by Kaye Draper
Did Rose's death have something to do with this too?
"Tommy," Cal said, all emotion once more masked. "You'll find him and get him back. I can tell you where to find him. I just need a bit more time. They have several facilities across the country—a couple in this state. But they keep them very well hidden. I am trying my best to figure out which one has him without tipping my hand."
I nodded. If the people he worked for had a piece of powerful leverage over him, and they found out that he was betraying them... that leverage might just go away.
And that leverage might just be a five-year-old girl.
I closed my eyes in a long blink. "Yes." I opened my eyes. "I'll find...Tommy...and put him back together. Bring him back."
He gave a curt nod and stepped back. "The covens," he said softly. "They know of Rose's death. They blame the hunters—but maybe they should be blaming someone else. Use that. Start with my parents. They are old and well-respected. If you can sway them, they will bring the others to you."
I took a deep breath. "Yeah, sure, okay."
I turned to the dogman. "Are you going to give him some of your hair, so he can fake your death?"
The deformed creature pulled himself to his full, towering height, extended a misshapen arm, and flipped the hunter off with one fat digit.
I snorted. "I guess that answers that."
Cal shook his head. "I really am trying to help conceal you," he said to his stubborn ancestor. "But I understand. I could use the link to you for nefarious purposes."
Nefarious? What century were we in?
Cal took a step back, fading into the woods. Cloud slipped past me to pursue. I grabbed her arm and yanked her back. "Let him go."
She stopped and turned to glare at me. "What the hell was that? Why would you trust him? He..." she stepped closer, fury and tenderness warring in her eyes. She reached for me and this time she didn't pull back, brushing the hair back from my cheek in a soft caress. Her hot skin sparked with barely restrained magic. "He used you and then tried to kill you."
I ignored the stuttering thing my heart was doing as she gazed down at me with fire in her eyes. "So did you," I reminded her.
She shook her head. "I never let it go that far. And I never would have killed you. I always--"
Bob coughed uncomfortably and slowly edged toward the house. "I think we are done? I'll just...."
Cloud sighed and dropped her hand. "I think you should leave town," she said to the watcher. "Go fully human. Don't let anyone know you can see. Your talents might be limited, but they could be enticing to some. Particularly if your magic isn't strong enough to fight back."
That was my Cloud. Brutal, but honest.
Usually.
"Thank you," I told the guy as he scuttled away. "Be safe."
I turned to the dogman. "What about you? Cal said he was supposed to be hunting and snatching you and Flo."
The dogman shrugged. Then he made a weird gesture with one hand in the palm of the other, like his fingers were walking. He pointed at the raven. Ahanu croaked and pecked at my hair. But I had no clue what he wanted.
Once again, I had no fucking clue what to do with the crap that had been handed to me.
Protect them, a cold voice whispered in my head.
"Well no shit," I said out loud, getting odd looks from my companions.
I glanced around the yard as the sky started to show the first hints of approaching dawn. Death was nowhere to be seen. But he was here, somewhere. Lurking.
"Some help here?" I asked of the empty shadows around me.
Cloud frowned. The dogman tilted his head as if he were also waiting for a response from whoever I was talking to. Ahanu cawed.
There was no other sound.
"Fuck you too!" I said, loudly.
The shadows at the base of a nearby maple tree shivered, making the bare, empty branches look like reaching fingers. Then a large black hare hopped out of the shadows, stretching as it morphed into a tall, thin older man in a perfect pinstriped suit. He was distinguished, hawk-nosed and graying at the temples in that dashing way of his. Rather than making him look old, the deep grooves in the skin around his eyes and mouth just made him look all wise and mournful. Crystal blue eyes peered at me with a mixture of curiosity and endless patience.
"Tess," he said in that cool, shadows and darkness voice of his. "My sweet girl. There are limits to even what I can do. I know you." He paced slightly closer. "I have seen inside that vivid spirit of yours. Things are out of balance. Save them." He waved a hand back toward the forest, encompassing the hidden creatures there in the gesture.
