Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  “Eat them. You ate fuck all yesterday and if you don’t put something into your stomach you’re going to faint. You might break a heel or scratch the leather of your damn shoe if you do, so listen to me.”

  I stared at him. “Even I cannot eat six, seven, nine links of sausage, Murphy. If I eat all this I won’t faint but I won’t be able to move out of this chair either. And I might even throw up.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Just eat what you can.”

  Under his watchful eye, I consumed five links of sausage and all the scrambled eggs—liberally doused with ketchup, of course. He ate only after he was sure I was not going to stop.

  We took cups of coffee into the front room, where I sat on the sectional sofa and watched the snow whirl in a white blur across the panes of the bay window.

  Kathy Manning took our cups away when we were finished. Before she left the room, she and Allerton exchanged a glance. Murphy’s face hardened.

  When she came back in bearing a tray with a pot of hot chocolate and two mugs, he made a sound of protest. “I’ll do it,” he said, trying to take the tray away from Kathy Manning, who dexterously evaded him.

  Allerton cleared his throat. That was all he did, but Murphy retreated to his seat with a muffled oath and Kathy Manning held the tray out to me.

  When I took it, she reached into her pocket and pulled a small vial full of a clear liquid.

  “Put the whole dram in just to be sure.” She placed the vial on the tray. “It’s painless. He’ll become gradually paralyzed and he won’t be able to breathe.”

  “Coniine,” I said and a flicker of respect dawned in her eyes.

  A wordless exchange passed between us and I saw us both as the grandmothers we would one day become. Maybe someday I would teach an herbal class at some distant Great Gathering.

  Socrates died by coniine poisoning. Grandfather Tobias was no Socrates.

  “It might take hours, Stanzie. There’s no need to stay there the entire time,” Kathy Manning told me.

  I shook my head. “No. If I’m doing this, I’m doing it all the way. I’m not going to sneak out and leave him to die alone.”

  “He doesn’t deserve his death to be witnessed. He didn’t witness Grey’s and Elena’s.” Kathy was, for once, not smiling. She looked almost angry.

  What was it Allerton saw in her—that drew him to her? What did they say to each other in bed? Did she love her bond mate? Did he know about how it was with Allerton? Did Allerton take care of his insane bond mate or did he pay other people to do it for him?

  “I witnessed their deaths. I’ll witness his too. Full circle,” I said as Allerton placed the key to Grandfather Tobias’s room on the tray.

  He put his free hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “He’s expecting you. I talked to him this morning. He won’t give you any trouble.”

  “I want to come with you, Stanzie.” Murphy moved to my side and his face was full of determination. “I don’t want you to do this alone.”

  “This has nothing to do with you, Murphy,” I said as gently as I could. Still, I saw his hurt expression and I wanted to touch him but my hands were full.

  “You could do your own dirty work, Councilors.” Murphy said.

  “Liam, if this were Mick Shaunessy wouldn’t you be the first person to assert your rights of Pack vengeance?” Allerton wondered in a deceptively mild voice.

  “Stanzie’s not a vengeful person,” Murphy pleaded. “I know her, Councilor. She’s not prepared for this.”

  “Who is, really?” Allerton’s hand was still on my shoulder and he gave it another squeeze.

  “You don’t have to do this, Stanzie,” he said but I could tell by his expression he knew I wouldn’t change my mind.

  “I am too vengeful,” I said, walking for the door. I tried to conjure up images of Grey and Elena and, while I could see bodies, where the faces went was blurred and indistinct. I wished myself back in my Boston condo but all that happened was that I came to the staircase and climbed it, the fatal tray clutched firmly in my fingers.

  * * * *

  Grandfather Tobias sat in the chair in front of the fireplace. It was on high again and the room was swelteringly hot but he was bundled in an ancient blue sweater with patched elbows. Beneath it was a blue-and-white shirt I remembered giving him for his birthday one year.

