She had cut him. The bitch had cut him.

Jerkily, he opened the van door and stepped out into the summer’s night. He was on one of the winding country roads that ran back to Fiddler’s Mill, and it was utterly dark, with no street lights in sight. Overhead, the stars were bright and clear, and the moon was not quite full. Normally he would have taken a great deal of pleasure in such an evening – he could smell all the good green smells, and somewhere in the distance a vixen was screeching for her mate – but the pain in his arm blotted all that out, made it irrelevant.

Again, uselessly, he replayed what had happened in his mind, looking for his mistake. He had followed the woman as she walked back from the pub, far enough back that he was certain she had been unaware of him, at least at first. She had taken a path along a canal, poorly lit and deserted, and when she had done that he had been certain; this woman would be coming with him. Her heart would go deep into the black earth of Fiddler’s Wood, and the rest of her he would cover in flowers. But when he had caught up with her, laying one strong arm across her shoulders, the face she’d turned on him hadn’t been rigid with terror or surprise – she hadn’t gasped or screamed. The face she’d turned on him had been angry. Furious.

On the quiet road, Michael walked around to the back of the van, thinking.

The woman had fought him. He was the barghest, he was the wolf, but she had pulled a box cutter, of all things, from her bag and slashed at him with it, tearing through his thin shirt and across the skin underneath. It had only taken him a moment to strike it from her hands, and she only managed to cut him that once, but … What did it mean, if the barghest bled? Had he chosen the wrong one? Was that possible?

In another, more logical part of his mind, Michael wondered if people had been paying attention to the news lately, and had noted the number of women going missing in the area. Perhaps this one wasn’t the only girl to go out walking with a blade in her handbag.

He had had the sense to pick the box cutter up and take it with him, at least.

Casting a glance back down the road to make sure there were no lights approaching, he opened the back doors of the van. Her body was a crumpled form in the back, her hands and her face pale shapes in the gloom. One of her shoes had come off, and her foot was thrust out at him. In the struggle, her tights had been laddered all over.