Black Heart (Curse Workers 3)

“Maybe he knew he was going to die,” I say. “Maybe he really believed the stone would keep him alive. Like Rasputin. Like you.”

“I can’t think of anyone who didn’t like your father—and if he was really afraid, surely he would have gone to Desi.” Desi, my granddad. It jolts me to hear his first name; I forget he has one.

“I guess we’ll never know,” I say.

We regard each other for a long moment. I wonder whether he sees my father or my mother when he looks at me. Then his gaze seems to focus on something else.

I turn. Lila’s on the stairs in her pencil skirt and boots, with a filmy white shirt. She smiles down at us, her mouth curved upward on one side, turning the expression wry.

“Can I have Cassel for a minute?”

I start toward the stairs.

“Bring him back in one piece,” her father calls after her.

Lila’s bedroom is at once exactly what I should have expected and nothing like I imagined. I was in her dorm room at Wallingford, and I guess I figured this room would be a somewhat nicer version of that one. I didn’t take into account the wealth of her family and their love of imported furniture.

The room is huge. On one end a very long light green velvet daybed rests next to a mirrored dressing table. The shining surface is littered with lots of brushes and open pots of makeup. Several satiny ottomans sit on the floor nearby.

On the other end, beside the window, there’s a massive ornate mirror, the silvering faded in some spots, showing its age. Near that is her bed. The headboard looks old and French, carved from some light wood. The whole thing is piled with more satin—a bedspread and pale yellow pillows. An overstuffed bookshelf works as her side table, covered in piles of books and a big golden lamp. A huge gilt chandelier swings from the ceiling, glittering with crystals.

It’s an old-fashioned starlet’s room. The only incongruous thing is the gun holster hanging from one side of her dressing table. Well, that and me.

I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My black hair is tangled, like I just got out of bed. There’s a bruise on the side of my mouth and a lump at my temple.

She leads me in and then stops, like she’s not sure what to do next.

“Are you okay?” I ask, moving to sit on the daybed. I feel ridiculous in the remains of Patton’s suit, but I don’t have any other clothes here. I shrug off the jacket.

She raises her brows. “You want to know if I’m okay?”

“You shot someone,” I say. “And you ran out on me before that, when we—I don’t know. I thought maybe you were upset.”

“I am upset.” She doesn’t speak for a long moment. Then she starts pacing the floor. “I can’t believe you made that speech. I can’t believe you almost died.”

“You saved my life.”

“I did! I absolutely did!” she says, pointing at me accusingly with a gloved finger. “And what if I hadn’t? What if I wasn’t there—if I hadn’t figured out it was you? What if that federal agent thought there was someone with a bigger grudge against Patton than my dad?”

“I—” I suck in a breath and let it out slowly. “I guess I’d be . . . dead.”

“Exactly. You can’t go around making plans that have you getting killed as a by-product. Eventually one of them is going to work.”

“Lila, I swear I didn’t know. I thought I would get in trouble, but I didn’t have any idea about Agent Jones. He just snapped.” I don’t talk about how scared I was. I don’t tell her that I thought I was going to die. “None of that was part of my plan.”

“You keep talking, but you’re not making any sense. Of course you upset someone in the government. You pretended to be the governor of New Jersey and confessed to a bunch of crimes.”

I can’t help the small smile that’s playing at the corners of my mouth. “So,” I say, “how did it go over?”

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling too. “Big. It’s being broadcast on all the channels. They say proposition two will never pass now. Happy?”

I am struck by a sudden thought. “If he’d been assassinated, though . . .”

She frowns. “I guess you’re right. It would have passed easily.”

“Look,” I say, standing and walking to her. “You’re right. No more crazy schemes or lunatic plans. Really, really. I’ll be good.”

She’s studying me, clearly trying to decide if I’m telling the truth. I curl my fingers around her small shoulders and hope she doesn’t push me away when I bring my mouth down to hers.

