14
When all else fails in polite conversation with any supernatural creature, just smile and nod.
—Miss Manners’ Guide to Undead Etiquette
I came home to find that whoever had broken into the bookstore and attacked Zeb had made a night of it. My living room had been thoroughly trashed. My kitchen windows had been smashed with my own tea kettle. Upstairs, my bed was torn to hell, my soft sheets and quilts ripped to ribbons. My books were burned and torn.
“Right,” I growled, walking out the back door. I threw open the storage shed, the light of the full moon shining over my shoulder and bathing the complement of gardening tools in silver. I grabbed the first shovel I saw. Jed’s windows were dark, but I didn’t care at the moment. I got a cricket grip on the shovel handle and smashed the glass in Jed’s kitchen door. Gingerly, I put a hand through, but without cutting my arm to ribbons, I couldn’t reach low enough to get at the lock. I took a step back and swung the shovel at the doorknob, hoping to disengage the lock by brute force.
The shovel blade struck the metal knob with a deafening clang. I grunted, swinging again, the blade only glancing off the doorknob. “I really need to start going to the gym.”
As I once more raised the shovel over my shoulder like a bat, I heard a shuffling noise behind me and turned to find a hulking, dark shape looming in the darkness. A huge monster towered over me, with the legs of a man, a gray leathery torso, and a long, curved, and tapering snout. In the light of the full moon, I could see small, bright eyes and wide paw-like hands with razor-sharp claws. I screamed and swung the shovel wide, whacking the creature in the face with the broad side of the blade.
“Ow!”
Ow? Did the evil, drooling creature before me just yelp, “Ow?” I didn’t expect that.
Was this the strange shape I’d seen lurking in my back garden all this time? A creature that seemed to be covered in gray leathery skin and . . . was that an armadillo’s head? I’d watched a nature special on armadillos once with Nana. She called them “the sport-utility animal,” because nothing that ugly could go without purpose. The shovel’s handle slipped through my hands, the blunt blade edging my palms. I turned and swung for the fences, bringing the wood down across the creature’s thighs.
The thing dropped to its knees. “Ow!”
I whacked it again like a big monster pi?ata.
“Stop hitting me!” it yelled. “That hurts!”
Wait, I knew that smooth, honeyed-whiskey voice. “Jed?” I cried.
The creature struggled to its knees, glaring at me with glassy black eyes. I raised the shovel again. It held up its paws. “Truce! Truce!” it yelled.
With the doorknob smashed, the Jed monster simply nudged the back door open and limped into the kitchen. Mouth hanging open, I choked up on the shovel handle and followed. The moment the creature lumbered across the threshold, out of the moonlight, the shape morphed back into human Jed. His face bore a purpling bruise where I’d whacked him, along with a sheepish expression.
“Hi.”
It took several moments of shocked silence for me to process what had just happened before my very eyes. And I once saw my Aunt Lizzie set fire to her own eyebrows with a curling iron. After the sheer spectacle of Jed’s shape-shifting passed, I found my voice. And my voice was pissed off.
“You arsehole!” I shouted.
“Drop the shovel!” he yelped as I advanced.
“You stupid, no-good arsehole!” I yelled, smacking him repeatedly with my shovel-free hand. “What is wrong with you? You lie to me. You lead me on. You trick me into giving you information. And now you’re an armadillo monster?”
“Stop!” Jed grunted as I struck out at him. He smacked the shovel out of my hand, knocking it to the floor with a clatter. He caught one wrist, but I managed to poke him in the eye with the other hand. He cornered me against the counter, pressing his hips against mine and catching both of my wrists. I wriggled an arm loose and popped him on the chin.
“Ow!” He hissed, cradling his injured face. “What is wrong with you? Were you raised by freaking ninjas?”
“I have protective uncles,” I growled. “Lots of them. But I’m sure you knew that already, didn’t you? Didn’t you get that information in your Kerrigan spy orientation packet?”
“I’m sorry about that.” He groaned as I dug a knuckle into the sensitive hollow between his armpit and his ribs.
