by Sierra Dean
Hair clung to her scalp, but it was impossible to know what color it had been. All of her looked like she had been tossed in a fire at some point, roasted alive.
“Do you see her?” I asked again. His expression told me yes, but I needed to hear the words. Needed confirmation.
“Yes. What the fuck is that?”
Yet another question I didn’t have the answer to. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get out and confront her, or tell him to drive around her. Neither seemed like the right thing to do, and I wasn’t in the right headspace to be confronting yet another monster so soon after Mercy’s return.
“Stay here.” I opened the passenger door before he could protest, the shocking chill of evening air slipping in and raising goose bumps all over my arms.
“Genie what are you—?” He threw the car into park.
I closed the door behind me before he had a chance to talk any common sense into me. This might seem like an idiotic idea, and it probably was, but I’d seen this woman before, and she hadn’t done anything to hurt me. Maybe she had no intention of doing me any harm.
Ha. Yeah, right.
“What do you want?” I called out, lingering next to the car door. The wind swirled around me and I shivered. So much for not showing how scared I was. The cold itself had given me away.
She took a faltering, jerky step forward. I felt like I had just walked into a horror movie and the creepy Japanese ghost from The Ring was coming for me out of a television set. This creature moved much the same, each move a twitch, each step a stop-motion video.
From the base of her throat came a rasping sound like leaves over concrete. If she was making words, I couldn’t understand them.
After advancing a few feet—during which time my brain demanded over and over that I just get back in the car and tell Wilder to drive away—she stopped moving again. She went so still I could have sworn time had frozen and we were going to be stuck here for eternity staring at each other.
The soft click of the driver side door opening distracted both of us, and her attention and mine shifted to Wilder.
Then something new happened.
In all the times I had seen her before, as spooky as they’d been, her attention had just been for me, I’d been her sole focus. This time, she looked at Wilder, and he stared back at her, and she seemed surprised.
The skeletal rustling sound I understood to be her voice came out in a long wheeze, loud and unsettling, and she took two jerky steps in his direction, her whole focus now locked on him.
Wilder froze, but aside from his lack of movement he didn’t show any signs of fear. Hell, I couldn’t even smell his adrenaline kicking up. Now that was a solid poker face. There was no way he wasn’t scared as hell right now.
She stopped moving about ten feet away from him—much too close for my liking—and they gawked at each other across the distance. It was as if I was no longer there.
Again she made the loud rasping noise.
“Is she trying to say something?” he asked me, never taking his eyes off her.
“I don’t know.”
Now her focus slipped back in my direction, and she made a sound that was, no word of a lie, a sigh. An exasperated, annoyed sigh. Done with me once again, she continued to move towards Wilder, her expression—what there was to read of it on her ruined face—was desperate, hungry.
She rasped at him.
“What do you want?” he asked. Goddamn he was tough as nails, his voice didn’t even tremble. I was convinced now this might not be bravado at all, he really was this fearless.
The creature froze.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it seemed like she was as stunned he could see her as I was. If I understood her response, she was trying to confirm he was looking at her, and now that he had, she didn’t know what to do.
A low, long wail emanated from her throat, and she reached out both hands for him. Wilder positioned the open car door between them, and took several steps backwards, narrowly avoiding her charcoal fingertips from brushing his chest.
“Christ, Genie, what is this?”
Now his heartbeat was moving a little faster, as he circled around the back of the car, coming to stand beside me. Okay, so he wasn’t totally impervious to fear. Good to know.
The first time I’d ever seen her was in the pre-dawn light, right after I had gone for a run in my werewolf form. In all the times I’d seen her since, I still had no idea who she was or what she wanted.
“She just keeps showing up,” I admitted. “For about a year now. It started right before we met. She sort of pops up, terrifies me, then disappears. I thought I might be imagining her, or going insane, but if you can see her…”
“Yeah, I can fucking see her, she looks like a special FX makeup artist got a little too gung-ho on ‘burnt corpse’.”
That really did sum it up.
“How is she even moving?” he asked.
“Man, I don’t know. Do I look like a Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual to you?”
“Forgive me for asking, Princess, but between the two of us you’re the one who has slightly more experience with the walking dead.”
“I don’t think she’s an animated corpse.”
The creature was watching us with keen interest, but she stayed on the far side of the car, not trying to come any closer.
“She looks like a corpse.”
“Right, but she also recognizes that we’re talking to her. Or about her.” I waved my hand at her and she wheezed back at me. “I think she’s trying to communicate with us but can’t.”
“I guess talking might be pretty difficult if your lungs were burned to a crisp.”
She made a sound then that sent chills ricocheting right through me. The wheezing became choppy and clipped, short huh-huh-huh noises.
“Is she laughing?” I asked.
Wilder didn’t answer, but his hand had gone to my arm and he was squeezing me so hard it hurt.
Headlights appeared in the oncoming lane, haloed by the fog. Wilder and I both glanced up at the same time. He pulled me towards him so we were both pressed against the car, which gave us plenty of safe distance when a truck whizzed past us, honking with annoyance, churning up the fog in its wake.
