No amount of blood guaranteed a witch’s success in dark magic. And if Constance had killed more than once for magic, she already knew the taste of defeat, and it was unlikely she was going to give up that easy. Constance quickly shot to the top of Sunday’s list of suspects. The evidence was too strong to ignore. Sunday was going to have to start looking at the witch real closely and either absolve her or indict her.
As the sun set, Sunday became restless. Between hours of research, little movement, and the potential of having stumbled upon a dark witch, anxiety made it impossible for Sunday to sit still any longer. She hadn’t even begun to do a much more pointed investigation on Michelle or Vicky, and Lord knows what she would find then. She already had enough to worry about Constance.
Sunday forced herself to get up from the small kitchen table, and dragged her weary body into the shower. It was Thursday evening, and neither Kayla, who was on-shift at the hospital, nor Sammy was available to hang out. She had to get out of the house, breathe some air, and think about something
other
than the coven and other than Constance: possible animal-killer, potential black magic sorceress, and most likely candidate for the source of the undercurrent of malignant energy at the circle.
Water rushed over her as she stood in the shower. Always being on the move weighed on her so heavily that she began to sob. Tears poured over her cheeks just as water from the showerhead washed them away. Sunday had spent the last six years running away from Bernadette, and Bernadette was dead.
How much farther do I have to go to escape her?
Her body uncontrollably heaved. She sucked in water and coughed it back up. It only made her cry harder. She’d been alone for so long. Here and there, she would meet someone, spend some time with her, and then, the next day, she was back on the road fleeing from no one and to nowhere.
The truth is that Sunday wasn’t sure that anyone even knew she was still alive. All reason would conclude that she had been killed at the compound. She hadn’t left a single survivor. After she’d killed Bernadette, she hunted out each member her entourage. She sought out the guards, and one by one, she’d executed them. When she was sure that there hadn’t been a soul left, she torched the place. She dragged all the bodies into the furnace she’d created of the main house and watched them burn. If the fire had subsided for even a second, she breathed new life into it, feeding it with a lightning bolt of self-hatred for all the things she had done. No remains. Nothing but the ashes of the only place she had ever called a home.
Nothing leading up to that night would make anyone perceive her as a threat to Bernadette, and certainly not to the other people staying at the rural Washington estate. Bernadette had enemies. Any number of envious, power-hungry witches or creatures of the preternatural community she regularly squeezed dry and cheated could have good cause to eliminate her. To their observers, Bernadette had been a compassionate, older woman who cared for and loved her younger, much more gifted acolyte. With no known family, Sunday was regarded as a daughter to the matriarch. They held hands in public. They hugged one another. Bernadette never raised her voice to her where others might hear.
To Sunday, there was no reason she’d be suspected as the perpetrator of the massacre at the estate. She prayed that everyone thought she had died in the fire, too. There was no reason to think otherwise.
Still, she ran, paranoid and afraid that she was being chased. However strong her gifts, she couldn’t possibly know everything. If she was being sought after, then it was likely that she would have no inkling of it at all. She believed, though, that she was able to sense the real threat of danger. Yet, it had never ceased to nag at her. Over her years on the run, she learned to stifle the constant prickling of her neck and sudden bursts of paranoia. It had so long been a part of her that she didn’t even bother paying attention to it anymore.
Normal people stayed put. They dug their soles into the ground, and they took root. They settled. They made friends. They started families. They did all that, and they didn’t run.
Sunday stepped out of the shower and dried herself with a long floral towel that she’d bought in the home section at Target. She’d chosen a pattern. She’d decorated. She’d bought vinyl records, put them into frames, and hung them on the wall. She’d done all the things that
normal people
do. This was her home. And there was no reason for her to think of it as anything less than that.
Someone threatened that now. Someone close to the only friends she’d ever had was working dark magic. That was quickly going to change.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Nickelodeon website listed the titles of the movies they were showing. In the last month, the once single-screen, retro cinema underwent renovations and began screening two movies at a time. Though Sunday had already seen
Double Indemnity
, she walked up to the ticket counter and purchased a ticket for the 8 o’clock showing.
