“He’s a powerful wizard and can take care of himself,” she said as she pulled up to my place. “But there are others.” She turned to look at me where I lay in the backseat. “You did well with the interrogation, and again, I’m sorry for whatever I said to make the others kick you out. This is a strange time for all of us, and a lot of wizards and lycanthropes oppose what we’re doing at the ILR. Be very careful about who you trust.”
With that, she let me out of the car. I went back in through the laundry room doggie door, and, still in wolf form, crawled up the stairs and into bed. My change back into human felt like a bad dream.
I woke around midday with my hand on my phone, having apparently shut off my primary, secondary, and final backup alarms.
I’m late for work! But when I sat, the room tilted, and I fell back. At some point during the night, I’d pulled the covers over me, so the bed was a muddy, gritty mess. Everything that was human about me wanted a shower and clean sheets, but my leaden limbs barely permitted me to move.
I pushed myself up and swung my feet toward the floor. That effort made my heart race, and I took a couple of deep breaths to slow it and the room’s seasickness-inducing motion. I wondered if I could make it to the bathroom should the nausea worsen.
The phone beeped with an incoming text, and the jolt of panic nearly cleared the lethargic sensation—Jared! The wizards are coming for him. But didn’t I buy him more time?
Even so, I needed to warn him.
The text was from him, and some of the tension in my chest released.
Need to see you, he said. Fortuna in States. Expedited autopsy. (!)
Can’t—have flu, I texted back. Don’t want you to get sick. Watch out for wizards.
OMW. Not flu. Danger. Call Veronica.
I blinked, and it felt like I burned at least a hundred calories with the effort.
What do u mean? But he didn’t answer, so I suspected he was already in his car.
Making a phone call seemed beyond my capabilities. I prioritized and decided a quick shower would have to come first with the hope it would help me feel better and the steam would make my head stop pounding.
I managed to clean myself up and stagger downstairs for some water. Part of my brain knew that fluids were good, but I didn’t want to deal with whatever grittiness was in the water pitcher, so I grabbed a bottle of water from the pantry. The only food was leftover pizza, of course, and the thought of cold cheese and vegetables made me feel more ill.
I went into the living room and curled up under the afghan my grandmother had crocheted for the couch a decade before. I couldn’t get a hug from her, so it would have to do.
“Nona, if you’re here, help me,” I whispered.
No reply came.
The chills from the illness raced through my body along with the electric echoes of the full moon. This one, being soon before Halloween, would be powerful. I’d never been sick during a mandatory change time before. In fact, I’d been oddly healthy with not even a cold since developing CLS.
A knock on the front door roused me from the half-dream state I’d been in. The disturbing images of something after me but being unable to run faded, but the feeling of something being horribly wrong didn’t. I shambled to the front door—seriously, I could’ve been a zombie movie extra without any makeup—and opened it to see not Jared, but Cindy.
“Kyra, what’s wrong?”
She moved to come in, but I held up a hand.
“I’m really sick. I’m sorry, I can’t do lunch today.”
She put a hand over her mouth and nodded. Her eyes flicked to something over my shoulder, and she paled. I turned to look behind me but didn’t see anything.
With a, “Don’t worry, we’ll reschedule. Feel better!” she rushed away and got in her car, which she’d backed into the driveway. I thought I saw someone sitting in the passenger seat, but the angle of the sun made it hard to make out details, and I dismissed the impression to my brain being foggy.
I stood there for a while like an idiot because the thought of going back, lying down, and then having to get up to answer the door again exhausted me. Finally I closed the door and lay in the front hallway, still wrapped in the afghan, which now felt like a robe of protection, although I couldn’t say why.
It was a good thing, considering I hadn’t locked the door, although I thought I remembered that I had, and I woke to the concerned face of Max Fortuna looming over me.
“Go away, you’ll get sick,” I said.
“Doubtful,” Max told me. “And I’m here to help. I can’t remember if I mentioned I’m a doctor.”
He helped me to sit and then walk into the living room. I noticed an old-fashioned doctor’s bag by the front door. I appreciated the old-school touch, although I wanted him to go away so Jared could come and safely take care of me without being detained.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The powder in the box last night wasn’t a poison. It was an attempt at a cure for Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome. That’s what the young lady died from—she was a lycanthrope like you.”
“And I’m sick from being exposed to it? Is Lonna okay?”
“Yes,” Max said. “The powder has to be ingested.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Can you think of any way it could have gotten into your system?”
“No.”
“By the way, do you have any water? I’ve been weakened by the travel, interrogation, and the magic I had to work this morning and need to rehydrate.”
“I have bottles, and there’s a pitcher in the fridge.” I grimaced remembering the sand in the pitcher.
Or maybe it hadn’t been sand.
“Wait!” I called after him, but he didn’t seem to hear me. I staggered after him and found him pouring a glass of water from the pitcher.
I knocked the glass out of Max’s hand, and it shattered on the floor. “Don’t drink that! I think someone put the powder in the water pitcher.”
13
The Game is On
I went back to the couch as Max cleaned the mess on the kitchen floor.
