Fury’s Kiss Page 8

“All right, all right. I’m up.” I padded to the door and threw it open. “But if you two knew what you’d just interrupted between me and dream-Jackson, you’d know that I’d be totally justified in going Furious on your asses.”

  “Tara’s got a crush,” Alex whooped.

  “Really mature, Alex.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll tell you what happened yesterday, but you owe me coffee.” I paused, remembering the dream they’d interrupted. “And breakfast that doesn’t come out of the toaster.”

  “Oh, come on,” Alex said, but she headed for the kitchen, too curious for once to argue, and I was glad my demands would be met by her. The extent of Rachel’s cooking skills ran to toaster strudels and whatever could be microwaved. For all her scientific knowledge, Rach was a pathetic cook.

  Ravenous after my near-hibernation, I attacked the plate of food Alex set in front of me moments later.

  “Whoa, girl. Chew first.” Alex pulled back her hand like she was afraid she might lose it.

  Sheepishly, I accepted a second omelet and slowed down. I’d been inhaling my food like a teenage boy with the munchies, not a grown woman who topped out at a hundred and twenty-five pounds.

  Rachel and Alex stared while I ate.

  “What? I’m hungry.”

  “I know nothing you do now should surprise me after we saw your hair and eyes change earlier,” Rachel said as she watched me start in on thirds. “But this is just… Wow.”

  I shrugged. “Part of the new me, I guess.” After what had happened yesterday, an increased appetite was the least of my concerns. I finished a third plate and thought about a fourth, but decided to wait and let it settle. I was comfortably full and bursting with energy.

  “I’m going for a run,” I decided, pushing my stool back from the breakfast bar. “You guys wanna come? I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  My friends stared even harder and I grinned at their disbelief. “Like I said, I’m a whole new me.” I understood their confusion about my easy acceptance of what was happening to me, but I’d had my fill of drama at the Stardust, and I wanted to enjoy my new abilities before some other crazy-ass thing happened to me. My ability to fight back against Priest had given me a lot to think about, not the least of which was that the changes brought on by my transformation might not be all bad.

  I went into my room to change into shorts and a tank top, digging my lone, seldom-used sports bra out from under a pile of laundry waiting to be folded, then spent another five minutes hunting up my running shoes. By the time I came back into the kitchen, Rachel and Alex were ready to go. I grabbed my house key out of the bowl we kept by the front door and bounced down the driveway. I felt quick and strong, like a kid with a whole day of play stretching out ahead of me.

  I tucked the key into the pocket of my shorts and took off down the sidewalk. It wasn’t until I stopped and looked back over my shoulder that I realized my roommates weren’t with me. Alex had covered half the distance I had and looked like she was working for it, while Rachel trailed even farther behind, breathing hard. I bounced on the balls of my feet while I waited for them to catch up.

  “You weren’t kidding about a whole new you,” Alex said. Rachel wheezed up beside her and lifted the hem of her shirt to wipe her forehead.

  “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?” she gasped, leaning against Alex.

  “Sorry. I’ll slow down.” I hadn’t meant to leave them behind, but I had a serious amount of sexual tension and omelet-fueled energy to burn.

  “Bring it on, Walker,” Alex said, her competitive side roused by my challenge. “I could do this all day long. But when I beat your ass, you better spill about what happened yesterday.”

  “Oh, I’m shaking in my sneakers,” I shot back.

  “Uh, hello?” Rachel said, “I think you two can settle this later. We’ve kind of got bigger issues to deal with right now.”

  Abashed, Alex and I grinned at each other. She had a point.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Truce.” I raised my hands in a conciliatory gesture, then started jogging again at half my earlier pace. It felt like little more than a brisk walk to me, but this time the girls were able to fall into step beside me. I filled them in on everything that had happened the day before and when I finished, they were silent and thoughtful. We jogged along side-by-side for a while, each of us thinking about how everything fit together. Alex was the first to break the silence.

