Page 20 of Kin of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic #3)

20

My stomach was churning by the time I reached Redmond to pick up Jasmine. She still lived on her parents’ property, in an ADU in the backyard, and was waiting for me when I pulled into the driveway. The lights were on in the main house, a 1960s rambler that was modest for the area, though it occupied a large treed lot that made it appealing to my werewolf senses.

“I’m excited to help you get your comeuppance on Augustus,” Jasmine said as she slid into the passenger seat of my truck.

“Did you tell your parents where you’re going tonight?” I hoped this wouldn’t get her in trouble. Her mom had been helping my mom keep an eye on me over the years, so I doubted her parents wanted to see me slain by Augustus, but that didn’t mean they would support a break-in and forced confession.

“I’m twenty-four, graduated, and a strong and independent werewolf woman. I go where I wish, when I wish.”

“Uh-huh. When do you need to be home?”

“Unless there’s a hunt, I have a one a.m. curfew.” Jasmine wrinkled her nose. “ Aurora doesn’t have a curfew. She moved out last summer though. I’m saving to buy a condo, so I won’t have rules to follow anymore, but I don’t want to throw money away on rent, so it’s going to take a while.”

“One a.m. is a reasonable curfew.”

“I guess. I can’t play my music loud past nine though.” She sighed dramatically, then turned on the truck’s radio.

“I think condos have similar rules. HOAs are as bad as parents.”

“Ugh, I know. Mom is in real estate. This truck doesn’t have CarPlay or anything?”

“You’re lucky it doesn’t have punch buttons for the programmed stations. I would have gotten an even older truck if I hadn’t been doing Uber on the side.”

“Anything older than this would be valuable because it’s a classic.”

“Not all old cars are classics. Trust me.” I brought up the navigation on my phone and followed the directions, heading south, toward Lake Sammamish and Augustus’s house on the east side of it. “If you want true independence, you could buy a duplex and live in one side and rent out the other half.”

“Duplexes are more expensive than condos. I’d be saving forever.”

Since I’d been saving for my future fourplex for ages, I couldn’t argue with that.

“Here we go.” Jasmine found a station booming rap and turned up the volume. “This will help us get into the mood for storming a castle.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, this station plays classic rap. Good stuff.”

Insane Clown Posse came on with “Under the Moon.” I found the lyrics a little too apropos for my earlier thoughts about Duncan and was relieved when the song was over.

“What’s the plan?” Jasmine held up her phone. “I’m ready to record, but how are you going to get him to confess to everything? ”

I waved at the vials of potions rattling in the cup holder. “I have a number of truth elixirs. I intend to force, sneak, or otherwise inveigle one down his gullet. If any of my other cousins are around, I might do the same to them. They could be less stubborn about spilling their guts.”

“But you don’t want me to help you fight?” Jasmine looked at me. “I don’t doubt that you can take Augustus one-on-one?—”

I snorted since Augustus couldn’t, as far as I’d seen, fight anyone by himself. He probably didn’t even take a leak without one of his siblings holding his hand.

“—but he’s not usually there alone.”

“He doesn’t live with his wife now, right?”

“No, they’re separated. But whenever I’ve been to his place, it’s been more like a frat house with his sibs and cousins around, mostly the guys. There are computers and giant TVs everywhere with video games, pool tables, and there’s a setup for gambling on sports and streaming them live from around the world. You can lounge all over the place in there. There’s a giant hot tub in the back with a view of the lake.”

“If he doesn’t live with his wife, why did he care if she inherited my mom’s medallion?” I’d questioned that before and wondered if my niece knew.

Jasmine only shrugged. “Maybe he’s trying to win her back.”

“The lifestyle of a computer-game-addicted online gambler is sure to renew her passion for him.”

I thought of our fight in the driveway. Since I’d been in wolf form for it, my memories were a little hazy, but I distinctly recalled one of his allies shooting at me with the same kind of magical silver bullet that Radomir’s thugs used.

“Have you talked to his wife lately?” I asked.

“Maybe a month ago. Now that she’s on her own and supporting herself, she’s trying to get into selling real estate, so she talks to my mom some. She wants to specialize in leasing apartments and selling houses to those in the paranormal community. Like finding stuff that’s specifically good for their unique needs.”

