There was no need to tell her to stay next to him. He knew she would.

“Look to the right, where the tree trunk splits,” she murmured.

It took him a moment, but he finally saw it: the remnants of a small bundle of dried mistletoe hanging from the tree, tied with a leather cord. A small wooden medallion hung from the cord. A druid had been here, recognized it as a place of evil, and tried to contain it.

“Is the spell active?” he asked under his breath.

“No. It doesn’t radiate magic. It’s a linked ward and someone has broken it.”

Magic and wards weren’t his expertise, but he’d learned what he had to from Kate. A linked ward meant that identical wards had been placed all around the perimeter of the mall, forming a ring, each ward a link in a chain. If one link was severed, the chain broke, and the containment failed.

She shuddered. He felt her fear. Something about this place deeply creeped her out.

The mist thickened to the right, twisting. He pretended not to see the woman who stepped out of it. She was about twenty-eight or thirty, white and very pale. A ragged dress hung off her shoulders, once probably blue or green, but now faded to a dirty grey and damp. Her stomach bulged out—she looked either dangerously bloated or about seven months pregnant. She didn’t smell pregnant. She wore no bra, and the fabric snagged on her erect nipples, tracing the contours of breasts. Her dishwater-blond hair fell to below her waist, framing her face like a curtain. It might have been a pretty face, he reflected, with sharp but delicate features, except her eyes were too hungry.

She walked up to the edge of the parking lot and stopped. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re waiting to meet someone,” Julie said.

“This is a dangerous place. Come with me. I have food.”

Julie looked at him. He read hesitation in her eyes.

“She has food,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.

“Then we should come.”

“Come with me,” the woman repeated, backing up. “Come.”

If he were alone, it probably wouldn’t have been food. It might have been sex. Or both.

He stepped into the parking lot, moving slowly, careful where he put his feet, tapping the stick in front of him. Julie followed closely. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the mist flood behind them, a milky impenetrable curtain.

“Come,” the woman repeated, moving deeper into the lot, toward the spire.