Taking Back Sunday

by Cristy Rey

  “You’re fucking serious, Cyrus?!” Marcus cried. “You’re selling us this shit that the Incarnate’s going to come with us willingly! She made you. How do we know she’s not running right now?!”

  Marcus shook his head tightly and stamped his foot on the floor. The other wolves reserved their judgments. Marcus was crossing a superior wolf, challenging him in front of his brothers. “Our job’s the damn Incarnate, not some patty-cake witches she’s invited to teatime.”

  “She wouldn’t leave now,” Cyrus started, gritting his teeth and forcing each syllable out like it hurt. “Not with her friends in dang–”

  “Fuck her friends, Cy! She’s the Incarnate. She’s made Angel. She’s made you. What makes you think she’s going to stick around and see how this goes no matter what some random chicks have gotten themselves into?”

  “Calm down, Mark,” Neal cautioned sternly.

  “Listen to Neal, Marcus,” Angel concurred.

  Cyrus ignored Marcus, and instead addressed the other pair of wolves with orders. Sunday hadn’t gone. Whatever Sunday was onto meant more to her than whatever she saw in him because she’d stuck around in spite of it. For the couple of hours that Sunday wasn’t being tailed, Cyrus was positive she didn’t leave town. If they stayed on the witches Sunday was following, they’d eventually find her. What they needed now was for Neal and Angel to find Constance and keep a tail on her. They could stay together or they could split up, but they had been the two chosen to keep an eye on the witch and figure out what had spurned the interests of the Incarnate.

  “Anything comes up,” Cyrus concluded before giving them leave of the room, “you keep in touch. Call each other. Call me. Call Marcus. We’ll do the same. All of us are in the loop at all times. I’m leading this, but you’re my brothers. We’re pack.” Cyrus paused and held his glare between the pair of wolves to which he’d delegated the task of following Constance.

  “Brothers,” Cyrus continued. “Be careful. Sunday can’t know you’re onto her, her friends, or the witch. If you think she’s dangerous now… just stay on point.”

  Neal and Angel nodded and walked out—on mission, on point, and on task all the way.

  Their departure left Cyrus and Marcus alone. As soon as the door shut behind Angel, Cyrus walked up to Marcus with an unmistakable scowl across his face. Cyrus stood almost exactly eye-to-eye with the closest thing he had to a brother and stared him down for a handful of seconds before grabbing Marcus into a hug and slapping his back. Marcus hugged him back in the same manner.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Cyrus confessed. “But you’ve got to cut that shit out in front of the boys.”

  “Tell me about the girl,” Marcus responded, just as Cyrus knew that he would.

  At one in the morning, Cyrus and Marcus pulled up to the house where Sunday had met with the coven days earlier. Vicky and Elisabeth Becker lived inside, and after a quick check of the property, Marcus found the women sleeping. They had been driving all day, checking out spots where Sunday might be. While Angel and Neal followed Constance through a tour of the city, Cyrus and Marcus visited Sunday’s friends. They hadn’t seen her in days, and things were starting to look grim. Even the added boost of two new tracking partners wouldn’t make up for Sunday skipping town like they’d assumed. Cyrus held out hope in spite of the other wolves’ doubts.

  Cyrus jerked back in his seat and slapped Marcus’ shoulder when Sunday’s silhouette slipped out of the shadows. She wore black ankle-length leggings and a pair of sneakers. Her short hair was hidden almost entirely under a knit cap. The bottom of a grey t-shirt stuck out from under the hem of a dark bomber jacket that she’d zipped up all the way. An equally dark scarf was tucked into the collar of her jacket.

  “That’s her,” he said. His body tingled with renewed fervor for the hunt. His eyes narrowed as he focused on her moving to the side of the house.

  “What happens if the witches wake up and find her?” Marcus asked.

  “I don’t know.” Cyrus shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on her as Sunday slipped into the backyard.

  He watched the house intently with unbroken attention even as Marcus spoke to him. A short breeze blew past the cracked window, and her unmistakable scent drifted into the car. Taking a deep breath, Cyrus let it stew in his lungs, refusing to let go of her scent.