When the white mist had settled back around us, the burned woman was gone.
Chapter Six
It was close to midnight by the time we pulled into the driveway of my little bungalow in New Orleans. The lights were on inside, shining like a warm beacon into the cold, dark November night. Magnolia’s car was parked on the street out front, and as Wilder and I sat shell-shocked beside each other in the front seat, I could see my friend in the house move through my living room into the kitchen.
She was carrying a basket of laundry.
An abrupt laugh escaped my lips.
While Wilder and I hade been confronting a charred undead monster on the highway, Magnolia had been washing our clothes.
It was ridiculous enough to feel hilarious.
Wilder reached across the distance and placed his large hand at the back of my neck, giving me a faint, comforting squeeze with his long fingers. He didn’t need to say anything, we both knew what had happened on the highway. Me cackling hysterically in the passenger seat was probably the best possible reaction I could have had right then.
Inside the house, it smelled like cooked meat. There was a big stir-fry in a pan on the stove, with plenty of steak strips in among the beautiful, bright vegetables. A pot of rice sat next to it.
In spite of the late hour, it appeared that Magnolia had timed the cooking perfectly, as steam was still rising from both dishes.
I hadn’t imagined I would be hungry, but the sight of the fresh meal made my stomach rumble. We had eaten before leaving Callum’s, but you’d be hard pressed to find a werewolf who wasn’t always a bit peckish.
Magnolia didn’t even ask how we were, she pulled out the chairs and heaped up plates for both of us, then made her own plate and sat d
own across from me. Wilder stared at his plate, bewildered, then dove in. Mags left her plate largely untouched, watching us eat. The basket of folded laundry sat next to her chair.
Once we were done scraping the bottom of our dishes she said, “So, tell me what happened. The two of you look like you saw a ghost.”
I hazarded a glance at Wilder, who had to pause on his last bite because he had choked.
“That’s certainly one way to put it,” I admitted, pushing my plate away.
Magnolia stood as if she was going to clean the table off but I waved her away. “Stand down, woman. You’ve probably cleaned this stupid house top to bottom in the last two days because I wasn’t here to stop you.”
She flushed, and I knew I was right.
“You’re not my maid,” I scolded her.
“I know, but I want to be useful.”
I snorted. “Without you my whole damn life would fall apart. But you don’t need to clean my laundry.”
“I was here anyway.”
“Mags.”
“Genie.” She gave me a serious look. “You go out and fight your fights. Let me do what I do.” She took my plate and Wilder’s and deposited them in the sink, giving them a quick wash before sitting back at the table.
“Will you at least let me pay you more?”
A smile turned up her lips and made her look much closer to a teenager than a woman in her mid-twenties. Her long, white-blonde hair was loose around her shoulders and her tanned skin looked radiant and healthy even in the late months of the year. Magnolia should be modeling for an outdoor sporting goods company, not making me dinner and maintaining my calendar. But if she was happy, who was I to tell her she was wrong?
“You can pay me however much you want to pay me.”
I had a funny feeling she would show up here every day at eight with my preferred Starbucks order whether or not I paid her a dime. It made me want to give her a million dollars a year.
God I loved her.
I made a mental note to call my accountant—yes, I had a pack accountant—and get him to increase her payroll as soon as this Mercy situation was resolved.
She would probably just insist on doing more work. Maniac.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she nudged.
I gave her a quick rundown of the events of the last two days, providing more detail on the Mercy situation than I’d been able to over the phone. Mags had grown up at Callum’s compound right alongside Ben and myself, the daughter of Callum’s second-in-command Amelia, so she had her own memories of The Den, and her own attachments to the place.
I saw her face pale and an uncommonly angry expression settle over her features.
“Did you tell Secret?” she asked.
“Why does everyone keep suggesting that?”
“Wouldn’t you want to know if your mortal enemy slash mother was back from the dead?”
Wilder piped in. “I swear I didn’t think maternal relationships could be this complicated.”
“Lucky you,” Mags said coldly.
Amelia hadn’t once asked after Magnolia while Wilder and I had been back, and Mags never asked about her mother. I’d seen my friend flourish with the distance between herself and her mother, and it struck me as sad that none of us at this table had a nice, normal mother-child relationship.
Made me wonder if there really was such a thing, or if I was basing all my theories on what I’d seen in the movies.
“I’ll tell Secret when the time is right. There’s no sense in worrying her.”
“You mean there’s no sense in turning it into her problem, because you want to deal with it yourself,” Mags said.
Damn, she’d been spending way too much time with me. That was some deep, expert-level Genie insight. Spooky, really.
“Get out of my head, thanks.” I smiled so she’d know I wasn’t mad. “If I decide Secret needs to know, we’ll tell her. Right now she’s better off staying out of this mess.”
“And what about those if us in the mess?” Wilder asked. “I think we’re spending a lot of time talking about who is going to deal with Mercy and we’re avoiding a much bigger issue, which is how the fuck is your headless mother alive?”
