Wolf's Curse

by Kelley Armstrong

  “Please don’t move,” Byron says, his voice calm, deferential even. “It’s not loaded with silver bullets, but I’m told that isn’t necessary.”

  Mason meets Byron’s gaze. He doesn’t scowl. He just considers. Then he grunts. “Fine. What game are we playing?”

  “You’ll find out the rules soon enough.” Byron waves the gun. “Now, back up and join your boyfriend.”

  Mason’s mouth opens, but then it shuts in a firm line, and he walks over to stand with us.

  Byron whistles. A girl appears to our left, also armed with a gun. Thudding footsteps bring another guy running, this one holding a knife. Both are around our age, and I recognize the girl as one who’d eyed me as if I were a chocolate sundae. She’s not giving me that look now.

  “Fuck,” Mason mutters. “Necros.”

  I glance at him. His gaze cuts across our four captors. When I peer closer, I see that all four are glassy-eyed with exhaustion, though none as bad as Byron.

  Are the necromancers infected in a different way? They must be.

  Then my gaze lowers to Byron’s handgun, a mental nudge that takes a moment to resolve. I’d seen the rifle before, and that makes sense to have one in camp in case of a wild animal attack. But handguns? Those would not have been part of the conference supplies.

  “Anyone else out there?” Byron asks the newcomers.

  “Just ghosts,” the girl says. “The dead trying to figure out how to cross over. One of them was going around to the unconscious campers, trying to wake them up.” She snorts and shakes her head.

  “The blonde?” Byron says. “I didn’t recognize her.”

  “Long blond hair? Miniskirt? Yeah, that’s her. There were a whole group of those cheerleader types at the conference. She’s racing around like a chicken with her head cut off. Blondes.”

  “So these two are alone.”

  “You really think so?” Mason says. “Yeah, we left the others in the forest and came back to see whether you were serious about burning us at the stake. Just double-checking.”

  I ease back on my heels. “Tricia wouldn’t let us call our mother last night. The Pack is on the way now, including my father. You do know who Clayton Danvers is, right?”

  “Don’t know and don’t care,” Byron says.

  “Uh, Byron,” the guy with a knife says. “I’ve heard about his dad and—”

  “Don’t. Care,” Byron says, enunciating the words. “Daddy is a werewolf, right? That will make the tribute all the sweeter.”

  “Tribute?” Mason says. “Fuck. Don’t tell me this is a Hunger Games thing.” He looks at me. “It was nice knowing you, Danvers, but you are going down.”

  Pique flashes over Byron’s face. For a couple of guys held at gunpoint, we aren’t nearly as concerned as we should be.

  “Explain,” I say to Byron.

  “May I?” Byron’s brows shoot up. “Is this the part where I expound at length on my evil plan, giving you time to figure out an escape?”

  “Yes, please,” Mason says. “If you’d be so kind.”

  “You’re demon fodder,” the girl says. “There, you have the plan.”

  “Demon . . . ?” I say.

  “Fodder. Like cannon fodder only with a demon.”

  “We’re going to be shot out of a demon?” Mason says.

  The girl walks toward us, her dark hair swinging. “You have no idea what’s in this forest, do you?”

  “Marchocias,” I say. “Marquise of demons, along with her pack of hell hounds.”

  The girl stops short.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Did I steal your line?”

  “Wait a second,” Mason says. “Please do not tell me that you plan to sacrifice us to this Marchocias chick. Demonic sacrifice is so 1980. And if you tell us you’re running a Satanic cult . . .” He throws up his hands.

  “Marchocias,” I say. “Not Satan. Keep up.”

  “Marchocic cult? That’s a mouthful. Marchocian cult? Marcho—”

  “Stop.” Byron makes a noise that sounds remarkably like grinding his teeth. “You are a tribute for Marquis Marchocias.”

  “Marquise,” I say. “She prefers the feminine, and it’s important to use the properly gendered form of address. Also, I’m not sure I’d call her Marquise Marchocias because, technically, Marchocias means Marquis in Latin.”

