by Cecy Robson
Shayna grimaced at the mound of ash that used to be a snarling head. “How bad?” She pointed to the pile. “This bad?”
“Mm. There has been talk that she’s unhealthy in the head, shall we say?” He pursed his full lips. “The courts won’t bother hearing her pleas now. And I’m under no obligation to show her mercy.”
Danny’s face brightened. “So you’re here to help me—to save my dad? Thank God. He’s really weak. I think she’s been draining him of his blood and—”
Quennel raised his hand, silencing him. “My presence is not on your behalf. It’s on behalf of my master, Angelo Cusamano. He turned me decades ago. Like him, I am a master. Should I kill Giovanna as he asks, I’ll inherit her keep, her power, and her domain.”
I gave him a hard stare. “So you’re only out for yourself?”
He smiled. “Humans are food to me. Not pets, or anything to distress over. As a vampire, I am not allowed to kill you—only to take the small amounts of blood I need to nourish myself. But that does not oblige me to save you. Only weres carry that burden.”
“So you won’t help me.” Danny’s voice cracked with frustration and hurt. If Giovanna had claimed his father as Quennel believed, God only knew what she was subjecting him to.
Quennel watched him. “No, but I tell you this, young Matagrano. Should my killing Giovanna result in your father’s freedom, it would benefit us both, no?” He reached into his back pocket and handed him a business card. “If you find her, tell me. I’ll do the same for you and perhaps we’ll both obtain what we want.” He waited while Danny called his phone so he’d have his number, then turned and walked away. He’d only taken a few steps before he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “I urge you to find your father quickly. If Giovanna is fixated on him, she’ll attempt to turn him. If he’s as weak as you claim, he won’t survive the bite.”
Chapter Four
My hands split the kitchen table in half. Taran grunted, “Damn it, Celia, try and keep still, Emme’s almost done.” She held one arm, Shayna the other. Neither could keep me still despite using the full weight of their petite bodies.
It didn’t feel like Emme was almost done. Her torturous attempts at healing had me jolting and growling. My butt and face burned as if branded and my shoulders begged me to saw them off. It was all I could do not to bolt. Tears spilled down my cheeks as the bones of my face realigned with a sickening crunch and the holes in my shoulders filled in.
After what felt like an hour of torment, the relentless throbbing slowly subsided. “Oops,” Emme said.
My spine stiffened. “Oops? What do you mean by ‘oops’?”
Shayna shoved her face in mine. “Well, your butt sort of looks like you were attacked by a lion.” She looked back. “With braces.” Another glance. “And he seriously kicked your ass.”
“Fabulous.” But it wasn’t like anyone but me would miss the old cheek.
I tried to remember how to breathe as I stumbled into our bedroom and slipped on a new shirt and a pair of jeans. “You can come back in, Danny,” I called. When I returned to the kitchen, I slumped into the closest chair, grateful I could at least sit.
Emme wrung her hands. “Um. Sorry, Celia. I wish I was better at this sort of thing.”
I waved off her apology. Emme was sweet, and meant well. That’s why she’d done so well as a hospice nurse, and why she’d continue in that field when we moved. If we moved. And if we didn’t die. Damn, what a night.
She made her way to Danny’s side and clasped his shoulder. “Sorry you had to wait, but don’t worry. You won’t take as long as poor Celia.”
Danny rubbed his bruised throat, his hesitation spreading across his face. “Uh, that’s okay, Emme. I’m good.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He sighed as he took in our somber expressions. “Listen. I know I shouldn’t have dragged you into this mess—”
“No kidding, Danny!” Taran pulled at her destroyed shirt and then shook out bark and blades of grass from her hair, irritated. Her fire had caused patches of grass to burn. Since she was immune to her flame, she had rolled herself across the grass to extinguish it. Let’s just say she wasn’t in the cheeriest mood. “This whole thing is a shit storm with no end in sight.”
