by D. N. Hoxa
“On that, we agree,” he reluctantly said.
“He’s got seven. He’s looking for ten. Ten of the most powerful enchanted items out there. I’d say he’s getting very close, and we don’t want to find out why he wants those things, do we?” Haworth was already dangerous as it was. With ten times more power, I didn’t dare think what he could do.
“How do you know that?” asked Finn, squinting his eyes at me.
“I just do.” Amara’s face came to my mind. “Three more. Three more items and he’s going to be unstoppable.”
Intertwining his fingers behind his neck, Finn leaned back in the seat, his round stomach pressed against the desk. “Everybody’s already in on it. They’re all looking for him.”
I smiled. “But they won’t be able to find him. Isn’t that what you said that night at the bar? He can’t be traced.”
“Things were different then,” Finn said through gritted teeth.
“No, they weren’t. Haworth was just as dangerous then as he is now. He needs to be stopped, Finn.”
“And you want to suddenly stop him?” A forced laugh left his lips, making me flinch. “C’mon, kid. I’m a one-legged werewolf, and I could take you with one hand only. You don’t have the skills or the experience to fight someone like Haworth.”
No news there. “But I can find him.”
Finn raised a brow. “You want to find him because you want to find your sister.”
“I do! Of course I do, but I also want to find him and stop him. Why is that so hard for you to believe?” Probably because in the two years he’d practically begged me to come work for him, I’d put myself first. I hadn’t cared about anything else but keeping my secret and living a peaceful life.
“I can’t do this, Victoria. I can’t send you to your death like this,” Finn said, and it sounded like a warning.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. I couldn’t do this alone. Not even with Amara. I needed help.
“We talked about this yesterday. You’re going to help me find my sister, and when we find Izzy, we’ll find Haworth.”
“And do what?” he shouted and stood up, exasperated. “Call in the ECU? You think they’ll let you walk away after that? You think you’ll ever be free again?”
“I don’t care.”
My words surprised the both of us. My freedom was all I’d ever wanted. Freedom from my wolf, freedom from the guilt over the people she’d killed. But I was not the same person anymore.
“Well, I do,” Finn said, shaking his head at me. “Sorry, kid. It’s not going to happen.”
He meant every word he said. Desperation spread over me like a layer of ice. Finn had contacts. Finn had money. Finn had means to help me. But he didn’t want to risk losing me. Hopeless, I stood up and went for the door. It didn’t matter if he’d help me or not. Amara and I could do this ourselves.
Except…we couldn’t. Red came to my mind. His beautiful face, his colorful eyes—they judged me. I couldn’t let anger cloud my vision now. I couldn’t make the same mistake. So before I left, I stopped by the door.
“When do I start training?” I asked Finn.
Even more surprised than before, he took a second to compose himself. “So you’ll stay?”
“I will,” I said with a nod. “Because you’re going to help me find my sister. What I do with my spare time is none of your business, but I will keep working for you. I’m going to keep my word because you’re going to keep yours.”
I was underprepared, to say the least. I didn’t know the first thing about fighting, and if he could help me figure out how to use my nose better, I’d take it. Haworth was no joke. We’d caught him by surprise the first time, but that wasn’t going to happen again.
“You know I’m not going to let you out of my sight, right? No jobs, no nothing.”
I’d figured that already. “Agreed.”
Finn smiled, satisfied. “In that case, let’s go upstairs.”
5
Moore seemed like a nice guy. He came to meet us on the third floor of the building not long after Finn showed me around. The offices were very colorful. It was obvious Finn didn’t appreciate it or like them, but he allowed it. I’d definitely pegged him wrong before.
Anyway, Moore was a small guy for a werewolf, but ripped in all the right places. He was a bit younger than Finn, possibly in his late forties, and he had the kind of face that made it hard to imagine how he’d look if he smiled. The office Finn set us up in was big and mostly empty, with half-tinted windows looking behind the building and onto the other across the alley. Three armchairs were placed in front of a low coffee table with a small cactus plant in the middle. The low shelves covering half of the walls were full of books and small decorations, and a flat screen TV hung on the wall opposite the door. It was a lounge area, probably, because I couldn’t see people working in there. It was just a place to relax, I figured.
After Finn made the introductions, he told Moore what he wanted him to do with me.
“Vicky’s sense of smell is already impeccable, but she needs to be tested and she needs to learn how to put it to better use. We have no data whatsoever, so just take everything from the very beginning.”
“Understood,” Moore said with a nod as he silently analyzed me. I didn’t mind, but he made my wolf uncomfortable for some reason. She growled inside my head—a clear indicator that she didn’t like this man. Too bad.
“You’ll get half a day to work with her, as I need her, too. Just be as fast as you can be, okay, old friend?” Finn said, and Moore offered a plastic smile.
“Of course, old friend.”
And that was that. Finn left us alone. We sat across one from another, with the coffee table in the middle. I analyzed him as much as he analyzed me, but I couldn’t figure out anything else except that he used Old Spice, he smoked, and his shoes were polished to perfection right before he got here.
