White Witch, Black Curse

  My heartache eased from the distraction, and kneeling, I dug in my bag for a penlight and shined it on the underside of the lip of the dresser. I’d be willing to bet no one had dusted it. Ford came close, and I snapped the light off and stood. I didn’t want FIB justice. I wanted my own. Ivy and I would come out later and do our own recon. Test the ceiling for evidence of hydrocarbons, too. Shake Jenks down to find out just how long he’d been with me that night.

  Ford’s disapproval was almost palpable, and I knew if I looked, his amulet would be a bright red from picking up my anger. I didn’t care. I was angry, and that was better than falling apart. With a new feeling of purpose, I faced the rest of the room. Ford had seen the smeared mess. The FIB would reopen the case if they found one good print—other than the one I’d just made, that is. This might be the last time I was allowed in here.

  Leaning back against the dresser, I closed my eyes and crossed my arms, trying to remember. Nothing. I needed more. “Where’s the stuff?” I asked, both dreading and eager to realize what else lay hidden in my mind, ready to surface.

  There was the sound of sliding plastic, and Ford reluctantly handed me a packet of evidence bags and a stack of photos. “Rachel, we should leave if there’s a viable print.”

  “The FIB has had five months,” I said, nervous as I took them. “It’s my turn. And don’t give me any crap about disturbing evidence. The entire department has been through here. If there’s a print, it’s probably one of theirs.”

  He sighed as I turned to the dresser and arranged the plastic bags, print side down. I took up the photos first, my gaze rising to the reflection of the room behind me.

  I moved the picture of the smeared, bloody handprint on the kitchen window to the back of the stack, and tidied the pile with several businesslike taps. I got nothing from the handprint apart from the feeling that it wasn’t mine or Kisten’s.

  The picture of Kisten was absent, thank God, and I crossed the room with a photo of a dent in the wall. Ford was silent as I touched the paneling, and I decided by the lack of phantom pain that I hadn’t made it. There’d been a fight here other than mine. Over me, probably.

  I slid the photo behind the stack. Under it was a close-up of a shoe imprint taken under the bank of windows. My head started to throb, and with that as a warning, I knew something was here, lurking in my thoughts. Jaw tight, I forced myself to the window, kneeling to run a hand over the smooth carpet, trying to spark a memory even as I feared it. The print was of a man’s dress shoe. Not Kisten’s. It was too mundane for that. Kisten had kept only the latest fashions in his closet. Had the shoe been black or brown? I thought, willing something to surface.

  Nothing. Frustrated, I closed my eyes. In my thoughts, the scent of vampire incense mixed with an unfamiliar aftershave. A quiver rose through me, and not caring what Ford thought, I put my face on the carpet to breathe in the smell of fibers. Something…anything…Please….

  Panic fluttered at the edge of my thoughts, and I forced myself to breathe more deeply, not caring that my butt was in the air as primitive switches in my brain fired and scents were given names. Musky shadows that never saw the sun. The cloying scent of decayed water. Earth. Silk. Candle-scented dust. They added up to the undead. If I’d been a vampire, I might have been able to find Kisten’s killer by scent alone, but I was a witch.

  Tense, I breathed again, searching my thoughts and finding nothing. Slowly the feeling of panic subsided and my headache retreated. I exhaled in relief. I’d been mistaken. There was nothing here. It was just carpet, and my mind had been inventing smells as it tried to fulfill my need for answers. “Nothing,” I murmured into the carpet, inhaling deeply one last time before I sat up.

  A pulse of terror washed through me as I breathed in the scent of vampire. Shocked, I awkwardly scrambled to my feet, staring down at the carpet as if having been betrayed. Damn it.

  In a cold sweat, I turned away and tugged my coat straight. Ivy. I’ll ask her to come out and smell the carpet, I thought, then almost laughed. Catching it back in a harsh gurgle, I pretended to cough, fingers cold as I shifted to the next photo.

  Oh, even better, I thought sarcastically. Scratch marks on the paneling. My breath came fast and my gaze shot straight to the wall by the tiny closet as my fingertips started to throb. Almost panting, I stared, refusing to go look and confirm that my finger span matched the marks, afraid I might remember something even as I wanted to. I didn’t recall making the marks on the wall, but it was obvious my body did.

