The wind howled and the terrifying sound rushed me and all I could do was throw my hands over my eyes and scream. I was sure in that moment my end had come.

My scream ran out of air and I gasped, mind lost to terror. Only then did I realize the wind was gone and the night was still. And I hadn’t been touched.

Slowly I removed my hands from my eyes and stared across the fire. What I saw chilled my bones and stopped my heart.

There, staring at me with white eyes that peered from a hooded, black, swirling shroud, was a Fury.

It hung in the air, feetless. Its thin tattered cloak drifted around its body, if it even had a body. What it did have were arms with long gray fingers and sharp nails. And it had a black head under its hood. Or at least eyes and a mouth. I couldn’t actually see a head. Only white eyes that shifted as if fueled by a fire within its unseen skull. And a round, fanged mouth. No lips, just the mouth.

I saw it all before my heart stopped, and I knew I was going to die.

If it had been a werewolf or any other monster, I might not have lost myself to such terror, but this creature, the same kind we had all seen thirteen years earlier, pressed a wicked chill deep into my bones. It was the kind of fear that made me want to beg for death.

But I couldn’t beg. Nor scream. Nor breathe.

Its fangs parted and a low phlegm-popping growl cut through the silence. Its jaws snapped wide and it released a bone-rattling roar. And then it was rushing, and even though I saw it coming straight for me, I still couldn’t move.

The Fury was no more than three feet from me when a white streak from my right slammed into it broadside. With a yelp, the Fury slammed into a tree ten feet to my left.

I stared in disbelief as it fell to the feet of its attacker, jerked once, then turned to vapor.

The attacker stood with feet planted firmly, fists low, staring down at the wisps of vapor as if to make sure the creature really was gone or dead or whatever.

Satisfied, the attacker turned around and faced me. A woman.

Tall and thin, she was dressed in white pants and blouse with a striking black silk jacket. Her platinum blonde hair flowed down past her shoulders and framed pale, gentle facial features. High cheeks, full lips, a symmetrical nose, vibrant brown eyes.

My mind struggled to understand what my eyes were seeing. The woman held my gaze, her eyes flashing in the firelight. Or was it something else I was seeing in her eyes? They were white, like the eyes of the Fury she’d just killed.

I scurried backward and slammed into a tree trunk.