I pulled on my last dregs of energy in order to get to that breach. Hopefully, whatever was chasing me thought it was driving me into a trap, unaware that I knew about the break in the cove walls. And once through that gap, it was a straight shot into the ocean and away.

I wasn’t running now so much as stumbling quickly, panting like a geriatric lion. Every step was torture. Pain shot through my calves and my lungs felt like they were going to burst. But I knew I couldn’t let up so I steamed ahead. I was swinging toward the right, heading for the break, which my shepherd was allowing. It must not think I could get out that way. Little did it know…

When I hit the break I plunged through, shouting in triumph, only for my voice to be cut short with a painful “Oof.” My damned coat had caught on something as I tried to squeeze through the narrow opening at too high a speed. My own momentum slammed me painfully into the rough wall of the cove, and I felt a gash open up above my eyelid. I’d had the wind knocked out of me, and I barely managed to stay upright. I heard an ominous rustle behind me, and I peered frantically into the forest as blood dripped down into my eye, stinging horribly. Something was emerging from the undergrowth, and I really didn’t want to be wedged here when it came out to introduce itself.

I made a bizarre strangled sound, like a wounded hare, and scrabbled at my snared coat liner. It wouldn’t budge. Then my brain reminded me I was an idiot and I shrugged out of my jacket, leaving it hanging from the rock. Turning around I dashed into the cove, to get my second profound shock in as many days.

Sitting on a little rocking chair that stood on a colorful quilt draped over the pristine sand of my cove sat a little woman. She couldn’t have been more than two feet tall when standing. Dressed in rustic-looking clothes of blue and green, with long gray hair pinned up into a preposterously large bun, she was smiling at me with as kindly an expression as one could imagine.

“Hello, child,” she said, as behind me I heard a series of low pants and a funny little whine.

I didn’t want to look away from the kindly old lady, convinced she would pull a knife the minute my back was turned. Nor did I particularly want to see the true face of whatever had been chasing me. And yet I couldn’t let it take me down while my back was turned; I had to face my enemy.

Very, very slowly I swiveled, clenching my hands into fists, ready to fight. Not that I’d ever been in a real fight in my life. Although they’d caused their fair share of damage, my antagonists had always used words as their weapons.

In front of me stood the biggest dog I’d ever seen. It didn’t look like a wolf; it looked more like some sort of black-furred saber-toothed hellhound. My stunned gaze traveled up from its enormous clawed paws, over its powerful shoulders, and to its oversized jaws—which were filled with the largest fangs I’d ever seen outside of a prehistoric-mammal exhibit.

Its slavering mouth opened wider as a low whine emerged out of its belly. Its ears pricked up at me, as if to fix me in its sights. I felt a wave of absolute terror rise up from the pit of my being and threaten to overwhelm me.

But the Trues were made of tougher stuff than that, and I behaved with as much bravery and resolve as I’d shown the night before when turning over Peter’s body.

I fainted dead away.

CHAPTER FOUR

I woke up to the sensation of something warm and wet lapping at my face and I was overwhelmed by the smell of fresh toothpaste. My eyes weren’t quite functioning and all I could see was a large, fuzzy shape looming above my head. As my pupils slowly started to focus, I figured out that something was licking my cut clean. It felt incredibly soothing, until my brain restarted and I realized that the tongue in question was attached to the fanged mouth of the black hound of hell that had just been chasing me through my woods. I moaned with fear, trying to sit up and scramble backward at the same time. All I succeeded in doing was to bring my face closer to the dog’s enormous teeth and to make my head bleed again.

Good strategy, Jane, I thought as my world spun and I collapsed back down with a thump.

Another face swam into my vision. This wasn’t the dog, or the kindly old lady with the bun. This face had mud-brown eyes and thick tendrils of green hair, like seaweed. Her skin—for I thought it was a her—was a luminous pearl gray and she had a strange, flat nose that barely rose off the surface of her face.

Whatever she was, she wasn’t human.

But she was talking.

“Let him heal your wound,” she said, in an oily, unpleasant voice that did little to quell my fears.

