The Curse Keepers Collection (18 page)

My head jerked back. “No!”

He turned his attention to his pack. “Then you’re probably safe. No prints on file to match you to.”

I didn’t want to ask about Collin’s criminal record. The bolt cutters he pulled out of the backpack he kept stored in his truck answered that question.

“Anything else I should know?”

“Stick close to me. Keep quiet. If we see anyone, let me do the talking.”

“Okay.”

His mouth pinched with irritation. “You said that last time and look where that got us.”

“It got us eighteen hundred dollars, and the whereabouts to your map. You’re welcome.”

Collin shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble, but if we do, run back to the truck and let me deal with it.” He stared into my eyes, a serious expression on his face. “Promise me that you’ll listen to me this time.”

“You expect me to just leave you?”

“I can get out easier if I’m on my own and I don’t have to worry about you.”

I grinned. “Awww . . . You’re worried about me.”

“Although I’m beginning to rethink this belief, for now, dragging you around alive is easier than carting you around dead. If you want to call that worrying about you, then yes, I am.” He cocked his head and lifted an eyebrow. “If it makes you feel any better, if I didn’t need you, I’d leave you behind without a second thought.”

Good to know.

He slung the bag over his shoulder, stuffed his hands into the gloves, and grabbed the bolt cutters. “Let’s get this over with.”

We skirted the fence until Collin found two loose boards. He lifted them so I could climb through, then he followed behind me. We stood at the back of a mini-junkyard. Old cars, motorcycles, even bikes littered the ground. A large metal building stood in front of us.

Collin pointed to the rusted storage unit. The hundred-foot-long or so structure took up most of the fenced-off area. “I think it’s in there.”

I trailed behind as he hung close to the building, making his way to the front. Stopping at the corner, he scanned the lot, the muscles on his neck and arms tightening. After a couple of seconds, he held a finger up to his mouth, then pointed around the corner.

I nodded, swallowing the lump of fear in my throat. This was real. We were breaking into this building. While part of me was terrified, a hidden part of me was more alive than I’d ever felt. Well, almost as alive as I felt when I’d been close to Collin that morning. I decided to attribute that occurrence to a phenomenon out of my control. The Curse Keeper blood had caused my reaction, and I’d do best to remember that not only was my reaction not real, but that Collin would screw me and forget about me the minute our job was done. Marino had confirmed that less than a half an hour before.

But this adrenaline rush surging through my own blood had nothing to do with the Curse Keeper magic. Collin may have been one of those thrill-seeking idiots, but it turned out that Elinor Dare Lancaster was too. No one was more surprised than me.

Collin slipped around the corner and motioned for me to wait. The storage shed was locked with a chain and a padlock. All it took were two snips of the bolt cutters before the chain dropped to the ground with a thud. He pushed the sliding door open, looked inside, then motioned for me to come. When I reached him, he pushed me inside, then closed the door behind us, plunging us into darkness.

After my encounter with the spirits last night, darkness wasn’t something I welcomed. But I reminded myself that it was bright daylight outside, even if there was hardly any light in here. I ran my thumb along the raised outline of the symbol on my palm, taking comfort that it didn’t tingle. At the moment, the real threat was the man in a room several hundred feet away.

Collin flipped on a flashlight, jerking me out of my thoughts. He knew exactly where to go, heading to a row of filing cabinets in the back corner. I trailed along, my eyes adjusting so that I could make out rows of metal shelves on the other side.

Collin handed me the flashlight and whispered, “You might as well make yourself useful. Hold this and shine it in the bag, then where I point.”

I took the flashlight and nodded.

He opened a small tool kit and removed several small tools. “Here.” He pointed to the lock on the first cabinet. It only took a few jiggles before the lock popped. Collin opened the drawer and started thumbing through files before moving to the next drawer.

“What’s it look like?” I whispered.

“A map.”

“No shit. Big? Small? Old? Is it original?”

He grimaced. “No, it’s not original. The original would have been on an animal skin and probably would have decomposed by now.” His condescending tone was beginning to bug the crap out of me.