  I’d seen fear before. I’d seen fear bright and shiny when death comes at you in an instant and you can only react. I knew the nauseating mix of fear and hope when death comes slow and you frantically try to find a way to escape it. I’d grown up with old fear, the kind that stalks you from a distance, death lurking on the horizon, so inevitable and inescapable that it loses its power. But this outright panic with no visible reason was new, and I trembled as I tried to find a way to deal with it. Maybe I can ignore it. That works for Ivy.

  Clearing my throat, I tried for an air of nonchalance as I set the remaining pictures on the dresser and spread them out, but I wasn’t fooling anyone.

  Smears of blood—not splattered, but smeared. Kisten’s, according to the FIB guys. A picture of a split drawer that had been slid back out of sight. Another useless bloody handprint on the deck where Kisten’s killer had vaulted over the side. None of them hit me like the scratches or carpet, and I struggled with wanting to know, but was afraid to remember.

  Slowly my pulse eased and my shoulders lost their stiffness. I set the pictures down, bypassing the bags of dust and lint the FIB had vacuumed up, seeing my strands of red curls among the carpet fuzz and sock fluff. I watched myself in the mirror as my fingers touched the hair band in a clear evidence bag. It was one of mine, and it had held my braid together that night. A dull throb in my scalp lifted through my awareness, and Ford shifted uneasily.

  Shit, the band meant something.

  “Talk to me,” Ford said, and I pressed my thumb into the rubber cord through the plastic, trying to keep the fear from gaining control again. Evidence pointed at me to be Kisten’s killer, hence the not-quite-hidden mistrust I now felt at the FIB, but I hadn’t done it. I’d been here, but I hadn’t done it. At least Ford believed me. Someone had left the stinking bloody handprints.

  “This is mine,” I said softly so my voice wouldn’t quaver. “I think…someone undid my hair.” Feeling unreal, I turned the bag over to see that it had been found in the bedroom, and a surge of panic rose from out of nowhere. My heart hammered, but I forced my breathing to steady. Memory trickled back, pieces, and nothing of use. Fingers in my hair. My face against a wall. Kisten’s killer taking my hair out of its braid. No wonder I hadn’t let Jenks’s kids touch my hair much the last five months or why I’d freaked when Marshal had tucked my hair behind my ear.

  Queasy, I dropped the bag, dizzy when the edges of my sight dimmed. If I passed out, Ford would call someone, and that would be that. I wanted to know. I had to.

  The last piece of evidence was damning, and turning to rest my backside against the dresser, I shook a small, unbroken blue pellet to the corner of its bag. It was filled with a now-defunct sleepy-time charm. It was the only thing in my arsenal that would drop a dead vampire.

  A faint prickling of the hair on the back of my neck grew as a new thought lifted through me and a whisper of memory clenched my heart. My breath came out in a pained rush, and my head bowed. I was crying, swearing. Pointing my splat gun, I pulled the trigger. And laughing, he caught the spell.

  “He caught it,” I whispered, closing my eyes so they wouldn’t fill. “I tried to shoot him, and he caught it without breaking it.” My wrist pulsed in pain and another memory surfaced. Thin fingers gripped my wrist. My hand went numb. A thump when my gun hit the floor.

  “He hurt my hand until I dropped my splat gun,” I said. “I think I ran then.”

  Afraid, I looked at Ford, seeing his amulet
purple with shock. My little red splat gun had never been missing, was never recorded as having been here. All my potions were accounted for. Someone had clearly put the gun back where it belonged. I didn’t even remember making the sleepy-time charms, but this was clearly one of mine. Where the other six were was a good question.

  In a surge of anger, I kicked the dresser with the ball of my foot. The shock went all the way up my leg, and the furniture thumped into the wall. It was stupid, but it felt good.

  “Uh, Rachel?” Ford said, and I kicked it again, grunting.

  “I’m fine!” I shouted, sniffing back the tears. “I’m freaking fine!” But my lip was throbbing where someone had bitten me; my body was trying to get my mind to remember, but I simply wouldn’t let it. Had it been Kisten who had bitten me? His attacker? I hadn’t been bound, thank God. Ivy said so, and she would know.

