Punished Read online

  Wails. Her screams, Gaspar—“Am I a banshee?”

  “Helped her accept who she was,” Aiyanna had said.

  Mary looked over at Leila. “Are you?”

  Leila brought her fist forward, signing, Yes. We both are, I think.

  Understanding dawned on Mary. Leila hadn’t spoken since the night their parents died. Had she found out by accidentally hurting those who’d killed their parents? Was it why she didn’t speak? Did she know who killed them?

  By now the case had gone cold. If Leila would finally tell what she knew of the killers, maybe something could be done. At the very least, it would bring closure to a festering wound. It wasn’t easy facing every day knowing the people who’d broken into their home and killed their parents walked free, could be next in line at the supermarket.

  “You’ve known,” Mary said, receiving another Yes.

  Mom told me, before, Leila signed.

  “So that’s why—”

  We’ll discuss it later.

  Meaning, she wouldn’t discuss it at all. Disappointment filled Mary, overshadowing any shock that so-called mythical creatures exist. She’d never thought they were an impossibility, anyway; her mother had seen to that, and now she knew why. More than anything, she was hurt Leila wouldn’t confide in her. She’d tried so hard to be everything she could be for her sister—a friend, a provider, a guardian.

  She knew what we were, and never told me. How could Leila keep something like that from her for three years?

  “Do you really call yourself a wompus cat?” Mary asked Aiyanna. She couldn’t focus on Leila, wouldn’t. She had to focus on what she could control. Besides, Raphael said this woman could be trusted. She could be a vault of information.

  “I’m a shapeshifting voodoo sex goddess,” Aiyanna said. “The feline part is courtesy of my Choctaw half, the voodoo my Haitian half. You watch, one of these days Cael will back me up on my goddess status.”

  Mary couldn’t help but smile.

  “She partially healed you,” Raphael told her.

  “That comes in handy more than you would think.” Aiyanna nodded. “Sorry I couldn’t finish that place on your leg—once my energy replenishes, I can try again.”

  Mary couldn’t believe it—she was going to be friends with a shapeshifter. As she looked at Raphael, she realized she was okay with that, so long as Aiyanna’s wicked panther jaws steered clear. “So what are you?” she asked Raphael.

  He visibly cringed. “A werewolf.”

  Mary nodded, as if she knew anything at all about werewolves. But maybe I do.

  “Some creatures,” her mother had said seriously, perched on the side of Mary’s bed, “are not at all what they seem to be.” It had been before Leila’s hearing was taken away; Mary remembered Leila chattering excitedly beside her, asking if the story had a Fae prince. It didn’t; it was about a priest…and a werewolf.

  “One day a priest was traveling and came upon a forest. A great beast came from within. He had the body of a large wolf, yet he walked on two legs and could speak. He asked the priest if he was afraid, and the priest said he had the protection of God, so he was not. The wolf-man told the priest his wife and he had been cursed, causing them to be forced to live in the bodies of wolves at times. His wife was shot for her pelt, and was close to death. He begged the priest to go with him deep into the woods to hear her confession and give her absolution. The priest bravely did so, barely making it to the she-wolf before her death. The newly widowed wolf-man took the priest back to where the forest ended and left him there. For years the priest tried, but he could never find him again.

  “You must always remember,” her mother had said, careful to look both of them in the eye, “what something looks like on the outside does not mean it looks that way on the inside.”

  Mary felt Leila’s gaze. She could tell by Leila’s expression that she was thinking of that same old Irish story.

  Across the room Raphael watched her, his mouth set into a thin line. His eyes belied his stern expression. He seems hopeful. It warmed her—never, not even in college, had someone seemed to care what her opinion was. She wasn’t a math genius or a prodigy in anything. She wasn’t the most beautiful, or the most athletic, and she certainly wasn’t as physically strong as Raphael. Yet there he was, waiting as if her reaction over what he was actually meant something to him.

  So she stood and walked over to him, her eyes never leaving his, and sat herself in his lap, careful of her thigh. Features stern, she got right in his face, her finger lightly tapping his nose.

