Page 22 of Kissed the Mark
The three of us stood in silence. Francescasmiled again, this time forced.What are you hiding?Iwanted to ask, but I was scared she would run. My heart wasbeginning to pound. I had never known the Gallos to have maliciousintent, but something was seriously wrong here. I tried tocommunicate my misgivings to Beatrice with a look but her own gazewandered the back room, examining various undisplayed items.
“Where do you get your holy water?” Beatriceasked suddenly.
“Shipped from Italy,” Francesca saidpleasantly. It was the same artificial voice I had used with peoplewhen I was an eighteen-year-old folding shirts at the mall.
Beatrice nodded, assured her dealer ofblessed objects was still secure. “Shall we have a look at thegoose?”
“It doesn’t seem very happy,” I said. Thebox wiggled with the goose’s attempts to liberate itself. “It’sprobably better if we let it out somewhere that doesn’t have somuch glass.”
“We could sedate it,” Francesca offered. Shesearched the back shelves and returned with a little pill. “We givethis to our dog when we go on long drives to calm him down.”
“If you think it’s safe,” I said.
Francesca bent down to the box, murmuringwords of assurance to the goose, who was suddenly calm. She zippedopen the carrier and the goose took the little pill in its mouthwithout complaint. “I used a little magic,” she admitted.
“I wish I’d been able to do that when it bitme. I didn’t realize geese had teeth.” I held up my injured handfor her to see.
“It’s technically cartilage. But stillsharp.” Francesca kept glancing at the door as though waiting forGriselda to save her from the conversation.
Griselda returned with the vial. She hadjammed it with herbs. And tequila. “I tried to mimic the original,”she said. Francesca gently fed the vial’s contents to Leandra,apparently being the one best with animals out of the four of us.“I would let her sleep on it. You might have a vampire again bytonight.”
“Really? It only took, like, a second aftershe had the first one to turn her into a goose.”
There was a moment where Griselda’s facecontorted into something like anger or frustration. On the otherhand, Francesca looked ready to pass out.
“Sometimes undoing something takes longerthan doing it,” Beatrice said, clapping her hands. “Would you likea ride home, dear?”
“Er, no thanks.”
Chapter Twelve
Breaking the Spell
SEDATED, THE GOOSE WAS MUCH more amenable to the catcarrier, and I abandoned the cardboard box in a dumpster beforeslumping up the stairs to my apartment. The events of the last fewdays—maybe longer—were catching up to me now, and I wanted nothingmore than to sleep. I released the goose, who leaned against thecouch with glazed eyes.
There had been a point where I stoppedthinking of the goose as Leandra; it was just sogoosey. Mybrain couldn’t wrap around the fact that this was the same womanwho had dragged me along and nearly had me begging her to drink myblood. “Is there a vampire in there?” I asked her quietly. Shedidn’t so much as blink at me. If there was a vampire in there, itprobably wasn’t conscious of its surroundings. I wondered if shewould remember her time as a goose when she turned back.
Inspired, I dumped a bag of frozen peas intoa bowl of water and held it in front of the goose. If she wasreally a goose now, maybe she would eat them—there was a video I’dseen on the Internet of a goose frantically picking peas out ofwater. I nudged it toward her, but she was either not feeling herwaterfowl side or she was too out of it to react.
I needed to offer her blood to test her.Gently, I lifted the bandage from my hand and pressed my nail intothe wound the Leandra goose had opened earlier, hissing in pain. Atthe smell of blood, the goose’s head snaked forward, approaching myhand. I froze, trying to get a glimpse of something in the goose’seyes.Do you recognize me?
The beak nudged at the wound on my handever-so-gently. Surprised tears burst into my eyes. “It is you,” Isaid. Then: “I’m so going to kick your ass when you’re a vampireagain.”
Goose-Leandra honked pitifully in response.I lifted her into my arms, shushing into her neck when she gaveweak protests, and brought her into my bedroom. To say my room wasin disarray would be an understatement. There was broken glass onthe floor, and Leandra had upended a pile of letters on my dresser.When I set Leandra on the bed, my throat closed up. The nightstandthe lamp had been on had been cleaned off, and in a clear, glassvase, there was a single rose, surrounded by some greenery.
It must’ve been Patricia. No one else hadaccess to my apartment but her and her cronies. My dazed mindjumped to the conclusion that this would be aBeauty and theBeastsituation, where the rose would wilt over the next twodays until my time was up. As though taunting me, the rose droppeda petal.
I nudged the window open and tossed the roseout of the vase, the water splashing against the concrete.Immediately I had to suck my fingers—something had burned them. Iinspected the rest of the vase. Patricia had oh-so-kindly shovedsome four-leaf clovers in there. Might as well have encased it iniron, too, I thought bitterly. There was an ugly rash now on myuninjured hand as though I’d touched poison ivy. One of thedownsides of being a fairy.
After rubbing Cortisone cream on the rash,my exhausted brain still wouldn’t stop running. I was under thecovers, and my place was a disaster; I had only two more midnightsafter tonight to figure out this Leandra situation and what Iwanted to do with it; and I still didn’t have answers for why thosewitches had acted so suspicious, how that werewolf had died,orwho those out-of-town vamps had been. Next to me,Leandra’s bird body rose and fell gently as she breathed. Itentatively stroked the feathers between her wings. She was sosoft. Much softer than when Yuki cuddled me. I imagined for amoment that when I woke up, this would be the real Leandra sleepingnext to me. But I had my doubts after how odd Griselda andFrancesca had acted about the whole thing.
And that’s how I fell asleep: my eyesclosed, the back of my hand resting against the down of Leandra’sgoose feathers, imagining I was next to Leandra in the body thatcaught attention whenever she walked down the street.
?
This was how I woke up: next to the samegoose.
I called Beatrice, who sounded more frazzledon the phone than she had earlier. She agreed to help me set up atrue form spell at Knotted Hill just outside town so we couldfigure it out. I was reluctant to share my concerns about the otherwitches with her—Mayfair, especially compared to other towns andcities where us supernaturals dwelled, was particularly divisiveamong its people. If anything, I’d bet Beatrice would be more loyalto her fellow witches.