  A gun fires. We all look toward Not-Pedro, who lowers his rifle and waves at Byron. “Are you going to let these losers keep yapping? They really will figure out an escape plan.”

  “I’m not concerned about that,” Byron says cooly. “In fact, I’d suggest they do keep talking. It will save us the bother of conducting another summoning ritual. Marchocias must have heard them yapping by now.” He smiles at me. “Please, continue.”

  “Enough of this crap,” Not-Pedro says. “Just call the demon and hand them over so we can get our boon. We must be out of the warded area, finally.”

  Another summoning?

  I sputter a laugh. “You didn’t expect the warding. That’s why you’re all so tired. Not a party—all-night summoning rituals. You were trying to call Marchocias into a warded area, which is like shouting down a disconnected phone line. It took you two days to figure out why she wasn’t answering.”

  “We figured it out,” Byron snaps. “We were trying to decide what to do about it when all hell broke loose because your dumb blond sister let everyone know you’re werewolves, and suddenly, they’re forming lynch mobs when we’re trying to summon a damn demon.”

  “Wait . . .” Mason says. “So you guys were running on your own agenda, trying to summon a demon to . . . do what? Massacre the entire camp?”

  They say nothing. His gaze moves from one to the other.

  “I was joking,” Mason says. “But you’re not. You really were offering her an entire camp of your fellow supernaturals. And they call us monsters?”

  “The greater the sacrifice, the greater the boon,” the girl says. “They weren’t innocent, either. Look what they tried to do to you.”

  “Because they were infected,” I say. “Between Marchocias prowling in the forest and you guys trying to summon her, something ignited the half-demons’ chaos hunger. They lost control. That’s why they came after us.”

  Byron’s jaw sets. “If that’s what you want to tell yourselves, go ahead. You don’t need to be a werewolf to understand survival of the fittest. Everyone has a dark side. Some use it to set monsters on fire.” He waves around his group. “Others use it to win a lord demon’s boon.”

  “Marquise not lord,” Mason mutters. “All right, so you think you’re going to sacrifice us to this demon. We’ve pointed out how ridiculous that is, but it doesn’t seem like you’re in the mood to listen. So get on with it.”

  They stare at him.

  “What?” Mason says. “You were in a hurry. We’re done talking. We don’t have an escape plan, and neither do you, so just get on with it.”

  “Neither do we?” Byron repeats slowly.

  “You idiots apparently think you can just call a high-ranking demon, offer us up, and she’ll say thank you very much, give you a reward, and not slaughter you all. That’s my escape plan.”

  They keep staring.

  “A werewolf and a vampire against four necros. Guess who the demon is going after first? Same as any predator.” He flashes his teeth. “Take the easy prey.”

  “Nice try,” Byron says. “But we’re protected.”

  “By what?” I say, looking around. “I don’t see a demon circle. Those don’t actually work very well, either, unless you’re a spellcaster. This is a high-ranking demon. She goes where she wants. She takes what she wants, and what she’s going to want—”

  “—is you,” purrs a voice from the forest. Marchocias strolls out and looks at Byron. “What have you brought me, little necromancers? The Alpha’s son?” She runs the tip of her tongue over her teeth. “Delicious.”

  “Cut the crap, Marchocias,” Mason growls.

  �
��Crap?” Her lips purse. “I do not believe I know this word. Edward, is it?”

  Mason scowls, but under it flickers the first twinge of panic.

  “We had a deal,” I murmur, barely daring to voice the words.

  She meets my gaze, throws back her head and laughs.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kate

  Logan’s trail is still on track toward the conference center. I keep thinking maybe it’ll veer away—hoping it will—but it doesn’t. He went back, and I should be with him. I’m moving fast, Elijah silently at my side. Chloe and Derek follow, and I catch snippets of whispered conversation, but I don’t pay attention. My goal lies ahead.

  We’re close enough to see the building through the trees when Chloe says, “Kate?”

  I glance back.

  “We don’t know what we’re walking into,” she says. “Derek’s going to Change. I don’t know if you want to, too . . .”

  I don’t want to. It’ll take time, and my brother is right over there. Derek’s right, though. We’re afraid of what we’ll find. Not only a potential demon, but the campers could have woken back into their infected state. We could handle any threat better in wolf form.

