Cursed

Maybe Raven had a gift. Or maybe, like so many others, she only wished she did because she had glamorized the supernatural ability into something that it wasn’t. Into something powerful, when having these abilities actually made Maria feel powerless, helpless to stop what she might see.

“Thank you,” Raven said, “for helping me.”

I hope it helps and doesn’t hurt...

“To teach you how to read the cards, I have to show you how I do a reading,” Maria said. That was how her mother had taught her, having Maria watch her do readings for other people. But Mama hadn’t always told the truth of the cards. Instead of telling people what she saw, she had told them what they’d wanted to see.

The old gypsy proverb that her mother had always recited echoed in Maria’s head. There are such things as false truths and honest lies.

But there was no one but she and Raven in the old barn on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that Maria had converted into her shop. She had only the girl’s cards to read. And she had already told Raven the meaning of each card, so she wouldn’t be able to lie to her—even if it would be the kinder thing to do.

This is a mistake...

Her fingers stilled against the deck, which was the size of a paperback novel. She preferred the big cards because of the greater detail. She had always used them, ever since she had first started reading—at the age of four. She had read cards before she’d been able to read words.

“I’ve been working here almost since you opened a few months ago, but I’ve never seen you do a reading,” Raven remarked.

And she shouldn’t be doing one now. She shouldn’t risk it...but it had been so long. She had missed it. Surely it couldn’t happen again. The cards wouldn’t come up the way they had before...

“I haven’t done one in a while,” she admitted. But she hadn’t lost the ability. Energy continued to tingle up Maria’s fingertips, spreading into her arms and chest. Before the girl could ask her why she hadn’t, Maria shuffled the cards again and eased one off the top of the deck. “This first card will represent your environment.”

Maria turned over the card atop the Significator, and dread knotted her stomach as she stared down at it. The moon shone down upon snarling dogs and a deadly scorpion.

A gasp slipped through the girl’s painted black lips. “That’s not good.”

Maria’s temple throbbed, and her pulse beat heavily in her throat. “No. The moon represents hidden enemies. Danger.”

The girl’s eyes, heavily lined with black, widened with fear. “You’re saying I’m in danger.”

Not again...

“That’s what that means, right?” Raven persisted, her voice rising into hysteria.

Since Maria had already taught the girl the meaning of each card, she couldn’t deny what Raven already knew. So she nodded. “Danger. Deceit. A dark aura...”

Maria saw it now, enveloping Raven like a starless night sky—cold and eerie, untold dangers hiding in the darkness. Goose bumps lifted on her skin beneath her heavy knit sweater, and she shivered.

“Turn over the next card,” the girl urged. “That’s what’s coming up—that’s what’s going to be my obstacle, right?”

Maria shook her head. She wouldn’t do it; she wouldn’t turn that card. “No. We need to stop. We can’t continue.” She shouldn’t have even begun; she shouldn’t have risked the cards coming up the way they had before. But it had been more than a year...

She had thought that she might have reversed the curse, that her fortunes might have finally changed. She’d been using the crystals, herbs and incense that she used for healing to treat herself.

“Turn the card!” The girl’s voice had gone shrill, and her face flushed with anger despite her pale pancake makeup. “Turn it!”

“No.” Her heart beating fast, she could feel the girl’s panic and fear as if it were her own. But she also felt her desperation and determination.

“I have to know!” Raven shouted.

Maybe she did. Maybe they both needed to know. Maria’s fingers trembled as she fumbled with the next card. Then she flipped it over to reveal the skeleton knight.

Raven screamed. “That’s the death card.”

“It has other meanings,” Maria reminded her. “You’ve been studying the tarot with me. You know that it might just mean the end of something.”

“What is it the end of? You see more than the cards. You see the future.”

As Maria stared across the table at the young woman, an image flashed through her mind. The girl—her face pale not with makeup but with death—her fearful eyes closed forever.

Raven demanded, “What is my future?”

You won’t have one.

“I don’t see anything,” Maria claimed.

“You’re lying!”

Maybe the girl actually had a gift—because Maria was a very good liar. Like reading the cards, she had learned at a very young age how to lie from her mother. “Raven...”

