Wolf's Curse

by Kelley Armstrong

  Now I get it, and I’m horrified by the memory. It doesn’t matter whether I like Mason, I needed a choice in the matter. A split-second pause would have been enough. Let me see what he planned to do and give me the chance to make a decision.

  When he took off with Chloe’s phone, I should have refused to follow him. My sister is waiting. She might need my help. But Mason had been in such a good mood, finally being nice to me and actually wanting to spend time with me.

  Yeah, Mason wanted to spend time with me, all right. As I grumble, I hear my sister grumbling about all the times guys hit on her when she just wanted to be treated like a person. It’s flattering to know someone is attracted to you, but it’s also flattering to know they like you as more than a potential hookup.

  I have no idea what my answer would have been if Mason asked to kiss me. I think I’d have agreed because I want to get to know him better, yet that’s totally the wrong way to go about it. I’m not my sister. I don’t kiss guys—or girls—just for fun. I need a level of personal comfort that I don’t have with Mason yet.

  I’m heading back to the cabin when bushes rustle to my left. I veer in that direction, fighting to keep my temper in check.

  “I’m going back to Kate,” I say.

  The bush only rustles again in response.

  “Do you hear me?” I say and round the bush to see . . .

  A woman.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kate

  Tricia is alone. Elijah circled the area while I backtracked her trail for about fifty feet. As she says, she stumbled around in the forest for a while before collapsing. There are no other scents, and we need to get back to looking for Holly and Allan.

  We can’t leave Tricia behind. There’s a witch in the forest plus a demon who could pop back and have some fun with our distraught counselor. Tricia must come along with us.

  Of course, she has questions. So many questions. We tell her we don’t have time to answer—just keep up, and be as quiet as possible, please. How much of that is true and how much is residual distrust, I don’t know. She does as she’s told, though.

  When we reach the cabin, she stops short.

  “What is that?” she asks.

  “A cabin in the woods,” I say. “One that doesn’t contain a portal to another dimension in the basement. Though that might explain a few things.”

  I start forward. She catches my arm, earning a glower from Elijah, who pointedly peels her fingers from my biceps.

  “There’s not supposed to be anyone else out here,” she whispers. “It’s Cabal land.”

  “They have a squatter,” I say. “It happens.”

  “But . . . this cabin wasn’t here before. The road is right over there, and the campers were dropped off nearby. No one saw a cabin.”

  “I did,” I say.

  “And I found it while out walking,” Elijah says. “It’s nicely camouflaged, but it isn’t invisible.”

  “I . . . I don’t like it,” Tricia whispers. “We should follow the road. It’s only a few miles to the highway.”

  “Have you noticed we’re missing a few people?” Elijah says. “Like Kate’s brother?”

  “Yes,” she replies evenly. “But since you won’t explain the situation, I’m presuming you got separated in the forest. The best thing to do is call for help.”

  “Logan is already on that,” I say. “He has a phone, and he’s hunting for cell service. When he’s done, he’ll meet us here where Holly and Allan are waiting.”

  Where I hope they’re waiting. Where I hope they haven’t been attacked by a dark witch while we’re rescuing a counselor who nearly tried to kill us.

  “You can wait outside if you like,” I say, striding forward. “We’ll be in there where it’s safe from the demon.”

  “Demon?”

  “Marchocias,” I say. “The witch’s house is warded against her and her hell hounds.”

  Is it cruel, throwing that out so casually? Demons and hell hounds and witches, oh my? Right now, all that matters is that it shocks Tricia enough to let us walk away. And then it spooks her enough to catch up as we head for the broken window.

  Before we go inside, Tricia whispers, “I can help, Kate.”

  “We’re fine.”

  “I know. I’m just saying . . .” She inhales. “I might seem to be freaking out, but I’m just finding my footing here. What I did to you was horrible, and I’m . . . embarrassed? Ashamed? Nothing really covers what I’m feeling, and that’s making me seem nervous and anxious. I’m not.”

