When Jack returned to the brook, Kleo was nowhere to be found. His search of the fortress had yielded little, but something sinister had made itself known. He’d felt it—a presence that reached for him, brushing against his senses like icy fingers. It lingered in the shadows of the main building, where flickering lights danced through cracked windows. The sound of strange music and sporadic clapping had drawn him closer, but when the presence turned its attention to him, Jack decided not to linger.

  He avoided retracing his steps, taking an unpredictable route back to the brook, careful to avoid being followed. The woods were silent, the kind of silence that made him question whether he was alone.

  Now, standing by the brook, his eyes followed the swirling currents as water cascaded over jagged rocks. The sound was soothing, but he worried its natural rhythm would mask anything that might stir in the shadows.

  He waited. Where was Kleo?

  The woods were too quiet, and he found it hard to relax. Still, things seemed safe enough for the moment.

  He was alone. Or so he thought.

  The sensation hit him suddenly—a sharp and insistent chill, beginning at the base of his skull and cascading down his spine, spreading outward like frost creeping across glass. His breath caught, and his muscles tightened instinctively. The air felt heavy and cold like the world had shifted imperceptibly, just enough to let something otherworldly slip through.

  Jack turned his head slowly as if any sudden movement might trigger whatever was now in his presence.

  And that’s when he saw her.

  A strange woman stood so close he jerked in surprise. Her pale, porcelain skin glowed in the dim light. She wore a long, flowing white dress, pristine yet out of place in this wilderness, with a black veil draped over her head, its length trailing down her back like a mourning shroud.

  A skeletal and bleached white hand reached out, grasping a tall reed topped with a fuzzy cattail. With a deliberate motion, she used one razor-sharp black nail to sever it from its stalk. She held it to her nose to sniff, but her interest waned, and she dropped it into the water below.

  The chill deepened, sinking into Jack’s core as her hollow black eyes—voids that seemed to devour the light—met his gaze. The air around her shimmered with a dark, deep purple aura of magic, and her cracked, blackened lips twisted into a smile that was anything but comforting.

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  Jack tried to step back, but before he could react, her hand shot out, skeletal fingers closing around his throat. Her grip was impossibly firm, the sharp nails slicing into his skin. She slammed him back against a tree with force, and his body wracked with pain.

  Unable to summon a single word or breath, she leaned in, her face inches from his, and her long, purple-black tongue darted out, tracing a cold, wet line across his cheek. Jack’s stomach churned with revulsion, but he was frozen, utterly powerless under her grasp.

  Her cracked lips curled into a grin as she pressed her mouth to his in a grotesque parody of a kiss. Her tongue, sharp-tipped and serpentine, forced its way into his mouth, dark and suffocating. Jack gagged, his senses overwhelmed by the acrid, metallic taste that filled him, but he couldn’t fight back.

  As she pulled away, her teeth caught his lower lip, biting down hard enough to draw blood. A faint, icy trickle slid down his chin. She released him, her hollow eyes watching with cruel satisfaction as he slumped against the tree, his strength draining away like water through a sieve.

  “The spell is set, my love. When you wake up, find me. I’ll be waiting.”

  Jack tried to find something snarky to reply, but the world was already slipping away. His vision blurred, his limbs grew heavy, and the last thing he saw was her spectral figure fading into the shadows, leaving him alone in the dark.

  Jack groaned as awareness crept back in. The first thing he registered was Kleo’s sharp and urgent voice, her hands gripping his shoulders, shaking him awake.

  “Jack! Wake up!”

  “Wha… what’s up?” he mumbled. He was still groggy from whatever that thing had done to him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kleo demanded, her tone teetering on the edge of fury.

  “Uh…” Jack scratched the back of his head, trying to piece things together. “The last thing I remember is this woman kissing me, and then…” His voice trailed off as he glanced around. “And then you woke me up.”

  Kleo froze, her eyes narrowing. “Excuse me?” Her tone could have sliced through steel.

  Jack winced, the memory of pale skin and black fetid lips flashing through his mind. “Oh. Don’t worry; she was ugly enough to make a blind kid cry.”

  Kleo blinked at him, momentarily stunned into silence.

  “So, just to recap,” she said, her voice low and simmering, “while I’m out there hunting down a three-hundred fifty-pound demon wolf from hell, you’re kissing other women?”

  Jack grimaced. “It’s not what it sounds like—”

  “Do you know how big that thing is, Jack?!” she interrupted, her voice rising.

  “It’s very fucking big. At least twice my size and three times my body weight.”

  She pushed her finger into his chest to emphasize something; Jack wasn’t sure what.

  And it’s mean, Jack, really fucking mean. I swear to the goddess Jack when it pinned me to the ground; I swear it was going to piss on me. It’s that kind of mean.”

  Jack’s jaw dropped. “Holy crap. That is mean—and rude. What happened?”

  Some of the shrillness subsided, but there was still a sharp edge to her voice.

  “It ambushed me, but I managed to get away.”

  “How?” Jack asked, his tone genuinely curious.

  Kleo folded her arms, leveling him with a glare.

  “I kicked it in the junk, Jack. Hard.”

  Jack flinched in sympathetic pain. “Ouch.”

  Kleo leaned in, her voice dropping into a deadly calm.

  “And if you ever kiss another woman without my permission, Jack—that’s exactly what I’ll do to you.”

  Jack raised his hands in surrender, eyes wide. “Heard. Very, very heard.”