There were only a couple of people in the theater when she walked in. She found a spot in the center of the middle row of seats. Even though she wasn’t hungry, she’d gotten a box of popcorn and a soda from the concession stand. The quaint pleasure of a classic movie-going experience was something that Sunday treasured. At the compound, she had a limited range of freedoms. She, Bernadette, and Bernadette’s acolytes lived in a relatively small, mountain town in the Northwest. After that, the world opened up.
Bernadette would have never allowed Sunday to explore rock clubs or coffee houses or art galleries. After Sunday fled, she realized that Bernadette had not only sheltered Sunday in the house, she had also isolated them far from any temptation to Sunday’s flights of fancy. Sunday was a veritable prisoner, even when she wandered about town with whatever chaperone Bernadette had assigned for those outings.
Under the witch’s watch, Sunday hardly lived what other teenagers and young adults thought of as a normal life. Close friendships, contact with peers her age, and adolescent angst were what Bernadette called ‘trappings of the mundane’. Living as the Incarnate under Bernadette’s tutelage and as a slave to Bernadette’s mission, Sunday didn’t get to go on dates or go to high school dances. Shit, she didn’t even get to go to high school. She was allowed small pleasures like CDs and occasional trips to tourist pit stops along their many tours of duty, but only to serve as topical solutions to alleviate the rising agitation of captivity and servitude.
Those many years though, were far behind Sunday now. She long since broke free, and Bernadette paid the ultimate price for Sunday’s imprisonment. Sunday kicked her feet up on the seat in front of her as she always did until the movie started.
This
was life. Real life. Normal life. After a year in South Carolina, she finally had an inkling as to what it truly felt like to be normal, not to be the Incarnate, not to be a person filled with so much magical potential that she could be used to harness impossible amounts of energy.
Sunday turned when she sensed the faint presence of familiarity enter the room. Though the light was dim, she saw the werewolf who had stopped her at the door of the Lair the other night. He walked in, taking a seat at the furthest row. His silhouette was unmistakable. Despite the fact that she had seen him for less than a minute after enduring some head trauma during that mid-dance attack, Sunday could picture him clearly in her mind. Embarrassed and awash with the unfamiliar jitters, she faced the screen quickly so he wouldn’t notice her. As she did, she smiled. Her cheeks grew hot, and she exhaled a shaky breath.
I can’t believe he’s here
, she thought nervously.
For all the practice she had in containing her emotions, she was close to exploding with giddiness. It bordered on hysteria, the
one
emotion Sunday couldn’t afford to have. She’d read books and seen movies about schoolgirl crushes and puppy love, but she had never experienced it for herself. Given Sunday’s extraordinary ability to suck in all the life around her and run amok drunk on magic, she couldn’t very well just let her inhibitions fly, no matter how seductive the prospect of such a delectable treat. It was the price she paid for the gift she’d never wanted, and the risks far outweighed the prize. For as long as she could fake it, the Incarnate lay dead among the rubble of Bernadette’s manor with the charred remains of its former occupants. Dating and being intimate were too big a risk.
As subtly as she could, she turned to catch another glimpse, and before he could look up from the distinct glow of a cellphone, she turned toward the screen again.
This can’t happen,
Sunday chided herself
. If you don’t get a handle on this, Sunday, you’re liable to melt the film reel.
Begrudgingly, she closed her eyes and centered herself. Whatever ridiculous visions of talking to him, and doing all those things that people do when they’re interested in someone else, had to be set aside. She internalized so intently and with such focus, she missed the trailers entirely. It wasn’t until the opening credits had ended that she became aware that the movie had started.
This is fucking moronic,
she told herself.
You’re a grown woman and you’re acting like you’re twelve.