“You were looking at me, but you weren’t really looking at me. You saw something. Tell me what you saw!”

“Raven...”

“Oh, God, it’s bad.” The girl’s breath shuddered out, and tears welled in her eyes. “It’s really bad.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Maria assured her. “We can stop it from happening. I’ll make you an amulet of special herbs and crystals...” And maybe this time it would work.

The girl shook her head, and her tears spilled over, running down her face in black streaks of eyeliner. “Even you can’t change the future!” She jumped up with such force she knocked over her chair.

Maria jumped up, too, and grabbed the girl’s arms. “Don’t panic.” But she felt it—the fear that had her heart hammering in her chest and her breathing coming fast and shallow in her lungs.

“Stay here,” she implored the girl. “Stay with me, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

Blind with terror, Raven clawed at Maria’s hands and jerked free of her grasp. Then she shoved Maria away from her, sending her stumbling back from the table.

“No. It’s you,” the girl said, her eyes reflecting horror. “I’ve seen it—the dark aura around you.”

That was what Maria had been trying to remove. But she had failed. As Raven had said, even she couldn’t change the future—no matter how hard she tried.

“It’s you!” Raven shouted, her voice rising as she continued her accusation. “You’re the moon!”

She hurled the table at Maria, knocking it over like the chair. The cards scattered across the old brick pavers of the barn.

Raven was right: even she, with all the knowledge of her witch ancestor, could not change what she had seen of the future. Like that witch ancestor, who had burned at the stake centuries ago, Maria was helpless to fight the evil that followed her no matter how far and how fast she had tried to outrun it.

The girl turned now and ran for the door, leaving it gaping open behind her as she fled. Just like Maria, Raven wouldn’t be able to escape her fate: death.

* * *

The night breeze drifted through the bedroom window and across the bed, cooling Seth Hughes’s naked skin and rousing him from sleep. He didn’t know how long he’d been out. But it couldn’t have been long, because his heart pounded hard yet, his chest rising and falling with harsh breaths. The breeze stirred a scent from his tangled sheets, of sandalwood and lavender, sweat and sex.

He splayed his hands, reaching across the bed. But she was gone even though he could still feel her in his arms and how he’d felt buried deep inside her body. He could taste her yet on his lips and on his tongue.

With a ragged sigh, he opened his eyes and peered around the room. Moonlight, slanting through the blinds at the window, streaked across the bed and across the naked woman sitting on the foot of it, turned away from him. She leaned forward, and her long black curls skimmed over her shoulders, leaving her back completely bare but for a silver chain and the trio of tattoos a few inches below the chain that circled her neck. There was a sun, a star and a crescent moon.

“I thought you’d left,” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep and the desire that surged through him again. She was so damned beautiful with that sexy gypsy hair and all that honey-toned skin.

“I couldn’t just leave,” she replied as she rose from the bed.

Not after what they’d done? His pulse leaped as the desire surged harder, making him hard. Making love with her had been the most powerful experience of his life. And even though he wasn’t certain he could survive it, it was an experience he wanted again. And again...

“I’m glad,” he said.

She shook her head. “You won’t be.”

“Maria?” he asked, wondering about her ominous tone.

“You’re going to be dead.” Finally, she turned toward him, and the moonlight glinted off the barrel of the gun she held. He glanced toward the bedside table, where the small holster he clamped to the back of his belt lay empty. She held his gun.

“You don’t want to do this,” he said, holding his hand out for the weapon. But as he reached for it, it fired. The gunshot shattered the quiet of the night and...

* * *

The peal of his cell phone pulled him, fighting and kicking, from the grasp of the dark dream. Seth awoke clutching his heart, which pounded out a frantic rhythm. Pulling his hand away, he expected it to be covered with blood. His blood.

But his palm was dry. The room was too dark for him to see anything but the blinking light on his phone. No moonlight shone through the worn blinds at the window of the motel room. The only scent was dust and the grease from the burger and fries he’d brought back from the diner down the street.

