“There are a lot crazier things in this world than magic.” Jayel took a big gulp of coffee. “That should make this part easier, then.”
“What part?”
“I didn’t come by to sample the imported Sumatra. There’s something I wanted to tell you, but I wasn’t sure if I should.”
Lana shifted in her seat. “Why not?”
“Same reason you didn’t want to admit you braid spells into your hair.”
“And hang horseshoes over doors, dangle all-seeing eyes in windows, and bury witch bottles in the dirt.” Lana glanced above the back door and nodded to it. Jayel twisted to see the horseshoe. “There was even a time when I used to dance naked under a full moon.”
“I wouldn’t know about that stuff,” Jayel said. “I don’t work my own magic, really. I never even believed in it before.”
“But you do now.”
“I believe in a whole lot of shit now.”
Lana ran a finger along the edge of her mug. “So why did you come back, really?”
The wooden chair squeaked as Jayel shifted. “I wasn’t going to. But I kept thinking of you being new to town and all alone in this cabin. I’d feel responsible if something happened and I didn’t warn you.”
Coffee gurgled unpleasantly in Lana’s stomach. “Warn me about what?”
Jayel stared into her mug. “Maybe booze isn’t such a bad idea.”
“You’re starting to freak me out, Jayel. Warn me about what?”
“The truth about Shay Falls. It’s why I was hiding in here, and why I carry some very special weapons.”
Lana folded her arms, not happy about where this was going. “You said the woods are dangerous.”
“Especially this week. The full moon starts tonight.” She glanced at her. “And I sincerely hope you’re not planning to go dancing around naked outside.”
“I stopped doing that months ago. But I know about the full moon tonight. Keeping track of moon phases gets to be a habit when you were raised pagan.”
“Gets to be a habit when you hunt werewolves too.”
A shiver ran down Lana’s spine. “Werewolves?”
“They’re real, Lana. And they’re here.”
Several replies flicked to mind, including admitting the truth. But the word “hunt” held her back.
She gave a skeptical smile. “You don’t mean it.”
“What, you’ve got a witch’s braid but don’t believe this? Magic isn’t all brooms and fairy dust. It can twist a human into something wicked and unnatural.”
That wiped away Lana’s smile. She knew a human who’d turned wicked and unnatural, and it hadn’t taken magic to do it.
“It’s just that wolves happen to be a thing of mine.” Lana held up the pendant around her neck. “I’ve done lots of reading about them, but I’ve never seen anything to support the existence of real werewolves.” Not until she’d knocked one down in these very woods.
“You’ve done reading.” The way Jayel pursed her lips made her narrow features suck in like a supermodel on the runway. “Well, while you’ve been busy with your nose in a book, I’ve been dealing with werewolves face-to-face.”
“Look, if you’re saying the wolves around here shouldn’t be messed with, that’s fine with me. I don’t intend to go roaming the woods, especially at night. And I doubt wolves can twist doorknobs to get into my cabin.”
“They don’t have to. I know of a woman a while back who was staying in a rental cabin not far from here. A werewolf pack busted in right through her windows.”
Now Lana’s eyes widened. “Was she injured?”
“Worse.”
“Oh, God, killed?”
“Still worse.”
Lana didn’t respond. Zane said he wouldn’t hurt her, and she’d believed him. But why had she? There wasn’t a bit of lore she’d ever heard of that portrayed werewolves as cute and fluffy. But then, she hadn’t heard of them being sexy as hell, either.
“I can see you don’t believe me,” Jayel said. “Trust me, I wish to God I didn’t have to believe me, either. But werewolves took my family. They left me with nothing except the vow to kill the pack who ruined my life.”
Lana’s heart flatlined. “Your family was killed by wolves?”
“Werewolves.”
“How can you be sure they were werewolves?”
