by Liz Schulte
****
There wasn’t time for any other arrangements, not that Corbin would have gone for them. He said he’d give me my twelve hours, but whether or not that was true was anyone’s guess. I had believed Corbin would be the calmer, more patient of the vampire choices, but how was I supposed to know their history? All he had ever really said was that it was his job to find Thomas. I should have dug deeper. But regret wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I had a case to solve. What, if anything, I was going to do about Thomas and Corbin would have to wait.
Thomas wasn’t the killer I’d come here to find. He was definitely homicidal, but all I felt from him was anger and sadness. The emotions were base, though. That monster in the living room couldn’t have made those calculated crime scenes. Thomas was definitely still in there, but I didn’t sense a huge amount of control. Perhaps he could plan an attack, but once it started, it’d look more like the last human that was found and less like a surgery. All of this took me back to the one anomaly: Gus. Why kill the ghoul? Nothing fed on ghouls. They couldn’t sate hunger and they wouldn’t have been a threat, unlike the other victims.
I got into my car and started the engine. Before I could think about it too much, I sent up a quick prayer, and moments later Quintus arrived, sitting in the passenger seat, nearly blinding me with his bright yellow light.
“Femi, it’s wonderful to hear from you. I’ve missed you,” he said as he hugged me warmly with a wide, dimpled smile across his handsome face. “I’m so glad you’ve reached out. How have you been?”
I kissed his cheek. “Same shit. You know how it is. I need your help with something.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “What can I do?”
I put the car into gear and headed out of the city toward the cemetery Amos had taken me to, trying to shield my eyes from the bright light pouring from him. “Do you think we could cover you up or something? You’re blinding me.”
He laughed. “The curse of a guardian, I am afraid. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about it. I could meet you wherever you are going.”
I shook my head. “Don’t bother.” I put on my sunglasses. The gnawing worry in my stomach wasn’t doing much for my mood. Maybe turning in Thomas had been the wrong decision. Maybe I should have waited. “What do you know about loup-garous?”
“It’s a curse that lasts for a set period of time then passes on to the surviving victims. Its use is fairly regional. It probably stems from hoodoo, but I don’t know a lot about that.”
Thomas claimed he couldn’t remember what he did while cursed. Dempsey, on the other hand, remembered everything. Either they were contending with different curses or one of them wasn’t telling me the truth. “Could it be used to control someone? Like if I cursed you, could I make you do things against your will?”
Quintus shook his head. “I don’t believe so, but I am really not an expert. It is my understanding that the curse reveals, through the monster, that which frightens us the most about ourselves. It would be impossible to predict how anyone would react to it, since even the recipient of the curse is often unaware of what it will exploit.”
That explained why the emotions I felt in Thomas were so base. The curse pulled up the fears and resentment hidden from the world and, as Quintus said, from ourselves. What was Thomas hiding? Why did he come here and why did he reach out to me? Especially now, of all times. “The victims are personal to the loup-garou, then? Like they would be people it knows in life.”
“Most of the time. It would depend on the person who was cursed. If someone like Holden were cursed, I would fear for all of humanity more than I would fear for Olivia, because he already has the proclivity toward violence. However, it probably wouldn’t release him until he sacrificed her. It was made to punish its victims for their weakness of faith and will. Some try to resist it, but most fail in the end.” Dempsey’s story came to mind. He’d failed and he had to live with that. “I would imagine, like with anything, there will be exceptions. Perhaps some could learn to use the curse to their advantage, but I couldn’t begin to guess how. Holden might have some insight into that. Is this helpful at all?”
I nodded. Who did Thomas love more than himself? Who would the curse want to take from him? Maybe there wasn’t anyone, and that was why he had killed so many humans. Anger and sadness ran so deep in him that he might not even be capable of love. “What if the cursed person doesn’t love anyone else?”
Sad, regretful lines etched at the corners of Quintus’s mouth. “What a sad life that person must lead. I suppose, in that case, it’s possible it wouldn’t end. The curse could become entirely unpredictable.” Good news for Corbin, terrible news for the rest of the world. “I take it this has to do with a current bounty.”
I blew out a breath. “Sort of. This is half of the case, anyway.” The other murders were still unaccounted for, and I didn’t understand how the council fit in or why the vampires had suddenly decided they had to have Thomas right now. Corbin obviously was unaware of the loup-garou curse. The story was starting to come together, but there were gaps. “Let’s say we have one of these unpredictable cursed people—how would I stop it?”
“Kill it?” he said. “But then you will take the curse. Or there’s always Hollowfield. That’s why it was built.”
“What if I want to extinguish this curse once and for all? Can I do that?”
He scratched his jaw. “I haven’t encountered many who have been cursed, and those that I have were mostly in human form and I simply tried to help ease their burden. I wasn’t looking for a cure. There may not be one. Most of the time, curses have to be broken by the cursed. There is usually a lesson involved and a sacrifice on their part.”
