“GET OUT HERE, bitch!”
Arthur stops playing again.
“NOW, Emma!”
I know the voice. I feel the heat in my crotch and remember the anger, the eyes so much like my own.
Arthur pops up from the piano bench, a look of outrage on his face.
“My word!” He growls, reaching for his cane and limping off into the hallway faster than I can follow, “What on Earth has gotten into this family today!”
I join him at the wide window, overlooking the front of the house, where cousin Jules, fully dressed but no less furious than when I’d last seen her, is screaming profanities. There are two younger male versions of her—lithe, blonde—standing on either side, twelve years old, maybe. Twins. They could be photocopies of my own younger self. Black birds—ravens, starlings—dot the lawn around them, scrambling, pecking at the ground.
“Your cousins,” Arthur whispers over his shoulder.
“Yeah, we’ve met. Jules, anyways. Very . . . umm . . .”
“Quite forceful, that one. Much wilder than the rest.”
“That’s Kevin and Jamie? The brothers?”
The two boys stand, quietly curious more than anything else, their heads moving in unison as they regard their surroundings, on the lookout for something. Sniffing at the air, eyes bouncing to their periphery.
“Indeed. Good boys. Quite unlike their sister, dare I say, much less malevolent. Quiet. Especially since their mother’s passing.”
Where the hell was I that everyone was dropping like flies, going mad, and ravaging townspeople? It’s like a goddamn Frankenstein movie. Next thing I knew there’d be fat, pink waitresses with torches and pitchforks coming over the hill, shouting religious motivational slogans. God Hates Clinical Lycanthropy
“I’m going out there.”
Arthur lays his cane across my path.
“I would not, Finn. No good can come of it.”
“She’s nuts. Somebody has to talk her down.”
Arthur nods toward the window, where the top of Emma’s head pops into sight on the veranda.
The brothers suddenly stand a little straighter, widening their shoulders and fluffing at their hair. Cute.
“What do you want, Julie?”
“What did you call me, cunt?” Jules shouts.
“Well, I didn’t call you a cunt, did I, Julie?”
Jules’ eyes widen with rage, her fists balled at her sides, shoulders hunched. I’ve seen this stance before.
I’m not about to let Emma get tossed around like a piece of furniture in a strip club store room.
I bounce down the stairs before Arthur can get another word out.
As I hit the doorway, Emma framed in harsh daylight in front of me, there comes another voice, deeper, refined. Calm and soft, yet darkly commanding. Properly English.
“Now, ladies,” it says. “Let us not say something we might regret.”
Jules shouts across the yard, “You said he was mine! What the fuck, Simon? You said he was meant to be my mate, not hers!”
Jules swings a manicured nail toward Emma, “You hear that, bitch? He’s mine! You’re not the fucking Alpha around here anymore.”
The birds take flight and swirl overhead, scared by the noise or stirred by her fury. I can’t tell.
“Jules,” the stranger coos, “I am sure that we can address this matter in private. Why don’t you and the boys head home now, and allow me a few moments with my wife?”
Wife? Who? Emma?
I step out into the light, blinking against the glare and quietly present myself, more to get a look at this new player than anything else.
“Ah! At long last,” he says, stepping up to wrap an arm around Emma, whose arms immediately drop to her sides, limp, before reanimating and climbing like snakes to wrap around this man.
“Simon!” Jules is hollering. Nobody is paying attention.
He is especially tall and thin, draped in a long black coat, tailored to fit close, making him look even taller. He has a wild mane of black curls and a long face. His nose and lips seem large, but they give his face a plasticine kindness. He’s like an overgrown Goth kid, all gangly limbs and black Doc Martens.
“Mister MacTyre,” he says to me, extending a hand full of long, bony fingers. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Simon Magus, Master of Bensonhall.”
“Another cousin?” I ask, staring at the narrow palm of his hand, noticing that there are rings on every one of his fingers.
“Not quite. Not in the biblical sense, if you will.” He laughs, a genuine and gentle sound that puts me off guard. “I am Emma’s husband and, thereby, lord of the manor, as it were.”
My heart sinks, but something else takes its place, something hot and prickly, spikes piercing the skin and forcing their way out into the air, radiating the heat from inside me. The human part of my brain wants to like this man, wants to immediately accept him, but the other part of me . . . I look into his dark eyes and past the unassuming face. I sniff at the air round him. I smell it, hidden and secret. He smells like death, and rot.
I take the hand, holding firm, letting my new-found power find its way into my fingers.
“Quite a grip you have there, Finn,” he says.
I flash the family smile, mad and toothy. I want this man’s life draining at my teeth.
I see a glint of doubt behind his black eyes. He backs away, still gripping Emma to him.
“Well, where are my manners? Welcome, Finn. Welcome!” he says, waving his free arm around the place. “I hope you’ll be comfortable here with us. I believe you’ll find we’ve provided every amenity.” He smiles, a quiet, unassuming smile.
“Hey! Motherfucker! What are you going to do about this? You lying sack of shit!”
The birds are still whirling overhead, but they don’t seem to come any closer to the house than the edge of the drive.
He keeps an unsure eye on me as he turns to Jules, still fuming in the driveway, still flanked by her brothers, silent eyes shooting daggers at the thin man.
He waves a long hand at Jules, and the rage seems to dissolve from her, into the air.
“Jules, please. Do behave yourself and show some regard for your long lost cousin?”
“Oh, we already met in town,” I say, letting the words drip off of my longest teeth, willing him to see what I see, his throat torn open on the ground in front of me.
“Ah!” He laughs, regaining his smooth composure. “Then I suppose you have already borne witness to her . . . precociousness?”
Jules is still standing expressionless, like she’s sleepwalking. Her brothers look confused. The birds swirl higher and then disperse, winging off in all directions.
Magus calls out, “Mister McQueen!”
A wild-looking man pops up from behind the SUV furthest from the drive, a small crossbow in his hands, which he swings onto his shoulder, casually. I know this man. I know his stench.
He smiles at me through the dark scrub that covers his face, tosses me a salute. His long dark hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail. He’s no longer covered in hospital blue, but filthy jeans and a leather vest over brown skin covered with dirt and hair.
“Hiya mate,” he winks. “Looks like you made it out of there before they roasted your ol’ chestnuts, hey?”
“McQueen,” Magus cuts him off. “Would you be so kind as to take Jules and the boys back home?”
“How long’ll she be out, boss?”
“Long enough, I would imagine,” he replies over his shoulder, grinning amiably at me.
McQueen moves off, with his crossbow on the two boys, herding them ahead of him, as he carries cousin Jules over his shoulder like a dead trophy.
The thin man laughs and steps past me with Emma still wrapped around him, like a little girl hugging her daddy. He stops, turns her face toward him, sleepy and strange.
She moans softly and presses her lips to his. I cringe.
Simon Magus turns to me, raises one thin eyebrow, and lets one side of his lips curl up.
“Welcome home, little Finn.”