  “Good.”

  “You two are doing great, so I won’t get in your way, but don’t write me off. Please.”

  I relax now. “All right. For now, just stay close. We don’t know what we’ll find in here.”

  “Holly and Allan, right?” Her brow furrows. “Is there another problem I should know about?”

  “Just the witch I mentioned. This is her place. We need to get Holly and Allan out and then wait for Logan at a respectful distance. She won’t bother us. Like Marchocias, she just wants us gone.”

  We barely get inside before Tricia stops, her eyes widening as she sees the skulls. “Holy shit,” she breathes, and I have to chuckle at the profanity even as Elijah rolls his eyes.

  “This is some seriously dark magic,” she says.

  “Yep,” I say. “It’s a ward against demons.”

  “I can feel it.” She shivers. “Like a voice at my ear, whispering that I’m not welcome.”

  “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

  “Holly?” Elijah calls as he moves deeper into the house. “Allan?”

  No one answers, and my heart sinks, but if they were here, they should have already heard us and come out. Still, we walk through the house, checking each room and calling their names. In the workshop, I see a ceiling hatch I’d missed earlier, a rope ladder now dangling. I walk to the bottom and shout up.

  “Should we check . . . ?” Tricia motions at the ladder.

  I shake my head. “They’d hear us. There’s a better place to look.”

  And, as calm as you seem right now, Tricia, I’m not eager to take you up there to see a mummified body. Also not keen on seeing it myself.

  We head into the bedroom where the rug is still pushed back to show no sign of a hatch.

  “Time to get scientific about this,” I say to Elijah. “The last time we were here, we figured they must have gone with Logan. Now we know they didn’t, so let’s find their trail and see where they did go.”

  “Fuck,” I say as Elijah and I stand in the same room we left ten minutes ago, staring at that same hatch-free spot on the floor.

  “Yep,” Elijah says. “Fuck is the word.”

  We found Holly and Allan’s trail outside. They’d just poked around, probably looking for Elijah and me. Their trail circled the cabin at about a hundred-foot radius. In other words, they went just far enough that they didn’t hear us when we returned earlier.

  Elijah and I had escaped the witch’s tunnel and found our way back with Chloe and Derek in tow. We crossed Logan and Mason’s path, discovered the cabin empty and declared that Holly and Allan clearly went with my brother.

  Now we come running back to find Holly and Allan, only to learn that they were never missing; they really had just been looking for Elijah and me the whole time. After they failed to find us, they retreated to the cabin and continued searching for us there.

  So where does their trail ultimately lead? To this damn hatch.

  We’d checked in here our first time through, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t come in this room since then. At some point between those two visits, the hatch reappeared. Just in time to make Holly and Allan say, “Holy shit, that must be where Kate and Elijah went! Let’s go find them!”

  “This is why no one should split up,” Elijah says. “Ever. Horror movies work so hard to teach us the rules, and do we learn? Nope. The first thing the teens do is split up, and then they spend the rest of the mo
vie chasing each other to really, really bad places.”

  “Where they’re slowly picked off, one by one.”

  “Which is why, being slightly smarter, we have split up in pairs.”

  I smile and shake my head. Tricia just looks from one of us to the other, her expression saying she’s not sure whether we’re really this calm or in shock from our day of trauma.

  “Nerves of steel,” Elijah murmurs, too low for her to hear. “Half-demons need not apply.”

  I grant him another smile, but he’s being a bit hard on Tricia, who is actually holding up just fine since her breakdown in the forest. She’s collected herself, and she’s assimilating our information without asking for more, acknowledging that she’s been thrown into this midscene, and we have it under control.

  “May I ask why we’re staring at a wood floor?” she says.

  “There was a hatch here,” I say. “It comes and goes. Elijah and I took it earlier, thinking it was just a normal cellar door.”

  “Because who expects disappearing holes in the floor, right?” Elijah says.

