Blightmare (The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 5)

by A. J. Aalto

  “Fine, whatever,” I said, mostly to placate him. “Now, as happy as I am to have you home, I’m going to scarf some meringues and go to sleep. I’ve had a forty-hour day, apparently.”

  “Awww,” Wes said, smiling at me as he helped me rearrange my blankets and tuck them around me. “You called this my home.”

  I could hear Harry mucking about in the kitchen preparing a tea tray for me with the cookies, and the sight of my brother safe and sound combined to grant me a cozy respite from the tempest of stress everywhere else. For a heart-stuttering second, I realized I was happy, and shame flooded me. My smile faltered and I had the sudden urge to flee back out to the quiet night; it was too much, too soon. How could I be happy while Mark’s corpse was in some dark box, being made ready for burial? It wasn’t right. My stomach rolled.

  I felt a hand settle on the back of mine, and found that my brother was staring at me knowingly. His unsettling violet eyes had wilted as he turned up his powers to wade past Harry’s formidable mind to pinpoint mine. Wes gave his head a little shake that told me not to stop being happy, not to let the sadness return, to literally fight for my right to party; his smile was tentative, but it gave me permission to enjoy the moment and, if I could, the night.

  Harry whisked in with a tray and a gentle admonishment to Wesley to let me rest and to come fill him in on the months he’d been away. Wesley nodded that he would, and Harry went to read in the living room by the fire.

  “I messed up, Wes,” I admitted. “I used dark magic.”

  He stared at me as if to say duh with those unblinking, immortal eyes. “I know.”

  “I’m really glad you’re back,” I told him.

  “I know,” he said through a wide grin. “I’m very good to have around.” Again, he patted my blankets down around me, and gave me a stern, brotherly look. “Don’t forget to wash that shit off your face. Have a good sleep.”

  There were no nightmares that night.

  Chapter 22

  The next morning, just before dawn, I rolled out of bed with a weird taste in my mouth. Smacking my lips, I went to the bathroom and flicked on the overhead light to squint. Joy, oh joy! I looked at the mirror and wasn’t entirely pleased with what I saw: my eyes still had dark circles underneath, my cheeks were sunken, my bad chop job had left me with crooked bangs, and my eyebrows were still over-plucked in a high, shocked-looking arch. At least my skin was amazingly bright and soft, thanks to that mud mask. I penciled my brows in a little so that I wouldn’t look so surprised, filling underneath with brown eyeliner. After brushing my teeth and swishing with mouthwash, I threw on some comfortable clothes and went to find Harry. He and Wes were in the living room by the wood stove.

  When I approached, I heard my brother say, “Here she comes, do we tell her?”

  “Hush, lad,” Harry whispered and then called out to me, “Ah, my sweet-faced siren, how lovely to see you up and chipper so early, ready to grace us with your fine company.”

  “Tell me what?” I aimed the question at Wes, who cracked immediately by looking to Harry beseechingly for help.

  Harry had decided, sometime in the last month, to teach himself to knit; he used the needles and yarn in his hands to wave away my question. “T’is but a small thing, angel, it can wait. Why don’t you come perch on my lap, here, for a nice, long snuggle?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Is this another small thing like, hey Carole Jeanne disappeared, or, hey we’re gonna have a funeral for Batten, or hey—“

  “You’re a lycanthrope,” Wes blurted, and then winced.

  Harry uttered a disappointed, “Oh, child, why?” at my brother. “She needn’t be bothered with such trivial matters now. Isn’t she wrestling with enough?”

  “Trivial…” I stuttered, “... matters. Wesley, why are you so certain? Did you hear something in my head telepathically? Did you smell something? Did you see something?”

  He writhed on the couch like a little boy who really had to pee, bouncing one knee before letting it out. “You changed. We both saw you change. The full moon last night made you shape-shift. We saw it.”

  Horrified, I stammered, “But, I, what? How? I was asleep!”

  “Nevertheless,” Wes said. Ugh, Harry's already rubbing off on him in the vocabulary department.

  “I turned into a fox,” I said, “right here in the cabin?”

  Wes shook his head violently back and forth. “Not exactly.”

  “Outside?” I asked.

