The Curse Keepers Collection (54 page)

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

I decided to turn the question around on him. “Where did
you
learn about Algonquian gods and markings?”

“My mother is part Lumbee. I asked my great uncle after I first saw them on your door.” He stopped at another stoplight.

This had to be the longest drive ever.

“And what’s with the marking on your back?”

Goddamn it. How on earth had he seen that?

As if reading my mind, he reached over and shifted the strap of my tank top to the side. “Your shirt isn’t exactly covering it. What’s it for?”

“It was a dare from Claire. She knows how much Myra hates tattoos. So before Daddy died, I got a henna tattoo and pretended it was real.” It was all true except for the dare part. “It’s fading.” Which also meant I was almost out of time. Okeus’s symbol on my back was a temporary protection from the gods and spirits. Once it was gone, my Manitou—or life force—would be fair game. And they’d all made it quite clear that they considered my Manitou a gourmet feast.

“More Native American symbols, Ellie.”

He was starting to piss me off. “When did it become a crime to be fascinated with another culture? People get Asian symbols tattooed on them all the time.”

The light turned green, and I held back a sigh of relief. We were only five blocks from my apartment.

“You have to admit that the timing is a bit coincidental.”

“How do you know I haven’t been interested in Native American things for a while?”

“Call it a hunch. You just admitted you got the henna tattoo right before your father died, and that’s around the time you started marking your door. Something fishy is going on here.”

I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut. I sucked at this covert crap.

We rode the rest of the way to my apartment in silence, although Tom kept sneaking glances at me. When he pulled into my parking lot, I reached for the door handle like it was my lifeline. He grabbed my arm. “Ellie, wait.”

I paused, refusing to look at him.

“Like I said, I know you’re not a murderer. I’m not accusing you of anything. In fact, I think you’re in trouble, only I’ve done a piss-poor job of telling you that.” He tugged on my arm. “Ellie, look at me.”

I slowly turned to face him.

“You’re scared of someone or something, and I want to help you. But I can’t do that unless you tell me what’s wrong.”

As I stared into Tom’s earnest face, I realized I felt like telling him everything. That I was one of two Curse Keepers, the descendant of the Ananias Dare line. As the eldest child of the previous Keeper, my father, my job had been to watch and wait for the breaking of the curse that made the Lost Colony of Roanoke disappear over four hundred years ago. The other Keeper was Collin Dailey, a commercial fisherman from Buxton, North Carolina, and part-time petty thief, who took his role more seriously than I did mine. He was the descendant of the line begun by the Croatan chief Manteo. Only Collin had purposely broken the curse . . . and instead of closing the gate to hell before the morning of the seventh day, he had tricked me into opening it wide.

Everyone was scrambling for a reasonable explanation for why the Lost Colony had suddenly reappeared a few weeks ago, preserved down to the food in the colonists’ bowls. I wanted to tell Tom the truth: Collin had shown up in the New Moon restaurant while I was working and pressed his right palm to mine, breaking the curse.

I would have loved to tell Tom about the horrifying things that had escaped and how they now lay in wait, regaining their strength before seeking their revenge against humanity for locking them away. That the mutilated dog he was about to investigate had undoubtedly been butchered by one of them.

But if I told him any of it, he would think I was crazy. If I told him all of it, he’d have me committed. The curse was my cross to bear.

I offered him a tired smile. “Thanks, Tom. If I find myself in a situation where I think you can help me, I’ll be sure to call you.”

Before he could ask more questions, I hopped out of the police car and headed up the two flights of outside stairs to my apartment. When I reached the landing, I realized that I’d left my keys and purse in my unlocked car, but I wasn’t about to let Tom know that. I bent over and pulled my spare key from underneath the mat and slipped it into the door. As I swung it open, I froze. There were fresh markings on the door.

Collin had been here.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and summoned my anger. Collin Fucking Dailey didn’t deserve my tears. I had given him my heart—not to mention the fact that my soul was now literally bound to his for all eternity—and he’d thrown it away. He’d thrown
me
away for whatever reward Okeus had promised him in exchange for opening the gate.

So why was he still helping me?

After the curse was broken three weeks ago and the first spirits were released, Collin had started to mark my door with symbols that represented the day and the night, forces of nature, and, in the center of each side, his symbol for the land, asking all the forces to lend me their protection.

Collin was the son of the earth, and I was the daughter of the sea. Our power was stronger combined than it was individually. So right before the end—before he betrayed me—we intersected our symbols for added protection.

Now, every few nights, he would sneak up and either scratch on fresh markings or place his symbol over mine.

He was protecting me even now.

I wanted to hate him—I
did
hate him—but this very act had softened my heart to him before. And look where that had gotten me . . . I needed to grow up. Collin wasn’t doing this out of love.

Collin Dailey loved one person—Collin Dailey.

He was helping me out of guilt. It would only be a matter of time before he decided he’d paid his dues. Either that, or he thought he still needed me for something. Perhaps it was a combination of the two.

Any way I sliced it, I was in deep shit. The henna tattoo had faded so much it was almost gone, and Collin would soon stop lending me his marks.