  “Er, we should. At least when we’re in a witch’s house. But I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Illusion magic,” Tricia says. “Very strong illusion magic.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I say, kneeling to run my hands over the floor. “I’ve seen illusions, though. Tripwire hallucinations are scary as shit, but they can’t actually hurt you. They aren’t real. You can walk through them as if they’re a projection.”

  Elijah nods. “I’ve heard of cover spells, too. They can hide a spellcaster, but like the name says, it’s cover only. Shoot at a witch under a cover spell, and you still hit her.”

  “There are visual illusions and auditory ones,” I say. “This is visual. Which means I should be able to find the edge of this damn hatch. I can’t, and we couldn’t from below, either, no matter how hard we tried.”

  “The difference is that those are regular spells,” Tricia says. “Any good sorcerer can cast tripwire illusions. Any good witch can cast a cover spell. They don’t require any more than the words and the energy. But there are others. Ones that need . . .” She glances toward the front door. “Special ingredients.”

  I rise. “And they can do this? Remove the hatch altogether?”

  She shakes her head. “It’s still an illusion. But stronger magic alters your perception in every way, including touch.”

  I must look skeptical because she says, “I spent two summers in grad school working on archives for Adam Vasic. You know him, right? You mentioned you’re named after Paige—her middle name—and I . . .” She flushes. “I made a rude response.”

  “You remember that.”

  “It comes back in flashes. I’m sorry. That . . . that wasn’t me. I don’t know how to explain it better than that. But if you know Paige, I presume you know Adam.”

  “I do.”

  Adam is married to Paige’s foster daughter, Savannah. He’s in charge of the council’s extensive library and archives.

  “When I worked for Adam,” she says, “I was cataloging spells from old grimoires. They prefer to have a non-spellcaster do that for security reasons. I saw spells like this. For altering perception.”

  She bends and touches the wood. “It’s like a barrier spell. Or, perhaps more accurately, supernatural wood filler if you’ve ever done renovation work.”

  Elijah nods. “The spell fills in the space between the floor and the hatch, both visually and tactually. The edge still exists, but we aren’t going to be able to find it.”

  “So can we bust through?” I say.

  Tricia winces.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m a werewolf. I bust shit down. That’s what you expect, isn’t it?”

  She frowns.

  “You made your opinions of werewolves clear yesterday,” I say. “Before you had the excuse of the infection. We’re dumb brutes.”

  “What? No. Not at all. I made a face because breaking through the boards isn’t going to tickle even for werewolves. I wish I knew another way, but I don’t.”

  She sits, pulling up her knees and wrapping one arm around them. “If I gave you that impression yesterday, I’m sorry. I was embarrassed about having to ask you to hide your race, and when I get embarrassed, I get nervous, and I act . . .” She scrunches her nose. “Overly cheerful, I guess. Trying to put a good face on a bad situation. Nothing to see here! Asking the Alpha’s kids to hide their race? Not awkward at all!”

  “So why do it? You were in charge, and that bullshit about liability was just that. Bullshit.”

  She exhales. “I know. I was babbling.” She shakes her head. “I’ll explain later.”

  “All right. Speaking of werewolves, then, we’re going to need a little brute strength to break through these boards. Elijah?”

  He grins. “Thought you’d never ask. So how do you want to do this?”

  “Hulk smash, unless you have a better idea. I’d rather pry up the boards, but I wasn’t seeing anything that’ll do that.”

  “Actually . . .” He pushes to his feet. “There’s a knothole there, and I saw a fire poker in the living room. Be right back.”

  Tricia watches him go. “Since we seem to have a moment, I’ll explain what I meant a minute ago, why I acted the way I did. This position was a huge opportunity for me. I finished grad school a year ago, and I haven’t even been looking for a full-time job because I want something in the community. The supernatural community.”

  “The council doesn’t hire staff. That research position you had was minimum wage.”

