A Valley of Darkness (A Shade of Vampire #52)(77)

Lauren frowned at Angie, looking dubious, but then shrugged. “I would’ve done the same if I noticed some perv watching me.”

Ignoring Lauren’s comment, Angie strayed from the track and began to creep through the undergrowth toward the noise, leaving the two of us staring after her.

Lauren’s thick eyebrows rose high above the rim of her glasses as she exhaled. “So, are we going dude hunting now, or to the creek? Because they’re in two opposite directions, and as much as I would—”

Lauren faltered as Angie turned around and held a finger to her lips.

The noise had stopped.

There was a pregnant pause as we waited another thirty seconds to see if it would start again, and when it didn’t, Angie let out a sigh and ambled back to us.

“Seems they’re shy,” she remarked with a droll smile.

“Okay, let’s keep moving,” Lauren said firmly, taking the lead. “Some of us have crap to scrape off our heads.”



As Mrs. Churnley had promised, the creek was easy to find. We heard gushing about five minutes before we reached it, and quickened our pace to arrive before a beautiful, gently flowing basin of water enclosed by stooping tree branches and bordered by bushes of white and purple wildflowers.

“Well, this is nice,” Lauren admitted, her expression almost suspicious.

We approached the bank, searching for the best place to set up. We found a little patch of grass, and I dumped the bag there before pulling out the items we needed. We stripped to our swimwear, examining the ground more cautiously now that we were barefooted, and then approached the water. It was surprisingly cold, but a welcome contrast to even the relatively cool forest air—we had all grown sticky during our walk.

Goosebumps ran along my skin as I waded deeper, the soles of my feet slipping along the smooth stones of the riverbed. Our eyes darted around the murky water, searching for leeches. When the water was up to our waists and we’d spotted none, I bit the bullet and submerged myself all in one go—Lauren and Angie following suit.

I billowed to the top, gasping for air. “Awesome!”

Lauren quickly set about scrubbing all the dried and cakey shampoo off her hair, and I moved back to the bank to grab the shampoo and conditioner bottles. After the three of us had completed the ritual—which actually took less time than it would have in a regular shower or bath, due to the movement and volume of the water—we started frolicking about like graceless mermaids, and things soon descended into an all-out splashing war. We were only vaguely aware of the time passing from the amount of sunlight that trickled through the treetops, and by the time I pulled away to check my watch on the bank, we needed to start heading back, unless we wanted to get trapped in the woods after nightfall.

“Oh, dang,” Lauren said as Angie and I were leaving the water. “Where’s the shampoo?”

We whirled around to see her pointing toward a stone jutting out into the center of the creek, where we had set down the bottles while we swam. Angie and I had totally forgotten they were even there, and now only the conditioner bottle remained standing.

“Oops, that sucks,” I said. “One of us must have knocked it accidentally. Looks like we’ll be stuck with Mrs. Churnley’s homemade shampoo for the rest of the trip…”

With that prospect ringing in her ears, Lauren surged toward the stone, snatched up the conditioner and threw it to me. “You two get everything packed up,” she ordered. “I’m looking for that shampoo.”

“Need your glasses?” Angie offered with a smirk.

“Just pass me a long stick,” Lauren muttered, staring down.

Angie and I left the water and hunted around for a broken tree branch until I found one that seemed thick and long enough to be useful. I chucked it toward Lauren, and then Angie and I turned away from the water and began drying off.

Lauren’s shriek a minute later made us whip back around.

“What the—” She swore.

“What?” Angie and I called, staring at her as she splashed toward us, her eyes set on a patch of water about five feet away from the rock where we’d kept the bottles.

“I dislodged something!” she panted, still backing away from whatever it was she’d spotted in the water.

I was expecting it to be a leech, or a group of them, but then I saw it. Something was rising from the depths of the creek. A long, dark shadow at first, but as it broke the surface, it was… My eyes bugged. It took my brain several moments to put a name to what I saw.

“A wing?” I blurted.

It was a huge, black, shimmering thing—several feet across—with protruding veins and a startlingly pointed tip. It looked like… some kind of giant, prehistoric bat wing.

Angie was already wading into the water for a closer look, passing Lauren and grabbing the stick. By the time she reached the thing, Lauren had climbed out of the water and snatched up her glasses so she could see in detail past more than a few feet. Angie used the stick to guide the wing to the bank, and once it was close enough, I wrapped the edges of my towel around my hands to act as gloves and kneeled over the edge. I gingerly got a hold of the edge of the wing and, in spite of how offputtingly heavy it was, managed to haul it up onto the grass. We gathered around it, our mouths hanging open.

“It must’ve been stuck between some rocks on the riverbed,” Lauren breathed.