by Nalini Singh
Mr. Dobrev was staring at the hag’s head Jim left sitting on the counter. He’d walked around the store for a minute or two, surveying the damage, and then come back to the head and stared.
“Mr. Dobrev,” I called. “She’s dead.”
“I know.” He turned to me. “I can’t believe it.”
“You said you saw her in a painting before?”
“When I was a boy. She looked exactly like that.”
I was right. I was completely right. Good. Good, good, good, I hated not knowing what I was dealing with.
Jim stepped through the door, pale-faced Brune behind him.
“Where is Steven?” I asked.
“He grabbed a bicycle and went to his daughter’s school to check on her,” Brune said.
Well, I could certainly understand that.
Jim came over to me. I poured water from a bottle onto a rag Mr. Dobrev had given me and gently cleaned the blood from his face.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“I’m okay,” I told him.
For a tiny moment we were all alone in the shop, caught in a moment when nobody else mattered, and I smiled just for Jim. And then reality came back.
“We thought it was spell based or talent based,” I said. “It’s not. It’s curse based, Jim.”
He waited. Oh. I probably made no sense. Sometimes my brain went too fast for my mouth.
“Most magic is very specific. For example, someone capable of summoning jenglots would have to be a practitioner of Indonesian black magic. He couldn’t also be an expert in Japanese magic or Comanche magic, for example, because to reach that level of expertise, he had to devote himself to Balinese magic completely. You can’t be a master of all trades. Makes sense?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“So when I saw jenglots, I assumed that they had been summoned by a person skilled in spells or a person with a special summoning talent. But then we ran across the hag. The hag made no sense. She is of European origin. We knew it was connected to Eyang Ida, because it would be just too big of a coincidence otherwise.”
“Logically, that means two different magic users are involved,” Jim said.
“That’s what I thought, but then I saw the car. I don’t know of anyone who can summon killer cars. It’s not a mythological being. That’s something out of horror fiction. Then I remembered that first, Eyang Ida was afraid of jenglots because she saw a fake one as a child, then Mr. Dobrev told us that he had seen a hag in a painting, and then . . .”
“Amanda said her brother was killed by a car on his way from school,” Jim said. “I thought about that.”
“This magic isn’t spell based or talent based. It’s curse based. I know curses. They work like computer programs used to: they have a rigid structure. If a set of conditions is met, the curse does something. If it isn’t met, the curse lies dormant. For example, let’s say I am targeting a person whose left leg has been amputated. I could curse that doorway so any creature missing a leg would get gonorrhea.”
Jim raised his hand. “Wait. Can you actually do that?”
I waved my hands at him. “That’s not the point.”
“No, that’s the kind of information I need to know.”
“Okay, probably I could.”
Jim’s expression went blank. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
“Jim, will you stop worrying about me cursing you with gonorrhea? You can’t get it anyway; you’re a shapeshifter. Anyway, under the conditions of that curse, any one-legged person would come through and get the plague. If a three-legged cat came through, it would also get the plague.”
“Can cats be affected by human gonorrhea?”
“Not necessarily, but the curse would still try to infect the cat. If I wanted to make a curse more specific, I would define it as ‘any creature with only one leg,’ which would spare the three-legged cat. Even more specific: any man with one leg. There is a limit to how specific you can get. Back to our current situation. I believe someone has cursed these people to fall prey to their worst fear. I am not sure exactly how this curse was structured, but I think it manifests the irrational fears they had since childhood. The curse relies on them to supply it with the details of their worst fears. Eyang Ida was afraid of jenglots, so she got a giant swarm. Dobrev was afraid of a hag, so it gave him a hag. And when it came to Amanda’s fears, it made a living car. That’s what Amanda saw in her mind when she worried about her son.”
“Makes sense,” Jim said. “But wouldn’t that take a lot of magic?”
“Yes and no. Cursing is a pay-to-play magic. If there is a curse, there must be a sacrifice. My curses don’t always work, because the price I pay is small: special paper, special ink, special brush and the years I spent learning calligraphy. This”—I raised my index fingers and made a circle, encompassing the ruined shop—“this would take a real sacrifice. Blood or flesh or something.”
Jim frowned. “What’s so important about the building that makes it worth that kind of sacrifice?”
He read my mind. “Exactly. I don’t know. But whoever this person is, they are committed. This isn’t going to stop. There will be more. What is Brune afraid of?”
“Brune!” Jim barked.
The comic book owner stopped. “Yes?”
“When you were a kid, what were you afraid of?”
“Being short.”
“You are short,” I blurted out.
“Yes, but I’m ripped.” Brune flexed behind Jim. “So I’m okay.”
I had no idea how being short could kill you. My body still hurt all over as if someone had put me through a meat grinder and thinking about it made my head hurt.
An imperceptible shift rolled over us, as if the planet somehow turned over in its bed. The magic vanished. The electric lights came on in the shop.
Everyone exhaled.
I dropped Jim off near a Pack safe house. He wanted to take a shower and change clothes. I drove to the meat market and bought another big steak. And then I drove home. I needed to take a shower and make dinner.