  “No, in here, it’s just… you weren’t a fox.”

  I cut my eyes to Harry who rolled his eyes to the ceiling and sighed in his long-suffering fashion. “Couldn’t we just spare her the gruesome details until much later, lad? I’m a bit peckish again, and she’ll be far to upset for a feed once you—”

  “What was I? Was I a goddamn wolf?” I was shocked but a little excited. Wolves were awesome. I kinda wanted to be a wolf. “Was I?”

  Wes shook his head again and grimaced. “You were, um… a, uh…”

  “Oh, don’t be shy. Now that you’ve started, spit it out, you ninny.” Harry faced me with a pleasant, calming smile and announced, “You were a ferret, Dearheart.”

  My mouth popped open and I snapped it shut. It opened again, seeking words, and I had none. Finally, I said in horror, “A ferret?”

  “A little blue ferret,” he clarified. “Seems the fur wanted to keep the turquoise of your ghost-hair. You were a pretty little thing, zipping and poinging around the kitchen floor, scurrying for bits of jerky.”

  Holy twatbuckets. “I’m a wereferret?” I felt the room tilt to one side and slapped the wall to steady myself.

  “It would seem so,” Harry confirmed.

  “There’s no such thing as a wereferret,” I said, my voice climbing.

  “Then how are you one?” Wes asked. When I glared at him, he tried to be more helpful. “Ferrets are smart.”

  “Ferrets are creepy!” I cried, flinging my hands skyward. “Ferrets are not bad-ass. If I have to shape-shift, I wanna be something cool! I don’t wanna be a weasel!”

  “You were blue, though. That was cool,” Wes offered.

  “How does that even work?” I demanded, putting on my science hat. “What about conservation of mass? You can’t fit me into a ferret!” Wes turned into a bat and liked humping my bunny slippers, and Harry had turned into an owl, so I knew the conservation of mass argument wouldn't hold water, but, dammit, I didn't want to be a tube rat, even if I was a super-cool turquoise one.

  Harry said with a chuckle, “When it comes to the metaphysical, I hardly think normal physics rules apply.”

  “How could I possibly have mutated the lycanthrope virus from fox to ferret? That must be a genetic impossibility,” I said, marching to grab my phone from the coffee table. “Did either of you take pictures? I’m calling Dr. Delacovias!”

  “No, don’t!” Wes said, and he exploded, roaring with laughter. Harry’s smile cracked and it dawned on me in a rush that they’d been pulling my leg this whole time.

  “You needn’t ring your doctor just yet, love,” Harry said. “Your brother wanted to have a little fun with you, is all. A childish prank, but he insisted you were asking for it.”

  I turned on Wes and grabbed a throw pillow so I could beat him soundly with it. Wes cried out for mercy under my barrage, laughing until he was in tears.

  “You totally bought it,” he wailed, hiding his head under his arms. “Wereferret. Oh my God, Marnie.”

  “You just wait, Wesley Alexander,” I threatened, “when I become a werevixen, I’m gonna bite you so hard.”

  “I’ll tell mom!” Wes yelped, slapping up at the pillow that was still raining blows down upon him.

  “That’ll be quite enough, children,” Harry said with a chuckle. “Wesley, go make your sister some tea and a nice bagel for breakfast. She has a big day ahead of her and you owe her a little make-up meal.”

  Wesley flopped off the couch onto the floor and crawled away from me. I fired th
e pillow at his retreating ass. Turning to face Harry, I saw the twinkle in his eye and my anger melted. “Ha ha, verrrrry funny, dead guy.”

  “Do you suppose I would honestly let a wereferret scurry around my kitchen floor?” he asked. “Upon which, I might add, you would never have found a single bit of food to nibble.”

  “No, Harry.”

  “I keep a very clean kitchen,” he insisted, looping yarn, needles flying. “No small mammals or crumbs.”

  “Yes, Harry,” I said dutifully.

  There was a knock at the front door, and I had an unpleasant flashback to Wesley answering it as though he were Harry, and catching a face full of holy water from a Prior. That got me moving. I peered out the peephole and was met with a wall of black leather. No mystery there. I opened the door, backing up to allow Viktor the half-ogre revenant into the front hall. Behind me, Wesley began shrugging into a suit jacket.

