The Cursed (The Unearthly)

by Laura Thalassa

  “Oh, well honey, I hope you’re not spending all your time in there when you could be celebrating with your friends.” She looked genuinely concerned. If only she knew the truth. She’d go ballistic.

  She smiled over the screen. “In case I don’t talk to you tomorrow, Merry Christmas,” she said, “I love you.”

  “Love you too. Merry Christmas.”

  Thuack.

  The knife made a solid sound as it embedded itself into the target. I’d discovered Andre’s training room late in the afternoon, and I’d lingered ever since.

  I spun a knife in my hand. I’d forgotten how good it felt to exert control over something—even a simple weapon. It was almost cathartic after the last few days I’d had. Not to mention feeling my muscles catch and release with exertion. There was some basic satisfaction to being capable of defending myself.

  Power tickled over my skin as I stared at the target—someone else’s power. Andre was waking up, and that meant that I might be able to train with him. The thought had the corners of my mouth curling up. Between Andre and me there was enough pent up sexual tension to make for some very interesting grappling.

  I threw the knife in my hand, watching it tumble hilt-over-blade, before sinking into the target with a satisfying thump.

  Another bull’s eye. I stepped back a few yards and glanced down at the belt I wore. Three knives were still strapped into the sheaths that circled my waist.

  Two months ago, when Andre began to train me, I balked at the idea of training with swords and knives—medieval weapons. But now, I understood. In a fight, a knife, a sword, a battle-axe, arrows, throwing stars—all these weapons and more could be retrieved and reused, unlike modern weaponry. A spent bullet could never be procured again in the heat of battle.

  Not that this stopped supernatural beings—Andre included—from using guns. All and all, they were still quite effective.

  But the other equally important reason Andre trained me with swords and knives was that these weapons required muscle control, good form, dynamism, and—when one was engaged in combat—improvisation.

  Thuack, thuack, thuack. I threw the rest of the knives in quick succession, a pleased smile dancing along my lips when they hit the target exactly where I had intended.

  “Remind me never to piss you off.”

  I started at the voice. I swiveled around to see Andre standing in the doorway, arms folded.

  “You’re getting even better,” he commented, dropping his arms and sauntering into the room. “Though I still would’ve gotten the drop on you.”

  “It’s good to see you too,” I said, turning back to my target to retrieve my knives. As I did so, my face heated. Even with our hard-to-ignore connection, Andre was still able to sneak up on me.

  “Is my soulmate embarrassed?” Andre’s voice was amused.

  Damn vampires and their sense of smell. When I reached the target, I began yanking the blades out. “You shouldn’t go provoking women who play with knives,” I said, sliding one into a sheath while reaching for another.

  The air shifted, and then Andre’s lips brushed against my ear. “Maybe I like my women dangerous.”

  I smiled. Tonight there would be some naughty combat. In one fluid motion, I spun, aiming the edge of the blade I held for Andre’s throat.

  He caught my forearm, predicting the move, and bent my wrist back until pain forced me to drop the knife. Even as I did so, I brought my leg up and kicked him in the chest.

  Or at least I tried to.

  He let go of my arm in time to catch my leg, and then he twisted it. I only had an instant to lift my other leg. Had I waited a second later, Andre would’ve snapped the bone.

  And he probably would’ve done it, too.

  When we first began training, I assumed Andre wouldn’t hurt me. I assumed wrong.

  The first injury was a dislocated shoulder. And it took me a week to forgive him. During that time, Andre still dragged my ass to training, still threatened bodily injury when we faced off, but boy was he remorseful. I wouldn’t talk to him, wouldn’t smile at him. Never had I heard someone apologize so much as he did that week.

  Lesson learned: I might be able to bring a man to his knees faster by kicking his legs in, but nothing felled a man quite like a woman’s wrath.

  My entire body twisted in the air, and I landed hard on the ground. But already I’d pulled my boot back and kicked Andre in the face as his body followed mine to the floor.

  Andre bellowed as bone crunched, and for a split-second his grip on my leg loosened. It was as good an opening as I was going to get. I slammed my boot against him again, eliciting another roar from Andre, and then I wrenched my foot from his grasp.

  I tensed my muscles, ready to lung at Andre and go for a kill shot again, but before I had the chance, he sprang forward, knocking me back into the ground. Even injured, he was a force to be reckoned with.

  And this was precisely why Andre risked injuring me: pain honed us. Physically it made us better, quicker, more resilient, and it forced us to think and strategize through agony.

  And it might be the only way I’d survive the devil.

  With one hand Andre captured my wrists, and with his other hand he snatched one of the knives from my belt.

  He pressed the edge of the blade against my neck, just as I had originally intended to do to him. “Never allow your enemy—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, feeling the knife slice into the skin of my neck as I spoke. “If I get pinned to the ground, I’ll be deader than you are.”

  Andre frowned at that, and then his eyes caught sight of the blood at my neck. He grimaced and threw the knife aside before leaning down and placing a kiss to the wound. “I’m sorry for this, soulmate,” he murmured against my skin, just like he did every time he hurt me while we fought.

