Tainted Blood (Hell's Belle Book 2) (26 page)

After getting cash from Max for everyone’s coffee, Eva and the El Camino roared away. Al covered his eyes when Eva fishtailed on her turn onto the road.

"She's a menace behind the wheel," he groused. "But I needed a break from that woman. She replaced my whiskey with aloe vera juice.
Dios mío
, Nina, who the hell drinks aloe juice? It makes you crap your brains out."

"She's just looking after you, Al." Eva was good for him. She got his hackles up. 

"I think that broad's trying to kill me."

"Nah. She'd have done it by now," Frankie quipped.

"So, are we going to do this?" Max said, pointing at the paper bag Frankie was still holding.

"I don't know what I need to do," I said, throwing a subtle hint at Casper, who hadn’t yet appeared.

Al nodded towards the rotting porch and front door. "You have a working stove in there?"

"Nope," I said. "No propane, no electric."

"Fireplace?" he tried again.

"Don't think so. Do I?" I asked, looking at Frankie and Max. They spent the night in there. The one time I was in the house, I wasn't worried about cooking for a dinner party. I was almost killed.

"There's a fireplace," Frankie said. "But you'll probably burn the house down if you try to use it."

"That may not be a bad thing," I grumbled.

"Gather some firewood and we'll do it the old-fashioned way," Al said as he surveyed the landscape. "Nina, grab a bunch of those old stones from the well. We'll use those to ring the fire."

Al took charge and put us all to work. He woke Darcy up and sent her and Max out to look for dry wood and kindling. He was putting together a makeshift contraption to hold a pot over the fire. Then he sent Frankie and me in the house to find a pot with a lid. I tried to beg off, but he insisted that we go together.

"You got to face your history, Nina. Only then can you face your destiny." Al’s face, weathered by years of hard drinking and hard living, looked almost wise. Until he added, "That's what my daddy used to tell me before he passed out."

The stairs to the front porch sagged under my weight. The wood on the top step snapped and my foot fell through, knocking me off balance. Frankie caught me before I landed on my ass.

I pulled my foot through the hole and gingerly made it to the house’s entrance without another incident. The front door was surprisingly solid. I leaned in and got a closer look at the center, just under the boarded up windows. There was a small pentagram etched into the wood.

Frankie pushed the door open, and the musky smell of rotting wood and mold nearly overwhelmed me. I coughed and futilely waved the odor away with my hand.

From the entryway, I took in the house. Delicately flowered wallpaper was yellowed and peeling in the foyer. A splintered staircase to the second floor took up the back wall, and a parlor room with slats for walls was on the left. To the right, next to the staircase landing, there was a dining room, with the door to the kitchen just beyond.

"Ready?" Frankie asked, pressing on my lower back, gently urging me forward.

Gritting my teeth, I crossed the threshold and entered the house. Then I plowed forward, through the dining room and into the kitchen, where I came to a dead stop. The sink had a pump handle and a spigot.

Frankie grinned and pointed at it with a Vanna White flourish. "See? Indoor plumbing!"

"Let's just get this over with," I grumbled, heading straight to the cabinets and yanked the first one open. "You check the pantry."

With the exception of cobwebs and mouse droppings, the cabinets were bare. There was a lone spoon in the silverware drawer, and that was the extent of my findings. I hoped Frankie had better luck.

"And Bob's your uncle!" Frankie's triumphant shout echoed through the house.

I cringed as plaster from the ceiling hit the floor, his resonant voice the cause. He emerged from the butler's pantry with white dust in his hair and on his shoulders, holding a rusty cast iron cauldron out in front of him.

I brushed the plaster dust off his shoulders and then took the pot from him to inspect it. "And a cauldron to boot?"

"Probably your mother's," he said. "Looks like crap but it'll do."

I sighed and glanced out the window to the cemetery in the back. A crumbling stone wall surrounded it, and it was closed off by a broken iron gate. The headstones appeared to be old and simple, with the exception of an ornate mausoleum towards the back.

"Frankie, how long was my dad in the U.S.?" I asked.