I thought of Rue’s problems and allowed that people with magical blood did have slightly different needs—or at least required more privacy—than the average human. “Are there enough paranormal people in the Seattle area moving at any given time for her to have a career?”

“I’m not sure. Do you want me to ask her next time I see her?”

“What I’d like to know is her opinion on my mom’s medallion… and if Augustus ever said anything about trying to get it for her.”

Maybe that had been a lie and he wanted it for other reasons.

“Do you think she’d be honest about it if they were scheming?” Jasmine asked.

“No, but if they’re separated and not scheming together, she may be happy to throw him under the bus.”

Jasmine looked at me.

“It’s how separation works. Trust me.” I looked at the time—7:20—and sped up, following winding, tree-lined roads that led to Augustus’s property. If I wanted to get there and accomplish my mission before Duncan arrived with explosives, I had to hurry.

“Up there.” Jasmine pointed to a short stub of a road that veered off the main thoroughfare and down to the lake. “It’s at the end. Big lot. Castle.”

“It is a castle? I couldn’t tell from the satellite imagery.”

“Yup. There’s a fountain in the yard with a dragon squirting water from its nostrils.”

“Well, that ups the class level. I was worried by your description of the contents.”

“Did you imagine Augustus living somewhere classy?”

“No. Not on a lake either. Werewolves are supposed to be into… well, not austerity necessarily, but what kind of wolf craves a pampered lifestyle? ”

“He has a lot of money these days. He told my dad he started his own business.”

“Extorting local entrepreneurs, yeah. I hear that pays well.” As we rolled closer to the property, the stone walls covered with ivy hid much of the lot, but the gray stone towers of the main home—the castle —were visible beyond them. I wondered how many people my cousin extorted every month. To pay for this place, it had to be his full-time job. Either that, or he divvied up the extortion duties with his siblings. Given how often he’d been lurking around my apartment complex of late, it was hard to imagine him having time to personally wander all over two counties, acting like a brute while collecting payments.

I stopped the truck in front of a wrought-iron gate, a tidy green lawn and numerous sculptures visible beyond the bars. And, yes, landscaping lights shone upward onto the promised dragon fountain. The air was misty with fog creeping in from the lake. I couldn’t see around the hulking castle to the dock and boathouse but thought of Duncan. If I did need his distraction—his help—he shouldn’t have trouble getting close if he came from the water.

I eyed the lawn and tried to tell if the grass held magical security devices similar to the ones that had zapped me at Mom’s cabin. I didn’t sense anything similar, but we would have to be careful. Here, in his abode, Augustus had all the advantages. And I had...

“A pocket full of druidic bath bombs,” I muttered.

“What?” Jasmine asked.

“Nothing.”

I slipped my hand under my shirt to rub the locket Duncan and I had found together weeks earlier. A longevity talisman that had been made by a witch, it had a little power and had seemed to bolster me with energizing magic the times I’d touched it. Tonight, I could use all the help I could get .

After rubbing the locket, I pressed a button under a speaker on a cement post beside the driveway. “Pizza delivery.”

“Nobody ordered a pizza,” came a prompt reply.

It wasn’t Augustus. Did he have a butler? Minions ?

“Mysterious and magical wolf-case delivery,” I said with an eye roll.

There was a longer pause before a panel on the post flipped down, and a camera extended out. It focused on the driver’s seat, then shifted slightly to point its lens at Jasmine. After that, it lifted up on an articulating arm to peruse the rest of the truck, including the bed.

Someone was checking to see if I’d brought Duncan along.

The camera retracted, and the gate swung open.

“Guess we’re invited in,” I murmured.

“Looks like.”

“Does he have servants?” I asked quietly as I navigated the truck inside, wondering who manned the security station.

Numerous other vehicles were parked in the large driveway in front of a four-car garage, the wooden carriage doors designed to make it look like an old-fashioned stable attached to the rest of the castle. At least there wasn’t a moat filled with alligators.

“There’s a cleaning service that comes every morning—Augustus can’t be expected to make his own bed, you know. As far as I’ve seen, it’s just the family that’s here most of the time. That was Orazio, I think. He has an app on his phone so he doesn’t have to get up to answer the gate buzzer.”

“It would be tragic if he had to leave a computer game in progress.”

