A Curse in Darkness by Sherilee Gray

Chapter 6

Willow

In the centerof the room, a man stood laughing—he was covered in blood, and there were two mutilated bodies at his feet, both women. A third he held by her throat. She was bleeding and terrified.

Judging by his colorless eyes, twisted expression, and the way the vine markings on my side burned like actual fire, I’d say I’d just found another malevolent spirit.

If I didn’t do something now, the woman he was holding was dead as well.

Fuck.

Swinging my satchel around to the front, I shoved my hand inside and grabbed a handful of salt from the side pocket. Usually, I’d use it to contain the soul, but right now my need was more immediate. I rushed him and tossed it in his eyes. He roared, dropping the woman.

Gripping her arm, I yanked her back toward Ren. He grabbed her, dragging her away as I quickly took another bag of salt mixed with cemetery dirt—not something I usually carried, but this latest task had me stocking up—and stabbed it with my blade.

I ran in a tight circle around him before he realized what I was doing. He hissed, watching me with wide, revolting black eyes.

“Everyone out!” I yelled.

The people standing around in obvious shock had no idea what this was, but they scattered, a stampede of terrified humans running for the door. Ren crouched over the injured woman, pressing his hand to the deep wound across her stomach, trying to staunch the blood.

“What do I do?” he said, sounding terrified.

“Get her to the hospital.”

The possessed man rushed forward and hissed when he came up against the barrier I’d created.

A siren wailed in the distance. “Someone’s called an ambulance. Get her outside and wait.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Get her out of here, then bring me the bag from the front seat of my truck.” I’d packed it to take to Warrick’s in the morning, but it looked like I’d be performing an exorcism right now.

I spun to him when he didn’t move. “Ren…”

“She’s dead,” he said, eyes huge.

“You’re sure?”

He nodded shakily. “What do I do?”

“Put her down, and go get the bag from my truck, okay?”

He nodded, laid her down carefully, and quickly rushed out of the bar.

I turned back to the possessed man, doing my best to stay calm. “Who are you?”

“Your worst nightmare,” he said.

I couldn’t help it; I snorted. “First, that was embarrassingly unoriginal, and second, my nightmares are a lot worse than a creep like you.”

“You want to play with me?” he asked. “I wonder if your insides are as pretty as your outsides?” He rushed me again, and this time he was shoved back by the salt barrier.

It’d hold him for a little while, but we couldn’t hang out in this bar indefinitely. The cops were coming, for one thing.

“Where did you come from?” I tried again.

He moved forward, as close as he could, and I held my ground, my blade gripped tight in my hand while I reminded myself that the face this monster was wearing wasn’t his own. This was some poor, unsuspecting human. He could have a wife or kids at home.

Killing had to be the last resort.

A crash came from the back of the bar, and I turned as Ren, in his fox form, my bag gripped in his mouth, rushed in. He made a chuffing sound, a warning.

“The cops?”

He yipped.

Shit.

He dropped the bag and I scooped it up, my heart racing. There wasn’t time for this. It took time to mix the oils, to get in the zone, to prepare the room. My hands started to shake.

I was failing.

I was failing my family, and I was failing this man and the women the fucker possessing him had murdered.

The door crashed open, a gust of wind rushing in as an officer charged through it. A section of the salt circle was swept away, and the spirit charged me. Ren jumped up, flying at him. The man grabbed him by the ruff and flung him hard across the room. The cop fired off a shot, and the man dropped, the bullet hitting him in the shoulder.

Something hit me, an energy like forked lightning carried on molten wind, knocking me off my feet. I landed hard on the ground.

The cop was shoved aside by invisible hands, his shoulder hitting the wall, knocking him down as well.

The man screamed suddenly, his eyes wide and filled with horror, staring at the blood on his hands. The agonized cries he made as he scooped up one of the dead women lifted the hair on the back of my neck.

“What have I done?” he choked out in horror. “Why…why did I do this?”

The spirit had exited his body, leaving him with the living purgatory of remembering everything he’d done while he was possessed.

The cop by the door wasn’t moving, but there were more police coming. And there was nothing I could do—for either of them.

I needed to get out of there now.

I ran to Ren. He was too big for me to lift and far too heavy. He may be a fox, but he was a shifter, which meant he was a lot bigger than one in the wild.

“Can you walk?”

He nodded, and we rushed out the back, ducking into an office when more police busted down the back door and ran into the bar. As soon as the coast was clear, we quickly left, sticking to the shadows in the parking lot. Pulling a scarf from my satchel, I tied it around Ren’s neck and hoped like hell he’d pass for a dog. Just a random woman walking her dog at night.

