A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [56]
“You can’t keep torturing yourself,” Father Castelo said.
Lena shrugged. “I’d torture the werejaguars, but I can’t find them. This city is too damn big. I’ve questioned every junkie I could find. The only lead I’ve got came from Animal Control. They said jaguars are solitary creatures. The exception is when they’re young, when they stay with their mother.”
“You think these were children?” Castelo asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know. It’s still not enough to find them.” She bowed her head. “There was a time no evil could hide from me. Now . . . I can’t do it, Father. Janice was my strength.”
Lena knew something was wrong the moment she emerged from her tree. She closed her eyes, reaching inward. For nine years, she had carried the memory of her first time with Janice. Crying out together in Janice’s dorm room as Lena uncovered Janice’s fantasies, her unspoken desires, fulfilling not all of them—there was only so much time in the night—but enough to bind Lena to her.
This morning, that memory was a distant thing, the intensity gone.
“Oh please gods, no.” Lena ran for the back door. Inside, she took the steps three at a time. She spotted the police the instant she reached the second floor. Her apartment door had been ripped from its frame. One officer stood questioning the couple from across the hall. He glanced up, spotting Lena.
“Ms. Greenwood?”
Lena ran past him. How could she have been so stupid? “Janice!”
“You don’t want to go in there, ma’am.” The officer grabbed her arm. “You don’t need to see that.”
Even from the doorway, Lena could see enough. The door splintered on the ground, furniture overturned, blood everywhere. Two other uniformed officers moved through her apartment. One carried a chair leg with blood and fur in the broken end. Janice had given them a fight before she died.
“What happened to you, Lena?” The officer’s grip tightened every so slightly. “I know this is a shock. Would you mind coming with me to answer some questions?”
Lena glanced down at herself. Her shirt was still a bloody mess. No wonder he sounded suspicious. “I don’t have time.”
“Where were you last night?”
“With a friend,” she said numbly. “Father Castelo.” Castelo would cover for her if they called. Not that it mattered. Janice was dead, which meant very soon, Lena Greenwood would follow.
She had been through it so many times before, but never like this. Never when it was her own fault.
Within a day, the grief would lose its edge. Two days, and she would begin to flirt with random strangers. A week, and her body would start to change, adapting to the desires of the people around her. Her mind would do the same, and she would float along until someone else claimed her.
“Do you have any idea what might have done this?”
Lena looked at his hand on her arm. “Yes.”
Janice was dead, but Lena wasn’t gone yet. She broke his hold with ease, tossing him through the doorway like a doll. The other officers did their best to break his fall.
Lena glanced at her neighbors. “I always liked you,” she said to the girl. “I wanted you to know he’s been cheating on you. I can smell it.”
By the time anyone recovered, Lena was gone.
“You’ve done the best you could,” said Father Castelo.
Lena bowed her head, hiding behind hair both longer and lighter than it had been a week before. Everything had been so clear, but lately she was having a harder time concentrating. She had put this off as long as she could. Another day, and she would be gone. “Even if I found them, I’m not strong enough to fight.”
“What will happen to you?” He fidgeted uncomfortably, tugging at his collar. “Forgive me. I’m used to counseling the sick and the dying, but this—”
“I know. It’s all right.” She still couldn’t look at him. “I don’t plan to die.”
Overhead, the stained glass in the arched windows brightened as the ghosts emerged, sensing her intentions. But they wouldn’t interfere, not unless she directly threatened Father Castelo or if he commanded them to help.
Castelo rose, brow wrinkling as he watched the dead circle the church