Black Beast (19 page)

“I get it.” Her mother's love was stifling; Catherine felt as if she were being poisoned.

“All right. Wash up, then. I can smell the dirt on you. But we're going to continue this conversation later.”

“I can't wait.”

Her mother turned to leave, but then paused. “Oh, and Catherine?”

“
What
, Mom?”

“Have you been leaving your window open at night?”

Wordlessly, Catherine shook her head.

Mrs. Pierce looked around, frowning as she rubbed her arms through the sleeves of the house dress. “It feels like there's a draft in here. Maybe I should have your father come in and check your window,” she muttered as she left, swatting at what she thought was a fly.

It wasn't. It was a stray particle of black magic.

The book's aura quieted to a steady pulse.

•◌•◌•◌•◌•

If the shifters were in the process of negotiating a contract with the Slayers that would be grave news. All witches loathed—and, though they would never admit it, feared—the Slayers, but Finn had more reason to hate them than most. He'd been captured and tortured by them eleven years ago, when he was still more boy than man. He still bore the scars around his wrists.

They had been etched with an iron blade, and had never fully healed.

Witch blood was used by Slayers for practicing black magic. Magic particles flowed freely through witch blood, which made it a highly desirable source. The more powerful the witch, the higher the concentration of free-roaming magic particles, with Quads being the most sought-after.

Slayers used iron blades, with black handles, called athamés. Perversions of the Wiccan blades of the same name. Iron could not be spelled or enchanted—witches had no natural defenses against that dark metal—so they were the tool of choice for many when dealing with his kind. It was also ideal for collecting witch blood, since it did not absorb the magic the way other elements did. Magic was precious, and Slayers did not want an ounce of it to go to waste.

Finn was well familiar with the alchemical processes that went into transforming magic into black magic. The Slayers spun the blood through an iron centrifuge. The high speeds, combined with the reactions of the magic to the iron container, caused the magic particles to implode, and when their energy extended outwards, it reacted to the iron, again and again—until it changed.

Into black magic.

Black magic sought out its opposite like the two poles of a magnet. And once they collided, the effect was always catastrophic. Knowing this, the Slayers would spell bullets and arrows with black magic. When fired at an Other, they went straight for the heart—and they never missed. When they caught Finn, and drained him, he was given a demonstration. One he never forgot.

His scars burned, the way they always did in times of stress. He slammed the door to his hotel room behind him and leaned back against it. The gnarled pink lines of upraised flesh intersected perpendicular to his veins. The Bracelets of Misfortune, they were called. Slayers commonly cut there; it was the best way to drain as much blood as possible without killing the intended.

At least, not right away.

They would have killed him, eventually. He was too powerful, and the Slayers shook in their boots at the thought of the Others. It was why they hunted them down so ruthlessly. Fear could drive one to violence as quickly as anger could. If they had known who he really was, they probably would have slashed his throat over a basin rather than risk keeping him around.

Slayers also performed various experiments on witches. Like killing their familiars, to see what happened. Graymalkin butted her head against his shin. He scooped her up under one arm as he walked to the bed. When he lay down, she wriggled free from the crook of his arm and climbed up on his chest. Since familiars were a magical extension of the self, it was like having an entire portion of one's brain obliterated, all at once. Madness was the usual result. Or death.

Graymalkin shuddered, and the gold half moons of her eyes disappeared. He ran his fingers through her bluish-gray fur, until she stopped shivering and her beating heart began to calm. Every one of her thoughts flowed into his head, as his did hers. It was a two-way connection, like the ebb and flow of the tide. Cyclical. Perfect. He wasn't sure what he would do if anything ever happened to her. Only that he would do everything in his power to keep from finding out.

•◌•◌•◌•◌•

Lucas was already at the kitchen table by the time Catherine made it downstairs.

She'd been hiding the book. Had to, since her parents kept barging into her room whenever they pleased. For ten minutes, she'd dawdled, trying to decide where to hide the book. Eventually she decided upon the back of her underwear drawer. She was pretty sure it was the only place her parents didn't dare snoop.

