“First time I’ve seen her like that,” Coll muttered.
“Oh?” Baker asked. “Too bad.” There were all sort of implications in his words, but Silver couldn’t quite figure out which ones he meant.
When Coll didn’t make a move to serve, Silver decided to perform the duty. Baker chatted aimlessly, while Coll gave one word replies and Silver kept as quiet as possible. It was possibly the worst dinner she’d ever experienced. Raw hatred seemed to pour out of Coll, and Baker—while outwardly friendly—was obviously goading Coll, lording something over him.
They talked about everything but magic, and no one mentioned the spellbook, so naturally it was all Silver could think of. She wished Piewicket would come back. She dearly needed a little comfort. She held the little quartz pebble in her pocket, feeling the stone warm in her hand.
When there was no more excuse to stay at the table, they all went to the front room. Silver grimaced at the thought of an hour or more of small talk when it was obvious only Baker seemed to be at ease.
“Got any scotch left in these dark, dry times?” he asked Coll.
“I’ll see.” Coll left for the basement, leaving Baker and Silver alone in the room.
Baker waited for a moment, listening, then turned to Silver, his expression serious. “It’s worse than I thought, Miss Salem. Tell me, has Dunne mentioned anything about feeling haunted? Or being cursed?”
“I’m hardly the right person to ask—”
“Now’s not the time for secrets, dear. If he’s hallucinating again, it’s imperative that he gets help for his psychosis.”
“Psychosis?” Silver didn’t like the sound of that.
“This has been going on for some time, Miss Salem. Dunne sees things. Imagines vast conspiracies against him. He’s paranoid, distrustful. He has almost no friends. He makes people take strange little tests to prove their honesty. It’s mostly harmless, but he can have violent moods.”
“I haven’t seen that.”
“Not yet, perhaps, but if you stay here, you will. Now, tell me what brought you here. Some new fixation of Dunne’s no doubt. Did he buy it from you?”
“No,” she said, before realizing that she’d revealed there was a special thing Dunne had bought.
But Baker only stepped closer to her, asking, “Where is it? I’ll remove it from the house while he’s distracted.” Baker put a hand on her arm. “In fact, you’ll be a perfect distraction.”
“Distraction from what?” Coll asked from the doorway. He’d returned silently, holding an opened bottle of scotch in one hand.
“Ah, Dunne,” Baker said quickly. “We were just discussing—”
“How to distract me,” Coll finished, walking forward. “Yes, I heard that part. Silver was going to keep my attention, while you rifled through my house. Is that right?”
“No,” said Silver. “I mean, I’m not here to distract you.”
“Then why are you here?” He walked toward her, his gaze flat and hostile.
She frowned. “You asked me here.”
“No, I didn’t,” Coll said. “I asked for another person entirely. But it was you who showed up at my door, with your big brown eyes and your story about being related to Malachi Salem.”
“I know I’d believe nearly anything she said. What an actress,” Baker added.
“I’m not an actress!” Silver snapped at the newcomer.
Baker just smiled. “Oh, we can drop the act now, sweet Silver. Our friend wouldn’t have been fooled much longer anyway.”
Silver hated how he used her nickname, as if he had a right to it.
But she had no time to discuss the issue, because Coll’s eyes narrowed further. “God damn it. I knew it. I knew it the second I saw you two together.”
“Wait a minute, Coll!” Silver instinctively backed away from the advancing man. Energy seemed to arc around him, his anger made manifest. Silver blinked once, twice, but couldn’t clear the vision she saw.
Coll’s body was surrounded by a glowing nimbus in a vaguely familiar shape.
“Time for a little honesty, eh, Dunne,” Baker murmured. “How does it feel to be fooled by a woman like her?”
The nimbus around Coll suddenly sharpened. It was a wolf, a glowing outline of a huge wolf. Silver could feel the mystical energy gathering around Coll, dark energy that left a sour taste in the mouth. She didn’t need to be a witch to sense this danger. Anyone alive would be able to sense it.
