Camdeboo Nights by Nerine Dorman Page A

deadly spirals.
    The beast had paused in the headlights, its eyes lambent in the glare. With a twitch of its withers, it sprang into the darkness. Trystan had had a good few near misses with these in the past. He might survive an incident but if anything should happen to Rose he’d be hard pressed to salvage her.
    He’d seen his fair share of accidents involving wildlife. These deaths were never pretty and he wasn’t sure who he’d pitied the most, the injured humans or the antelope that more often than not were not quite dead, broken bodies spasming in a tangled mess of twisted metal and shattered glass.
    He’d felt a spike in aetheric energies when he reached the pear avenue. Essence! Even without reaching , he’d sensed the inexorable pull, as if a giant vortex had opened up in the sleeping hamlet, sucking at him with its drag.
    The power coiled and turned, vibrating, a beacon he could not ignore. Who was it? What were they doing? Never before had he encountered anyone among the undead who could harness that amount of potentiality. Part of him hungered and another felt fear. Surely anyone that powerful could destroy him without blinking. How could this be happening in this tiny village? Whatever it was, it must be related to the Wareings. If he’d been sensible, he would have removed them long before they became a threat.
    Trystan had nosed the car into the garage. The most important thing was to find out what the devil was going on, deal with the problem, then figure out if anyone or–any thing else–had awakened with this event.
    Whatever or whomever was responsible for this disturbance would be alerting every sensitive and every other being with half an inkling of Essence for half the province, if not farther. This had been a sudden flare, a geyser of power. Who had released it and why?
    Panic gripped him so he ran rather than walked down the road leading to the cemetery with its adjacent show grounds.
    Essence caused the small hairs on the back of his arms and neck rise. Trystan had run along the wall, keeping low when he heard the voice of a young woman.
    He’d allowed himself to reach , recoiling in surprise when he’d encountered the Essence of not one but two youngsters.
    One was the young Wareing girl–one of the witches–whom he’d successfully avoided for the past fifteen years. The other was Helen, who blazed in the aether.
    So much Essence, so powerful...
    His gut tightened. She must learn to shield, or else... Or else what? Another vampire, for one.
    Like him?
    When he reached a poplar tree near the wall, he’d pushed himself against the lichen-encrusted trunk.
    What in all hell’s damnation was the Wareing girl up to? Did she have an inkling of the effect that she was having? Not even her aunt and the father did as much with their excuses for rituals.
    He leaned forward, cursing inwardly when he put his weight down on a dry twig that snapped loudly like a firecracker to his sensitive ears. Now that was stupid. He must be losing his touch, not focused enough on staying hidden. In response, the vortex of power faltered, slewing as its rotations slowed.
    The two girls were busying themselves with some sort of witchery at her grave. Visions of baleful glass bottle-eyed owls filled his mind.
    Arwen muttered something but he had eyes only for Helen, who approached him, unafraid.
    Superimposed over her features was something else, a vaguely anthropomorphic, diaphanous shape almost visible to plain sight. It shifted blue-green, at the edge of manifestation, its medusa-like tendrils writhing at her head.
    What in heaven’s name...
    “Oh, it’s you,” she said.
    He shook his head, trying to dispel the fog that threatened to swamp his reasoning.
    Arwen spoke again, with Helen turning to reply but he could not grasp the words. The Essence in the area dissipated, and Trystan’s vision returned to normal. Now only fiery motes flickered in and out of existence around Helen’s head.
    He vaulted over the