Darknight (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 2)

by Christine Pope

  Cleaning up the scene of the crime, however, didn’t help much with the ultimate problem of what to do about Damon. I’d vaguely heard the term “skin-walker” before, but hadn’t paid much attention to it, thinking it must be only a legend. What was happening here in Flagstaff was real, though, and I had to trust that Marie knew what she was talking about. Anyway, I had the evidence of my own eyes to prove that Damon had succumbed to some sort of horrible dark spell. Was the killing of the young women purposeful, to fulfill a black and needy magic, or was it the wolf striking out with no control, killing those who looked like the girl who’d thwarted his attempt to grasp even more power?

  Lying there in the dark as Connor slept fitfully against my shoulder, I had the horrible thought that maybe it would’ve been better if Damon’s plan had worked, that he’d somehow managed to bond with me even though he was not my consort. At least that way only one life would have been ruined, not seven. Eight, I amended mentally, adding Jessica to the list of the wolf’s victims.

  No. The word resonated from somewhere deep within me, not sounding like myself at all. Then I would never have been with Connor, never felt the rightness of bonding with the one man in the world who was meant to be mine. All this was terrible, and I couldn’t see my way through to a happy ending, and yet I knew there had to be one, had to be some way for us to find our way past the darkness to one another.

  With that thought to soothe my fears, I fell asleep at last as well, my warmth blending with Connor’s and wrapping around both of us, sheltering us, keeping us safe.

  For now.

  * * *

  He was subdued the next morning, but calm, as if the sleep into which he’d escaped had helped him to put some distance between himself and the terrible events of the day before. That calm was shaken a little when the morning news reported the discovery of an eighth victim. The reporters made special note of the fact that this young woman did not match the descriptions of the others, and no one was sure exactly what that meant.

  They’d never figure it out, of course. All the policemen and sheriffs and fish and game officials in the world wouldn’t be able to hunt down this wolf. No, that task must fall on us.

  Would you hesitate to kill a rabid dog? Marie had asked. Most people would say no…but the question became a little more complex when the rabid dog in question was something that used to be a man. And not just any man, but the primus of the Wilcoxes, a dangerous warlock who already had more power at his disposal than anyone else around.

  Except you, I thought, and stirred my coffee uneasily. Connor and I were sitting in the living room, the TV on, although neither of us was paying much attention to it. He was staring out the window, at the blue sky peeking in between the blinds, as if wondering how the sun could be so bright and the sky so clear when the world had been turned upside down. His world, anyway.

  I had wondered in the past why it was that a prima of my clan could hold back the power of the Wilcoxes when, to all outward appearances, they were so much stronger than we McAllisters. Now that the magic had been fully awoken within me, I thought I began to understand. It was a power called on only when needed, but no less potent because of that.

  Damon Wilcox was the primus…and therefore only a prima could hope to defeat him.

  The toast and eggs I’d just eaten churned uneasily in my stomach. Knowing you must do something didn’t make it any easier to take, especially when that something involved confronting a magically enhanced supernatural being who also happened to be your brother-in-law in everything but name.

  Connor’s phone buzzed. He must have set it to vibrate the night before. I glanced over at him, expecting to see him lean over to pick it up, but he ignored it, gaze still fixed on the sky outside.

  After a few more buzzes, it went silent. A second or two ticked by, and then it began buzzing again.

  “Goddammit,” he said, and finally retrieved it. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the display, then lifted it to his ear. “What?”

  His brusque tone seemed to indicate it must be someone in the family. I certainly couldn’t imagine him talking that way to Joelle, or any of his civilian friends. I knotted my hands in my lap and waited, hoping it was merely Lucas calling to give another progress report.

  But then Connor said, “We’ll be over in an hour. See you then.” He ended the call, and tossed the phone back on the coffee table.

  I winced as it smacked against the glass surface, but luckily neither of them seemed about to shatter. After waiting a second or two and realizing he wasn’t about to volunteer any information, I asked, “Who was that?”

  “Marie. She wants us to come over.”

  Great. Although I knew it was necessary to meet with her, since she seemed to have a better grasp of the situation than anyone else, I wasn’t really looking forward to it. Something about her set my teeth on edge.

  Worse, though, was the realization that Connor had just told her we’d be there in an hour, and we were both sitting on the couch in assorted pajama bottoms and T-shirts and sweatshirts. No way I’d have time to wash my hair.

  I stood up. “Well, I’d better shower, then.”

  Before yesterday, such a statement would have led to him offering to join me at least half the time. Now he gave the barest of nods and said, “Okay.”

  Since I knew better than to push it, I only nodded as well and went upstairs.

  * * *

  Marie didn’t live all that far away; we ended up walking, since her house was located on the northeast side of the downtown section. The homes here were mostly older, maybe not quite as old as the buildings in Jerome, but still probably constructed in the early years of the last century. I imagined it must be beautiful in the summer or in the fall as the leaves on all the tall old trees turned, but now they were still bare and forlorn. Spring came late to Flagstaff.

