Cursed (Howl, #6) (8 page)

“Why didn’t she just tell Luke?” Samara asked through a
mouthful of blueberry muffin.

“Apparently, she’s tried, but he’s been leaving his cell phone off,” her mom explained. “He’s avoided all of Marnie’s calls. I can’t say that I blame him, with the way she overreacted on the day of your wedding. And I thought
my
mother-in-law was bad.”

Samara raised her eyebrows at her mom. “What are you talking about, Mom? Grandma
McKinley died before you and Dad got married. I thought you never had the chance to meet her.”

“Oh, not a biological mother-in-law,” her mom explained. “Your grandfather was married to this woman for a while. I’m not sure if they ever actually got divorced or not.” She hesitated, tapping her finger to her chin, as though she were trying to remember. “They had a lot of promises, Joe and her. She was a very stubborn woman, and I’m pretty sure she hated me. I mean . . .  maybe she didn’t, but it always seemed that way. Then again, it always seemed like she hated everyone. And your grandfather and her? They were like fire and gasoline. In a way, they were perfect for each other, because that man needed someone who could put him in his place. At the same time, though, they fought a lot. So, I think they might have ended it.” Her mom shrugged, as she piled scr
ambled eggs onto three plates.

Samara couldn’t imagine her grandfather being remarried, but it was probably only because no one had ever mentioned it to her befor
e. “How come I never met her?”

“I think they were probably on their breaks when they used to visit us,” her mom replied. “There was also one time when I told her not to come because she got snippy at me over the phone.” She shrugged. “Joe always made me think that they were going to end their marriage, so I didn’t see any reason to introduce you to her. I didn’t want you to get too attached if she wasn’t going to be a regular part of your life, especially when you didn’t even
understand what divorce was.”

Samara nodded understandingly. “Plus, we barely saw Grandpa Joe, so it probably didn’t matt
er that much, anyway, did it?”

“Precisely,” her mom replied, setting a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and buttery toast down in front of her. “I wonder if that woman was a werewolf or not. I never really thought about it until n
ow.”

“What was her name?” Samara asked. A part of her wondered if there was a chance—even a small one—that her grandfather’s wife might have been the one who had killed him, considering how much they apparently fought with each other. It must have been bad for Samara’s mom to know about it, considering Grandpa Joe was
barely a part of their lives.

“Her name was Mollie.” Her mom tapped her finger against her chin again, as though she were trying
to remember. “Mollie Archer.”

Samara gasped. Mollie Archer was the woman whose house had been willed to her—the woman whose house the pack currently lived in.

Chapter 10

When Samar
a and Luke arrived at the pack’s house, they found the whole pack sitting in a circle around four translucent spirits—Bennett, Nadia, and Dante, as well as a spirit that Samara had never seen before. It was another woman, who was heavyset with short brown hair.

“Why are you such a mean ghosty
?” Emma was saying to Bennett.

“You should learn to be nice to this ghosty. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one who knows about your little secret.” He winked at Emma. “I won’t hesitate to tell everyone if you keep it up.” He turned to Colby. “I hope you really like her. You’ll be putting up with her annoyingn
ess until the end of time.”

“I’m already aware of this,” Colby said sadly. “I don’t mind her so much, though. When she gets annoying, all I have to do is put a
Cosmopolitan
magazine in front of her. It shuts her up right away.”

“Ah, yes, those are fascinating!” Bennett flashed him a wide grin. “It’s very interesting to me how different woman are these days than they were back when I was alive. Haven’t they ever hea
rd of a thing called clothes?”

Steve laughed. “They do show a lot of skin, don’t they? I like Cosmo. It’s some of my favori
te bathroom reading material. That, and the back of the toothpaste bottle.”

Emma wrinkled her nose at him. “I so don’t need to know what you read—or that you read in general—when y
ou’re in the bathroom. Gross!”

“Not as gross as some of the things I could share about you,” Bennett said with a mischievous grin. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head off, though. I’ll keep it all a secret, just as lon
g as you continue to be nice.”

Emma huffed and crossed her arms over her chest angrily, making Samara wonder, once again, what her best friend was hiding from everyone. It was getting to be a lit
tle frustrating at this point.

“Ahem,” Samara said, clearing her throat. All of their pack members—and the spirits—turned to look at her
and Luke. “We’re here, guys.”

“Samara! It’s so nice to see you,” Dante said with a ghostly grin. “How have you been? Actually,
where
have you been?”

“On our honeymoon,” Samara explained. She held up her hand, revealing her engagement ring and wedding b
and. “Luke and I got married.”

“That’s such exciting news! Congra
ts,” Bennett said.

