Page 30 of The Bane Witch

30

Hiding

I am gasping as I trek to the cabin behind the motel, a sensation I don’t recognize slicing through me like heartache. The flashes of forest I saw in the park gain eerie familiarity with each step. The burn to kill is still so alive in me it hurts, and the hunger is returning already, a craving for more poison than I can keep down, as if I could eat my way through this entire forest. But there’s a fresh spasm of misery I can’t trace. My eyes must shine like traffic lights, the witch in me so consuming she can no longer be contained.

I’m alarmed to find Bart at the base of the porch stairs, his head resting on his paws, eyes heavy with unspoken emotion. The front door stands open above him. I know I closed it behind me, left it locked. Did she escape? Please, I think. Tell me it’s not worse, not what I think, what I feel like acid bubbling in my heart.

“What’s the matter, boy?” I ask, tripping up to him, but he doesn’t wag his tail or lift his head. He just cuts his eyes at me, round and dark and sad.

“Myrtle?” I call as I stomp up to the porch, step quietly inside. “You still here?” It’s a silly question, one that implies she was in here of her own free will, but I don’t know what else to say. I have resolved not to fight her this time. She can kill me if she wants, if she must. As long as she is safe. “Myrtle?”

I round into the living room and see her, legs sprawled and bare, half off the couch where I left her. All that dark hair dripping over the side like syrup. Her face is turned up to the ceiling, eyes wide and unblinking. A thin red line ropes her neck just beneath the chin like a scar, a necklace of angry flesh.

I step closer and see the feather, sparkling green along one side, laid atop her breastbone.

My hand plummets into my pocket, hoping against hope, but the feather I had is there, a little crushed from my palm but whole. This one is new. An answer to my call.

My eyes fall closed. I am too late. The Strangler heard me, came for me, but I wasn’t here. The mixed signals I felt by the lake snap into suffocating focus. Instead, he found Myrtle in my place, bound and helpless, an easy victim because I left her that way. Alone. Defenseless.

She is dead. The venery will come for me now to perform the last kiss. There is nothing I can do to save myself. It is what I deserve.

And then I hear Regis calling.

I rush out of the cabin and down the steps, throwing myself at him, pushing with all my force, my hands flattened against the polyethylene plates across chest, the vest he wore beneath his shirt for protection.

He looks baffled, pained. “Acacia, what the—where did you go? I told you to wait. I told you to meet me on the trail. We scared that man half to death.”

He tries to pull my hands off him, but I jerk them away and step back.

“You have to leave,” I blurt.

“What are you talking about?” he asks, brow wrinkling in confusion.

“Leave!” I shout, twisting my hands together. “You can’t touch me anymore. I’m not safe. Go anywhere you want. Just not here. Not for a while, a long while.”

He looks stricken, and I realize I must sound and look unhinged, with my radioactive eyes, hair tangled around my face, knees and hands dirty from the forest floor. “What’s happened?”

I take a breath, steel myself. “He beat us.”

Regis’s eyes narrow. “What?”

“The Strangler, Regis! The man we were hunting, together, has won. Okay? He beat us. He was ahead of us the whole time. I don’t know how, and right now I don’t care. I will take care of him. But you can’t stay here.”

He peers over my shoulder toward the cabin, to Bart’s lonely silhouette on the porch.

“I was wrong to bring you into this,” I carry on, ignoring his confusion. “I thought we could help each other, but I see now that this is something I have to do on my own.”

“What are you saying?” He focuses back on me.

“You’re a distraction,” I tell him. “One I cannot afford. One that has already cost me too much. I love you”—the words come as much of a shock to me as they do to him—“but my love is deadly, and I have a job to do. It’s time I stop playing games.”

“Piers,” he says quietly. “Don’t do this. Don’t turn away from me, from us. It’s the only place either of us makes sense.”

