Malediction: An Old World Story (7 page)

I wasn’t sure what to expect in the shed—the press had made a big deal about how much blood had coated the inside walls, but I’d assumed it was a salacious exaggeration. As we got closer to the open door, however, I could already smell it: old blood and feces and urine. They must have cleaned it up at least a little, which meant this was just the smell of what they couldn’t wash away. It stank even to me, and I wondered how it would affect a werewolf. Didn’t they have an enhanced sense of smell? This had to be torture for Lizzy. Why would she keep coming back here of all places?

When we reached the door Cruz automatically stepped forward, motioning for me to flank him. Cop instincts. I didn’t like being in the “protectee” position, but Lizzy knew him, not me, and if she was as freaked out as everyone thought, a familiar face was probably the best bet.

It was dark inside the windowless shed, but a tiny bit of LA sunlight leaked in through cracks in the old wood. Cruz and I instinctively paused and let our eyes adjust to the dim interior. In that brief moment I heard the sound of whimpering. It shot straight into my heart. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn it was coming from an injured dog.

I stepped forward into the shed, ignoring Jesse’s arm as it rose to caution me. I felt dirt under my feet, saw shadows on the walls. No, not shadows, I realized—bloodstains. On every wall, like someone had done a sloppy job with a paint roller.

Sam’s blood.

I ignored it and focused on the small form huddled in the corner. This had to be Lizzy Thompkins, squatting or laying down, but I couldn’t see more than a shape, with another, darker shape next to her. I considered using the flashlight app on my phone, but decided it might spook her. “Lizzy?” I asked softly.

Movement. She lifted her head and snarled, “
I said go away
!” There was something dark streaked down her chin, and I took an automatic step backward. The sobbing resumed.

Cruz moved up so we were more or less side by side. “Lizzy, it’s Jesse Cruz. Do you remember me?”

The sobbing stopped for a moment. “Jesse?”

“Yeah, honey, it’s me,” he said gently. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him crouch down, and I did the same. “What’s the matter?”

A choked, sobbing laugh, like Lizzy couldn’t even begin to answer that question. I could relate. “I killed a cat,” she said mournfully. The words chilled me. “I didn’t mean to, but I was so upset and it jumped at me …”

“Never liked cats much,” Jesse said, sounding calmer than I felt.

She sniffled and her head turned sharply to face me. “Who are you? You smell … I know your smell …”

“I’m Lex,” I said. “Sam Wheaton’s sister. I’ve been hoping to meet you.”

There was a moment of silence, and when she spoke again it was in a terrible whisper. “Will you bleed for me?”

Cruz and I looked at each other. “Maybe you should go—” he began, but somehow I understood what she wanted. What she was asking.

“Do you have a knife?” I asked him.

“Lex, I really don’t think—”

“Just give it to me.”

He sighed and squirmed for a moment, and then I was handed a small Swiss Army knife. At that same moment the breeze picked up a little and the shed door drifted inward, letting in a bit more light. I fumbled open a blade and pierced the tip of my right middle finger, then held it out to Lizzy.

She darted forward to grab my hand, and for the first time I realized that she was naked, her clothes in a pile beside her. She took a great deep sniff, let out another one of those desperate giggles, and took another sniff. “
Yes,
yes, you smell like her! Your blood’s just like her blood, but it smells like something else too.” Sniff, sniff. “What does it smell like?”

“Death,” I said. “There’s death magic in my blood.”

She only paused a moment before asking hopefully, “Will you kill me?”

My eyes filled with tears, but I made sure my voice was strong before I answered, “No, honey. I won’t kill you.” But I was giving serious thought to bringing Remus back from the dead just so I could kill him again. “If there’s another way to help you, though, I will.”

Lizzy made a snuffling noise and crawled forward. She was about my age, but she was painfully thin, small enough to curl herself up against my body; just like a hurt animal seeking comfort. I put my arms around her and glanced at Cruz over the top of her head. His eyes were full, too. I tried not to look at the cat.

After I’d held her for a moment, Lizzy said abruptly, “Sam died so hard.”

I struggled to suppress my flinch. “Do you want to tell me about it?” I shot a questioning look to Cruz. Scarlett had said Remus was trying to change more werewolves, add to his own little pack, but she hadn’t gotten to Sam’s part of the story yet.