We made it back to the truck, skirting the crowds gathering, and Ren jumped into the front with a yelp of pain. I fired the Morris to life and got the hell out of there before the street was cordoned off and we were stuck. Ren shifted back into his human form and opened the glove compartment where he kept a spare pair of shorts and slid them on.

I glanced over at him. “Okay?”

He nodded, but said nothing. He wasn’t okay. And I wasn’t just talking about the horrible gash in his side. He should be with a witch who could give him what he needed. The witch I used to be, full of fun and laughter. Having adventures that didn’t involve him having a woman die in his arms and being attacked by a man possessed by an evil spirit.

Jesus, where had the spirits come from? I’d thought I was dealing with one rogue entity out to do harm, but I’d been wrong. There were at least three. One would be bad enough, but of course, it wasn’t that easy. And now more humans were dying.

“I need to find out where the spirits came from. That was insane.” I glanced over at my silent familiar. “Ren?”

His fingers were clenched into tight fists, and he was staring silently out the window. Shit. My sweet fox wasn’t cut out for this, no fox was cut out for this. It just wasn’t in their natures. I was hurting him, he was hurting himself, and I didn’t know how to stop it, how to help him.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I never should have taken you in there with me.” When he was a kid, he was always joking around, playing pranks—fun, cute things that made us crack up. He’d bring me gifts, too, all the time, things he’d made himself while he ran in the woods. His nature had been all fox, as it should be. I was turning him into something else.

“That won’t happen again,” he said, voice low, devoid of emotion.

“What?”

“I’ll follow your orders, Willow, and I’ll learn to fight, properly…how to handle a weapon.”

I turned back to him. “No, Ren, I don’t want you to do that. That’s not you. I know it’s hard, but I think…I think we need to…”

“No.” His eyes were glowing gold in the dark cab of the truck. “You can’t tell me to go, I won’t do it. And you can’t…you can’t keep leaving me behind.” He took in a shuddering breath. “Please.”

My heart shattered in my chest. That’s exactly what I was thinking. Anything to prevent him from being hurt again. I loved him, he was my family, and seeing him like this was killing me. “But this situation, it isn’t right for you.”

The gold in his eyes flickered. “I was…” He cleared his throat. “I was born to be by your side, Willow. If I’m not your familiar, then I’m not…I’m not anything.” His gaze turned wild. “Don’t send me away. I’ll do better. I can do better.”

Pain arrowed through me, and I reached over and grabbed his shaking hand and squeezed. “I promise I won’t send you away. I need you just as much as you need me.” And it was the truth. The bond went both ways. I don’t know what I’d do without him. But, yeah, I’d been pushing him away lately. My goal had been to protect him, instead I’d hurt him even more.

“Promise,” he said.

I gave his fingers another squeeze. “Promise. You really want to learn to fight?”

Determination transformed his handsome face. “More than anything.”

If he wanted to do this, I had to help him. He had to learn to protect himself or I’d lose him. I nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“We’ll dress your wound, and then you need to get a good night sleep, because you’re coming to the hounds’ clubhouse with me in the morning.”

His brows lifted. “Really?”

“Yep.”

He needed to know how to fight in both his human and animal forms, which meant he needed to learn from other shifters.

There was nothing else for it, I had to throw my sweet fox to a pack of hellhounds.

* * *

We pulled up at the house, and Mags and Iris ran out, Brody right behind them.

“Where did you go?” Mags said as she opened my door. Her gaze shot to Ren, only realizing in that moment that he was sitting beside me, and her eyes widened. “Ren, oh god, what happened to you?”

“I’m fine,” he said and shoved his door open. He got out and Mags rushed around to help him.

“Inside,” I said to him. “We need to take care of that wound, then you can crash on the couch.”

He nodded and strode inside. He still seemed dejected, and I hoped taking him with me tomorrow wasn’t a terrible idea. But honestly, I was out of options. I could ask Rocco for help, I guess, but though the knights shifted forms, they weren’t “shifters” as such. No, I’d stick to my plan. It was the best I had right then, and I’d never forgive myself if Ren was hurt again because I let him come with me so completely and utterly unprepared like I had tonight.

“You need me to stick around?” Brody asked, looking concerned. His muscled arms were folded, blue gaze alert.

The last thing we needed was another overprotective male on our hands. “Thanks, Brody, but we have it covered.”

“I’ll give you a call in the morning,” Iris said to him and gave him a quick kiss. He stared down at her for several long seconds, obviously reluctant to leave, but then nodded and gave her another kiss before striding back to his grandmother’s house.