Gods, she'd about had a heart attack when she saw her mother react to the book in the same way she had. Her father hadn't noticed anything was amiss. Why could her mother feel it, when her father couldn't? Was the book getting stronger—or was it something else?

She reached out to ruffle her younger brother's hair and froze, hand still outstretched. Because there were little particles of black magic clinging to her fingers, and they were trying to burrow into her flesh. She could see them wriggling, like black maggots, and knew that there was no way she wanted these—these things—getting under her skin.

Mrs. Pierce came out of the walk-in pantry as Catherine was waving her hand in an attempt to dislodge the particles, and gave her daughter a very strange look. “What are you doing now?”

“Nothing!” said Lucas. “Just sitting here.”

“Not you. Your sister.”

Now they were both staring at her. “I had something on my hand.”

“Ew! She put something in my hair! I felt it!” Lucas began combing through the blonde strands frantically. “Get it out! Get it out!”

“I didn't put anything in your hair, dingus. As if I'd want to touch that disgusting mop.”

“Enough!” Their mother's eyes went from warm hazel to the gold of old Spanish doubloons, suggesting she was a hairsbreadth away from Changing. “Both of you. Stop. Now.”

The threat was more convincing when they were young, but it still did the trick in a pinch.

Catherine leaned back in her chair and poured herself a glass of ice water from the carafe, affecting indifference. Over the rim of the glass, she regarded her brother as she drank. His eyes were fixed somewhere between his hands, both of which lay flat against the table. Large hands, still too big for his body, as if he were a puppy. Mrs. Pierce was always saying that he took after their great-uncle Albert, who'd been 6'7”, and with his strong Nordic features—permanently arranged in a mischievous Loki grin—quite resembled her brother, who, with his blue eyes and tawny hair, didn't resemble anyone else in their short, dark family.

Great-Uncle Albert been killed in the War, by a witch.

Right now, Lucas looked more like Vitharr than Loki. The god of silence and of being pissed off. Patron god of the disaffected Nordic youth. “You're grouchy today,” she observed in the silence that followed as their mother left the room once more. “Did you have a bad day or something?”

Lucas grunted.

She took a deliberately long sip of water. “Well, that makes two of us.”

Grunt.

“Don't be such a drama queen. Whatever it was, I'm sure it wasn't that bad.”

Silence.

Didn't he have a not-quite-girlfriend? Kathryn? No. Christine? No. What was it? Caitlin. Yes, that was it. “Did Caitlin ignore you today or something?”

“That's none of your business,” he growled, looking at her with blazing eyes.

She'd hit a raw nerve, there.

“Fine.” She poured herself another glass of water. “Guess I won't be talking to you either, then.”

Little shit.

“Leave that out,” he said, when she got up from the chair to put the carafe back in the fridge. She looked at him, unmoving, until he grudgingly added, “Please.”

Catherine set the carafe down in front of him. Keeping his eyes trained on the pouring water, he said, “You can be a real bitch sometimes.”

“It gets me through the week. We can't all be hulking giants like you. Gotta survive somehow.”

“Yeah, well, it's still a pain.” He took a big gulp of water, draining half the glass in one go. “There was a club day at school today. Principal Lee gave us double lunches to look at all the tables.”

Catherine remembered Principal Lee. He used to crack jokes about her having to pay rent, since she spent so much time in his office. “Did you join a club?”

“Caitlin wanted me to join this club called Sterling Rep. It's run by some college-age guy named Mike, but it sounds like a club for real pu—” his eyes flicked towards the door Mrs. Pierce had left through “—anyway, it sounded lame. I was going to join anyway, but—”

“But?”

Mrs. Pierce walked back into the kitchen with a jar of pickles.

Catherine looked at Lucas, frowning. He shook his head. Her frown deepened.

Whatever he had been about to say, he didn't want to say it in front of their mother.

“You two are being awfully quiet,” she observed. “You weren't fighting again, were you?”

“Nope.” Lucas gulped down another large mouthful of water so he would be unavailable for further questioning. Mrs. Pierce turned her eyes on Catherine instead, who shot Lucas a dirty look.

Sneaky jerk. He beat me to it.

Lucas stuck out his tongue at her.