Page 27

After the inspector’s van was out of sight, Jasmine stepped out from between two cars. She peered warily up and down our lane before walking fully into it.

“I almost changed right in the driver’s seat,” she told me as she walked up. “Not like that would have helped if an entire van smashed into the front of my car.”

“Jasmine,” Bolin blurted, dusting off his clothes.

I eyed the parking lot for signs of lingering vines but didn’t see any. Had he done that with potions or bath bombs? With the one I’d witnessed close up, it had looked like he’d used sheer power to make it sprout.

“Hi, Bolin. Were you the one to stop the van?” Jasmine tilted her head and smiled at him. “I thought I saw… things.”

“I, uhm.” He looked helplessly at me.

Torn between wanting her to know he’d helped and his natural inclination to hide his power?

“He did stop the van,” I said firmly. Jasmine already knew about his druidic tendencies. What was there to hide? “He’s been developing his abilities and is turning into a strong ally.”

I didn’t mention the screaming over the slashed strap of the man purse. With luck, Jasmine had arrived after all that.

“Yes.” Bolin nodded. “It’s, uhm, good to see you.” He brushed off his clothes again, though they appeared fine to me.

Jasmine looked down the lane to where her car had almost been flattened. “The help was well timed.”

“Yes,” Bolin said.

For a spelling-bee champion who knew a few bazillion words, he could get laconic at times.

“Bolin was wondering if you like non-alcoholic espresso martinis, Jasmine,” I said.

“Oh? I’ve never had one. That sounds really interesting though.”

“Would you like to come over sometime?” Bolin asked. “I can make you one.”

I raised my eyebrows, wondering if he’d been looking up recipes during our battle.

“I…” Jasmine looked at me, as if I should advise her on who she should date. Or maybe she wondered if a date was what Bolin wanted. He wasn’t the most direct about stating his interest in women.

I shrugged, feeling I’d done enough and that it was up to them to figure out if they were interested in each other. When she and I had discussed Bolin before, she’d been ambivalent. No, she’d compared him to her father. That was never a good sign.

But she looked toward the spot of her almost-collision again, then whispered to me, “He’s not an omega.”

“No,” I murmured. “I think he has potential to be badass.”

Bolin’s eyebrows rose hopefully, though I didn’t think he’d caught all that.

Jasmine smiled at Bolin. “I do like espresso-flavored things.”

His heart melted into a puddle in the parking lot at his feet.

The sounds of gunfire coming from the apartment complex next door made us all jump. Had the inspector stopped over there for some reason? I ran to the street and was in time to see a familiar armored SUV roar out of the parking lot with a wolf atop it. Duncan .

He crouched low to keep his balance as it sped into the street. Even in his bipedfuris form, where he had hands instead of paws, he’d struggled to stay on that vehicle. He couldn’t even damage it as a wolf, could he?

When the window opened and one of Radomir’s thugs leaned out with a rifle, I shouted for Duncan to look out. The guy rose up so that he could angle the gun toward his rooftop invader.

Even with the SUV racing away, Duncan managed to keep his balance enough to snap his jaws around the weapon before it fired. He flung it away. At the corner, the SUV made a hard turn, and Duncan flew off. He landed on his feet, but the vehicle sped away.

“I guess that’s why he couldn’t come right away to get the case,” I said, relieved that Duncan didn’t appear injured.

He glared in the direction the SUV had gone but must have decided he couldn’t catch it. From that intersection, it was a quick drive to the nearest freeway entrance. Had Radomir or Abrams been inside? Waiting for a report from their building inspector?

“More like for the case to be delivered into their hands.”

I wanted to check on it, but concern for Duncan overrode that desire, and I headed toward him.

He was halfway to me when he swished his tail, then disappeared into a copse of trees and bushes.

Had he left his clothes in there? Yes, he soon came out in human form, tugging his jacket on as he walked toward me. He glanced at his phone as he did so.

“Sorry.” He waved it, my text message on the screen. “I think I was already changing when you sent this. That bloke didn’t get the artifact, did he?”

“No. I stopped him and his werewolf buddy in time.”

“Werewolf? I didn’t sense one of our kind here, but as soon as I spotted that SUV, my focus was on it. Radomir was in the back. Waiting .”