“What the hell are you?” I demanded as he finally released my arms.
“I’m cursed,” he said, and when I didn’t respond, he added, “I’ll make some coffee.”
Jed stepped away from me, and his eyes widened at the sight of blood on my shirt. Apparently, he hadn’t been able to see it in the dark. He pulled my arms away from my sides, looking for damage. “What happened?”
Oh, right. I suspected him of assaulting Zeb.
“Let me see your hands,” I demanded. Frowning, Jed showed me his unmarked palms. “Over.”
His knuckles were unmarred. There were no gouge marks or defensive wounds on his arms, although it was clear that Zeb had done damage to somebody. And Jed’s ability to change form didn’t seem to promote speedy healing, because the hand-shaped burn I’d left on his arm was still there, and that shovel smack to the side of his face was bruising nicely. So Jed wasn’t the one who beat Zeb.
That was something, at least.
“Someone came into Jane Jameson’s shop earlier tonight and hurt Zeb Lavelle. I found him on the floor, all bloody and battered. They had to take him to the hospital. This is probably a rude way to approach this, but it’s been a long night, and I’m all out of patience. I was pretty sure you did it. And I was trying to figure out a way to report it to the police without them hauling me away to the loony bin. I couldn’t.”
He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “Well, that was mighty decent of you.”
“I didn’t do it for you. You have some explaining to do.” I pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and sat watching while he made coffee.
“I told you before. My family is Cajun, really, really Cajun. At least, we were before the move to Tennessee. Stilt shacks, deep-fried alligator, zydeco music . . .”
“I get it,” I snapped.
“There was a local voodoo woman. And my great-great-great-grandfather pissed her off somethin’ awful, left her at the altar and ran off with some other woman. She declared that he’d been a two-faced cheater the whole time they’d been together. And that if he wanted to have two faces, she’d give him a thousand. He wrote it off as the ravings of a crazy woman, until the full moon a month later. Family legend is that he turned into some sort of two-legged gator creature. Scared the hell out of his wife. And from that moment on, every time he stepped out into the light of the full moon, he turned into something. Nearly every adult in the bloodline has been cursed, too.”
“What, like a werewolf?”
“I wish.” He sighed, putting a coffee cup in front of me and sliding into the opposite chair. “That would mean just one form. We can become anything. Scales, fins, fur, gills, bat wings. Every time it happens, it’s something different. We can’t control it. It just happens.
“For my family, this curse controls everything we do. It controls where we go, how we work, who we get close to. My dad had a big family, but I have relatives who refuse to get married because they don’t want to pass this along to their children. Do you know what that’s like, to see people you love choose to live alone for their whole lives?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I told him.
“Well, I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand having my father apologize to my brothers and sisters every time the moon rose because he was so wrapped up in guilt. I couldn’t stand the look on my mother’s face every time I changed into some new monster. So I started doin’ some research. I joined some Internet forums where people discussed myths and legends as if they were real. And I learned a lot about the different were-creature mythologies and curses. But no one could explain how it happened or what could be done to stop it. Until I stumbled into this chat room for witches, that is. I started askin’ some questions, makin’ contacts, and then next I know, some guy named Kerrigan is private-messagin’ me, tellin’ me he can solve my problem for me, lift the curse from my whole family. All I had to do was find some stuff for him, track down some valuables.”
“Why would he ask you in particular?”
He shrugged. “My user name is redneckcreature95. He said he needed some things from a Southern town, and after talking to me on the phone a few times, he guessed I could fit into the area better than he could. All he gave me was an address for this house. It seemed too good to be true when I showed up and it was for rent. And then, a few weeks later, he sent me a description of the objects and those pictures of you. He told me to keep an eye out for you.”
“So you moved here with nothing but a couple of clues and pictures?”
“I was desperate for help,” he said. “After a few weeks, I started thinkin’ I’d been bunked. I wasn’t makin’ any headway with Jane, who doesn’t seem to like me much. I couldn’t break into the shop to look around. Have you seen the security system on that place? What kind of bookstore has laser sensors on the doors, windows, and ceilin’? And then there you were, running out of the house in nothing but a towel.”