  “Your bagel is in the toaster,” Wes said. “Tea kettle is on.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Duh, it’s funeral day,” Wes said.

  “Well, you can’t go,” I told Harry, marching back into the living room, “and you can’t take Wesley. It’s broad daylight.”

  “It’s very early in the day,” Harry said, as if this made it any better.

  “You’ll fry!” I flapped my hands in the sky to indicate where the sun was, since he’d clearly forgotten.

  “We won’t be out of doors, silly,” he said. “We shall be indoors, and we shall avoid the windows.”

  “Indoors in a funeral home,” I said. “Do you remember the last time we went to Pennywick Funeral Home? It was a disaster! Ghoul sludge everywhere!”

  “Viktor will drive us in the nice car with the safety windows.” Harry stood, discarding his knitting into the basket beside his favorite wingback chair. He straightened and fluffed his ascot before twisting a delicate garnet pin in the center until it was just so. “Are you sure this is what you’re upset about? For all his faults, Our Mark was a member of the team, an important person in our lives, and we are entitled to mourn him. Will you be joining us?”

  “You’re really going?”

  “Flames and ether, darling, but of course I’m going. I wish to say goodbye to the man who was briefly my friend.” I felt his lie through the Bond, but what, precisely, Harry was lying about, I couldn’t tell.

  “He was never your friend,” I chided. “Not really.”

  Harry clucked his tongue. “Ducky…”

  “No, he faked it.” I felt myself weaken and tried it again, more forcefully this time. “He faked all of it in order to get close to the revenants he wanted to stake.”

  It was Harry who said, “You are mistaken.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Very well, my raison de vivre.” Harry paused beside me to place a cool kiss on my forehead before sweeping into the hallway, gathering shadows as he went. He would use them to shield himself on his walk to the car, even though it was not quite dawn. He added, “Perhaps your anger is still holding back your tears. Whilst I do not believe it healthy, I will defer to your wishes. Wesley and I will go without you, then?” Harry readjusted his ascot and smoothed his eyebrow with a fingertip. He watched me expectantly, waiting for me to cave.

  “His fondness for you was genuine,” Wes said, “whether you choose to accept that or not. I knew. Everyone did. Maybe it wasn’t enough to stop him… maybe he wasn’t in his right mind, even. Did you stop to consider that he may have been driven to it?”

  That struck a chord, but I pushed it away. “No.”

  “I’m sorry that he didn’t live up to your expectations,” Wes said. “In the end, he failed himself as much as he failed you.”

  Harry was blocking me through the Bond something fierce, but there was a twitch around his left eye that he hid by repeatedly smoothing his eyebrows.

  “I think it’s best that you remain here,” Harry finally agreed. “It is clear to anyone with eyes that you’re not ready for this.”

  “Ha! Reverse psychology isn’t going to work on me, dead man.”

  Viktor held the front door open for Harry and did his best not to drool when the revenant passed him, pulling shadows and doing his eye-blurring walk to Viktor’s waiting limo.

  “Not that your mourning is any of my business, Marnie-Jean,” Wes said, “but you’re really not coming to say goodbye?”

  “I said goodbye the minute I woke up in Ireland and he wasn’t there,” I said, fighting emotions for the millionth time, angry that I was still not over it, wondering when it wouldn’t hurt to think or talk about it. “I knew it was done. It was over in an instant, my entire attachment to him. Snipped, nipped, and ripped.” This was all bluff and bluster, but it hardened my resolve to say it out loud, and I set my shoulders, feeling rooted in place in the living room, unable to even consider going.

  Wes shadow-stepped to the car, followed by the heavy thud of Viktor's tread.

  I watched them from my office window, holding my breath until Viktor had them safely away. I sat at my desk and played with a pencil. For a few long minutes, I was alone in the silent cabin, calling myself a coward, wrestling with the anxiety, the doubt, and the resentment.

  Another car pulled into the driveway then, lights flashing in my office windows. I scowled out the window and saw Umayma step out; a simple black dress flowed around her ankles, and a black wool cape draped her shoulders. Beneath the hem, her gloved hands clutched her car keys and a small clutch purse. She didn’t knock when she got to my front door; that’s how I knew I was in trouble. She let herself in, her high heels clicking on the floor as she strode into my office.

