The Curse Keepers (Curse Keepers series) (9 page)

“
Mostly
?” My tone was dry and sarcastic, but I’d answered, and my reply eased the tension in his shoulders.

He started to say something, then stopped. “Why don’t we forget our awful first impressions and start over.” He held out his right hand. “Collin Daily.”

Was this some trick or did he really want to try to start fresh? Did it matter? We weren’t going to prom. We were going to try to wrangle a gate to the spirit world closed. I looked down at his outstretched hand. He held it at an angle but I could see the outline of a mark on his palm. A reminder that the last time we’d touched had nearly suffocated me. What would happen this time? I crossed my arms. “Ellie Lancaster.”

He looked taken aback that I hadn’t accepted his hand. “You felt it too, when our hands touched yesterday? And the electrical current last night.”

I was surprised he admitted to a reaction. Bad boys like him didn’t like to share their feelings.

He smirked. “You don’t know what that was, do you?”

I didn’t answer. He knew I didn’t, and the smug look on his face told me how aware of that fact he was.

He leaned closer and his voice lowered. “That’s our power. The magic that runs through our blood.”

“It’s real,” I whispered in awe, despite my plan to remain aloof. I didn’t know about the electrical shock part, but Daddy had always talked about the power in our blood. This must have been what he meant.

“It’s very real.” Collin glanced around the half-full dining room. “I don’t think we should talk about this here.”

I nodded. “Give me a second.”

I left him at the table and found Marlena watching with a grin. “Hey, Marlena. Do you mind if I take off a bit early?” I tilted my head toward Collin.

Excitement filled her eyes. “What happened to Dweeb?”

I shook my head with a grimace. “History.”

She waved to the back. “Good. You need a real man like that fine specimen over there. Don’t blow it.”

I shot her an exasperated look. Why did she assume that I would blow it? But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like this was the beginning of any kind of relationship. Collin and I would close the gate and then we were done.

Grabbing my purse from my drawer, I headed back to the dining room and found Collin waiting for me by the door. Lila stood next to him.

“How is it that I haven’t seen you around?” she asked, playing with the ends of her ponytail. “You a tourist?”

Collin blessed her with his sexy smart-ass grin. “Nope.”

“So where’re you from?”

Collin opened the door. “I’m living in Wanchese.”

“
Wanchese
? Are you a fisherman?”

I grabbed Collin’s arm and pulled him outside. “Bye, Lila.”

When the door closed behind us, I dropped my hold. “I need to change before we do anything.” I was still wearing the food I’d dropped hours ago.

“Good. We need to get your relic anyway.”

Oh, shit
. My chest tightened with anxiety. And here we’d been getting along. “My relic? Sure.”

Collin followed me around the corner of the building into the alley behind the restaurant, then up the steps to my third-floor apartment. I usually didn’t mind the stairs, and now I was downright thankful for them. They bought me more time before I was forced to tell Collin the truth about the Ananias Dare artifact.

When we reached my front door, I paused and narrowed my eyes. I’d almost forgotten.

Confusion spread across his face. “What?”

“I don’t appreciate the calling card you left on my doorstep.”

His eyes clouded in confusion, then alarm. “Did something happen last night?”

I shook my head. So maybe it wasn’t Collin. “Someone left dead birds on my porch. I’m sure I pissed Dwight off, but he doesn’t seem the vindictive type. At least not with dead animals.”

Collin walked to the railing and looked over the edge. “How many birds were there?”

“Six birds in a circle with their feet pointed in. One robin and five blackbirds. A cardinal in the center.”

“Ellie…” He stopped, an incredulous expression covering his face. “The gate to the spirit world was just opened, and you think your nerdy ex-boyfriend put dead birds in a pattern on your porch?”

No, I didn’t. But my mind wasn’t willing to make that leap yet. I needed to take this slow. Unfortunately, I didn’t think the spirits spilling out into the world gave a rat’s ass how slow I needed to go. I pushed the door open but hesitated in the entrance. “I don’t usually let strange men into my apartment.”

“You let in the guy who ran out of your apartment last night. I wouldn’t exactly call him normal.”

Collin had a point. Still, he made me nervous. Right now all of the curse nonsense was contained to the outside world. Once I let Collin in, the curse would permeate every part of my life, including my personal space.

Collin noticed my hesitation. “If you’d rather I wait outside, fine. But I’m not sure what you’re worried about. I have no interest at all in—”

I walked through the threshold and headed for my room. “I got it. No interest. No need to repeat yourself. Come in.” I looked over my shoulder. “And for the record, I’m not interested in you either.”

Collin followed me in and shut the door. As I shuffled through the pile of clothes on the chair in my room I tried to figure out how to tell him about my relic. There was no point to hiding the truth. He was going to be pissed, but it wasn’t like he liked me anyway. We had a job to do, and we needed the artifact to do it.

When I walked out, pulling the hem of my T-shirt over the top of my skirt, I found Collin sitting at the kitchen counter, his expressionless gaze on me.

“About the relic…”

His eyes narrowed at my hesitant tone.

“I don’t exactly have it.”

His jaw tensed, but his tone was conversational. “And who exactly does?”

I took a deep breath. “A pawnshop.”

I expected him to yell. I expected him to have a fit. I didn’t expect him to stare at me as though I’d told him it was about to rain. Finally, he sat up a bit straighter. “And why is your artifact at the pawnshop?”