This brought the table back to silence, and I chewed on my thumbnail thoughtfully. There were a handful of people I might be able to ask about this. Beau Cain, the man who had sent me looking for Mercy’s skull in the first place, might have some ideas about what could bring a beheaded woman back to life.
Likewise my… friend?... Santiago Medina might be able to help. He was, after all, one of the most powerful witches I’d ever met. If anyone might know how this worked, it would be him. But Santiago was a last-ditch effort. Wilder, whether he wanted to admit it or not, really didn’t like me spending time with the handsome witch, and I had enough smarts and empathy to understand why.
Santiago made no secret of the fact that he lusted after me, only it wasn’t an entirely sexual kind of lust. I was a hereditary witch on my mother’s side, a gift which had bypassed Mercy—thank God—and both my siblings, but hit me full-on when I arrived at puberty.
Imagine, if you will, a thirteen-year-old girl taking the one-two punch of turning into a werewolf for the first time and also getting the massive metaphysical wallop of coming into her natural magical gifts.
It had been such a disaster—picture literal explosions—that I’d been sent away to live with my great-grandmother, an ancient and impossibly powerful witch known only as La Sorciere. In the swamp. For the entirety of my teenage years.
Really, it’s a miracle I’m even remotely as well adjusted as I am.
But Santiago sensed the witch I was. He knew La Sorciere’s power was in my veins, and it made him want me. It made him dangerous.
So, no matter how useful he might be in this situation, it was a risk to ask him for help. I was already in his debt, and I didn’t particularly want to owe him anything else. For my sake and for Wilder’s.
But thoughts of Santiago brought me to thoughts of La Sorciere. Finding her would be an enormous pain in the ass, and I wasn’t sure if she’d actually be willing to help, but she would, without a doubt, know a way to put the dead back to rest again.
Whether or not I was strong enough to do what needed doing was the other question.
I sighed and added her to the “last resort” list alongside Santiago. She would be helpful, yes, but I wasn’t sure it was worth the time and effort it would take to get to her. I might be in the Maurepas swamp for days searching for her, convincing her I needed her, and learning what had to be done. Who knew what kind of nightmares Mercy could cook up in my absence.
The last thing my pack needed was me wandering off and leaving them unattended. That wasn’t Alpha behavior.
Which meant my list was narrowed down to only one option.
Guess it was time to pay Beau Cain a visit.
Chapter Seven
It felt strange being outside a bar called The Dungeon at nine-thirty in the morning on a Sunday. The buzz and mania of Bourbon Street was subdued, with only a few tourists out and about looking at voodoo shops or getting brunch at the variety of eateries in the area.
I saw one brave soul carrying a fish bowl filled with bright blue booze.
Hair of the dog, I guess.
Or the lunacy of college students. I’d seen enough of both to think it could go either way. New Orleans was a hell of a city when it came to making terrible life choices.
I was off Bourbon now, having gone down one of the side streets to where a little hidden alley led those in the know to the front door of the goth-inspired nightclub I was now standing in front of.
The Dungeon was a perfect melting pot of what made New Orleans great. On the main floor was a bar for normal humans looking to get a taste of the supernatural. It was decked out in creepy old Victorian art depicting vampires and other creatures of the night. There was even a full-sized coffin against the back wall where tourists could take photos and pretend to be mi
ngling with the real deal.
The appeal of the bar was that real supernaturals did frequent it. The upper floor was a bar entirely for those of the bump-in-the-night persuasion, from vampires and werewolves to the wide variety of fae and everything they encompassed. It was quite a mix.
Of course right now it was completely empty.
Even the usual bouncer, Jimmy, wasn’t at his post outside the front door.
I sipped my lukewarm coffee and eyed the place, wondering if this was really the right move. As much as I wanted to avoid owing Santiago any more favors, I didn’t particularly want to owe Cain any either. Lose-lose-lose was how this whole situation was shaping up.
I was sort of hoping Cain might offer me some insight free of charge, especially since it was his fault I was out there digging Mercy up in the first place.
I doubted he’d see the correlation.
Wilder had wanted to join me on this foray, but I’d asked him to stay at home. Cain wasn’t going to hurt me, and Wilder’s testosterone could sometimes get in the way of smoothly accomplishing things. He had a bad habit of wanting to defend my honor when Cain made light of my position, and it would only slow things down here today.
If Beau Cain wanted to make smirking remarks about my lineage, let him. As long as those biting quips came alongside real answers.
I was a big girl. I didn’t need my boyfriend defending me because someone said mean things about me being a princess.
Hell, wasn’t Wilder the one who used it to poke fun at me when we first met, and still used it even now as a pet name? Pot meet kettle.
I pushed open the unlocked door of the bar and found the main level completely deserted. I’d expected some of Cain’s usual security team to be present, and looked for his bodyguard, Lola, at the base of the stairs, but she wasn’t there either.
As far as I could tell, I was the only one in the building.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t being watched. I’d have been shocked to learn there wasn’t someone on the other end of a security camera watching my every move. No, it was far more likely that I’d just been here enough in the last year that none of Cain’s staff considered me a threat anymore.