  I agree, and Chloe turns to Elijah.

  “I’d love to,” he says, “but right now, I’m a shape-shifter in name only.”

  She nods and goes off with Derek. Elijah sneaks me a look.

  “No, you’re not watching me Change,” I say as I walk to a thicket. “Pervert.”

  He sputters a laugh. “Okay, yes, I am curious. Apparently, Dad let me watch, but I don’t remember it, which at least means it wasn’t too traumatizing. But I suppose, since you need to be naked to do it, that’d be kinda inappropriate.”

  “I’m not worried about the naked part. We’re werewolves. We get over that hang-up fast. It’s just not my most flattering look. You’d never see me the same way again.”

  “Not possible,” he says, and his eyes warm in a way that sends a shiver through me. Then he pulls back, hands shoved into his pockets. “And I’m stalling you. May I stand guard? If my back is to you?”

  “Please. And no peeking, whatever bone cracking and agonized howls may erupt from this thicket.”

  He smiles. “Got it,” he says, and turns around.

  I worry that being stressed about Logan will impact my Change. It does, but in the right direction, pushing it along faster, and I’m out of the thicket in five minutes, six tops. Elijah’s there, surveying the landscape. When I nudge his butt, he jumps and wheels. Then he stops. Goes completely still as he stares down at me.

  “Wow,” he says. “That’s . . . wow.”

  He drops to one knee and then hesitates. “This is fine, right? You’re still you? That’s what Dad says, but I guess I should have asked before you couldn’t actually reply, huh?”

  I give him a look, and that must be enough because he chuckles. “Okay, dumb question. You’re still you.”

  He puts out a tentative hand. “May I?”

  I answer by rubbing against him. I’d never do that in human form, but there’s a freedom here, the change of form ensuring he can read nothing into it. The same must go for him as he runs his hands through my fur and touches my face and strokes my throat in a way that would be incredibly intimate if I were human. It still feels intimate, and I press against him, lapping it up until a throat clearing has us both jumping.

  “Sorry,” Elijah says as he twists . . . and finds himself face-to-face with a massive black wolf. He scrambles to his feet.

  “Whoa,” he says. “Kate makes a gorgeous wolf. You are just scary, my friend. One-hundred-percent throat-ripping potential.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Kate can rip out a throat just as well,” Chloe says. “Now, the best plan of attack—”

  A shot fires. An unmistakable gunshot.

  Chloe cries out in alarm, but I’m already gone, the earth flying under my paws.

  When I reach the edge of the clearing, a massive black wolf overtakes me, spinning into my path and snarling at me. I skid to a halt and snarl back. Elijah spoke the truth. In human form, Derek is an intimidating guy. As a wolf, he is terrifying, like the black dogs of myth, massive hounds that warn of death and deliver it with jaws wide enough to devour a man’s head.

  Derek snarls again, shaking his shaggy head, and even as I return it, mine comes more subdued now. That’s not submission; it’s admission. He is correct to slow me down before I lunge into a clearing where someone has a gun.

  I must approach with caution no matter how hard my heart is thumping.

  When I snap at Derek one last time, he only gives me an appraising look. Elijah catches up, and we creep toward camp, spread out in a line as we take shelter behind trees and bushes.

  Elijah stays to my left. When we halt, he crouches behind the same bush as me. His hand rubs my back, and I’m glad for that because we’re close enough now for me to see those stakes, smell gasoline and fire. And we’re close enough to see bodies on the ground.

  “Not them,” Elijah whispers.

  Not Logan and Mason, he means. That’s what I was looking for. When he confirms, I exhale in relief, only to feel my chest tighten.

  Relief that it’s not them, yes. But they’re still people. Still our fellow campers.

  “Remember that they’re fine,” Chloe whispers from a few feet away. “Just unconscious.”

  Elijah keeps rubbing my back, his fingers straying to the thick ruff at my neck, burying themselves there as he murmurs words of comfort. I let myself lean against him for a second. Then I straighten and turn my head to catch Chloe’s eye. She nods. Time to move.