  “Yeah, you look fine,” Ford said dryly, and I pulled my coat closed and tugged my shoulder bag up. He was smiling at my lost temper, and it made me even madder.

  “Stop laughing at me,” I said, and he smiled wider, taking off his amulet and tucking it away as if we were finished. “And I’m not done with those,” I added as he gathered the pictures.

  “Yes, you are,” he said, and I frowned at his unusual confidence. “You’re angry. That’s better than confused or grieving. I hate using clichés, but we can move forward now.”

  “Psychobabble bull,” I scoffed, grabbing the evidence bags before he could take them, too, but he was right. I did feel better. I had remembered something. Maybe human science was as strong as witch magic. Maybe.

  Ford took the bags from me. “Talk to me,” he said, standing in front of me like a rock.

  My good mood vanished, replaced by the urge to flee. Grabbing the shirt box from the dresser, I pushed past him. I had to get out. I had to put some distance between me and the scratch marks on the walls. I couldn’t wear the teddy Kisten had given me, but I couldn’t leave it here either. Ford could gripe all he wanted about removing evidence from the crime scene. Evidence of what? That Kisten had loved me?

  “Rachel,” Ford said as he followed, his steps silent on the carpet in the hall. “What do you recall? All I get is emotion. I can’t go back and tell Edden you remembered nothing.”

  “Sure you can,” I said, my pace fast and my blinders on as we crossed the living room.

  “No, I can’t,” he said, catching up with me at the broken door frame. “I’m a lousy liar.”

  I shivered as I crossed the threshold, but the cold brightness of late afternoon beckoned, and I lurched for the door. “Lying is easy,” I said bitterly. “Just make something up and pretend it’s real. I do it all the time.”

  “Rachel.”

  Ford reached out and drew me to a surprised stop in the cockpit. He was wearing winter gloves and had only touched my coat, but it proved how upset he was. The sun glinted on his black hair and his eyes were squinting from the glare. The cold wind shifted his bangs, and I searched his expression, wanting to find a reason to tell him what I remembered, to let go of the them-versus-us attitude between human and Inderlander and just let him help me. Behind him Cincinnati spread in all her mixed-up, comfortable messiness, the roads too tight and the hills too steep, and I could sense the security that so many lives entangled together engendered.

  My eyes fell to my feet and the crushed remains of a leaf the wind had dropped here. Ford’s shoulders eased as he felt my resolve weaken. “I remembered bits and pieces,” I said, and his feet shifted against the polished wood. “Kisten’s killer took my hair out of my braid before I kicked the door off the frame. I’m the one who made the scratches by the closet, but I only remember making them, not who I was trying to…get away from.” My hand fisted, and I shoved it in a pocket, leaving the shirt box tucked under an arm.

  “The splat ball is mine. I remember shooting it,” I said, throat tight as I flicked my eyes to his and saw his sympathy. “I was aiming at the other vampire, not Kisten. He has…big hands.” A new pulse of fear zinged through me and I nearly lost it when I remembered the soft feel of thick fingers on my jawline.

  “I want you to come in tomorrow,” Ford said, his brow pinched in worry. “Now that you have something to work with, I think hypnosis might bring it all together.”

  Bring it all together? Does he have any idea what in hell he is asking? The blood drained from my face, and I pulled out of his reach. “No.” If Ford put me under, I had no idea what might come out.

  Fleeing, I dipped under the railing and swung my weight out and onto the ladder. Marshal waited in his big-ass SUV below, and I wanted to be in it with the heater going to try to drive away the chill Ford’s words had started. I hesitated, wondering if I should drop the shirt box or keep it tucked under an arm.

  “Rachel, wait.”

  There was the rattle of the lock being replaced, and leaving the box under my arm, I started down, watching the side of the boat as I descended. I toyed with the idea of taking the ladder away to leave him stranded, but he would probably put it in his report. Besides, he did have his cell phone.

  Finally I reached the ground. Head down, I placed my boots carefully in the slush, aiming for Marshal’s car, parked behind Ford’s in the maze of impounded boats. Marshal had offered to bring me out after I’d complained during a hockey game that my little red car would get stuck in the ruts and ice out here, and since my car wasn’t made for the snow, I’d said yes.