I shake my head, tears hot and bitter on my cheeks. “I don’t make sense anywhere,” I tell him. “With anyone. I see that now. But I do love you, and I can’t do this if I don’t know you are safe. Do you understand? If you don’t do what I ask, then he will keep winning—they all will, men like the Strangler, and Henry, and the guy with the blue truck—and we will lose. Both of us. Permanently.”

He stands before me, disbelieving, his chest heaving with emotion.

“Pretend someone in your family is sick,” I tell him. “And you’ve been called away on an emergency. You have to care for them. Make whatever excuses you can.”

“In the middle of the most important investigation of my life?” he argues.

“Forget that now!” I fume. I need him to understand, to listen. “I will take care of it. You have to save yourself. Don’t come back until I’m gone.”

The thought of facing the Strangler alone—without Myrtle, without Regis, without support of any kind—is enough to topple me, but I can’t let it. I can’t let her death be in vain. I can’t let anyone else get hurt because of my cowardice. It is enough that I left Henry in the world to do more damage. I must face this stronger, deadlier version of him. I must win. It is my only hope for redemption. Maybe not in this life, but in whatever comes next.

He walks over and tries to grab my arms, but I sidestep him. “Calm down. Tell me what this is about.”

“They know!” I screech, fingers curling into claws. The venery doesn’t know yet, but they will soon enough. “Aunt Myrtle… she’s perceptive. She figured it out. She was on her way to kill you when I stopped her.”

He shakes his head. “She knows what exactly?”

“That I told you! About her, me, us !” I pull at my hair, infuriated, the feathers, the toxins, the grief driving me over the edge. “Did you not hear anything from our conversation earlier? There are rules, Regis. We’re not supposed to tell. Especially not a man. Myrtle won’t harm you now.” My voice catches on her name. “But it’s only a matter of time, and I can’t protect you from them all.”

He grips the sides of his head. “Who? Piers, what did you do? Is Myrtle okay?”

I double over, my hands grasping my knees, the tears falling fast like summer rain. “It’s not her you need to worry about,” I choke out. “Not now.”

He glances between me and the cabin, the truth dawning finally. His face goes slack. “You mean she…?”

“Please don’t make me say it,” I beg, unable to form the words with my mouth. A sob burbles in my throat, and I choke it back.

He digs his teeth into a knuckle. “Fuck!” he shouts, tearing his jacket off and throwing it on the ground.

His emotion surprises me, but it shouldn’t. Myrtle has a way of creeping under everybody’s skin. She is irreplaceable. “Now you understand,” I say softly. “You have to go and not come back.”

He looks at me. “I’m not leaving you. Not now.”

Inside, I crater. “You must. Because if you don’t, you won’t even see them coming. Do you hear me? There won’t be time or a way for you to defend yourself. We’re deadly! Don’t you get that? I’m not the only one.” I brush at my face and stand up, staring at him. “You can’t protect me, Regis. But I can protect you, and this is how.”

“Your family,” he says with a question in his eyes.

I nod. “We are many. Not nearly enough to wipe out the evil in this world, but enough to keep a man like you—a good man—from ever standing a chance. They guard our secret fiercely. By telling you, I’ve violated everything that keeps us safe. They’ll punish me for that once they realize. And then they’ll come for you.”

He swallows, the slow bob of his Adam’s apple a punctuation.

“I’ve painted us into a corner,” I tell him apologetically. “Please, just listen to me. Please leave. Once I’m gone, maybe then you can come back. But not for a long, long time.”

He takes a deep breath. “Okay. If it will calm you down, make you feel better, I’ll go. For a little while. But you have to promise me something.”

I heave a sigh of relief. “Anything.”

“Do not go after the Saranac Strangler on your own. You understand? Let my officers and lieutenants take care of it.”

This is not a promise I can make. He has to know that. My life depends on this kill. Other women’s lives depend on it. But I need him to believe me. I need him to leave. So, I swallow my truth and hold my gaze steady. “Deal.”

He does the same. “Deal.”