The sound made me freeze, even if I didn’t really want to follow her instructions, and I again felt the rough tongue of the big black dog lapping at my eyebrow.

I lay there, feeling as uncomfortable and on edge as I’ve ever felt, while the dog gently continued to lick. The gray-faced being was making a strange, leering expression at me, and then she reached out and patted my hand.

That isn’t a leer, I realized. That is a smile. The strange woman was trying to comfort me, which was about as effective as a bear hug from the steely arms of an iron maiden.

The dog had stopped licking my brow, which, I had to admit, felt much better. But it was now licking off the blood that had streamed down my face, and then it leaned in to lick the blood that had dripped over my neck and into the top of my shirt.

“Okay,” I said, in what I hoped was a commanding voice. “Off.”

I raised my arms and pushed weakly. The big dog did back away slightly, wagging its tail in what I assumed was hellhound for “Don’t worry, I’m satiated by your delicious blood and therefore won’t eat you… tonight.”

The gray girl took a firm hold of one of my upraised hands and helped me to sit up. Hel-lo Dolly, I thought, as I got a gander of her. She was very naked, and very obviously female. And that strange gray skin continued the whole way down to her webbed feet with their thick black toenails.

She definitely wasn’t human.

“Can you sit up?” came that oily voice, again; she didn’t release her grip.

“Yes, I think so.” I’d say anything to get my hand back.

She leered—no, smiled at me again—and trotted over to the little old lady’s stool. Where, with no modesty whatsoever, she plopped down Indian-style, airing her bits for the world to see.

She has seaweed pubes, observed my brain, unhelpfully, as I blinked and looked around at my little cove.

My secret strip of beach that had once been as familiar as my own childhood bedroom had become an alien realm. If the enormous devil-dog, the eensy cartoon grandmother, and old barnacle crotch weren’t enough, there was a large globe of light suspended about eight feet above the old lady’s head. There were no wires that I could see, but it hung like a chandelier, bathing my little cove in an eerie luminescence.

I felt a chill run down my spine, and I looked at the plump old woman sitting on the stool.

She smiled beatifically, which didn’t make me feel one bit better.

“It’s so nice finally to meet you, Jane,” she said. “Anyan has told us so much about you.”

The dog whined and lay down uncomfortably close to me while the old lady kept on smiling, clearly waiting for a response.

“It’s nice to meet you, too?” I queried, not really sure of my role here. Were we going to have tea and chicken salad sandwiches like ladies who lunch or were they going to sacrifice me to their dark god of chaos? If they’d been banking on me being a virgin, they were plumb out of luck…

“I realize you are at a disadvantage here, and that you are unsure of what is happening, but you are perfectly safe. I am Nell and this,” she gestured toward the gray girl, “is Trill.” Trill gave me that horrible grin again, but now that the grin had a name, it wasn’t quite as scarifying.

“You’ve already met Anyan,” she said, indicating the giant dog.

She again seemed to be waiting for some sort of response. “He’s got very fresh breath,” I said, the first thing that popped into my mind. “For a dog,” I clarified.

“Yes,” she smiled even wider, if that were possible. “He’s very hygienic. And he’s done a good job on your head.”

I raised my hand to my brow and felt absolutely nothing. There was no cut at all, and only the slightest tenderness when I pressed down on where my hurt had been. What the fuck? I thought, shooting a sharp glance at the canine. In response, Anyan wagged his tail and stretched his back paws out behind him so he was lying with his stomach embedded in the sand. It was such a doggy thing to do, for a hellhound, that I nearly smiled. He looked over at me and for a second I could have sworn he winked. But I guess I just hit my head harder than I thought. Speaking of which…

“Why did he chase me?” I said, remembering the awful run through the woods. If they were so friendly, why scare the shit out of me and make me nearly brain myself in the process?

“We’re sorry about that,” came Trill’s slippery voice. “It’s just that first contact is always difficult, even when it doesn’t have to be rushed like this. We couldn’t wait; we had to get you here tonight. And there were all sorts wandering the woods today so we had to meet you under a glamour.”