Emma narrowed her eyes at him. “You know what congrats means? I thought you were supposed to talk all prim and pro
per. You know, old-fashioned.”

Bennett rolled his eyes at her. “I’ve been hanging out around this house enough to pick up on some modern slang. I even know what an
iPod is,” he said with a grin.

“That’s so cool! Do you have any favorite
modern songs?” Emma asked him.

“I really like that band
called the Smashing Pumpkins.”

Emma wrinkled her nose. “They
’re not modern! That’s so lame.”

“Not as lame as the secret you’re keeping,” Bennett said with a laugh. “Why can’t you just tell everyone? I’m not really sure why it
has to be such a big secret.”

“Because I want it to be a secret. Shut up!” The heat began to rise to Emm
a’s face.

Bennett glanced over at Colby. “What about you? Are you on board with this who
le thing being kept a secret?”

“I’m on board with whatever Emma wants,” Colby admitted, patting his blonde curly hair nervously. “And I suggest that you don’t let the cat out of the bag. You might be the ghost, but if you tell the secret, I can guarantee you that Emma will haunt you. She’ll make your life—or your
after-life, whatever you want to call it—a living hell.”

“Damn, what’s the secret? This must be something crazy,” Steve said, glancing from Colby to Emma. Staring at Emma for a few moments, he covered his mouth with his hand
. “I think I know the secret!”

“You do?” Emma’s jaw dropped open
. “How did you figure it out?”

“Well, it’s pretty obvious. Almost anyone could tell you must have had a nose job. It’s not a good nose job, either. I think you need to hire a new plastic surgeon and get it re-done,” Steve said.

Emma covered her nose with her hands, and for a moment, Samara was positive she was going to cry. Instead, she threw one of the throw pillows on the couch at him. “You’re such an asshole, Steve! I don’t have a nose job. But now I want one!”

“Oh, shit. My bad,” Steve mumbled, covering his mouth with his hand to conceal his laughter.

Colby glared at Steve. “Watch it, man.”

“Sorry, dude,” Steve said, holding his hands up defeatedly. Turning to Emma, he added,
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Emma huffed and then turned back to Samara. “What is this all about?” She motioned to the spirits that loom
ed in front of them.

“I needed you to call them here today because we have to get ready to fight the Vyka,” Samara said, glancing over at the spirits. “Have you been able to ro
und up a lot of good spirits?”

“Actually, we are beginning to break ground on this,” Natalie said. Motioning to the other female ghost, who stood next to her, she said, “Samara, Luke . . . . This is Elizabeth. The rest of your pack has already been acquainted with her. She’s a ghost friend of ours from Europe—Great Britain, to be exact. She’s been doing her best to round up good spirits there, and it’s been working. We have about eight hundred other Trusted Ones who are ready to fight. All we need
to do is let them know when.”

“That’s great,” Samara said, a sigh of relief escaping her throat. She had been worried that the Trusted Ones wouldn’t be able to find any more good spirits who would be willing to help them. It took a huge weight off her shoulders to know that there were eight hundred more of them out there, ready an
d waiting to defend her.

“However, it’s not going to be as simple as that,” Elizabeth said, and Samara immediately noted her distinct British acce
nt. “We’re still outnumbered.”

“The longer we wait to do this, the harder it’s going to get,” Bennett explained. “Every month, the Vyka are making more and more sacrifices. And they’re not just making one sacrifice at a time, anymore. They’re making
multiple
sacrifices every month, so they can conjure as many dark spirits as they possibly can.”

“Do you think there’s any way you can keep rounding up more good spirits?” Chris asked from his place across the room. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, with K
yana’s head lying in his lap. 

“We can try, but nothing is guaranteed,” Dante replied. “If there’s any chance we’re going to beat them, we need to act soon . . . before it’s too late. If we wait too long, we run the risk of them making even more sacrifices, and eventually, there might be no
thing we can do to stop them.”

Samara exhaled deeply, trying to take
in all of this information. They had to act fast, but she knew that was what they needed to do, anyway. “Guys, we need to be prepared for them to make an attack soon. Like, any day now.”

“Why, Sam?” Kyle asked, a nervous look in his eyes. “Did you find out something when you eavesd
ropped on their pack meeting?”

“Something like that,” Samara mumbled. Sitting down on the arm of a recliner, she didn’t meet any of her pack members eyes. “I just know they’re getting ready to attack us. They mentioned that they want to get their hands on Grandpa Joe’s talisman. If they do that, it will
give them an even bigger advantage over us.” She took a deep breath. “On the bright side, we don’t actually have the talisman, so they won’t be able to get it from us.”

