Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2 (25 page)

Max shrugged. “He obviously doesn’t know you well if he thinks you’re going to come without a fight. I prefer other methods of persuasion.”

“Well,” I said and stepped away from Giancarlo. “It seems that a wizard and a werewolf are good defenses. How about you guys stick around and protect me? And by the way,” I added before anyone could start arguing, “I’m sleeping alone.”

Not that I particularly want to.

When I got up the next morning, Giancarlo was sprawled on the couch, and there was no sign of Max.

Oh, right, he wasn’t really here.

I put on some coffee and pulled out my laptop to peruse the morning’s news. I had just powered it on when Giancarlo woke with a snarl. I arched an eyebrow at him over my computer.

“What’s that about? Chasing rabbits in your sleep?”

A sliver of memory emerged from my pre-caffeine fog of a rabbit that had been—shall we say—disassembled by a predator, and I had the sense it had been me. From what Joanie had told me, I had been the one to catch and start eating the rabbit that first night the CLS got a true hold on me, but everything after the initial change had disappeared from my memory from the trauma of having been experimented on. Then the two rabbits Max had offered me, one cooked and one not, came to mind.
He’s probably on the way to my apartment.
The look in Giancarlo’s eye told me he would not take kindly to another surprise appearance.

“I would rather chase you,
Bellissima
.” The coffee maker beeped, and he poured cups for each of us and fixed it the way I liked with just a little sugar and mostly cream. His dark hair was tousled and his T-shirt wrinkled, and in his dishevelment, he looked eminently approachable.

What would it be like if we…
I shook my head.
There’s no use in thinking that way. We’re over.

He sat down across from me, and we looked at each other. The questions each of us wanted to ask piled up in the air between us more effectively than any other wall could have. What to ask? Where to start?

“Did you sleep with my Aunt Alicia?”
Way to go with the subtlety, there.

He raised his eyebrows and blew on his coffee. For once, his jovial tone was gone, and he sounded like a much older man. Scratch that, he sounded like his true age, which I didn’t know, but which must be older than his mid-twenties appearance.

“What does it matter if I did?” he asked, and I was reminded of the fleeting expression on his face from the night before when he brought to mind a
mafioso
.

“It makes things a bit awkward, don’t you think?”

“Like your new boyfriend appearing here last night before you’ve even broken up with me?”

Touché.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“
Bugiardo.
”

“Which means…”

“Bullshit. You liar. I have seen the way he looks at you, like you and he own pieces of the other’s heart.”

I dropped my gaze so he wouldn’t see the hope flare in my eyes. “Whatever it seems, we have no formal agreement. We haven’t slept together.”

A hand gesture, which I could infer the meaning of easily enough. “It is only a matter of time.” He leaned forward. “What happened?”

“He was sent to observe me, and then he started to protect me. He saved me from the evil
Benandanti
who wanted to take my soul when they missed the opportunity for Aunt Alicia’s, and then he filled me in on some important details that you neglected to tell me.”

Now he looked away, and it became apparent he’d been hiding a lot from me all along. I had underestimated him, but no longer.

“What do I need to know, Giancarlo? Why did you get involved with me and never enlighten me as to what I am and who my family is?”

“Your aunt and your mother wished it so, but I have been thinking about it, and since they are both gone, I feel I am released from my promise.” He exhaled like he finally let a secret escape into the world, and whatever may come of it, he was no longer responsible. “They felt that even the knowledge might make the change happen. That is why your aunt and I had our disagreement. We had been lovers, yes, but once you came along, she made me vow in a moment of passion that I would not drag you into your family heritage or problems, which put me in conflict with my own vows.”

“Why not tell me? She said words have power, but keeping this from me obviously didn’t work to save me from it.”

“She and your mother were trying to save you from the
Benandanti
and other things this ‘curse’ brings. They hoped your wizard blood, as faint as it may be, would with the right spells and manipulations be enough to keep your werewolf heritage from emerging. She only wanted you to have a normal life.”

I drummed my fingers on the table, more recollections from my childhood piling up. How I had never been allowed to have a dog. How the trips to my aunt’s home over the summer were a sacrosanct tradition no matter what was going on in my parents’ lives. I remembered arguments between my mother and father.

“Julia, why can we never go to the beach in July? Why do we always go to Georgia?”

“Because it’s good for Lonna to know her aunt.”

One time I’d gotten in trouble for throwing away the herb bundle that had been tied to the bedpost because I didn’t like the way it smelled.

“Your aunt made that especially for you,” my mother said. “Don’t hurt her feelings by discarding it.”

“But I hate it. It stinks!”

“There are things in there that are good for you. Just keep it there, and you’ll get used to the smell.”

“It worked too.”

“And that is why you are of so much interest to so many—because it worked until you were infected by a latent vector wielded by a weak wizard. You offer hope to some and fear to others that the situation can be reversed.”

I nodded. “And you didn’t want to reverse your promise, so you pretended to be a drunk, used aconite to spirit walk, and watched over me because you knew I was in danger.”

“I will always regret that I was unable to keep you from being shot by the tranquilizer.”

“You and me both. I’ve lost my inner wolf voice.”

“She is in there. I would sense it if she had been truly lost, but you must come to some sort of agreement with yourself before she returns fully.”

I slumped back. “What sort of agreement? I’ve apparently got two sides in conflict that will never be in accord with each other.”

“That is only for you to discover. No one has ever been in your position before.”

A knock on the door made us both jump, and I knew without looking who it would be.