  I’d somehow managed to keep myself from indulging in idle chitchat to fill up the terrible silence between us. With Connor so on edge, I didn’t want to do or say anything to set him off. As we walked, I couldn’t help brooding over what Marie wanted to say to us. Give us tips on how to kill a skin-walker?

  Her house was a pretty two-story Craftsman painted a warm barn red. Funny, but somehow I hadn’t imagined her living in a place like this. Stark adobe seemed more her style.

  We paused on the front porch, and she opened the door almost as soon as Connor rang the bell. Had she been staring out the window, waiting for us?

  As always, she looked serene enough, but I saw the slightest narrowing of her eyes as she greeted her cousin and invited us in. The furnishings were simple — a brown couch and matching chair, although both had colorful pillows with southwestern patterns to liven them up a bit. Navajo weavings hung on the walls, although the floors were bare wood.

  “Sit down,” she said, pointing to the sofa.

  It seemed more a command than a request. But I didn’t protest, just took a seat on the couch. After a brief hesitation, Connor did the same.

  Usually this was around the time when someone would offer coffee or tea, or at least water, but Marie didn’t seem too inclined to play hostess. Instead, she crossed her arms and stared down at us. “This will not get better,” she said. “This is not something we can ignore. The yee naaldlooshii will continue to kill until it is stopped.”

  “His name is Damon.” Connor’s voice was quiet, but I could hear the edge to his tone.

  “Once, perhaps.” Marie looked from him to me, where her gaze rested. “To become the yee naaldlooshii is to lose one’s humanity. And Damon is in an even worse case than those who have taken this darkest road before him, because he did not approach it with the proper respect. In arrogance, he reached out for a power he did not understand, one he underestimated, thinking it lesser than the magic that has lived in this family’s blood for uncounted generations. There is no going back from such a thing.”

  “There must be,” Connor protested. “I refuse to believe that there is no way to bring him
back to himself.”

  For the first time her expression softened, and I realized she did care for Connor a good deal, even if hers was not the type of personality to reveal such a thing willingly. “For your sake, I wish it were possible. But it isn’t. The only release for Damon is in death. Perhaps then his soul can finally find some peace.”

  I could feel Connor tense next to me, saw the way his fingers tightened on his knees. “You’re wrong.”

  Surprisingly, she laughed. “How easily you say that, Connor. But I’m not. You think this is an easy thing for me, to say that the primus of this clan must be killed? It’s going to be terrible for all of us. He has no son, no child to inherit his gift. So you know what that means.”

  Connor’s fingers went white-knuckled. “No.”

  “Something else you don’t want to hear? Well, I’ll say it anyway. You’re the last of Jeremiah’s line. The power must pass to you. There is no other way.”

  This pronouncement made my own blood go ice cold. For some reason I hadn’t allowed my mind to take this leap, to realize what the final consequence of killing Damon would be. Yes, there were many, many Wilcoxes, but they were all descendants of Jeremiah’s brothers and his one sister. It was different in my own clan, where the prima could be any girl of a given generation. But for the Wilcox clan, the primus must be Jeremiah’s direct descendant.

  Mouth dry, I said, “Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves? Maybe we should focus on how we’re going to track down and…neutralize…Damon before we start worrying about who his heir is.”

  “‘Neutralize,’” Connor remarked. “That’s one way to put it. What, are you suddenly working for the CIA or something?”

  “Do you want me to say it outright?” I retorted. I hated all of this — hated the brittle stillness that had come between us, hated that Damon had put us in this position in the first place.

  Hated that killing him would result in Connor being the new Wilcox primus. I didn’t even want to think what that might mean for our relationship.

  He didn’t respond, only stared off into a corner, not meeting Marie’s or my eyes.

  “Killing a skin-walker is no easy thing,” she said. “Even a witch would have a hard time doing such a thing, but you, Angela, you are not just any witch, are you? A prima has the strength to confront the yee naaldlooshii.”

  She seemed confident enough of that fact. I wished I could say the same. Yes, back at Damon’s house I had driven off the wolf-creature, but I certainly hadn’t hurt it. I somehow knew that if I had been alone, it would have torn my throat out just as it had done to all those girls who looked like me. It had backed away, because Connor was there. That tiny shred of mercy told me there was still a bit of Damon inside the skin-walker, even if most of its humanity had been lost.

  “Assuming I do have that strength,” I began, making it clear from my tone that I wasn’t sure I had her same confidence on that point, “how do we even find him? I mean, there are probably a hundred government officials of varying types out looking for the killer wolf, and they’re not having much luck. And I somehow doubt he’s going to go back to his house.”

  “No, he won’t,” Marie replied. “We have some family members there keeping watch just in case, but you’re right — I doubt he will return there now that his secret has been discovered. My belief is that he will take to the wild. We will have to lure him out.”

  “And how exactly are we supposed to do that?” Connor asked. His tone was openly skeptical. I had the feeling he would try to throw up as many roadblocks to her plan as possible — anything to keep the current situation from progressing to its logical conclusion.

  Her gaze shifted to me and settled there. I tried not to react, to hold myself still, but I didn’t know how successful I was. Not very enjoyable, being pinned in place by such an unwavering stare.