“God, I know, and I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry? Really? Is that all you have to say?” She crossed her arms. “Because of the vamps’ super sniffing powers, they can track us from the field, right back here. Just like they freaking tracked you from Warren!”
“Taran, stop it.”
She whipped around. “Stop what, Celia? Speaking the goddamn truth? We are totally screwed here.”
“Not as bad as Danny and his father are,” I ground out. “We’re leaving. They’re not. And they have no way to protect themselves.”
Bolts of blue and white lightning fired above her head. “Neither do we.” She pointed to the dwindling sparks. “The element of surprise is gone now. Do you honestly think we’ll all survive if they show up again?”
I didn’t answer her. Mostly because I knew she was right.
Except for the rattle of our old radiators kicking in and our soft breaths, there was no other sound for a long while. Danny rapped his knuckles against the table, his hand trembling. “I’m sorry. I never meant for any of you to be harmed. I thought with your powers, you’d be more formidable and no way could they hurt you.” He focused on me, his eyes glistening. “You always seemed so strong, Celia. I just never realized how much stronger these vamps would be.” Danny’s heart was breaking. I could see it by the way his face shadowed with misery. My own heart ached to see him this way. “I only seemed stronger compared to a human, Danny. We held our own tonight but mostly we were lucky.” I wiped the leftover blood from my nose. “I just don’t know if we’re enough to help you and your dad.”
Shayna busied herself making chai tea and poured it into the old yellow ceramic mugs that had been a part of the house for as long as I could remember. She paused as she tipped the teapot over Danny’s mug. “Ceel’s right. We’re not strong enough to help anyone, not like this. But I think there’s a way we can be.” She set the teapot down on the table. “What say we break this bind thingy he’s talking about?”
She said it like most frat boys ask, “Who wants a beer?”
We all stared at her.
Shayna held her hands out. “Hear me out. As you know, I can learn to wield any weapon just by watching it once—in a movie or on TV. And I can manipulate anything metal or wood. But my aim has been sucky forever, no matter how hard I try to improve it. What you don’t know is how heavy my arms feel the minute I start swinging or how sometimes I feel this strange pull on my wrists.”
“So?” Taran asked, her voice more annoyed than usual.
“So, I used to accept it as a limitation to my power, but after what Danny said, I don’t think it is. Now, take Taran for instance.” She ignored Taran’s glare. “Her fire and lightning pizzazz stay with her. Shouldn’t she be able to fire that puppy up or out? You know, like a bullet or something? Same thing with Celia and Emme. Something is holding us all back, dudes. I say we do something about it.” She smiled sadly at Danny. “We can’t just walk away, you know?”
I dumped my tea out into the old porcelain sink and leaned over it, gripping the edge tight while I thought matters through. Shayna was right. The vamps who held Danny’s father were ruthless. They didn’t care that Danny and his father were human and incapable of fighting back. If anything, the Matagranos had been targeted because of their weakness. We had to do something. “Tell us what we need to do to get your father back.”
“You’ll help me?”
I nodded.
“Thank you, Celia. Thank you so much.” Danny removed his glasses to wipe his grateful tears. “He’s all that I have left.”
I released the sink. “I don’t want to be stupid about things. But I also know we don’t have a lot of time.”
Danny rubbed
his hands nervously. “I know. Tell me everything you know about the curse. Maybe it could help me understand the bind more.”
My sisters turned to me. I tightened my jaw. This so wasn’t going to be a good time. I left the kitchen and walked into the family room, itching with the need to move, but knowing I couldn’t go far. Everyone followed. I flopped onto the loveseat and thought about where to begin. The subject of our parents’ deaths always put me on edge. As the oldest, I remembered the most—my mother’s laugh, my father’s grin when he played with us, and how much they adored us. I also remembered their lifeless bodies following their murders. They never stood a chance against those gangbangers who broke into our home. Just like Danny and his father didn’t stand a chance now without us.
“Celia?” Emme prodded gently.
