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Mackenzie opened her eyes, wondering if she was dead. If she was, she doubted the afterlife resembled an old log cabin with a roaring fire and a bed. She was lying on her stomach, covered to her waist with an animal skin throw.
She tried to sit up but was pushed back down, “Don’t move. You’re not healed yet,” a woman said. From her accent, Mackenzie guessed she was from somewhere in the Pacific. She tried to crane her neck to get a look at the woman. About eighty; she walked hunched over and had a cane to support her. Her dark skin was like leather and she was dressed in a flowered dress that looked out of place on her, in this dreary cabin.
Speaking of clothes, Mackenzie noticed that her top was missing and she was naked from the waist up. She did her best to cover herself with her arms.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Madame Tula. She’s a healer,” Taryn said. Lifting her head, she found him sitting in a chair in the shadows a few feet from the bed. She suddenly felt very exposed.
“Lucien?” she asked.
“He’s long gone. Just rest and let Madame Tula do her work.”
The old woman rubbed something cold on her back as she hummed to herself. Mackenzie inhaled sharply, as she felt the skin across her back stretch and pull. It felt like a million tiny needles stabbing into her skin. She pressed her face into the bed trying not to cry out. The bed smelt musty.
“Give it some time and it will heal. You were very lucky,” Madame Tula said.
She laughed bitterly. Yeah, I’m real lucky.
She took slow deep breaths as the pain gradually eased. After a while she couldn’t take it anymore, she had to sit up.
“Can you turn away, please?” she asked Taryn. He stood and turned to face the fire. She struggled into a sitting position and pulled one of the throws around her. Madame Tula had a lot of animal’s skins around the place. Clearly, not a vegetarian. There were weird hanging mobiles made from small animal bones, all around the ceiling. A table sat near the bed, laden with glass bottles and fresh herbs.
Mackenzie felt the stretching sensation move to her arm. She ripped the bandage off and watched as the skin on her arm renewed itself, the wound from the Pariah closing over until there wasn’t a mark on her. She ran her fingers down her arm to check she wasn’t imagining it, that it wasn’t some optical illusion, but it was real. Lucien’s knife had most likely pierced her kidney but she didn’t feel any pain, so she hoped it worked on the inside as well as the out.
“What are we going to do? Lucien has the talisman,” she said finally.
Taryn turned around again.
“Lucien thinks he has the talisman. Do you really think I would let him have it?”
“Well, if he doesn’t have it, then where is it?” she asked. It figures he wouldn’t have done anything to help her.
He put a hand out and lifted her necklace, “Sebastian wasn’t stupid. He never would have made the talisman so easy to find and he certainly wouldn’t have left it in a safe with no protection. He needed to hide it where no one would think to look.”
“He melted it down into a necklace...”
.“And gave it to someone no one would suspect of having it,” Taryn finished for her.
“My mother. Then she gave it to me.”
“When you followed me out to the water tower and started asking me questions I had no intention of answering them, but it was like I didn’t have a choice. That’s when I began to wonder.”
“I can control you?”
He raised an eyebrow, “No, not fully. You can get me to tell you things, but if you asked me to jump off a bridge, it wouldn’t work. Not until it’s fully activated.”
“Then, I can tell you to jump off a bridge?”
He shook his head and returned to his seat.
“So what was the deal with the map? My blood led us to the pawn store,” Mackenzie said.
“That was a smoke screen; I wanted to see how far Lucien would go.”
“Too far. How is it activated?”
“A ritual needs to take place on the night of a lunar eclipse.”
“I’m going to regret asking this but when is the eclipse?”
“A week from Friday.”
“Thank God, I thought you were going to say tonight.”
“We need to lay low until then.”
“I’m going home,” she said. She just wanted to be back in her own bed away from all the craziness.
“Fine, “Taryn said, “I’ll come with you and protect you until it’s time to do the ritual.”
“Why doesn’t that fill me with confidence? Look, I know you want to get even with Lucien and right now I say go for it, but I don’t think I can give you the talisman.”
“I don’t want it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Under demon law I can’t kill my brother, it’s forbidden. There would be consequences. Which is why you are going to use the talisman and help me kill him.”
“What the hell happened to you?” Greta asked, when Mackenzie returned to work. She came in the back door to start her shift at the bar.
There were no wounds to see but she hadn’t slept in the last two days since she had returned to LA. Too much had happened.
“Just been partying hard, you know?”
Greta shook her head, “Well, go easy in future. I can’t lose my best bartender.”
She nodded and headed behind the bar. The club was packed tonight. She greeted Kenny, the other bartender. He was dressed in his usual Hawaiian flare. She started taking orders, pouring drinks and for a while forgot about all the shit that had happened. That was until she spotted Taryn sitting at the bar. He was wearing his usual leather coat. Luckily, it was LA so no one batted an eyelid. She opened a beer and put it in front of him.
“You do drink?” she asked.
“If I didn’t, now would be a good time to start.”
“Do you have to sit at the bar? There are some nice booths in the back.”
“Sure, I’ll go and sit in one. In a crowded club like this, it would be real easy for Lucien to slit your throat in a matter of seconds. But don’t worry, I’m sure I can get across the room in time.”
She leaned in, so he could hear her, “Word of advice. Sarcasm works better in shorter bursts.”
“Bite me.”
“Much better,” she grinned. Now that Taryn had mentioned the L word, she couldn’t help scanning the crowd for him. Every now and again, she would see someone the same height or with the same color hair and she would freeze.
She couldn’t believe she was such a sucker. She fell for it all—the charm, the good looks, the kissing. Especially the kissing. All to be stabbed in the back. Literally. Taryn wanted her help to kill Lucien and he definitely deserved it, but she didn’t know if she could go through with it. She was quick with her fists and she could defend herself, but to actually kill someone? Of course there was the added incentive that if she didn’t kill him he would definitely kill her. He had already tried once; she doubted she would be so lucky next time.
“Hey, who is that guy?” Kenny asked, jerking his head in Taryn’s direction.
“Just a friend,” she replied.
“Well, your friend keeps staring at you.”
“He’s really more of a stalker,” she replied, annoyed that he was being so obvious.
She headed into the back for another crate of beer. She had only been gone a few minutes, but when she returned, the music had stopped and a crowd had gathered around the bar. Two of the bouncers were attempting to restrain Taryn, who had a third bouncer in a headlock.
Dropping the crate, she ran to intervene.
“Let him go Taryn. Now,” she ordered. He automatically released the bouncer much to his annoyance. Apparently, she could make him do a little more than tell the truth. The bouncers grabbed his arms.
“It’s okay, he’s with me,” she insisted.
“You said he was stalking you,” Kenny said.
“I was kidding,” she exclaimed.
Greta came over to see what the fuss was about.
“If he’s bothering you we can get rid of him,” she said, her voice like steel.
“She said he was stalking her,” Kenny interjected.
“He’s not.” Nobody was listening to her.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Greta asked.
“Yes. He’s my boyfriend,” she said. She’d tell them anything they wanted to hear to calm everything down.
“I don’t believe her,” Kenny said.
“For crying out loud,” she muttered. Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed Taryn on the lips, much to his horror. His entire body stiffened.
For crying out loud I’m not contagious, she thought.
“There, see? Now can you let him go?” Satisfied, the bouncers released him.
The crowd retreated.
Taryn gripped her by the arm, “Don’t you ever do that again,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Wasn’t planning to.”