“He was experimenting on the women,” Jesse said softly. “Trying to find the best way to change a female into a…um…” He squirmed, looking uncomfortable.

“A mate,” Lizzy sobbed. “I was supposed to be his mate. Lucky me.” Her voice was bitter. “Sam he ate.”

I couldn’t keep the shock off my face. Cruz looked away from me. “He …
ate
her?”

“Well, most of her. Bite by bite,” she said into my stomach. “I miss him so much.”

Revulsion flooded me, and it was all I could do not to throw Lizzy Thompkins away from me and run out of there. Scarlett had said something about alphas and pack structure—this woman’s werewolf instincts were revolting against her human judgment. Against
all
human judgment.

Lizzy sat up and sidled away from me. “I can smell the change in you,” she said mournfully. “You’re disgusted, and I don’t blame you. I’m disgusted too. But my body … my body keeps telling me to come back here, to this place where I can smell my friends’ death all around me …because that’s where he was.” After a moment she laid her head down on the ground, and her whole body went slack.

There were other things I could ask her about Sam’s last moments, but I couldn’t bear it. Tears were already spilling down my cheeks and I had to focus to control my breathing. Jesse looked like he wanted to say something, or maybe touch me, but I shook my head. I’d asked, hadn’t I? I’d wanted to know. No, I’d
demanded
to know. Now I had to live with the knowledge.

After a few more minutes, Lizzy’s breathing slowed. I didn’t think she was sleeping, just … spent. Nearly catatonic. I nodded at Jesse, who went over and picked her up like she was a child. She settled her head against on his shoulder and mumbled something.

“We’re going to take you home,” he told her. He tilted his head so I would follow him out. I didn’t need to be told—I couldn’t get away from here fast enough.

“Don’t have a home anymore,” Lizzy muttered. “Just different cages.” I winced.

When we left the shed, Scarlett immediately backed away. True to her word, she’d stayed close in case we needed her. Now, she hovered about twenty feet away, clearly worried about Lizzy but unable to do much more than wring her hands. Part of me wanted her to run over and give Lizzy some respite from her emotional agony—her sickness. But maybe it was crueler to give her relief that wouldn’t last.

There were only three cars in the lot: Scarlett’s van, Jesse’s sedan, and a nondescript Toyota. Astrid was leaning against the side of the car, having returned from her walk. She glared at each of us in turn as if daring us to remark on her absence. No one did. She opened the back door of the Toyota, then watched with her arms folded defiantly across her chest as Cruz laid Lizzy across the backseat.
 

When she was settled Astrid went to the trunk and pulled out a rough blanket, passing it to Jesse so he could drape it over the woman’s nude form. “Nice, huh?” Astrid asked, watching him. “Did you get the whole show?”

“As much as we could stomach,” Cruz said with a glance my way.

“Why is she like this?” I asked the other werewolf.

She gave me a look, like I was being thick on purpose and she didn’t like it. “Um, because she’s a werewolf? There’s a reason why they call it a curse.”

“But
you’re
a werewolf,” I said disbelievingly. “She’s, like … damaged.”

A bitter smile quirked up one side of her mouth. “Don’t be fooled, lady. We’re all damaged. That’s what werewolf magic does to you. Some of us just wear it better than others.”

I shuddered. Back home, Quinn talked about werewolf magic like it was just another branch of the Old World, but this … this was
repulsive
. Henry Remus was a monster, and he’d turned what was left of this poor woman into a monster too.
 

“What will happen to her?” I asked.

She shrugged. “My shift with her ends tonight. Tomorrow she’s some other pack member’s problem.” Astrid stomped over to the driver’s door, practically snarling. She seemed so upset, but I didn’t get the sense that it was with us, or even with Lizzy. With herself? Remus? I didn’t know, but I was done asking questions.

When the two werewolves pulled away, Scarlett came up to stand beside Cruz and me. I felt the little loosening again, the sense of decreased pressure I always felt around my niece. It was beginning to annoy me, coming from her. “I’m sorry, Lex,” Cruz said, still watching the Toyota’s taillights disappear. “About Sam.”

I shook my head. Be careful what you wish for. Sam had said I deserved to know the truth, that a werewolf was responsible for her murder. But I hadn’t stopped there. I’d wanted the
whole
truth, and now I couldn’t stop seeing images of my sister’s body, her beautiful, perfect body, which had been home not just to her soul, but to Charlie’s, being mauled.
Bite by bite
. My fists clenched. I turned to face the others.