  She shrugs. “I don’t care. It’s worthwhile if it helps me get an archival job with Lucean. Those jobs, though, aren’t for new college grads.” A half-bitter laugh. “No jobs seem to be for new college grads these days unless you like making lattes. So getting head counselor for this conference was huge. When I told the other counselors we were having werewolves, the necromancers were furious. Said we were going to panic the campers.”

  “Necromancers?” I say. “Byron?”

  She nods. “Byron and Sheila, who hadn’t arrived. Byron told Sheila, and suddenly, she was going to be late, and I got the message loud and clear. Except you guys were already coming, so I agreed that we’d keep your racial identity a secret, along with Mason’s, until everyone got to know you. Then we’d reveal what you were and call it a lesson in open-mindedness, getting to know others before making judgments.”

  “Byron set you up,” I say. “He wanted to boost the chaos quotient of the camp to attract Marchocias. Also, I suspect, to keep Sheila away, since she wasn’t in on his plan.”

  “Byron?”

  “Long story,” I say. “But okay. You got played. In trying to make everyone happy, you made no one happy. Mom would say that’s lesson one of leadership. Someone’s always going to be pissy. So—”

  Elijah appears, waving a poker. I reach for it.

  “Uh-uh,” he says, pulling it back. “I get the tool. I get to bust stuff with it.”

  He shoves the poker end into the knothole and slams down the handle. The board pops off to reveal . . . solid flooring.

  “Oh, wait!” I say. “I see a hole. Right over there.”

  There’s a sliver of open space. He wedges the poker into it and—

  “Hey!” a voice shouts from below. “Watch where you’re shoving that thing!”

  Elijah falls back, and in a blink, the hatch reappears . . . and swings open.

  Chapter Thirty

  Logan

  “Marchocias.” I sigh as I see the familiar woman standing before me. “So you didn’t hop back to the demon dimension after all. Great. If you’re here—”

  She flies at me with a shriek of rage, and I’m so stunned I just stand there as she slams into me, clawing and kicking and screeching.

  I back away, but she grabs my arm and executes a perfect throw, sending me over her shoulder and onto the ground. Then she launches herself onto me, pinning me there and s
creaming, “What did you do to me?” as spittle flecks my face.

  So, apparently, Marchocias did go back to her dimension, leaving her temporary body to wake up and run into a kid talking about demons and alternate dimensions.

  Well played, Logan. Very well played, indeed.

  I try not to sigh aloud. That would be rude. This woman is very, very angry, understandably so. I’ve never been possessed by a demon, but everything in the literature suggests it’s a very uncomfortable situation. One minute, you’re going about your business. The next, you’re waking in another country, covered in blood, surrounded by police shouting something about the five people you just flayed alive.

  I could tell the woman that, comparatively speaking, she’s gotten off easy. A bit of dirt on her cheek, but for all I know, that was already there. Marchocias may even have cleaned her up a little.

  If she was a supernatural, I could just say, “Hey, you were possessed by a demon, but you’re okay, though you may want to check your passport and withdraw a large amount of cash in case the police show up at your door.” Human hosts require a less direct approach.

  “Hey!” I say, interrupting her tirade about what drugs I gave her and what I did to her while she was unconscious. I channel my inner “real-teen,” as Kate would say, taking my diction down a notch and adding a layer of too-cool belligerence to my tone. “Hey! Marchocias! Cut it out!”

  “My name is not—”

  “Marchocias? Yeah, I figured that, but it’s what you told me to call you, okay?” I shake my head. “Listen, lady. I don’t know who you are, but you need to see a doctor. Or lay off the cheap drugs, okay? It’s not the sixties anymore. Hasn’t been since my parents were in diapers.”

  Her face hardens. “I’m not—”

  “High, drunk or just fucking nuts, I don’t actually give a shit, okay? All I know is that you were calling yourself Marchocias and talking about demon dimensions, and my buddy and I played along so you’d leave us alone. Which you seemed to do. But now he’s disappeared, and you’re here, and if you did anything to him . . . Well, let’s just say I’m playing nice right now, ’cause I don’t hurt old ladies.”