“And now I’ll have two men in disagreement as well,” I grumbled and got up to let Max in.

Max looked just as rumpled as Giancarlo, and his facial expression—all hard angles and clenched jaw—said he was ready to snarl at something. I wondered what he’d thought about during that drive from the rest area to my apartment. Had he been jealous? Ready to let me go? From the look on his face, I guessed it wasn’t the latter.

“Did you two have a pleasant evening?” he asked, his tone clipped and formal, and his accent very evident.

Oh, great, we’ve got Don Corleone meets snooty island guy.

“It was fine.”

“Dessert was excellent,” Giancarlo said.

“Yes, the tiramisu was good, and then we went to bed. Apart,” I said with a glare at Giancarlo.

Max’s jaw relaxed a little. “Any other incursions?”

“No, all was quiet,” Giancarlo said. “I spirit-walked all night.”

“So that’s why you look so tired.” I poured him more coffee.

“Some of us have more on our mind than just bedding you,
Bellissima
.”

Max coughed, and I looked at him, daring him to deny it. “This is certainly a complicated situation. Is there enough for me too?”

“Complication?” I asked. “Certainly. Coffee, too, if you want.”

“But not you,” Giancarlo put in. “She is a one-man woman, wizard, so keep that in mind.”

“Down, boy,” I said and poured a cup of coffee for Max. I fixed it as he liked it and handed it to him. He accepted with a smile and a significant look toward Giancarlo.

I recognized I’d shown how familiar we were by fixing his coffee and rubbed my temples. “Giancarlo, this isn’t going to get any easier, so I’ll just say it now. You and I were never truly together, not with all you withheld from me both physically and knowledge-wise.”

“Ah, but now all is clear,
Bellissima
! We can finally be together, truly together, as our veritable selves. Wolf and wolf.”

I shook my head. “We can’t, Giancarlo, and you know why. All I ask from my partners is that you’re honest with me. You knew important things about my family that I needed to know, especially after my change, and you kept them from me.”

“I made a promise, and I keep the promises I make. Unlike the wizards.” The tension in the air thickened with the weight of long history.

“What promise would that be?” I asked, deliberately keeping my tone light so as not to spark further conflict between the men. “Just for my own information so I know what my situation is with regard to the two cultures.”

Giancarlo had mentioned a war.
Could
it be about something having to do with this? Had there been a hairy Helen of Troy stolen away by an evil wizard?

“To never interfere with our kind.”

Max shook his head. “That was only part of the treaty. The complete pact was not to interfere with your kind unless you were doing something that would alter the course of mortal human history.”

“We live among them. It does not mean we interfere.”

“Just by being there and interacting with them, you interfere.”

“It was your witch who cursed the
Benandanti
monk.”

“And your monk who exacted too high a price from the witch.”

As fascinating as it was, this discussion had the feel of a debate that had raged for centuries with no solutions.

“Okay boys, let’s bring it back to the present. Giancarlo, we were talking about us, not the wizards even though I seem to have a wizard bloodline I don’t know much about.”

“Your bloodline was to have died out centuries ago,” Max said through clenched teeth.

His statement knocked the air out of me. “What?”

“The monk was to have taken care of your ancestress before it went any further.” His shoulders slumped. “But something about the magic in your family ensured you could see and know your
fylgia
. None of the rest of them can.”

“I never saw her, just heard her.”

“That’s because you were struggling within yourself.”

I slammed my fist on the counter. “Stop saying that! You make it sound like it’s my own fault. I never asked for any of this. I never wanted this. I just wanted a nice, normal life.”

I didn’t have a chair nearby, so I sank to the floor, my face in my hands. “And as long as the two of you are here, I won’t have it, can’t have it.” I looked up through my tears at their concerned faces, one light and one dark like two blurry hovering angels over my shoulders, each with his own agenda having nothing to do with where my soul would end up.

“So you both need to go. If you want to watch over me, fine. I just want to have my life back.”

“Your life will never be the same now that you know all this,” Giancarlo murmured. “Now you see why your aunt wanted it kept from you.”

“The knowledge didn’t change me. Peter Bowman did, and he made me vulnerable to all this strangeness.” I looked at Max. “If I hadn’t changed, if I hadn’t become one of them, would the
Benandanti
still be after me?”

“We don’t know,” he said. “Blood magic is a forbidden art, and the rules are still hidden because some of the applications are so dangerous.”

“What is—” I shook my head. “Never mind. The more I ask, the more it draws me in, and I just need to get out and figure out what—or who—I really am. I won’t reveal what I know.”

“You are asking us to leave you alone without giving us any reassurance you will be safe,” Giancarlo pointed out.

“You have your vows to protect me, and Max has his orders. Follow them without bothering me. None of this was my choice to begin with.” I stood, ignoring their outstretched hands. “Now you two can leave.”

Giancarlo opened his mouth like he wanted to argue further, but Max motioned for him to hold.

“If that’s what you want,” Max said, his face impassive.

Even now I looked for anything that might indicate I was more than business. His lack of expression confirmed my decision. “Yes, it’s what I want.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Max told Giancarlo.

“You have just been up all night driving. I shall do it.”

I pointed to the door. “Settle it outside. Get out.”

In a few moments, they were gone, and I was truly alone for the first time in what felt like years…but not for long.

Chapter Twenty-One

I knew I shouldn’t be surprised because I never was alone for long. It seemed very pedestrian, but my next visitor appeared about an hour later when I was unloading my dishwasher.