes to gain an interviewee’s confidence.”
“I said help me run the paper, not trick your friends and neighbors into telling you all their dirty little secrets.”
Molly let her ponytail drop and her shoulders hunch. “I hear plenty of secrets without wading or tricking. Too many some days. Example, Ben Leamer’s sister came in this morning.”
“Ah.” Sadie worked up a smile. “Boils or hemorrhoids?”
“Both. She went into detail for forty minutes.”
“And I’m complaining about a few nightmares. Having said that, and seriously hoping you won’t elaborate on the state of Dorothy Leamer’s hemorrhoids, I’ll ask again, what did you think of my headline?” She dangled the sample copy for her cousin to see.
Raven’s Cove’s Oldest Resident Breezes Into His Second Century.
“It’s good.” Molly pushed her hands into the pockets of her smock. “The photo of old Rooney in his cottage is perfect.”
“Why do I sense a but?”
“Don’t