Jayel slapped a hand on the table, making silverware rattle and Lana jump. “Because I fucking saw them transform right in front of me, okay? That night and many since.” Her hand slid back beneath the table. “They killed my parents and stole my little brother. Some of them even threatened to keep me as their little sex toy. I was left alone only because the alpha thought my pain and horror was damn amusing. He said I needed to sit with it a while before I was ready for him. Then the bastard up and got himself killed before I had a chance to finish him myself.”
Terrifying images flew through Lana’s mind, pictures of wolves crashing through windows and stealing innocent children right out of their beds. Surely Zane and Jayson would never do such a thing.
Lana put a hand to her throat. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “Your brother?”
“I never saw him again. He’s gone.” A glassy sheen coated her eyes, but she blinked rapidly and the cold stare returned. “I vowed then and there to get rid of those monsters so they couldn’t hurt anyone like that again.”
The hard edge to the words froze Lana. “Why you? If there really are creatures like that, surely there must be others who hunt them.” Like whoever Zane and Jayson had been tracking.
That prompted a laugh. “Those creatures are plenty of places you’d least expect. They’ve got claws hooked into the law up here, something I found out when my folks were murdered. There’s a lot more tolerance for weird, unexplained crimes than there ought to be.”
“That’s unbelievable,” Lana said breathlessly. The thought of the law in Shay Falls being indifferent to violent crime unsettled her more than the idea of werewolves.
“Believe it.”
“So, you hunt them now,” Lana said. “Have you killed many?”
There was a pause. “Not a fucking one.”
Lana almost breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t imagine something like that would be easy.” Or sane, really.
The woman’s nostrils flared. “You say you did your research on wolves? I did mine too. I learned how to kill werewolves and went to great lengths to get the silver weapons and other concoctions needed for the job. That’s how I know about magic. I was taught how to defeat werewolves by witches.”
“There are other witches up here?”
“Down the hill in Phillips. There’s a pagan shop owned by, well, pagans.”
Jayel reached down for a moment and came up with a long, wicked blade that made Lana flinch. “Silver’s the only way a human can kill a werewolf, really.” She cocked her head and stared while she twisted the knife in her hand. “Trouble is, nothing I do works.”
Lana’s stomach turned to ice as she eyed the blade. “Maybe the witches are wrong. Maybe silver isn’t really what you need.”
“It is.” She snapped the words off, and Lana shut her mouth. “Other things I learned about work fine. I can mask my scent from them with special herbs, for one thing. And I can hurt the hell out of werewolves with silver. But no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get a kill shot.”
“Jayel,” Lana said, feeling her throat drying rapidly, “could you please put that away? You’re not the only one here with issues.”
The woman’s gaze flicked off the blade she’d been staring at. “Sorry.” She stuffed the knife back into her boot. “I should have realized you wouldn’t be thrilled about me brandishing a weapon after last time.”
“It’s not just that. I’ve got someone after me. A serial killer, actually.” The last part came out through a lump in her throat. “He likes knives too.”
Jayel stared at her. “God, I didn’t know.”
“How could you? It’s
not like I advertise.”
“So that’s why you moved here?”
Lana nodded.
Jayel shut her eyes for a moment. “And the second you walked in the cabin, you found a psycho with a gun.” She reopened them and shook her head. “I can’t believe you let me back in here this morning. Hell, you even offered to let me stay that night. Why didn’t you lose your shit and throw me out?”
“Believe me, I asked myself the same thing. But I just had this weird sense that we’re kindred spirits somehow. Call it a pagan thing. Or maybe it’s just that I understood the need to hide and get your shit together.”
“Yeah, I guess you would.” Jayel paused. “Do you think he’ll follow you here?”
The way Lana’s middle was twisting now made her wish she hadn’t taken her coffee on an empty stomach. She took another sip anyway, letting the hot liquid ease her tight throat. “I hope not. I changed things up enough this time to throw him off track.”
“You’re a witch, though, right? Can’t you do some mumbo jumbo and make him fall off a cliff?”
“I’m not that kind of witch.”