Magic always had a price, but in cursing that price was very clearly defined. Pay the right amount of the right commodity—the more precious, the better—and get desired result. And whoever was cursing the store owners knew exactly how far he or she could push it. The curser had cursed for their worst fears to manifest, trusting that the manifestations would kill them. He or she didn’t curse them to die. That would’ve required even greater sacrifice, his life or the life of a loved one. Just any life wouldn’t do. A sacrifice had to come at a real cost to the one casting the curse.
All of this made me anxious. We’d stopped three attempts to murder the store owners. That meant three sacrifices wasted. The person would come after us. I had no idea what my worst fear was. Well, no, I knew. My worst fear was that I wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t woman enough, sexy enough, hot enough. I’d analyzed myself to death. I had the kind of brain that refused to stay quiet, except when Jim was near. Then it shut up and let me bask in my quiet happiness.
I got home, took a shower, and inspected the kitchen. My mother had been through it. There was cooked rice and a vegetable curry on the stove, and the fridge had been restocked with everything from tofu and cucumbers to apples and watermelon.
I’ve learned that Jim, like most shapehsifters, didn’t care for overly spicy food. He would eat it heroically, but he preferred lighter seasoning. I filled a pot with water, unwrapped the steak and dropped it in.
Blood. Ew. The scent drifted to me from the water. I got a wooden spoon and swished the steak around to get all of the blood and possible contaminants off. I pinned the steak with a spoon and poured the water off, then I got a clean towel, laid it on the counter, slid the steak onto it and patted it dry with the towel. So far so good.
I transferred the steak to a cutting board; got some garlic, squeezed it through a press; added a little tiny bit of pepper, salt, and a little bit of olive oil; smushed it all with a spoon an
d spread it on the steak.
I could still smell the meat.
And now I reeked of garlic. Hi, Jim, I’m your sexy garlic-smelling date.
I went to the phone to call my mother. My purifying magic came to me from my father’s line. But the curses, spells, and the systematic approach, that was all my mother. She saw things clearly, the way I did, and she had more experience.
My answering machine blinked with red. I pushed a button.
“Dali, this is your mother.”
Like I wouldn’t know.
“Komang called. She says you were there with a man.”
I leaned against the island.
“She said the man was very dark and said he was your boyfriend! I want to kno . . .”
I clicked the next message.
“This is your aunt Ayu . . .”
Click.
“Dali!” My cousin Ni Wayan. “My mother told me that you have a boyfriend . . .”
Click.
“Boyfriend? What?”
Click.
Click.
Click.
“Dali,” my uncle Aditya said. He was all the way up in North Carolina. The magic has been down for an hour. How did they even get ahold of him this fast? “I am so happy for you.”
I pressed Delete All and dialed my mother’s number. I didn’t know what was sadder, the fact that my family lived to gossip or that all of them were so overjoyed that some male person finally took an interest in me.
She didn’t pick up.
I listened to the answering machine come on with a click.
“Hi, Mom. Thank you for the food. I found out what’s wrong with Eyang Ida. Please call me back when you get in. I need some advice.”
I hung up and looked around the kitchen. I felt so alone all of a sudden. Was this what it would be like when Jim and I broke up?
Sometimes it was best not to get into relationships in the first place. Then you never had to deal with heartache. And we hadn’t even had sex yet.
Not that sex always improved relationships or somehow magically fixed them. My first sexual experience wasn’t amazing. I was fifteen, my then-boyfriend was sixteen, and it was the first time for both of us. We were both awkward and nervous enough to turn the whole thing into one long fumble. He kept asking me if I liked it and I kept thinking, “If that’s all there is to it, wow, that’s a letdown.” When we finished, he asked me if it was good for me and then he asked if I thought he had a small penis.
We quietly broke up after that. We never talked about it; we just went our separate ways. I’ve had relationships since. I dated a gorgeous blond guy in college. He was the most handsome man I had ever seen. He turned out to be dumb as a board. He was attracted to me because he bought into the whole mystical sexy Asian girl thing. Combined with my turning into a white tiger, he was sold. The sex was great, but eventually we had to talk. He was disappointed I wasn’t Chinese, and I never understood why he thought I would be, because I don’t look Chinese at all. He didn’t know Indonesia was a country. He couldn’t find it on a map even after I showed it to him several times. I told him about Bali and gave him a book with pictures. One night, about two months into our relationship he was laying on the bed next to me and asked me if I would wear a kimono for him like a geisha. And then he asked if we had geishas where I was from. I realized it had to stop.
There had been a couple of guys since, but I always knew they weren’t the One. It didn’t make me any better at relationships.
I sighed. I was brooding. I didn’t like to fail and since my brain ran across a roadblock, it now turned inward in sheer frustration. The One would be here any minute, if the Pack didn’t kidnap him to save the world or resolve some life-shattering crisis. He would be starving. I needed to make him that steak.
I had just managed to slide the steak off the pan onto the cutting board when the doorbell rang.
Jim.
I ran to open it.
Jim stood in the doorway. He was wearing black again. Black jeans, black T-shirt, and black boots. The scars on his arms where the hag had sliced him up had healed to narrow light lines. His gaze snagged on me.