“It was just a dream,” Seth said, but no relief eased the tension from his shoulders or loosened the knot in his gut. Nothing was ever just a dream with him.

Drawing a breath into his strained lungs, he reached for the persistently ringing phone. His holstered gun sat on the nightstand next to the cell. His fingers skimmed over the cold barrel before he grabbed up the phone.

Just a dream...

“Hughes,” he said gruffly into the phone.

“Agent Hughes?”

“Yes.”

“You were right!” The girl’s voice cracked with fear as it rose with hysteria. “It’s her! She’s here.”

“Maria Cooper?”

“I lied to you when you were here earlier. I didn’t believe what you said about her, but you’re right. You’re right about everything!” A sob rattled the phone. “I never should have trusted her. Now I’m in danger.”

“Where are you?” An image flashed into his mind of the young woman with the bird tattooed on her face. “Raven?”

“I’m at the Magik Shoppe,” she replied.

The old round red barn was hardly a store. But that was another reason he’d known it was her shop even though he hadn’t found her there, just the girl.

“Why?” he asked. He had no doubt that she was right; she was in danger. So why was she at the barn?

“I came back here to get you proof that she’s the one,” Raven said. “I found it. I have the evidence you need. But you have to come quickly!”

He kicked back the tangled sheets. “I’m coming.”

“How far away are you?”

“I stayed in town.” Although calling Copper Creek, Michigan, a town was stretching the description since it had only a gas station, a diner, a bar and this one ramshackle motel. Despite the girl’s denial, he had known the shop belonged to Maria Cooper. Finally, he’d come across one of her witchcraft stores before it—and she—was gone.

He’d stayed in Copper Creek with the intent to keep returning to the store until he caught her there. Hell, if not for the long drive up north having worn him out, he would have staked out the place until she came back. But if he had fallen asleep and she’d discovered him, the least she would have done was run again.

Maybe he should have risked staying; at least he would have been closer when Raven called and he wouldn’t have to traverse the winding, rutted gravel road in the dead of night. “I’ll be right there.”

“You’re going to be too late...”

Oh, shit. The girl must have warned her boss about him. Maria Cooper was already on the run again. “Stay there. And keep her there if you can.”

Another sob rattled the phone. “No. I don’t want her to find me. I don’t want her to kill me, too.”

Seth reached for his gun again. Maybe it would be fired tonight. “I’ll protect you,” he promised. “I won’t let her hurt you. Just wait for me.”

Her breath hitched, and he could almost see her nodding in acquiescence. “Please hurry. She read my cards. She told me I’m going to die.”

He shuddered. Every time Maria Cooper had read someone’s future, they had wound up not having one anymore. They’d wound up dead.

Just as he had in his dream...

* * *

“She’s dead,” Ariel Cooper-Koster said. Goose bumps of dread and cold lifted on her skin as she stood outside in the night breeze.

“You’ve seen her ghost, then,” Elena Cooper-Dolce replied, her pale blond hair glowing in the lights spilling out of the stately house in front of which they stood. There was no surprise in Elena’s voice. As she’d previously admitted to Ariel, she had already witnessed their youngest sister’s murder in a vision.

Ariel stared at the ghost of a woman with big brown eyes and long curly dark hair. Caught between two worlds, her image wavered in and out of a cloud of sandalwood-and-lavender-scented smoke.

“I haven’t seen her yet,” she admitted. “But Mama’s back...” And she hadn’t seen her in years. “She wouldn’t have left her if Maria were still alive.” After child protective services had taken Ariel, Elena and Irina from their mother, they had been separated and hadn’t been reunited until twenty years later. Once they had all found each other and saved themselves from the evil force stalking them, their mother’s ghost had left them. She had stayed with the daughter who’d needed her most—the one who’d been alone. Maria, whom her sisters hadn’t even known existed until those twenty years had passed. It was Irina who’d figured out that her roommate, at the time their mother had died, was actually their sister. But once they’d learned of her existence, they hadn’t been able to find her.

Elena shuddered. “I hope you’re wrong. For her sake and for Irina’s.”

