Taking Back Sunday (13 page)

“You don’t understand, Cyrus,” she cooed into his hair. Her voice was hardly a whisper of breathless want, but she knew his keen hearing was picking up every word. “It’s not so easy for me to…”

She paused, realizing she was losing her mind. She wanted to tell him everything. Her nose digging into his hair and her lips placing kisses around his ear, she wanted to express to him the danger they were in. His body felt so good that hers responded in opposition to her will. She was going mad with the urgency of her body. All sense of right and wrong was flying out the window. She needed to find a way to tell him without telling him too much.

“I have this thing, this problem. It’s like overheating or something.”

Sunday shook her head, trying to scramble together the right words as Cyrus repeated ‘overheating’ again and again, working his mouth down her neck, through her collar, onto her chest, all the while placing kisses, and pushing heavy, hot breath onto her skin. He mumbled the word relentlessly while she fought the turmoil that was brewing within her.

As Cyrus’ mouth reached the fabric of her dress, his hand slid up her spasming thighs, stopping only when it reached the hem of her underwear. He slid his fingers over the silken skin that joined her thigh and her pelvis. With no way to stop it, Sunday shuddered and she released a hoarse, throaty moan. It penetrated him, made him harder and more eager. Cyrus’ thumb caressed the wet spot of fabric over Sunday’s swollen mound, and she shuddered again, digging her nails into his arms.

Without warning, a wave of emotion crashed over them, the force of it throwing Cyrus off her body. Sunday grabbed the sofa cushions and braced herself from tumbling onto the floor. Eyes clenched tightly, her body thrashed. Cyrus collapsed onto the floor. Sunday howled as he watched her. Cyrus’ chest tightened as he felt the life ripping out from it and drawing itself to Sunday with unchecked urgency.

Sunday turned herself inside out, trying to grab the reins again, pulling them tighter toward her. Her eyes shot open as the rocking of the earth ceased, and she glared at Cyrus with blinding fury. Her eyes were clouded over and grey. She looked every part the wild, vicious goddess she was purported to be.

“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out!”

Without a second thought, Cyrus leapt to his feet and tore out of the house.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In the matter of a couple of days, Sunday’s cookie-cutter life had shattered. Her friends were caught in a black magic web. She fell hook, line, and sinker for a guy. The
wrong
guy. And she was back to stealing cars and holing up in crappy motel rooms. Absolutely everything about the last few days was literally the worst thing that had happened to Sunday in
years
.

Had it been the war movie she was watching, she would’ve called these last few days “the shit.” She’d gotten to that pivotal scene where everything went haywire, and she had to decide whether to take arms against the enemy or to run away. She was in the shit. Bullets were raining down. Chopper blades were cutting into the air above her. Enemies surrounded her. She was armed to the teeth. What choice did she have?

Curled under the stale hotel room sheets, she watched as shots rang out and echoed through a war-torn city in Vietnam. The sniper scene from
Full Metal Jacket
was on TV. “Born to Kill.” It was written on one of the soldier’s helmets. The Joker. She shuddered at the thought that she had been born to kill.

Sunday had been camped out in a hotel room in Augusta for over a day debating her options. The werewolf hadn’t landed in her lap by coincidence. Cyrus knew who Sunday was,
what
Sunday was. She had been conned. If Sunday had been conned, then it was solely to forward her capture. That’s it. He knew her, he wanted her, and that’s all Sunday needed to know. She was in danger, and if
she
was in danger, then so was anyone around her.

Of course, it was all her fault. All of it. The conjuring of black magic at Kayla and Sammy’s coven
had
to be her fault. She was the Incarnate. Fate would always find a way to drag her into its claws. If there was a werewolf after her, then her friends were in danger too. If Cyrus couldn’t find
her
, then he would surely go after her friends.

The minute I meet a hot guy… This magic-shit always finds me… Screw Fate… You just
had
to invite him over! What did I miss? Why does this always happen to me?

The pity party took precedent above all her other thoughts. And what a waste of time it was. Nothing would change for Sunday, just like nothing ever had changed for her. The minute she eked out something worth getting excited about, it was as good as etched in stone that it twisted up in Incarnate business.

