Something to Curse About (17 page)

“Then you’re doing things right.” Mom smiled. “I knew before you woke up that you weren’t going to be the exact same little girl anymore. The news was full of coma victims waking up with special powers. I’m proud that you decided to use yours to help people. But I don’t need to be helped, Cordi. I don’t need to be protected, but informed.”

When she put it like that, I felt about two inches tall. Mom wasn’t finished. “I’m your mother. It’s my job to worry about you. Don’t keep me from doing my job.”

“Okay. I won’t, Mom.” I pushed the afghan off my shoulders and stood. She met me halfway and we hugged. “I really am sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. I know you did it because you love me.” She kissed my cheek and took hold of my hands while stepping back. “Now, are you going after the person who’s done all this?”

“Yes.” And by damn, I was going to nail his hide, whatever flavor it was, to the wall.

TWENTY-THREE

“Go with Discord.” Terra’s urging resulted in a shake of Logan’s head.

“I’m your Protector.”

“I’ll be okay with Sunny and the dogs.”

He glanced at me, tapping his fingers on his thighs, indecision marring his face with tiny lines. “I’m sorry, I have to stay with Terra.”

“That’s okay. I think I can get to the office on my own.” I didn’t want to be the cause of any more trouble for them. The teen’s bottom lip jutted out. “Seriously, it’s okay. I’ll feel better if he’s with you guys.”

Terra uttered something between a growl and swear word. Maybe it was a swear word in tiger talk. Logan started to speak, but she slashed her hand through the air. “Then I’ll go with you.”

I bowed out of the argument, going to the kitchen to help Dad collect the dog food. We loaded it in the back of Mom’s station wagon. Mom was busy making friends with the furry crowd. She cooed over the little dogs, but talked to Leglin and the pits as though they were human.

“I’ll call Rita tomorrow. When you have a chance, come over for dinner, and we’ll take a look at your finances to see what we have to work with.” Dad held out his arms, and I stepped into them for a hug. “Be careful, honey.”

“I will.”

He gave Mom a hug too, whispering something in her ear that caused a smile to bloom on her face. I began putting the Chihuahuas in her station wagon, and gave instructions to Leglin and Bone. “Keep the little ones in order for her, and don’t let anything bad happen to her, okay?”

“
Of course, mistress
.” Leglin inclined his head. “
You will call me if you need me?
”

“You betcha, bud.” I hugged him, and on impulse, hugged the other four large dogs. “I don’t know when I’ll get there, but I’ll see you guys later.”

All but Bone jumped into the back of the wagon. I looked at him. “Get in.”

He snorted and laid his good ear back. “
I’m going with you
.”

“I’d argue with you, but we need to go. Okay, fine. Come on.” After shutting the tailgate, I hugged Mom and told her I’d call later to let her know what was going on. Re-entering my apartment involved dancing around the two maintenance men fixing the door. “Can you lock up when you’re done?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.” I grabbed my purse and jacket before looking at the two shifters. “Mom’s about to leave.”

“We’re going with you.” Terra crossed her arms, giving Logan a definite Look.

He nodded. “We’re going with you.”

“Then let’s hit the road.” They followed me out to the parking lot, where we sent Mom and the dogs off. I took my car, with Bone riding shotgun. Logan and Terra stayed on my tail the whole way to the office.

Mr. Whitehaven came out to greet us, and drew me into a hug. I felt small and a little surprised since he didn’t tend to go around hugging people. But it felt nice, kind of like being hugged by a grandparent. “I’m pleased you’re safe.”

“Thanks, boss.” I directed a grin upward as he released me. “I’m glad to have two legs and a voice again. This is Bone. He’s one of the dogs that helped me while I was a dog.”

Whitehaven lowered himself to one knee and held out a hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Bone.”

The dog slapped his paw into my boss’s hand, offering a tongue-lolling grin. “
I like this guy
.”

Once Whitehaven regained his feet, we trooped inside and straight to his office. Kate, Jo, Damian, David, and Ronnie were all there, along with their familiars. None of the latter were talking. They were huddled in a corner, fur and feathers ruffled as they glared at their respective witches.

I introduced Ronnie to the two shifters while the boss crossed to his desk and sat down. She’d colored her hair a dark brown. It looked good, and I told her so.

