Cursed

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  She’s talking about my five-bedroom townhouse on Bourbon Street. The one I paid an insane amount for.

  The same home that’s located mere blocks from where the Ritz-Carlton stood.

  “The cops will probably realize I’m still alive if I go there. It’s not difficult to imagine they’ll realize why the penthouse was rented out, who was supposed to be in the building when it came down—wait.” I stare at her in abject horror. “They’ll probably find the torn bodies.”

  “Trust me, they won’t. They won’t find anything but dust scattered all over that part of the city. Seril’s magic is infallible in that sense.” The glint in her gaze speaks volumes.

  There’s history between her and this “Seril”.

  “You’re right about the cops though. Good luck keeping off their radar long enough for me to come after you. And by all means, try running. I’ll always know where you are and so will the members of my coven. There’s nowhere you could go now, so your place is your best shot. Got it?”

  “By that logic, one of your coven members”—Fellow witches of hers, my fucked-up brain cries—“can locate me on my way back!”

  Her smirk is taunting and not a little bit disdainful. “Good luck, werewolf.” She vanishes after her parting shot, simply disappearing into thin air.

  It’s tempting to imagine that my hallucination is over. That since she’s no longer in sight, this nightmare has come to an end, and I’ve come out of whatever mind trip this was unchanged.

  Maybe one of the guests slipped something into my drink.

  A cute fantasy. How’d I end up in the back of this warehouse then?

  Fuck it. Doesn’t matter. Need to get to the safety of my home—if that witch didn’t lie to me about that—and regroup.

  I’ll have to avoid her kind and the authorities. As a lawyer, I could probably talk my way out of it, but it’s a risk I’d rather not take. No telling how uncontrollable the “change” is. Imagine turning into a wolf in front of a squad of cops.

  My life is over. It is. I might still be alive, for now, yet everything I built during the last decade has been demolished as thoroughly as that hotel was.

  Like the criminal on the run I officially am, I take off across the street in a panic, only to clear an entire block in mere seconds.

  Seconds.

  Disoriented by my own speed, I pause at the next corner, on the verge of hyperventilating. I look back the way I came. The world tilts as I’m sucked into the pit of shock once more and it takes an insane amount of will to not get completely lost in it.

  I slam my fists into the sides of my head. “Get it together, Silas. You can break down later. Get your ass home.” I’ll finish losing it once I’m in the confines of my townhouse.

  Bracing myself for the dizzying pace, I throw myself into it, heading straight toward my goal.

  Which happens to be near the epicenter of the destruction we left behind.

  CHAPTER 5

  - Bourbon Street, French Quarter, New Orleans, LA (USA)

  For the third day in a row, there’s a hard, obnoxious knock on the door, followed by another shortly after. By this point I’ve not only memorized the rhythm, but the hissing voice that comes shortly after.

  “Let us innnnnnn, Silas LeBlanc. You know you want to. You need the misery to end already.”

  It’s her kind, that I know without a doubt. Not just due to logic, but the angry surge barreling from my gut.

  Witches. Disgusting. Must die.

  Except, I’ll bet they have all the mythical fire power to undue me in seconds, even if I aim the full force of my new strength at them, and I might be a fool, but suicidal I am not.

  Or, at least I haven’t been for a long time now.

  The knocking doesn’t abate and it adds to the unbearable cacophony of noise that’s been assaulting me ever since this fucking change.

  It’s all so crisp. Magnified. I can hear bugs crawling across surfaces. Bird wings flapping.

  Tidbits of conversation that shouldn’t be audible to anyone that isn’t near the people having those discussions.

  As well as the craziness of my eclectic city.

  Upstairs in my third-floor library, I disregard the beings at my front door, and push past the noise level through sheer willpower alone. Spread out on the marble table before me is every book on witchcraft and werewolves I was able to get my hands on.