I needed to learn how to protect myself or I was as good as dead.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

When the curse first broke, animals began parading through my dreams, calling out to me for help. And I also began to have nightmares about the past, dredging up memories that had been buried long ago. But after the gate opened all the way, and my henna tattoo began to fade, other creepy crawlies started to invade my dreams . . .

The creatures varied from night to night, but tonight the creature resembled a badger, although it was many times larger than it should have been. It crouched in front of me, its eyes glowing red. Its teeth were huge, sharp, and dripping with blood.

“Curse Keeper,” it said. “Daughter of the sea and witness to creation. Okeus is waiting for you to be ready, but I have other plans.”

Panic washed through me and I took a step backward, holding up the mark on my palm. I had the power to send him away—not permanently, but I could get him to leave me alone for now.

The animal laughed. “Your mark won’t always work.”

It wasn’t exactly news. His children had screamed and hissed about these great plans as they spilled out of the gates of hell. Their first order of business was to regain their strength. Torturing me for four centuries as punishment for my ancestor’s role in locking them away was a close second. Despite the way I’d taunted Okeus in the botanical gardens, I knew the last thing I wanted to do was confront him. “Tell Okeus I’ll take a rain check.”

“Tell him yourself,” the creature snarled. “He’ll visit you soon. Unless I get to you first.”

A dog appeared behind the badger, hunched down and whimpering, restrained by unseen forces. The badger turned around and attacked with a loud growl, throwing the dog to the ground and ripping open the flesh of its abdomen. Screaming and howling, the dog tried to get away, but the badger continued its attack, ripping intestines from the still-living creature and flinging them to the ground.

I fought to wake from the nightmare, but the badger looked over its shoulder, intestines hanging from its teeth, and mumbled, “This is only the beginning.”

I awoke screaming, my nose still filled with the scent of blood. I jumped out of bed and ran to the toilet, throwing up what was left of my dinner from hours earlier. I tried to purge the image from my head along with the contents of my stomach. The image wasn’t as easy to lose.

After I rinsed out my mouth, I made sure all the window ledges were protected with salt, which helped keep out the nasties. I went into my living room and grabbed my laptop, hoping to uncover some information about the creature from my dream. I wasn’t even sure what to look for. My biggest problem was that four hundred years ago the colonists had been more intent on converting the Native Americans to Christianity than they were on recording their belief system. Multiple tribes had been wiped from existence without making more than a blip on the historical record, which meant that finding specific information about the gods and spirits was next to impossible. I’d already checked the local library and bookstore and performed every conceivable Internet search. I needed to know what I was fighting—or at the very least defending myself against—but there was so little to find.

I curled up on the oversized sofa with an afghan and glanced at the clock, surprised I hadn’t yet had a visitor. Maybe they’d skip tonight since I’d been out by the tree.

But that was wishful thinking. The banging on my front door started at 4:00 a.m., close to dawn—when the spirits were usually at their strongest.

The mark on my palm itched and burned, making me cringe. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with a messenger, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. If I didn’t answer, the thing would keep pounding and moaning and might awaken my neighbors. And if anyone came to investigate, there was a good chance the spirit would take their Manitou, the essence of life in all living things. So I either answered the door or risked killing my neighbors and condemning them to hell. Too bad I liked my neighbors.

“Curse Keeper! I summon you.”

Setting my laptop on the sofa, I threw off the afghan and padded to the front door.

“Who’s there?”

“Who are you to speak to me this way!”

I groaned. It had to be Kanim, the messenger spirit of Okeus. As if the badger thing hadn’t been enough for one night. Taking a deep breath, I cracked open the door and spread my legs apart to brace myself against the wind with which the spirit would most likely blast me.

The cold gust hit me in the face, and instead of the usual dark blob hovering over the wooden floor of my deck, a large bird with a human head and flowing white hair was perched on the rail of my front porch.

It was Wapi, the northern wind god.

Oh, crap. He was just a shadowy spirit the first time I met him. I’d seen his true form when the gates of hell burst open, but most of the messengers who’d visited me after that night still showed up as shadows. Wapi had been free the longest of all the gods, so there’d been more time for him to regain his strength. What did it mean about the others if Wapi was already strong enough to come to me in his corporeal state?

Part of me was terrified. If he’d regained his true form, what was he capable of doing? The marks on my door would only keep him from coming in to get me. They wouldn’t protect me once I left the apartment.

I gripped the edge of the door. “What do you want, Wapi?” There was no love lost between us. He’d tried to suck out my Manitou a couple of days after the curse was first broken.

“Okeus has placed his mark on your arm.”

My hand self-consciously rubbed the zigzag scar made by Okeus’s claw. “Ahone has claimed me.”

“Ahone,” the bird spit. “Ahone is a weak coward. He hides in the heavens. Where is your Ahone now? Where will he be when Okeus comes to claim that which is his?”

I couldn’t help thinking that “that which is his” meant me.

I rested my temple on the edge of the door frame. “I’m tired, so cut to the chase. What do you want?”

“You are running out of time. You must choose a side. Okeus or Ahone.”