  “You gonna tell me what really happened between you two, or do I have to kidnap her myself and interrogate her ‘til she tells me? I will, you know. Who knows?” Marcus asked. He leaned over Cyrus’ shoulder, and with a wolfish grin added, “She might have it in mind to upgrade to a clean-cut guy such as myself. You wouldn’t mind. Right, Cy?”

  Marcus poked Cyrus lightly, and Cyrus coughed out a breath.

  Cyrus replayed the events of his last night with Sunday in his head. One minute, he’d been caressing Sunday’s body, devouring her with an angry, desperate hunger, and she’d been with him every second of it of the way. The next thing he knew, the walls were shaking, and she was seizing beneath him. Suddenly, he felt everything she was feeling. His heart raced and muscles jerked as her thoughts careened through his mind. For as much as he’d wanted to grab her and hold her and make it all stop, he was paralyzed by fear.

  Angel described an iron chain breaking in Sunday’s mind as Angel had recalled an old memory of kidnapping her. The same thing had happened when Cyrus had been with her. Except Cyrus hadn’t been thinking back to her kidnapping. He’d thought of a single word: Incarnate.

  “I can’t explain it,” Cyrus confessed. “I don’t know what happened. We were there, about to tear each other’s clothes off, and then she was pushing me off her, freaking out.”

  It was all he could tell Marcus, yet more than he would tell any of the others.

  If she would talk to him, he could ask her what he had done wrong, but she’d never give him the chance. He was the predator, and she was the prey. Their night together was likely the last of its kind. There was no doubt that Sunday knew that now. Cyrus was one of the bad guys. Werewolves were on her tail.

  He just had to keep his distance for as long as he could while he figured out what to do next. His mission was no longer about kidnapping her. It was about protecting her. Something was clearly up with her. She hadn’t run. The fact that she was still in town, knowing that Cyrus and Angel were after her meant that she was up to something. Whatever it was, he’d have to figure out some way to convince her that he was on her side. If he could just reach out to her, then he could tell her the truth. Regardless of whether she realized it or not, she could trust Cyrus, and he would prove it to her one way or another. Yes, he’d been tasked to abduct her, but he wasn’t planning on it anymore. No matter what, he couldn’t let her get away again.

  Before long, Sunday emerged from the side of the house and stalked her way casually back to a car down the street. When she drove off, Cyrus and Marcus were in pursuit behind her. They followed closely as she weaved through the now-familiar streets. At Ford Terrace, she made a left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  After visiting Vicky and Elisabeth’s house, Sunday was exhausted, but she couldn’t afford to sleep. Her body ached. She grabbed the now empty cup of coffee she’d picked up at the convenience store hours earlier during one of her inadequately brief breaks, and swished it around. The laptop screen glowed from the passenger seat.

  Through the day’s research, Sunday traced Michelle’s charm back to black magic from the Malay, or Ilmu Sihir tradition. Michelle with her long, dark hair, tanned skin, and lightly slanted eyes was clearly exotic. Sunday thought back to how Eunice and Elisabeth had described Michelle’s interests in witchcraft. They had mentioned something about Michelle studying her heritage. Maybe Michelle was Indonesian. Sunday shook her head and threw her hands in the air. Had she recalled it earlier, she might have been able to narrow down her search on the pendant much sooner.

  “All this time wasted,” she muttered to herself.

  It was two days since she’d encount
ered either Cyrus or the other werewolf, and by the looks of it, she wasn’t being followed. At least, for the time being, she was safe. There was no doubt, however, that Sunday needed to leave Columbia, and fast. As soon as this was over, she needed to break out and start running all over again.

  It turned out that all of the incessant nagging about being sought wasn’t just paranoia. Had it not been for her stupid attempt at trying to live a normal life with friends who loved her, and a house she could call home, she would have recognized the real threat that the presence of the werewolf at the club had been.

  She needed one more day to figure this out, and then she’d be gone.