He smiled at me, and it seemed so sincere it made my chest ache. I had to bite back the urge to smack him. I would not be manipulated by pearly whites and puppy eyes.
“I tried telling myself that spending time with you, distracting you, was only helping myself, giving myself time to beat you to the Elements. And then you were just so damn sweet. Well, not sweet, exactly, but funny as hell, with generally good intentions. I wasn’t lyin’, that night at the motel, when I said I liked you more than I expected to and that it made things difficult for me. I sent Kerrigan a bunch of e-mails, callin’ him an asshole and tellin’ him to get some other monkey to dance for him. That didn’t go over well, let me tell you.”
Suddenly, Zeb’s attack at the store made more sense. The Kerrigans had received Jed’s kiss-off e-mails, if he indeed sent them, and they had come looking for the Elements at the shop. Zeb had the bad fortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“But how could you just keep lying to me?” I asked. “You knew me. I thought you were—well, I don’t know what I thought you were, but at least a friend. And you just kept lying. Our whole friendship is a palace of lies! And keeping the plaque? How am I supposed to trust you?”
“That mornin’ in Helton, I sat on the bed, and you were lyin’ there all sleepy and beautiful. And I just panicked. I wanted to be the kind of man who could go out with a girl like you any night he wanted, with no strings, no concerns. And I was willin’ to do anything to make that happen. I’m not proud of myself.”
“Did they tell you what would happen when you gave them the Elements?” I asked.
“Kerrigan told me that they were just a collection of old magical artifacts, that the value was sentimental, but that your family was looking for them, too, because you have a shared ancestor. He promised me that he could remove the curse if I helped him find the items before your family did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” I demanded.
“How? How could I possibly bring this up in conversation? ‘Hello, darlin’, how was your day? By the way, every once in a while, I turn into some monster from Scooby-Doo. Oh, and that mission that your family sent you on? I am doin’ everything I can to undermine it and find the Elements first.’ ”
I conceded, “That would be a date ender.”
“And don’t forget that you didn’t exactly give me the whole story. You didn’t tell me you were Wainwright’s granddaughter, or a witch, or anythin’. You gave me that bullshit story about coming from Boston.”
“Technically, that’s true. And really, you’re going to criticize the white lies I told to protect me from you?”
“Not when you put it that way,” he said. “After I took it from you, I wanted to give that stupid plaque back to you so badly, but then I would think of my parents and all of my younger cousins who are just now going through the changes. I’m sorry, I had to put them first. What would you do, to help your family?”
“Damn it,” I groused. “If you hadn’t said that, I probably would have been able to stay pissed at you—which I still am, by the way, and will be for a while yet.”
I lifted his wrist, inspecting the burn mark on his forearm.
“It still hurts as bad as it did the day you gave it to me,” he said, wincing. “Not that I didn’t deserve it.”
“You really did,” I told him.
I was tempted to leave his arm in that state. I hadn’t been able to heal Zeb earlier in the evening, after all, and it felt as if Zeb deserved my help more than Jed did. But hearing Jed’s explanation seemed to shift the energy within me. I felt I was back in balance and might be able to make my energy follow my intentions in ways that would help him.
I curved my hand around the burn mark and closed my eyes. However irritated I might be with Jed, that mark was my fault. I needed to fix it. Nana had told me to think of the healing magic as if my cells were reaching out to the other person’s and fixing all imperfections. I put my hand over the burned skin and pictured it bright and pink and new as a baby’s. I saw cool, soothing waves of energy flowing over the burned tissue and taking away the sting. And when I opened my eyes, I was relieved and grateful to see that his skin indeed was pink and healthy.
I would visit Zeb’s hospital room as soon as I could.
“Thanks,” he said, twisting his hands and admiring his newly repaired flesh.
“That thing I can do, healing you with my hands? If the Kerrigans get the Elements, that goes away. My whole family’s magic goes away.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Not good enough,” I said, toying with my coffee cup. “So you’re a giant armadillo monster.”