“You were in it together,” Coll growled at her. He now stood only a few feet away. “How’d you do it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Silver said, putting her hands out to ward him off.
“Don’t pretend any more!” Coll threw the bottle on the floor. The glass shattered and the distinctive smell of scotch wafted up. “Who are you?”
He loomed over her. Silver’s hands hit his chest, and she was all too aware of his strength.
“Calm down, Coll,” she begged him.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” he roared in her face. “I’m sick of it! Always on alert, always ready to run. Never trust anyone and never, ever lose control.”
“Lose it now,” Baker whispered.
Coll didn’t seem to hear. Silver barely heard it, too focused on Coll to think what the words meant.
“Listen to me,” Silver said. “I am exactly who I say I am, Coll. You tested it yourself. With the bloodstone. Remember?”
“You tricked it somehow. I don’t know.”
“How could I? It was your stone. I had no way to know you were going to use it.” She reached into a pocket with one shaking hand. “Here it is. I’ll show you again.”
Coll glanced at the stone, then at her again. A flicker of uncertainty in his expression told her she was getting through.
“Please, Coll,” she said softly. “There’s no need to be upset. Trust me.”
A loud clap startled her. Baker clapped again, and again. “Brava, brava! You’re a consummate performer. I knew right off you’d be perfect for the role!”
“So you are working together,” Coll said, the anger returning in an instant. He glared at Silver. “Is that why your translation is so slow? Do you know anything, or is it all an act?”
“Of course it is,” said Baker.
“Don’t listen to him!” Silver cried, even as Coll grabbed her by the arm.
“I should have known.” He growled, sounding exactly like a wolf.
Silver froze when he touched her. She was very, very aware of how strong he was, how easily he could kill her.
Silver whispered, “I don’t know what this is all about, but I’d never hurt you. Please, Coll.”
Coll hesitated again.
Baker frowned, then shouted, “You’d take the word of this tart? You’ve only known her a week! I’ve known her for years, Collier!”
“That’s a lie,” Silver said. She held up the bloodstone again, declaring, “I never met this man until today! I am definitely not working with him.”
She lunged past Coll and pushed the stone into the other man’s hand. “Go on! Tell your version, sir.”
The stranger looked at the bloodstone with a smirk. “A parlor trick.”
“Then it won’t hurt you to indulge me,” she insisted. “Go ahead and tell your side of the story.”
The man’s sneer grew. “I have…”
“Hold the stone,” Silver snapped. “You dropped it in your pocket.”
He snarled at her. “Stupid bitch.”
“Hold the stone up. Say the words.”
“Say them, Bahor,” Coll echoed, anger crackling in his voice. “Enough lies. Use your true name, you bastard.”
Baker, or Bahor, as Coll called him, took the stone out of his pocket. He held it gingerly in his palm, as if he hoped it would float. Then he said the words, accusing Silver of being his creature.
The stone pulsed once, turned a vivid, violent red, and shattered. Silver screamed in surprise as little droplets of blood burst out, spattering all of
them.
The legends about bloodstone seemed to have some merit.
“So that’s what a lie looks like,” she said after a second of pure shock.
“You wanted to watch, didn’t you?” Coll demanded, to Bahor. “You wanted to watch when I killed her.”
“I always like to watch,” Bahor said, looking at both of them with a sneer. As Silver stared, the stranger’s face flickered a little.
His whole appearance was a seeming, she realized. An illusion. Whatever Bahor was, it wasn’t human. It was a demon.
Coll was still furious, but he now turned on Bahor. “Very funny. You want to watch when I kill you?”
But when Coll attacked the stranger, even with all the mystical power of that strange wolf form surrounding him, nothing happened. The stranger was somehow protected.
Coll howled in rage, trying again and again.
The demon just laughed. “You can’t hurt me, Collier. That’s part of the deal, remember?” Then the stranger’s face shifted again, becoming less human second by second. Its eyes began to glow. “But I can hurt you, stupid mortal.”
