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Ren was strapped to a chair in Else’s workroom, and the spirit inside him was seriously pissed off.
“Bring me Elswyth!” he screamed as soon as I removed the gag. “You promised me Elswyth, now bring her to me.”
Iris and Mags stood behind me, and Warrick hadn’t left my side. I crouched down in front of Ren. “We didn’t promise you that.” Else wasn’t home, thankfully. We wanted to find out more about this guy before she stepped foot in here. They had a past, and it was pretty fucking obvious that past was horrific. “If you want to see her, you need to answer some questions first.”
He spat at me, and I dodged the loogie just in time.
“Tell me who summoned you?”
His face screwed up in a way that was not Ren, then he snapped his teeth at me.
“What’s your name?”
He said nothing.
His gaze slid around the room, light sparking in his eyes. “Is she listening? Is she hiding somewhere, listening to me?”
“Maybe,” I lied.
His gaze slid back to me, with eyes that weren’t my fox’s, and he stared hard, like he was trying to set me alight from the force of his rage alone. Then he tilted his head back and yelled, “I know you’re listening, Else. Stanley screamed, he begged me not to hurt you. He begged for your life right until he stopped breathing.”
Stanley? Else’s familiar. He’d died when he was twenty-one and Else was nineteen. He’d been the love of her life, she’d told us that much, and she’d never loved anyone the same since. She never told us what happened; she couldn’t even bring herself to talk about it all these years later.
“You killed her familiar?” I rasped.
He grinned. “I tortured him. He lingered for days before I finally chopped him into little pieces.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I rasped.
The door opened, and Else walked in, Mom right behind her, looking frantic. There was fear in Else’s gaze, real fear, something Else seldom let anyone see, no matter how bad things got. She was one of the strongest women I knew.
“This is Edward, my sadistic weasel of a cousin,” she said. “He killed my Stan, then tried to kill me.” She patted her prosthetic leg. “But I wasn’t the one who died.”
Ren’s head jerked back. “Who are you?”
Else limped to her workbench and unraveled a length of string, then sliced her palm, balling up the string in her hand to soak up her blood. She was trembling as she came closer. “You don’t recognize me, Ed?”
He thrashed in the chair, fighting his bindings. “Why would I recognize you?”
“I know I’ve aged, but surely there’s still some of the girl I was left? Why don’t you look into my eyes, Ed? Look into your cousin’s eyes.”
He stopped his thrashing and stared at her with his black gaze, confusion slashing across his face.
“It’s been a while, Ed. I had hoped never to see you again, but here we are.”
“How?” he whispered.
“Haven’t you wondered why your magic doesn’t work?”
His eyes went wild. “I thought you bound them, didn’t you? You were always jealous of my power…so you…”
She shook her head. “You were the one who was jealous. I was the powerful one, and Stan saw right through you. He knew you wanted to hurt me.”
“I got rid of him,” he said with glee. “I took him from you, to break you. Then I was going to kill you—”
“But I killed you,” Else snarled.
The room went silent. Ed had no idea how much time had passed, or that he’d died fifty-three years ago, or that Else had killed him. Shit.