We headed inside. I was cleaning Ren’s wound when Mom walked in.

“Doesn’t anyone sleep in this house?” I muttered.

“Not when one of my girls vanishes in the middle of the night without even leaving a note,” she said and moved closer to inspect me. Her gaze slid to Ren and the cut in his side. “You’re not giving up, then?”

Ren’s jaw got hard. “No.”

She patted his shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look that was sure to make him feel even worse.

“How about everyone go to bed and we can talk about this in the morning?” I said, trying and failing to not sound as impatient as I felt. It wasn’t that long ago I’d lived full time in the back of my shop. Mom had no idea what I was doing any given day or night, and considering I was twenty-six years old, that was exactly the way it should be.

“Speaking of notes,” Iris said and put two pieces of paper in front of me.

I glanced down at the top one, more than a little surprised by the name I saw, and squashed the tiny flutter of my long-dead, school-girl heart. “Did he say what he wanted?”

Iris shook her head. “He called the house yesterday morning. I forgot all about it. He wanted your number. I said if he didn’t already have it, it was because that’s the way you wanted it.”

I inwardly grinned. Iris was like me in a lot of ways.

Mags twisted to read the note. “Clayton Whitlock!” she shrieked. “Why is he calling you?”

“Wills dated him in high school,” Mom said.

Mags spun to me, her eyes huge. “You dated Clayton Whitlock? The Clayton Whitlock?”

“Yes. It was a very long time ago.”

“Holy hell, the guy is so freaking hot. Did he dump you or did you dump him?”

“I dumped him.”

“Are you insane!” she cried. “I would kill to be with Clayton Whitlock. I can’t believe no one ever told me about this!” She yanked her phone from her back pocket, tapped the screen, and turned it to me with a sigh. “He posted this today. Look at him. Look at those abs. Good god, just look at all that perfection.”

He was by a hot tub, hair artfully tussled, grinning at the camera, his sculpted chest and tight abs on full display.

“Clayton Whitlock,” Mags muttered. “I can’t believe no one told me you dated him.”

“Can you stop saying his whole name like that,” Iris said. “You sound deranged.”

Mags flipped her off, and I glanced down at his name and number written on a scrap of paper and scowled. I’d really liked him once. He’d been funny and sweet. Then he’d cheated on me with one of my friends. He broke my fledgling romantic heart, squashing my dreamy-eyed fantasies, and solidified my already strong feelings of distrust and relationships when it came to men—thanks to Mom and her many and varied asshole boyfriends.

He was a fairly powerful witch now, the Keeper of his own coven. The Whitlock’s were nowhere near as strong as us, but they did okay. They were loaded, though, running several businesses, one of which was importing rare and highly sought-after ingredients for spells and potions, and other witchcraft related relics. He’d be in the midst of his final task now, like me.

Keeper or not, I had no idea why he’d call me. We had absolutely nothing to talk about. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in years.

“He said to ask you to call him, that it’s important,” Iris said.

I screwed up the paper and tossed it in the trash.

Mags shrieked. “What are you doing? You can’t just throw Clayton Whitlock’s number away!”

I shrugged. The other note, well, not a note, it was an invitation. Some ball, a gathering of the Keepers from each coven. Pass. I tossed that as well.

Iris snorted, then headed up to bed, Mags reluctantly following her when Mom gave her a shove toward the door.

“Your family doesn’t think I can protect you,” Ren said when we were alone again.

I covered the wound on his side with gauze and tore off a piece of tape. “I don’t need you to protect me, you know that, right? I have all these magical fighting skills, and this wicked awesome knife,” I said, patting the knife at my hip. “Being someone’s familiar isn’t only about that.”

His jaw worked. “I know, but you’re a Keeper now. And it doesn’t change the way I feel.” His gaze turned hollow. “It doesn’t change what I need. This tie to you is part of me, and every time I fail you, it…it tears me apart. I know I’m not what you need. You should have a familiar who is your equal. I’m not, not yet. So yeah, I know you don’t need me. But I need to be needed by you, and right now I’m more of a hindrance than a help and it fucking sucks.”

I moved around and cupped his sweet face. “I need you, Renny. You’re my best friend, my family. Don’t ever think I don’t need you. Not ever.”

His amber gaze met mine before he dipped his chin, and I could see that he didn’t believe me and that killed me.

“I’m ready to train, Wills,” he said, that determination hardening his beautiful face. “Whatever it takes, I’ll make sure I’m worthy of being your familiar.”

I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him tight.

He already was. I only wished he realized it as well.