“I knew this was all a ruse.” I shook my head, disappointed that Duncan hadn’t managed to catch Radomir. Had his weakened state worked against him? Though I wondered, I didn’t ask, not wanting to make him feel worse than he probably already did.

“I’m sorry I didn’t manage to capture him,” Duncan said quietly, perhaps guessing at my thoughts.

“Don’t worry about it.” I was more disappointed on his behalf than with him. “We’ll get another chance.”

“I hope so.” Duncan’s conflicted expression suggested he didn’t know how much time he had.

Concerned, I started to hug him, but Jasmine was waving to us. When she caught my eye, she pointed to her phone.

“Maybe that’s our opportunity now.” I touched Duncan’s shoulder, then led the way back through the parking lot toward her.

“Is her father doing research for you again?” Duncan walked at my side.

“Yes. It’s also possible that she and Bolin have agreed on an espresso-martini recipe and are excited about it.”

Bolin, who’d retrieved his maligned man purse, didn’t look that excited.

Glum was the word to describe his expression as he considered the cut strap.

I was surprised the small multitool blade had managed to sever it that quickly, but the inspector might have applied some of whatever type of power he possessed.

I was lucky he hadn’t managed to thwart the locks and get into my truck.

“I might need to get that repaired for Bolin,” I said as we approached.

“That’s a Stefano Ricci, isn’t it?” Duncan asked. “It might cost a pretty penny.”

“You think it’s a lot more work to sew the strap of a luxury brand than a knockoff?”

“I think those who do the repairs know which clients they can charge more to than others.” Duncan waved toward Bolin, the gesture including his expensive SUV.

“If I show up in my Goodwill clothes and my beat-up truck, they should give me a discount.”

Duncan gazed thoughtfully at me. “I suppose that’s possible. You could also show them your fangs. That can make craftsmen agreeable about offering deals.”

“I’m not a brute.”

“What should we do with the ladder you clubbed that man with, Luna?” Bolin asked as we walked up.

Duncan raised his eyebrows.

“He tried to club me first,” I told him.

“Naturally.”

“I’m not a brute.”

Duncan smiled. “Certainly not.”

Jasmine stepped close enough to show me her phone. “Dad found a newspaper article with photos of that glowy hand thing. It sold at an auction in this area a few years back.”

“At what kind of auction does one buy magical artifacts?” Bolin asked.

“This was an art auction.” Jasmine pointed at the heading.

“That thing didn’t feel artsy as it was boring agony into my brain,” I said.

“Dad did some digging and managed to find the name of the person who bought it. The company anyway.” She showed me.

“TBL Luxury Perfumes and Potions.” I recognized the umbrella company for Radomir’s various businesses. “Looks like he’s been collecting magical artifacts for years.”

“There wasn’t anything wolfish about that tool,” Duncan said, “not that I noticed.”

“Only that it was happy to thrust lances of pain-inducing power at a werewolf,” I said.

“That describes more artifacts than you’d like.”

“Throughout history, people have been afraid of powerful, shaggy beings,” Bolin said.

“Unfair,” Jasmine said. “They’re not as scary as out-of-control vans.”

“You think there should be more artifacts with the ability to zap those?” I asked.

“I do.” She nodded firmly. “Anyway, Dad got the address that was associated with the company too. Apparently, the auction was online, and the buyer had the tool shipped afterward.”

“Is it one of the places from the list your father put together before?” I leaned close to the phone to read it.

“No. I don’t recognize it. Maybe we should check it out though.”

“Wait.” I held up a finger. “ I recognize it.”

But where had I seen it before? Jasmine was right that it wasn’t on the earlier list of addresses her father had dredged up. I’d seen it… I flexed my fingers in the air, groping for the where and when. “Oh,” I blurted and pulled out my own phone.

“Oh?” Jasmine peered at it.

I flipped through the recent photos, then found one I’d taken of a shipping label on a box in the mushroom farm.

“When I saw this, I figured it belonged to an alchemist client that Radomir’s business was shipping mushrooms to.” I showed them the screen.

“Maple Falls?” Duncan asked. “That’s quite the happening little town.”

“Yes, and that thug I tackled at the theater said he’d delivered my sword to a laboratory in that area.

