Spells Trouble, Kristin Cast [books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

repeated and jerked his arms away from the horde. “Just need—” His chest quaked as he swallowed back another coughing fit. “Just need some air.” He rubbed his sweaty palms against his shirt and searched for an escape. He spotted the nearest illuminated EXIT sign, fisted his hands, and blinked past the water swirling across his good eye.

“I’ll go get you that coffee, Sheriff.” Trish’s shoes clicked as she turned and clapped her hands at the crowd. “Back to work, everyone. Back to work.”

He didn’t look back as he marched to the precinct’s rear exit. Their concern would do him no good. Bodies like this yearned to be reattached to their soul or given back to the earth. Bodies like Frank Dearborn’s made his curse that much more unbearable. This body couldn’t be fixed. It had to be fed.

Ancient words from lifetimes ago swept through his thoughts.

How delicious life would be

If only it could make you see

The hunger for what it truly is,

A way to set you free.

Now carry on with your cursed life,

And cut their eyes out, these orbs are so rife

With magic, but only one pair of these

Has what it takes to end your strife.

The memory squeezed the tattered remnants of his broken heart. Tears welled as the door slammed shut behind him. He sagged against the side of the department’s dumpster. Every ounce of him ached. He wasn’t a killer. And yet …

Cones of light bobbed against the garbage bin. He sniffled and squinted through his lenses at the headlights as they crept through the alley, closer and closer. Brakes squeaked as the car stopped short of the dumpster. The lights turned off and the car door groaned open.

He blinked the spots of light from his sight as dress shoes clicked against the pavement. “Didn’t you quit smoking years ago, Frank?”

Sheriff Dearborn’s stomach growled. “Stay back.”

The man’s cheeks lifted with a grin. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Especially not Trish.” He winked his right eye. His perfect right eye. A sparkling drop of charcoal black swimming in an endless pearl white sea.

Get away! The words wouldn’t leave the sheriff’s lips. They clung to the hunger tightening his throat and drenching his mouth.

The man motioned to Dearborn’s mirrored shades. “Wish I could get away with wearing sunglasses. Emily’s always saying that crying makes your eyes puffy.” His chuckle was dry and forced. “But you know how Em gets.”

“Tears make them moist,” he whispered. Heavy and juicy and— He wiped away the saliva at the corners of his lips.

The man stepped on a soggy clump of paper. It flattened under the toe of his shiny leather shoe. “In a small town, this job is always hard. I always know who I’m preparing. If I wasn’t friends with them, I was with some of their kin. Men in our positions have to stay strong. They depend on us for that.”

The sheriff pushed away from the dumpster and crept closer to the man with the flawless eye. “Can I be honest with you? Truly honest?”

“Of course, Frank.” The man’s feathery lashes waved at Dearborn with each blink.

“I’m the weakest man you know.” He lunged forward, caught the man by the neck, and slammed him into the pavement. Stumpy, manicured fingers clawed at the sides of Frank Dearborn’s face. The wild pawing caught Frank’s sunglasses and hurled them onto the concrete. Dearborn’s insides thrummed. He could see more clearly now. He could watch the fight melt from those perfect eyes like the last bits of snow from the grass.

This could be it. The pair of eyes that would free him from his curse.

Blood marred the perfect white with cherry red dots and zigzags. The man’s hands fell to his sides and his legs twitched in his body’s last attempts to run. Finally, his jaw slackened and his pupils widened and he stilled.

Dearborn released the man’s throat and slid off him. He sat on the pavement next to the body and traced the dead man’s flaccid eyelids. He leaned in and pressed his lips against the sweat streaked forehead. “Σας τιμώ.”

I honor you.

Dearborn plunged his fingers into the eye sockets and scooped out the gems. His stomach trembled as the first warm and gooey orb touched his tongue. He stared up at the dark sky and punctured the first eyeball with his sharp canine.

Please be those I’ve been seeking. Please be them. Please be them. He prayed over and over as wet paste filled his mouth and washed down his throat. He dropped the second viscous ball into his mouth and quickly chewed the slippery mass.

Nothing happened.

He rubbed his cloudy eye and blinked down at the eyeless corpse.

He had done this for nothing. Frank’s stomach settled as he swallowed the last bits. He’d taken a man from his family and his community for an unfulfilled dream. But he’d had to take the chance. It was the only way he could stay in this body and the only way his curse would one day come to an end.

He looked down at his wet and bloody hands and up at the back door to the sheriff’s department. He wiped his hands on his pants, plucked his sunglasses from the ground, and hooked his arms under the dead man’s, whose fancy shoes bounced along the pavement as Dearborn dragged him back to his car and shoved him into the driver’s seat. Frank dragged his aviators along his sleeve before he slid them on over his clouded eye. He walked to the back exit, wiped his mouth, and threw open the door.

“I need help out here!”

Deputies wasted no time springing into action. He heard them scramble to their feet and rush toward the exit. He charged back to the car and he kneeled next to the open driver’s side door with his head in his hands. He would sell this performance. He would dig deep and uncover each scrap of a memory. He squinted and studied the dead man’s bloodied features.

Dominic Parrott.

He would use them to rebuild