“How many kinds are there?”
“It’s not like I fly around on brooms bending people to my will. I was raised with more of a hippie-peace-and-love approach. My parents believed in using magic on themselves to achieve positive ends, not in hexing enemies.”
“You say ‘believed,’ as in past tense.”
She gave Jayel a sad smile. “It’s just me now. They died in a fire not long after I moved out.” She sighed. “I guess all their positive magic couldn’t fix everything.”
“I’m sorry.” Jayel stared at her coffee cup. “Not fair, is it? Losing family like that.”
“Not one damn bit.”
Depression settled into the silence, threatening to cast a pall over the visit. Lana decided to change the subject. “You’ve really gotten close enough to a werewolf to use a knife?”
The dull sheen in Jayel’s dark eyes turned back into a glimmer. “Several of them. I’ve tried knives and silver bullets. But something goes wrong every time.”
Lana rubbed her arm to ward off a sudden chill. “Like what?”
“I shot at one almost point blank through the bars of a cage, but the bullets all missed. Another time, the gun wouldn’t fire at all. And my first silver hunting knife snapped in two when I tried plunging it into a werewolf’s heart.”
“Mother goddess,” Lana whispered. She’d pictured Jayel skulking through trees at a distance, not stabbing wolves up close and personal. Had Jayson or Zane been among those she’d hunted? No, they couldn’t be. Jayel hadn’t recognized Lana’s description. Meaning they hadn’t been the ones who’d attacked her family. Of course they hadn’t. They could never perpetrate such horrors. They weren’t killers.
Were they?
“Are all of the werewolves you hunt the ones who hurt your family?” Lana asked.
Jayel nodded. “Or else ones who got in my way by protecting those who did.”
“So you don’t just go around attacking any wolf on the mountain, then.”
Dark eyes flashed. “It’s not like this is a hobby. I’m in it for justice, not wolf pelts. Once I’m finished making sure that pack never hurts anyone again, maybe I can go on with my life, if I can figure out how. But so far, the only one of those murdering bastards who managed to die was the one I didn’t get to kill. Not that I wasn’t ecstatic to hear Blaise Forrester was dead.”
Lana relaxed a little. Jayel had no interest in hurting a certain two wolves, then. As for werewolves evil enough to steal little boys and murder parents, Jayel could have them as far as Lana was concerned.
“I just can’t figure out why I keep failing,” Jayel said.
“Maybe your aim is off,” Lana said.
That earned her a glare. “My aim is damn scary. I spend hours on target practice. And what about the knife? Cost me five hundred bucks, and it snapped like plastic. I swear, it’s like I’m cursed.”
Lana thought about that. “Maybe you are.”
Jayel snorted. “I probably am.”
“No, I mean it. If werewolves are made out of some kind of magic, maybe they can use it to hex people.”
Jayel seemed to consider that. “Not that I’ve ever heard of. The only way they curse people is by turning them into what they are.” She eyed Lana. “Besides, I thought you didn’t believe in hexes.”
“Oh, I believe in them. My parents just didn’t believe in using them.”
Jayel folded her arms and stared at the horseshoe over the back door, appearing lost in thought for a while.
“Do you have enemies who would want to stop you from killing werewolves?” Lana asked.
“Apart from the werewolves? I don’t think so.”
“One of the witches helping you, maybe?”
Jayel shook her head firmly. “No way. Of the two who know what I’m up against, neither has any love lost for werewolves. One of them is permanently scarred from a full moon encounter.”
“Maybe someone else wants to protect them.”
Jayel sat up suddenly at that. “Their bitches might.”
“Bitches?”
“Werewolves aren’t only into taking little brothers. They like women too.”
Lana swallowed. “Maybe one of them is a witch.”
Jayel’s face went slack. “Or a Romani.” She slapped her hand down on the table. “I’ll bet you that’s it! That little gypsy troublemaker did something to me.”
“You know a gypsy?”