I reeled in my emotions and tried to soften my hardening features. “Our mother described the rest of her Latino family as tight-knit. But she believed her family resented her lighter tones and she never felt accepted.” I swallowed hard. “When she married our father, her family disowned her and accused her of abandoning her race. The curse appears to be their way of punishing her.”
I took a breath to squelch my growing anger and tame the big kitty within me who was suddenly alert. “There was a day when one of our aunts showed up at our door. She was so furious with Mom.” I looked at Emme. “I must have been almost four, because I remember Mom being pregnant with you. She was far along, big belly, and obviously vulnerable, but this woman didn’t seem to care. She screamed until Mom slammed the door in her face.”
Shayna squirmed a little, and lowered her head. “Do you remember anything she said?”
In my anger at my mother’s treatment, my tone was harder than I intended. “She said Mom was wrong to have us. That we should’ve never been born.”
Taran glanced up then. “Nice. Real fuckin’ nice. What did the crazy bitch look like?”
I thought about it. Crap, I was so little. “Plump and about fortyish, I guess. But her eyes were what’s seared into my brain. They were black—so black they didn’t seem to have irises.”
“Could she have been the one to curse us?”
Taran waited for me to answer her. I tapped my foot, trying to decide. But when it came down to it, I didn’t know for certain. “It’s hard to say. The thing that stays with me the most about the incident was her eyes. They didn’t seem quite right. It wasn’t just the color, the woman seemed … odd.”
“Crazy-eyed?” Taran offered.
“More like murderous.”
Everyone gasped. My tigress eyes were flaring, and I blinked them back, returning them to their normal shape and color.
Danny sighed heavily, the sound cutting through the tension. “I know this is hard, and I’m not trying to make it harder, but can you tell me about the actual curse? Did your mother ever mention the words used?”
I stiffened a little. “She did.”
Emme glanced around. “I don’t recall that.”
“Maybe you just don’t remember because you were so young.” My fingertips itched. It wouldn’t be long before my claws would protrude. “The words aren’t pretty, and the tone’s malicious. If you don’t want to hear them, Danny and I can go into another room.”
Emme appeared torn. Not Taran. “Screw it, Celia. Just tell us. We can’t hide from this shit.”
I didn’t immediately speak, struggling to recall the exact words. “The first part was directed at Mom and Dad, and was something like ‘You will not know the years ahead of you and will die with the man who poisoned your family. You will bleed and know the pain only death can bring. You will feel your blood as it leaves you. You will ache with every last pulse. I swear on my life you will know only agony.’ ”
I waited, letting them take it all in.
“Ceel! That was totally … horrid.” Shayna’s face paled. “Was there, like, more?”
“The rest was all us. Are you sure you want to hear it?” At their collective nods, I cleared my throat and finished. “ ‘Your children will devour blades and weep like weak and sickly runts. Predators will hunt them to pierce their flesh with fang and claw. They will burn with fire and hide from shame, for nowhere will they find strength, or love, or kindness.’ ”
Cue the eerie and dumbstruck silence.
“Aw, hell,” Taran said after a few moments. “As far as curses go, that was pretty damn evil.”
“You think?” I stood, shaking out my hands and claws.
Danny’s face was buried in his hands. I guessed he was mulling over the curse. He remained quiet, then, without warning, his head popped up and he rushed to me. Excitement stirred behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “It backfired!” he said.
I raised my eyebrows and motioned around the room. “Uh, I don’t think so. Our parents are dead, Danny. And kindness and love have eluded us—just like the curse intended. We’ve never had friends and have been mercilessly berated. Remember I told you our classmates nicknamed us the “weird girls”—and it wasn’t just because our last name is Wird.”
Danny pointed at me. “But the rest didn’t come true.”
Taran huffed. “Were you not listening?” She began to count off with her fingers. “Weak and sickly runts—Emme was born premature and spent the first six weeks of her life in the NICU.”
“Learning to heal,” Danny said like it was obvious.