She makes a soft sound and reaches up to fist her hand in my hair, pulling it roughly. The kiss is frantic, bruising. I can taste her lipstick, feel her teeth, am drinking down the panting sobs of her breath.

“I’m okay,” I tell her, speaking against her mouth, echoing her own words, my arms coming around her to hold her tightly against me. “I’m right here.”

She tucks her head against my neck. Her voice is so soft that I can barely make out the words. “I shot a federal agent, Cassel. I’m going to have to go away for a while. Until things cool down.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, dread making me stupid. I want to pretend I misheard her.

“It’s not going to be forever. Six months, maybe a year. By the time you graduate, probably things will have blown over and I’ll be able to come back. But it means that—well, I don’t know where that leaves us. I don’t need any promises. It’s not like we’re even—”

“But you shouldn’t have to go,” I say. “It was because of me. It’s my fault.”

She slides out of my arms, walks to the dressing table and dabs at her eyes with a tissue. “You’re not the only one who can make sacrifices, Cassel.”

When she turns around, I can see the shadows of the mascara she’s wiped away.

“I’ll say good-bye before I go,” she tells me, looking at the floor, at the ornate pattern of what is probably a ridiculously expensive rug. Then she glances at me.

I ought to say something about how I’ll miss her or about how a couple of months is nothing, but I am silenced by rage so terrible that it locks my throat. It’s not fair, I want to scream at the universe. I just found out she loves me. Everything was just beginning, everything was perfect, and now it’s snatched away again.

It hurts too much, I want to shout. I’m tired of hurting.

Since I know that those are not okay things to say, I manage to say nothing.

The silence is broken by a knock on the door. After a moment my mother comes in and tells me that it’s time to go.

Stanley drives us home.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WHEN I GET UP THE next morning, Barron is downstairs frying eggs. Mom is sitting in her dressing gown, drinking coffee out of a chipped porcelain mug. Her mass of black hair is twisted up into ringlets and clipped like that, with a bright scarf to keep it all in place.

She’s smoking a cigarette, tapping the ashes into a blue glass tray.

“There are some things I will definitely miss,” she’s saying. “I mean, no one likes being held prisoner, but if you are going to be locked up, you might as well—Oh, hello, dear. Good morning.”

I yawn and stretch, reaching my arms toward the ceiling. It feels truly wonderful to be back in my own clothes, back in my own body. My jeans are comfortable, old and worn. I can’t face putting on a uniform right now.

Barron hands me a cup of coffee.

“Black, like your soul,” he says with a grin. He’s got on dark slacks and wing-tip shoes. His hair is rakishly disheveled. He appears not to have a care in the world.

“We’re out of milk,” Mom informs me.

I take a deep and grateful gulp. “I can run out and get some.”

“Would you?” Mom smiles and touches my hair, pushing it back from my forehead. I let her, but I grit my teeth. Her bare fingers brush my skin. I am thankful when none of my amulets crack. “Do you know what the Turkish say about coffee? It should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love. Isn’t that beautiful? My grandfather told me that when I was a little girl, and I never forgot it. Unfortunately, I still like my milk.”

“Maybe he was from there,” Barron says, turning back to the eggs. Which is possible. Our grandfather has passed down lots of different stories to explain our perpetually tanned skin, from the one about being descended from an Indian maharaja to the one about runaway slaves to something about Julius Caesar. Turkish, I never heard. Yet.

“Or maybe he read it in a book,” I say. “Or maybe he just ate a box of Turkish delight and that’s what it said on the back.”

“Such a cynic,” my mother says, picking up her plate, scraping the toast crusts into the trash, and putting it in the sink. “You boys play nice. I’m going to go get dressed.”

She brushes by us, and I hear her footfalls on the stairs. I take another sip of coffee. “Thanks,” I say. “For delaying Patton. Just—thanks.”

