30. A Faerie’s Curse

Mom didn't kill Aster- Aster beat her to it.
Within seconds - it seemed- she was unsheathing the brilliant white sword she always carried at her hip and plunging it into her stomach. The long white blade I'd always admired and sometimes wondered how it'd look in action was now lodged in her abdomen, up to the elegant hilt where a stream of her blood was quickly reddening it.
Despite this, Aster was still on her feet- she'd stood up when my mom had turned. Her emerald eyes remained eerily clear as her life's blood drained from her body. They went slowly from my mom (who looked immensely relieved) and then to Alpha.
"You believe yourself to be invincible, Alpha Caldwell," she said calmly, even as she staggered sideways. "But you will learn that nothing on this land, oceans or sky is above a faerie's dying wrath."
I gasped. The surprise was obviously late coming but that stagger- that show of weakness from one of the strongest people I know- somehow made all this suddenly and frighteningly real. The wound, the blood on her dress, the heavy air that was slowly beginning to reek of death. It was all real.
Aster was bleeding. Aster might be dying.
The muscles in my legs trembled, I took a step with all the grace of a drunkard. Aster's gaze flickered to me once, her eyes(less clear now and drooping) warming momentarily, then she was looking at Alpha again. He watched her with a deep concentration, a boy watching as an ant burned under his magnifying glass. He was apparently undisturbed by her words.
"I curse you, wolf," Aster growled, flashing a set of sharp canines. "Every time you use that ring, one of your fingers with fall off, as lifeless as that seemingly beating organ in your chest. One by one they will fall until you have nothing left to turn to but your lonely, pitiful existence."
She coughed out blood, staggered again but didn't stay standing this time. She collapsed.
Before she hit the floor, her body burst into a flurry of silver feathers, shiny white things as beautiful as the sword she'd killed herself with. The sword, I noticed with numb awe, was nowhere in sight. Maybe it had turned into feathers like Aster's corpse and was now floating along with the fluffy things that had once been a person I'd known and loved. Flying, freely and unfairly into the night.
I stared with my mouth open, unbelieving as the last of the feathers flew off and winked out of sight. Leaving behind three stunned werewolves.
"That was actually beautiful," Alpha said.
I sat down. Staring at the sky.
"Emy?"
Footsteps in my direction.
"Stay away from my daughter!"
There was a yelp, and maybe there was still something left in my heart for my mother because that sound brought me out of my daze. I looked up and there she was, black smoke wrapped around her upper body like rope, a thick portion covering her mouth.
Then Alpha was the one yelping.
He raised his left hand in the air and what I saw nearly had me joining the yelping club too. His pinky finger was curling up on itself, darkening, decaying. Alpha- an expression of pure terror on his face for the first time ever- watched his finger as it titled to the side and fell unceremoniously to his feet. And there it sat, shriveled up and moldy. Dead.
I stared at it for a beat, then it was just too much. I couldn't hold it back anymore, I threw my head back and laughed. A shrill chocked sound, somewhere between a wail and a cackle. I couldn't stop though, not even when Alpha's head jerked in my direction. The sight of him, clutching his now four-fingered hand, with that lingering fear in his eyes only made it worse.
Tears ran down my face inside the mask, their taste salty as they touched the edges of my lips. Alpha straightened, his face going blank. He began walking my way.
I was still laughing when he stood over me, was laughing when he drew his fist back and something hard collided with the side of my temple. And I was still chuckling as the lights went out.
***
It was cold.
My eyes flew open, arms reaching out- for what, or who, I don't know.
I slumped backwards as I lowered my arms. My back scraped against something that felt like tree bark and soon all the memories came flooding back to me. I slammed the door shut on them, breathing hard as I scrambled to get the lock in place. Then I slapped on a couple more locks for good measure. Blissful peace in my head.
I ventured a gaze around. Snow, the moonlight illuminated lots of it, all over the ground, coating the vast number of trees that stretched out in all directions. I was leaning on one right now, the cold bark drilling frost into my backside. If only my view ended there, but no. Lying on the ground a few yards from me was Kane, face down. And not far from him was Alpha. Who was unfortunately very conscious.
I gave him a curious look. Could that really be the person I'd once considered as harmless as a fly? He sure didn't look dangerous anymore, his eyes hadn't warmed again, but the burning was gone. His dark hair drifted lazily with a passing breeze.
I shivered.
"Cold, isn't it?" He asked.
"I'm going to kill you," I croaked.
He glanced at Kane, ignoring me. "As cold as him- a fitting death for my cold hearted cousin. You on the other hand..."
He threw a backpack at me. I watched it thump into the snow at my feet, made no move to touch it.
"Blankets and some food that should last a while. Give you a fighting chance, I don't really care either way."
"You're such a saint."
He nodded. "I'm tired of the game."
Now that you've lost, I thought, noticing he was two more fingers short. One for bringing us here and another for the backpack?
"All I wanted was to make my old man proud," he mumbled absently, running a hand through his hair. "Proud."
He plopped down in the snow, crossing his legs casually as if we were out in a park and about to have a picnic. "I was eleven when I first killed a person."
I felt the surprise spring on my face. I hadn't thought him unusual until just recently, when those cursed rings came into the picture. I was certain that was what had twisted the gentle Alpha into the deranged person before me- just like it'd been doing to Kane back at the party. Hearing that Alpha had killed before the whole ring business was shocking.
