Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

I t had overwhelmed the last host, causing it to create havoc and terror. After consuming what was left of the lifeforce, it had hovered in the night air amidst the oil smoke and confusion until it found a host it thought would be better suited to its purpose.

The host was young, strong, and affluent. Its new host enjoyed the suffusion of power that surged through him and was happily distracted by images of women being subjected to violent sexual acts. His cock had stiffened immediately. The Darkness knew it had found a host it could work with. They would both enjoy inflicting horror on the countryside here in England before they left for America.

Galveston wasn't far from the Crescent City and the Gautier pack.

Feed me! Feed me! Feed me!

T he next morning when Bran and Renata came downstairs, they were directed to the war room by Abby, Branson's oldest sister. "Mother and Father are already in there. We thought it might be better to start in the council chamber and not have to move at the end of breakfast. I'll join you as soon as I make sure we have everyone."

As they moved past her, Renata whispered to Bran, "That's the second time someone in your family has given me a strange look and then tried to cover it up."

"That's strange. When the meeting's over let's ask them. If they did, I'm sure there's a reason. We don't keep secrets or sweep things under the rug in our family."

Once all the others had been shown in and Abby had joined them, they served themselves breakfast and sat down.

"Skylar and Kat have had the most interaction with the Darkness and Skylar led a taskforce to stop a murder spree it went on in New Orleans. I thought I'd turn it over to them," said James.

"It's probably a good thing I don't have pictures. Trust me, the murders were gruesome," started Skylar.

"Weren't they based off the Italian Renaissance Omicidio Cerchio series of paintings?" asked Abby.

"They were indeed. You need to understand, this evil consists of two parts. The Darkness, an ancient evil and malevolent force, and its host. I'm not going to talk a lot about what the host experiences as Kat was possessed by it and would be the one to describe it. She did manage to fight it off, so we know it's possible. But as far as we can tell, she's the only one who has successfully managed to make it leave her body."

"I hate to ask," said Piper, "but why are we all here? Not together, but here at Ravenscar? Not that it isn't beautiful. Oh shit, I'm fucking this up."

Skylar laughed. "Actually it's a great observation and damn good question. The answer is because we believe it has taken a new host somewhere in the area."

"Is that why Shea and Abby looked at me funny?" asked Renata.

She could see by the look on Skylar's face that she'd taken her aback.

Shea got up and moved to her side. "No, sweetheart, that isn't it at all. Abby and I want to talk to you and Bran when this meeting is over."

"Regardless," said Abby, "you are Bran's mate, which makes you not only pack, but family. Mum and I just want to talk to you and Bran. Well, she wants to include him, but I think it should be your story to tell."

Bran growled at his younger sister and Abby stuck out her tongue. The absolute ridiculousness of two siblings their ages with advanced degrees reverting to childish behavior made Renata laugh.

"Sorry, Skylar," said Renata.

"Sorry? Are you kidding? It's just nice to see other families act the way mine does when we're all at Rivière Du Loup. And no, Renata, no one believes it's you. The Darkness cannot exist without corporeal form for any length of time and usually jumps from host to host, desiccating the original host by robbing it of its lifeforce. The reason Kat is still with us is because she was too strong for it."

"Unlike my father, who succumbed to it," said Simon. Mariah squeezed his hand. "He then turned on his own people, murdering several pack members. It would have forced my father to kill me if Mariah hadn't shot him with silver bullets. It came belching out of him and we believe it overtook a villager who was driving a load of donated items up to Renata."

"Exactly," said Skylar. "I made friends with a member of Scotland Yard's forensics' team a couple of years ago. I asked him to look at the body of the truck driver who was the cause of that pileup yesterday. The official cause of death is a massive cardiac event. The guy wasn't in the best of health. My guess is that when the Darkness overtook him and he tried to fight it off, it overtaxed his system, resulting in a heart attack."

Skylar looked at some notes she'd placed in front of her before continuing. "It just so happened that my friend was the one who examined the body. There was a huge explosion, and the body was badly damaged, but my friend noticed that it had been mummified before it was burned. When I asked Kat about what happened at Alcatraz…" Skylar looked at her friend.

