But that was silly. It wasn’t like I was really injured, just bound to an ephemeral ancient gateway. I turned and walked back to my house. It began to rain again, but the trees were so thick that the raindrops barely touched me. I could hear them, though, rustling through the high branches. When I looked up I saw a shadow moving through the branches.

A shadow? In the pouring rain?

A branch cracked overhead, the sound loud as gunfire in the pouring rain, and I took off toward my house. Something burst out of the trees above me but I was too frightened to turn around and look up. I sprinted across my lawn, up the porch steps, onto the shelter of my porch. My hands were wet and shaking as I dug in my pocket for my keys. I’d just found them when I felt a hand on my back.

I whirled around, the point of the house key gripped between my fingers ready to stab the intruder … and looked up into Duncan’s blue eyes.

“Callie, it’s me. Are you all right? I saw you running from the woods and came to see if you were okay. You looked frightened.”

I edged past Duncan to the porch railing and looked up into the sky. A large branch had fallen at the edge of the woods.

“I thought I heard something in the trees,” I said warily. “For all I knew it was you come to finish what you had started and claw out my other eye.”

Duncan blanched. “Callie, I’m sorry. I can explain …”

“Really?” I leaned against the porch railing and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m waiting.”

“That spell you cast summoned a creature – some kind of imp with bat wings and claws. It flew between us so quickly I couldn’t stop it, but when it struck you I pulled it away from you and then chased it into the woods.”

I snorted. “I don’t believe that for a minute. I was holding your hand. When I turned …” I faltered. I had turned and the slash of claws had blinded me. I’d assumed it was Duncan – or Duncan turned into a clawed beast – but really I hadn’t seen the thing that had attacked me. “If that were true, why didn’t you come back?”

“I followed it into the woods. I didn’t want it to come back to hurt you. I chased it all night and finally cornered it, but it lashed out at me just as it had at you. This is what I got for my trouble.” He took a tentative step closer to me and rolled up his shirtsleeve. Five deep gashes ran from elbow to wrist.

“You could have done that to yourself,” I said.