Page 11 of Any Witch Wolf (The Smokethorn Paranormals #2)

Chapter

Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

N ick Gilder’s “Hot Child in the City” played on the jukebox in Ronan’s Pub. Such a great song. I had zero idea what the lyrics meant, and I didn’t care. The vibe was right for my mood.

A green and gold banner was strung up behind the bar, the colors echoed in centerpieces on some of the tables. A larger than usual crowd was present, but I didn’t register anyone familiar. After the evening I’d had, I was lucky I had the wherewithal to put one foot in front of the other.

I was tired, hurt, and angry, but worst of all, I was worried, and there wasn’t much I could do about any of it.

Head down, eyes locked on my goal, I walked down the short hall to where a sexy, Irish-Mexican-American man leaned against the doorframe, staring at me with golden eyes and a tightly clenched mouth.

Uh-oh .

“You’re late?—”

“Only an hour, and I texted you, so it doesn’t count. Once you hear about my night, you’ll under?—”

“And you’re fired.”

That was it .

I’d had just about e-godsdamned-nough . In under twenty-four hours, I’d rooted through an old man’s sex toy collection, faced off with a stalker and Mason Hartman, and survived a friendly-fire car bombing.

I was done, done, done .

“Pardon me, sir , was my work unsatisfactory?” I said, through clenched teeth as I strode past him into his office.

“No.” Ronan closed the door and slouched against it.

“Then what’s your complaint?” I asked. “Sure, I haven’t found Sy, but I’m close. For all we know, he took off to the Bahamas with one of his many women friends.” I pursed my lips, tapped my finger against them. I was furious, and that meant things were about to get seriously sarcastic. “If that’s the case, I’m going to need a way more lenient per diem. I’ve got to buy a new bikini.”

“You confronted Mason Hartman in public.” He raked his hand through his hair, and the auburn strands stood on end. His eyes glowed like fire. He was also furious, but there was no scorn in him, only rage. “ Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve done ?”

“Okay, I get it now. You don’t know how this works.” I half-sat, half-leaned against his desk. “See, when the trail goes cold, you have to sizzle it up. Usually by turning up the heat.” I wrinkled my nose. “I believe the pack has something to do with Sy’s disappearance, and I think Mason knows it—heck, he’s probably in on it. The only way to goad a guy like him into making a move is to get under his skin.”

“ That’s what you think you did?” Ronan stomped past me and threw himself into his chair. He took several deep breaths, ending each with a shaky exhalation. When he seemed more in control, he said, “You were already under his skin, Betty. Now you’re up his ass.”

“ Ew .”

“I regret my turn of phrase,” he said, “not the message behind it.”

“Why am I up his—no, that’s a dumb question. I know why. Because Mason thinks I mean Alpha Floyd harm. He’s right, of course, but not the kind of harm he’s thinking of.”

“Betty, hell .” He sprang out of his chair and paced the cramped space behind his desk. “You can’t say things like that in front of me. I’m third alpha.” He started doing the breathing thing again.

“Like you haven’t thought it before.” I flipped around to face him. “Can you cool it with the pacing? I want to talk to you.”

“I’m in hell. That’s the only explanation.” He fell back into his chair. “Hades. The abyss. Land of the damned.”

The memory of how it had felt to have my head on the other side of the Hell portal stabbed into my brain. Fear sheeted over me like ice. “No, you’re not. Trust me .”

His gaze flicked to mine and softened. “Sorry.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “I never asked, are you, you know, okay after everything that happened that night?”

You know, okay ? What a shitty way to put it. Points for effort; demerits for execution.

“You mean that night when, while procuring a cursed book for your father, a demon crammed my head through a portal into Hades? Is that the night you’re referencing?”

“I warned you not to take the job, but you didn’t listen.” His gaze zeroed in on my face and went from annoyed to quizzical. “Hey, did you go swimming today? You look badly sunburned.”

The charm was taking its sweet time healing my skin. I supposed I should be grateful it was still working on my ribs. They hurt a lot less now, even when I’d experimentally taken the charm off in the car.

At least my eyebrows were on point. All that practice penciling them in on Ida had paid off. Even with my hand still trembling from the adrenaline dump, I’d drawn perfect pin-up girl brows to replace the ones I’d lost.

Damn Cecil.

“My skin is fine. And my brain is fine, too, thank you very much for asking. Except, you know, for the nightmares. And the daymares. And the wide-awake-mares.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said.

“Again, it’s fine.” I shoved the subject aside. “Someone’s been following me. I think it might be Mason’s doing.”

“Is this about your sedan stalker?” Ronan shook his head. “Can’t be. If it was one of Mason’s wolves, you wouldn’t know they were there.”

