Page 13 of A Shade of Myself
He mimicked my so-called “dance moves”—aka my deadly weapon handling—muttered a rude comment about idiots, tax dollars, and rescue parties, and strode past me, fitting the earbud back in.
Oh shit. He couldn’t see my magic because of the Sapien perception filter. But he wasn’t truly Sapien either because that dybbuk had fully inhabited him for a second. The man had to have a very weak Ohrist gene, which meant that he had no idea about keeping himself safe during the Danger Zone.
The only good thing about this situation was that I’d dispatched the dybbuk inside him so fast that the man hadn’t collapsed when I severed his shadow.
I headed back to my friends. “We have a problem.”
Ava’s head was bent close to Jude’s. I couldn’t make out her words, but she was speaking to my friend in a low, insistent voice.
Jude glanced at me, twisting a finger into one of her curls so tightly that it was starting to become knotted up.
Sighing, I shut down my magic. I’d rescued Jude when she was taken captive several weeks ago and saved her from her enthralled state. While she was working through her trauma with an Ohrist therapist, clearly seeing my magic in action was triggering memories of how close she’d come to being fully possessed, since she’d been fine on the hike until now.
“Jude—”
“I want to keep up my heart rate.” She pressed two fingers to her wrist. “How about Ava keeps you company and I keep going on my own?”
My best friend couldn’t meet my eyes as she spoke.
“Nah.” I toed at a root sticking out of the ground. “You two go ahead. I need to talk to Tatiana about what we’re going to do with this thin spot, so I’ll take the KH down to the parking lot later.”
“You sure?” Ava darted an anxious glance between me and Jude, as if checking to see who needed her most.
“Totally.” I smiled with a confidence I did not feel. “I’ve had about enough of the Grind for one day, though if anyone asks, I did the whole thing like a boss.”
Jude said a “bye” that was as fake as my smile and left.
Ava readjusted her headband. “She’ll be okay. And you?”
“I’ll be fine. Talk later?”
She nodded and hurried after Jude.
They disappeared around a bend almost immediately.
I sat down on a tree log just off the path, kicking at the dirt with my heel. Jude knew I was dybbuk hunting today. What did she think was going to happen? Obviously, I’d have to use magic. She needed time to get over her ordeal; I understood that and could be as patient as she needed. What was frustrating was her total denial that this was even a problem. She should have been honest with herself—and me—and not accompanied us.
Even if hiding my magic around her solved this, I refused to. It was on Jude to work through her issues because if she couldn’t separate my magic from her kidnapping, I didn’t see a way forward.
I’d even tried to make a to-do list but had failed to come up with a plan to fix this. I rubbed my hand over the back of my neck. Since I could do something about the dybbuk here on the Grind, I pulled out my phone.
Voices drifted up from lower down the trail. “Did you hear he went subthirty?” one man said.
“I can’t get my time to under forty-five minutes,” a woman griped.
“Let’s make it forty-four,” the man said.
The two hikers came into view, sprinting up the trail.
I gaped at them. Forty-five minutes to hike the Grind? I’d be lucky to climb it in two and a half hours. And someone had done it in less than thirty? No way that person was a Sapien. They either had magic or they’d made a deal with the devil.
Shaking my head, I called Tatiana, sharing my findings about the circle.
“It’s unusual but not unheard of.” She made a hmmm sound. “Move it back, Emmett.”
There was a loud thump from her end of the phone.
“Move it yourself,” the golem groused in the background. “You’re killing my back. Besides, I didn’t sign on to rearrange your furniture.”