“So, Vicky, what can you tell me about your sense of smell? Was it always the same, or did it evolve?” he asked, his voice ice cold but polite.
I cleared my throat. “Nothing has changed, as far as I know. I realized I could smell things differently when I was around eleven years old, and it hasn’t changed since then.”
“You’ve never tried to test your abilities before?” he asked.
Shivers washed down my back. Red’s face took over my mind. He’d asked me the same, and I’d been a bitch about it, never realizing how right he was.
Swallowing hard, I looked down at the table. “Never had a reason to.”
“I see,” Moore said, crossing his legs. “How far does your sense extend? Can you smell, say, emotions, or are you limited to body odors?”
Emotions? “I…I don’t know.” It felt different when somebody was happy or angry or frustrated, but I’d never thought to check.
“That’s okay,” said Moore. He felt more like a therapist to me than a mentor who could teach me how to be better at this, but I held that thought to myself.
“You see, a scent is never just one scent. It is layer upon layer of smells intertwined together, and the trick is to find a way to separate those layers. When you do, a whole new world opens up,” said Moore, perfectly pleased with himself.
“Okay.” I felt like a fool sitting in front of him because I should have known all of this before.
“But let’s take it one step at a time, just like Finn asked.” He quickly stood up. “Shall we begin?”
“Any news on Izzy?” I asked Finn as soon as he picked up the phone. After spending three hours in that office with Moore, I couldn’t wait to do something else already, but when I went to look for Finn, Ethan told me he’d left.
“Yes, we’ve got a possible location,” Finn said, making my heart skip a beat.
“Where?”
“Newark. My team is already on their way. We caught her on camera, and as soon as they get closer to her, they’ll be able to locate her with a spell.”
“I want to go, too,” I sa
id, already running for the door.
“No, not now,” Finn said, stopping me in my tracks. “Not until we locate her.”
“Finn, we talked about this.” He was going to let me get involved. He was going to let me help.
“I know we have, kid. You agreed to trust me. I’ll tell you when the time is right—and don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know when we take her. You’ll be the first to see her, wherever she is.”
Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply to get a grip on my emotions. “I need to do this. I need to be able to help her.”
“And you will—when the time is right,” he repeated. “For now, hold on tight and wait for my call, and tell me how things went with Moore.”
I hung up the phone.
It was hard to keep focus. I hadn’t eaten a thing, but my stomach kept on turning, making me want to throw up. To make matters worse, my wolf was wide-awake, invading my thoughts. She never did this unless she wanted to come out, but this wasn’t the case today. She didn’t want to take over my body—just my thoughts—and I couldn’t understand what she wanted from me.
Walking out the front doors of the building while ignoring the stares of Finn’s employees was easy, right until I was out in the street. My feet were stuck to the sidewalk. I looked ahead and sideways, but I had no idea where the hell I could go or what I could do. It was still daylight outside and who knew how long until Finn’s men located Izzy? My mind, my body, my wolf worked against me; half of me wanted to run forward and the other half wanted to stop and sit right there on the asphalt. Tears welled in my eyes, but I refused to let them shed. I was losing it. I was panicking for no reason. I couldn’t control this. I could do nothing but wait.
Why was that so hard to do?
When I finally decided to let it all go and find a place to eat because my body wasn’t going to endure for much longer, I felt a bit lighter. I couldn’t keep doing this. I couldn’t lose reason and invite panic attacks to invade me. I had to keep my mind clear, and I wasn’t going to do that on an empty stomach.
Finn’s guards watched me closely as I finally left the building and started to walk toward the nearest bus station. I didn’t want to wait for Finn to call at the offices where I felt like a stranger. I could go grab a bite to eat and then go back to the apartment to get some rest. To calm myself down.
Finn’s spell stone was still in my pocket. I kept it with me even when I went to the bathroom, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was watching me the entire time. I looked over my shoulder and all around me countless times, but nobody seemed to pay me any attention. Not humans and not paranormals. When I got to Harlem, I decided to grab a pizza and eat inside. By the time I went back to the building and smelled Amara’s scent like I had the day before, my appetite was gone.
I took the stairs two at the time, and when I made sure that nobody else was in there except Amara, I rushed inside and closed the door behind me, almost dropping the pizza in the process.
Amara didn’t bother to say hi. She hit me with the news right away:
“Haworth found another item.”
I tried to postpone having to talk about it while I set the pizza on the table and brought out two soda cans from the fridge. Amara sat on my couch, her fingers shaking, her eyes wide with fear.
“When?” I asked reluctantly. The pizza had smelled delicious when I bought it, but now, eating it felt like a chore.
“Last night,” Amara whispered. “I don’t know where or how, but he’s got another, and he’s going for the next tonight.”
My heart hammered in my chest as I chewed on the food, then gave up and chased it down with the soda. “Who told you this?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Amara cried. “It’s reliable information. By this time tomorrow, he will have nine enchanted items. Nine.”
Chills washed down the length of me. “How the hell can he do this?” He stole from the ECU, and he stole from someone else the next night, and he was going to do the same tonight, too. My mind went to the bedroom and to the frame of the bed where I’d hidden the Reaper String. My wolf howled in my head. She didn’t want me to even think about it.