Failing to see a way out of this stupid mess, Sunday, once again, fell into research, finding her latest search still loaded on her browser. Neither Michelle nor Vicky was as much a suspect of the black magic sorcery as Constance. Constance was stronger than Michelle. Michelle seemed too boring, too bland. Whatever intangible expression it was, Sunday’s sights were set solely on Constance now. Something tugged Sunday forward toward Constance. The same feeling, perhaps, that nipped at her heels when she’d seen Cyrus in the movie theater. Sunday was done ignoring it.

Ugh.
Just the thought of how she practically launched herself at him made her want to throw up. So much for the impossibly amazing and awful ability of the Incarnate, eh? Give her a hot guy with a beard and she’d just as soon throw her panties at him and beg to be taken captive. Shame made Sunday want to bang her own fists into her head and scream wild obscenities at herself. But she had to focus. If things were bad before, when it was
just
some bad mojo slithering around her friends’ coven, then things were about to get much worse with some werewolves involved. Where there was one werewolf, there would most certainly be another. Pack animals, that’s what they were. She could call bullshit on everything Cyrus had told her about himself. If he was after her, then she bet there was another not too far behind.

As much as Sunday knew that she needed to high tail it as far as possible as quickly as she could, Kayla and Sammy were still in danger. The urgency that the situation with the coven lacked before was amped up to eleven. There was no way that Sunday could walk away. This was all on her. It followed her everywhere she went. If she was going to do something about the black magic looming ominously over her friends, then she was going to have to do it now.

Sunday’s sickness over the situation with Cyrus only fueled her to get back to Columbia. She would have to break into Constance’s house, and whether Constance was there or not, she would have to find out what was happening. Before that, however, she needed to warn Sammy and Kayla from participating any more in the coven.

No more rituals. No more ancient text discussion. No more witchcraft.

She would have to tiptoe around what she’d left behind and hide in the shadows of her former life while she found and connected the dots. The little bit of things that she scrounged up from her temporary home were the last of her things she’d be able to take with her. At least, she knew the face of at least one man who hunted her. She could do her best to avoid him, and if push came to shove, take him down before he knew what hit him.

The second Sammy opened the door, Sunday spewed.

“You can’t be in the coven anymore! It’s dangerous.”

Sammy laughed in her face.

“You look like crap, Sun,” Sammy said. “Why don’t you come inside and have a lemonade or something?”

Grabbing her by the waist, the mundane woman ushered her haggard-looking friend into the living room. She shoved Sunday onto the sofa and told her she would be back with refreshments. Sunday could see Sammy’s boys and husband playing ball through the sliding glass doors that opened into the backyard. Sunday was trying to protect this life, Sammy’s life with her family. Sammy returned with a cold glass of water and took a seat on the chair facing her friend.

“You can’t go back, Sam. You have to listen to me.” Sunday was visibly upset. She hadn’t slept, and it showed. Her hair hadn’t been brushed. Her clothes were wrinkled. Her hands trembled as they reached for the glass Sammy handed her.

Sam leaned closer to her with a wide, brilliant smile on her beautifully makeup-free face. Her hair was picked up in a bun at the top of her head, and her bangs wisped to the side where they curled around her ear. She had no idea that something had been going on within the coven. Her closest friend was the furthest thing from a powerful witch as she could be. It finally dawned on Sunday how long this could have been going on without either of her friends realizing it.

“Sunday,” Sammy began, her voice warm and consoling. She grabbed Sunday’s hand as she continued. “I know you’re scared. You can’t imagine how weird it was for us the first time that Kay and I entered the circle.” She squeezed Sunday’s hands lovingly, all the while drowning Sunday’s blood-shot eyes in compassion.

“I understand where you’re coming from, I really do. But it’s okay,” she continued. “It’s really okay. You don’t have to go back if you don’t want to, but I’m going back, and I’m sure as shit that Kay is too. It’s a part of our lives now. Has been for a long time.”

“
Sam
…” Sunday grabbed a fistful of her own hair and yanked on it. “You and Kayla mean the world to me.
The world
. And I know you think that I’m
scared
, and it’s really nice of you to think that, truly it is, but I don’t think you fully
appreciate
what being in that coven could potentially lead to.”

