Blood-Lines

Part 3

The first sign of pending trouble was the sudden caress of hot, fetid air that enveloped her like dragons breath while the Sheriff had led her up the winding road toward the mansion.

It was so sudden and unexpected that she stopped in her tracks while he'd kept walking, only to turn when he realized that she'd stopped.

"Problem?" He asked with sudden concern, as one hand gently caressed the butt of a pistol while his gray eyes scanned the area around them, apparently able to tell from the frightened expression upon her face that something was clearly amiss.

Once she closed her eyes, she focused her sensorial eye as it picked out telltale signs of another demon nearby. One that was both old and powerful from the way it had masked itself from her upon her arrival.

Silently as if in prayer, she cast a mumbled protection spell that would encompass both herself and those nearby not entirely unlike that of a floating bubble. She'd been quick enough with the prick of her finger as her hand brushed the pendant that the Sheriff probably hadn't even noticed what she'd done.

"Look ma'am, if there's something you'd like to share; right now might be a damned good time. I'd prefer not to find any surprises waiting for us up there if we can help it."

As she opened her eyes, she noticed him nervously brush off the brace on his leg.

"There's some sort of demon that sleeps up ahead, Sheriff ..." She whispered, still not quite believing what her third eye had told her, "... and we must hurry ... before it wakes."

Quickly having moved past him, she left him standing where they'd stopped while she continued up the winding road.

He'd just caught up to her when they came across the tall Indian deputy crouched by the side of the road as she studied something in the weeds at her feet.

Ever so carefully, Running-Deer used a long stick to pick up what looked to be a thin robe of some sort. All Clementine could see of it was shear black lace, which meant it certainly hadn't been designed to keep someone warm.

Running-Deer turned to hand the stick to Poe as she stood and continued to study the ground, walking through the weeds as she headed off down the hillside and away from them.

When she gently reached out to touch the soft fabric with her fingers, Clementine felt the tingle of familiarity from her sister Daniela's touch; an odd ability she'd developed while they'd grown up.

She could easily tell whose cloths were whose by simple touch.

With the Indian's shrill whistle from below, she carefully followed Poe through the grass and down the hill toward where Running-Deer now stood looking at something that lay near a fallen tree.

When Clementine rounded the sheriff as he'd stopped next to the Indian, she got a better view; gasping as she realized that it was her Daniela that they'd found sprawled naked against the log.

Her body had come to rest almost as if she'd simply lain there in patient wait for a lover to arrive.

Head hung forward slightly and turned to the left; her long brown hair lay draped over slender shoulders with eyes still half-open while her lower jaw hung slack in her strange sultry expression of death.

One knee was up while her other leg lay spread to the side leaving what there was of herself to hide, completely exposed.

Her slender arm rested almost casually back across the log, while the other hand grasped the end of the branch that she'd been impaled upon and which probably had caused her death through an otherwise agonizingly slow loss of blood.

With her hand up to feel where her own breast had hurt, Clementine realized now why she'd reacted as she had when the seeker had found her sister.

Her sister was dead.

She'd not only shared her suffering, apparently she'd shared her final death throes as well.

Clementine fell to her knees as she looked into the dead eyes of her sister; silently praying to the goddess for Daniela's soul as Poe sent the Indian for the undertaker and for someone else he'd called Cat.

Gently, she moved to caress her sister's right temple with the loving light touch of her fingers in fear of what she would find, but also painfully aware of what it was that they desperately needed to know.

Building her confidence as she overcame her sense of dread, she started to mumble the words that she'd fervently long hoped that she would never have need of use - until now.