The Curse of the Wolf Girl (67 page)

When Beatrice MacRinnalch and Heather MacAllister stormed out of the building, Markus wasn’t sure what to do. Should he go after them? He didn’t like the way they’d left together and had the uncomfortable feeling that they might now be on the grounds together, criticizing him. Whichever way you looked at it, he did seem to be at fault for ending up at one event with two girlfriends. Markus vacillated. If he went after them, he’d probably miss the start of Felicori’s performance. But if he went into the auditorium alone, the disappearance of his date would probably cause comment. What if he located them anyway? There didn’t seem much chance of smoothing things over. They’d probably just unite against him. Markus knew, from a few previous painful episodes, that that was likely to happen.

Finally, some sort of sense of duty made him leave the building in pursuit. It was dark and foggy outside, and though Beatrice and Heather were both werewolves quite capable of looking after themselves, he didn’t like the thought of them wandering around, probably upset. “I’d better go and find them. And apologize, for all the good that will do.”

* * *

In the extensive grounds outside, Orion and Pictor were making their way through a small wooded area, hunting for werewolves.

“But if we meet any, how will we know they’re werewolves?” wondered Orion. “We can’t just go shooting people and hope for the best.”

“If they’re sick, they’ll be werewolves,” Pictor reminded him. “Anyone stumbling along looking ill must be affected by the spell.”

Orion wasn’t fully convinced. “Do you believe that? I think Albermarle is just making it up.”

“Well, if he is, we’re probably all going to die.”

They crept as silently as they could through the trees, not knowing where they were going or whom they might meet. Both of them regretted ever coming here with Albermarle to this strange, hostile, foggy place, full of werewolves who may or may not be suffering from some sort of sorcerously produced illness. When Albermarle had explained his plan, it hadn’t sounded so bad. Now they were here, they didn’t like it much.

The enchantress looked at Captain Easterly, barely able to comprehend what was happening. “You’re a hunter?”

“I am. From the guild.”

“But I’d have known.”

“Princess Kabachetka helped me. She hid me from you. And she made this spell from Minerva’s notes.”

Thrix’s eyes wrinkled. “But I was in love with you.”

She tried to stand up, but her strength was gone. She couldn’t become a werewolf, and she couldn’t summon a spell. She could hardly raise herself on one elbow. The nausea from Kabachetka’s sorcery merged with a great wave of despair as she realized that the man she’d fallen in love with was about to kill her. Another tear escaped from her eye. She wiped it away and again attempted to change into her werewolf shape. Nothing happened. For the first time in her long life, Thrix was unable to transform. The false eclipse had robbed her of all her werewolf powers. It flickered through her mind that Minerva really knew how to construct a spell. Unfortunately she’d never get the chance to congratulate her old teacher. Thrix composed her face, gathered her MacRinnalch spirit, and spoke to Easterly. “So what are you waiting for?”

There was a long moment of silence. Easterly could feel his heart beating wildly as he stood with the gun pointed at Thrix’s chest. The sound of it drowned out the strains of the opera, still floating over from Andamair House. He lowered his gun. “I love you too,” he said.

Thrix and Easterly looked at each other, not knowing what to do or say. Thrix felt herself crying and didn’t attempt to wipe away the tears. She shivered and then convulsed as another wave of pain racked her body.

“I didn’t know it would hurt you this badly,” said Easterly. He slid his gun back into its holster. His jacket had slid from Thrix’s shoulders, and he placed it over her again to warm her. “I’m sorry.”

Their faces were close together. Easterly brushed a tear from Thrix’s face then leaned closer to her. At that moment, there was a crashing noise from the top of the hedge, and a fierce growling. A slender brown shape dropped to the ground. It was Kalix. Kalix as a werewolf, apparently unaffected by Kabachetka’s spell. Her jaws hung open, and her eyes were insane.

“Bad hunter,” she snarled.

“Kalix, wait—” began Thrix.

Kalix didn’t hear her. Before Easterly could react, Kalix sank her talons into his shoulders, dragged him towards her, and bit his neck. There was a terrible cracking sound as bones broke. Blood splattered over Kalix, Thrix, and the hedges around them. Kalix let go of Easterly and growled as his lifeless body fell to the ground. She glared down at the corpse.

