Shawn had clearly said that the monsters were a coven and that was what Greg and his brother Michael were. That to me, seemed like a sick joke, that shouldn't have been funny. But somehow, it really was.
More funny, was the fact that it could possibly be true.
When my laughter had subsided, I stood wearily and touched my burning shoulder. I pulled my hand back in surprise and eyed the scarlet on my palm. I was badly bleeding.
"Oh fu*ck! I hate this night!"
After everything that had happened, I knew I was lucky to be alive, unlike my poor phone. Still, it was sarcasm, not gratitude that bubbled out, "So, let me guess their mother is a witch. And I will be right calling her mother witch?"
Shawn kicked the bloody sword into a stand of weedy grass. Without asking permission, he placed his hand on my neck and tilted me to one side to examine my wound. "Yes, of course, they all were. Even your late fiancée, you might be asking yourself that!"
"It is too dark out here to see anything" I objected quietly, preferring to ignore what he had said. "I can see well enough to say that you have gotten quite a bite." He sounded calm, too calm like that was just an ordinary thing.
"Bite? You have to be kidding me right?" My voice faded as I recalled the witch movies I had seen in my young age. I didn't know that I had accepted his explanations yet, in fact, I wasn't even sure of what I had seen or heard. But what if it was true? What if they were witches? A lump of cold dread formed in my thoughts and forced me silent.
"Yes, you have been bitten." He peered so closely at the wound that his breath tickled my skin. "It doesn't look like he tore any muscles," he murmured absently. "You will have a scar of course, but you shouldn't need stitches."
He then released me and took a step back. His eyes stayed on the dark trees surrounding us. The trunks close together to form a wall of blackness. "We should keep moving."
He started to move away, but I stayed hanging back, my mind spinning. If those were witches, and I had been bitten, "does that mean I'll be uhm?"
Shawn turned back to me and cut my words, "A witch?" He sounded amused. "No, that's only a myth. It takes a lot more of that to be a witch."
"Oh well!" I felt an odd relief. "They don't have any power over me or anything, right? I read that in a book one day." Shawn shook his head to the negative. "The one who had a bit on you is dead, but even if he wasn't he wouldn't have any control over you. It really doesn't work like that." He glanced from the trees to my immobile form. His dark eyes seemed to see past my brave front, to the scared little girl inside. "We need to keep moving."
I flushed at the imagined intrusions and moved quickly to join him. "Of course, I'm Sory!" Nighttime sounded around us, they made me so uncomfortable, so I talked over them,
"How does someone become a- uhm a Witch?" I hesitated as I struggled to get these words out of my mouth. I whispered the last word, afraid that saying the name could conjure one of the witches from the thin air.
Despite my logical disbelief, I still wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't. Though I had seen someone and felt the inhuman strength of the man who attacked me, it seemed so absurd.
" It is complicated," He answered. Shrugged his shoulders casually, but his tone made it clear that the conversation was over. We reached the trees and plunged into them. I shivered as the word replayed in my mind. "A coven!"
I glanced around at the darkened land and thought of myself that at that moment there was a good possibility that A coven existed in our pack, out there in our territories. Somehow, the night made everything a little more fictional. It turned everything to muted shades of gray, like an old Boris Karloff film, and cast shadows that hid unspeakable things in my black depths.
I was sure that the next day, when the time came to return to the world of sunshine plastic, and some shiny chrome, it would be a ridiculous impossibility, but at that moment why would there be witches storming the earth?
"You should have brought with you the sword, maybe," my trembling voice betrayed my fear. "It wouldn't do a lot of good out here in the open. Besides, it would be hard to explain should someone see us."
"Of course," Someone running around with a sword would completely look a little out of place, to say the least. In fact, a guy who lived in an abandoned temple and owned a sword would be weird enough. It could be all weird and creepy.
Without anything to say, we walked in silence for some time. I left fear and silence to dominate our walk. I suddenly drew short and cried out. "My baby!" Shawn stopped and surprisingly lo
oked at me as though I was having fit.
"What?"