Don’t come, I texted Jared. Trap.
Are you all right?
I didn’t want to lie, but I suspected that if I were to tell him the truth, he’d end up captured or worse.
Fine for now. I curled up again and wished I could stop shivering in spite of being wrapped in the blanket.
“Can you help me?” I asked when Max returned. He had the doctor’s bag with him.
“Let me get some vitals. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you, only that systemic changes are trying to happen.” He took my blood pressure and temperature, and he listened to my heart and lungs.
“Tachycardia,” he murmured. “Fever. Diaphoresis.”
“Listen to you with your fancy big words,” I said so I wouldn’t blurt out what I really thought—Either help me or go away.
“Listen to you with your sarcasm.” He smiled. “You don’t have to worry about Jared, by the way.”
“You’re going to leave him alone?”
“No, but it will be better for him if he comes to get trained. And the rest of the world. Power that’s not used properly can be harmful to the bearer and recipients.” He looked at me with an expression I could only describe as deadly serious. “Trust me, I know.”
I didn’t take the bait to ask him what he meant. I was sick, not stupid, and I wouldn’t be diverted. “That needs to be his choice. It’s unfair enough that he’s been saddled with this. He can’t be expected to just give up everything and embrace a strange new life he knows nothing about.”
“And you would know what that’s like.”
“Yes, I would.” I would have given him my haughtiest look if I’d had the energy. “Now are you going to help me or not?”
“Give me your phone.”
“What?” I cradled it against me.
“Just give it to me.” He held his hand out.
“Fine.” It was locked, so h
e shouldn’t be able to—
He waved a hand over it, and it unlocked. The air around it shimmered like the kitchen had the previous day when someone had magically locked the door behind them.
“Give that back!” I lunged for it, but he was able to push me away with a gentle hand on my chest. He made a call.
“Jared Steel?”
I glared at him.
“Yes, this is Max Fortuna. Kyra is very ill. She’s been exposed to the same thing that killed the girl from the shop.” He paused. “No, a hospital won’t do any good. She needs a powerful wizard to work a certain kind of magic, and I’m too depleted from the energy I had to expend on analyzing the powder to do it.”
“Don’t listen to him,” I said, hoping he’d hear me. “Don’t come. Don’t lose your life and your freedom and…” I stifled a sob in the afghan.
“He’s almost here,” Max said. He handed the phone back to me. “I’m sorry, but you’re being stubborn, and sacrificing yourself won’t save him from what will happen eventually.”
I tried to unlock my phone, but the battery was dead.
“Again, sorry.” He shrugged. “I needed the extra energy to unlock it without the code.”
I wanted to glare at him, but the room turned gray, and my eyelids descended like leaden curtains.
A knock on the door startled me, but I couldn’t open my eyes. It was like a horrible nightmare where I was paralyzed, and all I could do was listen to the sound of Max going to answer the door and then voices in the hall.
“Kyra!” Jared took my hand. “Please say something.”
“The substance is doing its work quickly,” Max told him. “You need to clear it from her.”
“But how?”
“I’m going to give you a trade secret you mustn’t tell anyone. Part of the cure for Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome is a bit of blood magic to give it a push. I suspect that something similar will help to pull this false cure back.”
“So you’ll do it?” Jared asked.
“I can’t. Or I could, but I’m already drained from the day’s exertions. I can instruct you, and you being close to her will help it work better. But I warn you, once you take this important step on the path toward becoming a wizard, you cannot turn back.”
“Don’t do it!” I yelled mentally. Physically I could only manage a whimper.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to save her.”
I felt something being stuck in my arm, and the darkness spread and took me under into a dreamless, formless sleep. Or maybe my body felt formless, as it did at that instant when I’m neither wolf nor human during my changes, but something in between that doesn’t—shouldn’t—exist.
I slipped through the darkness into a state somewhere between lucid dreaming and vivid remembering.
The grand chandelier of a ballroom came into focus overhead, and when I dropped my gaze, I found I was at the Steel Pharmaceuticals holiday party of a few years previously. Jared had invited me as a fellow business owner in the Little Rock area and asked if I would bring some of my more outgoing girls to “talk to other party guests,” which I knew was code for, “save me some potential drama and give the old men something to leer at besides each other’s trophy wives,” but I felt it was good for the girls to be seen in case someone wanted to hire one of them for a commercial or some other small job to build her portfolio.
The crystal glass of water sweated through the black napkin I had wrapped around it, telling me my temperature was rising again. I had just started showing what I thought was the flu but ended up being CLS transition symptoms, and I had promised myself I would only stay an hour. My time was up, and I looked for the party host so I could excuse myself.
I found Jared standing by a large chafing dish full of bacon-wrapped scallops, and he shook hands with the old gentleman he’d been talking to and turned to me.
“I just told Henry that you and I had urgent business to discuss,” he said, speaking close to my ear as he took my elbow and steered me to a quiet corner. “Thank you for saving me. The man doesn’t know when to talk business and when to enjoy himself.”