“I told you yesterday—he’s not going to stop. By the end of the week, he’s going to have ten enchanted items all to himself, and then we’re all screwed.”
“Have you figured out why he wants these items? I mean, why ten?”
“Nobody knows,” Amara said—which meant Nadia, Haworth’s daughter, had no idea. If she didn’t know, I doubted anybody else except him did.
“Do you think…” My voice trailed off, and I swallowed hard. “Do you think he’ll come looking for it?” She knew exactly what I meant.
Amara looked away. “It’s why I’m here,” she said in half a voice. “If the ECU couldn’t stop him from getting his things back…” She ended with a shrug, but I already knew how that sentence ended. If the ECU couldn’t stop Haworth from getting his things back, I couldn’t stop him from getting the Reaper String, either.
The fear threatened to suffocate me. I dropped the slice of pizza in the box. No way could I eat now. “We need to hide it.”
“No—we need to find him and we need to kill him.”
I almost laughed. “You think that’s going to be easy? C’mon, Amara. We both saw him. We can’t kill him.”
“Sure we can,” she said through gritted teeth. “We just have to catch him by surprise.”
“How?” I wished with all my heart that there was a way to do what she said but also knowing that there wasn’t. My wolf agreed. There was no way around it.
“I don’t know, okay? But you can’t just hide the Reaper String from him, Victoria. He’ll find it. He’ll find you, and then it will be too late.”
Her words cut me wide open. “If we give it to Finn—”
She didn’t let me finish.
“No!” she shouted. “You can’t give the Reaper to anyone. It’s yours. It belongs to you.”
“But you said it yourself—Haworth is going to come for it!” I shouted right back.
“So learn to use it.”
That stopped me cold. “I don’t…I don’t know how.”
“Of course you do. You already did. On me and on Red and on Haworth. You know how to use it, Victoria.”
Just the thought of holding the Reaper String in my hand again had my wolf howling in my head, starting a massive ache at the base of my neck. God, she was so noisy today. She just wouldn’t shut up.
Amara dragged herself closer to the edge of the couch. “Listen to me, Victoria. He’s distracted. He’s not expecting anyone to come after him except the ECU, and all he cares about are his items. If we attack now, he’ll be vulnerable.”
“Do you know where he’ll be?” She sounded like she did.
“I might.” She swallowed hard. “I might have a location for tonight.”
Tonight. “It’s a mistake.” Red’s words, not mine. Or at least that was what I thought he’d say if he were here.
“It’s the best chance we’ll get.”
“It’s last time all over again. We’re not prepared for him. Even if we do find him, we can’t kill him.”
Closing her eyes, she raised her head to the ceiling for a second. “You turn into a wolf. You have the Reaper String. What more do you want?!”
Shocked out of words for a second, I leaned back on the couch. “You think I can kill him?” Had she lost her damn mind?
“Before he gets the Reaper, yes,” she said, raising her chin.
“Amara, I don’t think you remember what happened at his house. He almost killed us! He…he killed Red!”
“The sun killed Red,” she spit. “And he almost killed us. Almost—but didn’t. That has never happened before. Nobody got away with their lives before us. That means something!”
“It means we caught him off guard, but he’s not going to make the same mistake again. He knows what to expect now—knows about my wolf, about the Reaper. He’ll be prepared.”
Slamming a fist on the table, Amara stood up. “So what—you’re just going to let your sister rot in hell, is that it?”
“Fuck you,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to get Izzy out of there.”
“So do it!” she said, raising her arms at her side. “Get her out and kill him because that’s the only way you’re going to be truly free.”
A growl inside my head. “Shut up!” I shouted at my wolf. What the hell was wrong with her today? She wouldn’t stop voicing her opinion, and it was messing with my head even more.
As if she knew whom I was talking to, Amara turned her head the other way and gave me a second to compose myself.
“I’ll help you. I’ll help you get her out just like I did last time,” she said after a while. “But we have to try. We just have to.”
“Finn’s men are tracking her. They have a location,” I said reluctantly. I realized what that meant. I realized I was leaving my sister’s fate in the hands of a stranger once again, but the fear was too much. How could I go after Haworth myself when he’d almost killed me? When he’d killed Red?
“And if they don’t find her?” Amara asked.
But they’d find Izzy, wouldn’t they? They’d find her and bring her to me, and then…what?
“We’re both going to end up dead, just like Red.” My voice was a pathetic whisper, but it was all I had.
“We’re not. He might have seen us, but we’ve seen Haworth, too. We know exactly what he’s capable of. We’ll be prepared.”
I wanted for her words to make sense so much, but my wolf was trying to break my skull in half with her howls and growls. She didn’t want me in this. She didn’t want me to listen to a word Amara said. She didn’t want me anywhere near Haworth again, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. But she didn’t know what it was like to fail your own sister. Again. I couldn’t allow her to make this decision.
“Don’t you want revenge?” Amara sat on the floor in front of me. Her dark eyes were wide and sparkling with barely-there tears. “Red died because of him. Don’t you want to avenge him?”