Then he turned to smoke and blew away.
I breathed in and out through my nose. Well, that was so fucking helpful. "Are all Gods such assholes?"
I turned back to look at Cloud to see her standing there with her mouth hanging open. She fell to her knees. "Was that...?"
I tilted my head at her. "Are you sick or something, Cloud Princess?"
She hated the name—an English misinterpretation of her status as a chief’s daughter. Which, of course, made me more inclined to call her that whenever possible.
She shook her head and lifted a trembling hand to her chest, right over her heart, ignoring the sarcastic moniker. "I saw... I saw the black hare. It's... was that... Death?"
I raised my eyebrows. I had never seen Cloud so shell-shocked. Then things fell into place. "You didn't believe me before, did you?" I narrowed my eyes at her. "You thought I was lying, didn't you? About how Kwan died?" I threw up my arms and stormed by her, firmly telling myself not to chew on her or rough her up a bit. I had more important things to do. "Fucking hunters!"
Chapter 5
The next night found me back in Manitou. I hoped like hell that a couple of days away was long enough for the various parties hunting me to pronounce me dead.
I crept up the paved walk toward Tommy's house like a frightened mouse, afraid of being snatched away in the talons of a lurking predator. It pissed me off. My steps sped up and my monster clamored at me inside my chest. I wasn't a fucking mouse. I was a monster.
Cloud was a silent shadow behind me. And goddamned sunshine Suzie was at my side, making as much noise as humanly possible. Maybe because she was the only human in the group.
"Can you walk any louder?" I hissed.
She flipped me off. Clearly, she had spent too much time around my ghoul. "Like they don't already know we're here."
I shrugged. She did have a point.
I knew Tommy's family was still at his house. Even if the tidy yellow ranch wasn't lit up from within with soft light, I would have known. I could feel their magical energy. It made the beast in me angry.
I drew in a deep breath, scenting the cool water of Lake Huron that lapped at the shore in the backyard. Once upon a time, the lot had been occupied by an old Victorian house like the ones around it. But a younger Cal had lost control of his magic and burned the house down.
Tommy's parents had gifted Tommy with the new house, then taken their magically inclined children and left. Leaving the magicless Tommy to fend for himself.
Some part of me felt territorial on his behalf. Sure, the family used to live here. But not now. This was my ghoul's ridiculous yellow house, with its asinine rose bushes and grasping normality. The witches didn't belong.
Cloud's warm touch on my hand brought me back to the here and now. "Calm down."
"Fuck off."
Suzie sighed. "See, she's perfectly calm."
I eyed the human as she rang the doorbell. I could just eat her and be done with it. I think that was the only way she was going to go the fuck away.
Tommy's dad answered the door. The older man stood on the threshold staring down at us with his son's blue eyes, his features stern, cut by lines of grief and stress. "You're supposed to be dead," he said flatly.
I tilted my head and regarding him for a moment, tasting the subtle energies about him. He wasn't as freakishly powerful as Cal. That didn't m
ean he wasn't a strong witch. I should probably play nice.
But it was just so hard. "Are you disappointed your son didn't kill the woman he had just finished fucking? Did you teach him that little trick?"
He breathed in and out through his nose, like he was doing some deep meditative breathwork. "You have a hunter behind you," he said.
I grinned, showing fangs. "Oh, you know, there are so many of them around here these days. And since the witches are apparently buddies with them, I thought you'd like to talk to the hunter who was there when your daughter died."
His blue eyes sparked with inner fire and I felt his power ripple around him. "I'm not my son, wendigo. I won't hesitate to end your miserable existence."
Suzie pushed between us, and I stared at her, pissed. How dare she interrupt our bickering. I was having fun.
"You need her to get Tommy back. I know she's annoying as hell, but can we please come in? I don't think we should be standing out here in plain sight."
He looked down his nose at her and... softened. "Tommy is dead, dear girl. What do you think a monster can do to change that?"
I was beginning to think women might be a serious weak spot for the Whitehall men.
