The Burning by Susan Squires Page A

people if I touch them. Objects too, though the effect is fainter.”
    “That would be useful.”
    Useful? He couldn’t know that she knew everything about a person, that the whole being of that person drenched her until she did not even quite know herself from the other. And she couldn’t tell him. She managed a rueful smile. “Useful. I can’t honestly say that is the first description that comes to mind.”
    He nodded there in the dark in the middle of the forest. “Yes, well, perhaps you wouldn’t.” The cinnamon scent was his—like the lavender water men used for shaving, but spicy. And underneath the cinnamon was some other scent, fainter, harder to identify. The air held some sort of vibrant expectancy, as though anything could happen. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen, but she didn’t want him to go.
    “What brings you to Cheddar Gorge?” Inane! She made idle conversation as though they met in the village street, when what she wanted was to get away, from Erich, and the future, and all the dreadful possibilities circling her like wolves. She should want to be away from him as quickly as possible. But she didn’t.
    He seemed to consider her. “I am looking for a suitable house to lease.”
    Perhaps she could be helpful. “Mrs. Simpson says the Sheffields want to let Staines.”
    “It must be a vacant house.”
    “Oh.” That made no sense. “I assume you’ve seen Foxdell near Rooks Bridge? It has been vacant for years. It would need renovation.”
    “I want something closer to Cheddar Gorge or perhaps near Winscombe.”
    “Oh.” She knew of nothing near Winscombe except Maitlands’s hunting lodge. Then she smiled. Why not? Erich obviously coveted it. The prospect of throwing a spoke in his wheel was appealing. “Hmmm. One of my more disreputable ancestors built a tidy little hunting box about three or four miles outside Winscombe. Bucklands Lodge. It hasn’t been used since my father died. My cousin has been renovating, so it should be in fair shape. I could see my way clear to renting it out.”
    He inclined his head. “Should I see your agent?”
    “Henry Brandywine is my father’s steward. Mr. Watkins at the Hammer and Anvil can give you his direction.”
    He looked around as though someone else was present. “I should escort you home.”
    “I am not ready to go home.”
    “Do you think wandering in the woods alone at night is wise?”
    “I go out often. I have a special spot I like to visit.” She expected him to protest.
    But he said only, “Then I shall leave you to it.” He walked carefully around her.
    Well! She found herself gazing after him, cinnamon slowly fading in the air.
    So, she was the one who left the candles in the cave and had made the fire. He’d found what must be her lair earlier this evening. It was not well enough provided to be the place where vampires hid by day. There had been no traces of food, or bedrolls, nothing but the candles at the entrance to a remote branch off a branch off the main cave, a torch in a rough rock holder, and a stack of neat kindling gathered from the forest. And a book and a crocheted pillow. The book was by Jane Austen. Hardly fodder for hardened creatures planning to create an army in Asharti’s memory and destroy the balance of the world.
    No, the only lair he had found tonight was Miss Van Helsing’s. Strange girl. No wonder one had the impression she looked right through one. She could do just that if she touched you. Dangerous for a man with secrets. He must steer clear of Miss Van Helsing.
    And yet, he was drawn to her. It felt almost like alchemy.
    Nonsense, he told himself sternly. It was because she was an outsider among her own people. It was because she knew secrets and had secrets of her own. Those were things he understood. He felt a certain kind of kinship. That was all. For all her otherworldly attributes, which he, of course, did not doubt for a moment, she was curiously down-to-earth. It must take