“The bodies weren’t lost, were they?” I asked. “You had them all along.”

Scarlett and Cruz exchanged a fleeting look that managed to communicate something very complicated. Then Scarlett nodded at me. “I couldn’t risk the LAPD finding evidence of werewolves,” she explained. “That’s my job.”

“I understand,” I said quietly. “I get why you had to do it. But I want my sister. I want to take her home and bury her.”

“That’s impossible,” Scarlett said.

“I know, you don’t want the cops to run tests, but I’ll find a way around that. I can claim religion, maybe.” Hell, I would get Quinn out here to press the coroner if I had to. “Remus is dead, so it’s not like they’ll be in a hurry to double-check her for more evidence.”

“I’m sorry,” Scarlett said in a clear, professional voice, the kind that doctors use to break bad news to the thousandth patient of the day. “That’s not possible. I incinerated the body.”

My jaw dropped open. I looked at Cruz, but he was staring abashedly at the ground in front of his toes. “You … incinerated … my sister.”

Scarlett didn’t look away. “In a furnace,” she said simply. “It’s what I do.”

I punched her in her stupid face.

9. Jesse

Jesse saw the blow coming and tried to get in between the two women, but he only managed to sort of awkwardly bump into Lex, forcing her to stagger a little so that the punch lost some of its force. It wasn’t enough: Scarlett was knocked onto her ass. Blood trickled from her lip. Before any of them could react, Jesse heard a pounding from behind them: frantic, rhythmic, like something being thrown up against a wall. He turned just in time to see Shadow explode through the shattered safety window in Scarlett’s van.

“Now you’ve done it,” Scarlett said. She just sounded weary.

A furious bargest in action was a sight to behold. Shadow had been created to kill, and as she shot across the small parking lot, she looked like a black wave of unstoppable, inevitable, instant death. Jesse took one step forward, but he spared a second to glance at Scarlett, who seemed unruffled. She trusted Shadow not to actually hurt anyone, so he did too.

The bargest’s rage seemed to soften as soon as she hit Scarlett’s radius, though she continued on her course toward Lex. To her credit, the witch didn’t run or even move. She put her hands in her pockets and gazed downward, and Jesse realized she had some experience with unstable dogs. Shadow planted her feet a few feet away from Lex, and what little fur she had stood up in anger as she growled and snapped. “No, Shadow,” Scarlett said soothingly. “I kind of deserved that. Don’t eat her. Lex, could you please sit down near me?”

Calmly, but with an astonished look on her face, Lex went over to Scarlett and lowered herself onto the grass next to the null, trying to look nonthreatening. The two of them sat there for a moment while Shadow’s head whipped between them, and Jesse almost laughed. They looked so much like two chagrined students in detention, with Shadow as the mean teacher in charge. He folded his arms across his chest, watching.

“I can’t believe you just disposed of my sister,” Lex muttered to Scarlett, with one eye on the angry bargest. “Like she was nothing. Like she was garbage.” Her voice was wavering, and Jesse realized she was trying not to cry.

“I told you,” Scarlett said stubbornly, “it’s my job.”

“Some job you’ve got,” Lex snapped, and the bargest snarled at her, advancing. Lex pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them—she had no way of knowing it, but this was one of Scarlett’s gestures, and the bargest backed off again. “And everyone thinks
I’m
a monster,” Lex mumbled.

Jesse didn’t actually expect a reaction from Scarlett, but to his surprise she went still. A tear ran down her cheek before she swiped it away. Sensing her mistress’s mood, the bargest settled onto the ground in front of Scarlett and shoved her head under Scarlett’s hand.

When the null spoke, she sounded as young and lost as Jesse had ever heard her. “If I don’t, who will?” Scarlett whispered. “If I don’t do these horrible things, they’ll force them on Corry or Eli, or some other innocent. It’s not too late for them.”

Jesse blinked then, wanting to go to her, knowing he couldn’t.
 

Realizing what she’d just implied, Scarlett’s face hardened. “I’m sorry that Remus killed your sister before we could stop him. I’m sorry for your loss,” she said to Lex. “But if you’re waiting for me to apologize for what I did, it’s not gonna happen.”