Kat took a deep breath and started talking. "It jumped from me to one of the Hunters who had been trailing me, sucked the lifeforce right out of it, and then jumped to another one. What was left of the body reminded me of those pictures you see of unwrapped mummies." Kat's mate Jed softly massaged the nape of her neck as she spoke. Kat closed her eyes and leaned back into his hand, taking the comfort he offered.

"My friend," continued Skylar, "will watch for signs of similar violence. This thing loves macabre deaths. It feeds not only on the lifeforce, but on the terror of its victims. We might be able to figure out who the new host is, which may give us a clue as to where it will go and how it will return to New Orleans."

"You're certain it will go back? Even though it knows you are aware of its presence and that you'll keep looking for it?" asked Mariah.

Skylar nodded. "It has a score to settle with my family and it can't do that from here. My family has journals from our ancestor, Jean Lafitte, who managed to trap the thing once. According to what he wrote and what Mawmaw Chantal has been able to tell us, the Darkness has been after the Gautiers for centuries. Lafitte trapped it, but he wasn't able to kill it. It stayed imprisoned for two centuries, and finally escaped and took over the serial killer that we tracked in New Orleans. It came after me at Rivière Du Loup and we killed the host, but not the Darkness itself."

"For those who have never seen this thing, it's pretty gruesome and does not die with the host," said Travis. "When it fled the killer at Rivière Du Loup, Skylar and I called on an ancient power that I inherited from my family's ancestors. My Aunt Amy used to talk about us being descended from prehistoric dire wolves..."

"Like in the books?" asked Abby.

Travis nodded. "Just like that. Only most of us never believed her. Fortunately, I was able to call to Skylar and we joined into a single dire wolf. The problem is we can only do that in the moonlight and under extreme circumstances."

"So we have to fight it in moonlight. And a full moon would be best, I guess," said Renata.

"That's what we're thinking," said Piper. "Remember when I told you we might have need of a magick wielder? This is the time."

"We're pretty sure it will head back for the States—New Orleans and Rivière Du Loup to be precise. We want to be waiting for it." She turned to Renata. "Here's where you come in. The Darkness can only be destroyed while it's outside of a host, but only if its trapped by some kind of elemental magick. At first I thought that elemental meant fundamental, but now I'm not sure."

"No," said Renata. "Elemental magick is an ancient kind of magick that works with elemental forces—air, rain, fire, lightning, thunder and the like."

Branson snorted. "You found the right girl."

"According to Chantal, the only way to kill the Darkness is for a magick wielder to trap it in something that is elemental or has a life of its own, but not a host or an inert object. It was very confusing, and I hope it all makes more sense to Renata. Once it's trapped, then a light bearer can kill it. We figured out the dire wolf is the light bearer, but the Darkness has to be trapped because when we tried to jump it while it was free, it was like trying to grasp air and it escaped."

"It does make sense. Your Mawmaw Chantal is talking about a sorceress. We work with elements of nature, tapping directly into them." Renata could feel the slow smile spreading across her face. "And I know just the element we need. Water."

"I don't think water will hold it. It's too fluid," said Skylar.

The slow smiled changed to that of the Cheshire Cat. "But only in its liquid form. Branson?" She slid her chair back and stood. "Would you take your water glass and toss the water into the air?"

Branson grinned and did as she asked. As the water flew upward, Renata shook her hands toward it, unleashing the primal energy she controlled and froze the liquid in mid-air. Branson caught the chunk of ice before it hit the table.

Out of the corner of her eye, Renata saw Simon hurl water in Branson's direction and with a flick of her wrists, it too was turned into a solid block of ice which she then caught and tossed back at Simon. He caught it easily and a large smile slashed across his face.

"Holy shit," breathed Piper. "We just might be able to beat this thing. If Renata can freeze the thing, Skylar and Trav's dire wolf can take it down."

A fter the others had left, Branson sat next to Renata and his father. The three of them faced Abby and his mother.

"I'm so sorry if we made you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome," said Shea.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," added Abby. "We were just startled to see you."

"Why?" asked Renata.

Shea reached across the table and took her hand. "You are the final piece of a mystery I have been trying to solve for years. How much do you know about Ramon DeMoncada and the trafficking ring he had?"

"Not a lot. Branson mentioned it, but it has nothing to do with me."