  Framed in the threshold of the room, she cocked her head expectantly. I looked away. She wasn’t having any of that; the clutch purse caught me upside the head. I flicked her a scowl.

  “Ow. Go away.” After a grumpy minute of silence between us, I added, “You didn’t even know him, why are you going?” And then, “You can’t make me.”

  She stepped to the other side of my desk so her sign language would be seen, and, feeling childish, I sighed and turned my head to look out the window. I found myself on the receiving end of another purse swat.

  “What?” I demanded. “Why does everyone insist I go to this stupid crap?”

  Her face softened like she was getting somewhere, which infuriated me.

  “Seriously. I just want it to go away.” I caught myself. “You. Them. I want you guys to go away.”

  She moved to the bookshelves to search for a book, tipped it out into her hands, and then flipped through it while I watched her suspiciously. The Collected Works of William Shakespeare. It took her only a minute to find what she was looking for. She turned the book to face me, open on my desk, and pointed to a line.

  It was Antony speaking at the funeral in Julius Caesar. “You all did love him once, not without cause. What cause withholds you then to mourn for him,” I read aloud, and then rolled my eyes. “He wasn’t Caesar, for fuck’s sake. He was a sexy asshole in tight jeans and cop boots.”

  She caught me with her gaze, made sure I was paying attention, then slowly and laboriously signed, while I tried to read it. Both of us novices, it was a challenge, so she wrote it on my memo pad. What was your favorite thing about him?

  I wilted into my chair, defeated. “You’re a jerk,” I told her.

  She pointed at it this time more confidently.

  “I don’t know,” I said stubbornly, but that was a lie. “His ass. The way his shoulders looked in those stupid shirts he wore that were obviously half a size too small. The way he'd call me 'baby' after he came.”

  Maim looked archly amused, but dubious.

  “He challenged me to be better. I didn’t like his methods. No one did. He was a gigantic dillhole about it. He expected the best, and it was abundantly clear that he didn’t expect to get the best from me.” I laughed bitterly. “I was constantly waffling between trying to prove him wrong and giving up en
tirely. When I tried my best — whether I failed or succeeded — I never got the positive feedback I craved. When I gave up, I got the ridicule he couldn’t wait to give me. But every now and then, almost out of the blue—“ I paused, and shook my head, struggling to find the right words. “No, not out of the blue. When I dropped my guard. When I was just me, myself. Sometimes awful, sometimes ridiculous. That’s when his self-control broke and he had to have me. I never understood that. It was almost like…” I felt something click. “It was like my real, absurd, unguarded self was the only thing that was good enough. Too bad I could never relax enough to totally be myself with him. He might have liked that.”

  Umayma carefully signed, Do you have a favorite memory of him? I felt my lips pinch together to squelch a smile, and she added hastily, fingers flying, A non-sexual one, you pervert. I'm paraphrasing; she'd made a finger-going-into-a-fist gesture, and then shook that finger no-no-no.

  “There was this one time, we were crouched in the boathouse, hiding from a crazy old lady with a gun, and I looked up at him, at the blood under his nose, and the rough bristles on his chin, and I wanted so badly to protect him that I swore off cookies if the Dark Lady would get him out of it alive.”

  Umayma’s eyes widened comically. No cookies? You?

  I nodded; my smile crumbled as quickly as it formed. “I couldn’t save him this time. I couldn’t save him, Maim. He never gave me that option. And now he’s gone.” I swallowed thickly and brought my scowl back full force. “Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you just go?”

  She shrugged sadly and scribbled on the pad, “Let’s go say goodbye to those nice memories.” When I didn’t jump up, she signed, Come on. Up. Up. Come on.

  “I don’t like you very much,” I tried to tell her, but she wasn’t having it. She moved ahead of me to get my coat. I tried lamely, “I’m not even dressed for a funeral.”

  She tossed my coat at me and a pair of gloves, and gave me a slow look up and down; black jeans, black hoodie, black Keds Hi-Tops. I’d been in constant funereal garb since his passing. She crooked a finger at me and then pointed at her car in the driveway.