“I kinda wish you would stop putting it that way.”
“Not going to stop me from saying it,” I shot back. “I don’t understand why your status as a supernatural creature should change my plans to keep you as far away from the Elements as possible.”
“Because I can help you find what you’re looking for.”
He dragged an old-fashioned trunk into the kitchen and opened it. It was filled with small leather-bound notebooks, covered in dust. I gaped at the sheer number of volumes. “What?”
“They’re travel journals,” he said. “Mr. Wainwright seemed to travel a lot. I found this trunk while we were fixing some pipes in the basement.”
“So in addition to lying to me, you stole family heirlooms. You are just a charmer, aren’t you?”
“No!” he exclaimed. “OK, yeah, but I would have returned them to you eventually.”
“That’s a comfort,” I muttered. “Jane said Mr. Wainwright spent a lot of time looking for were-creatures and vampires, after he came back from World War II. She said he actually knows Sasquatch, who is Canadian, by the way.”
“That makes sense.”
I opened the first one I touched. The paper was dry and brittle, and tiny grains of sand actually shook out of the pages as I moved them. Here and there, pictures of a young Gilbert Wainwright in a pith helmet were tacked onto the pages. And the entries were carefully, meticulously written in—
“Are these hieroglyphics?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Your grandpa seemed to take learnin’ the local languages pretty damn seriously when he traveled.” He handed me journals, pointing out the language used in each. “Sanskrit, Chinese, Greek, and what I think is Old Norse. Other than looking at the photos and making a guess, I can’t tell where he was or what he wrote. He switches languages a few times in each journal. I’ve been through a dozen of them with different language guides, and I can’t make heads or tails of them.”
“Are you showing me these for a particular reason or just to give me fresh reasons not to trust you? Why didn’t you just turn these over to the Kerrigans?” I asked.
“If I just gave them the information, I couldn’t trust them to keep their word. I figured if I found the items first, I had a better shot.”
“Really nice people you’re dealing with,” I told him.
“What part of ‘desperate cursed man’ are you not getting? But I think you’re more likely to meet the terms of our agreement. And I want to help you, to show you how sorry I am about how things have worked out. I’m sorry, Nola,” he said. “I’m sorry I betrayed your trust. And I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”
“So what do you want from me now?”
“I don’t know, really. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I don’t know if you can help me. I don’t even know if it’s right to ask, considering what I’ve done.”
“You really hurt me,” I whispered. “I don’t trust people very easily. And I thought you liked me.”
“I did. I do!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t expect you to be so sweet or so funny. I thought you’d be a crazy, wild-haired old chick with a million cats and a black muumuu. And you show up, and you’re no-nonsense and terrified of small mammals.”
“Marsupials.”
“Whatever.”
“I don’t know if I can ever trust you again.”
“I have no reason to lie now. You know everything,” he said. “And I have something to make you feel better.”
“What’s that?”
He opened the fridge and took out a large green mixing bowl, displaying it with a flourish. “Banana puddin’.”
“You think a little pudding is going to make me feel better?”
“You haven’t lived until you’ve had real homemade banana puddin’.”
“Church-lady harem again?”
He pursed his full lips and gave me the puppy-dog eyes again. “There’s something I need to tell you about that.”
I gave him an exasperated look. “Oh, come on.”
“I made all of the food,” he said, cringing.
“Palace of lies!” I exclaimed. “Why—why would you lie about that?”
“I didn’t know what you liked in a man, and I didn’t want to come across all domestic and feminine. I happen to be a very good cook. My mama insisted that all of the boys learn to take care of the house, so when we found nice girls to marry, we would stay married.”
“I never saw you bring home groceries or smelled cooking from your side of the house.”
“You have a pretty regimented schedule,” he said, shrugging. “It was easy to work around you.”
“Is your name really Jed, or is that a lie, too? Are you really Gary Horowitz from Hoboken, New Jersey?”
“You still don’t trust me, huh?”
“I’ve said so, several times. I feel I’ve been very honest about it.”
“What’s it going to take to change your mind?”