“Maybe, maybe not. And I didn’t say it was a wolf.” I folded my arms over my chest, immediately dropping them to my sides when my sore ribs protested. “The dude looked pretty pissed after Cecil scorched the top of his car last night. Angry people make mistakes.”

“Cecil did what ?”

“He scorched it with a spell. It wasn’t that big a deal, just a little black mark on the roof.” I waved my hand dismissively. “ However , he did turn the car into a literal fireball tonight, which,” I drew a circle around my face with my finger, “explains my lovely flash burn.”

Ronan’s mouth fell open. “Fireball? What does that mean?”

“It means Cecil threw an explosive spell bag and blew up my stalker’s car behind the Siete Saguaros parking lot.”

“What the…? And this all happened tonight ?”

“About an hour ago. Which is why I was late.”

“You should’ve called. I’d have come to you.” He started to get up but fell back into his chair. “If you were close enough to be burned by the blast, how are you up and walking around?”

I reached into my top and showed him the charm.

“Wait a minute. Did Cecil kill Mason’s wolf? Hell. This whole situation is out of control.” He raked his hand through his hair again. He was starting to look like a teenager from the early 2000s. All he needed was some crunchy hair gel and a puka shell necklace.

“No one was killed—or even injured too badly.” I frowned. “I think.”

“You think ?”

I tucked the charm back into my blouse. It worked best when it was on bare skin. “He ran away, so obviously he was uninjured enough to do that. Also, I don’t think the guy is a wolf. He is a paranormal, though. Would Floyd allow Mason to hire someone outside the pack to follow me arou—oh, that’s a dumb question. Of course he would.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“No. Cecil did get a first-degree flash burn on his nose, but that had to be from earlier, because he and Fennel ran from the blast. I’m thinking it took him a couple tries before he perfected the explosive spell. My consciousness was in the soil, so I probably missed the boom. Anyway, I slathered him with aloe vera. With his escalated healing and the charm, he’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

Ronan didn’t speak for a moment. His lips moved, but he just sat there like one of Beau’s back-room customers and stared at me. “I have so many questions, but I can’t seem to marshal my thoughts.”

“It’s been that kind of day,” I said. “Regarding Sy, though, if it makes you feel better, no one in the pack knows you hired me. I didn’t even tell Gladys.”

“He knows,” he said.

“Floyd? How? I’ve told no one.”

“He knows how I feel about you. He knows how I feel about the elderly wolves. He knows .”

The words, delivered in a robotic monotone, almost coasted past me, but I swung back around to the first sentence. “How you feel about me?”

“Yes, Betty. This is the moment to play dumb. With all the other bullshit going on.” He crossed his arms on the desk and rested his forehead on them. It was his the-shit-has-hit-the-fan pose. He did it a lot lately.

“Sorry. I was digging for compliments.” I scrunched up my nose. I hated admitting how much him liking me meant.

“I know—also, it’s nice to know you consider my liking you a compliment.”

He lifted his head and smiled.

I smiled back.

“Did you get summoned by the alpha?” I asked.

He kept his eyes shut tight. “More like I got scolded by the alpha.”

“Setting our mutual trauma aside, both of those would be great titles for romance books.”

“They would, wouldn’t they?” He laughed, low and rumbly. “Still, I don’t think that’s how trauma works. Pretty sure you don’t get to just set it aside at will.”

“You’re right.” I stood and dug a lavender bud out of my purse. “Fine then. You’ve fired me. So no worries, Pallás. And as far as what’s going on between us, tell your dad you’re trying to get into my pants. The lowlife will probably be proud of you.” I set the bud on his blotter, next to his hand and what appeared to be a penciled equation determining the cost of beer per pint. “Nothing to worry about.”

One auburn brow shot up. “Godsdamn it. You’re not going to stop investigating, are you?”

“As far as you’re concerned, yes.”

“And that means no, you are not. Damn it, Betty.” He snatched the lavender bud up and pressed it to his nose. “Is this what having a panic attack feels like?”

“I don’t know. Describe the feeling.”

“Like my breath is coming too fast yet not bringing in enough oxygen, my head feels alternately like a balloon and a fifty-pound weight, and I think I might be sweating inside my mouth.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely a panic attack. The mouth thing is different, though. Maybe that part is because I turn you on.”

“I doubt it. I know what happens when you turn me on. This ain’t it.”

Well, well, well. I wanted to know more, but this wasn’t the time. “Breathe in the lavender. It’ll help.”

“Okay.”

I had an overwhelming urge to reach across the desk and smooth his hair, run my hands over his shoulders, ease them back down into place.

Instead, I fisted my hands and kept them by my sides.

