Morrigan's Bite (Crow's Curse Book 2), page 7
And I knew that some part of me had done this over and over, throughout history. That history was catching up with me.
I took wing and plunged into the night, turning toward home. I flew faster now, buoyed by the blood moving through my veins. I felt warm, powerful, guilty...but I knew I needed to reclaim my life, and not retreat from it. I wouldn’t allow what I had been to be who I would become.
I skimmed past the hospital, lit brightly in the dark, over the trees of the park that stretched before my apartment building. I fluttered down to the sidewalk before the building, taking the shape of a woman again. The other crows perched in the trees of the park across the street, burbling encouraging squawks at me.
I approached the front doors, but dipped my head as I approached, patting my pockets. Damn. I had lost my keys. The only key I had was the broken one the crows had given me.
I looked back at the crows. They cawed at me, taking wing in a cloud.
They were leaving me, I thought sourly. I didn’t blame them. But I looked up to see them clotted in a dark shadow, landing on a balcony.
Ah, I thought. That was my balcony. I changed back into a crow. This shift was becoming easier, more effortless. I pumped my wings and climbed in the air to the balcony. When I took my human form once again, the crows were tapping softly at the French doors.
I tugged at the doors. Despite being floors up in the sky, I usually kept them locked. But the handle made a popping sound as the lock failed, and the door opened. I was strong, now, stronger than I had ever imagined. I let myself into my apartment, leaving the door slightly ajar for the crows. Not that I was excited about the prospect of bird shit in my apartment, but I owed them. They’d kept me from killing tonight and led me home. How could I deny them the opportunity to roost in my closets, if that was what they wanted?
I crossed into the living room, dark and familiar. Soothing. I rounded the coffee table and moved toward the bedroom. I wanted nothing more than to sleep in my own bed, to wrap myself up in my blankets and try to think of a solution to my current state.
I pulled off my shoes and padded into the bedroom. Stopping short, I stared at the bed. The covers were mussed, and the bed was lumpy, too lumpy. My breath caught in my throat.
Someone was sleeping in my bed.
CHAPTER 7: UNINVITED
I approached the bed soundlessly, my toes curling in the carpet. I reached for the covers and yanked them back.
A young woman groaned and flung her arm over her eyes.
“Ummm...Garnet?” she muttered.
I exhaled, fury rising in my chest. “Opal. What the fuck are you doing here?”
My sister struggled to sit upright in bed. “I was trying to sleep,” she slurred.
I leaned over her. She smelled like booze. “Have you been using?”
“No, no,” she protested.
I glanced at the nightstand. A makeup kit that wasn’t mine was perched on the top. I unzipped it and stared into its chaotic depths. Needles, wads of aluminum foil, and a spoon glittered inside.
“How dare you bring this here,” I snarled. “How fucking dare you.”
Opal sat up and blinked at me. Her brown hair was tousled, and her eyes were sunken. She looked a lot thinner and paler than the last time I’d seen her. She looked like a vampire, what I probably looked like as the miasma of death settled around me.
“Look,” she said. “Dad said you would put me up for a few days after I got out of rehab. I took the train here, and your apartment manager said you were gone...”
“No. No, I will not put you up for a few days.” Rage boiled in me, and I loomed over her. “You do not make decisions for my life.”
Opal shrank back. “Garnet...your eyes...”
I was certain that they were blazing, the way a vampire’s eyes glowed. “Opal, this is a very bad time for you to be here. Very bad.”
I turned away, pacing the length of my bedroom. I ran my fingers through my hair, thoughts whirling. She couldn’t be here. The vampires would find her. They would hurt her, and it would all be my fault. Just like everything with my family was always my fault. I was chaos that poisoned everyone I touched, and I needed to get my family away from me.
“I like what you did with your hair,” Opal said limply. But it was too late for her to be nice to me.
“You have two choices,” I told her, my voice as rough as gravel. “I can put you in a car and send you back to Dad. Or I call the police.”
Opal’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Don’t try me,” I said.
Opal wiped at her eyes, but I could see that she wasn’t really crying. “Look, I don’t have anywhere to go. Don’t you think you owe me this?”
“Don’t start.”
“It’s your fault I’m this way. That car accident, the painkillers they gave me...I was driving you home from that dance when...” Her accusations were sharp, open wounds bubbling to the surface of her lips.
“Stop.”
“And it’s your fault Mom died. She died while having you. And you couldn’t even be bothered to do anything for the flesh and blood you do have.” She was shouting at me now, formless fury directed at me.
“Shut. Your. Mouth.” I rushed up to her, leaning into her face, and hissed. I knew that I likely looked inhuman and terrifying, but I didn’t care. “You and Dad have been blaming me for all the ills of your lives from the instant I was born. I’m not responsible for your lives. I’m responsible for mine, and I’ll be damned if I let you destroy my career by bringing drugs into my house.”
Opal shrank back, her blue eyes wide. I had never said anything like this before to her. Maybe that shocked her. Maybe it was the way I looked. Not like that mattered much. She was an addict, and no one would believe her if she said that my eyes glowed and I grew fangs when I yelled at her.