Barron nods. “Heard on the radio that they arrested him. He had a lot to say about conspiracies that I take credit for personally. It was good stuff. Of course, after that speech, everyone has to realize that he’s bonkers. I don’t know where you got all that—”

I grin. “Oh, come on. It was some fine rhetoric.”

“Yeah, you’re like a modern day Abraham Lincoln.” He sets a plate of eggs and toast in front of me. “‘Let my people go.’”

“That’s Moses.” I grab for the pepper mill. “Well, my years on the debate team finally paid off, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re the hero of the hour.”

I shrug.

“So what happens now?” he asks.

I shake my head. I can’t tell Barron what happened after I got off the stage, how Agent Jones tried to kill me and is now dead, how Lila is leaving town. To him it must seem like a large-scale prank, a joke I played on Yulikova.

“I think I’m done with the Feds. Hopefully they’re done with me, too,” I say. “How about you?”

“Are you kidding? I love being a G-man. I’m in for the long haul. I’m going to be so corrupt that I’ll be a legend down in Carney.” He grins, sitting across from me at the table and stealing a piece of toast off my plate. “Also, you owe me one.”

I nod. “Sure,” I say, with a feeling of dread. “And I fully intend to pay up. Just tell me.”

He looks toward the door and then back at me. “I want you to tell Daneca what I did for you. That I helped. That I did something good.”

“Okay,” I say, frowning. There must be a catch. “That’s it?”

He nods. “Yeah, just tell her. Make her understand that I didn’t have to do it, but I did it anyway.”

I snort. “Whatever, Barron.”

“I’m serious. You owe me a favor, and that’s what I want.” His expression is one I don’t often see him wear. He looks oddly diffident, as though he’s waiting for me to say something really cruel.

I shake my head. “No problem. That’s easily done.”

He smiles, his usual easy, careless grin, and grabs for the marmalade. I toss back the rest of my cup.

“I’m going to get Mom’s milk,” I say. “Can I take your car?”

“Sure,” he says, pointing to the closet near the door. “Keys are in the pocket of my coat.”

I pat down my jeans and realize my wallet is upstairs, under the mattress, where I left it for safekeeping before I went off with the Feds. “Can I borrow five bucks, too?”

He rolls his eyes. “Go ahead.”

I find his leather jacket and root around in the inside pocket, eventually coming up with both keys and wallet. I flip open the wallet and am in the process of taking out money, when I see Daneca’s picture in one of the plastic sleeves.

I slide it out with the cash and then leave quickly, slamming the door in my haste.

After I get to the store, I sit in the parking lot, staring at the picture. Daneca’s sitting on a park bench, her hair blowing in a light wind. She’s smiling at the camera in a way that I’ve never seen her smile before—not at me and not at Sam. She looks lit up from the inside, shining with a happiness so vast that it’s impossible to ignore.

On the back is the distinctive scrawl of my brother’s handwriting: “This is Daneca Wasserman. She is your girlfriend and you love her.”

I look at it and look at it, trying to decipher some meaning behind it other than the obvious—that it’s true. I never knew Barron could feel that way about anyone.

But she isn’t his girlfriend anymore. She dumped him.

Leaning against the hood of the car, I take one last glance at the photo before I rip it into pieces. I throw those into the trash can outside the store, nothing more than colored confetti on top of discarded wrappers and soda bottles. Then I go inside and buy a pint of milk.

I tell myself that he meant to throw out Daneca’s picture, that he just forgot. I tell myself I got rid of it for his own good. His memory is full of holes, and an outdated reminder would just be confusing. He might forget that they broke up, and embarrass himself. I tell myself that they would have never worked out, not in the long run, and he’ll be happier if he forgets her.

I tell myself that I did it for him, but I know that’s not true.

I want Sam and Daneca to be happy together, like they were before. I did it for myself. I did it to get what I want. Maybe I should regret that, but I can’t. Sometimes you do the bad thing and hope for the good result.