I walked around him into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Anything to keep from having to look at him.
How much should I admit?
The less the better. “I didn’t have enough money to pay my rent a few months ago. So I pawned it.”

When he didn’t answer, I went against my instinct and turned to look at him. I didn’t know him well enough to read his face. Was he angry but holding it in? Was his mind scrambling to figure out what to do?

“You pawned your artifact?”

I didn’t see any point answering. I’d just told him that I had.

“How could you be so irresponsible? Do you really not take this seriously?”

I threw my hands into the air in exasperation. “No! Until this morning, no I didn’t take it seriously. Who would?”

He stood, his hands clenched at his side. “
I
took it seriously. This was a sacred duty, Ellie. Passed down from generation to generation. It’s our obligation.
Our right
. How can you treat it so casually? So
irreverently
? Do you realize what’s at stake?”

My mouth opened, but I was at a loss for words. Every excuse I had had sounded so rational yesterday.

Collin shook his head, then stormed out the door, slamming it behind him while I watched, my mouth still gaping.

I sat on the stool Collin had just vacated and covered my face with my hands. Of course he was angry. Collin had bought the curse story hook, line, and sinker and had spent his life preparing to perform his duty. And then there was Ellie Lancaster, who not only refused to believe the curse but who pawned the very thing necessary to send the spirits back. He had every right to be angry and frustrated with me, so why was I so upset?

Because Collin only reinforced that I’d let my father down. The only thing my father had ever asked of me, the thing he’d tried so hard to prepare me for, and I’d thrown it all away. In my defense, any sane person would have questioned the story. Keepers had been waiting over four hundred years for this moment. Why would I think the curse would actually break while I was on duty, even if I believed it?

So why don’t you feel any better?

Fifteen minutes later Collin stood at my front door, calmer but more distant than before he left. “If you pawned it a few months ago, they should still have it.”

I nodded. I hoped so.

He looked into my eyes. “What’s your relic? What are we looking for?”

My breath caught in surprise. “You don’t know?”

“While I obviously know more than you, I don’t know everything. So no, I don’t know what your artifact is. But I do know we need it if we want to perform this ceremony. What is it?”

“A pewter cup.” I couldn’t believe Collin Dailey was admitting he didn’t know everything. That meant I could admit I didn’t know what his artifact was without looking like an idiot. “So what’s yours?”

“That sounds like a bad pickup line.”

I snorted. “If anyone would know about bad pickup lines, you would.”

His eyebrows rose, and he gave me a sardonic smile. “You think I need pickup lines?”

Cocky Collin was back. I wasn’t sure whether I preferred him to angry Collin or not. Damn my mouth. I knew for a fact this man didn’t need pickup lines, but I sure wasn’t going to admit that to him. “You didn’t answer my question. What’s your artifact?”

“A wooden bowl.”

That made sense. I did know the relics were part of the ceremony. I only knew that because when Daddy had realized he was losing his memories several years ago, he handed me the cup and told me it was the Dare relic and was essential to the ceremony. I took it grudgingly, but refused to listen to any more nonsense. “So what do you want to do?”

“It’s a little after four o’clock. Let’s go to the pawnshop and see if it’s still there.”

“Together?”

“Of course together. I could send you alone but honestly, I think we need to stick together as much as possible until this thing is done.”

“What? You don’t trust me to get it?”

“I don’t trust you to not get killed. Spirits are on the loose, and they don’t want to return to where they came from. They know we plan to send them back and they’ll do anything they can to keep that from happening.”

My breath caught in my chest. “And the only thing that can send them back is us,” I wheezed out. I hadn’t considered that aspect. How would the spirits even know who we were? How did one defend oneself against an angry spirit? I wasn’t about to ask the angry human in front of me.

He looked grim. “While I think you’re an irresponsible slacker, unfortunately, I need you. So get whatever you need and let’s go.”

Was he suggesting we’d be gone for the next six days or only for the evening? “To the pawnshop?”

A disgusted look crossed his face. “No, the moon. Of course the pawnshop. Are you always this dense?”

“Are you always this rude?”

He shrugged.

I could have countered but what was the point? I left Collin at the door and grabbed my purse. I wished I had time to talk to Daddy. But that would only help if he was having a good day, and those were becoming rarer and rarer. Wishing was wasted effort, something I’d learned years ago, on a cold stormy night when I was eight years old. Instead of wishing, I was putting my life in the hands of the stranger in front of me.

Why did I worry that I’d live to regret it?

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

I climbed into Collin’s beat-up pickup truck, wrinkling my nose as I shut the rickety door. The windows were down and the red vinyl seats were hot and tacky. I was putting my life into his hands with all the curse nonsense, and apparently that also meant I’d literally be putting my life in his hands with this rust bucket. “We can take my car.
Really
.”

The engine sputtered, and he turned to me and smirked. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

Why did I think his words had a double meaning?

The truck jerked backward as I tried to fasten my seatbelt. “Can you wait?”

“No. We don’t have time to waste.” He pulled onto Sir Walter Raleigh Street and I cast a glance at the inn as we passed by. Myra’s car wasn’t parked next to the house, not that I expected her to be there. I hoped Daddy’s home care nurse could stay longer. If I wasn’t working at the New Moon, I usually filled in for Myra when she couldn’t get home in time.