  “If you don’t make period jokes about me, I won’t make moon jokes about you,” she told him, smiling.

  He laughed, his dimples coming out in full force. He wrapped both of his arms around her and squeezed. “But you’ll still make moon jokes about them, right?” he whispered in her ear.

  Alex feigned a hurt expression. Apparently werewolves had fantastic hearing. “Of course,” Mary said, wishing she would never have to move. The man was hard all over, but seriously warm and comfortable. Besides, she could tell he liked where she was from the hardness pressed against her back.

  “Well,” Alex huffed dramatically.

  “On that note,” Aiyanna said, unfolding her long legs and standing, “we’re going to go help the haint with that devil child. Loft on the fourth floor.” Leila followed her from the room, her eyebrows high.

  “We still on for—” Alex started.

  “Yes,” Raphael said shortly, cutting him off. “I’ll meet you out front in a few.”

  With a nod, Alex left, leaving Raphael and Mary alone again. She relaxed against him, her head against his chest, far too content to move. “You really don’t mind what I am?” he asked.

  Truthfully, she shook her head no. She wouldn’t judge him to be a monster just because he could outwardly turn into one. “Do you care that I’m a banshee? I’m pretty sure a walking death symbol is more of a bummer than a werewolf.”

  The stories she’d been told always had a beautiful blonde woman who would wail, her cries heard by the family who would lose someone to death within the week. In contrast, some stories depicted crones who furiously tried to wash bloodstains from the clothes of those who were fated to die. She didn’t think those women were banshees, though. At the very least, they weren’t Irish in origin like Mary’s parents were.

  Mary wondered, once again, if Leila had screamed the night of their parents’ deaths.

  Raphael seemed to contemplate her question, humming a familiar tune under his breath as he ran his fingers through her now considerably lightened hair. “I think you’re more of a sign of peril,” he said. “Perhaps those who heed your warnings—without fixating on them—could change their fate and survive.”

  She had no answer for that, but she liked the idea. Maybe she could turn a curse into a gift. Either way, being a banshee had pretty decent defensive features. She’d have to learn exactly how she hurt Richard and his friends, both to help her if she found herself in similar situation again, and so she could prevent herself from accidentally hurting someone.

  Strong hands lifted her to her feet. Beside her, Raphael stood. “I have to go, but I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  His onyx eyes were hard, as if he loathed leaving her.

  She faked a smile, ashamed that what she really wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and beg him to stay. “See you,” she said as casually as she could. Damn. There was definitely a tremor in her voice.

  Raphael craned his head. He was close enough to kiss her. Instead, his lips were at her ear. “Next time, we will both be naked, and you will not be in pain.”

  Mary could only gape at him as he walked away. As she made her way to the loft where Molly and her “father” were staying, she had to consciously wipe the silly smile from her face. She wanted to be with Raphael the Werewolf, but first she had to learn about him and his kind, as well as her own kind.

  She entered a room walled almost completely in ornately drap
ed windows, bright light filling the space. An abnormally tall man was floating a foot in the air, four open books hovering around him at eye level. One of them was titled, How to Raise an Intellectual, another Over 138 Tips to Not Screw Up Your Kid’s Childhood. The man had the same dark hair and cleft chin as Molly—if he wasn’t her father, he was another close relation. This must be Wish. The haint.

  “May wee!”

  Molly ran forward to give Mary a hug, leaving Leila and Aiyanna behind her. The two were surrounded by toys.

  “Finally, someone who knows her,” Wish said, bookmarks floating into the books before they neatly stacked themselves on a table. Wish drifted to the floor. “I’m Aloysius, but everyone calls me Wish.” He held out a hand. Mary shook it, surprised at how normal he felt, considering he was a vengeful spirit.

  She took a second to marvel at how strange that particular thought was.

  He didn’t seem like Raphael, or now that she considered it, Alexandre, Heath and Cael either. She would paint them with bright red underpaintings, the first layer before more details and color would be painted on top. She would use a soft blue for Wish, the color of his veins under his pale skin.

