Page 1 of The Baker’s Shadow

CHAPTER 1

Malak

The marsh spits me out with a wet, sucking heave.

I drag myself onto the bank, lungs burning as they filter the thick, stagnant air. Mud and filth cling to my body and I shake it off, keeping my shadow-dark form as cover in the night.

Above, a copper moon hangs over Deception Point like a bruised, unblinking eye with a hatred my kind are used to. The Blood-Tide Eclipse makes tonight, my night of freedom to find a virgin human that bit more exciting and desperate.

Everyone in town would have locked their doors and windows, but that won’t stop me. They’ll forget I came, she’ll forget, whoever I choose and it will only haunt her sleep in the form of nightmares scratching at the back of her mind.

Shadows shrink over my frame until every breathing life here in this town is scented. Buildings keep me out of sight, but no one is out, they know not to be on this night when I might come.

The old families have their protections in place. I can taste the wards humming through the air, bitter like copper on my tongue. Mrs. Chen’s shop glows faint blue at the edges where most humans wouldn’t see it. The mayor’s house has iron buried in the foundation, cold and repellent. They know what walks their streets tonight. They’ve always known.

At the old bait shop, I scale the brick wall and crouch on the corrugated iron roof, overlooking the marsh. The moonlight reveals my true naked form, and I hate the light on my skin, it sends a burning sensation prickling over my back, down my spine. But I don’t leave, taking a slow breath to sense where she might be, my next victim.

The town below is suffocating under a heatwave that refuses to break, heavy and stagnant. My nostrils dissect the humid breeze, searching…

Fuck. My head swims with a torrent of pleasure as cheap floral soap with a hint of lavender, and cotton sheets send a sensation through me like a nuclear burn.

My vision swims, the edges of the world blurring into gray static, and I move, gravity releasing its hold on me as I flow across the gaps between buildings, keeping to the rooftops to follow the virgin scent.

I stop at the edge of the roof, looking down at a rental house ahead at the edge before the dock. The sound of the waves lapping against the dozen boats moored there grates on my nerves. I’m used to the noise of screams and words that beg to stop the pain.

With a shake of my head, I land on the ground. The house sits on stilts ready for the monsoons that will come. It stands isolated and I shiver as the sound of cicadas begin their drone.

My forked tongue slips over my lips anticipating her taste. She is likely here for a swamp tour, asleep and dreaming of alligators and fan boats. I will be a nightmare forgotten by morning, leaving her drained and lethargic for a few days, while I walk away fully charged.

I crouch lower, my muscles coiling to move through the gap in the window. I’m about to slide inside, but I freeze.

The wind shifts.

A new heavy scent slaps me in the face. Sourdough starter, yeasty, sour, alive, and the sharp, caramelized tang of burnt sugar. But beneath the food, something else slams into my nostrils and I stagger backwards with a gasp.

Fuck. It’s like a psychic scream broadcast on a wavelength only a monster like me would hear.

...just keep moving... push, fold... make it stop... please make it stop...come to me… fill me… touch me… make me forget…

The whisper leaks out into the night, unintentional and raw, music to my ears, a joyful song to my fucked-up soul.

I inhale sharply through my mouth, tasting the air. The flavor is exquisite, an alternative that tastes like a scream trapped in a throat. Aged like fine wine in an oak barrel, fermented in the dark.

Loneliness.

Not just the fleeting loneliness of a Saturday night. This is born from a loss of a grief cracked open, bleeding out in a current.

...I want to be held until I break...

The thought ripples through the air, a siren song of need, and my body tightens.

My head snaps toward the source, away from the tourist, further tasting the low notes on the air. No. Fuck. No. She’s not a virgin, but there’s a pull, a desire, calling me to her.

No one fucking calls me to them. But I start moving, even though the source is miles away from the sugary, one-note taste of the virgin in the cottage.

My instincts are screaming at me. Don’t do it. Take the tourist. The tourist is safe. The tourist is medicine.

The grief rolling off that other signal is toxic. It’s heavy metal poisoning that will intoxicate me. But fuck, I want it. I want something different tonight, a craving for misery I haven’t tasted for so long.