But it was too late. The woman had locked eyes with me, and I couldn’t shake the gaze of her coal-black irises. Couldn’t will myself to look away or close my eyelids. I could hear the woman chanting something—some other language—but her lips weren’t moving. I’d experienced this before, but I suddenly couldn’t remember how or when.
“Use your stake, Grace!” Talbot shouted. But he sounded so far away. “Use it, Grace. Kill her!”
You want to give me your stake, the woman said without speaking. Hand it to me. You know that’s what you want to do.
I gripped the stake in my hand. I’d all but forgotten it was even there. A thick fog swirled in my brain, and all I could think was that I didn’t want this terrible weapon. I couldn’t kill someone. I wasn’t a murderer. I wasn’t a monster. If the woman wanted the stake, she could have it.
I slowly lifted my arm and handed it to her.
She clutched it in her talonlike fingers and laughed. I don’t know what Daniel sees in you, she said inside my head. You’re so weak-minded.
What? I tried to ask, but my lips wouldn’t move. How did she know Daniel’s name? How did she know who I was?
But maybe tonight he’ll be more fun to party with—she lifted the stake above my heart—now that you’re dead. She thrust the stake at my chest.
But then she froze as if shocked by something. Her eyes rolled back in her head, breaking the trance she’d held me in. The fog in my mind cleared a bit, and I realized I did know her.
“Mishka?”
“Little bitch,” she said, and disintegrated right on top of me.
All that was left of her was a pile of dust. A broken chair leg fell from her back as she disappeared. It rolled off the couch and across the floor, stopping when it hit one of Talbot’s sneakers.
“You okay, kid?” he asked, and held out his hand to help me up.
I cowered from his touch and scrambled as far away from him as I could on the couch while frantically brushing Mishka dust off my pants. “I … I … knew her,” I stammered. “And you killed her.” I turned my head from side to side, searching the room for life. It was empty except for two other piles of dust and a pool of acidic ooze that ate away at the carpet. My stomach lurched. I clutched at it with my hand. “You … You killed them all.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of what I do.” Talbot brushed his hand through his hair. He’d lost his baseball cap at some point during the fight. “What did you think, we were going to take them all out for ice cream and buy them puppies?”
“No. I thought … we’d deliver them to the police. But you killed them.” It didn’t make sense. I’d seen Talbot handle April’s silver bracelet without it burning his hand. I’d assumed he was just like me—an Urbat who had powers but who hadn’t fallen to the curse. A Hound of Heaven. But if this was the first time he’d killed somebody, shouldn’t he have changed into a wolf? Except … the way he’d handled that sword, this certainly wasn’t his first kill. There had been no hesitation there. “I don’t understand. A predatory act … if you kill a person, then …”
“These weren’t people, Grace. These were straight-up demons. The werewolf curse only affects you if you kill a human. The Urbat were created to kill demons. It’s what we do.”
“But you didn’t kill that one with the gun the other day.”
“I didn’t kill him in front of you because I didn’t know if you were ready for that. Apparently, you still aren’t. You’re far more green than I expected.”