"Branson is an idiot," said Abby.

"Abigail," her father growled.

"Well he is. You two and Joel go around thinking you're going to protect all the little she-wolves in your pack. Hot news flash, Father, we're perfectly capable of protecting ourselves."

"Abby," her mother admonished quietly. "They are all three male alpha wolves. It's part of their DNA and none of this matters right now." She turned back to Renata. "You know I was one of those taken by DeMoncada and turned against my will."

"Yes. My mother was taken and turned, but I don't know by whom," said Renata.

"But I believe I do," said Shea. She opened a file folder and withdrew a photograph before sliding it across the table to Renata.

The color drained from Renata's face. "That's my mother as a young woman."

"That's what we thought," said Abby. "We just found this. We've been sifting through what we have on DeMoncada. We both noticed the resemblance to the pictures Bran had of you. But they really don't do you justice."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"We believe your mother was one of DeMoncada's victims," said Shea.

"Who was she sold to?" demanded Branson. "We will sue for reparations."

"We will do nothing of the sort," said Shea.

"We can't, Bran. There's no one to sue," said Abby.

"We can sue the pack who bought her mother."

"No," said Abby. "We can't. That's a picture of Renata's mother at one of DeMoncada's compounds. Over the past few years we've been able to track down all of his victims. We found every single one of them. But we never found any records for this woman—Renata's mother."

The sentence hung in the air as Abby moved to sit next to Renata and took her hands in her own.

"Then if she wasn't sold…" Renata tried to work out the logic. "I know she wasn't rescued. I heard her and my aunt talking one night about how she made it back to the Hebrides…"

"DeMoncada had certain women segregated so that he could select specific breeders for himself. He narrowed it down to three women. He kept them up in his quarters and made use of them. I don't know how to put this," said Abby, looking at her mother.

"There is no easy way to tell someone their father was a monster," said Shea. "He kept three women and systematically bred them until one conceived. The one he least expected intrigued him the most."

"My mother," whispered Renata.

"Yes. I can't imagine what your mother must have gone through. He would not have made it easy on her. He wouldn't have told her anything about our kind. She must have been terribly strong to have survived an escape and gotten to your aunt. His compound was attacked and the wolves who came to save the women didn't know about your mother until the battle was over. By the time they got to where she should have been, the room was empty."

Renata nodded. "She cloaked herself in invisibility and walked right past them; they never knew she was there."

"They would have gotten to her. If they'd had a way to track her, we could have found her and offered her whatever support she needed. You have to believe that. You have to believe we didn't intentionally abandon her. He'd destroyed all of her records."

Renata looked at Branson's mother and reached out, taking her hands in her own. "He was a monster. He raped my mother and the others repeatedly. My aunt said the only happiness she took in her pregnancy was he left the other two women alone."

"Renata, no one in this family—your family…" started James.

"Would ever hold that against me or my mother," Renata finished for him. "Bran told me there was no room for guilt in love. I haven't known you long, but if the Madonna of the North had known where DeMoncada's last victim was or had been able to help her in any way, I know she would have. She could do no less."

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart, that we weren't there for her or for you. But the kind of courage it took to do what she did, to keep you, to love you…"

"To teach me to hate and distrust wolves?"

"Understandable in her circumstances," said Abby. "DeMoncada wouldn't tell her about the gifts of being wolf. He had no conception of honor or of pack. He snatched her off the streets, turned her against her will and explained nothing to her. You can't blame her for hating wolves."

"I don't," said Renata. "I only wish she could have seen all of this… all of you… understood it. I don't blame her for the choices she made and I sure as hell don't blame you. Bran said you and Abby have spent most of your lives fighting to find justice for those DeMoncada victimized." Turning to him, she said, "Remind me to thank Skylar's father when we get to New Orleans."

James smiled. "I remember the first time I ever caught Abby in her mother's office going over DeMoncada's files. I didn't want my little girl subjected to those images or to know that there were those of her kind who had perpetrated such atrocities. I didn't want her to know that there were also those who had turned a blind eye. Do you remember what you told me at the ripe old age of seven?"

Abby smiled and nodded. "That those who did not know or understand the past were doomed to repeat it and that if and when mother fell from power or passed, I would be there to pick up her sword and see that it never happened again."