I clicked my teeth together. Thomas probably wouldn’t be willing to make a sacrifice or learn anything, especially given what horrors awaited him at the hands of the vampires as soon he was himself again.
“Where are we going?” Quintus asked.
“Cemetery. I’d like a second opinion.”
He nodded. “Sure. Does this have to do with the loup-garou?”
“I don’t think so. The best I can tell, there are two killers, and something about the—” I shook my head. I didn’t want to influence his opinion by sharing mine. “I just want you to tell me what you think and feel at the crime scene.”
His head tilted. “Why do you need me? Not that I don’t love seeing you, but you have never needed my help on an investigation before. I am positive you have already formed your opinions.”
I grinned at him. “Maybe I just like having you around, Dimples.” It wasn’t far from the truth. Having someone like Quintus around made all of my problems somehow seem more manageable. Quintus didn’t have angles and he certainly didn’t have a stake in this. Yeah, he was a goody two shoes—most guardians were—but he was a friend.
He smiled back, his adorable dimples as cute and boyish as ever—which was a hard look to maintain on someone thousands of years old. His eyes gave him away, though. Deep and ancient and entirely too perceptive. “I know you.” His voice was gentle. “You wouldn’t have called me for information. You have Sy for that. Something else weighs on you. Are you in trouble?”
I pulled into the same place I’d parked last time I was here. What he had told me about the loup-garous was useful, but he was right. Had I just wanted basic information, I would have called him yesterday. What I really wanted was someone to assuage my guilt. Most people admitted that most things fell into the metaphorical gray area as far as right or wrong were concerned. Punching a coworker in the face might be wrong, but sometimes it was deserved—especially with bounty hunters. Quintus wasn’t like that, though. He saw the world as black and white. Like even though Holden had been fairly good for a while now, Quintus still viewed him as evil and probably always would. That was why I wanted him here now. I needed him to tell me that turning in Thomas was the right thing to do, no matter how it felt. “I did something.”
He nodded, but didn’t s
peak.
“Do you remember the vampire that tried to turn Maggie?”
“I do.”
“He came to me for help and I said I would, but I lied. I helped myself instead. I gave him to Corbin. The vampires were coming for me, and it was impossible to investigate this case if they were going to attack me at every turn. I had to find a way to deal with them and I had to do it on my own, so I made a choice. Thomas showed up out of the blue and thinks he can turn my life upside down. I am one person. I can’t be at war with the vampires, especially in a city like this. Plus, I can’t be distracted by his mess if I want to complete my assignment, so I simplified the situation. I gave the vampires what they wanted so I could wrap this case for the council.” I looked over at him, waiting for the general sense of disgust that I felt in myself to show up on his face. It didn’t.
“He has hurt many people,” Quintus said.
“I know.”
“Your job is, in fact, to hunt down criminals and return them for judgment by their people.” I nodded. “Why, then, is this one different?”
I pressed my palm hard against my forehead. “It isn’t.” But even as I said the words, I knew it was a lie. “I’m fine with the vampires—” Nope, that wasn’t true either. I wasn’t fine with the vampires doing whatever they thought was best. “I know his debt to society can never be paid. He has hurt too many people for that, but Corbin’s plans for him…”
“You disapprove?”
“Yes.”
He took my hand. “What would you have him do instead?”
There was no answer for that. On one hand, if he had killed the people I loved in hopes of controlling me, I wouldn’t be any different than Corbin. I’d go after him with everything I was.
“Do you love him?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then why do you resist?”
I pulled my hand away from his and scowled at the dashboard. “You are honestly for him being tortured and killed?”
I could feel him smiling, but I refused to look. “No. But I am never for that. I believe in peace full-heartedly. But we are not discussing me. You capture bounties and deliver them. Do you believe this doesn’t happen with the others you turn in?”
I had honestly never thought much about it. It wasn’t my business. They committed crimes then ran away, and I found them and returned them. That was my job.
“Do you not feel the vampires should be allowed to govern their own race? They are perhaps somehow more corrupt than most.”
I closed my eyes. “I am not saying that either.” It was probably true, but I wasn’t saying it. I wasn’t sure what I was saying. I just wanted to stop feeling like my actions made me as bad as he was. I’d let him believe I would help him then stabbed him in the back. It was beneath me.
“Perhaps you believe all of this is about you, then?”
I opened one eye. “What do you mean?”
“You are the one who exposed him for what he was, correct? It is because of you the vampires hunt him.”
“No. They are after him because he is an asshole who tried to sell people to rich vampires to feed on, and apparently betrayed a lot more than that. There is no proof that Thomas has ever made a good decision in his whole life.” Besides for the one when he warned me about the plan to sell me, turning his life upside down and having to go on the run, because in the end he couldn’t betray me, not on a life-or-death matter. Not like I had betrayed him. “I put a stop to what he was doing and I am proud of it. This is different, though.”
“How?”
“I’m hungry.” I laid my head against the steering wheel. I turned to look at him. “I know it isn’t my place, but I don’t want to be the reason he dies.”
Chapter 15