The Curse Keepers (Curse Keepers series)

by Swank, Denise Grover

  I turned around, and Marino moved next to me, blocking my path with his arm. “I want her. I’ll pay you for her.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  Collin’s face paled. “She’s not for sale.”

  “Five thousand.”

  “I said she’s not for sale.”

  “You can’t do that!” I shouted, indignant. “You can’t sell people!” But I knew that it could be done. Human trafficking was all too real. Who the hell was Collin mixed up with?

  Both men ignored me, caught in their own standoff.

  Marino plastered a smile on his face and held out his hands. “I’ll forgive your debt on that rat trap you call a boat.”

  Collin’s expression weakened.

  Marino grinned. “And I’ll throw in ten thousand.”

  Collin paused. “What about my map?”

  My eyes bulged in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing, Collin?”

  Marino waved a hand. “Fine, you can have the map too.”

  I’m going to vomit. Nausea swept over me, and I couldn’t move. Collin was considering Marino’s offer. He was going to sell me.

  “Why do you want her so much?” Collin asked.

  “Because you do.”

  Collin looked at the wall, his face expressionless. “She gave you her two minutes. We had a deal and we’ve met our end. You’re a son of a bitch, Marino, but at least you’re known for being a man of your word. Are you going to change that now? Over her?” He said the last words with contempt. “I can assure you that she’s not worth it. She’s one of the worst fucks I’ve ever had, and you and I both know I’ve had more than I can count.”

  Marino turned to me, lowering his voice. “Every word of protest only makes me want her more.” He lifted the back of his hand to my cheek and I smacked it away. He chuckled. “But you’re right. I am a man of my word.”

  Collin kept his gaze on Marino, his chin lifted. “Ellie, let’s go.”

  I stepped toward him, lightheaded and shaky, but I forced myself to keep it together and clenched my hands into fists at my sides.

  Marino sat in his chair, grunting as he landed. “This isn’t over, Collin. We’ll visit this again.”

  “And she’ll be history by then.”

  “Then bring her to me when you’re done, and perhaps we’ll forget all of this ugliness.”

  I moved into the storage room, and Collin fell in step behind me, leaning into my ear. “Keep going and don’t stop until you get out the front door. Here.” He put a set of keys in my hand. “You need to go.”

  Whipping my head around, my mouth dropped open. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got something to take care of.”

  I stopped, but Collin stood behind me and pushed me to the door. “What? The map you were going to sell me for?”

  “We don’t have time for this, Ellie. Will you just do what I ask?”

  “No.”

  Collin opened the door to the parking lot and dragged me outside. “For God’s sake, Ellie.”

  I jerked out of his grasp. “One of the worst fucks you’ve ever had? Are you kidding me?” I knew standing there yelling at him was stupid. Dangerous even. I needed to get the hell out of there. But anger gave me power and fear made me helpless, so I was hanging onto my anger.

  His face reddened. “Get in the truck.”

  “No.”

  The veins on his neck and temple throbbed. Collin looked like he was about to have a stroke. “I swear to God, Ellie, I will tie you up and gag you if you don’t get in the truck right now.”

  He was serious. He would really do it.

  When he saw the hesitation on my face, he pushed me toward the driver’s door.

  I shouted in frustration and pounded my hand on the door panel.

  He shoved me inside, climbed in next to me, then wrenched the keys from my grip and drove a block away, pulling into the parking lot of a car wash. “Drive two blocks south, then three blocks east to the Buxton Police Department. Park out front and wait for me. You’ll be safe. Marino wouldn’t dare touch you there.”

  “We need to discuss the fact that you considered selling me.”

  He stopped again and cocked his head. “You seriously can’t think I considered selling you to Marino.”

  I glared. “It sure looked like it to me when you were bargaining with him.”

  “Are you really that stupid? I need you. As much as it pains me to admit.”

  “Then I’m not leaving. I’m going with you, Collin.”

  “The hell you are.”

  I was more scared than I’d ever been in my life, even more so than last night, and the last thing I wanted to do was go anywhere near that horrible man’s business. But I also knew I couldn’t be alone. I was sticking with Collin whether he liked it or not. “If you don’t take me with you, I’ll just follow you.”

  He pounded his fist into the steering wheel. “Son of a bitch. You are the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever met.”

  “I’ve made two of your top lists. Yay, me. I’m going.”

  “I’m not saving your ass next time.”

  “Yeah, I love you too. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Collin left the truck parked in the car wash parking lot. We hiked across a field toward a warehouse, the weeds scratching my legs. Wearing my lucky skirt meant I wasn’t dressed for this, but at least I’d worn my Vans instead of sandals. “What is this map anyway?”

  “You don’t need to worry about it.”

  “Is it curse related?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I get to worry about it. What is it?”

  He cursed under his breath. “A map that shows important locations. The portal to the spirit world. The sites were there were temples erected to the gods. The gods might be hiding there while they get stronger.”

  “You don’t think I need to know about that?” I sighed in exasperation. “And you got pissed at me for pawning my cup.”

  His body tensed, and his fists balled at his side. “The key difference is that I didn’t pawn the map. Marino stole it from my brother.”