>

“Maybe he knew he was going to die,” I say. “Maybe he really believed the stone would keep him alive. Like Rasputin. Like you.”

“I can’t think of anyone who didn’t like your father—and if he was really afraid, surely he would have gone to Desi.” Desi, my granddad. It jolts me to hear his first name; I forget he has one.

“I guess we’ll never know,” I say.

We regard each other for a long moment. I wonder whether he sees my father or my mother when he looks at me. Then his gaze seems to focus on something else.

I turn. Lila’s on the stairs in her pencil skirt and boots, with a filmy white shirt. She smiles down at us, her mouth curved upward on one side, turning the expression wry.

“Can I have Cassel for a minute?”

I start toward the stairs.

“Bring him back in one piece,” her father calls after her.

Lila’s bedroom is at once exactly what I should have expected and nothing like I imagined. I was in her dorm room at Wallingford, and I guess I figured this room would be a somewhat nicer version of that one. I didn’t take into account the wealth of her family and their love of imported furniture.

The room is huge. On one end a very long light green velvet daybed rests next to a mirrored dressing table. The shining surface is littered with lots of brushes and open pots of makeup. Several satiny ottomans sit on the floor nearby.

On the other end, beside the window, there’s a massive ornate mirror, the silvering faded in some spots, showing its age. Near that is her bed. The headboard looks old and French, carved from some light wood. The whole thing is piled with more satin—a bedspread and pale yellow pillows. An overstuffed bookshelf works as her side table, covered in piles of books and a big golden lamp. A huge gilt chandelier swings from the ceiling, glittering with crystals.

It’s an old-fashioned starlet’s room. The only incongruous thing is the gun holster hanging from one side of her dressing table. Well, that and me.

I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My black hair is tangled, like I just got out of bed. There’s a bruise on the side of my mouth and a lump at my temple.

She leads me in and then stops, like she’s not sure what to do next.

“Are you okay?” I ask, moving to sit on the daybed. I feel ridiculous in the remains of Patton’s suit, but I don’t have any other clothes here. I shrug off the jacket.

She raises her brows. “You want to know if I’m okay?”

“You shot someone,” I say. “And you ran out on me before that, when we—I don’t know. I thought maybe you were upset.”

“I am upset.” She doesn’t speak for a long moment. Then she starts pacing the floor. “I can’t believe you made that speech. I can’t believe you almost died.”

“You saved my life.”

“I did! I absolutely did!” she says, pointing at me accusingly with a gloved finger. “And what if I hadn’t? What if I wasn’t there—if I hadn’t figured out it was you? What if that federal agent thought there was someone with a bigger grudge against Patton than my dad?”

“I—” I suck in a breath and let it out slowly. “I guess I’d be . . . dead.”

“Exactly. You can’t go around making plans that have you getting killed as a by-product. Eventually one of them is going to work.”

“Lila, I swear I didn’t know. I thought I would get in trouble, but I didn’t have any idea about Agent Jones. He just snapped.” I don’t talk about how scared I was. I don’t tell her that I thought I was going to die. “None of that was part of my plan.”

“You keep talking, but you’re not making any sense. Of course you upset someone in the government. You pretended to be the governor of New Jersey and confessed to a bunch of crimes.”

I can’t help the small smile that’s playing at the corners of my mouth. “So,” I say, “how did it go over?”

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling too. “Big. It’s being broadcast on all the channels. They say proposition two will never pass now. Happy?”

I am struck by a sudden thought. “If he’d been assassinated, though . . .”

She frowns. “I guess you’re right. It would have passed easily.”

“Look,” I say, standing and walking to her. “You’re right. No more crazy schemes or lunatic plans. Really, really. I’ll be good.”

She’s studying me, clearly trying to decide if I’m telling the truth. I curl my fingers around her small shoulders and hope she doesn’t push me away when I bring my mouth down to hers.