“Bad hunter,” she said again. Then, with hardly a glance at Thrix, she was off, scrambling and leaping over the tall hedges, leaving Thrix on the bench with the body of her former lover a few feet away and his blood splattered over her golden hair.

Dominil looked up and laughed. “You’re not smart, Albermarle. You’re an idiot.”

“An idiot? I’m the one who trapped you here! Maybe I should just pull this trigger!”

“If you weren’t an idiot, you’d have done something better with your life than hunt werewolves.”

“Werewolves deserve to be hunted!”

Dominil almost smiled. “You didn’t seem to think that when you kept asking me out.”

“I didn’t know you were a werewolf then.”

“Maybe if you put your efforts into finding a girlfriend instead of hunting werewolves, you wouldn’t still be obsessed with me.”

“That’s it,” cried Albermarle. “Now I’m really going to kill you.” He pointed the gun but lowered it again. “You know I’m more intelligent than you. You just won’t admit it.”

Dominil tried again to become a werewolf but failed. She wondered if she could possibly keep Albermarle talking till the spell wore off. If it ever wore off, something about which she had no evidence. “I’ve never counted an encyclopedic knowledge of comics as a sign of intelligence,” she said.

“I know a lot more than that!”

“Really?” The music floated over the parking lot. “What’s this aria?”

Albermarle looked uncomfortable. “Opera was never my strong point.”

Dominil laughed, though the effort hurt her.

“You just think you’re so superior, don’t you!” yelled Albermarle. “Well, you’re not. And no amount of changing the subject to opera or comics alters the fact that I won. I trapped you here. I’m smarter than you.” Albermarle drew himself up to his full height. “And you know what? I’m over you, Dominil MacRinnalch. I don’t care how intelligent or attractive you think you are. You’re
nothing
. You’ve got no emotions. You’re going to live your whole life and never love anything. At least I know what loving something means.” Albermarle put his gun back in his concealed holster. “Not only am I smarter than you, I’m superior. You see, I’m capable of changing. I’m not a robot like you. I can change my mind. And now I don’t care enough about you to even kill you. Go on, be a werewolf. I don’t care. I outsmarted you, and now I’m leaving. You can spend the rest of your life being miserable and caring about nothing. You’d have been lucky to get a date with me. You don’t deserve it.”

Dominil dragged herself to her feet. “Leaving would be a good idea. If you stay here, I’ll kill you.”

“You’ll kill me? Not very likely. I’ve got a gun, and you can barely move.”

“Maybe so. But I’m Dominil MacRinnalch, and I’ll tear your arm off before you can pull the trigger.”

Albermarle hesitated. “Rubbish. You can’t turn into a werewolf.”

“I’ll do it anyway.” Dominil bared her teeth.

Albermarle took a step backwards. “You’re nothing. I’m over you. I’m leaving.”

He turned to go. A dark shape dropped from the sky, coming from the top of the truck. It landed on Albermarle. He screamed as Kalix bit into his neck. They crashed to the ground together, but such was Albermarle’s strength that he managed to drag himself to his feet, and stood for a moment with Kalix hanging onto his neck, her feet right off the ground. Then he succumbed to the terrible pressure of her jaws. His arteries ruptured, and he collapsed to the ground, dying in seconds. Kalix disentangled herself, rose to her feet, and growled.

“Bad hunter.” Kalix turned her blood-soaked snout towards Dominil and snarled. “Transform.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. It’s night. Make the change.”

Dominil struggled to rise. “I can’t change. Some sort of spell. I don’t know why it’s not affecting you.”

“You have to change!” yelled Kalix.

“Why?”

“So I can kill you.”

The Fire Queen limped back to Earth, arriving in the gardens of Andamair House to the unexpected sight of the enchantress cradling the dead body of her lover.

Malveria gasped at the sight. “Thrix! What happened? Did you find him cheating on you? Did you have to take such brutal revenge?”

Thrix raised her eyes, which Malveria noted, were caked with tears, to the detriment of her makeup. “Captain Easterly was a werewolf hunter.”