“The big question is who
does
have the talisman,” Colby pointed out. “If the Vyka were talking about it, we can rule them out as suspects. I thought it might have been them if it wasn’t Joe McKinley.” He frowned. “After what Eddie had to say, I’m not so sure Joe is our primary suspect. Sure, he might be alive, but it’s obvious that he’s done a good job staying hidden up until now. The big question is: would he have risked letting someone find out he was alive, just to come back to claim his talisman?”

“Uh, yeah, I’d say that sounds like a pretty good reason to risk it. If he had his talisman again, that would mean he’d be able to become the world’s most powerful werewolf again,” Chris pointed out. “It makes perfect sense that he would come back for it, actually. It’s almost like he wanted Samara
to have it for safe keeping.”

Colby hesitated. “I guess you’re right, but . . . how did he figure out where to find it? If he had found it in this house, it would make a lot more sense to me. But how did he know to find it at the storage fa
cility we were keeping it at?”

Samara shrugged. “I don’t know. He might have been following us aroun
d for weeks, for all we know.”

Luke sat down on the recliner that she was sitting on and put a hand on the small of her back. “Is there anyone else who might have been following us around, t
oo, though? What about Rocco?”

“Oh, that’s the other thing I meant to tell all of you,” Samara said, turning to the rest of the members of her pack. “Rocco called me this morning. He’s starting to get suspicious about why the violet
s aren’t working for anyone in the Shomecossee pack yet. I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep them from realizing the truth.”

“It’s bound to happen, eventually,” Kyle agreed. Glancing over at Samara, he asked, “Do you think there’s a chance that Rocco might have been following us around enough to know we were keeping the tali
sman at the storage facility?”

Samara shrugged. “I’m not really sure, to be honest. I mean, he was following us around enough to know that most of the pack is living here, and no one even noticed it. I guess it’s not out of the question that he might have followed us to the storage facility. I’m just not sure if he would have been able to keep it a secret if the Shomecossee are the ones who
did
take the talisman. I feel like he’s the type who would tell me he did it, just to rub it in my face, you know?”

Colby nodded in agreement. “I know what you mean. Rocco
is
that type. But if it wasn’t Rocco or Darren, I’m not really sure who it could be. I can’t seem to think of any other suspects.”

Samara glanced over at Penelope and noticed that she was sitting in the corner of the room, fiddling her thumbs. She didn’t look at the rest of their pack members; instead, she stared down at the floor with what looked like a guilty look on her face. It made Samara wonder if there was a chance that Penelope could be the o
ne who had taken the talisman.

Turning to the Trusted Ones, Samara said, “Can you get all of the other Trusted Ones and have them come here? I have a feeling that we’re going to need their help really soon—possibly within the ne
xt few days to the next week.”

“We can do that,” Bennett replied. “Let’s go.” And like that,
he disappeared into thin air.

“See you all in the near futu
re,” Dante said, leaving next.

“Bye, everyone,” Nadia called before making herself invisible, too. Close behind her, Elizabeth gave a small, shy wav
e before disappearing as well.

Colby blew out the white candle that they had lit to conjure the spirits and tur
ned to Samara. “So, now what?”

“Now, I need to speak to Seth and Kyle in private, if that’s okay with everyone,”
Samara said. “Come on, guys.”

Seth and Kyle both stood up from their spots on the floor next and the couch, where they had been sitting next to their mate
s, and followed her out of the entertainment room and into the dining room.

In a lowered voice, Samara turned to them. “There are a few things I need to ask you both. Since it has to do with the gifts that Grandpa Joe gave us, I thought we could talk in private with one another. I don’t want to keep the gifts a secret from the pack forever, but I figured that we could for now, at least. Just until we can figure ou
t exactly how they work.”

“Okay, that sounds fine to me,” Kyle agreed, nodding his head. He smoothed out his light blue polo t-shirt. “Wha
t did you want to talk about?”

“My first question for you, Kyle, is did you figure out how to use the watch that Grandpa Jo
e left you yet?” Samara asked.

Kyle glanced down at his wrist. “No, I haven’t figured it out yet, and it’s extremely frustrating. I wear it every day, hoping I’ll be able to figure it out. I play with it and everything, but . . . I can’t seem to
figure out what it does. I’m beginning to wonder if it even does anything at all.”

“Hmm.” Samara noticed that he was wearing the watch at that moment
. “Can I see it for a minute?”

“Sure,” Kyle replied, removing the watch from his wrist and handing it over to her. “Seth told me that he figured out his pin. I wish my watch
did something cool like that.”