Cry Wolf (31 page)

The pages stopped, fluttering where they rested as though disturbed by a draught.

At the top of the page, Kelly read,
TRANSFERENCE
.

The picture to the right of the spell showed a dripping athame. The spell itself read,
To purge the subject’s magic of impurities, drain its blood with athame and drip into clear quartz chalice. When chalice is filled to the brim, the subject can be laid to rest, purified.

As chalice cleanses the magic in the subject’s blood, prepare your vessel through meditation to receive transference. After the level of liquid shows a quarter drop, drink deep from the chalice.

Give thanks to the subject for its sacrifice.

“Holy shit,” Kelly breathed. She turned around, half expecting Abraham to be right behind her with another athame in his hand. Perhaps in some noir mystery or horror novel, he would have been there, but reality was less exciting. He was still sleeping, his arm outstretched as though beckoning to her. To stay.

The book flipped its pages again without her asking it anything. It opened to another spell, the newest spell in the book.

Kelly didn’t know whether Abraham had seen her coming. He had a crystal ball on another table, but she had discerned no familiarity in his expression when he’d first seen her. He had recognised her magic, not her. But even though he had claimed that he was not as prophetic as she, that didn’t mean he had no prophecies under his sleeve. Perhaps he’d known that someone was coming, someone with the power he had been searching for, but someone he would have to fix. That would make his new spell make sense.

TRANSCENDENCE,
subtitled
To remove impurities while leaving subject intact
.

The room shook, its contents rattling and rumbling. Kelly clenched her teeth and blinked back the burn of angry tears.

Abraham had waited until his magic had told him she was coming to finally figure out how to do what he had promised so many magical beings before her. At the same time that he’d practically begged her to stay with him, he had been planning to bleed Malcolm and take his magic in exchange for a pittance of posthumous gratitude. And he’d never considered she might be a little miffed about it when she found out.

Before she had come along, he had been perfectly comfortable killing every single part-human who came to him for help just so that they could augment his magic. And he’d thought nothing of it because they were only part-human, which might as well not be human at all.

She called her clothes back onto her body. They swirled around her, attaching and detaching as though they had no seams, then settled on her as though they had never been compromised. Malcolm’s clothing had been shredded after his initial transformation, and some of it had disintegrated entirely when Abraham had cast his wolf skin back, so she didn’t think she could reconstitute it. Now was no time for that kind of experimentation. Besides, they would be under cover of darkness.

Kelly went up to the bed. Abraham was a more attractive sleeper than Malcolm, as dignified in his rest as in his waking hours. Untroubled by the blood on his hands. She’d thought the blood on her hands was bad, but he had wrought a red flood with his.

She stroked his forehead without tenderness, the way one might touch the surface of water in order to reach beneath it.

He had not been born into a coven. Like her, he’d discovered what he was and found other people like him in his twenties. They’d found his way of doing magic chaotic, undisciplined and a little frightening. He’d quickly abandoned them, believing that they held him back.

But he’d also recognised his own limitations and sought a way to expand his power. In one of his rare prophecies, he’d seen that he would one day be a great man with great power. The magic hadn’t shown him how—he’d come to his solution all on his own. Through the repeated use of his transference spell, he had become the man he’d seen himself becoming, the one who wanted her to stay not because of what her power could give him but because he could be with someone with power comparable to his own.

She sensed no remorse. He had feelings—he wasn’t a sociopath. He had never lied to his ‘subjects’, simply let them assume ‘cleanse’ and ‘purge’ meant that he could remove the darkness like a tumour, that he could cut it away and leave the rest of the flesh unmarked and alive. People rarely came searching for the ones he took—they were loners, strays and rogues estranged from their clans, their packs and their covens. They were people who were often not missed, and if anyone came looking, he charmed them with next to no effort. He’d had one police officer come after him, an irritable sceptic. That officer now resided in the Salvation dormitories.

This was a man who fervently believed in his message. He had been born Jason Abraham Kinkaid, but he was Father to Many, to his congregation, to his subjects and their magic that now resided within him. And one day, perhaps he would expand Salvation and spread his influence. After all, he was a very important man, a man who had been called to a sacred duty from which he could not flinch, no matter what anyone else told him.