  “Would you tell me everything you know about Molly?” he asked earnestly. “Or better yet, write it out for me?”

  He reached out to touch her shoulder, his hand falling as if he’d thought better of it, and wrung his hands. “I so badly want to be a good father to her,” he said raggedly. “I physically haven’t been able to be a part of her life until now, and I want to do it right. I will pay you anything for your help. You know her. Please do this for us.”

  Hair standing on end, his glasses askew, Wish looked at her as if she held the secret to world peace. As he flicked a glance to Molly, whose little hand gripped Mary’s T-shirt, she saw a glimpse of both absolute devotion and steel. No one would take this child away from him again, that much was clear. Mary held out her hand, and immediately Wish floated a pen and legal pad to her.

  “I don’t want payment,” she said, smothering a grin at Aiyanna’s disapproving look.

  “Always accept payment,” she stage-whispered.

  Leila signed, Ignore her.

  “Hey, I know your fancy English signs,” Aiyanna said before signing, Kiss my ass, screamer.

  Leila rolled her eyes. You never take what the wolves offer you.

  Aiyanna flipped her hair, raising her chin, but nodded.

  Mary realized the two must have spoken more than she thought while she slept.

  “When Big Ears here isn’t around, I’m curious about how you became separated from her,” Mary said to Wish. She had a terrible feeling Richard had something to do with it. Was Natasha her mother? She’d rarely seen the woman and expected Molly had seen her even less. “And I want to know about the werewolves,” she told Aiyanna. She liked that she wouldn’t have to ask Raphael for details.

  What about banshees? Leila signed.

  “I don’t know much about that,” Aiyanna said. “You’re pretty rare.”

  Wish put a hand on Molly’s head and tapped Mary’s legal pad. “I know a few things about banshees,” he said with a smile. “Maybe we can help each other.”

  As Wish pulled Molly away to show her a book about cats, Aiyanna grinning proudly as she looked on, Mary settled into a chair with the pad on her lap. Leila absently did a twirl that probably had a French name, a sign that she was relaxed. This isn’t so bad. So she clicked the pen and wrote, scouring her mind for any detail that could help Wish connect with his daughter.

  * * * *

  For the second time in two days, Raphael crashed his fist through a window. He shook out his hand, feeling the skin stitch itself back together. Alex reached through and unlatched it. Lifting the pane, he said, “Subtle, Raphe. Real subtle, buddy.”

  Raphael ignored him. He wanted this done. Not only was the existence of a place such as this an insult, but for the first time in his life he had a woman at his home, waiting for him. He was terrified that when he went back, she’d be gone.

  Alex handed him a jug of incendie sûr. “Be careful where you put this,” he said. “If we run out, it’s going to be your ass who has to ask the Fae for another two jugs.” He shivered. “They’re weird, and not in a fun way.”

  The Fae ran le marché noir, the black market in New Orleans, and from what Raphael knew, most black markets around the world. In terms of business, they were fair to a fault…if the buyer knew how to make them be fair. Otherwise, for instance, a human might find himself enslaved to them forever simply because he amused them. Raphael had once seen a human woman buy a love potion from le marché noir, a potion she had no way of knowing would make her lover become forever entranced by the beauty of cacti.

  He avoided the Fae whenever possible.

  They would have to make do with the incendie sûr they had. Each bottle held a couple gallons of a sort of kerosene. When lit, one drop of the liquid would engulf everything in a three-foot radius. No more, no less. With correct placement of the incendie sûr, Alex and Raphael should be able to burn this house to the ground without harming any of the surrounding homes.

  Raphael couldn’t let this house that smelled like river water, a house where there were only beds and chains, continue to stand.

  When he tried the door this time, it had been locked. Now that they’d broken in, they needed do a sweep of the place to make sure no innocents were caught in the flames. “I’ll do the upstairs,” he said. Some of the bedrooms were untouched. Others smelled of human, with beds covered in rumpled sheets and marks scoring the walls from their fragile nails. Raphael tore through a mattress and box springs, down to the metal frame, which he ripped in half. He did the same to the headboard and yanked the chains from the walls.