“She can’t know,” Ariel agreed. Their younger sister was in a fragile state; eight months pregnant with twins, she had been confined to bed rest and absolutely no stress.

“She does,” a raspy male voice said as Ty McIntyre opened his front door to his sisters-in-law. He was a muscular man with dark hair, dark blue eyes and a jagged scar running through one eyebrow.

“Maria is not dead,” Ty said as he gestured them inside the two-story foyer of his grand house. “She knows what the two of you are thinking, though. She hears you.”

Ariel’s face heated, and Elena’s flushed bright red in the glow of the chandelier hanging over their heads. “Of course...” Irina could hear the thoughts of others—especially those with whom she was connected. “We can’t block her like she can...”

“Maria isn’t blocking her right now,” he said, and a muscle twitched along his clenched jaw.

“But you wish she was,” Elena said as she reached out and squeezed his arm, offering support and comfort.

“Maria can’t block her when she’s really upset,” he said. “When she’s really scared. Her emotions are so strong that Irina feels them, too.”

Ariel’s heart rate quickened. “Maria is upset and scared?”

Maybe that was why Mama had come back to her—to get her other children to help her youngest. While Ariel had always been able to see ghosts, she couldn’t always hear them. She had struggled the most with her mother’s ghost—probably because of all the emotions her mother’s appearance always summoned in Ariel. The pain and regret and resentment.

Ty grimly nodded. “That’s why I asked you both to come over tonight,” he said. “Irina wants me to go find Maria.”

“You’ve been looking for her for eight years,” Ariel said with frustration and resignation. “We all have.” And with the six of them working together, they had more resources than most—financially and supernaturally.

“So you’re giving up?” It wasn’t Ty asking; it was Irina, standing precariously at the top of the stairwell—her legs wobbling.

Ty vaulted up the steps and caught his wife up in his arms, lifting her as easily as if she were one of their seven-year-old twins. “You’re not supposed to be out of bed.”

“I could hear you all,” she said. But probably only in her mind, since they hadn’t awakened either one of the twins.

Ariel and Elena hurried up the stairs and followed Ty down the hall as he carried Irina back to their bedroom. “We didn’t mean to upset you,” Ariel said.

“We came to help,” Elena said, her usually soft voice heavy with guilt and regret.

Ty gently settled his wife back onto their king-size bed. Irina sat up against the pillows and stared at them all, her brown eyes even darker with hurt and accusation.

She looked so much like the ghost of their mother—so much like the picture she’d shown them of their sister Maria. The three of them looked like gypsies—like witches—while Ariel and Elena didn’t look related to any of them or even to each other. But their abilities united them—the Durikken blood that flowed in all their veins. Or had once flowed in their mother’s...

She hovered near Irina. Maybe she had come back because Irina needed her more than Maria did.

“We’re going to find her,” Irina insisted.

Or maybe Maria would find them—after she died.

“Ty will bring her back.”

It might not be possible. All they had found of their mother’s remains had been her ashes.

“She’s not dead,” Irina said. “I can sense her feelings. I can hear her thoughts. She’s anxious and scared. And very much alive.”

For now. But if she was anxious and scared, she must be in the danger that Elena kept envisioning. And none of those visions had ended well for Maria...

* * *

She was gone. Maria couldn’t even feel her anymore. There had been so much panic and fear and now...

Nothing. Maybe she was just too far away. Maybe she wasn’t dead...

The wipers swished the streaks of rain from Maria’s windshield, but still she could barely see—the headlamps of her old pickup truck were not strong enough to penetrate the thick black curtain of night in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tires bounced over the ruts of the drive leading to Maria’s little round barn at the end of the gravel lane. No cars were parked next to the shop.

Maria should have known that the girl wouldn’t come back here. But she’d checked for Raven’s car at the motel in town where the girl had been staying since her move to Copper Creek. She had also checked at the house of the guy Raven sometimes dated. But his windows had been dark, the driveway empty of any cars—even his.

Maybe they’d left together. Maybe he could protect the girl since she didn’t trust Maria to do that.

I don’t blame her, though. I don’t trust myself.