Kelly stumbled away. That was more information than she was used to receiving from a mind-trip. Usually, she pushed her way through nothing bigger than the mental equivalent of a small photo album—pictures and phrases. This time, all that information had come to her in a nanosecond, as clearly as if she had lived that life, as if she had always known it to be so.

“Stay asleep, you bastard,” she said. She didn’t bother to whisper. The soporific spell weighed like lead in her hand before she turned it over above his head. There was a brief emerald glow behind his eyes. Again, she had never felt it come on that strong before, but if it made him sleep for three weeks, she didn’t think
she
would lose any sleep over it.

She wished that she had scratched him with her real claws. And while the thought crossed her mind, she still couldn’t manage to actually
want
to bite him just so that he would have to purge himself. She had principles, too. Unlike Abraham, her principles weren’t usually homicidal. Well, once. And now that she thought about it…

“What’s going on?” Malcolm asked from the chair. He unfurled, stretched then stood up.

Kelly jumped back as though she had been caught doing something wrong.

“We’re leaving,” Kelly said. Even if she thought Abraham needed to be stopped, she had to get Malcolm out. Abraham had already proven that he was not above using Malcolm against her.

“What?” He still sounded half asleep, so she had to forgive him for not being quick on the uptake.

“We need to leave now.”

“I didn’t realise you were that kind of woman, sneaking out before morning. Isn’t it more polite to buy breakfast?” Malcolm asked.

“Look, Malcolm, I know you came here because of something that is crucial to your mental well-being. I know I promised to give him a chance. I did. I gave him a chance.”

“You gave him several chances,” Malcolm said.

“I— What?”

“Kelly, your sleeping spell wore off.”

She blinked, momentarily stunned. “Really?”

“Well, actually, it didn’t wear off so much as break. It happened very suddenly. Both of you seemed busy at the time.”

“When?”

“He was undressing you. You said something about will-breaking.”

Kelly tried to remember what had happened around that time. When Abraham had been manipulating her will, her memory got a little fuzzy between what she had wanted and what he had wanted from her. Then she nodded. “In my defence, I wasn’t exactly
here
at the time. I was having a vision. It snapped me out of his will-breaking spell, and I guess it snapped you out of the sleeping spell.”

“Did he use that on me?” Malcolm asked. “I was doing things I wasn’t sure I wanted to do, but it’s hard to be sure…”

“That would be will-breaking,” Kelly said.

“Anyway, I woke up after that. I eventually went back to sleep after things stopped being so noisy.”

Kelly didn’t blush often, but now her cheeks heated.

“How much did you see?” she asked.

Malcolm held up a finger. “No, see, the question is how much didn’t I see? That would take a lot less time to answer.”

“Oh God.”

She didn’t know why her face continued to be fuelled by a furnace. After all, it had been her decision, and it had served a purpose, even if the results had been quite a distance away from her original intention.

“Yes, I remember that being said on at least one occasion,” Malcolm said. “Although I can’t really throw stones in disapproval.”

“No?”

“I guess the sound of your thunder drowned me out. You think I didn’t enjoy it?”

And now she thought of all the things she had done. Fucking a murderer didn’t seem all that bad in private—a man’s skill in bed really had nothing to do with the blood sacrifices he was doing out of it. But having an audience… Kelly had put Malcolm to sleep not just to save him from Abraham playing his games, but also so she could do things that she normally didn’t share with others. She hadn’t wanted him to see her bring herself to a certain level, whether he had enjoyed it or not.

“Okay, shame and guilt and mortification aside, we still need to get out of here,” Kelly said.

“I thought shame and guilt and mortification were the reasons for leaving,” Malcolm said, grabbing one of the sheets from the couch and wrapping it around himself in a makeshift toga.

“You think I’d do that?” Kelly said, shoving his shoulder. “You think I’d make you leave from what you want most in the world just so I can save face?”

“What’s the rush then?”