“I questioned two of Sy’s lady friends today. They don’t seem the jealous type. And he wasn’t the sort of man to fan the flames of jealousy among his dates. They liked spending time with him, and he with them. He kept it light, and they liked it that way. He even used protection. The man could give a class at Smokethorn Valley College on how to be an upstanding booty call.”

Ronan set the now-crushed lavender on the blotter and folded his hands behind it. “Stop looking for him.”

“He also has a fish named Angel.”

“A fish? Why’re you talking about a freaking fish ?” He indicated the crumpled lavender with a nod. “Fix it, please.”

I pushed magic into the bud, and it plumped up. I passed it to him. “Settle down.”

“ Settle down ? Mason Hartman is paying attention to you. That’s never a good thing.”

“I disagree. If he’s rattled, he’ll make a mistake.”

“Hartman doesn’t get rattled. And it doesn’t matter if you disagree, because you’re off the case.”

“Double disagree.” I backed to the door and put my hand on the knob. “I’m not working for you, but I am still looking for Sy. If you hear anything about him, let me know, okay?”

“Damn it, Betty…”

I walked out, closing the door behind me.

I took the back way home. It would be easier to tell if I was being followed on a two-lane road.

“Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain and Tennille played on the oldies station, definitively proving that the DJ wasn’t psychic. Or proving that she/he/they had a shitty sense of humor.

I drove and seethed.

Why’re you talking about a freaking fish?

The reason I’d mentioned the fish was because it was one of those throwaway details that became important in situations like this. I wasn’t an expert in missing persons investigations, but I’d worked with a lot of people with problems over the years. And, often, the key to solving those problems was in the details.

The betta’s aquarium had been clean and well-decorated. There were two fuzzy green moss balls lying on the multicolored gravel, a cute tiny castle, and a floating log. There was a water testing kit in a small box beside two different types of food, and box of filter refills.

Sy was a good fish dad.

And there was something else, something Calvin had said as I was walking out this morning. “When Sy’s wife Edina was going through radiation treatments, she lost her long, chestnut hair. When it grew back, it was white. To cheer her up, Sy told her he loved it even more than the brown because it glimmered like spun glass angel hair on a Christmas tree.”

No freaking way would that man have left town without asking Calvin to care for that fish.

I made it home without event and fell into bed. I dreamed of cloudy days and wolves with spun glass fur and lavender buds swaying in the spring breeze.

Ronan called twice on my drive, and once after I was home. I ignored all three calls and the ten text messages he sent—including the one he’d woken me up with at seven.

Nothing was going to stop me from finding Sy. At this point, it didn’t even feel like a choice. Despite what I’d thought about him after reading his black book, Sy had proven himself to be one of the good guys.

And I knew better than most that good guys didn’t often win.

I wanted him to win.

Fennel broke into my trailer just before midnight to inform me that Cecil was watching over the mandrake. He left to join them, and I lay in bed, staring at the aluminum ceiling.

How worn out am I that I forgot there was a Mictlan mandrake buried on my property?

Despite everything battling to keep me awake, I fell asleep shortly after Fennel left. This time, my dreams were dark and painful. Cursed red eyes peered at me from the other side of a rip in the world while red-hot claws dug into my hands and feet and an unseen malevolent force frog-marched me to the edge of the world—and my sanity.

I woke in a cold sweat and discovered last night’s eyebrows on my pillowcase along with a few singed lashes. After a quick shower, I gathered up my bedding and this week’s laundry, and took it to Ida’s place. She had a little shed behind her house with a washer and dryer, and for some reason, a shower. She used the shower stall for storage.

Once I had that going, I went home to do my usual Saturday morning cleaning. Scrubbing, sweeping, mopping, plant care, none of it took long in a nineteen-foot trailer. I was sore from the explosion last night, but the charm was still going strong.

As I worked, I hummed along to the radio. The DJ was back to psychic mode because “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac was followed by Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ with Disaster.”

If that didn’t sum up my last twenty-four hours, I couldn’t say what did.

Fennel brought over everything he’d managed to find in the sedan wreckage, which was charred registration paperwork, a set of keys with what used to be a plastic dealership keychain, and an unburned bundle wrapped in banana leaves and knotted with hemp fiber yarn.

I’d seen bundles like it before. In fact, I’d used banana leaves and hemp yarn as a binder in some low power hex bags myself. I preferred burlap, but some spells worked better with leaves.

It was odd, though. Organic materials burned in fires—they were usually the first thing to go. Though if they were active , they might not.

“Hell.”

