Never Cry Wolf (Night Watch #4)(60)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Death waited behind that door.

Piers reached for the knob. Lucas got ready for the battle that was coming. So much death, the scent clogged his nose and he wondered what he’d find, how many bodies, how much blood, how—

The door swung open. Candles sputtered in the room, the only light that glowed, and illuminated the kneeling woman. A white circle had been drawn on the floor, it surrounded her. Her long black hair hid her face.

But he didn’t need to see her face in order to recognize Josette. And, damn, what had happened to her? Because that scent of death was coming from her.

She didn’t look up. Not when they came inside and not when the door shut behind them. She knelt there, frozen like a statue, and waited.

It was Sarah who moved first. She pulled free of Lucas and walked across the room. She bent, coming close to Josette, but Lucas noticed she was very careful not to touch that white circle. Smart.

Sarah put the ring on the wooden floor. Sat it down and . . . Josette’s head snapped up. She was just as beautiful, her face just as perfect as it had always been, her skin still a sweet dark cream but her eyes . . . they were different. The darkness of her eyes just looked . . . empty.

“I know she’s gone.” Josette’s voice was perfectly modulated. No whisper of Louisiana, though Lucas knew that had been her home for many years. “You didn’t have to bring me proof.”

She didn’t reach for the ring. Just stared at it.

Then her gaze lifted to Lucas. “You came to kill me.”

“I came to find out what the hell you’re doing.” That scent was clogging his nostrils. Since when did a human smell like death?

Her gaze dropped to the ring. “Vampires killed my mother. I thought—for years I thought they were the ones I should hate.”

“Most vamps are bastards that need hating,” Piers said, edging around behind Josette.

“Most,” she whispered. “But they aren’t the only monsters out there.”

“No,” Lucas agreed. “You’re surrounded by monsters right now, aren’t you?”

Her gaze rose once more and tears glistened in her eyes. “I let the monster in. I’m the one.”

Sarah still knelt near the other woman. “You know Rafe, don’t you?”

“Rafael.” Whispered with emotion. Love. Pain. Hate. “I knew him when we were children. My grand-mère took him in. I thought he was safe. I-I didn’t know . . .” She swallowed. “This time, I took him in. I let him in.” Her hands turned over and she stared at her smooth palms. “All the blood is on me.”

“There’s nothing on you,” Sarah told her. “Have you been taking something? You could be hallucinating. Nothing’s there, it’s—”

A choked laugh interrupted her words. “The blood is always there now. Never thought I had much power, thought I was safe. Normal. I tried to be for so long . . .” Her shoulders fell. “But I guess I was good at one thing.”

Lucas glanced around the room, searching for more threats, but he saw nothing. Just the small woman.

“He killed Maxime and Helene. He killed them when I wouldn’t give him the Dust. I told him I didn’t work the magic. That grand-mère had all the power, but he said she wouldn’t see him.” Soft, slow. “I said I wouldn’t help him, I said I wanted to be normal.”

Sarah’s hand lifted, as if she were going to reach over the circle and touch Josette. “Don’t,” he growled because he knew just how powerful those magical circles could be.

Sarah’s hand froze in mid-air.

“He killed Maxime and Helene because they blocked him from getting to grand-mère, and then he went after my Martin.” She breathed the other man’s name on a sigh.

“I would have done anything for Martin.” Her eyes rose to Sarah’s. “You’ll know what that’s like soon.”

The hair rose on Lucas’s nape.

“I got the Dust. Grand-mère gave it to me. She didn’t like it, but—she gave it to me. She would’ve given me anything. I always knew that.” Such aching sadness. “Then I gave it to the bastard . . . but he still took my Martin.”

“I’m sorry,” Sarah whispered.

Josette kept talking. The words tumbled from her lips. “Martin was going to marry me. He was going to make sure I never had to face the Darkness again. He was going to be mine!”

That was when Lucas noticed the other ring. A diamond ring, resting in that cast circle.

“I wasn’t ready to let him go.” She reached for the diamond ring and traced it with a loving fingertip. “Grand-mère said I should, but I just wasn’t ready. You see, I’d waited for him my whole life.” Her eyes squeezed closed and a tear tracked down her cheek as she whispered, “Death wasn’t going to take him away from me.”

Chapter 15

Hell. “We can’t always stop death,” Lucas told her, but the words were a reminder the woman shouldn’t need. She’d lost both her parents long ago. She knew what a fickle bitch death could be.

At that, Josette’s lashes lifted and her dark eyes met his. “It turns out I can.” The ghost of a smile curved her full lips. “Seems I do have a bit of power after all.”

“What did you do?” Sarah asked her, and Piers just stood, watching. “You didn’t . . .”

“I wasn’t letting him go!” Josette jumped to her feet, but stayed inside that circle. Sarah rose, too. “He was mine. I tried to get him back. How is that wrong? I tried . . . and he came.”

Because little Josette had raised the dead. Oh, she hadn’t made a zombie the way Hollywood portrayed them to be. No mindless monster that had to eat brains. No, the Raised didn’t feed on humans. Didn’t feed on anyone; well, not unless the person who’d raised them gave that order.

“You crossed the line, Josette.” He kept his voice firm because to raise the dead, hell, that took some very dark magic.

Bokor. That was the name for the one who used the Dark powers. But there was a price for that magic, there always was.

“I brought him back. He didn’t have to die! I brought him back and—”

“And you brought the Haitian back, too, didn’t you?” Piers narrowed his eyes on her. “Him and the woman.”

Her lips trembled. “They didn’t deserve to die.”

“But they did die,” Lucas pointed out. “You’re not the one who gets to yank them back, you’re not—”