Free A Soul So Wicked (Moon Chasers) by Sharie Kohler

bitter cold air into his lungs. She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t hanging around here. She was gone.
    He shook his head. And no way would she have tried to help him. More than likely, she had sent that tree crashing on them in hopes of killing them all.
    Even as he told himself this, he knew it wasn’t true. She knew no tree could kill him. It would harm the hunters. Not him.
    She had helped him .
    He didn’t want her help. He didn’t want to have to reevaluate his opinion of her. He wouldn’t.
    Grinding his teeth down hard, he took off through the trees.

E IGHT
    T resa’s flight to San Vista included a three-hour layover in Seattle, so she had plenty of time to formulate a plan and exorcise thoughts of Darius from her head. It helped knowing he was probably alive and well. Anything else would have left her guilty. She’d created a big enough diversion for him to make his escape. One less thing to weigh down her conscience.
    As soon as she left the airport, she checked into a hotel and made use of the phone book in her room. Cranking the air conditioner on high, she changed clothes, donning a tank top. Years in arctic temperatures had apparently left her sensitive to heat.
    With pen in hand, she began circling names. She’d decided to start by interviewing the families of the victims. Balthazar’s new witch was concentrating her killings in San Vista, so this had to be her home. And if this was her home,then maybe she knew the victims. Maybe she had an ax to grind with them.
    Taylor, Hannah and Shannan. Tresa couldn’t forget their names. Or their faces. The first one, if not all, had probably been a deeply personal kill for Balthazar’s witch.
    Just like it had been for Tresa. The first one was very personal—the grudge, the wound so deep that she would bind herself to a demon. She’d hated Etienne Marshan so much at that moment that she’d been blind to everything else.
    According to the information she’d found back home, the first victim’s name was Shannan Guzak. Seven Guzaks were listed in the phone book. She circled the name of the last one several times. Hopefully one of them was a relation of Shannan’s.
    Sucking in a deep breath, she dialed the first number. When a voice picked up, she asked for Shannan. Wrong number . She dialed the second and third numbers with the same result. At the fourth call, a man answered.
    “Hi,” she said, her voice cheerful, casual. She swallowed. “Is Shannan there?”
    Silence met her. Then the man cleared his throat. His voice came through hoarsely. “Shannan is gone… dead…”
    Bingo. “Oh, I’m so sor—”
    The line died in her ear.
    Exhaling, she put the phone back on its hook. She may not have gotten the conversation she wanted out of him, but at least she knew where to begin.
    She quickly scrawled down the address on a piece of paper and stuffed it into her pocket.
    As she moved to leave her hotel room, she spotted her reflection in the mirror. Dark smudges that resembled twin bruises shadowed her eyes. Her whiskey eyes looked enormous in her face. She hadn’t slept on the flight down. She grabbed her backpack, slung it over her shoulder and headed to the elevator.
    Outside the hotel she paused, adjusting to the sudden warmth. She hadn’t been in a warm climate in generations without Balthazar whispering in her ear, controlling her actions, urging her into the dark. She braced herself, instinctively expecting to feel him, hear him.
    A breeze lifted the hair off her shoulders, but there was nothing else. No whisper in her ear. No dark, coiling shadow. No Balthazar.
    Locating her rental car, she climbed inside and punched the address into the GPS. Pulling out onto the highway, she thought ahead,imagining how she would subtly gather information from the dead girl’s family.
    She wasn’t exactly a people person. She’d been isolated for so long. And she never felt quite right around other people anyway. Not being what she was. It wasn’t safe to get