Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2 Read online

  Max looked up. “Did you hear something?”

  “Just the sighing of the wind, old boy.” Carrigan took a seat on the chair beside the couch. “Now what in blazes is so important that you dragged me away from dinner?”

  “There was a kidnapping attempt on the girl tonight.”

  “That’s nothing new. She’s already been tranquilized and poisoned. I trust you were able to take care of the brigands.”

  Yeesh, with friends like these…

  Max nodded. “I took two of them prisoner. One figuratively spilled his guts after she almost literally ripped them out. The third, who was leading the operation, got away. You’ll never guess who.”

  Carrigan leaned back and massaged his temples with his fingertips. “Oh, Henry.”

  Max inclined his head. “There was a nature sprite at the Forest Preservation Organization today who tried to deflect us away from information we needed about an old family association. Is there something I need to know?” Max’s tone was even, but the muscles tensed in his jaw, and his turquoise eyes blazed. He looked like he was going to get all fireball on the old dude’s ass.

  “We are conducting our own investigation into the girl’s history, and the more she’s in the dark, the better. Did you know she comes from a long line of Benandanti, but the line isn’t direct?”

  “I was aware of that, at least that the last in the line was an aunt, but I thought it must be some sort of illegitimacy cover-up. The characteristics typically pass from father to son or mother to daughter.”

  Carrigan grinned, which didn’t improve his looks. If anything, he looked like a smug bald Persian cat. “Blood magic.”

  Max flopped back. “Blood magic? Are you sure?”

  “Quite. The ancestress in the story was no common kitchen witch. She was a powerful sorceress.”

  “That explains why the monks are after her descendant.”

  “And others. She will be fascinating to study. Max, my boy, you must bring her here. For her own protection of course.”

  Like hell I’m going to become a prisoner in your gilded cage even if it would mean a trip to the beach.

  Max looked straight at the portrait, and his eyes grew wide. I looked anywhere but at him, but I knew I’d been caught.

  “We need to finish this later, Carrigan. I’ll bring you the girl. Just be warned: she’s trouble.” He flicked his fingers at me, and their tips glowed blue just before I was dropped out of the dream—or whatever it was—and back into my bed. I barely had time to get my bearings before Max stormed into the room.

  “How did you do that?” He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a shake. “How did you get past all the wards and the security measures so you could spy on us? You’re working for them, aren’t you?”

  I shoved him away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Like hell,” he mimicked me. “I could hear you. I thought it was interference, something having to do with the strange connection we have, but you were there. I saw you.”

  “I wasn’t anywhere! Leave me alone.”

  He paced the small room. “Don’t deny it, Lonna, You were there watching us from Lady Simpet’s portrait.”

  “Lady who?” I asked. “What kind of name is that?”

  “Lady Deirdre Simpet, and you will speak of her with respect. She has—had—brown eyes.” He looked away and pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. “Just tell me this. Why that portrait? There were others that would have given you a better view.”

  The depth of his emotional reaction knocked me out of my defensiveness. “I had no choice. I was just there. Max, who was she?”

  “Carrigan’s daughter.” His shoulders slumped.

  “Okay, and who was she to you?” I didn’t want to know, but I had to.

  He turned to me, and for once his usually impassive face betrayed more hurt and pain than I could have imagined. “She was my fiancée. She was killed by a werewolf.”

  “That explains Carrigan’s enmity,” I said to break the silence. I wanted to go to him, to hold him, but I was afraid he would reject any sort of comfort from me. He sank into a wicker chair by the window.

  “She was dancing on the beach in the moonlight. Gods, she was beautiful.” He looked outside, but I could tell he wasn’t seeing the trees that swayed in the wind under the waning moon. “It was our engagement party.”

  It was the same moon I’d seen sparkling on the ocean, but the light seemed more indifferent here, the shadows halfhearted. Or maybe that was my projecting my mood on it. “What happened?”