  Guilt tugged at me for avoiding Ford’s help. I wanted to find out who’d killed Kisten and tried to make me their shadow, but there were other things I wanted to keep to myself, like why I’d survived a common but lethal blood disease that was also responsible for my being able to kindle demon magic, or what my dad had done in his spare time, or why my mother had nearly gone off her rocker to keep me from knowing my birth father wasn’t the man who’d raised me.

  Marshal’s eyes showed his concern when I got in his SUV and slammed the door. Two months ago, the man had shown up on my doorstep, back in Cincinnati after the Mackinaw Weres had burned his garage down. Fortunately he’d saved both the house and the boat that had been his livelihood—now sold to pay for getting his master’s at Cincy’s university. We’d met last spring when I was up north rescuing Jenks’s eldest son and Nick, my old boyfriend.

  Despite my better judgment, we’d been out more than a few times, realizing we had enough in common to probably make a good go of it—if it weren’t for my habit of getting everyone close to me killed. Not to mention that he was coming off a psycho girlfriend and wasn’t looking for anything serious. The problem was, we both liked to relax doing athletic stuff, ranging from running at the zoo to ice-skating at Fountain Square. We’d kept it friendly but platonic for two months now, shocking the hell out of my roommates. The lack of stress from not wondering will-we, won’t-we was a blessing. Curbing my natural tendencies and instead keeping our relationship casual had been easy. I couldn’t bear it if he got hurt. Kisten had cured me of foolish dreams. Dreams could kill people. At least, mine could. And did.

  “You okay?” Marshal asked, his low voice with his up-north accent heavy with worry.

  “Peachy,” I muttered as I tossed the box with the teddy onto the backseat and wiped a cold finger against the underside of my eye. When I didn’t say anything more, he sighed, rolling his window down to talk to Ford. The FIB officer was making his way to us. I had half a mind to accuse Ford of asking Marshal to drive me here and back, knowing I’d probably need a shoulder to cry on, and though he wasn’t my boyfriend, Marshal was a hundred percent better than taking my raw turmoil back to Ivy.

  Ford looked up as he angled to my door, not Marshal’s, and the tall man behind the wheel silently pressed a button to roll my window down. I tried to roll it back up, but he locked the controls and I gave him a dirty look.

  “Rachel,” Ford said as soon as he closed the distance between us. “You won’t be out of control for even an instant. That’s how it works.”


  Damn it, he had guessed why I was afraid, and embarrassed that he was bringing this up in front of Marshal, I frowned. “We don’t have to do it at my office if you’re uncomfortable,” he added, squinting from the bright December sun. “No one needs to know.”

  I didn’t care if the FIB knew I was seeing their psychiatrist. Hell, if anyone needed counseling, it was me. But still…“I’m not crazy,” I muttered as I angled the blowing vents to me and my hair flew up from under my hat.

  Ford put a hand on the open window in a show of support. “You’re probably the sanest person I know. You only look crazy because you’ve got a lot of weird stuff to deal with. If you want, while you’re relaxed, I can give you a way to keep your mouth shut about anything you want under just about any circumstance. Completely confidential, between you and your subconscious.” Surprised, I stared at him, and he finished, “I don’t even have to know what you’re keeping to yourself.”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” I said, but my knees felt funny. What has he figured out about me that he isn’t saying?

  Shifting his feet in the slush, Ford shrugged. “Yes, you are. I think it’s cute.” He glanced at Marshal and smiled. “Big bad runner who can take down black witches and vampires afraid of little helpless me.”

  “I am not afraid of you. And you’re not helpless!” I exclaimed as Marshal chuckled.

  “Then you’ll do it,” Ford said confidently, and I made a noise of frustration.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I muttered, then fiddled with the vent again. I wanted to get out of here before he really figured out what was going on in my head—and then told me.

  “I have to tell Edden about the sticky silk,” Ford said, “but I’ll wait until tomorrow.”

  My eyes flicked to the ladder, still propped against the boat’s side. “Thanks,” I said, and he nodded, responding to the heavy emotion of gratitude I knew I must be throwing off. My roommate would have time to come out with the Jr. Detective Kit she probably had stashed in her label-strewn closet and take whatever prints she wanted. Not to mention sniffing the carpet.