“Tell me about it,” Jasmine said. “They’re all into Destiny Wields a Sword . I’m surprised they find the time to terrorize anyone, though Augustus doesn’t play. He’s the mastermind.”

“That bodes well for the future of the pack.”

I parked next to a Camaro with the top down. The license plate read GUSTUS. I hoped the dampness from the fog made the leather on the seats pucker.

After tucking the potions into my pockets, tissues wrapped around them to keep them from clinking, I grabbed a ski glove to wear on my left hand, gripped the case, and got out. It tingled painfully through the material, but the glove was slightly more effective than the oven mitt.

“Ready to record?” I murmured as we headed toward double wooden doors with wrought-iron bars over small windows in the tops.

As with the stone wall bordering the property, ivy crept up the sides of the castle, curling around the archway of the covered porch on its way up to the towers.

“Yup.” Jasmine patted her pocket. “Is that the real artifact? I can sense magic in it.”

“Unfortunately, yes.” I was well aware that I risked losing it tonight. “I’ve tried making fake artifacts before, but they weren’t that convincing. Technically, Bolin made my fake artifact, but I directed him.”

“He has some power, doesn’t he? That of a druid?”

“Yeah, but he used a 3D printer.”

“I have an idea about why your artifact wasn’t that convincing.”

“Yup.”

I lifted a finger toward the doorbell but paused, movement in the shadows of the yard catching my eye. I looked in time to spot two glowing red eyes pointed in our direction. The animal—a wolf or mongrel dog?—darted into bushes near one of the walls and disappeared from view.

“What kind of werewolf keeps guard dogs?” I muttered.

Though if Augustus had them for security, that might explain why I hadn’t sensed other magical defenses.

Jasmine looked but didn’t catch the eyes. I couldn’t sense the animal, not the way I did most magical beings. The special water from the cave, if that was what Augustus had used, might not convey power beyond glowing eyes and an openness to obeying commands.

Another bush stirred near the side of the castle. I had a feeling there was a whole pack on the grounds. I thought about calling to warn Duncan, but there were probably cameras nestled among the ivy, and someone might be listening to us.

After bracing myself, I rang the doorbell. It sounded like a gong being struck. “That’s more monastery than castle, isn’t it?”

Jasmine shrugged.

The door swung open, inviting us into a stone-walled, marble-tiled foyer, with an elaborate candelabra hanging from the high ceiling.

“Does Orazio have an app for opening the door too?” I could sense werewolves deeper in the castle but none nearby.

“I think so. You can’t interrupt the gaming.”

“If Augustus were an organized evil overlord,” I said, stepping warily inside, “we could skulk around and look for filing cabinets full of condemning paperwork, but I kind of doubt we’d find that.”

“Sounds pretty old-school. People keep filing cabinets on their phones these days.”

“True.” Maybe I just needed to steal Augustus’s phone to condemn him. Was Jasmine’s dad enough of a computer expert to hack someone’s password? I seemed to recall he programmed games, so maybe not.

We walked through the foyer and into a wide hallway, passing decorative vases and full-body suits of armor holding swords. Open doors revealed gaming rooms with the giant screens that Jasmine had promised, but nobody was lounging on the furniture. Maybe it wasn’t as much of a den of laze as I’d imagined, though a hint of marijuana smoke lingered in the air, along with something that reminded me of my old alchemist’s apartment. Herbs and dried flowers and magic .

After we passed a set of wide marble stairs that led upward, the hall ended in a high-ceilinged living area. It was filled with white leather couches and chairs, and arcade machines lined one wall. Toward the far end lay an open dining room and sprawling kitchen with marble countertops and fancy hanging pot racks.

All along the back wall of the castle, giant windows looked out over a manicured lawn and the lake beyond. The dock and boathouse were visible, though fog softened the view.

I tried to sense Duncan out there, but it was still more than twenty minutes until eight. It occurred to me that I would have to keep the werewolves in the castle distracted so they didn’t notice his approach. He could sneak about all he wanted, but his powerful aura was hard to hide.

Landscaping lights out back shone onto a cement patio, and something moved in the shadows beyond it. A red-eyed mongrel dog. The same one we’d seen? Or another?

When Augustus stepped out of the kitchen, I jumped. Distracted by looking around, I hadn’t sensed him approaching.

