She spun on me and flopped her arms in a dejected and beaten shrug. “At this point? I wish. Look at it again, Nico.”
I grabbed my sodden pants from the pile of wet clothes and dug the vial out. The vial was still sealed with the stopper, thescroll inside protected. Once I pulled the cork out, the piece of paper slid easily onto my palm. The inside did not look like it had ever contained blood or any other liquid.
“That’s all that was inside the damned thing. You’re gonna freaking love this,” Maddy growled, nodding toward the paper.
I unfurled the slip of paper. My jaw almost hit the floor as I read.
Sorry for the deception.I’m sure you understand what is at stake right now. If you are reading this, then the worst has come to pass for me and my family. You are the last of us and the only hope we have of stopping the usurpers. We had to have another safeguard in case they discovered how to get past the magical barrier. With the destruction of the cavern, the witch has been notified. She will reveal the final location of my life’s blood—the essence of the werewolf. Good luck, and Godspeed.
—Edemas
I growledand looked up at Maddy. “What the fuck?”
She stood there, arms crossed, looking even more pissed than I was. “Exactly.” She tossed her hands up in frustration. “What the hell is all this? It’s like some massive, dumbass, wild goose chase.” Her eyes were starting to go red, but I was too angry myself to try and calm her down.
I tossed the vial into the ocean, trying to put all my anger and rage into the throw. The thing made a very unsatisfying plop as it hit the water. We were right back at square one. We’d been so close. It seemed like any time we were about to get a break, the rug got pulled out from under us.
“Why couldn’t this witch or whatever find us right after what happened in Germany?” Maddy asked. She sounded dejected and on the verge of crying.
I stared at the rings of water that spread out from where the vial had dropped under the surface. There had to be more to this. I turned and looked at her and the others. “This can’t only be some test to make sure his last living descendant got through the barrier. There has to be more to it. Maybe if we find this witch, it’ll all make more sense.”
“Uh, hang on,” Sebastian said. “Are we really thinking this witch person is actually over three hundred years old?” He glanced at each of us in turn, like he wanted us to disagree.
“I think we have to entertain the idea,” Felipe answered.
“Right,” Tiago added. “Hell, you all can transform into wolves, and I can shift into a bear. That’s pretty damned outlandish when you think about it. Why not an ancient witch? Seems pretty par for the course at this point.”
Maddy shook her head and snorted an irritated laugh. “Nico, can we please go back to the villa? I can’t be here anymore.”
“Yeah,” I said, my anger deflating, replaced with a bone-deep depression. I pulled the anchor and turned the boat back toward where we’d come from.
Sebastian and Felipe dealt with explaining the loss of the wetsuits to the rental guy and paid him the extra to cover the cost. I sat in the car with Maddy and Tiago while they talked. The guy looked both confused and pissed, but once Felipe waved a stack of American twenties in his face, his scowl turned into a begrudging smile. All I could do was sit and stew over what had happened. Maddy sat silently beside me, staring out the window. By the time we got home, her face had gone red again, almost like her fury was ebbing and increasing like the tides.
She paced back and forth around the villa, muttering under her breath. The others stayed away from her, settling around the kitchen table. The mood was somber and dejected. None of us were happy with what had happened. We’d traveled halfway across the damned world only to be given another freakingriddle. It was almost like some fucked-up game ofWhere in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
I was staring out the back window at the ocean when the crackle and bang of breaking glass exploded behind me. Spinning around, I found the guys had leaped to their feet, and Maddy had grabbed a tile coaster off the coffee table and thrown it across the room, where it slammed into a mirror behind the couch. Broken glass rained on the floor.
“Well, there goes the security,” Sebastian muttered.
Ignoring him, Maddy said, “Why the hell is it like this?” She seemed to be asking the world itself rather than any of us in particular. “I’ve been attacked, almost murdered, chased, shot at, kidnapped, and damn-near bled dry. All because a bunch of power-hungry shitheads want to end all shifters. Now, just when we think we’ve found the fucking thing, we get sent on another trail to chase our damned tails.”
“Maddy,” I said, taking a step toward her, hands up, pleading with her to calm down. “Take a breath. We’ll figure this out. I promise.”
“You can’t know that!” she screamed. “No one can. Hell, maybe they were right. Maybe Edemas was insane. How else can you explain this horse shit? How can a sane person come up with this crap?” Her face was so red that I was worried she would pass out. She bent over and grabbed a second tile coaster and slung it at the other side of the room, where it buried itself in the drywall. She spun and walked toward the stairs. “I need a shower.” A few moments later, a door slammed.
Sebastian walked over to the new hole in the wall, touching the ragged sheetrock with a finger. “Never gonna let us rent from here again.”
I flopped down onto a seat at the table. I was also frustrated and couldn’t blame Maddy for lashing out and letting off somesteam. She had more on the line than anyone else. Her family, her life, and her entire future were all at stake here.
Tiago sat next to me. “What’s the next step? Where do we go from here?”
I mulled it over, then gave a despondent shrug. “Not really anywhere wecango right now. We don’t have any more leads on this vial. We have no idea who or where this witch is or if she even exists at all. All we can do is wait for the witch to contact us. Maybe the collapse of the cave will trigger some… shit… I don’t know, magical call button. It collapsed once Maddy took the vial out of that vase. We wait. Nothing else to do but wait.” The idea didn’t appeal to me, but I had no clue what else we could do.
Tiago nodded. “Then we wait. If there’s one thing bears have, it’s patience.”
“Must be nice,” I said. “Wolves are… a bit more impulsive by nature.” Before I could say anything else, my phone rang. It was Luis. I frowned at the others. “Luis is calling.”
“Why does that not fill me with the warm and fuzzies?” Felipe asked.