  We make our way around the conference yard, staying in the forest. Derek takes the lead with Chloe close behind.

  A laugh rings out, high and unnatural, something in it scraping down my spine.

  Demon.

  I run. This time Derek doesn’t stop me. I’m moving at a silent lope through the forest as I circle the camp. Ahead, figures move deep in the trees. I veer that way, running full out and—

  A branch springs from the ground.

  I’d seen the fallen limb across my path, and there was no point in changing course—I wasn’t going to trip over it. But then, it flies up, and I hit it, the branch cracking against my forelegs as I pitch forward, and Chloe yelps, “Liz!”

  I recover, and Elijah’s there, his fists raised as he looks around for whoever lifted that branch. But there’s no one else here. The branch sails into the air again, swinging toward Elijah. I lunge, and my jaws chomp on the wood as I wrest it from . . .

  From no one. I feel resistance when I yank, but there’s nobody there.

  “Liz!” Chloe hisses. “Stop!”

  Chloe skids to a halt and addresses thin air. A ghost.

  Not just a ghost, but a poltergeist. Liz. Of course. I know from Sean’s stories that Chloe’s spirit guide is a telekinetic half-demon who died in the Edison Group experiments. As ghosts, telekinetic half-demons can wield objects with their hands instead of their minds. They’re poltergeists.

  I remember the invisible intruder in the kitchen, the one who’d made noise and so I’d thought it couldn’t be a ghost.

  “It was Liz in the kitchen yesterday, wasn’t it?” I say.

  Chloe blinks and then lets out a small laugh. “And that was you, wasn’t it? You and Elijah. She was scouting for me and said she’d tried to spook a couple of kitchen raiders.”

  Liz must say something, because Chloe turns to her and sobers as she listens.

  “The shot came from the necromancers,” Chloe says. “Liz overheard them. Three necromancer campers and a counselor. All armed.”

  “Necromancers?” Elijah says.

  “Hey, we can raise the dead,” Chloe shoots back. “We’re perfectly capable of evil schemes. And this one is . . .” She sobers. “Liz says they were trying to summon the forest’s resident demon. Marchocias.”

  “I think they did,” Elijah says. “That laugh sure sounded demonic
to me.”

  Chloe curses under her breath. “Right, so we need to—”

  “Marchocias!” a male voice rings out. “Honored lord of demons, your humble servants request a boon in return for that which we lay before you.”

  There’s a beat pause. Elijah and I glance at one another, his eyes as wide as I’m sure mine are, the same realization passing behind them.

  “Marchocias! Accept our sacrifices to you.”

  I run, Elijah beside me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Logan

  I knew better than this. I knew so much better than this.

  I’d snapped at Mason for reminding me that bargains with demons never go well. I’d defended myself by saying I had no choice, and I was not walking into this blindly. I knew what I was doing.

  How many dead supernaturals have said the same?

  Yes, yes, I know only a fool makes a bargain with a demon, but I’ll be different.

  No, you won’t because only a fool makes a bargain with a demon.

  Those who survive the encounter are no more skilled than the person who wins the lottery and credits their “system” for choosing the right number. They were simply lucky.

  We know people win the lottery. So we keep buying the tickets. We know people successfully deal with demons. So we keep making the bargains.

  “We had a deal.” I speak the words through my teeth, channeling my mother and praying I do not sound like a child whining that he’s been cheated in a schoolyard bet.

  “Did we?” Marchocias purses her lips. “I don’t recall signing any papers.”

  “You gave your word,” I say. “You made the oaths.”

  “Oh, you’re right!” Her eyes widen. “Yes, of course. I made the oaths, and if I go back on my word, my lord demon will punish . . .” She cocks her head. “Who is my lord demon again? I’m not even certain I recall. Last time we met was eons ago when we ourselves made a deal. I gave him something he sorely wanted, and in return, I would be free of any responsibility to him for all eternity. Oh, wait! There’s another reason demons keep our word. So that others will not hesitate to bargain with us. Well, so be it. You may tell everyone you meet in the afterlife how I did you wrong.”