  Admittedly, it’s not much. What’s a man—fuck, former man—to do? You’re still a man, my mental voice pleads. Except, that’s not true. Every book I was able to steal during my quick forays outside, all whopping five of them, claim I am now something else.

  Something more.

  My days of being a human male are over.

  The speed with which I traveled the streets, avoiding detection, the strength and cunning—I know how to pick locks now, for fuck’s sake—that allowed me to break into the shops I took these books from, cement that fact into reality.

  I’m a werewolf.

  A creature out of fiction and myth made manifest.

  I can’t order any more books online, of course, because the world needs to assume I’m dead. My money is officially worthless, except for the cash stashed in my safe. Hundreds of thousands of it, because apparently I’m not as stupid as one would think.

  Bullshit. That money is only there due to my paranoia of one day losing my lifestyle. The fever with which I prepared, made sure I had backup cash and bars of gold stored.

  Turns out, it wasn’t paranoia after all. The wealth in my safe is going to come in handy now that I’m on the run. I have a matter of a day or two left, then I have to hightail it out of here. This home I literally sold my soul to build is no longer mine. The regular world will come to believe that Silas LeBlanc is dead and, for my sake, it’s best that it stays that way.

  Imagine being captured. Taken in for questioning. Trying to get anyone to believe the absurdity of what I’m living through.

  Hello, padded room. And at some point I’ll transform again, killing God knows how many. After that? A transfer straight to some science facility where they’ll experiment on me like the genetic freak I’ve become.

  Did I mention my muscle mass increased by at least ten pounds? Fuck, I was fit, but the way my biceps threaten to rip through the sleeves of my shirt isn’t funny.

  Another round of bangs echo from my entryway. Consumed by the empty feeling in my gut, I ignore it, even when that reedy voice calls out again. “Save us all the time, you pathetic mortal. You’re a dead male anyway.”

  My temper sparks, acidic words on the tip of my tongue. Not a mortal anymore, thanks to you fucks. I bite the inside of my cheek to hold them back. My silence doesn’t help hide me—I’m sure they can sense me or some shit—it’s more to piss them off as much as they’re pissing me off.

  I flip through another thick book, landing on a page with an image that stops me cold.

  Or burns me up, rather.

  It’s a depiction of a woman in the middle of a fire storm, her posture defiant against the deadly flames that surround her. It’s an old drawing—circa 1580s—the style almost crude and boxy, although common for its time. The woman’s dress is hanging off one shoulder, baring a breast, her chin thrown back in a prideful tilt.

  As if she’s silently proclaiming that she has nothing to be ashamed about.

  Even with the small demons dancing in the periphery of that fire, waiting for their turn to have her.

  It reminds me of the witch from my dreams, the one they originally sent to kill me.

  The one they betrayed.

  And, yet, it doesn’t. Something’s missing from this drawing’s aura.

  A few more flips through the pages, and I find exactly what it is.

  This next drawing is one that speaks to my spirit.

  It doesn’t matter how far removed from life one is, here in the Big Easy voodoo influences run deep. Down to our very cores. There’s no ignoring or escaping them.

  The priestes
s is the typical woman characterized in voodoo art, a glorious, African-descendent beauty whose appeal is still evident, even with the blurred strokes used to make the painting.

  She’s earthy.

  Enchanting.

  Terrifying when one considers the calculating gleam in that stare. A barely veiled threat that translates perfectly off the page.

  The witch sent after me looks nothing like this Creole temptress. Her golden skin is several shades lighter than what I’m looking at. Whatever her ancestry is, the only thing she has in common with this depiction is that energy surrounding her.

  Death.

  Malice.

  Sensuality that pulses in wicked ways off the very surface of her skin.

  The witch sent to kill me, that creature of fury and flames, would be a hell of a ride to fuck.

  I might not even make it out alive.

  If she really does return to finish me, I just might have to negotiate with her exactly how that event is going to go down.

  Namely, with my swollen dick lost inside her.

