Page 33 of The Bane Witch

33

Last Kiss

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say angrily, staring down the man who has my heart despite how many chunks have been taken from it.

Regis glances at the deputies he brought with him. They circle the body like ants, carefully recording every detail. Grabbing my arm, he pulls me several steps away. “Did you honestly think I would just go off to save my own ass and leave you behind at a time like this?”

I work my jaw. “Yes. I did. And I haven’t seen you, so I figured it worked.”

He frowns. “I’ve been out here every day looking for you, but it seemed like you just up and vanished. Where were you? What happened here?” he says under his breath.

“A man broke into the café and attacked me. By the looks of it, he’s the Saranac Strangler.” I lean in and mutter, “You can thank me later.”

His lips pinch with agitation. “Obviously. But how did he find you? And how did he end up with a bullet hole in his shoulder?”

I shrug, too tired to give him the details. “One of our customers shot him.” I would have expected a little more concern and little less interrogation, but once a sheriff, always a sheriff. I should have known he wouldn’t leave, not really. “Thankfully, I’m okay,” I say sarcastically.

He eyes Emil Reyes, where he sits in the corner being questioned by a lieutenant. “Kind of an odd tourist for these parts.”

I glance toward Emil, our eyes meeting briefly, and away. “Oh, I don’t know. He’s fit enough to hike these mountains. Said he was looking for some peace and quiet.”

Regis glowers. “He’s from the South. I don’t trust people from the South.”

“I’m from the South,” I remind him. “And he’s a cop. That should score some points with you.”

“From Charleston,” he adds under his breath. “Am I supposed to believe that’s a coincidence?”

“You can believe whatever you want,” I tell him. “I’ve told you the truth. Or as much of it as I’m willing to tell at the moment.”

He sighs, frustration tightening the muscles in his jaw, causing him to rub his eyes. “So that’s him,” he says, eyes pointed at the man lying dead on the floor.

“Yes. You’ll find the plastic bag and Vaseline he used to jerk off over there,” I say directing him with a finger. “There are tweezers in his pocket. The paracord and rebar are obvious. And this.” I lift my chin and point to my neck, where angry red skin circles it. “This should be evidence enough.”

“You need to go to the hospital,” he tells me.

I shake my head. “No. Not tonight.” I don’t explain that I’m still worried about my toxicity levels. That I fed so much I fear I’m not completely safe yet, even though I felt the magic draining away. That I don’t want to be poked and prodded by doctors ever again, knowing now I’m as much witch as woman. “I’ll go in a few days. I need a break.”

“Why were you in here in the middle of the night?” He looks down at me sternly, like I’m an unruly child.

“I couldn’t sleep at the cabin. It felt weird without Myrtle.” This, at least, is the truth.

He ducks his head, placing his hands on his hips as he stares at the floor.

“What are you going to do?” I ask. “About him?” I nod toward the Strangler.

“My job,” he says simply. Then, seeing the hurt in my face, he adds, “Don’t worry. I’ll keep them from digging too deep. Once we positively ID him, there’s a very good chance they’ll drop their questions. On the surface, it all adds up well enough. I’ll chalk the vomit up to shock from the gunshot.”

“What about the coroner?” I ask.

Regis looks down. “I don’t know what he’ll say is the cause of death. Certainly not a gunshot wound to the right shoulder. But I have no intention of pursuing it further. We got our guy, and that’s all that matters. I can protect you from this much.”

E MIL S TOPS ME on the porch as I am reaching for the front doorknob of Myrtle’s cabin. “You sure you don’t want me to stay with you tonight? You’ve been through a trauma. It might help you feel safe.”

I smile wearily at him. “My whole life has been a trauma,” I remind him. “Tonight wasn’t my first rodeo.”

He stands back, slipping his hands into his pockets, shaking the fabric of his sweatpants nervously. “Okay. But just so you know, I’ll be keeping watch from the front of the property in case your husband turns up.”

As if Henry would be stupid enough to pull straight into the parking lot for anyone to see. But I don’t say that. I just nod and give him my thanks, desperate to lie down.

As he walks away, Bart dances around his legs, looking up at him adoringly. “Bart!” I call. He stops, cocking his head at me, then dashes after the handsome investigator, smitten.

“Stupid dog,” I mutter, knowing I can never stay mad at Bart, the same as Myrtle could never stay mad at Ed. I thought they were supposed to be loyal animals, but I can’t blame him. There is something unabashedly charming and boyish about the Charleston cop when you get past that crusty exterior. Maybe it’s his larger-than-life heart, the kind of compassion that makes a man drive across the country to protect a woman he barely knows from her demonic husband. I’m doubly glad I saved Emil now. Between saving him and taking down the Strangler, I’ve left the world a little bit better than I found it.

Inside, I close and lock the door, leaning back against it with the smallest of smiles. For a while, I just close my eyes and breathe. When I open them, I think I feel her in the room with me, a quiet presence. Maybe I’m forgiven. “We did it, Myrtle,” I say out loud. “We got him.”

