by Lizzy Ford
Two bites later, I’m vomiting in the bathroom. I try the milk and juice next, and end up throwing up everything. With my head throbbing and my stomach convulsing, I sink onto the floor of the hallway.
I check the time. I might be in trouble.
Coffee and water. That’s all I can have for the next five days. And no leaving the house.
“Now I know. I got this.”
I wait until my misery subsides and stand. Returning to the study, I ransack my father’s desk, looking for something I can read, some forgotten letter that didn’t get frozen in the deal I made with Myca. I can find nothing but the trunk of curse charms no one wants to explain to me.
I dump them onto the desk and glare at them briefly then google curse charms.
There’s actually a lot of information out there about charms that hold spells, and I start reading, soon immersed in my impromptu research. Nothing else I’ve gone through can be found online, and I devour everything I can read about curses and dark occult magic.
I don’t know how accurate what I’m reading is, but apparently, everyday items can be used to secure a curse. The curser has the ability to stick the spell to anything, and only the curser can lift the spell from the item.
After an hour of reading, I set my phone down and pick up the ivory flute I know to be Tristan’s.
“So … who cursed this shit?” I wonder aloud. My father? Another Kingmaker? Or is it the curse placed two thousand years ago, and if so, how do I break a curse when the person who made it has been dead for so long?
The amulet around my neck grows warm whenever it’s near the other curse charms. I lift it to see it clearly. I don’t think I’ve bothered really looking at it since Myca originally told me to wear it, the night I met all three of them at Fisherman’s Wharf.
The amulet is oblong and round, the size of my pinkie, with what remains of intricate carvings covering the surface. They’re too faint to make out, but I don’t think they’re words. It’s definitely old and some kind of metal with a faint patina covering the tarnished silvery hue.
Nothing about it is unique, expensive, or even pretty. It looks like someone thought hanging a chunk of metal on a chain was a good idea. I drop it back to its place on my neck and check the charms again, seeking out Myca’s. Aside from the three charms belonging to the candidates, the other unidentified charms aren’t talking to me.
I take a picture of them all, wondering if I’ll notice details in a still photo that I’m not seeing now.
Replacing them all into the trunk, I lean down and rest the trunk back in its drawer and then straighten quickly.
I recall settling into a seat when I became absorbed in the curse research, but at what point did I sit down here?
I’m in my father’s chair. The irrational fear that’s plagued me since his death, that I might one day walk into the study and see him here if I left his chair alone long enough, holds me in silent panic.
But he’s gone. He’s not coming back to this study and will never again sit in his chair.
My eyes go to the Book of Secrets I can’t open or lift. He left me letters in the depths of the Book, and my heart hurts knowing I can’t read them this week. I’ve lost him for good this time. Not even his letters are here to comfort me.
Or … I guess torment me, because they never brought me any real peace. I’d be better off not knowing he was trapped by the same curse that’s forced me into the trials, and that he suffered his last few days alive, because he wasn’t able to tell me the horrible truth about the Final Trials.
I stand and gaze at his chair for a long moment, not sure what to feel about sitting in his place. We couldn’t be more different and yet, the trials I’m going through, he went through at one point, too. Were we ever alike? Did I ever really know him?
The idea I loved a man who I didn’t really know bothers me more than anything, except the doubt I have about whether or not he truly loved and trusted me.
“I wish we could sit down and talk again,” I say, disappointed. “If we could, I’d start by asking ...”
Is that chicken parmesan?
My attention snaps towards the front of the house. The sound of the mailman sliding something through the mail slot is accompanied by an even stronger whiff of food.
I squeeze my nose closed, but it doesn’t help. I’m still hungry for whatever it is I smell. The scent lingers this time, too, even after I know the mailman has moved on.
I go to the doorway of the study and gaze at the pile of mail in front of the door then check the time.
Nineteen hours.
I’m nowhere near the point of desperation where Myca said normal vampires are at this time. But …
“This isn’t good,” I admit.
Returning to the kitchen, I brew a huge pot of coffee and then start up the Buffy marathon once more. My goal is to hunker down for the week and stay right here. I’ve got enough movies and coffee to do it.
My resolve lasts until hour twenty four, when the neighbor kids get home from school.
“Rice crispy treats and chocolate pudding,” I whisper.
I can smell them through the walls.
By hour twenty six, when every fucking person on the entire block has come home from work and smells like they’re in my living room, a buffet of epic proportions, I’m huddled up in a corner with a cup of coffee, shaking from caffeine overload and the hunger.
With deep, steady, calming breaths, I’m somewhat in control, or so I tell myself. My stomach feels like it’s gnawing at me from the inside out, and I’m fevered. My nose is stuffed with cotton balls, but I can still smell people. I can even count how many people are present in the neighborhood. The neighbors to my right are having a small dinner party with seven people total in attendance, while the family of five to my left is home. I can smell everyone for five row houses in each direction and several across the street, not to mention the scent of everyone driving through the neighborhood to avoid the rush hour traffic clogging the main roads.
And the school bus full of kids …
My phone vibrates. With effort, I pry it out of my pocket to see another infuriating text from Myca.