  “This is some kind of clusterfuck,” she said cheerfully, looking over at me. The combination of her potty mouth and upbeat tone set me off and I let out a snort of laughter, breaking my stride. Rachel ignored us both. I recognized the crease between her eyebrows as a sign that she was deep in thought.

  “I think what Nora told you is true,” she said finally. “You’re experiencing some kind of modern-day manifestation of Greek mythology. Given how suddenly all of this is happening and how quickly you’re discovering new abilities, there’s just no way to know what type of changes you’re going to go through. Or how noticeable they’re going to be.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The Furies of Greek mythology were basically monsters. The embodiment of vengeful emotion—Alecto means ‘unceasing anger’. The Furies were female, but I wouldn’t describe them as feminine by any stretch of the imagination. They weren’t women at all, really.”

  “Well then, what were they?”

  “As they’re classically depicted, Furies come in different forms, depending on the source. Sometimes they’re horrifically ugly and their eyes drip blood. Or they have hair made out of snakes—your classic Gorgon. They’ve also been described as having the head of a woman, the body of a dog, and wings of a bat.”

  I collapsed onto a bench at a nearby bus stop. “Rach, I cannot become a dog-girl with bat wings. That is not OK.”

  “Based on what we’ve observed so far, I doubt that’s going to happen,” she reassured me. “The bleeding eyes and the hair come and go, and you’re not experiencing any permanent, outward changes. You do have increased speed, strength and appetite, but those aren’t affecting your appearance.”

  “How can we know for sure what’s going to happen to Tara?” Alex asked.

  “We can’t. We need more information to make any kind of accurate prediction. Based on what’s happened so far, though, Tara could manifest any number of abilities. All of which may have strings attached.”

  “You mean she’s going to need to keep eating like a lumberjack to make up for her crazy new metabolism, right?”

  “Among other things,” Rachel confirmed.

  I didn’t ask what other things might mean. I was still getting over the idea that I might become some kind of flying dog-woman.

  “Unfortunately,” she continued, “there’s just no way to know which information is reliable and which isn’t. There’s always mythology to fall back on, but we’re talking stories here. Legends. Who knows which ones we can believe or how much they’ve changed over thousands of years?”

  “So, what?” I asked. “We just wait and see? Hope for the best?”

  “No.” Rachel shook her head. “We go straight to the source.”

  “You want us to go to Greece?” I didn’t know how she thought I was going to accomplish that on a waitress’s salary.

  She shook her head again, impatiently. “Of course not. We’re going to talk to the only person who could possibly know it all.”

  “That person being…who?”

  “We’re going to let Alecto take over.”

  I stared at her. “Do I get a say in this?” Sure, I felt more in control of the voice in my head each time I let her do her thing, but that didn’t mean I wanted to give Alecto free rein in there.

  “According to mythology, Furies can be summoned. In fact, that’s traditionally when they appear. Someone is wronged, they summon a Fury, and vengeance ensues. So we’ll summon Alecto.”

  “Why do we need to summon her?” Alex wanted to know. “She showed up on her
own, right? And she’s in Tara’s head all the time, anyway.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Rachel asked me, “but Alecto isn’t exactly at your beck and call, right?”

  “Yeah, so?” I agreed warily, not sure where she was going with this.

  “So far, Alecto only comes to the forefront of your mind when you’re in a stressful situation—when your emotions are running high or you’re in danger. If we’re going to get any answers, we need Alecto to surface when you’re calm and we have time to question her.”

  “And the only way to do that is by summoning her,” Alex reasoned, following Rachel’s logic.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know about this.”

  “It’s the only way,” Rachel said.

  I sighed. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “OK, fine, I’ll do it. But if something goes wrong,” I threatened, only half-joking, “I’ll make you two very sorry for suggesting this.” I shook my head again, not quite believing I’d just agreed to let the Fury in my head take over my body, as well. Alecto and I had come to an understanding of sorts back at the motel, but she was still an almost complete unknown. The idea made me jittery with trepidation and unspent energy.

  I needed to move.