“Preposterous! I introduced him to you.”

“Thanks for that.”

Malveria stared at Easterly’s body, very offended that he’d turned out to be a werewolf hunter. “What a mournful occurrence. It’s a sad day when one is forced to slaughter a lover. I myself—”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I broke down in tears and sobbed like a baby.”

“Oh.” Malveria looked dubious. Easterly had clearly died from a werewolf bite.

“I was still crying when Kalix arrived. She killed him.”

“Ah. Was he about to kill you?”

Thrix shook her head. “I don’t think so. He loved me too. Or so he said. We never got the chance to discuss it fully.”

“Kalix is not one to let romance stand in the way of a good massacre.”

Thrix started to cry.

“Dearest Enchantress, I sympathize greatly with your pain. But I cannot console you at this moment, nor let you weep. I need your help, most urgently, or my kingdom will fall.”

“What?” sniffed Thrix.

Malveria apprised her of the situation. “So you see, Kabachetka and Distikka have outsmarted us completely. Distikka will soon take control of the Great Volcano and the realm.”

“Can she really do that?”

“If she is a blood relative, as she claims, then yes.”

Thrix let go of Easterly.

Malveria helped her to her feet. She glanced at the blood on her hands and clothes and shuddered.

Applause thundered inside Andamair House as Felicori completed another aria, and the sound rolled over the grounds outside.

“Felicori is singing beautifully tonight.” The Fire Queen looked wistfully towards the great mansion. “Now help me break through Kabachetka’s barrier and return home.”

“I don’t have any power. Kabachetka’s eclipse spell has robbed me of my werewolf power, and it seems to have weakened my sorcery as well.” Another tear rolled down Thrix’s cheek. She stared forlornly down at Easterly’s body. “He was going to take me to Milan in the summer—he had a house there.”

Malveria wasn’t listening. She was wondering what she could possibly do to save her throne. She’d counted on Thrix lending her strength to the attempt to break through Kabachetka’s barrier. It seemed that that wouldn’t happen now. She’d have to fight her way through herself. Malveria knew she wouldn’t make it in time. By the time she burned her way through the blocking spell created by Kabachetka, Distikka would have overrun the Great Volcano and taken control. When Malveria finally returned, all she could expect would be to be blasted out of existence with the full force of the volcano.

“But I will take her with me if I can,” she muttered, “and as many of her traitorous supporters as possible. The Fire Queen does not admit defeat and will go down fighting.”

* * *

The fundraising event had gone splendidly. Felicori was in excellent form, and the audience thrilled to his rendition of favorite arias mixed in with operatic obscurities of his own choosing. There had been a brief interruption when several members of the audience appeared to sicken simultaneously. A stout gentleman in a box, Baron MacPhee, was taken ill quite suddenly and had to be helped outside. Several other distinguished-looking members of the audience also left, but the interruptions were minor and didn’t spoil the occasion.

In the front row, Verasa MacRinnalch felt extremely ill and remained upright through force of will alone. Along with the other werewolves present, the Mistress of the Werewolves had suffered the baleful effects of Princess Kabachetka’s spell, but she had refused to show any sign of suffering. She’d heard some noise behind her, as if other members of the audience might have left, but was unable to turn around to check for fear of collapsing. Verasa’s first thought was that some major outbreak of food poisoning had occurred, which would be bad for her event. But as the concert proceeded without major interruption, she realized that this was not the case. It was a relief, though at present she felt too ill to fully appreciate it. The seat beside her was empty, Markus had not come into the auditorium, and the annoyance she felt about that still remained, even in her sickened state.

* * *

Markus was prowling through the undergrowth, on the trail of Beatrice and Heather, when the sickness struck. He gasped, sank to his knees, and wondered how it was possible that there should be an eclipse of the moon at this moment, for Markus recognized the symptoms. But an eclipse was impossible of course, no matter how bad he felt. He might have remained where he was had he not at that moment caught the sound of another person being sick.

“Beatrice,” he thought immediately, recognizing the sound. He’d heard Beatrice being sick before after she’d overindulged at a clan celebration. He crawled forward. Though his senses were dulled, he knew she was behind the next bush, with Heather beside her.