  “You have a brother? Younger?”

  He stopped and looked down at me in exasperation. “Would I be the Curse Keeper if he were older?” Closing his eyes, he shook his head. “Please tell me that you know the answer to that.”

  I plastered on a fake smile and recited, “The oldest child becomes the Keeper once they turn eighteen.” I glared at him. “I learned that when I was four years old.”

  “Is that all you learned?”

  “No.” I didn’t want to discuss my Keeper knowledge, or lack of it, at the moment. “If you weren’t going to sell me, why did you pretend to go along with Marino and bargain with him?”

  He groaned and resumed his trek across the field. “Ellie, I only played along because I wanted to know if he still had my map. How many times have I told you that I need you? You’re no good to me if you’re stuck with Marino or dead.”

  “That has got to be the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Sarcasm dripped from my words.

  “Besides, we never would have been in that position if you’d done what I said and kept your mouth shut.”

  “Marino wasn’t going to deal with you.”

  “He would have come around.” But his tone told me he knew it was a lie.

  “Why haven’t you gotten the map before now?”

  “I thought he’d sold it. I never expected him to admit that he had it. My hope was that he’d tell me who he’d sold it to.”

  “Why would Marino want to buy me?” The possible answer to my question made me queasy.

  “Not what you think. I was stupid to bring you here and even more stupid to show my hand to Marino. He knows I don’t give a fuck about women so for me to show the slightest bit of interest in you set alarms off in his head. I’m sure he thinks you have some key information that makes you so valuable to me that I don’t want you out of my sight. He assumes
that means money, and lots of it. Marino sees big fat dollar signs, and he thinks you hold the key to getting it.”

  Collin’s answer appeased me. Sort of. “So is that what you do? Steal things and sell them to Marino?”

  Collin grinned with a shrug.

  “If he thinks you’re going to use me to steal something and then turn around and sell it to him, then why would he want me? Why not just wait for you to bring it to him?”

  “To cut out the middleman, Ellie. Any time you can eliminate the middleman, you do it.”

  I didn’t like the way he used the word eliminate. “He asked if I knew about the Ricardo deal.”

  “Fuck. It was those goddamn candlesticks.” Collin sucked in several deep breaths and shook his head. “There’s nothing to be done about it now.”

  We stopped at a six-foot privacy fence and squatted next to it, Collin peeking through a crack between the boards.

  “Is this a good idea?” I asked, pressing my face to the cedar plank. The wood was so old and rough I’d be lucky to not get splinters.

  “Theft is always a bad idea, Ellie,” Collin said with a mocking tone.

  “I meant stealing the map right after you confronted Marino, in broad daylight.”

  “No. If he expects me to try to get it, it would be tonight. Not during the day. No one would be that crazy.” He turned to me and smiled a mischievous grin. He thought this was fun. Collin Dailey was one of those freaky, thrill-seeking idiots. He noticed the expression on my face and raised his eyebrows playfully. “Not too late to back out. You can wait right here for me.”

  I was tempted. Marino scared the shit out of me, and I didn’t want to go anywhere near him or anything that belonged to him. But I didn’t trust Collin. He kept things from me—like the map—and I needed information so I wouldn’t be so dependent on him. If he found the map, who was to say he wouldn’t hide it and tell me he hadn’t? Like it or not, I was stuck with him. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  His smile broadened, and I swore that there was something in his eyes that looked like a challenge. I hoped I was imagining things.

  He pulled his backpack off his shoulder and set it on the ground between us, removing a pair of gloves. “Don’t touch anything. Marino won’t call the police, but he might look for our prints.” He looked up. “You don’t have a criminal record do you?”

  My head jerked back. “No!”

  He turned his attention to his pack. “Then you’re probably safe. No prints on file to match you to.”

  I didn’t want to ask about Collin’s criminal record. The bolt cutters he pulled out of the backpack he kept stored in his truck answered that question.

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “Stick close to me. Keep quiet. If we see anyone, let me do the talking.”

  “Okay.”

  His mouth pinched with irritation. “You said that last time and look where that got us.”

  “It got us eighteen hundred dollars, and the whereabouts to your map. You’re welcome.”

  Collin shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble, but if we do, run back to the truck and let me deal with it.” He stared into my eyes, a serious expression on his face. “Promise me that you’ll listen to me this time.”

  “You expect me to just leave you?”

  “I can get out easier if I’m on my own and I don’t have to worry about you.”

  I grinned. “Awww… You’re worried about me.”

  “Although I’m beginning to rethink this belief, for now, dragging you around alive is easier than carting you around dead. If you want to call that worrying about you, then yes, I am.” He cocked his head and lifted an eyebrow. “If it makes you feel any better, if I didn’t need you, I’d leave you behind without a second thought.”

  Good to know.

  He slung the bag over his shoulder, stuffed his hands into the gloves, and grabbed the bolt cutters. “Let’s get this over with.”

  We skirted the fence until Collin found two loose boards. He lifted them so I could climb through, then he followed behind me. We stood at the back of a mini-junkyard. Old cars, motorcycles, even bikes littered the ground. A large metal building stood in front of us.

