Taken at Dusk (44 page)

“God, no.”

The ghost disappeared. Kylie shot up to go find Holiday when another voice spoke behind her.

“Kylie?”

Recognizing Daniel’s voice, she swung around. “Daddy,” she said, and hugged him.

His cold arms came around her. When she pulled back, she saw he had tears in his eyes.

“That’s the first time you called me that.”

“I guess it just took me a while,” she said.

He smiled and touched her face.
“I met my real mother for the first time. She sure was proud of her granddaughter.”

“She seemed sweet. She loved you so much.”

“I know,”
he said. Suddenly he faded a bit.
“I don’t have much time, Kylie. But I found the answer you wanted.”

“What answer?” she asked, scared to believe.

“What we are. My mother finally remembered.”

“And?” Kylie held her breath.

“We’re chameleons.”

Kylie shook her head as she tried to grasp what he meant. “We’re lizards? What does that mean?”

He faded a bit more.
“I don’t know.”

“We can change our patterns. Is that what it means?” she asked.

“I have no more answers,”
he said.
“But soon. Soon we will discover this together.”

“Together?” she asked.

He nodded, and the cold and what vapor was left of his visual spirit faded even more.

“I’m going to die?” she asked as the icy tremors prickled her skin.

He didn’t have the chance to answer, but she could swear she saw him shake his head. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

She stood there on the porch, trying to breathe, trying to come to terms with what she had learned. She was a chameleon. She might be about to die. And … she remembered the face of the ghost—the one who showed up before her father. She might not be the only one who was going to die.

“Holiday?” Kylie called out as she stormed back into the office.

Life really wasn’t going to get any easier.

Will Kylie figure out how to harness her new powers?

Find out in
Whispers at Moonrise,
the fourth book in C. C. Hunter’s Shadow Falls series!

Read on for a preview.

Available from St. Martin’s Griffin in October 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Christie Craig

Kylie Galen stood on the porch outside the Shadow Falls office, panic stabbing at her sanity. A gust of late August wind, still chilled by her father’s departing spirit, picked up her long strands of blond hair and scattered them across her face. She didn’t brush them away. Nor did she breathe. She just stood there, air trapped in her lungs, while she stared through the wisps of hair at the trees swaying in the breeze.

Why does life have to be so hard?
The question rolled around her head like a Ping-Pong ball gone wild. Then the answer spun back just as quick.

Because she wasn’t all human. For the last few months, she’d struggled to identify the type of non-human blood she had rushing through her veins. Now she knew.

Or at least, according to her dear ol’ dad, she knew. She was … a chameleon. As in a lizard, just like the ones she’d seen sunning in her backyard. Okay, so maybe not just like those, but close enough. And here she’d been worried about being a vampire or a werewolf because it would be a little hard to adjust to drinking blood or shape-shifting on full moons. But this … this was … unfathomable. Her father had to be wrong about that, didn’t he?

Her heart pounded against her breastbone as if seeking escape. She finally breathed. In, and then out. Her thoughts shot away from the lizard issue to the other bad stuff.

Yup. In the last five minutes she’d been slapped with not one, not two, not even three, but with four oh-crap eye-opening revelations.

A little voice of reason inside her head spoke up. One of the things—Derek’s confession that he loved her—couldn’t completely be called bad. But it sure as hell couldn’t be called good. Not now. Not when she’d basically considered them history. When she’d spent the last few weeks trying to convince herself that they were just friends.

Her mind juggled all four disclosures. She didn’t know which to focus on first. Or maybe her mind did know.
She was a freaking lizard!

“For real?” she spoke aloud. The Texas wind snatched away her words; she hoped it would take them all the way to her father, wherever the dead who hadn’t completely passed over went to wait. “Seriously, Dad? A lizard?”

Of course, Dad didn’t answer. After two months of dealing with one spirit or another, the whole ghost-whispering gift and its limitations still managed to piss her off. “Damn!”

She took another step toward the main office’s door to unload on Holiday, the camp leader, then stopped. Burnett, the other camp leader and a cold-to-the-touch but hot-to-look-at vampire, was with Holiday. Since Kylie couldn’t hear them arguing anymore, she figured that meant they might be doing something else. And yes, by something else, she meant sucking face, swapping spit, and doing the tongue tango. All phrases her bad-attitude vampire roommate Della would use. Which probably meant Kylie was in a bad mood. But didn’t she deserve a little attitude after everything that had happened?