“Oh, I don’t know, he’s evil?” Kelly said.

Malcolm shrugged. “I already gathered some of that, but I figured if the evil bastard changes me back…”

“And why would an evil bastard change you back?”

“For his amusement. To bolster his benevolent persona. To please you.”

“He doesn’t change magical creatures back,” Kelly said quietly. “He only discovered that spell a few days ago, maybe a week. He doesn’t save people, at least not the way you want to be saved.”

“I don’t follow.”

“He’s cleansing and purging magical beings six feet under. He was going to kill you. Oh, he was still going to purify you like he promised, but he was going to take your magic for himself.”

“So he’s a murderous evil bastard.” Malcolm didn’t sound surprised. Then his face went a little slack, as though it had taken time for the information to sink in. “And you didn’t tell me this at the beginning of the conversation? It strikes me as an introduction, not a closing remark.”

“You startled me,” Kelly said.

“While you were stroking the murderous evil bastard?”

“Excuse me, I was looking in his head to find out his plans,” she said.

“The whole ‘killing me’ part was vague?”

“I wanted to know why,” Kelly said. “So sue me. He was asleep. And he’s going to stay asleep for a while.” She took Malcolm by the forearm and started leading him out. They could argue on the way. “And before you ask, yes, I slept with him knowing he was a bastard. I’ve slept with bastards before. But I didn’t know he planned to kill you.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that,” Malcolm replied quietly.

“The thought crossed your mind.”

“Yeah, but I knew it was stupid the minute I thought of it.”

Kelly turned the doorknob and couldn’t meet Malcolm’s eyes. “Why?”

“Because you haven’t stopped helping me since you came to the sanctuary. I doubt you’d stop now just because you psychically knew the man was going to be a god in the sack.”

Kelly almost ran into Ahmir, who stood in the middle of the hall outside Abraham’s room. He unfolded his arms as he took in Kelly’s and Malcolm’s respective states of completely clothed and naked but for a blanket. Ahmir raised an eyebrow.

“I kind of thought it’d be the other way around,” Ahmir said.

“Long story,” Kelly said. “We’re going back to our trailer now.”

“If it’s still there,” Ahmir said.

“What?” she asked.

“A powerful wind storm came through this evening. The tent nearly got blown away. There was some car damage.”

“No people,” she said, hoping that hadn’t been a lie.

“Some injuries, but Salvation has healers. No need to look like you lined everyone up and shot them.”

“Good.” Kelly sighed. “That’s good to hear.”

She tugged Malcolm past Ahmir, but as they quickly continued down the hall, Ahmir called after them, “And where do you think you’re going?”

Kelly stopped, schooled her expression and turned around, trying to look nonchalant with a mostly naked man next to her. “The trailer, remember?”

“Father Abraham gave specific instructions,” Ahmir said. He took a few steps towards them, crossing his arms again. “No one leaves until he leaves.”

Kelly peered at him then drew back in horror, pushing Malcolm behind her. “Oh God, you know. You know what he does.”

“I know who does what?” Ahmir said.

“You know he kills us,” Kelly said.

Revelation dawned on Ahmir’s face. Then he looked sad. “Oh. Yeah.”

Malcolm backed up, and Ahmir almost advanced, but Kelly put up a hand to stop him. While Ahmir should have believed he could barrel her over like a car over an aluminium can, he halted without her having to put up a shield.

“And you’re okay with it. You agree with his philosophy that people like us—people like
you
—should be killed in order to be purified. You
help
him,” Kelly said, poking him in the chest.

He grabbed her wrist, but he didn’t squeeze. “Look, lady, I can tell you don’t agree, but I believe werewolves and all those other things need to be eradicated.”

“But you’re
helping
him,” Kelly said. “He’s not eradicating you.”

“He wants people to ask,” Ahmir said. “He wants them to see their error, at least for now.”

“That’s because sacrifice is more potent when it’s willing,” Kelly said, frustrated by his density.

“That makes sense,” Ahmir said, nodding as though convincing people to voluntarily lay their head on a sacrificial slab was understandable.