“So it’s new?”

“Not exactly.”

I put my hand over his, glaring up into his face. “Then what exactly is it?”

He flipped his hand around and grabbed mine, pressing our palms together. Collin might have been wearing a glove, but that didn’t stop the mark on my hand from blazing with power.

The spirits might be getting stronger, but Collin and I were getting stronger too.

He froze, his irritation draining away.

An electrical current danced across my skin. I felt alive. Powerful. Hyperaware of everything around me. There was a cricket in the corner, and spiders crawling behind the cabinets we stood in front of. A bird perched in a tree in the corner of the lot, watching a worm that wriggled across the surface.

I lowered the flashlight, the pool of light shining on my feet.

“You feel it too?” Collin asked, all pretense gone.

I nodded.

“We feel the Manitou.” Awe filled his voice.

“What’s the Manitou?”

“The life force that flows through every living thing.”

It was simultaneously overwhelming and comforting. The sense that there was more than just me or Collin, that there was so much more out there. And we could feel it. Experience it. Being a Keeper meant I had a responsibility, but for the first time I realized I also had a gift.

The current between us drew me closer and I found myself pressed against his chest. I closed my eyes and heard the blood rushing through his veins and the rapid beat of his heart. I reached outside of the two of us and felt a group of flies hovering over a dead mouse in a corner. A cat slinking through the grass. A dog lapping water from a bowl.

My hand burned and my eyes flew open in surprise. I started to jerk away from Collin, but his fingers looped over my hand, keeping our palms together.

“My mark is burning.”

Collin’s eyes widened. “There’s something here.”

“Marino?” But before Collin shook his head, I knew it was something worse. I felt it. Something dark and oppressive. It didn’t have a physical form, but its presence occupied a space on the other side of the warehouse. Fear mingled with the electrical current flowing throughout my body.

Then the current was gone—Collin had pulled his hand from mine.

“
Shit
.” He shut the drawer and eased open the one below it. “Hold up the light.”

I’d forgotten the flashlight in my hand. “You can’t be serious.
You’re still looking
?”

His eyes were wild. “We need the map.”

I could hardly catch my breath. “What’s out there, Collin?” I couldn’t feel its force anymore, but I knew it was lurking. The mark on my hand was on fire.

“I don’t know, but from the strength, I’d say it’s a god.” He kept his attention on the files, shutting the drawer and moving to the next one.

“There’s a vengeful god in this building with us,
yet we’re still here
? I’m not staying here waiting for something mean and nasty to get me.” I turned around to leave. I only had to make it to the sunlight, and then I’d be safe. I hoped.

Collin grabbed my wrist and pulled me back. “You do
not
want to leave me right now. It
will
get you, Ellie. You need to stick with me, and we’ll get out of this together.”

My hand shook and the flashlight beam skittered across the ground. “You’re going to get us both killed.”

His mouth lifted into a sarcastic grin. “Not today.” He used his tools on the next cabinet, popping the lock and moving to the top drawer.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Whatever was out there was closer. “Collin!”

“Another second . . . ” He pulled an old piece of parchment out of a file and spread it open. “Got it!”

Something cold and heavy tickled my neck. The weight of it buckled my knees. The mark on my palm itched and burned.

An icy dagger dug into my shoulder blade. I screamed.

Collin spun his head toward me, shock and horror on his face.

Whatever had me jerked me backward, and I fell, sliding across the warehouse floor. “Collin!” The flashlight dropped to the floor with a loud clank, rolling toward the wall.

I couldn’t see what was pulling me, but I slapped a hand to the spot on my shoulder and felt nothing.
Nothing
was there, yet I felt its grip sink even deeper into my shoulder blade. How the hell did I fight
nothing
? I skittered toward the storage shelves and frantically reached for a metal support beam, looping my fingers around the steel. The spirit continued to pull, the pain in my shoulder unbearable. I swallowed a sob as my legs flew in the air, parallel to the floor. I hung four feet over the ground.

“
Collin
!”

The room had plunged into darkness and I couldn’t see him anywhere. And he sure wasn’t answering.