Gripping her fists, she stared at the office’s front door. She’d inadvertently interrupted Burnett and Holiday’s first kiss, and she didn’t want to do the same with their second.

Besides, maybe she needed to calm down a little. To chill. To think things through before she ran to Holiday in her bad-attitude hysterics. Her thoughts shifted to her latest ghost issue. How could a ghost of someone who was alive appear to Kylie? A trick, right? It had to be a trick.

She glanced around to make sure the ghost had really gone. It had. Or at least the cold had vanished. All this at one time was just too much.

Turning, she shot down the porch steps and headed around to the back of the office. She started running, wanting to experience the sense of freedom she got when she ran, when she ran fast, ran non-human fast.

The wind picked up her black dress and sent the hem dancing against her thighs. Her feet moved in rhythm, barely missing the Reeboks she usually wore, but when she arrived at the edge of the woods, she came to an abrupt halt—so abrupt that the heels on her black shoes cut deep ruts into the earth.

She couldn’t go into the woods. She didn’t have a shadow—the mandatory person with her to help ward off the evil Mario and his other rogue buddies if they decided to attack.

Attack again.

So far the old man’s attempts had proved futile at ending her life, but two of those times had resulted in the death of someone else.

Guilt fluttered through her already tight chest, followed by fear. Mario had proven how far he’d go to get to her, how evil he was when he’d taken his own grandson’s life right in front of her. How could anyone be that wicked?

She stared at the line of trees and watched as their leaves danced in the breeze. It was a completely normal slice of scenery that should have put her at peace.

But she felt no peace. The woods, or rather, something that hid within, almost dared her to enter. Taunted her to move into the thick line of trees. Confused by the strange feeling, she tried to push it away, but the feeling persisted, even intensified.

She inhaled the green scent of the forest, and right then she knew.

Knew with clarity.

Knew with certainty.

Mario wouldn’t give up. And she wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t, give in. Sooner or later she would face Mario again. And it wouldn’t be serene, tranquil, or peaceful. Only one of them would walk away.

You will not be alone.
The words echoed deep within her as if to offer her peace. No peace came. The shadows between the trees danced on the ground, calling her, beckoning her. To do what, she didn’t know, and along with the unknown came questions. Frightening questions.

Trepidation took another lap around her chest. She dug the heels of her shoes deeper into the hard dirt. The heel of her right shoe cracked—an ominous little sound that seemed to punctuate the silence.

“Crap!” She stared down at her feet. The one word seemed to have been yanked from the air and nothing but a hum of eeriness remained.

And that’s when she heard it.

Someone drew in a raspy breath. While the sound came only at a whisper, she knew that the owner of this breath stood behind her. Stood close. And since no chill of death surrounded her, she knew it wasn’t from the spirit world.

The sound came again. Someone fed life-giving air into their lungs. Odd how she now feared the living more than she feared the dead.

Her heart thudded to a sudden stop. Much like grooves left in the earth by her three-inch heels, her growing fear left ruts in her courage. Deep, painful ruts that made her shiver inside.

She wasn’t ready. If it was Mario, she wasn’t ready. Whatever it was she needed to do, whatever plan or fate she was destined to follow, she needed more time.

ALSO BY C. C. HUNTER

Born at Midnight

Awake at Dawn

About the Author

C. C. Hunter lives in Spring, Texas, where she’s at work on her next Shadow Falls novel. To learn more, visit her on the Web at
www.cchunterbooks.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

TAKEN AT DUSK.
Copyright © 2012 by Christie Craig. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Hunter, C. C.

Taken at dusk / C.C. Hunter.—1st ed.

        p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-62469-9 (trade paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4299-3844-0 (e-book)

  1.  Supernatural—Fiction.   2.  Ghosts—Fiction.   3.  Camps —Fiction.   4.  Love—Fiction.   5.  Juvenile fiction / fantasy and magic.   I.  Title.

PZ7.H916565Tak 2012

[Fic]—dc23

2011045137

e-ISBN 9781429938440

First Edition: April 2012