White Cat (Curse Workers 1)

“Hey, man,” I say, holding up my hands. I’m making up a story in my head about who I am, falling into the role. I am a worker kid, just off the bus, looking for a job and a place to crash—someone told me about this place because of its connection to Zacharov. “I was just stealing food. I’m sorry. I’ll wash the dishes or whatever to pay for it.”

Then the door on the other side opens and Anton and Philip step through.

“What the hell?” the man with the shaved head says.

“Get away from him,” says Philip.

The guy with the long coat swings his gun toward my brother.

I reach out my hand instinctively and touch the barrel, to push it away from Philip. The metal is warmer than I thought it would be. Then something in me reaches as instinctively as I reached out my hand and changes the gun.

It’s like I can see the metal all the way down to the particles, but instead of being solid, it’s liquid, flowing into endless shapes. All I have to do is choose one.

I look up, and the man is holding what I imagined, a snake coiling around his fingers, its green scales as bright as the wings of the phoenix out in front.

The man screams, shaking his arm like it’s on fire.

The snake ripples, tightening its coils, its mouth opening and closing like it’s choking. A moment later a bullet drops from its mouth, bouncing against the stainless steel counter and rolling.

Two shots ring out.

Something’s wrong with me—with my body.

My chest constricts painfully and my shoulder jerks. For a moment I think that I’m the one that’s shot, until I look down and see my fingers becoming gnarled roots. I take a step forward, and my legs buckle. One of them is covered in fur and bends backward. I blink, and I am seeing everything out of dozens of eyes. I can even see behind me, like I have eyes there, too, but all there is to see is cracked tile floor. I turn my head and see the two men lying on the ground. Blood is mixing with the milk, and the gun is slithering toward me, its tongue flicking out to taste the air.

I am hallucinating. I’m dying. Terror rises up in my throat, but I can’t scream.

“What the hell were they doing here? Killing our people isn’t part of the plan,” Anton is shouting. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

My arms are the trunk of a tree, the arms of a sofa, they are twisting into coils of rope.

Someone help me. Please help me. Help me.

Anton points at me. “All this is his fault!”

I try to stand, but my bottom half is like a fish’s. My eyes are moving in my head. I try to speak, but gurgling sounds come from whatever I have in place of lips.

“We have to get rid of the bodies,” Barron says.

There are other sounds then, snapping bone and a wet thunk. I try to roll my head so I can see, but I no longer know how.

“Keep him quiet,” Anton shouts.

Was I making a sound? I can’t even hear myself.

I feel hands clasp on me and lift me up, hauling me through the restaurant. My head falls back, and I notice that the ceiling is painted with a mural of an old naked man, his scimitar held high, riding a brown horse down a hill. The mane of the horse and the man’s long hair are blowing in the wind. It makes me laugh, which comes out like a teakettle whistle.

“It’s just blowback,” Philip says softly. “You’ll be okay soon.”

He puts me down in the trunk of Anton’s car and slams down the top. It stinks of oil and something else, but I’m so out of it I barely notice. I twist around in the dark as the engine starts, my body not my own.

We’re on a highway when I come back to myself. Headlights of following cars stream erratically through the outline of the trunk. My head is banging uncomfortably against the carpeted tire well with each bump of the road, and I can feel the shaking of the frame underneath me. I push myself into a different position and touch plastic filled with something soft and still warm.

For a moment I think of laying my head against it, until I touch a patch of sticky wetness and realize what I’m touching.

Garbage bags.

I gag in the dark and try to crawl as far away from them as I can. I press myself against the far back of the car until I can’t go any farther. The metal presses into my back and I can only support my neck awkwardly with my arm, but I stay like that for the whole ride.

When the car lurches to a stop, I am sore and light-headed. I hear the doors slam, gravel crunch, and then the trunk opens. Anton is standing over me. We’re in the driveway of my house.

“What did you have to go and do that for?” he shouts.