I turned away. I didn’t mean to be cruel, truly, but I needed to protect myself. And I needed to protect her. I reached for the phone, dialing quickly from memory.
“Hello?” a female voice answered.
“Nora, this is Garnet.”
“Garnet! Where are you? You’ve been on the news...are you all right?”
“I’m okay. It’s a long, long story,” I said, glaring at my sister. “But I wanted to see if you were interested in a long-distance driving job on short notice. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Sure. How far?”
I described to her my hometown, hundreds of miles away, a sleepy place where people didn’t have problems like this. “I’ll pay for all your expenses and mileage, round trip,” I said.
“Are you going home?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m sending my sister home.”
Opal glared at me from her nest of blankets on the bed.
Nora arrived within the hour. I had forced Opal into her clothes by then. I jammed all her things into her luggage and had her out on the curb, waiting for Nora.
Nora rushed out of the car and flung her arms around me. “My God, girl. Are you all right?”
I cast my eyes down and nodded. I was afraid that I would cry.
Nora pushed my hair out of my face. “Your hair is pretty,” she said.
I glanced at her hair. The last time I’d seen her, it had been green. Now, it was teal. “Coming from you, that’s a high compliment,” I joked weakly.
Nora and I put Opal’s luggage into the back of her car. Opal pouted, and I shoveled her into the backseat. She sat sullenly and vaped through the open window.
Nora exchanged a glance with me. “What’s her story?”
“She’s my sister. She’s an addict,” I said. “Don’t even let her go to the bathroom by herself.”
Nora frowned. “Is she carrying?”
“No. I searched all her luggage and threw out everything that I found. I even tore out the linings,” I said. I knew the drill. I sure as hell wasn’t going to get Nora in trouble on my sister’s account. “But she’ll try to score some.”
“Does she have any money?”
“No. This is all yours.” Opal had arrived with no money of her own. I gave Nora a fat envelope, my emergency stash of cash I kept in the apartment underneath the refrigerator. I guess I was lucky that Opal hadn’t found it. I had been careful to keep Merrel’s ring out of sight, too. If Opal had seen that, she would have disappeared to the nearest pawn shop, and I might not ever have seen her again. As pissed as I was, that didn’t necessarily seem like a bad thing. But I was trying to be a decent human being here, even if I wasn’t human.
Nora peered into the envelope and flipped through the bills. “This is too much.”
“No. It’s not enough. You’ve done so much for me.” I hiccupped. Nora barely knew me, but she answered when I called, like some kind of guardian angel swooping in to take my problems away. “Just...get her home safe, okay?”
“I will.” She looked up at me. “Garnet. You’re in trouble. I can see it.” She reached for my hand. Her thumb traced a visible vein on the back of my hand. Her hand radiated warmth and her bracelets jingled. Damn it...how was it that a near-stranger could be better to me than my own sister?
I looked away. “I know I am. I’m working on getting out of it, truly.”
“When I get back in town, we need to talk,” she said.
“Okay. I promise.” I nodded, meaning it. “But I can’t be too close to anyone now. It’s just...too dangerous.”
Nora nodded. “There are people who can help you. You just have to be open to it.”
I forced a smile upon my face. “Thank you.”
Nora got in the driver’s side and started the engine. From the backseat, Opal glared at me. She blew smoke through the open window.
“You’re dead to me,” she snarled.
“I know,” I agreed.
Nora drove off into the night, and I watched until their taillights disappeared on the freeway.
Part of me hoped that this would be truly the last I’d see of Opal. But I’d never been that lucky.
I NEEDED TO MAKE ONE other call, one that made my stomach churn. The phone rang, and I held my breath, keeping my eyes squeezed shut.
“This is Detective Gibson,” a voice answered at last.
“Detective, this is Garnet Conners,” I began. “I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour...”
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“I’m at my apartment,” I said.
“Stay there. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Wait,” I said. “Will you come alone?”
“Sure,” he said. “Sit tight, kid.”
He hung up and I stared up at my ceiling, hoping I had made the right decision. There wasn’t anyone else I could talk to who might believe what had happened to me.
I walked across my dark apartment to the refrigerator. The light momentarily blinded me, and I clumsily reached inside for a cola. I noticed that Opal had finished off the beer.
I opened the cola and lifted it to my lips. I wanted to try to pretend to be the person I was. Maybe being back here, in familiar surroundings, would sink into me, and I could get back to who I was before.
I took a swig of the sugary soda. I held it in my mouth, feeling it fizz. I swallowed it cautiously. I took another sip, then another.
But it roiled in my belly and came right back up. I threw it up in the toilet I barely reached in time, brown mixing with red blood. I flushed and rinsed out my mouth, feeling worse than before. I couldn’t even pretend to be human...what possible future lay ahead of me?
A knock sounded at the door. I took a deep breath and crossed the floor to the door. I peered in the peephole. Detective Gibson was standing outside the door in his rumpled jacket, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed.
I clicked open the locks and opened the door.
“Thanks for coming,” I blurted.