  “It’s okay,” I said, mostly because I knew how badly Andre did feel about my injuries. He was raised in a time where women were treated like breakable objects. Hurting me went against some of his most deep-seated beliefs. But even those beliefs could be overridden by fear for my future wellbeing. “I’m, ah, sorry about your nose,” I added. “Sorta. Okay, I’m not, but only because that’s like the seventh time I’ve ever gotten a hit on you.”

  “Oh?” Andre said. “You’re not sorry?” he murmured as his lips skimmed up my neck and jawline, heading straight for the pay dirt that was my mouth. Ah, naughty grappling. My favorite.

  “Nope,” I said, being obstinate.

  His mouth halted. “Well in that case …”

  He drew his lips away from my skin, and I groaned. The bastard was going to hold out on me until I caved. “Okay, fine,” I conceded, “I’m super sorry. Are you pleased now?”

  Andre’s mouth returned to my skin, and I felt him smile against it. “Very much so.”

  His lips had just alighted upon mine when his phone rang. He groaned against me. “I’m not done with you,” he whispered into my mouth, and then he pulled away to sit on his haunches.

  “Yes?” he said brusquely into the phone he’d procured from his pocket.

  “Sir,” said the voice on the other end of the line, “I looked into last night’s attack, just like you asked.”

  I pushed myself up onto my forearms, and Andre’s eyes met mine. He knew I could hear the conversation.

  “And?” he asked.

  “It seems your theory is right that a demon attacked.”

  His theory. Ha!

  “Only it’s so much worse,” the man said.

  “How so?” Andre’s grip had tightened on the phone.

  “In demonic circles there’s a bounty out on Gabrielle’s head. It’s rumored that the devil himself placed it.”

  My eyes widened. Had that been why I’d seen so many shadows sin
ce I’d arrived? Were they all demons who were after me?

  “And what, precisely, is the bounty for?” Andre said, his low pitched low.

  I heard the man on the other end of the line exhale before he spoke again. “Whoever can successfully deliver the girl to the devil has been promised title and power by the Unholy One.”

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that whoever was going to deliver me wasn’t planning on dropping me off at the devil’s doorstep. Nope. My butt was going to get shanked.

  “We need to stop this,” Andre said, menace lacing his words.

  A pause. Then, “Sir, I’m not sure we can.”

  Chapter 21

  “Merry freaking Christmas to me,” I muttered the next morning as I padded into Andre’s study with a cup of coffee and a book. Other teenagers got clothes and electronics for Christmas. I got my name on a hit list.

  All last night, Andre had been on the phone with his contacts, bribing and threatening anyone and everyone he could to get my name off that list.

  Problem was, there was no actual list. From what I understood, the hit was nothing more than a whisper in the night, passed from one shady being to another. Try as Andre might, he couldn’t remove a threat that had no origin and no traceable trajectory.

  I took a deep breath. Time to lose myself in a good story and forget about the hot mess that was my life.

  Just as I plopped down on a couch in Andre’s study and cracked open my book, the front door was thrown open and I swear to God I heard what sounded like yodeling.

  I closed my eyes. There was Oliver, doing who the hell knew what.

  A minute later he entered the study, escorted by one of Andre’s servants.

  “Great Mother of Earth and Heaven and All Things Delicious, there you are!” Oliver said. “We were so worried!”

  He crossed the room and swept me up into a huge hug. Behind him Caleb entered the room.

  “Caleb,” I said, shocked. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “Andre sent a car over to bring us over,” Caleb said stiffly, as though admitting to this made him uncomfortable.

  “But the roads—”

  “They were clear enough this morning to pick us up. Merry Christmas, by the way.”

  Next to me Oliver pried my book from my hands and tossed it over his shoulder. “Merry Christmas!” he said.

  “Hey—I was reading that,” I said, glaring at Oliver.

  “Yeah, and now you’re not because the fun has arrived.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “So,” Caleb said, interrupting us, “what exactly happened two nights ago, Gabrielle?” He sat down in a nearby wingback chair.

  I gave him a strained smile. “It’s a long story.”

  I spent the next twenty minutes rehashing last two nights’ events, beginning with the kidnapping, and ending with the demonic hit list. I decided to omit the part about the devil talking to me while I was getting down with Andre. That had uncomfortable written all over it.

  “The devil told you that you were fated to be his?” Caleb asked. He looked a little ill.

  I winced and nodded.

  “And he meant fate as in, ‘there was a prophecy, and I’m owed my due,’ or was he speaking in more general terms?”

  I tipped my head back and forth, weighing his words. The devil was an arrogant, slippery being, but from everything I’d learned last night … “I think he meant the prophetic kind of fate,” I said.

  Caleb’s throat worked, but he nodded. He stood up and rubbed his forehead. When he drew his hand away, realization flashed over his features. “Holy shit,” he said, staring off in the distance.

  “What?” I asked anxiously.

  His eyes met mine. “I have a theory.”

  “A theory about what?” I asked.

  “About you, the murders, the devil. But shit, it’s not good, Gabrielle.”