This gave Taran pause, but then she added another finger. “Your children will devour blades—”
Danny interrupted. “What happens when you devour something?”
Taran glared at him.
“Come on, tell me what happens.”
“It’s broken down and absorbed into my body’s system …”
Her voice trailed as Shayna unfolded her legs and rose slowly. “Like how I absorb the metal I’m wearing and transfer it.”
“I was given the fire.” Taran’s voice was barely audible.
Everyone suddenly watched me. I stared at my claws. “And I’m the predator who hunts, piercing flesh with fang and claw.”
Danny held out his hands. “There’s a theory that the world maintains magic at a delicate balance—especially when it comes to dark power and causing harm. For the most part, it’s believed the earth’s magic is pure. I think it must have intercepted the spell cast against you.”
“How?” Shayna asked, her expression split between excitement and confusion.
“No idea,” Danny said. “But let me finish. Your parents were cursed with death, and I’m sorry that came true. Jesus. I’m really sorry. But in analyzing the severity of your aunt’s words, I believe the part of the curse directed at the rest of you also meant to kill. For some inexplicable reason, though, this aunt wanted you to suffer longer. Maybe she intended for you to have an illness—be eaten by a pack of rabid dogs, commit suicide by swallowing razor blades—I don’t know. But whatever it was didn’t work. It gave you strength and power.”
Numbness claimed me; something was wrong. “How come I didn’t realize the curse had backfired before? It seems so obvious now that we’re talking about it.”
Danny placed his hands on my shoulders. “I believe it’s part of the bind. Think about it. You have these abilities that you’ve never discussed. Maybe you weren’t meant to discuss them. Maybe you weren’t meant to understand any of it.” He sighed. “If you can’t recognize what’s holding you back, you can’t exactly move forward.”
Shayna jumped out of her seat. “Hold up. You’re saying we were also whammied with something that kept us quiet and in the dark?”
“I can’t think of another explanation. Can you?” We all shook our heads. Danny’s stare turned intense. I could almost picture the synapses of his brilliant mind firing. “This was a death spell—a powerful one because it extended to six people. When it backfired, she must have sensed it and bound you.”
Taran stared at Danny as if she’d been slapped. “Damn, but … now what?”
Danny addressed Taran. “No
matter how strong this witch—your aunt, I mean—is or was, she can’t maintain the bind without building an altar for it.”
“Altar?” Emme asked.
“Something that keeps the bind going whether she’s alive or dead. Destroy the altar, and you cut loose the bind.”
“Okay …” I said. This wasn’t a lot to take in or anything. “But how do we find it?”
Danny grinned. “Leave that to me.”
Chapter Five
My sisters and I didn’t grow up attending family gatherings, holiday dinners, or whatever it is people who have normal families do. So we hadn’t expected a warm welcome from any relative we came across. However, we never anticipated, well, this:
“Diablas!”
Devils. The old woman clutching a rosary had called us devils. It was bad enough she pelted Taran in the head with a cluster of garlic.
The other six apartment doors we’d knocked on in the roach-infested building had been slammed in our faces. And don’t get me started on the one woman who fell to her knees, begging God to banish our apparently unholy asses from her threshold.
My heart raced as we hurried out of the dilapidated building and toward our car. We were running out of time to help Danny’s father.
I speed-dialed Danny and put him on speakerphone the second he answered.
“How’s it going, Celia?” he asked, his voice rushed.
“Shitty,” Taran muttered. “I don’t think that spell of yours worked.”
We’d left him at our house staring at a piece of paper floating in a clear glass bowl. I heard him turn a page from the book he referenced. “Hmmm. According to Old Norse legend, this locating spell should work for anyone—even if he or she is not a being of magic.”
Shayna picked a clove of garlic from Taran’s hair. “It’s not that we’re not in the right place, little guy,” she said. “People around here seem to sense who we are. It’s just that we’re not finding any leads, or anyone willing to help us.” Her head jerked back to the building, her nervous energy building enough that I could scent it.