“Her lovers were the ones in the cage when I tried shooting one.” She stopped for a moment, her eyes getting wilder by the moment. “She cut me off and tried to stop me. She said some ugly-sounding shit in Romani. Then she spit on the ground by my feet.”
Lana nodded. “That sounds like a curse, all right. And certain Romani bloodlines are powerful in magic. You really don’t want to piss them off.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure I pissed her off. Son of a bitch. This explains everything.” She yanked out her headband and repositioned it in her hair. “Question is, what the hell can I do about it?”
“You could always stop trying to kill werewolves.”
Jayel looked at Lana as though a scorpion had just launched off her tongue. “Not an option.”
“And if you get yourself killed in the process?”
“Maybe I don’t care.”
“If you’re so ready to die, why were you hiding out in here?”
“I’m not afraid to die. But there are worse things a werewolf can do to you than kill you.”
“You mean turn you.”
“Or mate with you.”
Lana pressed her lips into a thin line. She wanted to ask about that, but she was afraid such curiosity might sound suspicious.
“Are you sure you aren’t out to get all werewolves?” Lana asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sounds like you consider one the same as the next. But surely they aren’t all evil.”
“What’s your point?”
“You said you’re only interested in hunting those who hurt your family. But I wonder where this vendetta will truly end if you lump all werewolves in the same category.”
Jayel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you defending them?”
“I’m not,” she said quickly. “I’m concerned for you.”
“I told you, this ends when I make sure the ones who destroyed my life can never hurt anyone else. The rest can go to hell or to Florida, I don’t care.” She pushed back in her chair. “As for those who deserve it, I will stop them. I just need to know how.”
Lana sighed. “Maybe this curse is life’s way of telling you it’s time to let go.”
Jayel sneered at her and stood up. “Is that so? And what about this guy who’s after you?”
Lana frowned. “What about him?”
“He’s murdered before, I take it, since you call him a serial killer.”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe he should be punished for his crimes?”
“Of course.”
Jayel leaned over the table. “Then don’t sit there and tell me to let this go. My family deserves justice, and I’m going to make damn sure they get it.”
The women looked at each other.
“You’re right,” Lana said.
“So glad you approve.” Jayel straightened up and tugged on the hem of her sweater. “If you have any witchly advice, I’d appreciate it.”
“All curses can be broken,” Lana said. “But I don’t know how to undo this one.”
“I might know someone who does.”
“The witches who taught you about werewolves?”
“And who supply my herbs and weapons. They might have some kind of anti-curse potion.” She blinked. “Thanks, Lana. I think you’ve just solved my problem.” She headed for the back door.
“You haven’t finished your coffee.”
“I’ve wasted enough time feeling useless.” She turned at the door. “You might think about a trip to that store yourself.”
“I’m not looking for a coven. I’m a solitary witch.”
“It’d still be smart to stock up on a couple things while you’re here.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out two small atomizers, one clear and one brown. “Like these, for instance.”
“What are they?”
Jayel held up the brown one. “This one is how I hide my scent.”
Lana perked up with purely magical interest. “What’s in it?”
“Fresh rosemary, oil of clove, and wolfsbane, among other stuff I’ve never heard of. Confuses and dampens a werewolf’s ability to sniff you out.” She spritzed herself and the air around her. “There. Werewolf-proof. Well, from detection, at least.”
Lana nodded to her other hand. “And that one?”
Jayel’s smile turned downright malevolent. “A solution of ninety-nine percent pure colloidal silver. You ever carry pepper spray?”
She nodded. “As of six months ago, yes.”
“Call this the werewolf equivalent. The drugstore carries it for medicinal use, but I put it in a little spray bottle so it’s easy to use. I can get you some of the scent masker while I’m in Phillips, if you’d like.” She tucked both containers away. “Oh, one other thing. Stay away from really hot guys.”
Disorderly Cowboys [Lone Wolves of Shay Falls 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 10
