“I didn’t see teeth when you drank my date like she was a bucket of cheap well drinks at the bar.”
“I told you, we’re nothing like your books, or movies. We don’t have fangs.”
“What other myths aren’t true?”
“None of them are true.”
Kieran kept on pushing. “Tell me.”
Elisabeth sighed, one eye on the window. “Garlic. We’re not allergic to it.”
“Do you still eat food?”
“We can. We don’t have to.” There it was again. That howl.
“Crosses?”
“My family is Catholic,” she said with growing impatience. Not impatience. Fear.
“Could you come into my house?”
“Why are you asking me all these things? Does it really matter? You don’t have garlic, or a cross, and we’re not at your house.” Pressing her lips tight, she added, “No. I don’t need an invite. I go where I please.”
“There was still some daylight when you killed Darcy.”
“And?”
“I guess it doesn’t incinerate your flesh.”
“Of course it doesn’t. But I prefer the darkness anyway.”
“Why?”
It may be my imagination running wild again, but I feel like others can see through me, to what I am. To the place where my soul once was. “My reasons are my own.”
“You haven’t turned into a bat, or disappeared into a cloud of smoke.”
“Not yet anyway.”
Kieran smiled. “But you are immortal, aren’t you?”
Elisabeth nodded.
“So sunlight can’t kill you. You’re strong, though, so that myth is true... I saw how you took down Darcy with no effort, and you had no problem subduing me. I’d reckon you could take down a much bigger man and not break a sweat. Garlic and crosses are out. Useless. What if I pushed a sword through your heart?”
“Have you a sword, Kieran Landry?”
“I wish.”
“I would heal, though if you didn’t pull the sword out, my flesh would re-form around it and that would not be very fun,” Elisabeth said. Sweat beaded her brow. Could he see it? She wondered what he would think. She still produced sweat. Still slept, even if her need of it had waned considerably. She still enjoyed a glass of port, especially after the tradition the de Blancheforts never gave up, Sunday supper as a family. Though food didn’t sustain them, it bonded them. Like the gift, but somehow more tangible.
“Can anything kill you?” he asked. “Not that I’ll be getting any ideas over here, or anything.”
Elisabeth looked outside again. Nothing but darkness. And whatever lay waiting.
Kieran set her bag aside. He leaned forward, but didn’t stand. “The Rougarou is outside. Isn’t he?”
11
Kieran
The howl didn’t sound like any animal he’d ever known. He’d spent his entire life in Louisiana. His family owned property all over. He knew these swamps, the visceral and unforgiving outdoors.
It sounded like the wail of a man who had long ago been turned away from his humanity.
“Stay here,” Elisabeth said, but there was no way that was happening.
Kieran was right behind her as she slipped onto the porch. Tiny winking lights dotted the otherwise dark bayou. Elisabeth held one arm out, as if that was enough to hold him back.
A new roar pierced the night.
“Jesus,” Kieran whispered.
“If you believe in him, Kieran, now is the time to pray to him.”
“Are you sure it’s a Rougarou?”
“The Rougarou. There is only one.”
“Because it’s a curse that’s transferred when he bites someone,” he said, remembering the old local legend tales that he’d all but forgotten when he grew up. “Can he transfer what he is to you?”
“No. But he can kill me.”
“If it is him, anyway.”
Elisabeth half-turned. “You can sense things. What do you sense?”
He had sensed it. A raw, roiling anger burning to the surface. A desperation to be rid of... something.
A giant, hulking figure swayed out from behind a tangle of brush. His legs were long, muscular, and slightly bowed, like a misshapen man. He rolled back and his broad chest, covered in tufts of hair, were illuminated by a swash of moonlight. His face they could not see.
“Mon dieu,” Elisabeth whispered. “Go. Go inside. My grandfather showed me how to stop him.”
“No way. He’s bigger than both of us put together. We don’t have a gun, or—”
Elisabeth spun around and met his eyes. “Kieran. He’s not here for me. He’s here for you. Because, in you, he sees a reprieve from his terrible curse. One bite and you become him.”
With those words, Kieran was really, finally terrified. He realized now that there had always been a reticence about Elisabeth that he could work with; that left the window open for a future where he walked