  “I’ll see you guys back at the house,” I told the girls, bouncing on the balls of my feet. “I need some time to think about this.”

  I took off at a jog and as I rounded the corner onto our street, I detected a low, mechanical rumble. When I got closer to the house, I was surprised to see Nora’s pickup idling behind my car. I slowed to a walk and my long hair settled in its ponytail against my back, still dry. I hadn’t even broken a sweat, when just a few days ago I would have been on the verge of a heart attack.

  I walked up to the truck and felt equal parts relief and disappointment when I saw Nora sitting in the driver’s seat instead of Jackson. When she rolled down the window, a cool, delicious blast of air conditioning rushed out to mingle with the hot air outside. Heat waves rose up from the asphalt and the cold air coming from the open window felt like heaven on my face and neck.

  “Sorry to just show up like this,” Nora said, “but Ruby has something to tell you.”

  I peered past her to look at the little girl seated next to her. “Ruby has something to tell me?” I must have looked as confused as I felt.

  “I know a little more about the Fury thing than I let on at my place.” The faint lines on her forehead tightened nervously. “Could we come in?”

  Curious, I stepped back from the truck so she could open her door. It was a measure of how weird my life had gotten, and how quickly, that I didn’t question a five-year-old showing up on my doorstep with a cryptic message.

  Nora slid down off the cracked vinyl seat and turned to Ruby with her arms out. The little girl ignored her mother’s offer of help and climbed down from the truck on her own. She smiled up at me and took my hand. Amused by her self-assuredness, I let the kid lead me up my own front steps. I pulled my key out of my pocket and handed it to Ruby, remembering how important it had felt at her age to be allowed to do things for myself. She managed to fit the key into the lock and let us into the house as Alex and Rachel arrived, sweaty and out of breath. They introduced themselves and Rachel hobbled into the kitchen for a glass of water.

  Alex plunked herself down in the living room, where she patted the couch cushion next to her and motioned Ruby over.

  “We can’t stay too long,” Ruby announced, taking a seat next to Alex. “Uncle Jackson would be mad if he knew we came to your house.”

  “What Uncle Jackson doesn’t know, won’t hurt him,” Alex told her, winking as she accepted the glass of water Rachel held out.

  Ruby giggled. “Uncle Jackson thinks you’re bad,” she said to me, “but I know you’re not.”

  I looked to Nora.

  “Jackson thinks you’re trouble,” she clarified. “He told me what happened at the motel.”

  I wasn’t surprised, but I hoped he hadn’t told her everything that had happened.

  “Mama fibbed,” Ruby said. “She told Uncle Jackson we were going to the store.”

  “Which we did,” Nora gave her daughter a sideways look, “before coming here.”

  “Mama fibbed,” Ruby repeated firmly. “And it’s not nice to tell lies. If you tell lies, Tara’s snaky lady will get you.”

  I felt Alecto flex happily in the back of my mind. The child knows us.

  I had the distinct sense that she was preening.

  Alex raised her eyebrows at Nora. “You told a little kid about the Fury? Girl, she’s gonna have nightmares for a week.”

  Alex had a wild reputation, but she also had a soft spot for children. She knew what it was like not to have anyone care about you, and she couldn’t stand to see any kid treated the way she had been.

  “I didn’t tell her anything,” Nora said mildly. “She already knew.”

  “What do you mean, she already knew?” Rachel asked. She had been silent until now, but her gaze was focused on Ruby, and the little girl looked back at her like they had an understanding between them.

  “I see things that are going to happen,” Ruby said. “Before they happen.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “Of course! It fits with the Fury thing. She’s an oracle, isn’t she?”

  “An oracle?” I asked. “As in, she tells the future?”

  “Ruby’s always been a little bit…different.” Nora sat next to her daughter on the sofa. “Almost since she could talk. At first, I thought there was something wrong with her, that she was having seizures or something. She would go into these…trances, I guess, and she’d say things she couldn’t have known or even articulated at that age.”

  She sees us, Alecto purred. She knows what we are.