I push off the door and slip the robe off my shoulders, slumping it over the back of a chair. My eyes fall on the table where the brown paper bag full of Spanish berries had been sitting, but I don’t see it. Knowing traces up my back, from my ankles to my scalp, setting my skin alive with electric fear. I have only a second to register its meaning.

“Looking for this?” he asks.

When I turn, he is standing with his back to me across the living room, staring out the un-shuttered windows. He turns slowly and holds the bag up, now open.

“You seem to have a thing for berries,” he says flatly. “I never knew.”

I swallow the bile threatening to rise, and my throat aches from it. “There’s a lot you never knew about me,” I say quietly. I will not give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

“Apparently.” He tosses the bag onto a nearby table and despite myself, I flinch. “I underestimated you, Piers. Forgive me.” There is a mocking note beneath the words. He must realize how much I longed to hear something of the kind for the last two years. It delights him to dangle it before me now, knowing he doesn’t mean it, knowing I know it, too.

“What are you doing here, Henry?” I want to hear him say it.

“I’m your husband,” he returns. “Aren’t I?”

I shake my head. “Not anymore. Piers is dead. I killed her myself. I’m not the woman you remember.”

“You belong to me!” he spits, the words flying from his lips on a spray of saliva.

I shut my eyes against them. When I open them, he is still there, still fuming, still ready to pounce. “I belong to no one,” I say pointedly. “Not you. Not the venery. I am mine and mine alone.”

The strangeness of the word catches him off guard. I see his composure slip, something closer to shock peeks through the rage. He is trying to maintain control in a world he does not recognize, and he knows it. “What are you talking about?” He circles toward me slowly. “You’re not making any sense.”

“I told you, there’s a lot that you don’t know,” I repeat.

His head cocks the way a bird’s does when it’s listening for worms underground. “Like what?”

“Like the fact that there’s a room full of sheriff’s deputies three-hundred feet from here.”

He smiles like it’s a joke. “My funny wife. You lie.”

I glare at him. “Do I?”

“Why are they here, then?” he asks coyly, enjoying the game, thinking he’s still a step ahead.

“To investigate a murder,” I tell him plainly.

That stops him in his tracks. His confidence falters for a moment, the look on his face contorting.

“A murder I committed,” I continue, just to watch him squirm. Now it is my turn to begin circling. I step into the living room, moving away from him and toward the back wall, the windows and table where the bryony berries wait.

“I don’t believe it,” he tells me. “You’re too weak. Too pathetic. You don’t have it in you.”

I laugh. I can’t help myself. The irony is just too rich to ignore. The sound unnerves him. “Oh, Henry, you can be so incredibly blind where your ego is concerned. I’ve killed four men since I left your side. At first, it was hard for me to swallow, too. But now, it’s becoming second nature.” I pause beside the sofa and meet his glare, leaning against it as I tell him, “I made one of them actually shit himself first. I take a little pride in that to be honest.”

His eyes narrow and his head shakes, sending wispy blond hairs floating on the charged air. He doesn’t know what to say. His speechlessness empowers me, makes me bold with triumph.

I move on. “And what have you been doing since I left, hmm? Pining? Standing over that empty grave in the forest with your cock in hand, wondering who will satisfy you now that I’m gone? Who will play your willing victim?” I grin at him. “It’s going to take a lot more than a windup toy to frighten me now. I’m not your Lady Mother, Henry. I don’t give a fuck about being respectable in public anymore.”

“Who are you?” he hisses as he moves opposite me, the couch now between us, my back to the windows where he once stood.

“Don’t you recognize me?” I ask, inching toward the table. I don’t want him to see what I’m after. The second he knows, he will do everything in his power to stop me. Regardless of my earlier concerns, if I want to be sure I can kill Henry, I need to feed more. “I’m your darling wife. The woman you raped and beat and tortured for two years. I am what you made me, Henry. What’s the matter? Don’t you like what I’ve become?”

For a second, I think I see a flicker of remorse in those fathomless blue eyes, pale as glaciers and even colder. But no sooner do I recognize it than it’s gone, replaced by a seething fury he will never be free of. Not until I free him.

“No more talking,” he says slowly. “I’m going to kill you now, Piers. I’m going to squeeze you until the life flows out like juice across my fingers. And then I am going to fuck your corpse like you always deserved. Do you understand? You will die here in a puddle of your own piss as I watch, and it will be the best sex of my life.”

“You can try,” I tell him acidly. “But I’m betting it goes the other way, minus all the corpse fucking because ew. You see, I made a mistake in Charleston, one fatal miscalculation when I plotted my escape.”

“What’s that?” he asks between gritted teeth.

“I should have killed you instead of killing myself.”

He lunges at that, grabbing the sofa and leaping over it even as he pushes it aside. I spin and reach into the bag, gripping a handful of berries in my fist, but before I can get them into my mouth, he’s knocked me to the ground with the flat of his hand. Sparkling red spheres spill across the carpet like rubies. I scramble toward them, gathering them up, but he clutches my ankle and yanks me back, flipping me over as he pins me down, a hand on each wrist, his knee digging into my solar plexus.

His eyes burn down at me. If he could, he would make me combust right here, a bomb of a woman, a torch to his perversion.

