Chapter Thirty-five

“Katie?” I whispered.

John grabbed me around the waist before I could rush forward. I kicked and fought; he lifted me right off the ground as Katie laughed.

It was the laugh that made me stop fighting. That laugh didn’t sound like Katie at all.

“Is that her?” My voice shook.

She stepped closer, out of the fading sunshine and into the light. Someone else stared out of my little sister’s eyes.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, because I knew, even before the woman who was my sister, and yet not my sister, spoke.

“Hey, John. Long time no bite me.”

Her teeth were whiter, sharper and seemingly more numerous than I remembered. She was dressed differently than the Katie I’d known would have been—black leather miniskirt and a lacy black blouse, which was unbuttoned far too low, plus four-inch sling-back heels. Her hair was longer, wilder, and her eyes appeared bluer with the insanity burning from within.

“Put me down.” My voice was calm and very, very cold.

“Don’t go near her,” John murmured before he set me on my feet.

I didn’t want to. This Katie frightened me.

“He brought me here to kill me,” she said, though she seemed more amused than afraid.

“I know.”

“And you fucked him.”

I winced. Katie laughed that horrible un-Katie-like laugh.

“Don’t sweat it, sis. You didn’t know.”

“Anne,” John began.

“Let her finish.”

Katie’s smile became more of a smirk. “I waited for you at the Caradaro Club, remember?”

I nodded, unable to speak past my guilt. I’d said I would meet her, then I hadn’t. I’d been annoyed over a bracelet, like a three-year-old child. Well, I had the bracelet back, but where was my sister? Staring into Katie’s eyes, I couldn’t find her anywhere.

“Look at him.” She flicked her fingers in John’s direction. “Who wouldn’t want to go home with a guy like that? He was even hotter then. No goatee. Long hair.” She made a sound of pure lust.

I found my voice. “You didn’t—”

“Sleep with him? Never got a chance when I was human. And once we’re werewolves”—she lifted her hands, then lowered them—”we’ve got touching issues.”

The movement fixed my attention on her wrist, which was horribly scarred. “The bracelet,” I murmured.

She glanced at the ridged tissue. “I should have let you wear it. When I changed the first time, it nearly fried me alive.”

Well, the thing was pure silver.

“Graveyard dirt,” I blurted. “The bracelet was covered in graveyard dirt.”

“Lover boy buried me in an old cemetery. He knew I’d come back to life and heal all wounds.” She held up her wrist. “Except this one.”

I glanced at John, who’d removed his glasses. In his eyes I didn’t see the evil she described. He’d been different then, but I was having a hard time remembering that. Right now, I wanted to kill him.

“Why did you leave the bracelet?” I asked Katie.

“To mess with you. This is a game, sis, and you were the bait. He brought you here to get to me.”

“But John told me to leave. King—” I glanced around. King had disappeared. My eyes met John’s, and in them, I saw the truth. “The photograph was King’s idea.”

“Yes,” John said.

“Sullivan told me it was doctored.”

“Ah, Sullivan.” Katie licked her lips and closed her eyes in mock ecstasy. “He was a very good year.”

Sullivan had said he knew the eyes of the wolf that had bitten him. He hadn’t recognized them right away because he’d only seen them before in a snapshot.

“John was having a helluva time finding me,” Katie continued. “I always was the best at hide-and- seek.”

She had been. Whenever we’d played as kids Katie always won.

“What I don’t understand”—Katie frowned—”is how he compelled me to come here in the first place.”

That I knew, but I didn’t think it was relevant at this time.

“I can’t say I minded since I love Mardi Gras season. It’s like a buffet.” Katie winked. “But once I got here, and I saw you, I figured out my maker was up to no good.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

She glared at John. “What good is being a werewolf, with the power over life and death, if I have to come whenever he calls me? I wasn’t leaving until one of us was dead. Preferably him.”

“What about the fail-safe in the virus?” I asked. “Werewolves can’t kill werewolves—unless they’re different, like John.”

“You’ve been busy.” Katie contemplated me with a lifted brow. “But you always were nosy as hell. I can’t kill him, you’re right. But I can get someone else to do it.”

“Who?”

“A familiar,” John murmured.

“Like a witch’s familiar?”

“In a way,” Katie said. “Except a werewolf familiar is a witch.”

“You have a witch helping you,” I repeated.

“I sent Lydia after him, but he’s strong and clever; she couldn’t kill him. Although she did manage to beat the crap out of him once.”