The spirit stopped pulling, but kept me hovering over the ground. A cold current of air wound up my bare leg. I kicked and thrashed, but it continued coiling around my calf, up to my thigh. Everywhere it touched, the body heat flowed out of me.

This thing was going to suck the life out of me.

“
Collin
!”

I couldn’t die like this, in some dank, nasty warehouse in Buxton. If Marino found my body, he’d probably toss me into the ocean, and Myra would never know what happened to me. Why hadn’t Collin taught me the words of protection?
Goddamn him
. And now he’d deserted me just like he promised he would. Maybe he decided I was more useful to him dead after all.

The coil wrapped around my other leg and both limbs went numb.

No
! I refused to just give in. I wasn’t going out without a fight. Somewhere in my head were the words I needed, hiding behind the mental wall I’d built to block them out. Why couldn’t I break through?

I latched onto one word, a word I’d heard Daddy mumble that morning. “
Umpe.
”

The spirit paused for a second before continuing its quest. I began to shiver from the cold seeping in my body.

There were more words. What else had Daddy said? Another word appeared in my head, connected to the first. “
Mowcottowosh umpe.
”

The coiling current of air, now circled around my waist, stopped. Somehow I knew once it hit my chest I’d be dead. I took advantage of the pause to shake my legs. The god’s grasp loosened.

The doors to the building flung open, spilling sunlight into the space. The bands around my stomach retracted, but clung to my legs. The dagger in the back of my shoulder was still in place and began to burrow deeper. Fuzziness flooded my head and I fought against it. If I passed out, I was a dead woman.

Collin stood in front of me, holding up his glowing palm and reciting words in the ancient language Daddy had uttered that morning, words I didn’t understand.

The god’s hold loosened, and I fell, the cement floor knocking the wind out of me. The pain in my right shoulder blade was excruciating.

“Ellie, we have to go.” Collin reached his hand toward me, impatience in his voice.

“I’d love to get up,” I mumbled, gasping for breath as I crawled toward him, “but the stab wound in my back is making it difficult.”

“
What stab wound
?”

Men’s voices shouted outside. We’d made enough noise that we were sure to have caught Marino’s attention in the building next door.

I climbed to my feet, and Collin grabbed my left arm, throwing it over his shoulder.

“Can you walk?”

I nodded. Now that I was up and the coils were gone, some of the feeling had returned to my legs. I was weak, but the pain in my back was intense, sending waves through my head and threatening to steal my consciousness.

“There’s a back panel we can crawl through. It should buy us some time with Marino.”

I didn’t answer, instead focusing on moving in the direction Collin dragged me. We maneuvered behind the shelves to the back corner. Collin dropped his hold, and I collapsed to my knees.

Collin squatted and went to work on a square in the wall, close to the floor. He slid the panel door to the side, peered out the hole, then looked over at me. “You crawl through first, and I’ll be right behind you.”

I lowered to my stomach and suppressed a grunt, considering stealth seemed to be top priority, but it wasn’t easy. Every part of me ached from dropping to the floor when the spirit released its hold. I belly crawled to the hole and started through the space, but it must not have been fast enough to suit Collin. I felt his hand on my ass, pushing me through. When we were both out, he reached in to slide the panel back in place, then grabbed my arm and dragged me to the fence.

Collin lowered me to the ground and studied my face, looking worried. “Can you walk to the truck?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to talk. I’d crawl to the truck if I had to. There was no way I was sticking behind to let Marino get me.

Collin lifted the boards to the fence and pushed me between the slats. I fell to the ground face-first, but before I had time to roll to my side, Collin had me up and moving. The injury in my shoulder blade was icy cold and now spreading down my back. It took every ounce of energy to keep from fainting. I’d never been a swooning kind of girl, and I refused to give in to it now. Especially around Collin. I’d never hear the end of it if I passed out.

Halfway across the field, my legs gave out, but before I hit the ground, Collin bent down and threw me over his shoulder. As he took off, he braced one of his hands on my upper thigh, beneath my skirt. Lucky for him I was in too much pain to protest.