He smiled kindly at my expression, although his eyes were somewhat distant. This was the closest and last I'd come to seeing the old werewolf I knew. "It was a pedophile, you see. My father found out one of our werewolves was assaulting human children, a friendly giant of a woman who worked as a janitor in a high school. The high school wasn't her hunting ground though- she went two towns over during the weekends when the urge came, for how long, my father didn't care to determine, but people made some links to previous crimes afterwards and the estimate was close to at least ten years. She was good at hiding the deed, became an expert at covering her tracks. But they all slip eventually and she was no exception. Want to guess what caused it?"
Even though I didn't want to guess, didn't even want to be listening to this story, I had a feeling he'd just go on whether I guessed or not. I swiped my tongue over my dry lips, throat dry as I swallowed. "Her scent?"
It was the best I could come up with, but Alpha only laughed. Jerk.
"Reasonable guess, but wrong," he said, no longer laughing. "She came into my room when my parents went out for dinner. Or thought they went out, my father got a call from the office and came back for a file. He wanted to drop it off since it was on the way to the restaurant..."
His voice trailed off and his eyes glazed over, as if hypnotized. I wondered if he'd move at all if I suddenly got up, slit his throat and danced over his bleeding body. But he snapped out of it, sadly.
"I'd been beginning to doze in my bed when I heard my window creak open. I sat up and she was just there- almost seven feet and broad shouldered, her face as pleasant as it'd been when she came over for coffee with my mom. She meant to kill me too, I could smell it on her, but then there was the car's engine. She went back out the window so fast I would've thought I'd dreamt the whole thing, if it weren't for the lingering scent.
"My room faced the back of the house so she wouldn't have ran into my parents, but she was only prolonging the inevitable at that point. I'd seen her after all. Maybe she wanted to be caught, there was no other explanation for her setting her sights on me."
"Why are you telling me all this?" I asked, hating the fact that I was pitying him but unable to stop regardless. "If it's forgiveness I don't have any left for you."
"You didn't plant the listening device not because you love Kane," he replied. "I was looking through your thoughts while you were asleep."
I brought my arms around myself, my next shiver having nothing to do with the cold. "You're a real gentleman, you know that?"
He shrugged, as if he hadn't done anything but look through my backpack for a pen. "If it's any consolation, I'm sorry-"
"It's not a consolation."
He shrugged again, and I felt a dark, cold rage wrap around my heart. He knew what he was doing was wrong and didn't really care- which made it worse.
"This is a confession, I suppose. I can't tell you all the people I've killed but I can tell you about the first one. This shouldn't take long."
After all he put- was still putting- me through, he had some nerve. I didn't say this though. I was scared I'd start screaming if I opened my mouth. Or worse, that laughter might come back. I waited for him to start talking again, sparing Kane a glance. He hadn't moved an inch. I hope he wasn't dead.
"Where was I... Yes, my parents came back and the woman- Lindsay- ran off. I ran out of my bedroom and practically threw myself at my mom. She wasn't well then, she was visiting a few cousins in New York and was injured by a drive -by shooting. The bullets were silver and the perpetrators were definitely one of my father's many fans, but she'd been showing signs of healing at the time-"
"She died," I said, sensing a chance to hurt him and leaping on it like a cat on a mouse. "The silver killed her."
He cringed. "Yes."
"She died."
"Shut up!"
I pressed my lips together. I felt the giggles trying to come back and based on the look on his face, if I let them out this time he'd knock me out again- this time for good.
He ran both hands over his face once and like an eraser, his angry expression was wiped clean off. The distant, sober Alpha was back. Like magic.
"They took me inside and I told them what happened. They were shocked, my father was more furious than surprised. She did something, something that kept both her scent and DNA off of the victims. Up until then my father had been sure it was a man but finding out the wolf that had been plucking at his chickens beneath his nose had really been a woman infuriated him. Yet it was the fact that she almost got his son- who was a sniveling mess of tears- at the center of his territory that really set him off.
"He all but threw me out of the house, ignoring my mother's protests and cries as he gave me a single instruction: kill her and bring back the body or don't come back."
He rubbed at his head for a moment, as if searching for the rest of the memory. "I didn't have anywhere else to go and I honestly didn't want to disappoint my father, as scared as I was. So I asked for a weapon and he gave me a kitchen knife before slamming the door in my face. I headed to Lindsay's house and got captured immediately. She was about to kill me with my own weapon when my father came in. He obviously hadn't trusted me with the task." There was a long pause. "He held her down and had me cut her neck. I killed her and everyone lived happily ever after. The end."
Some confession.
I wanted to snort, but my body went still when I saw he was standing up.
I closed my eyes, hearing the crunch of snow, hoping he'd come closer, let his guard down for just a minute so I could reach out and-
"You're free to go, Ember."
I opened my eyes, not only because he spoke right next to my ear, but also because there was the cool touch of a blade against my palm. A silver coated blade. He slid the knife down a bit, took my brown fingers in his pale hand and curled them around the hilt so I was holding the knife.
"But I can't allow Kane to go free," he said quietly, fingers still on mine. "When he wakes up he'll be too weak to even move, he'll probably die in a few hours but there's still a chance he might not. If he shows any sign of being healthy, you'll finish him. If the cannibals don't get to you first anyway."
He stepped back, raised his right hand. The middle finger fell off the same moment I felt smoke drifting on the hand that held the knife. To my horror, it didn't grip me- it sank into my skin. There wasn't any sensation, but I know that meant nothing, it was oozing into my skin like a malignant virus.
A moan escaped my lips and I flung the knife- or tried to. My fingers curled around the handle at the last minute, holding onto it like a lifeline. This time I screamed.
"Take it off me," I shouted at Alpha.
But I was speaking to thin air. He wasn't here anymore. It was just me, Kane and the knife I was going to kill him with when he woke up.