Nothing about trying to enjoy the movie was going to be easy. The opening scene of the movie was possibly her favorite movie scene of all-time, but it passed without a word of dialogue registering on her consciousness. The damn movie could have ended with her being none the wiser.
Every cell in her body yearned to turn to the man in the back row of the movie house. She was the moon to his planet. The pull was unabated by her insistence that she avoid him at all cost. Absolutely every muscle in her body was aching with the desire to get up and sit beside him. It was irrational. He was a werewolf, sure, and Sunday didn’t count them among her favorite kind of people. But
that
one,
that
werewolf made the butterflies in her belly flutter. He made her want to burst with embarrassing giggles.
Rather than be so drawn to him, she should have been repelled. Werewolves spelled trouble. This werewolf in particular wasn’t exactly an exception. She’d felt his anger that night just as she and Kayla had walked past him. Werewolves in human form straddled the fence between human and animal. No matter how serene or innocuous they appeared, theirs was a thin mask of humanity. They were on-edge all the time. She didn’t know if the mundane could feel it, but she imagined that they had to. They radiated violence and pride. Even the most submissive wolf had an air of restless frustration about them.
Even with her walls up, tightly guarding her from the distinct thoughts and feelings, Sunday identified the man at the club as a werewolf. She had resolved to pass by him without a second glance until she felt his fingers curled around her arm. For a moment, she thought she could step up to him and tell him to back off. She was tired. She was still reeling from the attack to her senses. But any inclination to do just that had been quashed the second their skin connected.
When their eyes locked, all of his inner turmoil dissipated. He’d looked at her. That dark glare melted over her. She’d never found herself so instantly attracted to a man in her life. Tall, rough around the edges in all the right places, and burning to the touch. If Kayla only knew what this werewolf inspired in Sunday, Kayla would proclaim him
The One Above All Other Ones
. The vision of combing his beard, rubbing his cheek into her palm, digging her nails into the hair, had been so real that she’d been startled to find that she’d hadn’t actually done it. It took a monumental effort to rip any words from her throat and say anything to him.
Had it not been for her episode earlier on the dance floor, and the throbbing of her head that only ceased the moment he touched her, she would have stayed with him all night. Getting to know him. She probably would’ve ended up in bed with him. She would have had to fight with herself tooth-and-nail to keep her guards up while they kissed and touched.
He. Is. A. Werewolf. I am the Incarnate. Sunday, you need to get the Hell out of here and you need to do it without arousing any suspicion or getting his attention. Run like Hell and never look back.
Unfortunately, the nagging alarm was playing against a much more novel, much more seductive feeling, the feeling of irrepressible attraction and confounding curiosity. There was such a thing as Fate and Sunday knew it. The problem was that Sunday couldn’t tell which conflicting emotion Fate was speaking through. The problem was also that Sunday was done caring about what Fate wanted for the Incarnate. She needed only to know what she wanted for herself. At that moment, there was only one answer, and it was blinking a big neon sign pointing an arrow right to the top of that werewolf’s head.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit,
she chanted to herself in an unending mantra of incredulity.
Sunday was well past pretending she cared about the film. Against any insane notion that she could focus on the movie, and any better judgment about approaching a stranger who was paying attention to a film that he paid good money to see, she grabbed her purse.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
She was sure she was stomping up the aisle as she chastised herself to relax, behave, look cool, and seem like she didn’t really care. She stopped at his row and stared at the exit door just feet in front of her.
Two options,
she told herself.
You walk out that door. You make it to the car. You drive home. You slam the door behind you when you get home. You jump into bed and duck under the covers with your clothes still on. And you hate yourself for walking away. Or you turn to your left. You walk down the row. You take the seat beside him. You offer him some popcorn. You offer him your soda. And you sit there until he talks to you.
The options were clear enough. She was either going home alone, leaving the cinema without even watching the movie, without even giving this guy—and herself—a chance, and regretting her decision every step of the way; or she was going to risk it. She stood there considering her options for what seemed like an eternity.