  Maybe it wasn’t that she hadn’t the ability to see the problems with Cyrus from the get-go, maybe it was that she hadn’t wanted to. Something about him made her want to trust him. It was in the way he listened to her and in the way that he his tough exterior to slowly crumbled with her. But he’d been holding back too. And his was a whopper of a secret. She felt stupid for finding out in the way that she had. She should have known sooner. Sunday kicked herself when her thoughts went full-circle and inevitably ended right back where she started, still wanting him, despite everything she now knew.

  One more day, she told herself. One more day to figure this out.

  There was no more playing the part of normality for Sunday, not anymore. Not since she realized the city was growing full with werewolves that knew her. But Sunday couldn’t abandon Kayla and Sammy just yet. She had to continue to follow Constance and seek clues about Michelle’s Malay charm. Before she could leave Columbia forever, she had to make sure that the only two people she cared about in this world were safe. She wouldn’t be able to leave any other way.

  Sunday slammed her laptop closed and sighed wearily. Her eyes stung from the want of sleep, but she couldn’t just yet. First, she needed to explore Michelle’s house as she had Vicky and Elisabeth’s. She crept up to the side of the house where she would be hidden among the shadows. Just as she’d done hours earlier, she centered herself before placing her hands on the window above where she crouched.

  Unguarded, she urged her awareness to expand. Gently, her mind filled with visions of the family through the years. Sunday sought instances of ritualistic magic. Finding nothing, Sunday removed her hands and wiped the sweat from her brow. Just as she had at Vicky and Elisabeth’s, she inched her way around the house, trying to get a read from all points.

  After two hours, Sunday was delusional from the combination of lack of sleep, and the expense and reception of so much energy. It wreaked havoc upon her already fragile condition. She staggered back to the car, stumbling along the way.

  It had been difficult enough to reach it and proved even more difficult to drive it, but Sunday did, navigating her way to a nearby church with a deserted parking lot. She took a spot at the farthest corner, and turned off the engine. She settled into the driver’s seat and reclined it as far back as it would go. As much as she loathed the idea of taking a break, she desperately needed to. In the time it took her to close her eyes, she passed out completely for what remained of the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  From a distance, Cyrus and Marcus watched Sunday pull into the parking lot and park beneath the expansive overhang of a neighboring tree. Sunday’s car was camouflaged, perfectly hidden in the shadow. Marcus circled the block once, and they determined that Sunday was stopping to rest for a few hours before continuing her surveillance the next day. They took spot in the lot of a twenty-four hour diner across the street of the church, and resolved to wait her out in the diner.

  The exhaustive search for Sunday and then following her to the witches’ houses left little time to eat, and both men were starving. Though the werewolves were gifted with the ability to run on less food and rest than human beings, both he and Marcus were feeling the effects of the long hours.

  As if reading Cyrus’ mind, Marcus let out a long, weary sigh when he sat across from Cyrus at the booth.

  “She has to know how abnormal her behavior is,” Marcus said as the waitress came by and poured them coffee.

  The waitress raised her eyebrow as she scribbled the werewolves’ orders. Each man asked for full breakfast meals, with added side orders of chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, and onion rings. Both men chuckled as she walked away, calling out behind her to keep an eye on their coffee levels because they’d want their mugs full the whole night. They’d need a whole lot of it to keep them going at the pace they had been for the last few days.

  “I don’t think she has a choice,” Cyrus responded when they were safely out of the waitress’ eavesdropping range. “Those women are the only people she’s probably ever cared about. If something is putting them in danger, she’s bound to do anything to stop it.”

  “What’s the latest word on Constance?” Marcus asked.

  Neal and Angel had been keeping them abreast of the goings-on with the witch, and determined that she was stalking Eunice Johnson. Earlier in day, she had followed Eunice from her home to her job at the library. When she was sure that Eunice would be out of the house for a few hours, she returned to the elder witch’s house and placed hex bags in the bushes of her lawn. After that, Constance revisited some of the locations to which Angel had previously followed her.

