Tainted: Book Three - Enslaved

50. Impasse

Author's Note: If you are reading my other current series, Thoreau, this is the chapter that crosses over with it. You don't need to read Thoreau to follow what happens here, but it might give you better reference to characters that are mentioned.

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Kerry

"Hey, Kerry," Hank said in an absent tone as he stared at his phone. "You ever hear of a dark witch who goes by Bennie?"

We'd just finished up with breakfast in a safe room at St. Pat's and had started coordinating with our teams and making sure we hadn't missed anything when my warden made me sit down with him on the couch.

"Yeah. Why?" I narrowed my eyes at him, cautious about where he was going with this.

I didn't need any of them knowing some of the things I did for - and with - her, things I wished I could permanently erase out of my memories.

"You do?!" He sat up straight and nearly dropped his phone in his lap. "How do you know her? And do you know where she is right now?"

"She's here in New York, and I supplied some, ah, stuff to her over the years in exchange for some, uh, stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

Choosing to believe he meant what stuff I received from her, I said, "I needed food, mostly, when I was a kid, and then healing as I got older."

"Healing?! You went to a dark witch for healing?!" Jax shrieked.

"It wasn't like I could go to a neph healer, moron." I shuddered, remembering the pain that racked me when my girl tried to heal me the night she found me. "A Divine healing on a possessed body woulda been more torturous than whatever wounds I had to begin with!"

"Is this her?" Hank held up his phone so I could see a grainy black and white photo.

"Yep, that's Bennie."

"Did you ever supply her with a werewolf?"

I swallowed hard. I didn't care about whatever had him riled up, but I was ashamed to tell the truth. I wasn't a coward, though. I'd been bold enough to do it; I could be bold enough to admit it.

"Yeah, I did," I said with my chin up and my shoulders back. "Lots of times. Bennie uses them to power her magic."

"How?" Gigi frowned. "How can you use a werewolf—"

"They have immense self-healing abilities, so you can hurt one over and over and still keep it alive for years."

"Hurt one? How does that power magic?" Mira asked.

"Pain, baby girl," Rome muttered as he raked a hand through his short hair. "After a witch makes a covenant with something Diabolical, she can use pain as her power supply, and what better source than a creature that can infinitely heal itself?"

"Well, so long as you don't overdose them with wolfsbane, silver, or mercury," I added, "or give them too many lethal injuries at once."

"Did you ever supply her with a young she-wolf?" Hank interrupted before I could explain further. "Half-Japanese and maybe two years younger than you?"

"Why?"

"Just tell me!"

"I did not." I narrowed my eyes, wondering what was going on. "I only ever brought her monsters. The ones whose wolf halves were feral or their human halves were insane or both. They were destined for the executioner, anyway. I just got there before the werewolf king sent the Angel of Death to end them."