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Mal hesitated.
"You wanna get out of there in the next fifty years?"
He narrowed his eyes but moved forward. When they both reached out, they managed to brush fingertips between the space meant to separate man and beast.
Nothing happened.
Elise dropped her arm and moved back. "He's clean. "
"You're certain?"
"Old man," she said impatiently, "have I ever been wrong?"
"Not yet," he grumbled. "What about her?"
"Me?"
"For all we know, he bit and infected you during one of your. . . " - his lip curled - "tangible love episodes. "
"I wasn't like other werewolves," Mal said. "I didn't carry the virus. I never infected anyone, and I couldn't be killed with silver. "
"How strange," Elise murmured. "Other curses have changed the makeup of the person, their very DNA, turning them into a true lycanthrope. I'd like to do some tests on you. "
"What good would that do now, since he's cured?" I asked.
Elise shrugged. "I prefer to cover all my bases. "
I could understand that.
Mandenauer was scowling at Malachi so ferociously I got worried he'd shoot him with silver just to see if he was telling the truth.
"What would kill you?" Mandenauer demanded.
"Nothing. "
"There is always something," Mandenauer said.
"I was cursed to immortal wandering, to become a beast beneath the hidden moon. If I could be killed with silver, I wasn't very immortal, was I?"
"I've never heard of a witch with such power. "
"I doubt there's ever been one again. "
"Her power didn't preclude your killing her," I pointed out.
"Cursing someone in a fit of anger often backfires on the one doing the cursing," Elise said.
"Over two hundred years ago, I never knew when an eclipse might occur. " A sha
dow passed over Mal's face. "The not knowing was a curse, as well. I tried to kill myself, to have others kill me, but nothing worked. "
I could imagine how it had been when he'd first been cursed, uncertain each time the sun fell if that night he might become a wolf and kill the innocent. No wonder he'd entertained the notion of killing me. Over two hundred years of that would make anyone desperate.
"I do not like this whisper of immortality," Mandenauer murmured. "If there are more monsters out there that are unkillable, the world as we know it will end. "
"Cheer up," Elise said. "You always figure out a way to kill them. It's what you do. "
"True. " Mandenauer's morose countenance lightened. He waved a skeletal hand in my direction. "Touch her anyway. "
