I wasn’t feeling particularly soothed. I’d found the visit from my “cousin” more than a touch disturbing on several levels. The curse mark remained fairly prominent. I kept glancing at it.
Curses, in general, are pretty variable. Say your coworker, sibling, mother-in-law, or whatever pisses you off. If you have any magical talent at all you can put a curse on them. How effective the curse is will depend on how much talent you’ve got. Someone like me, with no magic, equals no curse. Now someone like Bruno, who’s got so much talent he practically glows in the freaking dark (now that I’ve got vampire powers to see it), well, there’s not much he couldn’t do, up to and including arranging for your enemy to die.
I felt a shiver run down my spine from a combination of fear and rage. Sitting there, holding my little wooden box, I wanted answers, about the curse, about the gift Ren had brought me.
I don’t trust people. Never have. But I trust my instincts and my instincts were telling me that this “gift” was the magical equivalent of dynamite.
It wasn’t exactly reassuring when Dr. Scott stormed into the room, his expression thunderous. He isn’t that big a man, and normally he’s reserved and elegant, someone you’d expect to see on the cover of JET magazine or one of the major psychiatric journals. He was wearing khakis and a polo shirt, but his attitude was anything but casual. “What the hell have you done now? Whatever you’re holding was felt by most of the staff and woke half of the guests.”
“What have I done? Oh no,” I snapped back. “You need to have a chat with Security, because someone slipped through the cracks. I could have been killed. Like Vicki was killed, in case you’ve forgotten. I thought you’d tightened security around here.”
He stopped in mid-stride, halfway around the desk. Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself, and I watched him very deliberately pull calm around him the way I’d seen a woman at my grandmother’s church put on a familiar and comfortable shawl. He changed direction to sit in the guest chair next to mine. We were close enough that he could easily touch me if he wished, and it gave him an unobstructed view of what I was holding.
“I’m sorry, Celia. You’re right.” His voice was tightly controlled. I could tell he was still angry, but he wouldn’t let the emotion control him. This was more like the Jeff Scott I knew. In fact, the fit of temper he’d shown coming in was so unlike him that I wondered if Ren wasn’t right and he needed therapy.
“This wasn’t your fault. May I?” He nodded toward the box.
“Are you sure you want to? Last time someone else touched it, it shocked the hell out of her.”
A small frown crossed his face, but he was nothing if not determined. He set his jaw and reached out. “I’ll take my chances.”
I passed the box to him. He didn’t flinch or hesitate and it moved into his grasp without event. I was glad. My hand was still tingling from earlier.
“What is it?” he asked, running his fingers carefully over the intricately carved wood. Lifting the lid, he set it on the desk beside him.
“It was a gift from my siren visitor. She called it a Wadjeti. It’s used for some form of divination.”
“Sirens.” His expression soured. “I suppose that’s how she affected me—made me do things without my remembering?” He shook his head and let out a low growl. “I wouldn’t have believed it if my conversation with her hadn’t been on one of the security tapes.” His tone of voice made it clear how annoyed he was about this.
“Probably,” I admitted with a shrug, “but don’t ask me how it works. My gran said it’s a form of psychic ‘call,’ but she didn’t have much more information to give me than that.” Actually, she’d told me quite a few things, but none of them applied here and I wasn’t inclined to share them.
“The woman this morning manipulated me. She appeared in my home through a dozen magical barriers and I was compelled to bring her here and take her to your rooms. Then she sent me off, told me to get myself a cup of coffee. And I had to do it. Wanted to. Anything to please her.” He shivered. “Birchwoods is supposedly secure against teleportation, but my home was not.” He scowled. “I didn’t think it was necessary. My home address is not common knowledge among the staff.” He paused, his expression souring. “Of course, she could have persuaded someone to tell her.”
There was a tension to his body that wasn’t normally there. His gestures were too sharp, his voice just a couple of notes higher than normal. I might not have noticed had Ren not mentioned it, but Jeff didn’t seem quite right. He was trying too hard. It was almost as if he was doing a really good impression of himself.
“It’s possible, I suppose.”
“Did she give you a reason for the visit?”
