“I can’t run anymore!” I complained. “We can’t just keep plowing down the length of the whole damn beach. How are we going to get away from him? Isn’t there anything out this way?”

Lon scanned the beach ahead of us. “Over there. See those?”

My eyes followed his finger, but I saw nothing but night and the shifting glisten of the moon on the surface of the ocean. Darker cliffs towered in the distance. Then I spotted blocky shapes up the beach. They stood in a long row, farther away from the water.

“We’re headed away from the Village. Those are rental cottages,” Lon explained. “That inlet area out there will be a popular surfing spot next month when the waves get better. Right now it’s dead.” He then pointed toward the cliffs in the distance, several miles away. “And see those? My house is up there on the other side.”

The thought of walking miles on a cold beach was disheartening at best. Impossible was more like it.

“Too bad there’s not a way around the cliffs,” he added. “We’d have to swim a mile out around Mermaid Point to get to a place we could climb.”

“Nuh-uh. No way, José,” I said, shaking my head, just in case he was considering it.

He grunted in amusement. “Let’s just try to make it to the cottages.”

Fifteen minutes later, the first of the small houses came into full sight. No lights inside. That could have been because it was off-season, or maybe because it was after midnight.

“For fuck’s sake!” Lon mumbled.

“He’s still back there?” I studied the dark beach behind us. “Shouldn’t you shift back down to your human form? Can’t he see your halo? I can see his.”

“His eyesight and hearing are shit when he’s trans-mutated. It’s our scent—we’re going to have to get rid of it.”

“What? How?”

He looked toward the ocean.

“You’ve got to be joking! We’ve already been walking in the water. Isn’t that enough?”

“Up to our ankles.”

“Lon—”

“You see any people out here who can give us a lift? Any cars you can hot-wire?”

I squinted and desperately searched the row of seemingly empty cottages. “No, no, no,” I whined. “We’ll freeze to death.”

Lon glanced back at Sengal. “I’d rather freeze to death than go back.”

“Can’t we take him?” I suggested. “He can’t be that strong.”

“Strong enough, especially with the two armed men accompanying him.”

I cursed under my breath.

We stumbled across the wet sand until the tide hit our shins. I was already shivering. We walked farther in. The water came up to my knees and lapped at the hem of my dress. Lon sighed dramatically, machismo quickly draining away. “Come on,” he said without fervor. “Count of three.”

“One,” I said, faking a sob.

Without warning, he pulled me forward and plunged me underwater. My protest drowned beneath the icy waves. Salt stung my eyes as my mouth and nose filled with water.

As quickly as we went under, we emerged. As I gasped for air, Lon gurgled, “Quiet!” He was holding one hand up in surrender. I panicked, then realized that he was just holding his cell phone above his head. Smart man.

My entire body shook as we sloshed out of the tide. I pushed dripping hair out of my face. My dress clung to my body like a wet suit as water streamed down over my legs. I held my arms to my chest in a futile attempt to regain warmth.

Was it worth it? Where the hell was Sengal? A fiery halo danced in the distance. I wanted to cry, but I was too cold.

“C-come on.” Lon’s suit squished as he walked, but I could barely hear it over the sound of my teeth knocking together faster and faster. It took all of my willpower to force my cramped muscles to move; I halfheartedly jogged alongside Lon until we got to the first cottage.

“Around back,” Lon instructed.

We trotted around the side of the tiny house, where packed sand substituted for a green lawn, all of it surrounded by beach shrubs and a low picket fence. An empty paved driveway led up a steep hill to the small street. I became hopeful until I realized that there was nothing there. No streetlights, no cars, no sounds but the ocean. Nothing at all, really. Just cliffs beyond the road, and darkness.

We exited the sandy yard and continued on to the next cottage, only a hundred or so feet away. No car there either. As we plodded past the fourth house, I saw several more ahead of us.

The near-full moon that gave us a small amount of dusky light darkened with cloud cover. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. We were already cold and wet; a storm on the beach was the last thing I wanted. A streak of lightning cracked near the cliffs ahead.

“Good.” Lon picked up speed to head to the next cottage.

“Good? What’s good about it? If it rains, then we just dove into the ocean for no good reason.”

“That masked our body scent. The rain will wipe our trail.”

Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. I wanted to strangle him, and I hoped like hell he “heard” me; if he did, he didn’t show it. After a few feet, he slowed and headed toward the back of the cottage. A small cypress tree grew in the side of the yard near the driveway. The small beach rental mimicked the old-world storybook architecture back in the Village: wood shingles, gingerbread trim, cheerily painted shutters framing each window. Almost large enough to accommodate a small family of gnomes.