SIXTEEN

Hermione found her way back to the grave of Oksana's husband, or at least she thought it was the right one, she couldn't read Cyrillic after all. But the tree beside it looked familiar, and that shrub … the roots sticking through the walk and earth.

"Okay," she whispered, gaze darting about. "Now where did I go from here?"

She took her time, recalling as she started walking again that she'd gone left? Yes, that statue looked familiar, or rather the shadows dripping from it like ink did. Ridiculous optical illusion.

Pretending she didn't feel a sudden chill itching and creeping up along her back, curling over her shoulders to brush the sides of her neck, Hermione continued on. Had she counted how many steps she'd taken or wandered aimlessly?

She really wanted to be confused as to why she couldn't remember more clearly, but she knew perfectly well why that was. Because this was stupid. Because this was potentially dangerous. Because she had to focus on keeping her mind from wandering back over what had happened in her room last night.

Halting a moment as she peered out into the dark, silhouette laden distance—where the hell had he been hiding?—she wondered about that. Upir were supposed to be dangerous, vicious, insatiable.

Her heart thumped wildly and her cheeks warmed as she remembered how he'd held her so delicately. The gentle sweep of the tip of his tongue along her skin ….

моя кошеня

The witch gave herself a good, sound shake. Oh, she was being an idiot. There was a simple way to find him, wasn't there?

"I know you're out here," she called, extinguishing her lumos so that she could have her wand at the ready to defend herself if need be. "And I know what you are, so you might as well show yourself!"

Hermione waited, staring about, trying to talk herself out of already deciding this a lost cause and stomping out again. Not that standing alone in a strange place in the dark hoping to meet a monster wasn't a dumb thing to do, but she thought she'd feel just that much dumber if she'd gone to the trouble to figure out what the creature was and try to track it down only to find herself alone yelling into an empty night sky.

She wasn't sure if she was being patient or impatient, honestly, but she knew after the third time of casting a glance over her shoulder to assure herself nothing had crept up behind her in the looming silence, she'd had all the waiting she could stand.

Suddenly she wasn't so certain if she was here to learn the upir's identity or to prove to herself that it had really happened. To prove to herself she'd actually heard a voice in her room, that she'd not actually heard those words during the festival last night and merely filed them away in the back of her head. That the wounds on the inside of her leg weren't somehow incurred in some other way that she simply didn't recall.

Sometimes since the war, she worried that she might be going 'round the bend, and for this to not be real ….

"All right, fine," she muttered, her voice sliding out from between clenched teeth. "Have it your way."

Reaching beneath her robes, she raked her fingernails over the wounds, tearing them open a new.

As she withdrew bloodstained fingertips, she at last heard movement behind her.

Behind her and approaching impossibly fast.