"It was a misunderstanding. I did not realize she was mortal."

"What the hell else should I be?" I demanded to know.

The wind swirled around us, eerily sounding as if voices were whispering dire warnings. I shivered, despite the fact that I knew it was just the effect of the wind through the circle of trees.

"We do not have time for this," he said, stalking toward me. "If you wish to die, stay here and continue talking. If you wish to live, run!"

"Run?" Sarah asked, looking around.

Wordless voices swept past us, setting off my flight instinct. I didn't stop to analyze the situation, I just acted.

"Run!" I screamed, grabbing Sarah's arm and hauling her with me as I hurtled down the hill.

I felt the man's presence behind us as we raced down the hill, stumbling over occasional clumps of earth and rocks, but a long-buried, primal sense told me I had less to fear from him than whatever it was the wind heralded.

Sarah would have stopped by her rental car, but the man grabbed the back of my shirt and her dress, and pushed us on, toward a small shed that sat near a curve in the road. "Do not stop! Your car is within sight of the hill."

He half dragged us over a low stone wall, shoving us without any ceremony around the edge of the shed. I ran straight into the front bumper of a car, slamming onto the hood with a breath-stealing, "Ooof!"

"Get in," he ordered, opening both doors on the driver's side.

"Are you insane?" I snapped, limping over to where Sarah stood. "We are not going anywhere with you—"

I like to think of myself as reasonably able to take care of myself in dangerous situations, but the man in front of me was several inches taller than me, probably a good fifty pounds heavier, and evidently spent his spare time working out with weights, or throwing unwilling women into the backs of vehicles, because he had no difficulty in doing the latter. He tossed small, delicate Sarah into the car as if she weighed no more than a bag of grapefruit, flinging larger and more substantial me in on top of her before slamming the door behind us.