  “A pack of them came out of the water. They had snorkeled along the beach until they found us. The salt water doesn’t hold our wards as well as we’d like, so we had no warning.”

  “Wait a second. Wolves snorkeled?”

  “As humans. Then they changed in the surf just down the beach. I was so entranced by Deirdre that I didn’t notice them until they came out of the water. No one did. We’d gotten complacent. It had been so long since the last battle that we didn’t think they’d dare attack us at our own headquarters.”

  I shivered even though the room was warm enough. “Let me guess, they weren’t there to crash in the traditional sense.”

  “No. They came to maim. And maul. And kill. I fought as hard as I could, but we were outnumbered, and in the end, I found her broken body in the surf, her throat torn out.” He squeezed his eyes shut, but he kept talking. “Her eyes looked toward the moon, which was full that night, and I swore I would never forget them.”

  I tiptoed to him and put my arms around him. He tensed, and my heart broke at the fact he would reject my comfort on top of everything else, but then he buried his face in my nightshirt. My shirt was wet afterward, and he wouldn’t let go.

  “Max, come to bed.” He jerked back, but I stopped him. “Not to do anything, just to hold and be held.”

  He nodded and snuggled up behind me, his arms around me. The tears he’d shed on my top turned cold over the knot in my stomach. So that’s why you turn me away. You’re still in love with another, and my kind killed her.

  His breathing became even, and then heavy. He was asleep, and it was my turn to cry.

  At some point in the night, he moved to his own bed, and I woke alone and chilled. I thought I would feel angry or sad, but in truth, there was a weight in my chest that squeezed out all other emotions. Although I knew he was there to protect me, there was no way I’d allow him to take me to wherever we’d been to be locked up by wizards who wouldn’t even learn my name.

  Or allow themselves to get attached. I picked up the bag I’d packed and snuck down to the kitchen, where I left the spare set of keys on the table and a note for Max to please lock up when he left and to just mail the keys to me in Little Rock. I also asked for some time since he’d always know where to find me. Yes, I regretted allowing him to make the mark on my foot.

  It feels like he possesses me, but that’s no fun if it’s not mutual. I took off my shoe to see if I could detect any sign of what he’d done, but again, my foot looked unremarkable. Forget it. I’ll just have to get a head start and ignore him if he pops in as his astral self.

  A little part of me hoped he would chase me down and try to convince me to come back, but I squelched it. He’d made it quite clear how he felt about me. Or didn’t feel about me.

  By the time I’d gone through Chattanooga, I had stopped looking for black sedans in my rearview mirror. By lunchtime in Nashville, I had stopped wishing for one to appear, and I texted Giancarlo to let him know I was on my way home and wanted to talk to him soon, but part of me hoped he wouldn’t see it until the next day. Finally, when I arrived in Little Rock several hours later, I had convinced myself that I would be alone for the rest of my life like Aunt Alicia.

  When I returned to my place, I found it lit up, but no sign of Max or any of the other wizards, who didn’t seem to be the type to just come in and cook a girl dinner. That left just one possibility: Giancarlo.

 
Yep, when I opened the door, I got hit full in the face with the classic combination of tomato, garlic, and basil. Giancarlo stood at the stove brandishing a wooden spoon dripping with sauce in one hand and a pot lid in the other, a culinary knight who had just slain the evil marinara. I just stood in the doorway and grinned, trying to keep the tears from coming to my eyes. Here was a tableau of normalcy in a life that had gone off-kilter in the worst way.

  “Ah, Bellissima!” he greeted me and picked up a glass of wine from the counter. I sighed. There was that, his alcoholism and the fact he drank to the point of passing out most nights. I couldn’t understand how he kept his flat tummy and lithe physique with all the alcohol and Italian food. I’d always guessed his exercise regimen and high metabolism excused a lot.

  Instead of sipping from the glass, he brought it over to me. “A Barbera,” he said. “A special bottle, just for you. It’s been opening for an hour, so it should be…” He kissed his fingertips and spread them like he was releasing something. I smiled. When we’d first met, his exaggerated gestures offended me, like he was trying to be a caricature of an Italian to charm his American customers, but now they amused me. I knew the regulars at the restaurant where he was a sommelier loved him and his theatrics.