  Collin pointed to the rusted storage unit. The hundred-foot-long or so structure took up most of the fenced-off area. “I think it’s in there.”

  I trailed behind as he hung close to the building, making his way to the front. Stopping at the corner, he scanned the lot, the muscles on his neck and arms tightening. After a couple of seconds, he held a finger up to his mouth, then pointed around the corner.

  I nodded, swallowing the lump of fear in my throat. This was real. We were breaking into this building. While part of me was terrified, a hidden part of me was more alive than I’d ever felt. Well, almost as alive as I felt when I’d been close to Collin that morning. I decided to attribute that occurrence to a phenomenon out of my control. The Curse Keeper blood had caused my reaction, and I’d do best to remember that not only was my reaction not real, but that Collin would screw me and forget about me the minute our job was done. Marino had confirmed that less than a half an hour before.

  But this adrenaline rush surging through my own blood had nothing to do with the Curse Keeper magic. Collin may have been one of those thrill-seeking idiots, but it turned out that Elinor Dare Lancaster was too. No one was more surprised than me.

  Collin slipped around the corner and motioned for me to wait. The storage shed was locked with a chain and a padlock. All it took were two snips of the bolt cutters before the chain dropped to the ground with a thud. He pushed the sliding door open, looked inside, then motioned for me to come. When I reached him, he pushed me inside, then closed the door behind us, plunging us into darkness.

  After my encounter with the spirits last night, darkness wasn’t something I welcomed. But I reminded myself that it was bright daylight outside, even if there was hardly any light in here. I ran my thumb along the raised outline of the symbol on my palm, taking comfort that it didn’t tingle. At the moment, the real threat was the man in a room several hundred feet away.

  Collin flipped on a flashlight, jerking me out of my thoughts. He knew exactly where to go, heading to a row of filing cabinets in the back corner. I trailed along, my eyes adjusting so that I could make out rows of metal shelves on the other side.

  Collin handed me the flashlight and whispered, “You might as well make yourself useful. Hold this and shine it in the bag, then where I point.”

  I took the flashlight and nodded.

  He opened a small tool kit and removed several small tools. “Here.” He pointed to the lock on the first cabinet. It only took a few jiggles before the lock popped. Collin opened the drawer and started thumbing through files before moving to the next drawer.

  “What’s it look like?” I whispered.

  “A map.”

  “No shit. Big? Small? Old? Is it original?”

  He grimaced. “No, it’s not original. The original would have been on an animal skin and probably would have decomposed by now.” His condescending tone was beginning to bug the crap out of me.

  “So it’s new?”

  “Not exactly.”

  I put my hand over his, glaring up into his face. “Then what exactly is it?”

  He flipped his hand around and grabbed mine, pressing our palms together. Collin might have been wearing a glove, but that didn’t stop the mark on my hand from blazing with power.

  The spirits might be getting stronger, but Collin and I were getting stronger too.

  He froze, his irritation draining away.

  An electrical current danced across my skin. I felt alive. Powerful. Hyperaware of everything around me. There was a cricket in the corner, and spiders crawling behind the cabinets we stood in front of. A bird perched in a tree in the corner of the lot, watching a worm that wriggled across the surface.

  I lowered the flashlight, the pool of light shining on my feet.
<
br />   “You feel it too?” Collin asked, all pretense gone.

  I nodded.

  “We feel the Manitou.” Awe filled his voice.

  “What’s the Manitou?”

  “The life force that flows through every living thing.”

  It was simultaneously overwhelming and comforting. The sense that there was more than just me or Collin, that there was so much more out there. And we could feel it. Experience it. Being a Keeper meant I had a responsibility, but for the first time I realized I also had a gift.

  The current between us drew me closer and I found myself pressed against his chest. I closed my eyes and heard the blood rushing through his veins and the rapid beat of his heart. I reached outside of the two of us and felt a group of flies hovering over a dead mouse in a corner. A cat slinking through the grass. A dog lapping water from a bowl.

  My hand burned and my eyes flew open in surprise. I started to jerk away from Collin, but his fingers looped over my hand, keeping our palms together.

  “My mark is burning.”

  Collin’s eyes widened. “There’s something here.”

  “Marino?” But before Collin shook his head, I knew it was something worse. I felt it. Something dark and oppressive. It didn’t have a physical form, but its presence occupied a space on the other side of the warehouse. Fear mingled with the electrical current flowing throughout my body.

  Then the current was gone—Collin had pulled his hand from mine.

  “Shit.” He shut the drawer and eased open the one below it. “Hold up the light.”

  I’d forgotten the flashlight in my hand. “You can’t be serious. You’re still looking?”

  His eyes were wild. “We need the map.”

  I could hardly catch my breath. “What’s out there, Collin?” I couldn’t feel its force anymore, but I knew it was lurking. The mark on my hand was on fire.

  “I don’t know, but from the strength, I’d say it’s a god.” He kept his attention on files, shutting the drawer and moving to the next one.

  “There’s a vengeful god in this building with us, yet we’re still here? I’m not staying here waiting for something mean and nasty to get me.” I turned around to leave. I only had to make it to the sunlight, and then I’d be safe. I hoped.