The Amber Lee Boxed Set

by Katerina Martinez

  “Look,” Frank said, whipping his head around and squaring off with the werewolf. Aaron didn’t flinch. “You told me to go and do whatever I had to do to help her. This is, to the best of my knowledge, our best shot besides killing her—and none of us want that to happen.”

  Aaron puffed his chest in an effort to assert his presence in the room. It was a trick his father taught him during his stay in Vegas and, now that he needed to assert himself against Amber’s beast more regularly, it had become somewhat of an instinct. “No one’s killing her,” he said.

  Frank’s eyebrow cocked and he straightened himself. “No one,” he echoed. “But if we’re going to help her we need to take risks, and this is it. Collette may have had a better idea but she isn’t here anymore so this is the best we can do.”

  Aaron noted the coppery smell of fear oozing out of Frank like a warm mist. He had rarely smelled Frank’s fear, but he recognized it when he did possibly because of its scarcity. He realized then Frank had no idea what had just happened to Aaron; this witch hadn’t a clue of the haunting which had gone on moments before his arrival.

  “Tell me more about this reliquary,” Aaron said, averting his eyes from the bag. Instinct? “How can it help her?”

  Frank and Damien exchanged concerned glances. “We’re not sure that it can,” Frank said. “Look, before you get mad, understand that this is unknown territory even for me. I’m going on a hunch. A good one, but it’s still a hunch.”

  “A hunch,” Aaron said.

  “Yes. Amber’s condition is unique. I’ve never met a werewolf who could use magick—that’s already weird enough. But Amber also has something else inside her that, I think, is what’s causing the problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The demon,” Damien said, with a haunting, chilling voice that made Aaron’s skin tighten around his muscles and bones.

  “We got rid of it,” Aaron argued, “It didn’t take her.”

  “It didn’t need to take her, only mark her; and it did. We didn’t get the rest of it out.”

  “And you think this is the reason why Amber is… the way she is?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” Frank said, “But there are two sides of her now; her witch side and her wolf side. She should be able to handle the power of each individually, and with enough time she would have been able to control both simultaneously. But whatever the demon did to her tainted her magick and caused it to grow way faster than she could control it. Now she can’t handle either of her sides.”

  “That still… it doesn’t explain how this thing you’ve brought here can help her.”

  Frank reached for the bag, delicately tugged on the zipper until it opened, and produced the sleek old skull of a ram. It was real—Aaron could tell—probably killed a few years ago judging by the condition of the skull; polished, too, by the shine of it. The thing looked like the kind of trophy a hunter would have hanging over a fireplace in a cabin just like this one. But it was odorless, and that struck Aaron as strange.

  “I have an idea on how we can help her,” Frank said, “But I have to warn you; it won’t be easy, quick, or painless.”

  “I can take the pain for her.”

  “No,” he said, “You can’t. The pain locked away in this skull… she has to take it herself; every last drop of it.”

  The pinch of panic Aaron had felt earlier on returned, only this time they were two hands, and they had seized him by the throat. “And then what?” he managed to ask.

  “She’ll endure and come out of it intact… or we will have no choice but to kill her.”

  Chapter Two

  They thought I couldn’t hear them, but I heard them. I could have been asleep and I would’ve known they were talking about me like I was some kind of sick dog. The walls would tell me. The rats would tell me. But I didn’t need the rats to tell me now. I heard them. I smelled them. Damien. He was hurt. How? Who? I didn’t know. I smelled the blood on him, the pain oozing out of his pores like terror sweat, the way his tight, swollen skin would pull apart just a little bit every time he stretched.

  He probably had it coming for cheating on me. I hated him. That piece of meat on the floor kinda looked like him, or at least it did before I chewed into it. Served him right.

  “Concentrate, Amber.”

  My eyes were already open but it felt like they had sprung open again allowing my consciousness to swim to the fore. For a second it was almost like I was wearing someone else’s clothes, like I was intruding into their personal space. In many ways I was. This body didn’t belong to me anymore; it belonged to the wolf, too, and the wolf didn’t like sharing.

  The chain attached to my wrist rattled as I brought my hand to my cheek. As soon as I smelled the blood on my fingers, under my nails, my stomach started to churn. I wanted to eat more but I also wanted none of it. The sight of raw meat, the taste of it, I was never good with that. A rare steak, sure, but a raw one? I’d eaten more than my fair share of it lately and as much as I wanted to gag and hurl, the fact that I’d eaten so much was probably the reason why I hadn’t withered away to nothing yet.

  I owed the wolf everything for keeping me alive, and I owed it nothing for taking my life away from me.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and the room around me. The stone walls covered in arcane lettering, the scraps of meat and bits of bone scattered around my dirty feet, the rags on my body; they all came into stark focus, though I was looking at everything like I was seeing through a red filter.

  But the filter didn’t last and the color in the world was right again soon enough. Moments later I had managed to shuffle around into the lotus position, and with my hands on my knees facing upwards I started to breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Meditation helped during my moments of lucidity. I could always feel the wolf there, in the back of my mind, resting but not sleeping. Never sleeping. Not since Collette’s death.