Frankie was bent over, fluffing the plaster out of his tresses with his fingers. He threw his head back with a dramatic toss, his jet black hair landed wildly around his shoulders. "Long time. Civil War maybe. We tried our hand at New Orleans first, but it was way too witchy."

"So you guys headed towards Salem?" I smirked.

"Why are you asking?"

I pointed at the cemetery. "I know that's not my mother's family. They are all in Mexico."

He stepped up behind me and looked out the window. "You think they are relatives?"

"Probably not," I sighed.

"Have a look at the headstones then."

I shook my head. "That place is haunted and some sort of spell is locking the ghosts in. No way am I crossing that threshold. It might be like a tripwire. How about you take a look for me?"

"So you want to send me on a stroll through a haunted cemetery?"

"Frankie, you're already dead! It's not like they can body jump you."

He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. "Is there a reason you keep bringing up my deadness?"

"It's a point of fact," I countered.

"It's rude," he chided.

"I don't mean to be," I said as I raised my eyebrows at him, not sure if he was teasing. We always joked that he was technically dead.

He touched my shoulder gently, and then ran his hand down my arm. "I'm saying I've never felt more alive in my life."

"That's because you almost died," I said.

"Not so sure about that." Frankie leaned in towards me, gently taking my hand. He dropped his control over our binding, and I caught my breath as a wave of his emotions overflowed through me. The intensity of it weakened my knees, and I wobbled on suddenly unsteady legs.

He dropped my hand quickly, shutting his emotions off from me as suddenly as he opened them up. "Sorry."

"I see you found something," Max said, his sudden appearance making me jump. I dropped the heavy cauldron, moving back quickly so that it didn't smash my toes. It wedged into the floor between me and Frankie, partly breaking through the brittle wood.

The three of us stood in the decrepit kitchen, trying not to look at each other. Frankie looked chagrined. Max looked wounded.

So of course, that's when Casper finally showed up. "Damn, woman. What did you do to them?"

"It's about damn time you showed up," I snapped, bending over to pry the cauldron out of the wood. Once I'd liberated it, I marched out of the kitchen and out to the fire that Al was tending. We had a potion to make.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I didn't think a ghost could pace, but Casper was so edgy that he kept jerking me around Jackson's kitchen. I understood why his nerves were on edge. Hell, mine were too. We were about to dose Jackson’s daughter with the wolfsbane potion, and there was a chance we would kill her.

Darcy sat at the kitchen table, absorbed in her laptop, which was hooked into Jackson's Wi-Fi. Every few minutes she looked up and surveyed the scene, and then went back to her typing.

Jackson wasn't exactly a cool cucumber either. His eyes turned their wolf yellow-gold as soon as we showed up, and they remained that color. It was clear he wasn't happy about doing this, but he had no real choice. Because he was acting slightly wolfed out, Max and Frankie stood like bodyguards on either side of the clean but generic kitchen. Max had his hand close to his gun holster, which was kind of useless without silver bullets. Frankie had my silver-tipped stakes in his pocket.

We think Al had successfully removed most of the poison from the wolfsbane back at the farmhouse, but the potion had to be ingested by the kid as soon it was spelled. So now Al took the lead on making the potion in the wolf's kitchen. He stood over the rusty old cauldron steaming on the stove, muttering incantations. The house filled with the sharp scent of ginger. There was still a chance that the kid would react, especially if we got it right.

"What about a protection spell?" I muttered out loud, jarring Casper.

"For when her father tries to kill us?" Casper asked. He was very wary of the werewolf. He felt threatened, which was weird because there was no way a werewolf could harm a ghost.

"No, for the kid," I grumbled.

"Good idea," he said as he brightened for a second and then his mood fell again. "No, sorry. Can't use. It will protect her from the wolfsbane so it won't poison her, but then it won't heal her either."

"Right. Shit. I hate these rules." I flopped into a chair next to Darcy, who only gave me a cursory glance before turning back to her typing.

"Who the hell is she talking to?" Jackson lashed out, beads of sweat breaking out on his brow.

Incredibly, Darcy shushed him, completely absorbed in whatever was happening on screen.

