Chapter Twenty-Three

I cursed and grabbed the stone, shoving it down the front of my pants. He tried to go in after it, and I slapped his hand. “I don’t think so.”

The commotion caused the guards to glance inside. All they saw was Murphy trying to get in my pants.

Grinning, they turned around again.

“Where did you get that?” I whispered furiously.

“Where do you think?”

I tried to recall when he’d been anywhere near the diamond.

Aha! Earlier that morning he’d ducked into Mezareau’s hut to check on the leopard skin.

“Mezareau just leaves it lying around?” I asked. “With you on the loose?”

“Not exactly.” His expression was sheepish. “I have some experience unlocking things.” Murphy cracked his knuckles.

Of course he did.

“What happened to stealing is stealing no matter who you steal from?” I asked.

“You said that, not me. I didn’t come all this way—get kidnapped, drugged, donate blood, and become next on a bokor ’s hit list—to walk away empty-handed.”

“When did you plan on telling me about this?”

“I just did. Now give that back.”

“No.”

“Cassandra.”

“Devon.”

“You sound like my mother.” He made a face. “Call me Murphy.”

“No problem.” I didn’t want him remembering his mother when he looked at me, either.

Murphy glanced at the door. “I don’t think you should keep it.”

“And you should? He’ll kill you, but he won’t kill me.”

“Not until he’s got his army anyway.”

“Mezareau’s going to notice his diamond is gone.”

“I don’t plan to be here when that happens; do you?”

“No. Have any ideas on how we get out of here?”

“Not a one. Even if we can sneak past the guards, half a zombie army, and Mezareau, we’re going to have waterfall issues.” He paused, considering. “You don’t know any spells that would make them all go away? Or even better, one that might transport us back to Port-au-Prince?” He snapped his fingers.

“Poof?”

“Suddenly you believe in spells?”

“After this morning, it seems foolish not to. So, you know any?”

“Voodoo is about religion, not magic.”

“Turning those zombies to dust seemed like magic to me. Hell, them being alive in the first place is so against any religion I’ve ever heard of it has to be something outside of it.”

“It is,” I murmured.

My prattle about religion and magic just wasn’t holding up. As Mezareau had said, the longer I was here, the more magic happened. I wasn’t sure if that was a result of me or the jungle, perhaps both. Either way, I was getting kind of scared of my power. Though if things got nasty, my power might be all that stood between Murphy and me and eternity.

The day passed with agonizing slowness. We sat and stared at each other, the wall, the floor, out the window. Our meals were brought to us. We were allowed to use the facilities—such that they were— one at a time. When darkness fell, I was no closer to a plan of escape than I’d been when the sun shone.

I fell asleep, and when I awoke the soft glow of a candle illuminated the hut. Murphy sat on the ground, shirtless, his skin gleaming in the heat and the murky light. I’d have been captivated by the sight, if he hadn’t gone through my backpack and laid out every one of my things in a tidy row.

I sat up and he glanced at me. “Sorry. I just—” He spread his hands. “All we’ve got is this. I was trying to figure out how we could use it.” He picked up the knife. “Never thought I’d see the day when sharp steel was worthless.”

“Silver,” I corrected.

Murphy turned the blade, and the flames of the candle sparked off the polished surface. “Fancy.”

“Practical. Until recently, silver killed just about anything.”

He lifted his gaze. “You’ve used this to kill things?”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m not that kind of Jäger-Sucher.”

I could tell he wanted to roll his eyes and say something derisive, but he couldn’t anymore. “What kind are you?”

“Not much of one, really. I know voodoo, and since the latest werewolf problem involved a voodoo curse, I was asked to help. Most of the Jäger-Suchers are fighters.” I took a breath. “Honestly, they’re killers. They stop at nothing to get the j ob done, because they know if they don’t, people will die.”

“Tell me about them,” Murphy urged.