  I realized then he was dressed in his favorite outfit. I could see the glint of the silver chain around his throat but could not see the pendant hanging from it. I knew the pendant held a tiny sapphire chip—his birthstone. There was a small wooden box on the table between the chairs. Dark wood. It looked old. It was open and inside were two bond pendants—his and hers. His had only a diamond chip in it. Hers had both diamond and sapphire. His bond mate’s. She’d died in childbirth long before I’d been born. His daughter—Jonathan’s grandmother—had survived and he’d brought her up. He’d joined a duo, but only so he could stay in the pack. Even they’d died before him, but by the time the female of the triad had died, he’d been close enough to a hundred. There was no need for him to take another bond mate because he could stay in the pack and be taken care of. He’d earned it.

  When Jonathan had bonded with Nora and formed Riverglow with Callie, Peter and Vaughn, he’d taken Grandfather Tobias with him. Both Jonathan’s grandmother and his mother had died few years before that and Jonathan was Grandfather Tobias’s only remaining living relative.

  Now, unless Jonathan severed ties with Nora or formed a triad with a fertile woman who bore a live child, his line was over.

  “Hello, dear one.” Grandfather Tobias rose creakily to his feet. He moved the small wooden box away so I could put down the tray of hot chocolate. If he saw the poison bottle he gave no sign. He acted, for all the world, as if I were visiting him the way I once had. For hot chocolate and conversation.

  “Sit down. You can stay a bit and talk, can’t you?” He looked anxious, as if I would poison him and rush off. I admit that’s what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t. If I were brave enough to give him the poison, I was damn well going to be brave enough to watch its effects.

  I sat and he sank back into his chair, still clutching the small wooden box.

  “Carol used to come sometimes and watch us. When Tracy was a little girl. Tracy saw her. Tracy’s daughter, Alison, could see too. All of us in the family could see spirits. Tracy was almost ten before she figured out that Carol was her mother. Until then she was ‘that pretty lady I can see through’.”

  “How come you never told me about that before?” I asked. I could smell the hot chocolate as well as the fabric softener Grandfather Tobias had used the last time he’d laundered his sweater.

  My throat felt dry, my eyes scratchy. It was the heat of the gas fireplace and my guilt. Not a very good combination.

  “Some people don’t like to hear about spirits,” he said gently. “Death had never touched you before, Stanzie.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “You don’t know what I went through in my birth pack. I saw a woman die once.”

  “Did you?” His voice was mild and only a little curious. He looked old and I struggled to keep from feeling compassion for him.

  He killed Grey and Elena, I kept telling myself. But all I saw was an old man who looked tired and alone.

  “I was only little.” I didn’t want to talk about it and I wasn’t sure why I’d even brought it up.

  “Shall we drink our hot chocolate?” His wrinkled fingers tightened around the wooden box.

  “Will you see them again? Carol? Grey and Elena?” Saying their names aloud in front of their murderer hurt me inside. I bit my lip and reached out for the white china teapot that held the hot chocolate. Knowing Kathy Manning, it was going to be the most delicious hot chocolate I’d ever tasted. That seemed blasphemous almost.

  “They’ve all moved on,” he said, his light brown eyes infinitely sorrowful. “I don’t think I’ll move on right away. Not with all the blood on my hands.
Even if it is righteous blood.”

  “It’s just blood, Grandfather Tobias. There’s nothing righteous about what you did to them.” My hand shook only a little bit as I poured thick, rich hot chocolate into the bone-white china cups. Chocolate-scented steam wafted into the air and I tried not to choke.

  “You persist in thinking in such black-and-white finality, Stanzie. It’s not the way of the world, you know. It never was and never has been.”

  Grandfather Tobias watched me set the teapot down. I made no move to pick up the poison. My heart beat sickly in my chest and silver spots danced up and down before my eyes. Blood thudded in my eardrums and I wanted to throw up. I knew I would never, ever drink hot chocolate again after this cup. Never.

  “There’s a cancer in our Great Pack, dear one,” he said, his eyes fixed on the poison bottle.

  “You should know. You’re one of the cancerous cells.” I squeezed my hands into fists, nails digging into my palms. The pain was bright white and dazzling, like the silver spots dancing in front of my eyes.