Suzie gave him big doe eyes and I could almost see the rainbow sparkles and smell the lattes. "She brought him back before. She can do it again. Please. If you love him as much as I do, you'd do anything to get him back."
I snorted when he stepped back a pace and turned to the side, ushering us through the door. Wrapped around the finger of a magicless human who would probably blow away in a stiff breeze.
"Thanks, Pops," I said on the way past. He glared.
Dear old dad led us to the living room, where Mommy and their remaining daughter sat on the couch.
Tommy and Cal's mother was stunning, with brown skin and silky brown hair. She was clothed in a flowy pant-shirt combo thing again and I wondered if she rippled when she walked. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin a notch when my crew walked in, and the frost in her brown eyes almost made me shiver.
"Caldwell," she said softly. "Why are there murderers and beasts in my house?"
I was more amused that Cal was named after his dad, than annoyed at her intended insult. "How many Caldwells does the world need?" I asked the man.
He shook his head. "I think four of us is enough."
The girl seated next to her mother stood. He eyes were red around the edges, and her nose was all raw from blowing it so many times. Bad enough to lose a family member, a sister. But she had lost her twin.
Rose, the one who had died, was the soft one of the pair. I braced myself for the hatred that was sure to come. Associating with me had cost one brother his life, ruined the careful plans of the other, and had ended with her twin bleeding out in the woods. I'd say I had earned anything she wanted to spew at me.
"You came back!" The teenager launched herself at me, her magic erratic and her motions upsetting her mother's seat on the couch, so the woman almost slid off. The bundle of anger-hurt-relief-power-hormones hit me and wrapped her arms around my waist. As if I had ever done more than speak to her in passing.
"Viola!" Her mother's voice was strident, laced with power. "Get away from that thing!"
I wrapped my arms around the girl instinctively. "I wasn't planning on eating her," I said dryly. "I already had breakfast."
Viola snorted against me, half-sob, half-laugh. Then she spun around to face her mother, and oh... there was the attitude I had expected.
"Shut up, Mother!" She clenched her fists at her sides and looked as if she was holding herself back from attacking mommy dearest. "No one else around here will listen to me! I know Tess will. She loves Tommy and Cal. She'll get them all back—Tommy, Elana--"
Her mother stood. "Do not speak to me that way, young lady. This monster is the reason we are all in danger. She killed your brother and turned him into an undead mockery of a person! She got Cal wrapped up in whatever the hell is going on around here. She killed your sister. And we do not share family secrets with outsiders!"
My claws slid out and I hissed. "Tommy is not a mockery, you uptight bitch. And I didn't ask for any of this. Also… pretty sure fucking hunters killed your daughter. So shut the hell up."
Cloud turned to the man of the house. "I did not kill your daughter," she said. And her soft, smoky alto cut through the shouting like a knife through butter. "But I was there when she died."
Everyone stared at her. I felt like an ass because, honestly asking her about Rose had been at the bottom of my list of shit to do and worry about since we left my charred house behind. Also, I was sick of death and sadness and loss. So, I avoided. It's what I do.
Mr. Caldwell Whitehall number what-the-hell-ever had gone stock still. He heaved a massive sigh and gestured to an empty recliner. "Come, sit down. Ignore my wife. I always do," he tried a wry smile, but it fled as soon as it appeared. "Tell me about Rose."
Cloud sank down to sit on the edge of the plush recliner that took up the corner of Tommy's living room. She could feel Tess's unease, the way she masked her need to move, to do something, under layers of sarcasm and defensiveness. The wendigo girl was spoiling for a fight, but only so she could deflect and avoid the emotions that came with this whole mess.
Cloud could relate.
She felt adrift. Unsure who she was anymore. Unsure who she served and where she belonged. Or if she had any right to reach out and take what she wanted. She'd spent too long serving manipulative masters, driven by her sense of duty and obligation.