I was wearing shorts, a white tank top, and a blue apron with white-yellow flowers. The apron was a bit too long. I realized I was still holding a spatula. There was something in the way Jim looked at me, with a kind of lingering appreciation, that made my heart speed up.
“Come in,” I said, my voice squeaky.
“Thank you.”
I locked the door behind him. Awkward blind tiger girl is awkward. What else is new?
He stalked into my kitchen. I liked the way he moved, like a massive cat, unhurried, almost lazy, unless something interested him and then he would become all blinding speed and overwhelming power. His scent followed him. He had no idea, but he could make me do all kinds of stupid things just with his scent alone.
He sat on the stool at the counter.
“I made you a steak,” I said and poked at it with a spatula. “It’s still hot.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t you want to eat it? I know you’re hungry.”
“Not right now.”
“It will get cold.” Here I went through an obstacle course to make him the thing, and he didn’t even want it, silly man.
“It’s best to let the steak stand a few minutes after cooking.”
“Why?” Was it me, or was there a strange almost purring quality to his voice.
“If you cut it right away, all the juices will run out and you’ll get a dry piece of meat.”
“Ew.” I waved my spatula. “Please keep your carnivore details to yourself . . .”
He caught me by my shoulders and leaned close. Oh my gods, things were happening. His lips touched mine, hot and gentle, forging a connection. Suddenly nothing else mattered. I dropped the spatula on the floor, closed my eyes, opened my mouth and let him in. His scent swirled around me, intoxicating, the pressure of his lips on mine deliberate but careful. I lapped at his tongue, my hands stroking the broad width of his shoulders. The muscles were so taut with tension under my fingertips, as if his whole body vibrated with barely contained power. The hint of it sparked an eager need inside me. I wanted him to let go for me. I wanted the real Jim. If I could do that, I could do anything.
His kiss deepened, growing possessive, rougher, turning from a tender invitation to a commanding seduction. Breath caught in my throat. A slow velvet heat spread through me, tightening my nipples. I kissed him back, stroking his tongue with mine and giving him a taste, then pulling back. He kissed me harder. The taste of him sent shivers down my spine. My muscles turned warm and pliant. A soft ache flared between my legs. My head turned dizzy. I had to take a breath. I was losing what little control I had and I wanted so much for it to be good for him.
His arms gripped me, the hard, powerful muscle sliding against my shoulders as he pulled me closer. I pulled back and he let go. We broke apart. I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me and in the depth of his dark irises I saw raw, overwhelming desire.
Oh my gods, I would do anything if he kept looking at me like that.
He wanted me. Oh he wanted me so badly.
I leaned in and nipped his lower lip.
He tipped my head back, his mouth closing on mine, the thrust of his tongue wild and hot. My apron went flying, and then his hands slid under my tank top. His rough thumb caressed my right nipple, sending tiny electric shocks through me. I leaned against that touch, grinding against him, his lust driving me out of my mind. It was all for me. He was excited for me. He was kissing me. His hands gripped my butt and he hoisted me on his hips. The long, hard shaft of him thrust against the aching wetness between my legs. He was hard for me.
I wanted it to be the best sex he ever had.
He tore himself from my mouth. “So beautiful.”
Please, Jim, please. Touch me, kiss me, love me . . .
He kissed my neck, nipping the sensitive skin, each pinch of his
teeth adding fuel to my fire. I moaned, caught in the whirlwind of sensations, and rode him. I wanted him inside me. I needed to be full of him.
He jumped off the chair, his hands on my butt, caressing me, and I kissed him all the way upstairs. He dropped me on the bed and pulled off his shirt. Muscle corded his frame like steel cables. Excitement dashed through me. His boots and pants came off. He was huge. Oh wow.
He leaned over me and then I had no clothes on. I reached for his neck and pulled him down on top of me. He dipped his head and his mouth closed on one nipple, while his hand stroked the other. The wave of pleasure rolled through me and I arched myself, my hands in his hair. His mouth moved to the other breast. My whole body was keyed up, ready for him, as if I was perched on the edge of a scalding bath and I needed to take a plunge.
He reared above me and I reached for him. My fingers found his hard length and I stroked it. Jim growled. I laughed and wrapped my legs around him. He lowered himself on me, his weight on his arms, his expression wicked and hot, so hot.
“Yes?”
What? Of course it’s a yes. “Yes . . .”
He thrust into me, fluid and deep. Pleasure exploded in me and I moaned his name. He built to a smooth, rapid rhythm, sliding inside me, thick and hard, each thrust a burst of ecstasy. I locked my fingers on his back and matched his rhythm. We were one and I was losing myself in the sheer physical bliss of it. He made love to me like I was a goddess. I tried to hold on and stay there with him, but the pleasure crested inside me and dragged me under. I melted into a soft, happy climax. Jim moved faster inside me, pounding, intense, his whole body so rigid, the muscles of his back were trembling under my fingers. His face turned feral. He grunted and I felt him let go inside of me. I wrapped my arms around his neck.