I shake my head. I don’t know why I changed the gun, or even how I did it. I look at my hand and see that it’s smeared with a dull, dark red.

My bare hand.

“This is supposed to be a secret. You are supposed to be a secret.” Then he notices my hands too. They must have left my gloves in the restaurant.

His jaw clenches.

“I’m sorry,” I say, climbing woozily to my feet. I am sorry.

“How do you feel?” Barron asks me.

“Seasick,” I tell him, but it isn’t the recent car ride that is making me want to puke. I know I’m shaking, and there’s nothing I can do to control it.

“I killed those men because of you,” Anton says. “Their deaths are on your hands. All I want to do is bring back the old days when it meant something to be a worker. When it was good, not a thing to be ashamed about. When we owned all the politicians, all the cops. We were like princes in this city back then, and we can be again.

“Dab hands, they used to call us,” he says. “Dab hands. Experts. Skilled. When I’m in charge, I’m going to bring back the old days and make this city tremble. That’s a good goal, a worthy goal.”

“And just how are you going to do that?” I ask. “You think the government is going to roll over because you’ve murdered your way to the top of a crime family? You think Zacharov could have the world by the balls, but he’s all ‘No, thanks’?”

Anton hits me square in the jaw. Pain explodes in my head and I stumble backward, barely keeping my balance.

“Hey,” Philip says, pushing Anton back. “He’s just a bigmouthed kid.”

I take two steps toward Anton, and Barron grabs my arm.

“Don’t be stupid,” he says, and pulls my sleeves down over my hands.

“Hold him,” Anton tells Barron. He looks at me. “I’m not done with you, kid.”

Barron’s grip on me tightens.

“What are you doing, Anton?” Philip asks, trying to sound reasonable. “We don’t have time for this. Plus, he’s going to wake up with those bruises. Think.”

Anton shakes his head. “Get out of my way, Philip. I shouldn’t have to remind you that I’m your boss.”

Philip looks back and forth between me and Anton, weighing Anton’s rage and my stupidity.

“Hey,” I say, struggling against Barron’s hold. I’m exhausted, and I don’t struggle hard, but that doesn’t stop my mouth. “What are you going to do? Murder me, too? Like those men? Like Lila. Come on, what did she really do? Did she get in your way? Insult you? Not grovel?”

Sometimes I am very stupid. I guess I deserve the punch that Barron holds me in place for. The one that catches me just under my cheekbone and makes my vision go white. I can feel the blow all the way to my teeth.

“Shut up!” Anton shouts.

My mouth floods with the taste of old pennies. My cheeks and tongue feel like they’re made of raw hamburger, and blood dribbles over my lips.

“Enough,” says Philip. “Enough already.”

“I decide when it’s enough,” Anton says.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I say, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground. “Lesson learned. You can not beat the crap out of me now. I didn’t mean it.”

I look up in time to see Philip light a cigarette and turn away, blowing smoke into the air. And to see Anton bring his fist down on my gut.

I try to twist out of the way, but I’m already too hurt to be fast, and there’s nowhere to go with Barron’s hands clamped on me. Bright pain makes me sag forward, moaning. I’m grateful when I feel him drop my arms so I can slide to the ground and curl my body around itself. I don’t want to move. I want to lie very still until everything stops hurting.

“Kick him,” Anton says. His voice is shaking. “I want to know you’re loyal to me. Do it or this whole thing is called off.”

I force myself to sit up and try to push myself upright. The three of them are looking down at me like I’m something they found on the bottom of their shoes. The word “please” repeats in my mind. “Not in the face,” I say instead.

Barron’s foot knocks me to the ground. It only takes a few more kicks for me to lose consciousness.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I DON’T WANT TO MOVE because even breathing hurts my ribs. The bruises hurt more in the morning than they had the night before. Lying on the bed in my old room, I test my memory for blank spots. It reminds me of being a kid, sticking my tongue into my gums after a tooth fell out. But I remember last night very clearly: my brothers standing above me, Barron kicking my stomach over and over. I remember the gun changing, coiling around the man’s wrist. The only thing I don’t remember is how I got to bed, but I think that’s because I blacked out.