"I was with a group of hunters," she said softly. Cloud could see the night again now, feel the way they had rushed through the forest, power and purpose intent on a single goal. She was so used to hunting alone, that the feeling of others around her had almost been pleasant. If they had not been intent on destroying the one thing Cloud cared about. "They were headed toward Tess. I was trying to think of a way to either redirect them, or protect her."
Tess let out a soft snort from where she leaned against the doorjamb. Her arms were crossed, and she looked like she was all bored impatience, but Cloud knew better. Tess thought Cloud had abandoned her after Kwan's death. And she thought Cloud had been involved in the girl's death. She was staying by the door in case she needed to bolt.
"I never abandoned you, Tess," she said softly, not caring about anyone else in the room, all her being focused only on the angry, hurt creature who had so completely destroyed Cloud's careful existence.
"Rose," Tess growled. "Get back on topic, hunter."
Cloud let out a breath. What was she thinking? Nothing made sense anymore.
She refocused on the family around her. "We came upon the witch girl unexpectedly. She was... well, I have no idea what she was doing. I think she was communicating with the creatures in the forest."
Viola nodded, then sank to down cross-legged on the carpet. "She told me she could hear them sometimes, whispering. She said...." She glanced at her mother, who sat rigid on the edge of the couch, as if removed from the conversation. "She said she didn't think they were all evil. Even before we met Tess." She shook her head. "I told her to stay out of it, but she said--" Her voice cracked and her eyes watered, but the ex-twin clenched her fists and carried on. "She said no one would listen to her."
Tess shifted, sliding down the wall to squat at eye-level to the girl. "You wouldn't listen to her either, would you? You said that you told her to stay out of it."
The child's father started to say something in his daughter's defense, but Tess silenced him with a withering glare, then turned her sharp blue eyes back to the girl. "It isn't your fault."
The teen collapsed, sobbing, all the anger gone. "It is. I... I told her she might be right. I knew she was right, after I met y-you, Tess. But... Rose was always so nice. So--"
"Soft," Tess said. "She was soft. And kind. And she knew damned well that what she was doing was dangerous, Viola. If you had gone with her, you'd just be dead too."
The gi
rl hiccupped and nodded, silent.
Tess sighed. "And no, that would not be preferable." She growled. "Look at me!"
The girl's head snapped up at the command and the whole gathering watched as the monster in the room put the girl's heart back together. "You are not better off dead. It isn't your fault. You are going to cry. Then you are going to find your backbone again. And you are going to help us. And we are going to listen to you." She looked at the mother with a wicked grin, fangs flashing. "And if we don't, we are going to regret it."
Viola sucked in a breath and subsided, wiping her tears on her sleeve.
Tess turned back to Cloud, her eyes swimming with remembered pain and fury. "Continue, Cloud Princess. Let's get this over with so we can get this freak show on the road."
Cloud sighed. Her wendigo was really something...not nice, exactly, but certainly more human than she would ever admit.
"The hunters were already jumpy. In the past, there have been strong hunters whose job it was to hunt for the creatures who had some human blood." Like Brutus. And the thought of that fiasco left her filled with hot rage, even now. If anything, it was Butus who was to blame for Kwan's death.
"I thought... I had been given the impression that was by their own choice. We don't often interact with each other. The counsel that advises the hunters is scattered and not cohesive. Elders who voice their opinions, but with no real authority."
Great Spirit how she had been wrong about that.
"They are more organized than I thought. And recently they've asked all the hunters to focus on these crosses. I didn't know why. But I knew there was a sense of desperation under it all."
Tess swore. "Cal's people."
Cloud nodded. "They were racing to beat the others to the creatures."
"And Rose?" The mother's voice was still frosty. Stilted. She didn't care about the bigger picture. She just wanted to know who had harmed her child, so she could exact revenge. In a way, Cloud could sympathize. But she also knew how much trouble that sort of narrow-minded focus could cause.
"The hunters sensed her and the small gathering of creatures she had amassed. They engaged. They executed the creatures. The girl was caught in the middle of it. She tried to defend the monsters—most of whom were only harmless forest sprites."