  Collette.

  I could still smell her lavender perfume; could still feel her near me, reaching for me, haunting me. At night, sometimes, I could swear she would speak to me through the floorboards above. I heard her once tell me she couldn’t come into the cellar. But then I would find myself wondering whether it was actually her talking to me from beyond, or if the wolf was trying to get me to break out.

  Break out.

  “Shut up!” I slapped my cheek hard and saw stars, but the shock sent the voice to the back of my mind again.

  My body stiffened as if a ghost had just walked right through me, and then I heard it. The cellar door was opening. No. No! I sprang to my feet. The chains tying my arms and legs to the wall were long enough to allow me some mobility, so I circled around the cellar to find the darkest spot in an already dark room and crouched into it. I didn’t want to be anywhere near those stairs, nowhere near… Frank.

  Frank?

  My chest started to heave as hot fumes travelled upwards from my belly and into my throat. The anger was coming, swelling, way more quickly than it had come before. My head felt like iron that had learned how to sweat. He can’t come down here!—eyes darting from one side of the dark cellar to the other—something to throw, I need something to throw.

  I grabbed a shard of bone and arched it over my head, then hurled it across the room because to do nothing was to invite the beast to come forward. Frank, who had already taken a couple of steps down, stopped.

  “Amber?”

  His voice was like music to my ears, but white noise to the wolf. “Leave!” I said, putting as much power into my hoarse throat as I could. “I want you out!”

  “You know I can’t do that,” he replied.

  “Get out!”

  Bravely, Frank took another couple of steps down into the cellar, and with every creak of the wood beneath his feet my head thumped even harder. A hot shriek peeled out of my throat, a noise I had never before heard myself make, and suddenly I was in motion. With the floor beneath my hands and feet, I rushed out of the da
rkness at the bag of meat and bone which had just entered my domain and then lashed out at the figure.

  Slobbering, growling, everything was red. I could hear Frank’s heart beating faster and faster in that delicate little sack of skin he called a body, veins pumping with hot blood, and I wanted it. I wanted to tear it open and eat the stringy meat, but the chains stopped me. I looked over my shoulder at the taut metal restraints and tugged hard. The wall groaned, the metal sang, but the chains held.

  When I turned around again the bag of meat was still there, still standing there, mocking me. I was taller than him, stronger than him, faster than him, and he mocked me. Was he my alpha? No. I was the alpha in here. This was my den, my territory, my house. Mine. Mine. Mine.

  “Amber.”

  He called for the human but she couldn’t hear him. I had my paws around her throat and I was squeezing the life out of her, because I was her alpha too, and I could do whatever I wanted in here.

  “Amber, listen to me.”

  I stretched for his face again, claws sharp and hungry, but the chains stopped me from reaching him. When my jaws opened, my voice spilled out loud and angry, and it sailed into the morning through the open door.

  “You’d shut your mouth if you knew what was good for you, witch.”

  He stared at me like he wasn’t afraid.

  “Frank,” the word fell out of my misshapen mouth and I felt my body weaken. The ground swelled up to greet me and I cracked my cheek on the concrete floor, but my senses returned and the wolf retreated.

  “Amber!” Aaron’s voice barged through the open door and into the cellar and I let it wash over me like warm water. “Frank, is she okay?”

  “She’s okay,” Frank said as he rushed to help me sit up, “But you’ve gotta close that door.”

  “No.”

  “If you want to get us both killed go ahead, come down here. But if you want to see us all through this alive you’ll close that fucking door.”

  The light spilling into the cellar from above was blinding. I could only make out a dark silhouette, and even then I only caught it for a moment, before Aaron shut the door. But it was Aaron. My Aaron. A sleepy smile swept across my face as my body calmed. Was Frank doing that? The magical wards on the walls wouldn’t affect him since he was the one who created them. Had he learned the spell I used to use to calm Aaron?

  “Can you hear me?” he asked.

  “You need to leave, Frank,” I warned.

  “It’s good to see you too.”

  “Frank, please—”

  “You can complain all you want, but I’m not leaving until—”

  “Frank!” I lunged at him but the chains kept me back.

  “I get it,” he said, “You’re strong, you’re hungry, and you’re probably feeling the way I do when the Wi-Fi goes down, but you need to keep it together because this, what I’m about to tell you, is important.”

  I forced myself to swallow and it was like putting sandpaper down my throat. I didn’t want him to stay. It wasn’t safe for him to be down here—wasn’t safe for anyone to be anywhere near me—and I told him as much, but he didn’t want to hear it.

  “I know you, Amber,” he said, “And you’re here with me now, lucid and awake. I know you can control yourself.”

  “You trust too much.”

  “I trust you. That’s enough for me.”

  I knew Frank well enough to know he wasn’t the kind of guy to just let something go, and whatever magick he was using—if he was using magick at all—was working well enough. The urge to change wasn’t there and whatever anger I had felt a moment ago seemed to have abated. Maybe it wasn’t magick. Maybe I was just lucid.

  “Alright,” I said, “But you leave at the first sign of trouble.”

  “I will.”

  “No, you don’t understand. If there’s trouble you might get a split second to react. Can you make a decision in a split second?”