  At one spot in particular, a warehouse in the old Congaree Vista district, the witch got out. She locked herself inside a warehouse for over an hour. She was alone. From what they knew, the Incarnate hadn’t ever followed Constance, so was unlikely that she knew about the location.

  “The latest word is the same word at last check-in,” Cyrus huffed.

  The little they’d uncovered in the way of Constance frustrated him, and he had shared his feelings with Marcus earlier. The longer it took to make any headway, the bigger the threat it was to Sunday; moreover, the less he’d be able to surpass Sunday’s own investigation and get the lead from her.

  “She’s still following the other witches,” Cyrus added. “I think she’s checking them out for connections to Constance and to the murder at the hippie shop.”

  Marcus’ brow furrowed, and he looked down at his coffee. After a few seconds, he looked up to Cyrus and shook his head.

  “Has she made any connections that we haven’t?” he asked.

  Cyrus’ nostrils flared, and he fixed his lips into a tight, thin line as he shook his head.

  “How would we know?” he finally answered. He let out a hard breath and rubbed his beard callously. “We don’t have any way to know what she’s thinking or what she’s doing when she’s in that car. She’s casing their houses and probably using her ability to figure things out, but she’s not exactly broadcasting her findings on the morning news. If we could just work this out with her…”

  Cyrus’ voice trailed off, and he looked out the window toward the parking lot where Sunday slept. He was certain that, if given the chance, they could work with Sunday. His mind raced with scenarios of approaching her with the evidence the pack had gathered that she might not have uncovered yet. In his fantasies, she accepted his help and they teamed up. If he could get Sunday to give him a shot, then he could use the opportunity to tell her the truth and convince her that he had her best interests in mind. Apart from that long shot, he was at a loss as to how he would manage to keep her from fleeing again.

  “We don’t know anything about what she’s even doing, Cy,” Marcus said, slamming his coffee mug onto the table. His eyebrows knotted as he glared at his brother. “Angel’s right, you know. Retrieval of the Incarnate is our mission. Not helping her solve some murder mystery.”

  Cyrus didn’t flinch, but the truth hurt. He was on a mission. Now, with three packmates in tow, there was no way to get around the contract with the Pastophori. As much as he regarded Marcus as his only confidant, Cyrus held back from sharing that he’d been hatching a bigger plan of his own. Cyrus was intent on getting to Sunday and on making her accept the help of the hunters in whatever was happening with her coven. T
hat much he was telling the pack was true. After that, however, his plans were diametrically different from what he’d been leading the werewolves to believe.

  The longer he watched her, the more his affection for her grew as had the need to protect her from the Pastophori of Iset and his pack. How he would do it, he wasn’t certain. But he was planning to remove Sunday from the threat of recapture. If it took kidnapping her himself and dragging her into the furthest corner of the world away from preternatural civilization, then he would do it. He was ready to turn his back on his pack, his brothers, to secure the safety of his mate. She didn’t have to love him for it. She just had to go along with him. He would keep her from the cult, and that was all.

  They had started into the first plate of their meals when Cyrus’ phone rang and Neal’s name appeared on caller ID. Cyrus answered the phone through a mouthful of rare T-bone steak.

  “She’s consorting with vamps,” Neal snapped.

  “What? Who?” Cyrus slapped his fork down as he interrogated Neal.

  “The Constance bitch,” Neal growled.

  “Are you positive?”

  “Affirmative,” Neal replied. “Blood-sucking leech-corpses are running a funeral parlor, Bennett’s Funerals and Cremations, on Millwood right smack in the middle of human bait. The scents had us confused. It’s a good set-up for them. Never seen it before. Full nest of them. At least three met with the witch in a backroom while a viewing was on. Still going on. Black family, so I went in and pretended to be a friend of the deceased, while Angel started on the research from the car.”

  Neal paused, and even though Cyrus couldn’t see him, he sensed Neal’s rising anger. Vampires hosting family gatherings for the bereaved were well over the limit of what werewolves considered acceptable communion with the mundane. Vampires. The only two they’d come across in town had been the tourists at the Lair. Now they had to deal with a witch who was in communication with a whole nest of them.