  Still watching me, she said, “The same way you attempt to catch any wild animal.

  “With bait.”

  * * *

  Her plan was simple. Damon, even in his current state, still seemed to be fixated on me, on having the McAllister prima in his power. So the easiest thing to do would be to put me in harm’s way, so to speak, and bring him to me that way.

  “No way,” Connor said at once. “You’re not doing that to Angela. Haven’t enough people been hurt already?”

  “And more will be hurt if we don’t stop your brother.” Marie gave me a chilly look of appraisal. “Can you do it, Angela?”

  I thought of all the pictures of the dead girls I had seen. No, the papers hadn’t published any crime scene photos. They’d actually shown some restraint in that. But those faces flashed through my mind, each one a life and a future cut short. Could I really allow the killings to keep happening, just because I was currently scared shitless?

  Voice firmer than I’d hoped, I said, “I’ll do what has to be done. But it can’t really be as easy as just standing in the middle of the woods somewhere and shouting ‘come and get me.’”

  A thin-lipped smile. “No, it’s not that easy. And that’s why we need your help, Connor.”

  At that he stood up, fists clenched at his sides. “Are you kidding me? You want me to help lure my brother somewhere so you can murder him?”

  “How can you murder something that isn’t human?” she asked calmly, unruffled in the face of his anger. “As I said yesterday, this is more like putting down a rabid dog before that animal can cause any more misery or harm.”

  At first Connor didn’t reply, but only stood there, color flaring along his high cheekbones as he stared at a spot on the wall, refusing to look at his cousin. I waited quietly, knowing he’d have to wrestle through this himself. Goddess knows I would hate to be placed in a similar situation. I had no siblings, so I couldn’t quite understand that kind of bond, but what if Marie had been asking me to do the same thing to Sydney, or my Aunt Rachel?

  A little shudder went through me at that thought, and I wished I could put my arms around Connor, tell him how much I loved him and how I knew no one should ever be put in such a position. But because Marie was standing there watching us, and because I could sense he wanted no interference from me, nothing that would keep him from making this decision on his own, I kept still, and waited.

  Time ticked by, unbearably slow. At last Connor shifted and met Marie’s patient gaze. “What do I have to do?”

  She didn’t quite let out a breath, but I saw the tense set of her shoulders ease slightly. So she hadn’t been as sure of him as she wanted us to believe. “As Angela pointed out, we’ll have to do a little more than have her simply offer herself up to him. He is still canny, watchful. There are very few people he trusts. And you are no longer one of them, Connor, because he knows you love this girl, and have put her before him. Since the solstice, he no longer trusts me, either, because he thought I should have warned him that there was a possibility Angela would bond with a Wilcox other than the primus. But the one person he still trusts implicitly is Lucas.”

  It clicked into place then — Connor’s features shifting to those of Lucas. That gift of illusion, of taking on someone else’s form. It was the one thing that might draw in the Damon-wolf. Might.

  “So I pretend to be Lucas, offering up Angela as a sort of gift?”

  “Exactly. It would make sense, because the one thing Lucas hates more than anything else is disruption. Angela was the catalyst that made Damon turn to the magic of the yee naaldlooshii. So it doesn’t require that great a leap to have Lucas think that by turning her over to the primus, somehow he’ll get his old friend back. Everything returned to the status quo.”

  Connor ran a hand through his hair, clearly turning the idea over in his mind. “Maybe. That is, I know in real life Lucas would never do such a thing, but Damon would…and he does have a tendency to believe that everyone thinks the same way he does.”

  Marie did not exactly reply, but she did give the barest of nods. “So you will do it?”

  “I — ” A long
pause, so long that I wondered if he was going to reply at all, or throw his hands up and walk out then and there. After all, this was the moment when he would have to commit to her plan, as much as every cell in his body must be protesting it. At last he murmured, “Yes.”

  “Good. I am still analyzing the pattern of his attacks and trying to determine the most logical place where he will strike next. And perhaps a vision will come to me, but I can’t will that to happen. If it’s meant to be, I’ll have a clear seeing.” Her shoulders lifted. I could tell she didn’t much like admitting even that slight deficiency. Tone brisk, she added, “For now, go home. I hope I’ll have a location for you tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I said, and finally reached out to take Connor’s hand in mine. He didn’t resist, and I felt a tiny flicker of hope. Maybe he had begun to resign himself to the situation. “You know where to find us.”

  We left then, and walked back through Marie’s quiet neighborhood to the busier streets of downtown. By then it was almost noon, and people were hurrying to lunch, or maybe to do some shopping.

  My appetite had deserted me, and I guessed Connor felt the same way.

  After we were back in the apartment, I asked, “Why Lucas?”

  He shot me a mystified look. “You heard what Marie said. He and my brother have always been friends.”

  “No, I know that. I’m just wondering why. Lucas seems like such a nice person — ”

  “And my brother isn’t,” Connor finished for me.

  Oh, shit. “That’s not what I meant — ”

  “It isn’t?” He smiled thinly, and again the resemblance between the two brothers struck me, although most of the time it wasn’t that obvious. “Well, Lucas has an interesting gift. Luck.”