The night John said he’d been mugged I hadn’t understood how anyone could do such a thing. Of course I hadn’t considered the culprit might be a werewolf familiar. And why would I have?

“He killed her.” Katie scowled. “Gypsy witches aren’t that easy to come by.”

King suddenly appeared between Katie and me holding Murphy’s gun. I guess that explained where he’d gone.

“Be careful.” I laid my hand on his arm. “The thing’s loaded with silver.”

“It wouldn’t be any good with lead, girlie.” He shouldered me back, his gaze on Katie.

Katie growled, her lips pulling away from lengthening canines. John cursed and I glanced at the window.

The sun was almost down, and the moon would soon be on the rise.

“Let’s get this over with,” King murmured.

“Don’t kill her,” I blurted. “Elise can fix her.”

“I don’t want to be fixed.” Katie’s voice was a low rumbling growl emanating from a still human throat. “I like what I am.”

“You aren’t you,” I pointed out.

“I’m more me than I ever was before. The inner Katie is free.”

“You weren’t a killer.”

“I am now. I’ve been making my own little pack. Sullivan would have been a wonderful addition. As it is, your little friend Maggie has been fun.”

“Maggie?” My voice was faint.

“She was so easy. I sent one of my wolves to the cafe, and she came away with him like a lost lamb.”

The old man. I’d known there was something weird about him.

“Why?” I whispered.

“I thought you’d like to have a friend who could show you the ropes.” Her lips curved. “When I make you like me.”

The night was warm, but I shivered anyway. “Call Elise,” I said.

King and John didn’t move.

“You guys got a hearing problem? Get Elise over here.”

“Fixing her won’t fix him, girlie. If John doesn’t kill her, he won’t be cured.”

My heart sped up until it was pounding thickly at the base of my throat. “How do you know that for sure?”

“The loas told me over and over again the way to break his curse,” King said. “They’ve never lied to me.”

“Hell,” I muttered.

“Ain’t it though?” Katie asked in her strange dual voice.

King held out the gun to John, and he took it. Katie glanced at me as if waiting for a protest, but I hesitated. Katie wasn’t here anymore; in her place was a woman I didn’t recognize. One who enj oyed killing, one who had killed, countless times, one who planned to make me a monster just like her.

She must have sensed my indecision because she seemed to gather herself, forcing back the call of the rising moon so that when she spoke again, her voice was the one I remembered, although it said things my sister never would have.

“You think a guy like Rodolfo would want you? He only fucked you to get to me.”

“Nice,” King murmured.

Katie shrugged. “Truth is truth, and she’s not special.”

I’d been happy while I’d resided in the fantasyland where John cared about me because he “saw” the extraordinary Anne who lived inside the plain wrapper. His being unable to see had freed me in ways I’d never been free before.

Except John could see me, had always seen me, just as he’d always known who I was, even though I hadn’t.

I’d been a means to this end; I’d been bait for the werewolf who was my sister, or who’d at least been my sister before Henri Ruelle came to town.

While I could understand John’s reasoning, I couldn’t go along with his plan.

“Don’t.” My eyes met his. “Please.”

He didn’t hesitate. He lowered the gun.

King cursed. Katie smiled. John went to the phone and dialed.

“Elise? There’s someone at Rising Moon who needs to be cured.”

Though King was visibly furious over John’s refusal to kill my sister, he put himself between Katie and the back door, leaving John between Katie and the front door.

I relaxed. By tomorrow I should be able to call my parents and tell them I was bringing Katie home.

A sudden blur of motion and an outcry from King made me turn. Katie streaked toward the front door.

John moved in front of her, and she changed direction in the blink of an eye, leaping at the front window, crashing through the glass, hitting the pavement on both feet, and disappearing into the shocked crowd on Frenchmen Street.

“What do you mean she got away?”

Adam, Elise, and Edward had arrived less than an hour after Katie had made her escape. Adam was understandably angry. When I’d begged for Katie’s life, I’d conveniently pushed aside all of the other people who would be affected by my need to get my sister back. I guess selfishness wasn’t limited to werewolves.

“I couldn’t find a trace of her,” John said.

He’d gone after Katie immediately, but the moon was gibbous and his curse did not allow him to shapeshift until the shiny silver orb waned to a crescent. With the power of her wolf, Katie had evaded him with ease.

“I’ll find her,” Edward muttered, and pumped his shotgun.

“No!” I cried. “She can be cured.” I put my hand on Elise’s arm. “Right?”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever tried to cure a wolf made by one who was cursed.” Elise bit her lip. “The cure didn’t work with Henri.”