She makes a soft sound and reaches up to fist her hand in my hair, pulling it roughly. The kiss is frantic, bruising. I can taste her lipstick, feel her teeth, am drinking down the panting sobs of her breath.

“I’m okay,” I tell her, speaking against her mouth, echoing her own words, my arms coming around her to hold her tightly against me. “I’m right here.”

She tucks her head against my neck. Her voice is so soft that I can barely make out the words. “I shot a federal agent, Cassel. I’m going to have to go away for a while. Until things cool down.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, dread making me stupid. I want to pretend I misheard her.

“It’s not going to be forever. Six months, maybe a year. By the time you graduate, probably things will have blown over and I’ll be able to come back. But it means that—well, I don’t know where that leaves us. I don’t need any promises. It’s not like we’re even—”

“But you shouldn’t have to go,” I say. “It was because of me. It’s my fault.”

She slides out of my arms, walks to the dressing table and dabs at her eyes with a tissue. “You’re not the only one who can make sacrifices, Cassel.”

When she turns around, I can see the shadows of the mascara she’s wiped away.

“I’ll say good-bye before I go,” she tells me, looking at the floor, at the ornate pattern of what is probably a ridiculously expensive rug. Then she glances at me.

I ought to say something about how I’ll miss her or about how a couple of months is nothing, but I am silenced by rage so terrible that it locks my throat. It’s not fair, I want to scream at the universe. I just found out she loves me. Everything was just beginning, everything was perfect, and now it’s snatched away again.

It hurts too much, I want to shout. I’m tired of hurting.

Since I know that those are not okay things to say, I manage to say nothing.

The silence is broken by a knock on the door. After a moment my mother comes in and tells me that it’s time to go.

Stanley drives us home.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WHEN I GET UP THE next morning, Barron is downstairs frying eggs. Mom is sitting in her dressing gown, drinking coffee out of a chipped porcelain mug. Her mass of black hair is twisted up into ringlets and clipped like that, with a bright scarf to keep it all in place.

She’s smoking a cigarette, tapping the ashes into a blue glass tray.

“There are some things I will definitely miss,” she’s saying. “I mean, no one likes being held prisoner, but if you are going to be locked up, you might as well—Oh, hello, dear. Good morning.”

I yawn and stretch, reaching my arms toward the ceiling. It feels truly wonderful to be back in my own clothes, back in my own body. My jeans are comfortable, old and worn. I can’t face putting on a uniform right now.

Barron hands me a cup of coffee.

“Black, like your soul,” he says with a grin. He’s got on dark slacks and wing-tip shoes. His hair is rakishly disheveled. He appears not to have a care in the world.

“We’re out of milk,” Mom informs me.

I take a deep and grateful gulp. “I can run out and get some.”

“Would you?” Mom smiles and touches my hair, pushing it back from my forehead. I let her, but I grit my teeth. Her bare fingers brush my skin. I am thankful when none of my amulets crack. “Do you know what the Turkish say about coffee? It should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love. Isn’t that beautiful? My grandfather told me that when I was a little girl, and I never forgot it. Unfortunately, I still like my milk.”

“Maybe he was from there,” Barron says, turning back to the eggs. Which is possible. Our grandfather has passed down lots of different stories to explain our perpetually tanned skin, from the one about being descended from an Indian maharaja to the one about runaway slaves to something about Julius Caesar. Turkish, I never heard. Yet.

“Or maybe he read it in a book,” I say. “Or maybe he just ate a box of Turkish delight and that’s what it said on the back.”

“Such a cynic,” my mother says, picking up her plate, scraping the toast crusts into the trash, and putting it in the sink. “You boys play nice. I’m going to go get dressed.”

She brushes by us, and I hear her footfalls on the stairs. I take another sip of coffee. “Thanks,” I say. “For delaying Patton. Just—thanks.”