That was why she rarely stayed anywhere for long—why she kept running, as Mama had always been running. It was why Maria tried to not get too close to anyone or let anyone get too close to her...

She never should have hired the young woman, and she definitely never should have agreed to teach Raven to read. Her fingertips tingling from the energy from the cards, Maria regretted ever touching them again. Why hadn’t she left them behind...as she had so much else in her life?

Like Raven, she needed to run now. The girl had been right about the aura of darkness hovering over Maria. But besides the cards, Maria had left something else behind in the shop—something that she couldn’t leave without. Her fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to her bare neck. During her scuffle with Raven, the chain must have broken.

Her lungs burned as she breathed hard, fighting the panic at the thought of what she’d lost. It had to be here. It couldn’t be gone...

The hinges of the old pickup truck squeaked in protest as she flung open the driver’s door. She jerked the keys from the ignition and tried to determine by touch which one would open the door to the shop. But as she stumbled in the dark, across the gravel, she noticed the faint glow spilling out of the barn—through the open door. She had locked it behind herself when she’d left to search for Raven. And the only other person with a key to it was her employee.

“Raven!” she called out as she hurried through the door. “I’m so glad you came back!”

She reached in her pocket for the amulet of dried alyssum, rosemary and ivy, and anise and caraway seeds, eucalyptus and huckleberry leaves, and a thistle blossom. She’d cinched the sachet with a leather thong on which she’d fastened a jet stone, a piece of obsidian and a tiger’s eye. “I made something for you—something to keep you safe.”

Then her eyes adjusted to the faint candlelight, which wavered back and forth—not because the flames flickered but because a shadow swung back and forth in front of them. Like the herbs, Raven hung from the rafters.

Maria was too late. Again.

Or was she? She glanced around, searching the shadows for another image—an orb or mist, some field of energy that indicated Raven’s ghost. But nothing manifested from the shadows.

And the girl’s body swung yet. “You’re still alive. Stay with me. I’ll help you.” But how?

Panic pressed on Maria’s lungs, stealing her breath. She righted a chair and clamored on top of it, but then jumped down again when she realized she had nothing to cut the rope that wound tight around the girl’s throat. She fumbled for a knife and scrambled onto the chair again. Summoning all her strength, she hacked at the rope until the girl fell, her body hitting the worn wood floor with a soft thud.

“Please be alive,” Maria murmured as she scrambled down beside her. She’d seen others do CPR on television, so she tried breathing into Raven’s mouth and pushing on her chest. But the girl didn’t breathe. She didn’t move. Probably because Maria didn’t know what she was doing. She knew how to heal with herbs and crystals, though. But she had never pulled anyone back from the brink of death before. What could she use? What would it take?

She ran back to the table where she cut herbs and grabbed up some dried hyssop and licorice. Both were used to treat asthma because of their anti-inflammatory powers. Maybe they could reduce the swelling in the girl’s throat. She added some tincture of arnica that was used for bruising. Her hands shook as she mixed it together. Then she hurried back to where the girl lay limply on the floor of the old barn.

She pressed the mixture to the girl’s swollen throat and slipped some between her open lips. Then she chanted a prayer, begging the higher power to heal the wounded, to reverse her cruel fate.

“Raven?” She leaned over the girl, listening for breathing. No air emanated from the girl’s black-painted lips as her mouth lay open. Maria looked to her chest to see if any breaths lifted it, but a shadow fell across the room—blocking the light from the candles.

“Don’t move!” a deep voice ordered.

Maria glanced up at the hulking shadow blocking the door. Only his eyes glinted in the dark—and the metal of the gun he held. Was he who had done this to Raven? Who had killed all of the other ones?

She tightened her grip on the handle of the knife and slid it beneath the folds of her long skirt. If he came close enough...

“What the hell,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble in his muscular chest. He glanced from her to the body on the floor. His brow furrowed in concern and confusion as he stared down at Raven. “What did you do to her?”

Maybe he wasn’t the one who had hurt the girl.

“I tried to help her,” she told him. But her herbs weren’t working. “Please, do something! Save her!”

The man knelt beside Raven, and his fingers probed her wrist. “She’s dead.”