I hesitated. The Jäger-Suchers were supposed to be a secret, but since I had my doubts Murphy and I would get out of here alive—and really, what else did we have to do?—I told him.

“The Jäger-Suchers are a monster-hunting society run by Edward Mandenauer. He was a spy in WW

II, sent to discover what Hitler was up to.”

“He was up to a lot,” Murphy muttered.

“More than anyone ever knew. Hitler was fascinated with wolves and werewolves. Maybe because Adolf  means ‘Noble Wolf’—who knows? He chose the title f ührer because it refers to the leader of a pack of hunting wolves. He even sanctioned a secret terrorist organization known as the werewolves.”

“What did they do?”

“Near the end of the war, when things began to go badly for Germany, recruits were taken from the Hitler Youth, the SS, the army, civilians. In the way of a werewolf they would appear to be normal citizens in the daylight, but at night they were charged to wreak death and destruction on their enemy by any means possible.”

“And they were really werewolves?”

Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.

“Edward never said. I’m not sure if he knows.”

“What did your boss discover about Hitler?”

“Have you heard of Josef Mengele?” At Murphy’s blank expression I elaborated. “The doctor who performed medical experiments on the Jews, the Gypsies, and—well, pretty much anyone he wanted to.”

“Nutcake,” Murphy muttered.

“Times ten. Hitler ordered Mengele to make a werewolf army, so he did.”

“How?”

“A little bit of this, a whole lot of that. No one’s really certain, since Herr Doktor destroyed all the records.”

“But he didn’t destroy the werewolves.”

“No. Those he released. They’ve been multiplying ever since. Along with a lot of other things he devised in his secret lab in the Black Forest. Edward was supposed to eliminate the monsters, but he got there too late. He’s been trying to make up for that ever since.”

“This all sounds crazy. Until you see a zombie disintegrate before your eyes.”

“Try watching a man turn into a wolf and back again. It isn’t pretty.”

“I can imagine.” His lips tightened. “Or maybe I can’t. What other things did Mengele release?”

I thought of Edward’s answer when I’d asked the very same question.

“Let’s deal with one monster at a time.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Actually, I don’t. The werewolves and the zombies have kept me well occupied.”

“If Mandenauer was a spy in WW II he must be pretty old.”

“He’s also,” I tried to think of a word to describe Edward, “scary.”

“He’s got to be eighty.”

“He can still fire a gun.” And he did so with great regularity. “He runs the Jäger-Suchers—all divisions—though his granddaughter helps. They also have a lab—”

I stopped short of mentioning the location, which was supposed to be a J- S-only secret. Although someone had blown the place to smithereens not too long ago, so it couldn’t be that big of a secret.

The one they’d built since was supposedly impenetrable, a word that always made me nervous.

“In this lab they concoct monsters of their own?”

“No.” Or at least I didn’t think so. “They try to find cures to the various mutations. Elise, that’s

Edward’s granddaughter, is a virologist. She’s working on a cure for the lycanthropy virus.”

“Lycanthropy is like a cold?” He tilted his head. “On steroids?”

“In a way. The curse is passed through the saliva when a victim is bitten, causing changes in the DNA.”

“Aren’t viruses hard, if not impossible, to cure because they’re constantly changing and evolving?”

The lycanthropy virus had changed all right. Mostly because the werewolves had begun to combine their power with magic in an attempt to rule the world.

What is it with ruling the world? Every crazy person wants to.

So far the Jäger-Suchers had thwarted every attempt. But sooner or later…

“Viruses are tricky,” I said. “And lycanthropy even more so. But Elise is pretty tricky herself.”

“How did you end up involved with the Jäger-Suchers?” Murphy asked.

“There was a loup-garou in New Orleans,” I said. “That’s werewolf  in French.”

” I know,” he said wryly. “My French is pretty good.”

“Oh. Right. The loup-garou was created by a voodoo queen around the time of the Civil War.”

“And the thing’s still running around the city making more werewolves?” He scowled. “Remind me not to visit.”

