sun crisping around the edges of the tree canopy would define the wings for sure.
Having released her wrist, the man stalked five paces ahead of her, forging a path as he stomped fallen branches. Kizzy stopped and lifted the camera to her eye. Trying to focus through the tree trunks and thankful the zoom lens was still attached because she generally used a prime lens. She tracked one creature, snapping repeatedly. If she took a hundred shots she might end up with a handful of good ones.
“What are you doing? They are after you!” He tried to grab her wrist again, but she kicked toward his shin. He dodged swiftly, and she missed. “Don’t you understand?”
“What makes you think they are after me? I was doing fine, enjoying a nice stroll in the park, until you showed up!”
“Is that the way of it?” He gestured with a splay of hands. “Fend for yourself!” He turned and loped off, tracking through the brush to the right.
And Kizzy saw the dark shadows trace the ground and felt the chilling sweep of wings overhead. She may be brave, but she wasn’t stupid. “I changed my mind!”
Her day had morphed into an Alfred Hitchcock movie on testosterone. And she wasn’t about to become bird food.
She stuffed the camera into the bag at her hip. Tramping over the loamy, leaf-covered forest floor, she stumbled on a fallen log and caught her hands against a wide tree trunk frosted with moss. While normally she’d inhale the scents of nature, all she could smell was her anxiety.
One of the birds lunged toward the man in front of her, and he shot it with some kind of arrow. From a small device that looked like a pistol yet it hadn’t made a sound when it had fired.
Like a small crossbow? Who was that guy? And what fairy-tale chase had she fallen into? Robin Hood had always been her favorite, even the Disney cartoon fox version of the hero held an appeal.
Carefully, she crept closer to him and witnessed him take out another of the harpies with the arrow-shooting pistol. When the final harpie swooped over her head, she ducked and loosed a necessary scream.
“Stay there! Low!”
Clasping her hands over her head, she followed directions, cowering against the base of an oak tree’s gnarly roots. Heartbeats racing, she was suddenly thankful that if attack by crazy birds was her fate, at least she had some kind of rescuing hero who wielded a worthy weapon on her side.
So she would trust him. Because right now he offered her best hope.
She observed him watching the circling bird. Lean and tall, his biceps and pecs flexed beneath the gray T-shirt as he tracked the remaining creature with the hand-sized crossbow. His footing sure, he turned at the hips, a graceful predator. Aiming, one eye closed, a twitch of his finger released the trigger. The bird screeched and dropped out of the sky, its wings snagging the leaves and landing...right beside Kizzy.
She swore and scrambled over a tree root and toward the man. But then she stopped. She had no reason to be afraid of a dead creature. And, holy Hannah, it was a creature!
She pulled the camera out of the bag, and—
“Oh, no.” He slipped his hand into one of hers. “No time. More could be coming. I made clean shots, straight through the hearts. They’ll dissipate to feathers in minutes. No worry of cleanup, thank the gods. My truck is this way.”
She followed him, regretting only that she hadn’t time to snap a photo, but thinking that she had tons of questions that he would answer before she let him get away. Maybe. The urge to flee from him was also strong.
At the forest’s edge, which was about two city blocks away from town, he paused and searched the sky. But a few streaks of pink and gold lingered from the setting sun.
“All clear. Come on!” With her hand still in his, he raced across the grassy lawn toward the curb where a black Ford truck was parked.
“I can get home on my own,” she said, her voice wobbling as his pace did not let up until he’d reached the vehicle. But really? She’d head back into the forest first with hope of getting a picture before the creatures turned to a heap of feathers.
“Absolutely not.”
Controlling much? So she’d forego the questions. A sudden nervousness urged her to run from him. Forget about the awesome creatures lying dead in the forest. This man might be the one she should fear the most.
When he opened the passenger door and waited for her to get in, Kizzy took a moment to really gaze at his face. Wide-set blue eyes didn’t look at her so much as keep her in peripheral view as he scanned the sky. A thick beard hugged his square jaw, and an equally dark mustache stretched down to the beard. He still wore the hat. How he’d not lost it while racing through the forest was beyond her. The whole outfit gave him an Indiana Jones vibe.
With a paranormal bent? He knew about those harpies. Had come armed to take them out. She’d be a fool to run off without questioning him.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Or maybe the better question should be what are you?”
“Bron Everhart,” he said, his attention averting to the sky. “There’s more!”
She looked over her shoulder in the direction he pointed. Holy Hannah, there were more. Flying toward them. She gripped the camera. “Why are they after us?”
“I was tracking...” He shoved her at the shoulder. “Get in. I’ll explain as we drive. I want to lure them away from the town. And if they continue to follow the truck, then I’ll know it’s you they’re after.”
She hadn’t a chance to protest that maybe it was him they wanted. But Kizzy didn’t need a shove to get inside the truck. Stand her ground and refuse the crazy man’s assistance? Or get inside the vehicle where she had a metal frame and glass to protect her from the weird flying things?
She climbed up and pulled the door shut. The driver’s door slammed a second later, and the ignition fired up.
“I don’t understand why harpies would come after me,” she said as the truck pulled away from the curb. “I’m not anyone. I’m just a photographer. Yet, how cool were they?” she said with an incredulous tone. “I mean, I believe in faeries and vampires and have always dreamed of seeing some kind of creature some day.”
“Vampires, eh?” He shifted into Drive and cast her a head-shaking smirk as he turned the vehicle away from town.
“Just take me home,” she said quickly. Then she could hop on her bike and return to the forest. “I’m staying in an apartment in the middle of town. It’s a couple miles that way.”
“And lure them into the city? And give them the location of where you’re staying?”
Put like that it didn’t sound like a smart thing to do. Her eagerness to get a good photograph of the myth was making her foolish. She had to think of others. Would the harpies risk flying into the town? She didn’t have any weapons. And while she took risks to get the perfect shot, she wasn’t a danger seeker who would stand at a cliff’s edge peering over.
“Bron? Is that what you said your name was?”
“Has been all my life. Buckle up.”