“Thanks.” We hugged, and then I walked over to perch on the corner of the boss’s desk, since the couch and chairs were full.

Taking a deep breath, I let it out slow before speaking. “So, we all think Curseman’s gig is sacrifices to his god?”

“Either that, or to a god he wants to gain favor with,” David responded, pushing up his glasses. His fine hair stuck up in tufts all over, indicating he’d been rubbing his head a lot. “The problem is that we don’t have a way to discover which god it is. Most gods accept blood sacrifices.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You guys don’t…”

“We offer our own blood when necessary, Jones.” Kate’s crisp comment and level gaze told me I’d just lost a few brownie points for thinking otherwise. “We’re white witches.”

“I know, sorry, just…gah, never mind.” I twisted around to look at Whitehaven. “Any suggestions?”

“Before the Melding, gods tended to keep close to their origins. Now,” he spread his hands wide. “They go where they wish, at whim or in answer to calls from those who believe in them. The ah, Curseman could be offering these sacrifices to any of them.”

Body slumping, I scowled at his desktop. “There has to be something we can do.”

“All of the suicides have occurred at late afternoon or night, and Stannett has the entire department working overtime, patrolling the streets.” Damian scratched his chin. I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. “Unless we can catch him near the scene of one, I don’t know what to do. We can’t set any magical traps with no idea where the next may happen.”

“What about the old brewery in the Palisades?”

He sighed. “No one there when we checked it out. No one knows a damn thing. They never do in that area. It’s not safe for them to.”

Defeat clouded the room. It sucked to have so many people capable of doing so much, and yet here we all sat, powerless. I crossed my arms and rubbed Bone’s back with the toe of my shoe. “I’m going to think out loud.”

“Go ahead.” Jo kicked off her shoes, curled her legs under her, and twirled a hand at me. “Beats doing nothing.”

“The first we knew about Curseman was at the fair, when I stopped Rose from dying.” Which hadn’t actually saved her, but how was I supposed to know she’d been cursed and would finish the job? “There were six more suicides over the weekend. How many have there been now?”

Damian answered. “Ten more, for a total of seventeen.”

I winced. “How many were men and women?”

“Nine women and eight men so far.” He blinked. “What are you thinking?”

“Probably nothing useful. Do any gods prefer matched sacrifices? What about numbers special to them? I kind of remember something about threes and sevens, but no specifics.” In fact, the only three I could think of was the Holy Trinity, but I didn’t think the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were on the kill-people-as-sacrifices-we’ll-give-you-magic list.

Jo smacked David’s leg. He jumped and rubbed the spot. “There are some who have historically required sacrifices of male-female pairs. We can work on that angle, maybe narrow things down, see if your numbers idea fits any in particular.”

Terra cleared her throat with a tiny
ahem
. “Isn’t one of the things we need to look at like a pattern or something? There were more of them on the weekend, and less during the weekdays. Could that mean something?”

Bone rolled over so that I could rub his chest. I slid off the desk to squat next to him, and began scratching. “It could, but I don’t know what.” My fingernails caught on a scar. “Unless…Bone, when do the dog fights take place?”

He wiggled, stretching his hind legs as far as they would go. “
Keep scratching. They, yeah, right there…uh, at night. Start before dark sometimes. You missed a, ooh, found it. On the…
” he rolled over, scrambling to his paws and shoved his nose in my face. “
Weekends, when more people can come watch. That’s important, right?
”

“Yeah, it’s important.” I realized everyone was watching us and looked up. “He says the fights are on the weekends, when more people can come. Question is, how could that tie into more cursed suicides then?”

“Power.” I twisted around and popped my head over the edge of the desk to look at Whitehaven. His chin resting in one hand, elbow on the opposite edge, he raised the forefinger of his other hand. “Small deaths fueling the ability to create the curses, which lead to larger deaths which will draw the attention of the chosen god.”

Having always wanted to say it, I did. “Ah-hah! We can make a plan now.”

Damian was already nodding. “We find where the dog fights are being held…”

“Bust’em, and catch Curseman while he’s standing around, waiting to suck up power.” I twisted back around and scratched Bone’s neck with both hands. “Who’s a good boy?”