Barron nods. “Heard on the radio that they arrested him. He had a lot to say about conspiracies that I take credit for personally. It was good stuff. Of course, after that speech, everyone has to realize that he’s bonkers. I don’t know where you got all that—”

I grin. “Oh, come on. It was some fine rhetoric.”

“Yeah, you’re like a modern day Abraham Lincoln.” He sets a plate of eggs and toast in front of me. “‘Let my people go.’”

“That’s Moses.” I grab for the pepper mill. “Well, my years on the debate team finally paid off, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re the hero of the hour.”

I shrug.

“So what happens now?” he asks.

I shake my head. I can’t tell Barron what happened after I got off the stage, how Agent Jones tried to kill me and is now dead, how Lila is leaving town. To him it must seem like a large-scale prank, a joke I played on Yulikova.

“I think I’m done with the Feds. Hopefully they’re done with me, too,” I say. “How about you?”

“Are you kidding? I love being a G-man. I’m in for the long haul. I’m going to be so corrupt that I’ll be a legend down in Carney.” He grins, sitting across from me at the table and stealing a piece of toast off my plate. “Also, you owe me one.”

I nod. “Sure,” I say, with a feeling of dread. “And I fully intend to pay up. Just tell me.”

He looks toward the door and then back at me. “I want you to tell Daneca what I did for you. That I helped. That I did something good.”

“Okay,” I say, frowning. There must be a catch. “That’s it?”

He nods. “Yeah, just tell her. Make her understand that I didn’t have to do it, but I did it anyway.”

I snort. “Whatever, Barron.”

“I’m serious. You owe me a favor, and that’s what I want.” His expression is one I don’t often see him wear. He looks oddly diffident, as though he’s waiting for me to say something really cruel.

I shake my head. “No problem. That’s easily done.”

He smiles, his usual easy, careless grin, and grabs for the marmalade. I toss back the rest of my cup.

“I’m going to get Mom’s milk,” I say. “Can I take your car?”

“Sure,” he says, pointing to the closet near the door. “Keys are in the pocket of my coat.”

I pat down my jeans and realize my wallet is upstairs, under the mattress, where I left it for safekeeping before I went off with the Feds. “Can I borrow five bucks, too?”

He rolls his eyes. “Go ahead.”

I find his leather jacket and root around in the inside pocket, eventually coming up with both keys and wallet. I flip open the wallet and am in the process of taking out money, when I see Daneca’s picture in one of the plastic sleeves.

I slide it out with the cash and then leave quickly, slamming the door in my haste.

After I get to the store, I sit in the parking lot, staring at the picture. Daneca’s sitting on a park bench, her hair blowing in a light wind. She’s smiling at the camera in a way that I’ve never seen her smile before—not at me and not at Sam. She looks lit up from the inside, shining with a happiness so vast that it’s impossible to ignore.

On the back is the distinctive scrawl of my brother’s handwriting: “This is Daneca Wasserman. She is your girlfriend and you love her.”

I look at it and look at it, trying to decipher some meaning behind it other than the obvious—that it’s true. I never knew Barron could feel that way about anyone.

But she isn’t his girlfriend anymore. She dumped him.

Leaning against the hood of the car, I take one last glance at the photo before I rip it into pieces. I throw those into the trash can outside the store, nothing more than colored confetti on top of discarded wrappers and soda bottles. Then I go inside and buy a pint of milk.

I tell myself that he meant to throw out Daneca’s picture, that he just forgot. I tell myself I got rid of it for his own good. His memory is full of holes, and an outdated reminder would just be confusing. He might forget that they broke up, and embarrass himself. I tell myself that they would have never worked out, not in the long run, and he’ll be happier if he forgets her.

I tell myself that I did it for him, but I know that’s not true.

I want Sam and Daneca to be happy together, like they were before. I did it for myself. I did it to get what I want. Maybe I should regret that, but I can’t. Sometimes you do the bad thing and hope for the good result.