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"Finn?"

He didn’t answer

Megan slipped out of the bed, frowning, but he still didn’t wake She walked over to the big, overstuffed antique chair by the fireplace and found her heavy velour robe, wrapping it tightly around her She pulled back the draperies to the balcony door, hesitated, then slipped out

October in Massachusetts A cool breeze was softly , but it wasn’t uncoe, a deep blue, alht, almost ethereal in others As she looked down at the street below, she saw a slohirl of fog, and she found herself re the words of the crusty old storyteller who had been at the fireside tale-telling earlier in town

Ah, but though those caught, hanged, and pressed to death, as old Giles Corey, were uardians of justice h they were daft in their oodness, there must be evil, and evil is rooted in the very history of hout the years there have been stories of man, and of beasts, and of those creatures who fall soels, there have been devils There is the Good Book and there are works of the greatest demonic frenzy, and there have always been, as there are now, those who seek the secrets of the Devil, of is we remember only in the deepest, darkest, recesses of our heartsit’s said, you know, that on Hallow’s Eve, it is the night when the dead may riseespecially if they are so bidden, if, perhaps, they are called froain, to inhabit the lives and souls ofhad fallen in the fire then; half the old hed

Megan had done so herself She hadn’t iined that she would come back to their rented roo below appeared to be blue It see itself

She wasn’t afraid of fog

She felt the lightest touch against her nape Fingers, lifting her hair, softy, gently She closed her eyes and smiled

Finn had awakened He was behind her

That was his ritual He would come to her Stand in silence Touch her hair, lift her hair, press his lips against the flesh of her nape She felt him touch her then The hotmoisture of his breath In seconds, his arms would come around her He would tell her that he loved her

And being Finn, he would bring his hips hard against her while he held her, and probably whisper that if she was going to screaht reasons, because the things he could do to her were just so good that she couldn’t begin to help herself

She felt his hands, sliding over the velour, under it, touching her flesh

His touch fell away She thought she heard hi for her to turn into his arms, melt into them as she always did

"Finn "

She spun around, ready to do just that

He wasn’t there

She was alone on the balcony

The breeze suddenly turned colder The eerie blue fog was rising froer to engulf her