Gibson came into the apartment. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I closed the door behind him and started sobbing.
Gibson patted my back. “It’s okay, kid. It’s gonna be okay.” He spoke soothingly to me, the way my father never had.
He clicked on the light switch. I realized that I’d forgotten to turn it on, since I didn’t seem to need light anymore.
He put his hand on my shoulder and looked at my face. “Tell me everything.”
I nodded, wiping my nose. “Okay.”
We sat on the couch, and I told him everything that had happened to me. I’d last spoken with him in the hospital chapel, and Merrel had abducted me after Gibson had left. I told him that Merrel had kidnapped me and taken me to the old bootleggers’ lair out of town, where he’d turned me into a vampire against my will. I told him how I had escaped, how I’d tried to come back home, but the vampires and the witches found me. I described how I had channeled the power of the Morrigan, bellowing in a fury of feathers and red light, pushing the vampires back, and how I’d gone home with the coven. Hiccupping, I whispered to him that Max had been killed. I told him that Merrel had known where I was, and why I’d come back. I even confessed to him about the suicide at the docks and the rapist I drank from in the Glass District. Lastly, I revealed that I’d just sent my drug-addicted sister away, which seemed an absurdly mundane and normal footnote in a bizarre tale.
My shoulders sagged. “Things are really fucked up,” I said.
“Yeah,” Gibson said, handing me the latest in a steady stream of tissues. “They are.” The tissues I’d piled on the coffee table were red with bloody tears.
“So what do I do?” I asked.
“What do you want to do, kid?”
I gave a short bark of a laugh. “I want to go back to the way things were. To my life.”
He nodded. “I can understand that.”
“I don’t want to be a monster,” I whispered.
He reached forward and grasped my wrist. “Kid, you ain’t a monster. No matter what happens. You didn’t ask for any of this. What we’ve gotta do is figure out a plan to keep you safe and to figure out how to get you back where you belong.”
I nodded. “But...what about those men...those men I drank from...”
Gibson shook his head. “That suicide was dead already. And I bet you my next paycheck that the guy you smacked around is a serial predator. I bet you.”
I stared at the floor.
He lifted a finger. “Hang on. I’ll prove it to you. I’ll bet you twenty bucks.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and put it on speakerphone. He called the station and asked for the detective on duty.
“Hey, Brimmel, how’s it going?” he asked.
“Been a busy night,” the detective at the station answered. “What’s up?”
“You got any info on a guy who was found injured in the Glass District? Neck wound?”
“Um...hold on. Yeah.” There was the sound of shuffling papers. “He’s at the hospital now. Which is a good thing, since we’ve been looking for him. He’s got an outstanding warrant for gross sexual imposition. When they release him, we’re gonna scoop him up. Got a cop stationed in the ER now.”
“Excellent. Thanks, man.” Gibson hung up.
He opened his hands. “See? You haven’t done anything terrible. You’re a good person. A good person who owes me twenty bucks.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I’m not supposed to hurt anyone. And I just gave all my money to Nora.” I sniffled.
“Kiddo, I hate to be like this, but you’ve got a pretty naïve view of the world.” Gibson frowned. “I get that you’ve got higher ideals as a doctor and stuff. But in the real world, people get hurt and we hurt other people, okay?”
I shook my head. “When are you going to take me to jail?”
“In case it hadn’t been abundantly clear, I’m not.”
I blinked. “But...”
“Kid, you’re in a bad situation. I realize that. I’ve been in bad situations of my own.” Gibson leaned back into the couch. “I haven’t told you the story of my first wife.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Let me tell you.” He looked down at his hands, and his gaze became unfocused. “When I first made detective, I was working the gang unit. Made a lot of arrests. Made a lot of enemies, enemies who eventually figured out where I lived.
“One night, I came home after a long shift to find my front door wide open. I called inside, and there was no answer. I turned on the light and found my wife naked and dead on the kitchen table.”
“Oh, my god. I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “I will never forget that they took her wedding rings. I went looking for the guys that did it. I looked for years, but I finally caught up with them. Two guys, brothers, who were trying to enhance their status in the gang.
“I tracked them down when the rings were eventually pawned. I found them breaking into a shipping container near the river.
“I asked them why they did it, and they told me it was all about sending a message. So I sent a message back. I beat the shit outta them. I beat them until my arms ached and my knuckles were split open and I couldn’t lift my arms anymore. My partner led me away and arrested them. They wound up doing life sentences.
“I know I did a terrible thing, but it was a terrible thing I needed to do, understand?” He looked up at me. “It wasn’t right. Maybe it was fair, but it wasn’t right. But I would not have been able to go on without taking that revenge.”
I exhaled. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“I only tell you because the world ain’t black and white. It’s shades of grey. And those borders shift constantly. It’s more comfortable to believe that things are black and white, but it’s not how life really is when things get bad.”
I wiped my nose, nodding. I didn’t fully understand, but I had an inkling of it now.
“So you get a free pass for those, but we gotta figure out a way to help you.” He laced his fingers together. “You said that these witches had some kind of magical binding? Some way that they thought they could control your need for blood?”