  “Is it Jonathan? Did he help you kill Grey and Elena?” My voice sounded high and shrill and I struggled to control it.

  Grandfather Tobias was too canny to look at me and let me read the yes or the no in his eyes. He was too smart to even move. He just sat there, head bowed, gaze fixed on the bottle of coniine as I went through all their names—an accusing litany, an impossible song, an agonized plea.

  He went somewhere else inside of himself and gave me nothing. Not one thing. Not that I’d thought he would.

  Picking up the glass bottle, I recklessly yanked out the cork stopper and was lucky I didn’t spill the whole damn thing all over myself. Not a drop escaped.

  Grandfather Tobias watched me empty the contents into his steaming cup of hot chocolate. He waited for me to stopper the bottle and put it on the tray. His gaze remained fixed on me as I picked up my cup and took the first sip.

  I was right. Kathy Manning had outdone herself. It was the best cup of hot chocolate I’d ever tasted. Would the coniine make his taste bitter? I decided it would. A shame, really, because it was damn good hot chocolate.

  Grandfather Tobias reached out a remarkably steady hand and picked up his cup.

  I let him raise it to his lips, fighting myself against knocking it away.

  What are you doing? What are you doing, Stanzie? What are you doing? You’re not going to let him do it, are you? You aren’t! I argued with myself as I sat stiff as a statue watching the cup get closer and closer to his mouth.

  There’s still time. He hasn’t taken a sip. There’s time to stop him. Stop him, Stanzie! Stop him!

  I bit my lip to keep from crying out. My fingernails dug crescent moons into the flesh of my palms. I smelled blood. My blood. But I felt nothing. No pain because I was a statue.

  “I’m glad it was you to give me this,” said Grandfather Tobias. Then, before I could stop him because time which had been going so slow abruptly sped up faster than I could follow, he swallowed every last drop of the hot chocolate in two, steady swallows.

  He couldn’t help but grimace at the bitterness. He put the cup down, and snatched up the wooden box so he could clutch it tightly. It was obvious he wanted it in his hands when he closed his eyes for the last time.

  “I wouldn’t have liked to have had one of those Councilors watch me die, dear one. They aren’t family like you.”

  I’m nothing to you, I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t speak.

  It was strange—coniine paralyzes the central nervous system and death occurs because the victim literally can’t draw a breath—muscles won’t work—yet he was the one talking and moving and I was the one who was paralyzed.

  I watched him for a long time. He stared back at me. Neither of us said a word, we just waited.

  “The sooner you forgive me, the sooner I can move on,” he told me, smiling as if he knew I would never let him down.

  He leaned back in his chair, the wooden box cradled in his hands, and his eyelids flickered a little. His movements were stiff and jerky. Something was wrong with his smell. It wasn’t just fabric softener and his own scent now. It was the subtle smell of death just before it pounced.

  “I don’t know how to forgive you, Grandfather Tobias,” I whispered. “You killed them. I miss them every single day. I was supposed to grow old with them and you took that away from me. I can’t forgive that.”

  “Then you condemn me to walk.” He struggled to form the words. “I did what I thought was right and good for the Pack. I’m not an evil man, Stanzie.”

  “Don’t do this to me,” I whimpered. “I would have taken care of you always. I loved you, Grandfather Tobias.”

  “I still love you. I never stopped loving you,” he said.

  A low groan burst out between my clenched lips. My paralysis broke and I was out of the chair in one fluid motion. I ran for the door, intending escape, but just as my hand closed around the knob I heard him plead.

  “Don’t make me die alone, Stanzie. I’m alone enough as it is. And so are you. Let me at least have your face as the last thing I see. Please.”

  I groaned again, but I returned to the chair and sank down into it. My legs felt rubbery and detached—limp and useless.

  Grandfather Tobias tried to smile for me but one side of his face wouldn’t cooperate. He slumped in his chair, his muscles locked and rigid, which was the only reason he didn’t slide to the floor.