The mundane woman’s eyebrow shot up. Her expression morphed from offended to amused, as she considered that, of all the people in the world to take something seriously,
Sunday
was not it.

“You’re cute, Sunny, but you’re not
that
cute.” Sammy’s lip curled into a sly grin, and she shoved her friend playfully. “I don’t know
what
has gotten into you about this whole thing, but it’s
really
not that big a deal.”

“If it’s not that big a deal, then you wouldn’t
need
to go.”

By now, Sunday was beyond looking cute, or whatever her friend wanted to call it. She felt every bit the drain of the last few days, and every bit the defeat of Sam and Kayla’s unshakeable stubbornness. She sighed wearily and slumped into the sofa.

“
You
need this just as much as we do, girl. You know it, too. But if you don’t want to go, I respect that, and I know Kayla does too. You’re just gonna have to wait till the
after party
to hang out.” Sammy winked.

To her friends, witchcraft was all fun and games.
Yeah, fun and games until someone ends up going insane from a psychic lobotomy.
If she’d had the energy to cry, she might do it right now. Instead, she just moped.

Nothing Sunday could say would convince Sammy otherwise. They spent another few minutes together, during which Sunday fought with every ounce she had to keep from telling Sammy the truth, the whole truth: the truth about how she’d known something was amiss, the truth about the werewolf stalking her, and the truth about the things that could happen at the behest of a dark witch. It was too much for Sammy to handle. It was unbelievable, insane even. It would have brought their friendship and her friendship with Kayla to an impasse. From there, it would be impossible to try to protect them and to try to find out the truth about Constance.

By the end of it, Sammy didn’t relent. She assured Sunday that all her hesitations and concerns were coming from the fear of learning, for the first time, that the world was a much more complex, beautiful, and magical place than she had previously known. Sunday could have slapped Sammy for her condescension, but she couldn’t have expected the outcome would have been any different without admitting that, all this time, Sunday had been lying to her. Their naiveté was enough to make Sunday cry.

By the time Sunday reached Kayla by phone, Sammy had already gotten to her with news of her visit. Kayla gave her a variation of the same sorry excuses that Sammy used to comfort her. Sunday wasn’t getting anywhere with trying to convince them to avoid their coven, and she wasn’t going to get anywhere if she kept insisting.

Sunday realized that she’d done all she could do. She gave herself a couple more days in Columbia during which she could scrounge up as much as she could about Constance, the other women, and whatever curse was laid on her friends’ coven. That was the best she could do. For a couple of days, she could hide from Cyrus. For a couple of days, she could pick up the loose ends, and try to
maybe, just maybe
save her friends’ lives. But after that, she was gone. Her fault or not, things would only get worse if someone got their hands on her again.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was far more difficult to follow Constance around than Sunday had realized. Constance’s address had been easy enough to find, but by the time Sunday had arrived at Constance’s house the next morning, Constance was already gone out for the day. Without a place of employment that she could check, Sunday was left with no choice but to stay in her parked car, continuing her research, this time on Michelle, while she awaited Constance’s return.

The research on Michelle didn’t turn up anything that Sunday hadn’t already guessed. The most radical thing about Michelle was her mommy blog. Michelle’s blog was a glorified family diary. The entries Sunday read didn’t mention anything suggesting Michelle was anything other than a mundane working mom, wife, and sometime-crafter. She mentioned some friends by name, and some of those friends followed her blog and replied with inane “I remember that! So much fun!” comments and emoticons.

Unlike Constance, nothing online hinted that Michelle was secretly perpetrating curses on her neighbors. So far, the most likely suspect of the dark witch embedded in the coven was Constance. Sunday was about to end her search on Michelle and shift the focus to Vicky when she stumbled across a curious artifact that she somehow failed to notice. On Michelle’s blog, there was a picture of the mother and her son, then six or seven. Both in party hats, her son sat on her lap behind a birthday cake. The photo was innocent enough that Sunday had just scrolled past it on the screen previously. It wasn’t until she spied the pendant on Michelle’s necklace that Sunday bothered to look closer.