Two of his siblings stood behind him—they’d both been at the fight. Augustus carried an open beer can, and my heart leaped. If I could get a moment alone with it, I might be able to dump the truth elixir inside. Would the potency of the beer mask whatever the potion tasted like? And, once delivered, how long would it take to go into effect? I should have asked Rue that.

Augustus’s gaze went straight to my gloved hand and the case, though he also looked at Jasmine.

“You’ve decided to help the betrayer?” he asked her.

“I just came along to watch,” Jasmine said. “And show her how to get to your house. Did you know there are strange glowy-eyed dogs all over your yard?”

She must have seen them after all.

“I haven’t betrayed anyone,” I said.

My gloved fingers tightened around the case, and I wished I’d figured out more than that it had something made from metal inside. I had returned Mom’s medallion before leaving her cabin, and I could have used more than vials of potions to gain the advantage over these guys. As a wolf, I could handle myself in a fight, but if I took that form, it would be hard to demand confessions or slip a potion down Augustus’s throat. I had to do that as a human.

“You’re the one using the pack’s good name to fleece people out of money,” I added.

I scratched my nose and tried to give Jasmine a significant start-recording look without being obvious. I sensed more werewolves in the kitchen or perhaps a room beyond it. My cousins. Augustus’s allies.

“Wolf packs aren’t supposed to have good names,” Augustus said. “They’re supposed to be strong, claim a territory that suits their needs, and woe to those who intrude upon it without asking permission. Or giving offerings. That’s part of our culture and how it works.”

“That only refers to other werewolves, not witches, druids, warlocks, and alchemists minding their own business and selling gas and gum from their stores.”

“Did you come here to give me a lecture?” Augustus focused on the case again, his eyes barely acknowledging me.

“No. I came here for the antidote.” I’d almost forgotten my ruse. It would be suspicious if I didn’t demand that up front.

“How is your bipedfuris?” Augustus squinted at me.

“Dying.”

“Where’d he come from, anyway? There supposedly aren’t any werewolves left in the world that can take that form, that have that much magic.”

“He’s special. The antidote?”

“Let’s see the box first.” Augustus pointed at the case. “I heard you’ve been known to make fakes. ”

I stared at him. I’d just admitted that to Jasmine, but how would he know that?

My suspicious mind wanted to link Augustus to Lord Abrams and Radomir, but he might have been doing what I’d been thinking a moment ago, listening and watching us via a doorway camera.

“Why do you care about it?” Without stepping closer, I held the case up for his perusal. “I could see why you’d be interested in Mom’s medallion for your wife… I guess. Do you even talk to her anymore?”

“That’s none of your business.” Augustus set the beer can down on a sofa table and walked closer, holding his hand out.

I might have given it to him if it meant I could spike his can while he was studying it, but my two other cousins stood where they would see my actions.

“It’s anti -werewolf,” I said, though I didn’t quite know that, just that whatever lay inside supposedly protected against, or maybe counteracted the effects of, werewolf bites. Among other things. “It wasn’t meant for you. Or any of us.”

“It’s valuable .” Augustus stopped two steps away from me, his palm out expectantly.

“Where’s the antidote?”

Two more of my cousins, this pair in their wolf forms, padded into view by a breakfast bar. I tensed, certain the pack was about to swarm me. And I’d gotten nothing.

“If you don’t have it, I won’t tell you how to get into the case,” I said. “It’s a box that zaps you, nothing more. The real power is inside.”

Probably true, but I still had no idea how to open it.

“I’ve had someone researching its secrets,” I added.

Augustus cocked an eyebrow but didn’t appear that intrigued. “I don’t need to know its secrets. ”

“You don’t want what’s inside for yourself then? What, are you selling it on eBay?”

He grunted. “Not eBay.”

“To the guy running that potion corporation? Radomir?” Only as I said it did the answer thunk into my mind with certainty. Yes. That was the most likely explanation for where the magical silver bullets had come from.

“The market for artifacts related to werewolves, whether they’re beneficial to our people or not, is hot right now.”

“You don’t think Radomir will pay more if you can tell him how to get into the case? I know he doesn’t know. I’ve met him.”

Augustus considered me, then pointed at Jasmine. “We don’t have any beef with you. Go wait in the kitchen.”

“Why?” she asked warily.

Because they were going to try to kill me and didn’t want her to be hurt—or worse—in the process.