How’s it going? He’s asked again.
I answer him with shaking hands. Fuck you.
Why do I have the feeling he’s laughing at me? His response is quick.
Better to suck up your pride and come to me than hurt someone.
“Or, I can just die right here in my corner,” I answer acidly. I already know I can’t hurt someone, even if he or she smells like fresh, hot maple oatmeal scones drizzled with caramel.
My stomach seizes, and I hug my knees to my chest and bury my face into the crook of my elbow. Tears of pain trickle down my cheeks. Am I dying? Is this what death feels like?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I can do this. I’ve been a werewolf for a week and a fae for a week. If I survived both of those transitions, I can be a vampire for a week.
I think.
I hope.
There’s no way in hell I’m going to Myca’s.
By hour twenty eight, I’m ready to scream. A Thursday night football party is in full swing directly across the street, another occurring two row houses down and a third in the neighborhood directly behind me, whose residents I can now smell, too.
I crawl out of my corner for more coffee. My stomach hurts so much from hunger cramps, I can barely stand up straight and hold it with one arm.
Salty sweet kettle corn, potato skins with cheese, chicken wings, cheeseburgers, Guinness on tap, chocolate Kahlua fondue …
Dizzy and off-balance, I shake my head to clear it and return to the kitchen, trembling enough I don’t realize the phone in my pocket is vibrating until it stops.
Myca has texted me his address.
I toss the phone onto the table and grate my teeth hard enough I can hear them grinding together. I let out a cry of frustration and bend over, overwhelmed by starvation and the smell of so many incredible treats
right outside my reach.
I might be in trouble.
But to show up at Myca’s is out of the question. I can’t … I won’t … he killed my father!
Wiping my face, I feel the sense of sliding once more, a blatant sign I’m falling prey to the magic. This isn’t the good kind of sliding. This is the sliding where I lose control. I recognize it after my experiences as a wolf and fae.
What if Myca’s right? What if I snap and hurt someone? Especially the neighbor who smells like …
“Stop!” I order myself and squeeze my eyes closed.
More accurately, what if I snap and hurt someone innocent? A human with no ties to the supernatural world? I fucked up the lives of two experienced supernatural leaders. What the hell could I do to an oblivious neighbor? It’d be so much worse than the damage I did to Ben and Tristan.
I look at Myca’s address in earnest for the first time. He lives on the northern edge of town, about thirty five minutes from me.
He’s not an option, except ...
He’s the only option, whispers another instinct.
I can’t do this. I can’t be the mate of the man who killed my father. I can’t beg him to make this torture stop, can’t tumble into bed with him, can’t risk falling in love and betraying Daddy.
This time, my tears are out of frustration. My hands tremble too hard to pour a cup of coffee. My world is collapsing around me. Any second now, I could snap and take the neighbors with me, thanks to a certain fucking vampire who’s playing mind games with me.
Do I deserve this? To be run out of my own home, into the arms of a fucking murderer? Is this the price I’m paying for being a Kingmaker and for ruining the lives of Ben and Tristan?
I want to write this all off as magic, and to remind myself that whatever I’m experiencing, it’s part of the trials, and it’s temporary.
But this feels so … personal, a new level of torment I didn’t think was possible before Myca’s confession. My only way to survive this week is to turn to Daddy’s killer. Myca could’ve hid the truth until the end, but he didn’t, and I’m starting to believe this is why: so I suffer.
Why?
“Cheddar cheese popcorn,” I say in a choked voice.
Snatching my phone, I grab a jacket on the way out along with what’s left of my baggy of quarters.
Holy fuck! People are strolling down the street, and it’s close to nine! Why the fuck aren’t they safe inside, where someone like me can’t get to them?
Overwhelmed by the smells without the walls of my home to buffer them, I can’t move from the porch area for a full five minutes.
I glimpse a taxi heading down the street slowly and bolt down the stairs to the sidewalk. I’m sliding faster and struggling to stay connected to my body and myself. I don’t know what happens if I black out as a vampire, but I have a feeling the results will be really bad.
I flag down the taxi and stumble to the car then mumble the address to the driver before hopping in back.
Chicken curry. God, I love curry.
His windows are down, and I’m soon drowning in the scent of food, caught between the largest buffet in the world and hunger gnawing at my bones.
I check the time.
Twenty nine hours.
Myca was dead right.
I hate him. HATE him!
Clutching my stomach, I’m in agony as the driver makes his way through various neighborhoods to the highway. Some of the pressure eases when we’re away from the housing subdivisions, though it’s the driver’s smell that’s pushing me towards outright insanity.
I slide into a dreamlike state, where nothing seems real, and I’m floating, surrounded by food that disappears whenever I try to reach for it. This has got to be the longest car ride of my life.
“We’re here,” the driver reports finally, pulling me out of the surreal state. “That’ll be twenty …”
I sit up from my position curled up in the backseat of his car and stare at him.
“You know what? It’s on me,” he says. “You need help, kid. Lay off the drugs.”
I hurry out of the car and watch him drive away. Already, I’m sinking again into the state where I can’t tell if this is real or a dream. Did I really come to Myca’s? Or am I passed out on my couch?