He didn’t make a move, but Coll shrank away from an invisible assault, and then was flung back against the wall.
“Stop it,” Silver shouted, to no avail. The demonic stranger would kill both of them for fun. And Coll couldn’t stop him. Silver had to think of some way to end this.
Piewicket suddenly dashed out from under the couch. She spat and hissed at the stranger, just as she used to do to Silver’s ex-husband years ago. That gave Silver the idea.
She took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves and to concentrate her spirit. Then she stepped in front of Bahor, who was still staring at Coll.
“I banish thee,” Silver yelled, beginning a familiar incantation.
“This is not your home,” the demon snarled back.
“I sleep here, I eat here, I shelter here.” She recited a spell she learned long ago. “You, Bahor, shall not rest in the bed here, eat no food at the table here, feel no warmth at the hearth here. This place belongs to me and mine, and I close all doors to you. Pass not over my threshold, pass not under my lintel. I abjure thee. Go, Bahor, lest I send angels after thee with holy fire and holy light. Go.”
As she spoke the last line, she felt the stirring of magic rise up through her feet and into her body. Her arms began to tingle with energy, and she pointed at the demon. “GO.”
Power flowed outward, pushing the unwelcome being back. It snarled, but turned and fled, vanishing when it reached the gate marking the property line.
Silver sagged in sudden exhaustion. She was a scholar, not a mage. She was not accustomed to the effort required for such magic. But it worked. She smiled with satisfaction. The spell had worked.
“Coll,” she said. “It’s gone.”
There was no reply, and when she looked back, Coll was on the floor, lying on his side.
“Coll?”
Silver whirled around and rushed over to him. When she saw his face, fear surged through her. “Coll, speak to me. Are you all right?”
His eyes were shut, his skin ashy and covered in sweat, as if he suffered the flu. His body was half-curled up in the fetal position.
Silver shook him by the shoulder, and got only a low moan. Looking around frantically, she noticed the wool blanket lying over the back of a chair. She seized it and settled it over Coll’s body.
“Coll,” she repeated. She put a hand on his shoulder again, but didn’t shake him. She kept the contact, hoping he’d feel it. “Coll, you need to say something. What did he…it…what did it do to you?”
After an agonizing moment of silence, Coll moaned again. The sound was low, quiet, but horrible in its despair.
“Coll, it’s Silver,” she said. “I banished it. Do you hear me? It can’t come back in the house. You’re safe.”
“No,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she insisted. “Open your eyes. Look at me. It’s just me.”
“Silver…”
“Yes,” she said encouragingly. “It’s me. Only me.”
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, keeping his eyes shut.
“No, I’m fine.” She realized she was rubbing his back as though he were a baby being put to bed. She kept doing it though, hoping it would soothe him. “I’m fine. Not a scratch.”
He opened his eyes at that, looking her over as best he could from the floor. “I didn’t hurt you?”
“No, of course not.”
“I’ve never lost control like that before,” he said. His voice was dull, weak. “I couldn’t think. I smelled your blood. I wanted to kill.”
Even though part of her knew the degree of danger, Silver couldn’t stop a gasp.
“Oh, my God, Silver,” he said, his voice growing hotter. “I almost murdered you.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said quickly.
“Forgive me.”
“You did nothing wrong.”
“What did I look like?” he asked then. “Did you notice…”
As if she’d ever get that image out of her head—the wolf form surrounding Coll’s enraged, anguished human body. Now that she had a moment to think, she understood what Coll really was.
“I saw you, just as you look…” she said. “But I also saw, not as in saw with my actual eyes, but I saw…a wolf. Grey. Huge. All around you, like a shell. Its eyes are the same color as yours.”
He let out a long breath. “I’m sorry you had to see it.”
“See what?”
“What I am. Cursed.”