"Get the kid," Al said, his voice low. There was no point in holding off. It was time to do it.

Jackson nodded and got his daughter from the living room, where she was watching cartoons. She looked scared. What else could we expect from her dealing with a room of supernatural creatures.

"Hey, kiddo," her dad said soothingly, "you know how your bones have been really hurting? Well, this guy and this lady here have something that will make you feel better."

Her eyes widened to saucers, taking in a gruff, unshaven Al, who sipped from his flask, finally refilled with whiskey in Eva’s absence.

The little girl turned to me. "Robert says that he overheard Nurse Farrell telling Mrs. Murphy that she was worried I had bone cancer. Can you cure bone cancer?"

I did a double take, startled. "Oh sweetie, you don't have bone cancer. I promise."

"Then what do I have?"

I chewed on my lower lip. "It's genetic."

"What's generic?"

"Genetic. It means it runs in the family."

Jackson rubbed her on the head and glared at me.

"She doesn't know?" I muttered to him.

"Know what?" she asked, while her dad gave his head a fast shake.

"About growing pains," Al stepped in.

"Daddy explained all about growing pains, like how your bones sometimes hurt for no reason. That means they're getting bigger. But these don't feel like growing pains."

"Well, you and your daddy just happen to have growing pains that are different from other growing pains," I tried. Damn kids. They were usually the smartest ones in the room.

"And you can make my growing pains not hurt anymore?" the little girl asked hopefully.

Relief flowed over me. She was going with it. "Just the really bad ones. But since you have to keep growing, you'll still get normal growing pains."

"Okay," she said, looking both Al and me up and down. "Are you doctors? You don't look like doctors. Especially him."

Frankie laughed out loud.

"Alternative medicine," I said.

"What's that?"

"It means she listens to indie rock and wears flannel on the weekend," Frankie quipped without missing a beat.

"Oh okay," she shrugged. "I like Katy Perry."

"Sometimes I do too," I confided, and she smiled.

"Me, three!" Darcy looked up from her typing long enough to give the little girl a big grin. With her white-blond hair streaked through with cotton candy pink, she looked like a living doll. She was a little girl's dream.

Al plucked out a piece of the wolfsbane root from the cauldron and handed it to the girl. "Sweetie, I need you to chew this like gum. It's very important that you do not swallow it. Just chew okay?"

She popped it in her mouth and began to work at it, making a sour face. "It's hot," she whined.

"Temperature hot, or spicy hot?" I asked.

"Spicy hot. Like when I eat chicken wings."

"That's the ginger," Al explained to her dad, who was growing increasingly alarmed. "Nothing to worry about."

"How do you feel, honey?" Jackson asked, ignoring Al.

"Fine," she said. "It tastes better now. A little bitter but mostly like ginger ale."

"Do you like ginger ale?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Me too!" I smiled.

"Just like you like Katy Perry!" she brightened.

"How long does she have to keep that in her mouth?" Jackson asked through gritted teeth.

"Just until she can't chew it anymore," I said, watching the kid carefully. "Casper, anything I should be watching out for here?"

"If she clutches her stomach and keels over?"

"Not helping," I whispered through my smile.

"I don't know," he said. "This is Al's thing. Maybe if she turns a funny color?"

"How do we know if it worked?" I asked Casper quietly.

"If she doesn't turn anymore," he said. I could almost feel him shrug.

"Still not helping," I sing-songed.

"Jackson," I said, trying another tactic. "Do her growing pains happen intermittently or does she conjure them somehow. Like when she's upset?"

"You don't know if this is going to work, do you?" he huffed.

"We just need to make sure it did," I said quickly. "That's all. A precaution."

He gave me a dirty look but bent down to his daughter's height. "Sweetie, can you try to do that thing that makes your bones hurt?"

She shook her head violently.

"It shouldn't hurt anymore," I reassured her. "It'll let us know if this medicine worked. You want to make sure it worked before we go, right?"

I saw the little girl’s chest heave in a sigh. Then she squished up her face and waited. We all stared at this kid standing in her jammies in the particle board and laminate kitchen with a strained expression on her face, waiting for her bones to break as she turned into a wolf.