Watching him walk away is the second hardest thing I’ve ever done, next to killing Ed. Jumping off a bridge was easier by far.

I sigh and turn toward the cabin when he is gone at last. At least I will do some good before I die.

Again.

S HE ’S HEAVY. M UCH heavier than I anticipated. I resume my grip around her ankles, one to each side, and lean forward, pulling with everything I have. It took me hours to dig the hole. I wasn’t sure I could even do it, but something kicked in after the first couple of feet like adrenaline, a kinetic power that drove me on, chopping through tree roots and bringing up shovel after shovel of dirt. Thank goodness the soil here is rich and moist, easy to move. She will lie under a blanket of ferns when I’m done. A fitting resting place for someone who loved this land so much.

When I finally reach the grave, deep into the shadows of the conifers but close to the bunker, I lay her down beside it. Bart has followed the whole way. He seems to know I mean no harm, or at the very least that it’s too late to do any further harm. Regis would seethe to see me cover up the Saranac Strangler’s crime, but he’s long gone, and I can’t have his officers snooping around. Can’t have her body discovered and splashed across the news for the venery. I need time to lie in wait. He’ll return—the Strangler. Myrtle won’t have satisfied him. He was there for me.

I kneel beside her, trying to drum up a few final words. My eyes are long since dry, though I know I’ll cry again. She was more a mother to me in these last few months than mine ever could be. I’ll miss her. And the guilt is an angry wasp, returning to sting my heart over and over. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Myrtle.” I sniff, brushing the long strands of her hair away from her face, closing her eyes. “You deserved better. I promise to make it right. He will pay. And once he does, I’ll turn myself over to the venery. I’ll tell the truth of what happened to you and where you are. Of the blame I share in it.”

Beside me, Bart lies down, poking his nose underneath her cold arm. I risk a rub to his brutish head. There must be some ceremony, some special way bane witches bury their own. It pains me that I don’t know, that she won’t receive it. A tart scent gusts past and fills my nose, like molded lemons. I turn and spot the small clump of destroying angels nearby. Rising, I gather them in one hand and return to the graveside. I lay one solemnly on her chest, folding her hands beneath it, and push the other two in my mouth, chewing until they slip easily down my throat.

My eyes meet the dog’s. “Ready, boy?”

He looks up at me, head cocked, uncertain.

I purse my lips and wiggle my hands beneath her, rolling her over into the waiting grave. The thud of her landing sickens me, but I push my feelings aside as I begin to shovel the dirt back in. There’s nothing to do for it now. And I am an old pro at living with the unlivable.

When I’ve patted the last of the dirt down over her and pulled fern fronds across the obvious disturbance, I get to my feet and brush off my hands and knees. Bart and I walk back to the cabin together, careful to erase and obscure our steps, the tracks where I dragged her in. Inside the little house, I set everything right, so that it looks like maybe she’s just in the café or popped out to run a quick errand. I take a long hot shower in the bathroom, knowing it will be my last for a while, and dig a backpack out, stuffing the clothes she bought me inside. In the kitchen, I fill a reusable grocery bag with basic food items—peanut butter, bread, a block of cheese, cans of tuna. I turn off the overhead lights but leave the lamps burning, locking up as I depart. A few paces away, I stop and turn back, taking in the quaint cabin, its glowing windows and cheery appearance. This was home to me for a while, the closest thing to a home I’ve known. And it was her favorite place on earth. He took that from us both.

I will spend the coming days deep in her outpost in the ground, feeding. I don’t care if the mushrooms give me away to investigators, Regis too far away to protect me. I’ll eat whatever I can find, building her stores up in my body for the moment he returns for me. Then I will make this right.

Maybe I made some mistakes, took chances I shouldn’t have and left us vulnerable, but he stole the best of what this life had to offer each of us. I will make him pay for that.

Myrtle would be pleased, I think as I walk away, the dog shuffling beside me. I am finally proud of my heritage, finally glad that I’m a bane witch.