“Henri was captured; then Elise took him back to the lab. Edward sent me here to learn what I could about the curse.”

Murphy frowned. “I thought you came here to learn how to raise your daughter.”

“Conveniently, what I wanted to know and what they wanted to know coincided. From all I’ve been able to discover, we need to raise the voodoo queen who placed the curse and have her remove it.”

Murphy turned the knife over in his hands again. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“Because it makes sense?”

“In an alternate universe.”

“The universe isn’t what you thought.” I touched his arm. “Which takes some getting used to.”

“How long did it take you?”

I smiled. “I’m still not.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he murmured, and kissed me.

His French was really good.

I don’t know what it was about this man, but every time he touched me, my mind went blank and my body went wild. I didn’t care who he was or what he’d done, as long as he did me.

Maybe I wasn’t so much reacting to Murphy as this place, our isolation—we only had each other to depend on; that created a bond—and the very real possibility we wouldn’t live to see the other side of the waterfall.

However, even before we were trapped here, I’d wanted him. Before I’d known anything about him beyond his talent for accents and an intense desire for money, I’d fantasized about the shape of his mouth and the taste of his skin. How could I not when he was so damn beautiful?

Now, knowing what I did about his past, having trusted him with my life and him trusting me with his, having shared more with him than I’d shared with anyone for a long time, I’d become attached. Despite the deceptions—both his and my own—I wanted to share an embrace, perhaps more. If we could only get rid of the guards outside the door.

I tore my mouth from Murphy’s. He yanked me right back, began to press his lips to my j aw, then my neck, murmuring my name.

“Murphy. I’ve got an idea.”

“Me, too. It kind of goes like this.” His palm covered my breast and his thumb caressed my nipple. My body, needy, treacherous as always, responded, the nipple hardening, my head falling back to give him better access to everything.

My gaze went to the door, where the guards were indeed watching. “We aren’t alone,” I whispered.

He lifted his head, but I tugged it back, shoving his nose into my cleavage. “Mmmph,” he said.

“Pretend you’re busy.”

“I don’t have to pretend.” His teeth scraped the swell of one breast; his fingers traced beneath my shirt and across my rib cage.

“Listen to me.” I nuzzled his hair, put my lips next to his ear, and licked the lobe, tangling the tip of my tongue in his earring, making him shudder. “I have an idea of how we can get out of here.”

“Later,” he murmured.

I groaned, and he took the sound as encouragement, dragging me into his lap. The diamond scraped my stomach; something else poked my backside.

“Get a grip, Murphy.” I shoved my hands into his hair and gave a sharp tug.

His head lifted, and I pressed our mouths together before he could say anything damning. I meant to give him a quick peck, but when his tongue slipped between my lips, I lost track of my thoughts.

Several moments passed before I found them again and pulled back just enough to whisper, “I’ve got some of the sleeping powder left.”

His brow creased. “You want to put me to sleep?”

“The guards.”

I waited for the blood to flow out of his cock and back into his head. His frown deepened the instant he understood. “How are you going to convince them to take it?”

“I haven’t gotten that far.”

“Once we make it past them there are still a few more zombies, not to mention Mezareau. Will the powder work on zombies?”

“It’s all we’ve got.”

“We could do with a lot more powder,” Murphy murmured.

“Wait.” I stroked his shoulder, rubbed my breasts against his chest.

“You keep that up, waiting isn’t going to be an option.”

I ignored him. “There’s a way to multiply an effect to every like being.”

“Lost me again.” He nibbled at my collarbone. From the brush of his erection against my hip, he didn’t appear to have lost anything at all.

I grasped his wrist before it could creep up my shirt. There was throwing off the guards and there was just copping a feel.

“Let’s say a woman came to me for a love charm, but she wanted all the men to love her. By combining this spell with a single love charm on a single man—”

“All men would adore her,” Murphy finished. “Sounds like a handy spell to know.”