She relaxed her face and smiled. "It worked!"

My breath rushed out in relief.

"Spit that thing out, sweetie," Jackson said.

She spit the wolfsbane root out into his hand. She gave me a quick hug and then skipped back to her cartoons in the other room.

"Our work here is done," Al said, collecting the cauldron off the stove and heading for the door. He wasn't too keen on hanging out in a werewolf's house.

"We held up our end," I said, nodding towards the sound of blaring cartoon music. "Now you need to tell us where you're meeting the woman with the blood bags."

Jackson handed me a piece of paper. "This is where I am supposed to meet her. Four o'clock this afternoon."

I unfolded the paper and looked at the scribbled address. "Veterans Memorial Auditorium? That's where you meet?"

"What about the place?" Max asked.

"It's in the middle of Providence. Next to the statehouse."

Darcy looked up from her computer. "Really? Address?"

I handed her the paper, and her eyes darted between it and her computer.

"I thought it would be someplace more remote," I said to Jackson. "I didn't think you guys liked going into the big city."

"We don't like it, but we do it," he said gruffly. "You're done here, so get out."

He crossed his arms and glared at us. I noticed his eyes were still wolf-gold. Considering his kid was out of danger, I thought he'd relax a little. Guess he didn't like us at all. So much for hospitality.

"Let's go," Frankie said, following Al out the door. "Darcy, come on. Computer off. We're out."

But Darcy was already on her feet before she had even closed her computer. We shuttled out the door and into Max's SUV. Jackson followed us and stood behind the storm door, arms crossed, glaring.

"You're welcome for helping your kid!" Max snarled right before he turned the ignition. We peeled out of the driveway before we were seat-belted into place. "What the hell was that about?" Max asked, more than a little pissed off.

"Something's not right," I said. "No way would a shifter regularly meet a stranger in the middle of Providence by himself. Absolutely no way. They’re pack animals, and they can't cope with the city by themselves."

"Providence isn't a big city," Max suggested.

"Doesn't matter," Frankie jumped in. "They don't like crowds or humans. If they have to go to a city, they go as a pack. Never alone."

"For him to go into the city alone? It don't add up," Al agreed.

"Neither does this," Darcy added, her laptop open again. "This is the screen I was looking at when we were at his house."

She turned the computer towards me, then to Frankie. Max gave it a quick glance while he drove.

"What are we looking at?" Max asked.

"I was trying to trace Babe and Dr. O through their mobiles last night while we were waiting for you. I had the generator, and tethered the laptop to my tablet. I figured we were just waiting. It was worth a try."

"Okay," I said.

"So, nothing. I got nothing. Their mobiles weren't on, or they weren't in range of any cell towers."

"Which would make sense in Mexico," Al said with a shrug. I didn't quite get what she was getting at either.

"That's what I figured," Darcy continued, "which is why I didn't say anything. But when I started up the computer at Jackson's house, the program was still up and started running when the Internet kicked in, and it picked up both signals."

Frankie turned to look at her. "So where the hell are they?"

"I don't have Internet access now, but the last ping put them in Providence," she said. "Near Veterans Memorial Auditorium."

The car was eerily silent as Max crossed the state line back into Rhode Island.

"Go straight there?" he asked, breaking through the quiet.

"Wait, there's more," Darcy said. "There is some sort of press conference and demonstration going on at the statehouse this afternoon because of what happened at the concert. And the exorcisms."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know exactly. I got the news alert on my phone when you guys were cooking up the wolfsbane back at the farm. I didn't think anything of it."

"Bertrand called a damn press conference?" I asked. My fangs began to slip into place. I was furious.

"I think it started as a demonstration," she said, scrolling through her phone while she talked. "Your eyes are doing that crazy vampire thing, by the way. Anyway, yeah. The reporter called it a demonstration and said that the mayor would be there to explain how they were handling the meth epidemic. They still think it's drugs."

"Well, that's a relief."

Frankie looked back at us. His eyes were vampy too. "There's no such thing as coincidence, and right now there are way too many converging in one area. We'll need to gear up first. We don't know what we're going into."