  And why the fuck am I even thinking about this right now? I’m supposed to be figuring the mess of my life out.

  Then I need to map my next move. How I’m going to get out of this city that’s been my home from birth.

  Pain. Deep, needling heartache. Leaving this place behind will be one of the hardest choices of my life, but I’m fresh out of options.

  Actually, I’m not. I can always give up. Let them have me.

  Die.

  As if reading my thoughts, they start banging on my fucking door again. “You’ll have to come out eventually, werewolf.” The last word is spit out like the slur it obviously is to them. An insult of the highest order.

  I rub my throbbing temple, the volume of that demand aggravating my hypersensitive ears. Jesus. It’s like they want to be noticed by everyone in the city. No way my neighbors aren’t hearing this shit.

  The cops must’ve been notified I’m in the house by now.

  Impossible. Cloaked. Hidden. No mortal witnesses. I twitch at that disembodied voice in my mind that I’m starting to come to know so well.

  Alright. I’ll admit it. That part of my transformation, this infallible instinct that’s both entertwined with and separate from me, is useful as hell.

  Multiple laughs ring outside my door and I brace myself for a fifth round of knocking. Of demands I have no plans to listen to.

  They never come.

  The laughs morph into short, startled shouts, followed by a crackling, whooshing sound that reminds me of fir . . . No. It can’t be. I’m probably imagining things.

  Wishing for a presence that isn’t anywhere near here.

  And then comes the silence.

  Blessed silence for the first time in three days. Well, those witches are gone. The city remains loud and boisterous outside these walls.

  Knock.

  Spoke too soon.

  Knock.

  My shoulders shoot up to my ears.

  Knock—knock—knockknockknock.

  I’ll kill them this time, I swear I will . . .

  Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

  I grind my teeth at that obnoxious pattern of taps against my door. Turning slowly in the armchair, I glare in the direction of the stairs leading to the first floor.

  “Let me in, LeBlanc.”

  HER!

  Logical thought abandons me in an instant. Impulse takes over, a tidal wave of irrational shit, every emotion-drenched idea running through my mind ending with her.

  Her.

  Her.

  Her.

  My killer.

  My obsession.

  The one temptation—of the many dangled before me that night—that assured my fate.

  Fucking Jezebel manifested to bring me down. The cruel fantasy that opened my heart to accepting that deal, leading me to this twisted time and place.

  “Let me in,” she practically sings from the other side of my door. “It’s in your best interest.”

  No it’s fucking not—

  The world is blurring again, flying past the edges of my vision.

  My hand wraps around the doorknob.

  The doorknob at the entrance of my home.

  I throw a look over my shoulder, up the stairs, toward the study two floors above.

  Seconds.

  I cleared two floors in seconds to get to her.

  The term “death wish” is starting to take on a whole new meaning.

  Nails drag down the surface of my door. Slow. Seductive. As entrancing as her voice when she clearly leans in to whisper against the dark wood, “You know you want to.”

  Of course I do! This is bullshit.

  I fling the door open with zero thought—it slams into the wall, cracking right down the middle, and even with the impact echoing in my foyer, she’s the only thing I can focus on.

  My vision blurs at the sight of her. Every sound fades into the background. The demanding pulse of my heart takes command, a tribal drumbeat of need and insanity.

  She looks even more delicious than I remember.

  Considering I’ve spent a decade of my life unwillingly fantasizing about her, that’s saying something.

  She stands there, hands casually on her hips.

  While I play the fool that’s eye-fucking her into oblivion.

  Black seems to be her color of choice—a blatant statement, I’m sure—and I can’t even deny how sexy it looks against her tanned skin.

  The coat from last time is gone, a dress in its place, the skirt split up the thighs, and leaving her tattooed legs exposed.

  I didn’t notice those designs during our last encounter due to her thigh-highs, but holy shit they’re sexy.

  Everything about her is.

