Roland put a hand on my shoulder as I started to climb the rocks. “Wait. Do you hear that?”

I turned my head to listen and my ears picked up scraping sounds ahead followed by a series of squeaks. “Rats. They live under the pier.”

He shuddered. “Rats!”

“You live in the country and you are strong enough rip a vampire apart. How can you be afraid of rats?”

He drew himself up taller. “I didn’t say I was afraid. I just hate the little bastards.”

I hid my smile. “Just ignore them. They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“I’m not afraid –” His eyes bugged and he looked like he was gasping for air. “Uh Sara…”

I followed his horrified stare to the rocks above me where a squirming mass of fur and teeth suddenly streamed from beneath the pier. Hundreds of brown and grey bodies formed a moving barrier between us and the pier while hundreds of pairs of black button eyes watched us with eerie intelligence.

“Jesus Christ!” Roland muttered close to my ear. “This is not normal, is it?”

“No.”

“Maybe they can feel the storm coming. Would that freak them out?”

I shook my head, not taking my eyes off the pack of rats. I shifted my position slightly and a couple of rats bared their sharp incisors at me. I’ve been around plenty of rodents and healed more than one rat over the years and I had never seen this kind of behavior. Most animals were at ease around me, and never threatening toward me. What if they were sick? My power was strong enough to heal some of them but not hundreds.

I opened myself and let a trickle of power flow from me, directing it to the closest rodent. The big brown rat’s nose twitched when it sensed the warm energy permeating the cold air around its body and then it reacted to my power in a way no animal had ever done – it recoiled. I swallowed my gasp of surprise. Animals loved my power. It calmed them and made them feel safe and unafraid. Something was very off with this rat.

A little mental push was all it took to send a stronger stream of power at the squirming rodent. It was almost enough to put him to sleep but I had to get past his fear and figure out what was wrong with him. I could barely believe my eyes as the brown body twisted and jerked and tried to scramble over the other rats to get away from me. What the hell…?

The pack shifted, tossing the fleeing rat around until it lost its footing and tumbled down the mass of bodies to the rocks. Its feet scrambled for purchase on the slimy rocks before it slipped and flew straight at me and Roland.

Roland made a “Gak” sound as my hands shot out instinctively to catch the rat before it hit the water. My fingers closed around the long furry body just as I remembered that the rat had hissed at me a minute ago and would likely sink its not so small teeth into my flesh any second. I let power pour from my hands and into the animal’s body. My power is always stronger with direct contact and if there was something wrong with this rat, I would know soon what it was.

“What are you doing?” Roland asked in a horrified whisper, his hand clenching my shoulder in a death grip.

I couldn’t answer. My tongue was silenced by the shock of my power colliding with another presence inside the rat’s mind. It was intelligent and strong and it felt like I touched the outside of an angry hornets nest when my energy made contact. I had never encountered anything like it and it frightened and amazed me at the same time. I felt the rat’s heart race and sensed its terror as it cowered from the thing invading its body. If this same alien presence had infected the whole pack it was no wonder they were so hostile. What could do something like this, and why?

Roland shook me from behind. “Are you fucking insane? Drop that thing before it gives you rabies or something.”

“Be quiet or those men will hear us,” I warned him hoarsely, securing my hold on the rodent so it could not try to bite me. “There’s something wrong with these rats. Stay still so you don’t frighten them.”

“Frighten them?”

I shrugged out of his hold. “Shhh.”

“Listen, I know you have this weird way with animals but these are not cats or dogs, Sara. These are rats – huge crazy rats that look like they are about to eat us. And in case you’ve forgotten, we already have enough to deal with.”

“Just give me a minute, will you?” Roland didn’t know what I knew. As soon as I felt the sinister consciousness in the rat’s mind, I knew it was not going to let us pass. I also knew I could not leave these poor tortured animals without trying to help them.

I let power pool in my hands as if I was going to do a healing. My energy worked on sickness and injuries but I had no idea how to use it against another power. Except for that one time that I had pushed back on Nikolas when he entered my mind, I’d never used my power offensively and I had no idea if I could do it again. Time to find out.

My palms grew hot and the rat began to squirm. “Easy there,” I crooned, caressing its back with my thumbs as I let the power flow into him. The instant I came up against the unnatural presence, it shifted and pulsed like a cold slimy maggot and the rat began to squeak and twist frantically. Bile rose in my throat at the feel of the foul thing burrowed in the animal’s mind and my power flexed unconsciously, pushing at it, surrounding it like it was an infection to be burned from the body. The invader pushed back and I turned up the heat until I felt the thing shrink away, twisting in pain. I latched on and sent a blast of white hot energy into it and I felt the explosion of power in my own mind like a scream. The rat stopped struggling as a healing current swept away the last traces of the sickness and replaced it with a warm sense of safety and wellbeing.