” I tapped the address into my map app. Driving directions appeared, heading to a location well east of the gas station and grocery store that marked the center of town. “Do you want to check it out?”

Right after the words came out, I wished I hadn’t asked. Duncan hadn’t fainted anywhere, as I’d worried earlier, but with bags under his eyes and a slump to his usually straight posture, he looked exhausted. No, more than that. He looked like he was dying.

Tears threatened as I studied him.

“This auction was years ago?” Duncan was focused on the phone screen rather than on me getting teary-eyed. That was for the best. He wouldn’t want me worrying about him. “It seems unlikely anyone is there now.”

By the time he looked at my face, I’d blinked away the tears.

“The auction may have been years ago, but someone was shipping mushrooms there last week.” I summed up my investigation at that property with Jasmine. We’d found Duncan after poking around there, so he hadn’t seen the inside of that garage.

“Ah, interesting. It’s a bit of a drive, but we don’t have any better ideas about their location, so it might be worth checking out.

” Duncan looked wistfully in the direction the armored SUV had gone, doubtless wishing he’d managed to catch Radomir here .

We could have been questioning him now instead of making plans to drive all over the Puget Sound area again.

“I can go. Maybe you can stay here and rest.” I waved to his van, then looked at Jasmine and Bolin.

Should I invite them along again? They’d been helpful in distracting the kidnappers at the cabin, but I worried about them being hurt.

Especially Bolin. He wasn’t a werewolf, and he wasn’t a relative.

What would I tell his parents if I got him killed?

“Rest?” Duncan asked. “It’s the middle of the day.”

“Yes, but you’re…” I glanced at the others. “Looking peaked.”

His eyebrows flew up, and he straightened. “Nothing a shot of caffeine won’t fix. Let’s visit your espresso maker. You have take-away mugs, don’t you?”

“Several.”

“That’ll do.” He nodded firmly.

Sadly, I doubted all the caffeine in the world would help him, but I nodded back. “Okay.”

He was my biggest ally. Not taking him didn’t seem right. Besides, if we found Radomir and Abrams, and they had a tool or artifact that could help him, he would need to be there for it to work.

“Do you want us to come, Aunt Luna?” Jasmine asked.

I bit my lip, considering them again. “Radomir and his building inspector might still be in the area. Would you stay here and keep an eye on things?”

“Things?” Bolin asked. “You mean the priceless artifact stuffed in your glovebox?”

“It wasn’t stuffed. It was carefully placed inside. I even insulated it.”

Bolin eyed the truck skeptically. Covering the case with a Kleenex possibly didn’t count as insulation, but I hadn’t crammed it in there.

“I could take it to my parents’ house,” he offered. “Dad has a safe, and it’s a pretty secure spot. Their house also isn’t due to have any building inspections. ”

I hesitated. After Radomir had looked up my family and known all about Austin’s trip home for the holidays, I assumed he also knew about my intern and his parents.

Radomir probably had their address as well as that of Bolin’s home.

Still, leaving it in my apartment wouldn’t be a good idea either, not after the supposed inspector had confirmed it was in the area.

“Maybe I’ll take it with me,” I said.

Bolin shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“And possibly deliver it into Radomir’s hands?” Duncan asked.

“I doubt he’s going to be up there when we get there.” I hoped he would be, but that seemed a lot to ask. The guy was more nomadic than a homeless man living out of a shopping cart.

“We could guard it while making espresso-martini mocktails.” Jasmine smiled at Bolin again.

He straightened. “Yes, we could. We wouldn’t even be drunk.”

“Sugar high, maybe,” I murmured, watching as Jasmine clasped Bolin’s hand. More to facilitate a potential budding relationship than to secure the artifact, I said, “Okay, go ahead. Keep an eye on it for me. I’ll bring you a souvenir back from Maple Falls.”

“We were just up there,” Jasmine said. “I got a splinter in my tail in that cabin.”

“I’ll bring you a better souvenir,” I assured her.

“Just get your sword back,” Jasmine said. “And fix Duncan. He looks…”

“Peaked,” I said.

“Yeah.” Jasmine shrugged. “Sorry, Duncan.”

“No worries,” he said. “It’ll play into our plan.”

“Our plan?” I asked.

“I’m still ready and willing to faint on your enemies while you take them from behind.”

“With a plan like that, how can we lose?”