“The antidote,” I stated again.

Augustus grunted in disgust but said, “Fine,” and walked toward a liquor cabinet.

I turned enough to look at Jasmine while keeping Augustus in my sights. I also didn’t want her to be hurt, but this might be our best opportunity.

“Do what he says,” I said, then let a hand drop to my pocket where she could see it. “This isn’t your fight.”

While Augustus opened the cabinet door, I extracted one of the vials of truth elixir, then, moving only my eyes, glanced toward his beer can.

Jasmine caught on right away, but my other cousins were watching us.

“Okay,” Jasmine said, brushing past me as she headed toward the kitchen.

I slipped the vial into her hand. She paused in front of the sofa table with the beer can, using her body to block the others’ views as she uncorked it. She leaned forward as if she were interested in what Augustus would pull out of the cabinet.

There wasn’t much time since he had already grabbed something. In addition to liquor bottles, there were rows of vials in racks in the cabinet, more than one glowing with magic. Nothing like a chaser of some alchemical brew to go with one’s cocktail.

Jasmine dribbled the truth elixir into the beer can, wiped the top, then stuffed the empty vial into her pocket as Augustus turned back toward us.

My heart pounded. Had any of my cousins noticed? I couldn’t tell, but they didn’t say anything as Jasmine turned away from the sofa table and continued toward them. In fact, they ignored her completely, the men and wolves letting her pass as they took several steps into the living room. Several steps closer to me.

I licked dry lips as Augustus also walked toward me. I had to keep the conversation going longer and hope he would drink the beer. I also had to hope the truth elixir would kick in quickly.

Jasmine stopped behind the wolves, out of the way but still in view so she could record. Assuming I could get Augustus to say something…

“Here you go.” He held up a vial of clear liquid that glowed faintly.

From the color alone, I knew it wasn’t the antidote. Rue had made me the antidote, and it wasn’t clear.

“Are you sure that’s not a chaser for your whiskey on the rocks?”

“I’m sure.” Augustus stepped closer to me, his height and broad build making him intimidating.

My skin tingled, magic trickling into my veins. My wolf blood sensed the threat and felt I needed to change. With my other cousins creeping closer, it was understandable, but I needed my human mouth to get the confession.

I eyed a suit of armor on a stand against the wall behind me. Its empty gauntlets were wrapped around the hilt of a sword, the tip resting on the base of the stand. They gripped the weapon loosely enough that I might have been able to grab it to defend myself, but I ruefully admitted I should have brought the sword Duncan had given me if I’d wanted to do that.

“Do you already have the other wolf artifacts?” I asked Augustus.

He’d been about to grab for the case, but he paused and glanced at his allies. The wolves and the humans cocked their heads.

“What artifacts?” he asked.

“That’s why you went to see Francisco, the lobisomem , right? For his South American artifacts?” I sent a silent apology to the bartender, hoping nobody harassed him because this implication got out.

“I went to see him because he presumed to do business near our territory without asking permission or giving an offering.” Augustus stepped over to the sofa table and grabbed his beer.

It was all I could do not to hold my breath, stare at it, and will him to take a big swig. “Yeah, but he has that back room with the glowing wolf heads. You didn’t sense them when you were there? Your buyer would probably be interested.”

“Radomir would be interested,” Orazio put in. “He said he’d pay for anything magical and werewolf-related that we found.”

I scratched my temple to hide a glance toward Jasmine. She stood behind the others, who clearly didn’t believe her a threat, and had her phone out. Camera recording? She nodded at me.

“Shut up, Orazio.” Augustus drank from his beer but only a shallow swallow before glancing at it, his brow furrowing. Shit, the elixir had to have changed the taste.

Orazio snorted. “Why? She’s not walking out of here alive.”

I’d suspected they’d planned that, but a chill rushed through me at the naked admission .

“What the hell did you put in my beer?” Augustus threw the can at my feet, the amber liquid spattering the marble tiles.

“Why are you betraying our people and our heritage to some smarmy rich humans?” I demanded, backing toward the suit of armor.

“He’s got to pay the insurance on this place,” Orazio said with a short laugh. “Lake houses don’t come cheap.”

“Aren’t you extorting enough people to pay for your ludicrous castle?” I took two more steps toward the armor.

“Give me the damn case.” Augustus roared and lunged at me.