“It’s not a curse to be a werewolf,” Silver said, recalling some of her father’s lessons and conversations long ago. “Werewolves are part of the world, just one of many types of people who can shift. In fact, there are a few in the Salem family tree,” she added. “So it’s not a curse.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said wearily. “Werewolves are born, not made. I was born one and I’ve never been ashamed of that. The curse is my own fault.”
“Can you tell me about it?” Silver really wanted to know, not just from academic curiosity, either. She wanted to take it off him, just as she’d want to unshackle a prisoner or free a bird from a cage. “What’s the curse?”
“The curse of Bahor,” Coll answered. “You’ve seen what it does to me when I almost hurt you. That’s what he constantly tempts me to do. If I ever take an innocent human life, I’m his.”
“You never would,” she said.
“The curse…clouds my head. I get angry so easily. Rage is always there, just waiting, like a tiger.”
“But you’ve never given in,” she argued. “You’re stronger than it.”
“I’m getting weaker,” he said.
“That’s why you need the spell,” Silver said. “You’re going to use it on yourself.”
He nodded. “I have one more chance to try to break it. This new moon, the one that coincides with the night of Halloween. I can’t really explain it, but I think that if I don’t break it this time, I won’t get another chance. I can feel my control slipping, every week, every month. It won’t be long before I give in. God damn it, we were so close.”
“The new moon isn’t for five days,” she reminded him.
“You’ll leave now,” he muttered. “I don’t blame you. I would have killed you.”
“Coll, I’m not going anywhere.”
He said nothing for a moment, but his eyes cleared slightly. “What?”
“I’m staying. You need my help.”
“And you need the money,” he said dully.
“I’d do it for free, you idiot. You think I’d walk away? After I’ve seen what you’ve been through?”
She wasn’t sure how he’d react to that. She certainly didn’t think he’d pass out. But that was exactly what he did.
* * * *
Coll regained consciousness a little while later, by which time Silver had brewed coffee for him. She spiked it with whisky and made him drink two cups before spe
aking. He sat on the couch, wrapped in the wool blanket he put on Silver the previous night. His eyes were bloodshot and he stared ahead of him, looking at nothing.
Silver sat beside him, not speaking, not filling the air with unwanted words. She was a patient person.
“So, I’m a werewolf,” he said finally.
She nodded. “Yes. And to be clear, I’m not scared of werewolves. As I said, I think I’m related to a few.”
“You’re a very strange person, Silver,” he said. For a second, a smile hovered on his face, but then it faded. “You’ve never seen me actually shift, but I can. That’s not a myth. What you saw was the aura.”
She nodded again.
“My parents were both werewolves as well. They also felt a strong need to fight the darker magic they saw coming into the world. Sort of a calling for both of them.”
“That’s a rather dangerous vocation,” she commented softly. “I could tell you some stories of Salem ancestors who did the same thing. They fought demons, banished ghosts, hunted vampires. They didn’t always win.”
“It’s dangerous, but I never knew another life, so it seemed normal enough to me.” Coll sighed. “To be clear, my parents never took me along when they went on a mission. I stayed with friends or family those times. When I got a little older, I begged to help. My parents usually said no. They wanted to protect me. When I was maybe fourteen, I’d begun to grasp just how dangerous their work was. I got a few hints from their friends, and I saw some things too. I got scared every time they left that they wouldn’t come back. They did come back, but usually beaten and bloody. Not that it mattered to them. We heal fast…very fast. They were always looking for the next mission. I was an afterthought for them. I’d only be interesting when I got old enough to fight alongside them.”
“Or they loved you and didn’t want to risk you getting hurt,” Silver said.
“Maybe.” Coll nodded. “But I’ll never know.”
“They died?”
“They did. It was my fault.” His expression was tight with grief. She slipped her hand into his and he grabbed it, not letting go.
“I was studying a lot,” he said, “reading all the lore they had, anything related to the occult or magic I could get my hands on. I wanted to be ready. I talked to anyone who knew anything. I’d ask for advice, hints, whatever they could tell me.”
One Touch of Silver Page 5