“We have to try. She didn’t ask to be a werewolf.”

“Maybe she did,” Adam said. “Grandpère always liked to make them choose.”

“Choose?”

“Life or death. You may be a werewolf or no.” Adam glared at his ancestor.

John rubbed his forehead and turned away.

King reached out and smacked Adam in the chest with the flat of his great big hand. Adam fell back.

“You will stop tormenting him,” King ground out. “He has been tormented enough.”

“It will never be enough.” Adam walked out, and he didn’t return.

“He’s right,” John murmured.

“No,” King said. “He isn’t.”

Edward lowered his gun. “I will begin searching for your sister. If I find her, I will call Elise. She may attempt the cure, but if it doesn’t work, I must kill her.”

“No,” I said, then hurried on when Edward sighed impatiently. “If it doesn’t work, let John kill her.”

Edward’s faded blond brows shot up, but after peering into my face for several seconds he gave a sharp nod.

Elise stood behind John. He didn’t look at her, but continued to stare through the unbroken window at the moon. She reached out to touch his shoulder, then snatched her hand back before she did so. “I’ll keep trying to find a cure. There has to be something.”

“Perhaps,” John said, but he didn’t sound any more convinced of it than she did.

Edward left, and when Elise followed him, I followed her. The old man got into the car. Adam waited behind the wheel. I murmured her name and she paused.

“There’s something between you,” I said.

Elise tilted her head, studying me. “I understand what he’s going through. I’ve been there.”

“You weren’t evil,” I pointed out.

“No, but I’ve killed. I have to live with that. So does he.”

“He killed my sister.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I’ve never been possessed as Henri was, so I can’t say what it’s like. But I’ve studied hundreds of werewolves, and they aren’t the same as they were when they were human.”

I thought of Sullivan and agreed. Except—

“Henri was horrible before he was a werewolf.”

“So I hear. But as he said, he’s John now. He is different. A century and a half can change a man.” Her lips twisted wryly. “And you have to remember, he was made a werewolf against his will too. A curse is just as much of a coercion as being bitten.”

“From what I’ve gathered of Henri, he probably would have welcomed what happened to him.”

“We’ll never know, because Henri died a long time ago.”

Elise got into the car, and they drove away. When I went inside Rising Moon, King had disappeared, leaving John and me alone.

The closed sign on the door would remain there until the glass company replaced the hastily constructed barricade over the broken window. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to stay here tonight. Maybe John would let me stay with him.

I blinked at the thought, one I hadn’t realized I entertained until that moment.

Though Elise and Edward were struggling to see John as anyone other than Henri, and Adam couldn’t see past his evil Grandpère, I’d always seen John as John. Discovering his secret, his past, his former identity, didn’t change that. The man I’d met and fallen in love with was a different person from the one who’d been born, died, and then born again a Ruelle.

“Take me home with you,” I murmured.

Shock widened John’s eyes. “How can you even look at me when you know I killed your sister?”

“You didn’t. Henri did.”

John held out his lovely, gifted hands. “These become paws under the crescent moon, just as they did for Henri.” One shot out and curled around my neck. “How do you know I won’t rip out your throat?”

I lifted my own hand, which held the silver letter opener. “I won’t let you.”

He released me with a little shove. “You don’t understand how it is when the crescent moon rises.”

I couldn’t say his words didn’t disturb me, but I also couldn’t say I didn’t love him.

“Help me understand, John.”

He shook his head.

“Was I just bait to you?”

“That was King’s idea. I didn’t even know what he’d done until you showed up with the picture.” He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Touching you made me feel alive again. So even though it was wrong, I was selfish. I guess I haven’t changed all that much.”

“You just gave up the only chance you knew of being cured because I asked it of you. That doesn’t sound very selfish to me.” He didn’t answer. “I know the worst, John, and I still love you.”

“No you don’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I feel.” My hand tightened on the letter opener. “You’re a werewolf, but maybe I could live with that.”

John’s smile was sad. “I won’t sentence you to hundreds of nights alone, wondering where I am, if I’ll come home. I won’t deprive you of the blessing of children just to have you with me.” He cupped my cheek, and I rubbed my face against his hand. “But most of all I won’t watch you age and die while I remain exactly like this.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Still—

“You’d rather have nothing than as many years as we could of something?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think you were a coward, John.”

“Think again,” he said, and walked out the door.

I was so shocked I didn’t immediately follow. Big mistake.

Katie had disappeared into the crowd in an instant. John disappeared in a single beat of my heart.

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