Page 114 of The Sister's Curse

“You’re welcome.” It seemed like the least I could do in this awful situation.

She steadied herself and opened her eyes. “You were in that house?” She looked at me carefully, and her nostrils flared, as if she could smell scorch on me.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry for that.” She stared at the ember of her cigarette. “Truly.”

“Viv, what the hell’s going on?”

“The fucking Kings of Warsaw Creek are trying to get me before the curse is completed.” She grinned, and I saw that one of her front teeth had chipped. “They think that if they kill me, they stop the curse.”

“Well, they’re trying pretty damn hard.”

She shook her head. “I won’t stop it. Nothing can stop it now.”

“I know about you and the coven. Did you recruit those girls?” I demanded.

Viv laughed darkly. “Those girls are desperate for a sense of control over their world. I gave it to them. I just showed them their own power. I taught them to fight back.”

“You can’t just—”

“I can’t what? Show them there’s a world out there that’s more just than the one they grew up in? I can’t show them they’re being victimized, try to help them?” Her hands had curled into fists, and she was nearly shouting. “Those men have to be stopped by any means necessary.”

I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Viv, did you and the girls kill those people?”

She lifted her fingers in a Girl Scout salute. “Scout’s honor. No. That was the curse’s doing. The girls just helped me wake it up.”

“What exactly is this curse?” I asked, impatient. “Tell me how you did it.”

“It’s more of a summoning.” She smiled. “We called up a spirit,an old one who found our goals to be in harmony with hers. Think of her like a Rusalka.”

“Rusalka…” I echoed, as if I were in a dream. My skin crawled.

“She’s a spirit who feasts on the tears of evil men. She lies at the bottom of rivers and pools and drowns the unlucky. She’s worn many faces over time, but she understands the rage of women who can’t fight back.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Viv, innocents—children—are being hurt. A little boy almost died.”

Viv shrugged. “Dana was innocent. Nobody cared about that. So was Leah, and the other girls.”

“Leah could still be hurt.”

“Rusalka won’t touch Leah. She’s a girl. The curse is going to work as intended.”

I stared at her. Viv was too smart. That wasn’t an admission of guilt. Casting curses wasn’t against the law. I could prove she was in touch with the girls, from cell phone records and the girls’ confessions. But I couldn’t prove that any of them had committed murder. Besides, they all could be lying to me. They were a sisterhood, one I was not a part of.

“Viv, you need to eat.” Owen rustled in his backpack and handed her a sandwich, which she picked at.

Viv shrugged. “I will.” She put the sandwich down. Gibby snooted at it until I gave him a warning look.

“You don’t look good,” I said.

Viv grinned. “I feel it, you know.” She spread her fingers out on her sharp clavicles. “All that power…being pulled out of me. Given to her.”

I shook my head. Viv was fucking crazy. But she was in danger, too. “Viv, I have no doubt in my mind that these men are trying tokill you. They killed an investigator. I don’t want you to be next. You need to be in a safe place.”

Viv leaned against the shack’s metal wall and gestured up to the leaky roof. “I’m in a safe place.”

Owen shook his head. “Viv, you need to be someplace where you can sleep. Someplace with a lock on the door, and three squares a day.”