The pit snorted, but he stretched his nose toward the ceiling, both eyes closing. “
Yeah, yeah, I can show you the places they use
.”

“You’re awesome. He’s going to help,” I said to the others. “Of course, I still have a question about all of this.”

“Which is?” Jo uncurled her legs and checked her hair.

“What made Curseman focus on me? He cursed Chapman and sent him to my little brother’s school, where Chapman took Sean hostage. The curse passed from Chapman to me,” I paused, something not feeling totally right about that. “At least, we think it did. It didn’t pass to Sean—hey, are any of the victims kids?”

Damian’s “No” freed me to continue. “Okay, it didn’t pass to Sean, or to Betty, but it did pass to Dad after it didn’t work on me. Well, it didn’t work all the way, and after that,” I sighed. “He turned me into a dog. I have no clue how he knew…wait.”

“Wait what? Don’t keep us in suspense, Jones.” Kate rose from her seat and smoothed the front of her black satin pin skirt.

“My tracking sense woke me up, but the thread was a new color: black. What all can black stand for?”

“Death.” David’s response made me shiver. “Mourning, sadness, but it has positive uses too. Protection, binding, banishing…”

My skin prickled all over, and I shuddered. “So the black thread could’ve come from someone working a spell to get me to a certain place? Can somebody do that to a psychic? I mean, my tracking ability’s not really a standard one.”

“True, but with a god in the mix, one receiving sacrifices that please him or her, ah,” David’s brow wrinkled. “I believe I may be getting a headache.”

“Join the club.” Coming to a god’s attention had to be way worse than being on the demon hit list. “Okay, let’s say that’s how Curseman worked it, and it did work, because I always follow my tracking flashes. How did he know that?”

Everyone traded glances. It took a couple of minutes before someone offered up the obvious explanation, and it was Logan who took the hit for the team. “He knows you, or enough about you that he’d know you would follow through on anything like that.”

“It can’t be any of you. I don’t think it’s Nick.” Yet I had no clue how much he’d told anyone, say, members of his pack, about me. Patrick had called me Psychic Girl, but that didn’t mean he knew all about my abilities. I dropped my face in my hands and groaned. “It could be anyone. Someone Nick knows, or maybe even an elf, if Thorandryll gossiped. I am so stupid. I told him all about my abilities once, when we went to look at Fake Elf Guy at the morgue.”

No one agreed that I was stupid, so I let my hands fall and lifted my head. Damian tapped a finger against his lips. “Or it could be someone from the government. They have lists, and we’re probably all on them. I mean everyone who dropped into comas during the Melding. And people talk, even when they’re not supposed to.”

“I have company.” Feeling better, I managed a smile. “Cool.”

Kate clapped her hands together. “Alright, let’s settle who is doing what.”

“Knowing which god is probably important, so David and I will head back to the shop and research.” Jo slipped her feet back into her shoes before standing up.

“I’ll tell Stannett what we believe is going on. He’ll give us some officers to help check the sites. Kate, if you’ll go with me we can split into two teams and cover more ground.” Damian stood, and dug into a front pocket of his dark blue slacks. He tossed something to me. “Here’s your phone.”

“Thank you.” I dropped it in my purse.

Ronnie sighed. “I’d help check out the sites, but I’m not really good with spur-of-the-moment defense spells.”

“You can help us research,” Jo told her.

“What can we do?” Terra looked at me. “We want to help too.”

“Ah,” I met Logan’s eyes. “It’s probably best if you go home.”

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “No.”

Mr. Whitehaven chuckled. “I intend to help with the research, and would be happy to have your assistance, if that’s all right with Logan?”

I thought Logan would say no, after his reactions to my butting in on the steal-the-Queen episodes, but he agreed with no hesitation whatsoever. “Fine by me.”

Nick had yet to turn up. “Okay, Logan and I will drive Bone around, and get addresses for the sites. I’ll call you with each one, Damian, but we’re not going in alone.”

“Good plan.”

With that, our group broke up. The silent familiars took to the air or their paws to follow their witches. Before clearing the door, Illy looked over his shoulder, an uncharacteristically serious expression on his usually smiling face. I felt a twinge of guilt and stomped it down.