  “I can make hundreds.”

  “Then step away.”

  Frank did as I said and, mirroring him, I moved toward the wall I had been sitting next to a moment ago. After sitting down and crossing my legs again, I found myself able to breathe normally, though the metallic smell of old blood still assaulted my nostrils. At least Frank would have a whole second to react, now.

  “I heard you talking about me,” I said.

  “You heard that?”

  “I hear everything.”

  “That’s unsettling.”

  “Try living down here.”

  “I think I could. Reminds me of a bar I used to frequent back in San Francisco. I’m sure I spent a few nights there.”

  “Frank.”

  “Fine.” He sighed deeply. “There’s no easy way to put this, so I’ll just come out with it. I think I know what’s wrong with you.”

  The very darkness seemed to tremble in the silence.

  “That night in the woods,” he continued saying, “The night Aaron changed. The night the demon almost possessed you… I think it left a mark on you. I think that mark is responsible for everything that’s happened to you.”

  “You think the demon is still in me.”

  “No, but I think a part of it is. Like residue that didn’t come all the way out when you spat the thing back to hell.”

  “I… don’t understand. It’s been so long since that night. I thought we were done with that.”

  “It must have lain dormant inside of you, but it’s woken up now and it’s making your power grow.”

  Wait… what? “Grow?” I asked. “Why is that a bad thing considering what we’re up against?”

  “You were never meant to contain that kind of power. You had us all going for a while, thinking you were fine with it, and then...”

  “Then what?”

  “Never mind. The point is if it weren’t for these magick wards, I don’t even want to think about what might have happened to you. What you might have done.”

  “Great.”

  “Now isn’t the time to feel sorry for yourself, witch. You haven’t killed anyone yet.”

  “And I won’t because I’m going to stay right here where it’s safe. Where everyone’s safe.”

  “And what? Wait for the devil’s whore to show up and claim her prize?”

  “What choice do I have, Frank? I can’t go out there. I’ll hurt someone.”

  “You do have a choice. I’ve just presented you with one.”

  My cheeks were starting to flush. I could feel the blood rushing toward them like a flood gate had just opened. I sat there watching him, with my hands cupping my elbows, arms crossed just below my breasts. The chains made it difficult to sit comfortably, which didn’t help, but breath by hot breath I was trying my hardest to keep the beast from coming again. Not again. Not tonight.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “I have something I think can help, but you need to be a witch for it to work.”

  “A witch?”

  “You need to come outside. Only for a moment. Just long enough for your soul to spark up again and for the sickness from my wards to wear off.”

  “I can’t do that, Frank. I can’t leave this cellar.”

  “You keep saying that, but you can’t stay in here forever. How long before these wear out?”

  “I’ll deal with that problem when I come to it.”

  “You’ll deal with it now!”

  My jaw fell open. I hadn’t heard Frank yell in a long time. Something stirred inside me, something sleeping just beneath the skin. “Leave!” I said.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  I lurched forward, hands plastered against the floor. I could already feel my nails growing. “Frank!”

  “I came here to help you, dammit! We all just want to help you! Don’t you get it? Shut it away and tell it what to do.”

  “I c—c—can’t!” I’m coming. “Shut up! Go away!”

  I smacked my cheeks to try and push the anger down, to push the beast back, but
it wasn’t working. My bones were aching, my muscles twitching and contracting, and my senses sharpening to the point where I could hear even the squeaking rats living in the walls and in the dirt. They were running scared, like they always did, scattering deeper into the earth.

  “Amber,” Frank said, but his voice was muffled, like I was hearing him through water.

  “Three,” I said, “Eight. Nine. Eleven.”

  The tide of anger started to recede. My nails shortened again, but I still couldn’t move from where I was, hunched over myself and speaking into the stone floor.

  “What… what are you doing?” Frank asked.

  “Two. Four. Three.”

  “Amber…”

  “One. Seven. Question Mark. Eighteen.”

  My body started to relax, my muscles and bones returning to normal before they could even have a chance to start transforming, but I needed to keep the logic puzzle going. I needed to solve it in my mind. Which letter replaces the question mark? I thought, and before I could find the answer, Frank had exited the cellar and thrown the door closed behind him.

  The darkness and silence was total, and when my own dulled senses returned I sat up, settled into the lotus position, and started to hum like I had wanted to before Frank showed up.

  Chapter Three

  Aaron stared up at the fingernail moon still visible in the pale morning sky and found himself longing. From the ground, the moon seemed to almost be running away from the sun’s light as one rose in the east and the other set in the west. He likened them as a pair of lovers; one always chasing the other, locked in the cycle until the sun swells large enough to catch the moon and both turn to stardust.

  He’d spent a lot of time alone with his thoughts in recent weeks. While he hadn’t quite gotten used to the cabin itself, the smell of the surrounding woods had become familiar enough to be comfortable. He could sit out here on the porch, on a chair he bought at a garage sale, and watch winter unfold in shades of brown and grey and think only of the things that brought him joy.

  Hunting for food.

  Driving fast cars.

  His future with Amber—his fiancée.