“She said she wanted to give me a gift.” I indicated the Wadjeti.“You don’t believe her?” His face said he agreed, but he couldn’t help but slip into doctor-patient mode every time he saw me now.
“Mostly I got the feeling she was trying to stir up trouble. Ren doesn’t get along with Adriana and wants to make her look bad.”
“Adriana being the siren from the wake?”
“Yes. The gift was just an excuse.”
“Are you expecting any more visits?”
I shrugged. “No. But I wasn’t expecting this one, either. You have to remember, until very recently I didn’t know much more about sirens than that they existed. I still don’t—and I need to. I’m caught up in the middle of some sort of political mess and I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t like it. And I really don’t like that they can just come and go as they please.”
He nodded. “Nor do I. Is there anyone you can discuss this with? Find out more of what’s going on?”
“Not really. My grandfather might have known something. But he’s been dead for years. Gran told me everything she knew. Maybe somebody at the university can help me. If nothing else, they probably have some information in the library. One way or another, I think I’m going to need a day pass.”
He scowled. “You aren’t due for a day pass. You certainly haven’t earned one. More to the point, I’m not positive the courts would approve. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow when you have your hearing.”
“Can it?” It was a pointed question. “You’re the one who was complaining about the magic that thing’s giving off. I’d like to get it into the safe at my office. The layers of wards should be heavy enough to block whatever the Wadjeti is giving off.”
If I did get a pass I was also going to find an expert to check out the death curse. But I didn’t want to tell Jeff that unless I absolutely had to. It wasn’t easy with him sitting so close to me, but I was doing my best to make sure that he didn’t get a glimpse of that palm. Less easy but just as important, I was trying not to think about it so that he wouldn’t “overhear.”
Death curses are nasty, nasty business, dangerous to not only the victim but also those around them. My having one might get me kicked out of Birchwoods. I don’t think Jeff wanted to see me in the state prison/asylum, but I absolutely believed he was anxious to get away from me. And if I got kicked out of here, there was a good chance no one else would take me—and that would mean the state facility, unless charges were dismissed at my hearing. I wouldn’t need a death curse to get killed there.
“You’re not telling me everything.” Dr. Scott leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his lips.
“Well . . . no,” I admitted, “but I’m not lying. And you really don’t want to know everything, do you?” That was a guess but a good one. The longer we talked, the more obvious his unease became.
He stared at me for a long moment in silence, his dark eyes burning with intensity. The tension built until he could stand it no longer. He spoke in a quiet voice, but his entire body was quivering, as if it was costing him everything he had to maintain control. “It doesn’t bother you at all, does it? We were kidnapped . . . tortured. You killed people.”
He sounded so damned judgmental. I felt sorry for him, but I was also angry. I’d saved his ass out there. They were going to kill us both. He knew it. He’d seen it in the driver’s mind. “What the hell was I supposed to have done? It was a professional kidnapping. We could have died—would have if it hadn’t been for Ivy’s intervention and my fighting abilities. You want someone to blame? Fine. But it damned well better not be me, because it wasn’t my fault.” I met Jeff’s gaze without backing down. I was pissed. How dare he sit there acting all high-and-mighty?
I continued. “Of course it bothers me. And it scares the hell out of me. Because they were pros—pros with police connections. But it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t mine, either. And if it’s a choice between me and them, I choose me. I made up my mind about that a long time ago.”
“It’s not that simple.” He crumpled in the face of my anger. He was whispering and looking down at the palms of his hands in the classic “Lady Macbeth” pose. He was suffering, really suffering. He needed professional help.
“Yeah, it is.” I spoke as gently as I could. “Ultimately, it really is that simple. You don’t need to feel guilty. You didn’t kill anybody. And I only killed those who would have seen us dead.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.” He looked at me, his eyes haunted.
“It doesn’t?”
“No. You can’t imagine what it felt like to have him inside my mind—slicing, cutting just to hurt me. . . . It was—” He swallowed hard. “He laughed when I screamed and then did it again.” Dear lord, they’d raped him, as surely as if it had been his body. He’d been tortured. Just like I’d been, with Ivy. “I can’t even close my eyes at night without seeing flashes of raw magic.”