  The smell of death intensified. Beneath it was fear—bright blue and shot through with snaking, flashing tendrils of red and putrid green. I could smell myself too. Sweat and perfume. Shampoo mixed with guilt and horror. I wanted to forgive him. I wished I could turn back the clock and take the poison away. I wanted to go back two and a half years and give him a chance not to sabotage the car. If only I could go back to the night of my birthday and try to do it over again and somehow get a different outcome. I wished I’d never met Liam Murphy or Jason Allerton. I wished I’d never gone to Paris, never met Rudi in the first place, never even been fucking born.

  “I can smell you,” he said, uncannily. “Four parts Dior, six parts u...nique...Stuh...”

  “Stanzie,” I finished for him as once again I watched the light leave someone’s eyes and the body become a shell that housed nothing in particular.

  His fingers remained rigid around the little wooden box and his mouth still formed my name but no sound emerged and never would again.

  Grandfather Tobias was dead. By my hand. Forever and ever no turning back.

  Chapter 13

  The fucking lock on the front door wouldn’t budge. Somehow I’d left the room and gotten down the stairs, but damned if I could remember any of it.

  Something heavy and woolen settled down over my shoulders. My coat.

  “If you want to go outside, you need to wear a coat,” said Murphy. He stood two feet behind me and had his coat on. “It’s cold, Stanzie.”

  Another damn thing I had to fight. I fumbled with the sleeves and he helped me, his expression grave.

  Behind him Allerton and Manning hovered. Their faces were somber.

  “Gloves and a scarf too,” said Murphy as if it fucking mattered a damn what I wore or if I stayed warm. Who frigging cared?

  I made an impatient sound of protest. Murphy wound the scarf around my neck. For a moment, I fantasized that he wouldn’t stop winding. Instead, he wound tighter and tighter and tighter until I couldn’t breathe, until I strangled, and the black and silver spots in front of my eyes went dead dark as my body spasmed for the last time before it gave up.

  But he didn’t do that. He wound it around my throat loosely and stood back waiting for me to put on my gloves and when I did, he reached around me and casually manipulated the lock.

  I flung open the door and a gust of frigid cold wind blasted in. Beneath the ten inches of snow that coated the stairs and sidewalk was a slick layer of ice and when my sneakered soles hit it, my feet went out from under me like I was a baby wh
o didn’t know how to walk.

  Murphy grabbed my arm before I hit the stairs, snagged the iron railing with his free hand and somehow we both managed to keep our balance.

  “You’d better get boots,” he said to me, as the wind tried to tear the words away.

  Fuck that. I had my balance again and a good sense of the ice and I was down the stairs in an instant. Once on the sidewalk, I bent my head against the blasting wind, and trudged forward. My Chucks slipped a little on the ice beneath the snow, but I didn’t fall.

  Murphy followed me. The Timberland boots I’d given him had soles that gripped much better than my Chucks. They were also waterproof. My Chucks, of course, were not.

  Fucking piled-up snow made it impossible to push the wrought-iron gate open more than three or four inches. It was certainly not enough to let me out. Murphy tried to help but I was impatient. The ornamental fence was low enough to climb over. Murphy held his breath, clearly expecting me to skewer myself on the sharp spikes.

  I didn’t. I fell on my ass but was up before Murphy could make it over the fence to help me. He fell too. I didn’t help him. I walked away.

  It was frigging cold. Every breath seared my lungs and particles of ice formed on my eyelashes, while the wind scoured my cheeks.

  I pulled my scarf over the lower part of my face. It smelled like wet wool with a faint undertaste of J’adore perfume.

  “Four parts Dior, six parts unique Stanzie,” I whispered. I couldn’t even begin to count how many times Grandfather Tobias had said that to me. A hundred maybe? Five hundred? Never again though.

  In the far distance snowplows ground their gears as they scraped the snow from the street. Flashing yellow lights pierced the gray afternoon darkness. The snow swirled down and I could hear it hitting my shoulders. I pulled up my hood and bulled through drifts up to my knees. Nothing as ephemeral as snow would beat me.