I slid the bundle into a magic-dampening bag, and Fennel and I took it to the garden room. Cecil was at his workstation working on charms, probably trying to show me how valuable he was to me so I wouldn’t boot his tiny ass into the street for last night’s explosion.

I wouldn’t.

He was a devious little miscreant, but he was my devious little miscreant.

I pulled a ten-inch terracotta pot from a shelf and scooped soil from the recently composted pile into it. When it was full, I made a fist and punched into the soil. I whispered a spell—one of the first I’d learned from Mom and Abuela—and dumped the hex bag into the depression I’d made. It wouldn’t kill the spell, but it should keep any magic contained to the pot.

“Cecil, can you take a look at this? Fennel found this in the car you blew up.”

“ Meow .”

“Sorry. Under the car, not inside.”

Cecil clapped his tiny hands beneath his beard. He hummed words in a language that was far removed from anything I’d ever heard before. It was alien mathematics combined with power and secured with intention. The gnome often spoke in Elvish, so I was familiar with the language. This wasn’t it.

He clapped again, and his body was encased in a purple glow the color of his hat. He hopped into the hole and disassembled the bundle. His tiny hands worked methodically, removing each item and placing it atop the soil so I could see it, too.

“Oh Goddess.” The bottom fell out of my stomach.

Knots. Some made from twine, some from cotton string, embroidery floss, yarn, ribbon, and jute. Most were knotted once, but some had been tied up several times.

All had been soaked in blood.

Fennel head-bumped my leg. “ Meow .”

“I’m okay,” I said, swallowing a fresh surge of fear as Cecil brought out the last item. He tossed it to me. I set it aside and reached for my cell. “I don’t think this hex bag came from the stalker. The blood has long dried, and it feels old. Like it’s been here a while. We should check to make sure there aren’t any others.”

My fingers shook as I took photos of the contents with my cell phone. When I was finished, Cecil stomped everything into the dirt. He sent magic into the pot and jumped off the lip in time to avoid being caught in the small fire. The purple aura around him dissipated, and he scampered up the leg of his workstation to watch the ingredients and the soil burn away.

I examined the item Cecil had separated from the others. It was a supple lavender stem, about a foot long, knotted in three places then tied into one large knot. I chanted a spell of release, and the knots slowly untied themselves. When the final one opened, it released a dark brown strand of hair that looked worryingly like one of mine.

I took another photo.

“Guys, I’m starting to think our stalker is dangerous.” I closed my eyes, and a single flame, the size one might see on a kid’s birthday candle, burned the hair and lavender.

My normal method of curse disposal was to bury the item in the ground and let nature dispose of it. Since I didn’t know exactly what the spell did—or how dangerous it was—fire was a safer bet. I’d salt the ashes, of course.

“Let’s fan out and look for more of these things. With the protection spell in force, it’s unlikely whoever did this was able to place any inside the park, but I’m going to look anyway.”

My partners agreed and took off.

I walked out to the spot where I’d called to the soil yesterday. It’d responded to me when I was tracking down the mandrake, and I was hoping it would do it again.

This time, when I slid my fingers into the soil, it came to life quickly, glowing around my hands. A tiny surge of magic rushed into me, and I nearly squealed with pleasure. It’s working. It’s finally working.

“Show me,” I said, sliding my eyes closed. “Show me every magical thing that’s been placed within your depths.”

Fennel brought me back to myself an hour later.

Once again, I woke up flat on my face, buried several inches in the earth. Most people would have panicked; after all, mammals require oxygen to survive. But my connection to the earth, a gift of the elemental magic I was born with, allowed me to override this need. I simply lost the need to draw breath when I was under the earth.

I reluctantly extricated myself. The soil had felt good, comforting, safe.

“ Meow .”

“Okay, okay, I’m moving.” I pushed to my knees, patted Fennel’s back, and started to dust off my clothing. Oddly, once again, there was no dirt on my skin. My clothes were caked with it, but there wasn’t as much as a smudge on any visible part of my flesh. A hum of magic moved beneath my skin. It didn’t feel great, but I wouldn’t say it was painful, either.

Had I finally done it? Had I truly connected with the earth beneath the Siete Saguaros?

I attempted to tap into the small amount of magic the soil had given me to bring a flame to my palm without chanting or actively casting. The most basic of spells, it was so easy it required almost no magic at all. A baby witch would have no problem with it.

Hand extended, palm flat, I reached for the magic.

And reached.

And reached.

I couldn’t do it. The power was there, frustratingly close to the surface of my skin, I just couldn’t quite grasp it.

This was beyond weird.

Fennel head-butted me to get my attention. “ MEow .”

I took a good look around.

Dessert-plate-sized dirt mounds dotted the property.

Hex bags.

And there were dozens of them.