  “Thank you.” I took the wine and swirled it. The aromas of dark berries and chocolate that rose to my nose almost made me faint with pleasure, but only in a human way. The tears came back to my eyes. My inner wolf was still trapped or hiding or—and I didn’t want to think the word—gone. And I really need you right now.

  He took the overnight bag Joanie had leant me from my shoulder and closed the door behind me. The light in the breezeway flickered, but it had done that long before Max had appeared, so I shrugged off the tingle that raised the hair on the back of my neck. An expression of concern flitted over Giancarlo’s face. He was always a good-looking guy, olive-skinned and dark-haired with plenty of definition to his lean muscle. Without his customary smile, he looked dangerous—deadly dangerous—his black eyes smoldering and his chiseled jaw set. I wondered if he had any connections to the mafia because he looked like he could kill easily and without remorse.

  Then the cloud had passed, and his usual sunny expression returned, his teeth white against his dark skin with the shadow that always tinged his jaw, even after shaving.

  “So what’s the occasion?” I asked and followed him into the kitchen. “It smells wonderful.”

  “I have something important to tell you,” he said, and his smile didn’t reach his eyes. I put the wine glass on the counter before it dropped from my trembling fingers.

  “What?”

  “Food first, Mia Bella.” He silenced me with a finger to my lips. “My grandmother always said news both good and bad was more palatable with a full stomach.” He gestured to two plates with salads. “Take those to the table, and I will follow with the dressing and bread.”

  I did as I was asked, wondering what he could possibly want to tell me. Maybe my wondering about mafia connections wasn’t so far off, after all.

  Why is my heart beating so fast? I was planning to dump him, anyway. The thought surprised me in spite of its truth. Would I be so callous as to keep him around for kicks to distract me from my heartbreak over Max?

  I heard the oven door open and close, and he brought in a basket of steaming garlic rolls. I couldn’t see them yet, but my mouth watered with my imagination filling in the details of the outline my nose was giving me: shiny tops with flecks of parmesan and parsley. No vampires would be visiting tonight.

  Like I need another kind of supernatural critter in my stalker menagerie. I suppressed the urge to giggle.

  “And don’t forget the wine,” Giancarlo said and put my glass at my place. He held out my chair for me and scooted it in behind me, every bit the gentleman.

  “Everything looks and smells amazing. It’s Friday, though. Weren’t you needed at the restaurant?”

  He shrugged. “There are others who can pour the wine, pair it with the food. Sometimes a man needs a night off to spend with a beautiful woman, especially when she has run away and returned to him.”

  I was so shocked I forgot to put the roll on the bread plate, and it burned my fingers. “Ouch!” I stuck my fingertips in my mouth, the garlicky cheesy butter still hot but no longer burning.

  “Where have you been?” he asked, his voice quiet. Now his eyes expressed only sadness.

  “I was visiting Joanie in Crystal Pines,” I said. “And then I had to go to Georgia. My Aunt Alicia died.”

  He slumped back in his chair and clutched his chest like I’d shot him. “Alicia? She is dead?”

  “Yes.” I looked away from the stricken expression on his face. “It was heart disease that turned bad quickly. She held on just long enough for me to say goodbye and have to dodge a bunch of psychotic wolf monks who were after her soul.”

  He didn’t seem surprised, only concerned and sorrowful. “Did she make it?”

  “Yes, at least I think so. Gladis Ann visited that night and left me cookies and a note, so I think they’re okay.”

  “Good.” He turned his attention back to his salad.

  I wanted to throw something at him, but the food smelled too good to waste, and I didn’t want to have to clean garlic butter out of my rug, anyway. “What do you mean, ‘good’? How did you know her? How do you know about all this stuff?”