  Shut it, I thought at her. If you’d stop talking in riddles, I wouldn’t need an oracle to tell me what you are.

  “You should be nicer to the snaky lady,” Ruby told me. “It’s not her fault she’s stuck inside your head. She can help people if you work together.”

  Whoa. Was the kid inside my head now, too?

  The oracle speaks the truth, Alecto said, but I ignored her. The truth of Ruby’s statements remained to be seen. I wasn’t about to take the word of a five-year-old at face value, no matter how adorable she was.

  “Rach?” Alex asked. “Care to fill us in on oracles?”

  “In ancient Greece,” Rachel said, “oracles were thought to be the conduit of the gods. They predicted the future or gave advice, always in a state of altered consciousness. At the time, this frenzy was supposed to be divine, but there are theories now that it was induced by any number of different substances, from mind-altering plants to noxious volcanic fumes. But I take it Ruby speaks on her own?” The question was directed at Nora, but Alex answered.

  “Of course she does.” Alex grinned at Ruby. “She’s the real deal. Right, kid?”

  Ruby grinned back. Clearly, the two of them were going to be fast friends.

  “Tell Tara what you came to say,” Nora prompted Ruby. All eyes turned to the girl and she sat up straighter.

  “I see things that are going to happen,” she said, turning her attention to me. Then her eyes darkened and her voice changed. It was deeper, more adult, when she spoke again. “I see change. I see death. I see you, Alecto.”

  Yes, Alecto whispered. We are seen. We are recognized. She strained, heaving against the door I kept firmly closed between us, and I felt my control slipping. I shut my eyes against the sight of the pint-sized oracle in front of me.

  “Guys,” I said through gritted teeth, “can someone take Ruby into the other room, please? I think Alecto is taking this prophecy stuff as a summons and I don’t know if I can hold her back.”

  I was willing to let her loose if that’s what it took to get some answers, but I wasn’t about to do it with a defenseless little girl in the room.

  I concentrated, imagining reinforcements on the door I saw behin
d my closed eyelids. I added combination locks, deadbolts, and a heavy, old-fashioned wooden bar across the door. But Alecto destroyed them as fast as I could throw them up.

  Someone brushed past me and my concentration faltered when I heard Nora’s voice.

  “Come on, Ruby,” she said. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”

  I heard the rustle of movement and chanced a peek through narrowed eyelids. Ruby stood stiffly on the threshold of the kitchen, still in the throes of prophesy. Nora had a firm grip on her upper arm and was trying to step past Rachel, who was blocking the doorway, without jarring the girl.

  “Rachel, please move,” Nora said. She spoke pleasantly, in a let’s-not-scare-the-child voice, but there was tension underneath. “It’s not safe in here for Ruby.”

  Rachel ignored her, focusing on the little girl.

  “Rach,” I ground out. “You heard her. Get out of the way.”

  Rachel crouched down in front of Ruby instead. “Hear me, oracle,” she said formally. “The Fury Alecto is present. Will you call on her to speak the truth?”

  “I hear,” Ruby answered, “and the truth must out. Truth, above all things. Speak, Fury, if you will be heard.”

  Goosebumps prickled along my forearms, and I shivered. She was like something out of a horror movie, that deep, fully adult voice booming out of her tiny vocal cords. Her command galvanized Alecto’s efforts, and I could do nothing but stand numbly in the center of the room while she undid all the barriers I’d thrown up against her. I managed to mumble one last word before she took over, and I directed it at Rachel.

  “Traitor.”

  Chapter 9

  I watched my body kneel and felt the pressure of the floor against my knees as Alecto brought us face-to-face with Ruby, but I wasn’t in the driver’s seat anymore. I screamed inside my head, panicking as my body moved on its own, but got a grip on myself as Alecto started to speak. This was just the latest bizarre thing to happen to me over the past couple of days, and not even the worst of them.

  I hoped.

  Alecto spoke with my vocal cords, and I felt my tongue shape the words, though the voice wasn’t mine. “Oracle,” she growled. “Why am I brought here to this strange, new world?”