  Oliver glanced at me, his eyebrows raised.

  “What is it?” I asked Caleb.

  His eyes were distracted. “Let me get my suitcase …” He trailed off as he left the room, his paces quick.

  “Luggage?” I asked, turning to Oliver.

  Oliver shrugged. “Andre invited us to stay here for the remainder of the investigation.”

  “And you both agreed to it?” I asked, disbelieving him.

  “Hey, I like Andre, even if he does scare the shit out of me. Plus, he loves you and you love him.”

  D’awww.

  “Also, I wanted to get out of that piece of crap inn,” Oliver added. He’d had the perfect response, and then he had to go and butcher it.

  “What about Caleb?” I asked. “There’s no way he’d agree to stay here.”

  “Well he did.”

  I thinned my eyes. “And how did you manage that?”

  Oliver sniffed, smoothing down his shirt. “I promised him you’d go on a date with him.”

  “Oliver!”

  Said fairy buffed his nails against his shirt. “What?” he asked innocently. “It’s his fault he’s a sucker.”

  I let my forehead fall into my hands. “I’m starting to think our classicist textbook was right—fairies are evil little creatures.”

  “Says the girl with fangs.”

  Touché.

  Oliver threw a sly glance over his shoulder, to where Caleb retreated. “So,” he said, turning back to me, “now that Caleb’s gone, care to tell me the rest of what happened over the last two nights?”

  “And what makes you think that there’s more to it?”

  “Please, honey. It’s me you’re talking to. I know an edited story when I hear one.”

  My eyes flicked to the doorway.

  “He won’t be back for a while. Now spill.”

  And so I did, receiving a squeal from Oliver every time I mentioned a juicy detail.

  Once I’d finished relating it to him, Oliver’s eyes were wide. “You mean to tell me that Andre was finally DTF, and the devil cock blocked you?”

  I let out a sad laugh and pushed a hand through my hair. “Pretty much.”

  “Damn, sweets, that blows loads.”

  I gave him a dark look at his little innuendo.

  “Or not.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway,” he continued, “I never would’ve pegged the devil as a possessive bastard when it came to his woman.”

  “I am not his woman.”

  Oliver patted my knee like I was cute. “I say you screw them both.”

  “Oliver!”

  “What?” he said, trying to look innocent. “Fate gave you two men; girl you should own that shit.”

  “Hello, Oliver, one of those men just happens to be the devil.”

  Oliver cocked his head thoughtfully. “You know that whole evil incarnate business might be really hot—he’s probably a god in the sack.”

  Ew ew ew! “For the sake of our friendship, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “Fine,” Oliver said testily, “enjoy virgin-hood. I hear you guys make great sacrifices.”

  I was about to respond when the sound of footsteps drew my attention to the doorway.

  A moment later Caleb entered the room, a manila folder tucked under his arm. He dropped it on a nearby coffee table, and Oliver and I got up to take a closer look.

  Caleb crouched in front of the file and opened it up. Inside were a series of photographs from the second crime scene. He flipped through them, his expression determined. Expectant. And suddenly I didn’t think his theory was any theory at all. A nervous thrill shot through me at what he might’ve discovered.

  From the stack he pulled out a series of photos that focused on the wooden altar.

  I gave him a questioning look
, but he didn’t see it.

  “There,” he said, pointing to the image. It was a close up of one of the scenes carved onto the altar. Depicted on it was an image of a man carrying a woman away.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  Instead of answering me, he flipped to another photo of the altar and tapped on a bit of detailing between the carved images. “That’s a pomegranate.”

  “It is?” I said. Huh, it looked more like a peach to me, but then again, I wasn’t exactly a botanist.

  “So what?” Oliver said. He’d become our unofficial partner. Typical.

  “The pomegranate has an important meaning in Greek mythology,” Caleb explained. “It symbolizes the story of Hades and Persephone.”

  It took me a moment to recall the story. Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and she was unfortunate enough to catch the attention of Hades, the god of the Underworld.

  The myth went something like this: One day when Persephone was frolicking in a field—or whatever it was innocent Greek girls did back in the day—Hades kidnapped her and took her to the Underworld to be his captive bride.

  Meanwhile, topside, Persephone’s mother was grieving the loss of her daughter, and in her sorrow, she was causing all the earth’s crops to die. The gods took notice and tried to retrieve Persephone from Hades before the land fell into a perpetual winter. Only by that time, Persephone had eaten a couple pomegranate seeds—food of the dead—and the sustenance bound her to the Underworld. Because of this, it was no longer a simple matter of retrieval.

  But to prevent the total destruction of the world, something needed to happen. So a bargain was struck: Persephone would live with her mother for a part of the year, and she’d live in the Underworld with Hades for the other part of the year.

  And everybody lived happily freaking ever.

  I focused on the detailed carvings again. “Holy shit,” I murmured. Looking at the pictures with the myth in mind, they fit.

  I allowed myself a moment of surprise and excitement—Caleb had figured out what the altar’s images were depicting. “Do you think other investigators have figured this out?” I asked.