Myca’s house is on the edge of town, an estate, located on a bluff overlooking the ocean and hedged by forest.
If I thought the compulsion to eat humans in my neighborhood was bad, this is ten billion times worse.
It isn’t hunger alone I’m experiencing. It’s every fucking cell in my body being compelled to the one person who can stop me from collapsing in upon myself. The power of this draw is terrifying, unlike Tristan’s subtle magic, and completely consuming, even before I lay eyes on Myca.
I don’t know what this is, or how I feel completely out of control of every part of myself. I don’t smell food here. The craving is so much deeper, as if it’s my mind, heart and soul that’s hungry, not my belly.
Myca’s going to swallow me whole. I’m close to hyperventilating, the battle within me between hunger and conscience in full swing.
“Good timing.” Myca’s low voice makes me shiver. He stands in the doorway, appearing as if I woke him up. He’s bare chested, revealing an athletic upper body with wide shoulders, and wearing pants that hang low on his hips. His dark hair is mussed, and he has a shaded jaw and neck from a day or two without shaving. “Come in.”
Need slams into me with each beat of my heart. It’s not just hunger. I want to taste him, to consume him, with such power, I groan and hold my stomach.
He smiles, aware of my pain and internal battle, and disappears into the interior of the house.
This is a mistake. The biggest mistake of my life. But I can’t turn back even if I wanted to.
Ready to collapse into a heap and weep, I nonetheless find the mental fortitude to make it in the front door but not much farther. I’m overwhelmed by the compulsion that wants me in his arms and fighting it at the same time, all while trying to rein in the sense I’m about to explode and lose myself for good, once and for all.
Whatever magic he has, it’s so much stronger than me. I can’t recall ever feeling so insignificant, a leaf in a tornado, being whipped around with no ability to stop whatever’s happening. I can’t even see straight anymore. I’m being torn apart from the inside out, and I can’t stop anything that’s happening to me.
I trip, and one of his arms goes around me. Myca holds me against his strong chest. His warm skin is the first sensation to pierce the haze I’m in, and I lean into him, unable to make sense of my inner or outer worlds.
“How far along are you?” He lifts my chin and peers into my face, his handsome profile highlighted by the fire burning in the formal living area nearby. “Impressive.”
“Stop it,” I manage.
“I’m serious.” He releases my chin. “Kingmaker magic is stronger than I thought.” His smile reveals incisors that are quickly lengthening and whose size soon has me pushing at his chest to get away. “Take it easy, Leslie. I know you can’t hang with me yet.”
I have no idea what that means and no strength to ask. The world seems blurry around the edges, fuzzy in the middle, and melting in the space between. This must be a dream. It has to be, if I’m here with my father’s killer and more interested in smelling his skin than killing him.
Myca doesn’t bite me, for which I’m grateful. Instead he sinks his teeth into his wrist. I grimace, not at all certain this vampire thing is going to work out, when I smell it. Him. Whatever. His blood smells of everything I’ve ever loved, from my favorite food to the one summer vacation I took with Daddy to the last memory I have of my mother. It’s a scent, a memory, a whole ball of euphoric emotions, all of which I innately recognize as mine … and it’s in his blood.
How is this possible?
Unable to control the hunger, I seize his arm. His grip tightens around me. I don’t bother to test his flavor but push my lips a
gainst his skin and begin to drink.
At some point, I completely black out.
For the first time in many, many years, I actually have a dream. Or … a memory? Is there something in between? Lucid dreaming maybe?
My confusion fades as the dream takes shape and bursts into full color. I’m walking down the street with my mother, small enough that my eyes are at the level of her thigh, and my hand is held in hers.
We’re in an unfamiliar neighborhood with massive houses behind gated entrances and a sidewalk lined with tall trees whose braches rattle in a chilly breeze. Gold and maroon leaves are piled in the gutter.
“Remember what I said,” my mother says.
I look up at her, and my breath catches.
I forgot how beautiful she was, and my father’s single remaining photograph does her no justice. With porcelain skin, sky colored eyes, and white hair, she has the signature features of the zombie clan she came from and a warm smile. Her almond-shaped eyes glimmer with intelligence. She was the leader of her clan before my father chose her for his mate during his trials. He once told me she was the most brilliant woman he had ever met. She’s definitely the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
“Do you remember?” she asks.
I don’t, but I try.
“You can’t tell your daddy we came here,” she supplies at last.
I nod.
She pauses at the gate of one of the mansions and types in a code. The door slides open silently, and we walk through the gate and down a driveway running between vibrant green lawns towards a brick, Georgian style house with a door that seems as tall as a tree when we reach it.
The door opens before she can knock, and another zombie, this one older with silver hair, stands in the doorway.
“Hi, Mama,” my mother says and releases my hand to hug my grandmother.
“You brought that thing with you?” My grandmother glares at me.
“She’s not a thing. She’s my daughter.”
I gaze up at my mother, uncertain what to think by the way my grandmother is staring at me. Rather, she’s staring at my feet. I look down without seeing anything out of the ordinary. I’m in a cute pink dress and black dress shoes.