  Did that witch that I sold my soul to pick me randomly? Or was I a pre-selected target? One analyzed, dissected. Chosen for the weaknesses in my soul.

  The more I study this witch, the more I’m convinced it was no accident.

  They knew exactly which member of their coven would deconstruct my already broken psyche.

  “Invite me in, Silas,” she enunciates slowly, as if speaking to an idiot.

  The way I’m fixated on the tattoos decorating her thighs and the image of me licking each one before diving between her legs, I must be one.

  This creature is here to kill me.

  All I want to do is drag her in here and fuck her on my stairs.

  Clenching my fists, I glower at her.

  Her lips part in a smile, the first I’m seeing it, and she might as well have drenched me in her fire.

  I’m fucking done for.

  Grinding my teeth, I glance at her booted feet, seeing small clouds of ash dispersing in the wind. Dark trails that swirl from my porch into the air, disappearing as they’re whisked away.

  Is that . . . she killed her kind for me? Don’t read too much into it, fool. They betrayed her. And something tells me no one gets away with betraying her. “I’m immune to your powers, witch.” If past experience still holds true, her fire can’t harm me. The female they picked to murder me is powerless against me.

  It’s too odd.

  Her smile turns sardonic and her eyes flicker down my form. “Uh-huh. Not all of them, wolf.” That gaze ghosts over my crotch.

  My overreacting crotch, damn it. I heard her voice and just like that I was hard as fuck.

  Another problem of this perverse change? My testosterone must be as intensified as the rest of me. On a level I doubt could be analyzed by human science. I’m more aggressive than I’ve ever been.

  Hungrier.

  Hornier.

  And she fucking knows it.

  “Just let me in. I’m not here to kill you. Yet.”

  “How comforting, chérie,” I mumble. Fists still clenched at my sides, I turn and jerk my head toward the interior of my home.

  She sucks her teeth in an utterly teasing way, clearly enjoying herself as she plays with me, and enters my sacred
space with a swirl of her black skirt.

  Once in the foyer, she throws her head back with an exaggerated arch. Spinning on one foot, she takes it all in, whistling low. “So this is it. What you sold your soul for.”

  There it is again. That condescending tone. The distaste in her expression, even as she takes in the gold light fixture hanging above her head. Perfectly painted navy-blue walls seem to do nothing for her.

  Beneath her feet, the expensive thick, white floorboards go unnoticed.

  The couch visible to the left, past the arched entryway to the living room, is royal blue velvet. Small banana trees sit in white pots on either side of the massive fireplace.

  To our right, the kitchen lies, but she shows no interest in that, either.

  I picked the most expensive interior designer I could find and stood by as we picked every aspect of this house together. It meant something to me. Still does. An achievement I thought I’d earned all on my own.

  What a fucking fool.

  The look on her face makes me wonder just what her home looks like. Is it some grand type of coven? Her gothic ensemble tells me it is. Her clothing is definitely made of expensive fabric, the rings on her fingers are pure gold.

  Everything about this witch screams money yet there she stands, looking down her nose at me. “Did you come here just to judge me?” I growl.

  Rolling her eyes at me, she turns and begins taking the stairs slowly. Her ringed fingers graze the railing in a way that makes my entire body clench.

  Jesus, it’s really her. She’s in my home.

  My mind turns at that, reality threatening to disappear under a wave of disbelieving madness.

  Pausing at the top of the stairs on the second-floor landing, she looks over her shoulder at me. The move sends the waves of her hair swinging and bares another tattoo in the middle of her back—a symbol I saw in one of the books I stole.

  It’s a circle with two half-moons on each side.

  The triple goddess symbol.

  “Are you coming, LeBlanc? I figured we’d adjourn to your hiding place to discuss our next step.”

  “Our next step? Aren’t you just here to kill me?”

  “Eventually,” she hums, light eyes glowing in the shadows, her entire body highlighted by the expensive decor surrounding her. “But, first, I’m going to use you against them. After that you can die.”