“Oh, God,” I say, rubbing my hand over my face, then looking at my hand to make sure it’s still mine. Make sure it hasn’t twisted into some other shape.

I reach my arm down slowly and carefully to touch the wound in my leg where the worked stones are. I feel the hardness of a whole one under my fingers and the outline of shards where two broke. My skin jumps, alight with pain, at the pressure. I wasn’t crazy. A stone cracked last night, under my skin, each time Barron tried to work me.

Barron.

He’s the memory worker. He’s the one who changed Maura’s memories. And mine.

My stomach clenches and I roll gingerly to one side, afraid that I’m going to throw up and then choke on it. Dizzily I see the white cat sitting on a pile of laundry, her eyes slitted.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper. My voice sounds like shards of glass are stuck in my throat.

She stands up, stretching her paws to knead the sweater she was lying on. Her nails sink into the fabric like little needles. Then her back arches.

“Did you see them bring me back here?” I croak.

Her pink tongue swipes her nose.

“Stop screwing with me,” I say.

She hunkers down and then jumps onto the bed, startling me. I groan with fresh pain. “I know what you are,” I say. “I know what I did to you.”

Only you can undo the curse. Of course.

Her fur is soft against my arm, and I reach out a hand toward her. She lets me stroke down her back. I’m lying. I don’t know what she is. I think I know who she was, but I’m not sure what she is anymore.

“I don’t know how to turn you back,” I say. “I figured out that it was me who changed you. I figured out that part. But I don’t know how I do it.”

She stiffens, and I turn to bury my face in her fur. I feel the rough pads of her paws. Her tiny claws are sharp against my skin.

“I don’t have a dream amulet,” I say. “I don’t have anything to stop you from working me. You can make me dream, can’t you? Like the rainstorm and the roof. Like before you were a cat.”

Her purr is a rumble, like distant thunder.

I close my eyes.

I wake up still hurting. I am lying in a pool of blood, slipping as I try to rise. Leaning over me are Philip, Barron, Anton, and Lila.

“He doesn’t remember anything,” Lila the girl says. When she smiles, her canine teeth come to sharp points. She looks older than fourteen. She looks beautiful and terrible. I cower back from her.

She laughs.

“Who got hurt?” I ask.

“Me,” she says. “Don’t you remember? I died.”

I push myself up onto my knees and find myself on the stage of the theater at Wallingford. Alone. The heavy blue curtain is closed in front of me, and I think that I can hear the sounds of a crowd beyond it. When I look down, the blood is no longer there, but a trapdoor is open. I scramble to my feet, slip, and nearly fall into the pit.

“You need makeup,” someone says. I turn my head. It’s Daneca, in shining plate mail, approaching me with a powder puff. She hits my face with it. There’s a cloud of dust.

“I’m dreaming,” I say out loud, which doesn’t help nearly as much as it should. I open my eyes and find myself no longer on the Wallingford stage but in the aisle of a majestic theater. The wood-paneled walls are grooved with dust above a scarlet rug. Lights drip crystals, and the plaster ceilings are painted in frescoes of gold. In the rows of seats on the terraces in front of the stage, cats in clothes fan one another, wave programs, and mew. I turn around and around, and a few of them glance in my direction, their eyes shining with reflected light.

I stumble into one of the empty rows and take a seat as a dark red curtain opens.

Lila walks onto the stage, wearing a long white Victorian dress with pearl buttons. She’s followed by Anton, then Philip and Barron. Each of the guys is in a costume from a different period. Anton’s got on a purple zoot suit with an enormous feathered hat, Philip is dressed like an Elizabethan lord with a doublet and ruff, and Barron’s wearing a long black robe. I can’t decide if he’s supposed to be a priest or a judge.

“Lo,” Lila says, pressing the back of her wrist against her forehead. “I am a young girl and very much given to amusement.”