  He noticed Alex watching him. “This place needs to burn,” Alex murmured. His hands, too, were cut and bleeding; he’d done some destruction of his own. They picked up their incendie sûr and went to work.

  An hour later when the sun set, they stood a half block away from the house, watching what looked like an innocent single-family home light up and burn, no flames reaching for any of the neighboring structures.

  A young human couple from a nearby house sat on their front porch and watched. “What a shame,” the woman said. The man scratched his head, making a face.

  “Who lived there, anyway?” he asked. “I bet they’re those people who keep knocking on our door at night. Don’t talk to them, Coco,” he finished sternly.

  The woman shrugged. “I’ve only seen someone there once, anyway. Probably a rich man who lives in Baton Rouge and keeps a house here.”

  “We should get a beach house,” the man mused.

  “Ha! In ten years, when we can afford it,” his wife said.

  “Try twenty,” he corrected.

  Alex nudged Raphael, distracting him from the intriguing couple. “We need to leave before the police get here.”

  Raphael nodded.

  Their car was safely parked blocks away, toward the river. Strangely, from the opposite direction he caught the scent of the river on the wind. “Botos,” he said, stopping.

  Alex followed as he stalked in their direction—and they were nearby, close enough to know their house of horror was burned to the ground.

  As the scent grew stronger, Raphael heard music becoming louder. They walked between houses, coming out onto a street that ended in a cul-de-sac filled with humans and botos. A mansion had speakers and a DJ set up in its yard. Alcohol flowed from open bars—the creatures were having a party out in the open. Tonight, many looked like creatures. At least half a dozen botos were in what Raphael assumed was their natural form: Wide mouths filled with long, sharp teeth, pointed fins jutting from their backs and elbows. Their skin was a sickly blue, with black eyes devoid of any white.

  The strangest part was the water flowing around those creatures, wrapping close to their bodies in a spiral. A human woman licked the water, following close to a boto with a loving express
ion. There were as many women as there were monsters, and none struggled or tried to run. Human men prowled the perimeter of the party, semiautomatic guns strapped over their shoulders.

  While Mary slept, Aiyanna had told them what she knew of botos. She said they used live together in a utopian community in Brazil, near the Amazon River. They were the epitome of peace, and never wanted for anything.

  Naturally, one boto became bored with his easy life and left their community to discover humans, who he found to be weaker creatures he could control. He learned that the stronger the humans’ emotions were, the more powerful he, the boto, became.

  Eventually many botos followed, leaving their utopia and using their powers to evoke strong emotions from humans. They began to feed from the humans’ feelings, causing enough misery to enrage the god Bochica, who cursed them to never again produce female offspring.

  Molly could have never been Richard’s blood daughter.

  These creatures were feeding from the women they’d taken and possibly the humans guarding them too.

  At that moment, what bothered Raphael the most was the spiraling water. Aiyanna had mentioned nothing about abilities to control the element—but he knew someone who could, someone who’d known what the botos were doing to humans.

  Raphael assumed Jeremiah simply didn’t want to get involved, but clearly he’d been wrong. Jeremiah was helping them.

  “Do you see him?” he asked Alexandre.

  Alex didn’t ask who he meant. “No,” he said, anger permeating his voice, “but we know he’s here.”

  Raphael tried to take another step toward the cul-de-sac, but Alex’s arm was thrown in his path. “We’re outnumbered, man,” he said. “Besides, we can’t harm the humans, and they’re using them as a shield.”

  He was right. Raphael and Alex would have to make it past armed humans to get to any botos, and apparently, Jeremiah. Even with their full powers, it would have been a risk. Without them, they would have no chance against all the lines of defense.

  It was a moot point. Raphael didn’t know what his full powers were. He’d joined the clan prohibitum so quickly that he’d never used his elemental abilities. I probably didn’t have any to start with. A feeling of helplessness consumed him. It wasn’t the first time over the centuries when the powers he’d never known could have helped another, an innocent.