  “That has everything to do with what I want to tell you. And nothing. The question is, did you find what you needed there?”

  My mind turned first to Max and then to the contents of the box, which now resided in my duffel. “If you mean some peace and quiet, then yes,” I said to cover up my guilty feelings. I never officially broke up with him before taking up with Max. I had done stuff like that before, but I didn’t want to hurt Giancarlo. Great. What a time to develop a conscience.

  The oven dinged, and he stood. “I will return shortly.” He topped off my wine and went into the kitchen. I listened to the lovely domestic sounds of a man cooking for and taking care of me and tried to ignore the feeling that it was the wrong man. The scent of beef reached my nose, and my stomach growled even though it had just gotten salad and bread. I held my breath, hoping to hear the familiar inner voice demanding meat, but it was still silent. I hadn’t missed Wolf-Lonna this much since I’d left, and I recognized how accustomed I’d gotten to having her in this environment. She had also been good at keeping me from brooding too much. I sipped my wine, which continued to smooth out until it was like sipping dark purple velvet.

  Giancarlo brought a bowl of angel hair pasta with marinara and a platter of sliced beef braciole that had been braised in a tomato-wine sauce. He took away the salad plates and served the pasta and beef on the plates underneath.

  “This looks amazing,” I said and took a big sniff. “Smells really good, too. But seriously, I’m not going to be able to focus on the food until you tell me what you’re here to confess. If there’s someone else, well, this will be the best breakup meal I’ve ever had.”

  He smiled and put his hand over mine. “I am not breaking up with you, Mia Bella. I simply have a story to tell you, and you may decide whether you want to stay with me.”

  “Okay…” My stomach turned, the acid from the wine and salad dressing stinging me from the inside. Should I break up with him now? Save him the pain of what he’s going to tell me? Of what I’m going to tell him? But my curiosity won out.

  “Once upon a time—that’s how you start a story in English, no?”

  I ate and listened to his story, which soon became more interesting than the food, if that was possible. He brought me along, his accent lilting like the rhythm of a donkey-drawn cart bouncing over the cobblestones.

  “Once upon a time, there was a little Italian village…”

  Chapter Nineteen

  He related the same tale Max had told me, but it was from a different perspective. In it, the Padre Superiore got called in to moderate the conflict between two rival
witches. He was still the leader of a pack of Benandanti, and a witch had cursed him such that he could never change completely back into a human. Listening to it was like looking at a mirror image of a famous painting: all the familiar elements were there, but in the wrong places.

  By the time Giancarlo finished his tale, the food on my half-empty plate had grown cold, and the wine in the bottle was almost finished.

  “Do I need to tell you how the tale ends, Bellissima?”

  I shook my head and tried to organize my thoughts so he wouldn’t know I’d heard a different version of the story. “The pieces are easy enough to put together. She got married and had children. The Father Superior died, but others carried on the legacy. You’re one of her descendants, aren’t you?”

  “No,” he said. “I am Benandanti come from a different line. You are the direct descendent of the sorceress. She was clever and transferred the price to the females of her line so the monks wouldn’t take them.”

  “Did she do something else to curse him in return?”

  “Yes, it was the combination of her adjustment to his spell, her anger at his charging too high a price for getting rid of the evil witch, and the other one’s venom that caused him to turn vengeful and hunt the good witch’s descendants throughout eternity. He will only be free if he can capture the soul of one of you on its way to its final place, but he cannot be the one to kill you.”

  “So what is your role in all of this? You said you’re from a different line.”

  “It is up to us to watch your family and train those as necessary when it happens. That is how I knew your aunt. She had trouble finding her guardian.”

  Tears came to my eyes, and I didn’t even try to suppress them. “So you never really fell for me. You’re only a family tutor to make sure I don’t mess up.”

  “You are wrong again. I do care for you very much. I did not like having to lie to you.”

  “So all the drinking…”

  “I was going into my trance to also become a spirit wolf and ensure you were not putting yourself in danger as you learned how to be what you are.”