Despite myself, the vulnerability of my predicament, I start laughing. A thick, heady, rhythmic sound flowing out of me, wetting the corners of my eyes, causing my chest to heave.

“Shut up!” he screams. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Or what, Henry?” I ask. He doesn’t have me where he wants me yet. And he knows that I know it. He will have to let one of my wrists go to choke me. And it won’t matter which. I have berries clutched in each hand. Either way, I will feed and he will die.

It infuriates him that he isn’t sure of what’s happening, that I know something he doesn’t. The insecurity eats at his insides. It has been eating at him since the day they first put him in his monster mother’s arms. He lifts my wrists and slams them against the floor, causing my bones to shudder in agony as several of the berries fly from my grip and the rest crush against my skin, their juice running into the creases of my palms. I howl with the ache and the loss.

He rises, grinning, releasing my wrists, and slaps me hard, my cheek cracking with the force, my ear ringing. Great tears betray me, rolling from the corners of my eyes at the pain. The feeling of triumph causes him to let up the pressure on my chest just enough for me to squirm and jerk my leg up hard into the soft meat of his groin.

He unleashes a furious howl, sliding off me as he grips his crotch, and I roll over licking skin and seeds and juice from my hand, scrabbling to my feet and making for the kitchen door. I tumble down the porch steps, and a moment’s hesitation—should I bolt for the café full of law enforcement officers or make a run for the underground shelter full of dried, toxic stores?—means I hear the scrape of a table leg, the crash of a lamp as he finds his footing and comes after me.

Without another thought, I head straight into the woods, hoping I can lose him in a thicket of conifers or across a stream, hide beneath the swell of a mossy boulder. The meager drops of bryony juice I licked from my hands aren’t enough, even with my gift for concentration, to kill an evil like Henry. Without feeding, I have no hope of winning this fight. Hiding from it is all that’s left. But I haven’t traveled more than thirty feet when he tackles me, bringing me down hard against the knot of an exposed tree root, filling my mouth with loam and blood.

I spit dirt, my vision swimming as a white, waxy knob focuses it—the immature cap of a destroying angel mushroom emerging from the earth right in front of me. Myrtle’s voice rings through my heart— a very little poison can do a world of good —and I know this button has risen for me, my magic calling it forth when I needed it most, just like the pokeweed in Charleston.

Henry is already twisting my arm behind me, but with my other hand, I snatch at the mushroom, letting it fill my mouth, every bite a mix of relief and excruciating pain.

He grabs me by the neck and pulls me up, spinning me to face him. His hands rest there, tight but not constricting, not yet, as he glares at me in the early rays of morning.

“Come on, Henry,” I tell him while I still have my voice. “Don’t you want to kiss me goodbye?”

His fingers dig into my skin. For the second time tonight, I can’t breathe and begin to lose consciousness, blackness creeping in from my periphery like ink spilling in water. Everything in me fights to stay awake, alive, long enough to finish him. As he watches my eyes flutter, my face purple, he can’t resist. This was when I was always the most beautiful to him, the most irresistible. He leans in, refusing to let up on my windpipe, and presses his papery thin lips to mine. With the last ounce of strength I have, I push my tongue, coated in blood and saliva and tiny fragments of mushroom, into his mouth.

The gesture startles him so much he releases me. I cough and wheeze, hacking to the side and stumbling, barely holding myself up on my feet. When I glare back at him, he is wiping his mouth, spitting out bits of white flesh.

“What the fuck is this?” he whines. He always hated a mess.

“Don’t be such a crybaby,” I grate out. “I saved it just for you.”

That creaseless brow buckles as something rumbles inside him. He places a hand on his chest, long fingers splayed, every nail manicured to perfection. “What have you done to me?” he asks, belching noisily.

As the air pours into my lungs, I can feel the tissues of my throat knitting themselves back together, the magic inside me undoing years of damage even as it undoes Henry in front of me. I suck in oxygen like water in a heat wave, coughing out all the fear and self-loathing he planted, years of shame that was never mine to carry. When I am able to rise to my full height, he is on his hands and knees, back arching like a cat, as vomit streams out of him, panic warping his face. He finally collapses on his back, his hands crumpled against his chest as stomach cramps seize him again and again.

I move to stand over him, looking down at the face of my nightmares. For the first time, I see a man before me and not a demon. Such a shame he could only show me that at the very end. “Goodbye, Henry,” I tell him, his eyes blinking with understanding come too late. “I can’t say that I’ll miss you, but you taught me an awful lot. Thank you for that. It’ll sure come in handy from now on.”

One gnarled hand raises toward me, as if to plead for help, but I knock it aside.

“Now, now,” I chasten him. “We mustn’t resist our destiny.” When his eyebrows crumple with confusion, the painful surprise of where he finds himself, I realize I feel nothing for him anymore—not fear, not empathy, not even pity. He’s just another mark, one of many. I watch with detached interest as the life vacates his eyes like an incandescent bulb dying, the bane witch inside me finally taking her full form, blossoming like a flower toward the sun.

I kneel down with a cruel smile, kiss my first two fingers and place them over his lips in a final farewell. “Sleep well, little rabbit.”