“My pleasure,” I said. Soothing calm radiated from his cool fingertips on my elbow. “But aren’t you supposed to make major deals in smoky back rooms after parties like this once you dismiss the womenfolk?”
He grinned, and I had to smile back even though I felt like I had a heavy chafing dish on my chest. Now the cool of his hand moved up my arm to my shoulder, which was exposed in the sleeveless red floor-length sheath I’d worn.
“I suspect that a man would dismiss you at his peril,” he told me and caressed my shoulder. “But enough flirting, although I could do that with you all night.”
I could think of a few things I’d like to do all night with him, and I captured the tip of my tongue between my teeth so I wouldn’t blurt that out.
“I’m concerned about you,” he continued. “You haven’t been your usual outgoing self, and you’re very warm. Should I have the hotel staff lower the temperature in the room?”
He’d noticed me? We’d barely exchanged more than “Hello, nice to see you, thank you for inviting me,” at previous parties.
“I’m afraid I’m not feeling well, and you’re kind for noticing. I should collect the girls and go soon. I’m very sorry to take them away. Your friend Henry seems to have taken a liking to Brittany.”
He glanced in the direction I indicated. “Oh, lord. Yes, you should probably rescue her, but I do have one question for you before you go. And please let me call a limo for you. You shouldn’t be driving if you feel horrible.”
“What’s the question?” I gave him a classic female, “Are you interested in me?” look and thought I saw an answering smolder in his gaze.
But before he said anything, Cindy appeared at his elbow and touched his arm. He dropped his hand from my shoulder. No, it fell away as though struck senseless, and he blinked with a confused furrow between his eyebrows.
“It’s time to start pouring for the toast,” Cindy said. “Do you have your speech ready? Oh, hello, Miss Ellison, I’m glad you could join us.”
I wanted to tell her she’d interrupted us, but I was too polite, and Jared seemed dazed.
“It was lovely to see you,” he told me and followed his sister away.
A full-body chill overtook me, and somehow I got home. I think one of my girls brought me. I’d gone into a full change the next night, and I’d forgotten everything about the incident at the party except that we’d had a nice conversation, and I’d thought he would call to ask me out later. My breakdown kept us from any further social encounters.
So had Cindy had anything to do with it? She’d seemed so friendly recently. Maybe she wanted to make up for it and put me and Jared back together?
My questions floated to the surface of consciousness with me, but they popped like bubbles when I opened my eyes.
Jared sat on the floor, still holding my hand. When he saw me looking at him, he smiled.
“How are you feeling?”
I stretched, and the heaviness was gone. My head felt clearer than it had in weeks, and my stomach growled.
“Hungry. How are you?”
“Exhausted. We have one night together before I have to report to the wizards for training. But the good news is that once I’m done, I can partner with the Fortunas and make the CLS cure here.”
“With magic,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the distaste from my voice.
“With magic,” he agreed. “Hey,” he said and put a finger under my chin. “It saved your life.”
“You saved my life,” I told him. He leaned in to kiss me, and my stomach growled again.
“Let me guess, you haven’t eaten today, have you?”
“Nope.”
He stood and let go of my hand. “No canoodling until you get something in your stomach.”
“It’s not necessary.” The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I can hunt.”
“Oh, r
ight, tonight is your change.”
“Don’t worry,” I said and stood. “You can cure me of that once you get trained. Then we can pick up again.” I tried to sound supportive.
“I…” He shook his head. “I can’t. Or I could, but we can’t. Max told me that he and Lonna have a special dispensation from the Wizard Tribunal and Lycanthrope Council to be together. Wizards and lycanthropes aren’t supposed to mix.”
“What?” I crossed my arms against the chill that had come into the room. “That’s ridiculous.”
A tap on my shoulder made me turn, and I jumped when I saw Nona’s ghost.
“There you are,” I said. “Where were you earlier?”
“Protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From those who would take you.”
“Who?” But then I remembered. “Cindy?”
“My sister?” Jared asked.
Nona nodded. “Sometimes families harbor the worst betrayals. And there is more to your blood than you think, dear granddaughter. The Benandanti were both wizard and wolf before the laws of separation.” She disappeared.
Before I could ponder what her words meant, Jared’s phone rang. “It’s Cindy,” he said and answered it. “Heya, Cin. You’re on speaker. I’m here with Kyra.”
“Oh!” I could tell how surprised she was from that one syllable. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better.”
“That’s great. Hey, I’m still in Salem if you want to grab a late bite to eat.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got plans.”
Jared motioned for me to keep her talking.
“But if we’re free later, would you like to meet up for a drink?”
“Oh, sure. There’s a bar a little off the beaten path that’s got a good cocktail list.” She rattled off a name—The Purple Toenail—and an address. “Just text me and let me know when you’re coming.”
She hung up.
“That didn’t sound suspicious at all,” I said and plugged my phone into the charger I’d brought with me and set up in the living room. I had to keep moving because if I stilled, I would start to change, and I couldn’t let him see me during my grotesque transformation.
Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella Page 89