Page 17

17

I recognized the magical being approaching my apartment and didn’t call upon the wolf.

“Duncan?” I asked in wonder.

After our last parting, I hadn’t expected to see him again for a while. With his scar glowing to remind everyone of his magical tie to the device, he hadn’t implied that he would return for visits.

“Maybe he can get you some more grenades,” Jasmine whispered.

I stepped outside to greet Duncan on the threshold. Though delighted to see him, I realized I would have to admit that I’d lost his sword. The smile I offered him held mixed emotions.

Fully dressed in jeans, boots, and what was probably one of several black leather jackets that he owned—he lost his clothes in changes almost as often as I did—he looked as handsome as on the day I first met him. At the moment, the scar looked perfectly normal, like a relic of a childhood sports accident, not an indicator that a bad guy with a magical device could control him.

“Good evening, my lady.” Duncan stopped in front of me to bow, but only for a moment before making it a hug .

When I returned it, he rumbled a pleased, “Ah,” and looked like he might shift the embrace into a kiss.

The door remained open, however, and he noticed Jasmine. His jaw drooped, and he lowered his arms. He’d also noticed the huge mess inside my apartment.

“What happened? Were you robbed?”

“Robbed and threatened,” I said, thinking of the phone call. “It’s been an eventful day.”

Jasmine pointed toward the message on the floor again. After giving me a concerned look and an arm squeeze, Duncan stepped inside to look at it.

“Is that the American spelling for interfere?” he asked.

“It’s the ignoramus spelling,” Jasmine said. “Bolin would be appalled.”

I lifted my eyebrows. I hadn’t realized Bolin had managed to speak with Jasmine for long enough to bring up his spelling-bee background. Even if he had, it surprised me that she had listened to him on the subject.

“ I’m appalled.” Duncan touched his chest. “For many reasons.” He turned his concerned expression back toward me. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, but…” I grimaced. “They got your sword.”

“ And the grenades that you left Aunt Luna in her truck.”

“Egregious,” Duncan said. “I’m relieved neither of you was hurt.”

I wasn’t surprised that he cared as much— more —about us as the sword, but his utterance of egregious hadn’t sounded that heartfelt. As if he wasn’t that worried about losing a priceless centuries-old magical artifact. I couldn’t imagine that.

“Did this just happen?” Duncan crouched and touched the paint. A smear came off on his finger.

“While we were checking on Rue—Rue’s apartment,” I said. “Yes. ”

He sniffed the air.

“It’s paint, not blood,” Jasmine said. “Beetroot.”

“Possibly Sun-dried Tomato,” I said, though I doubted paint taxonomy was what prompted Duncan’s air sampling. He would have recognized the paint scent without waving his nostrils about.

“I can catch a whiff of them.” Duncan straightened. “There were two men, I think.”

“Probably some of the bikers who have been threatening me of late,” I said.

He frowned at me. “I see I’ve missed important things by being away.”

“What brought you back?” I asked. “I’m glad to see you, but I didn’t expect to for a while. Did you miss your van?”

“ Terribly .”

“And me?”

“Even more terribly. But at least you visited me in the woods. The van…”

“Doesn’t have that self-driving feature so you can summon it for a reunion?”

“It does not. Perhaps I need an upgrade.” Duncan removed his jacket. “I’ll shift and go after those chaps. The trail is still hot. Do you want to join me?”

“I was tempted, but the police are around, and they’re specifically looking for a wolf.”

He paused, not removing more clothes. “Did they figure out our kind were responsible for the deaths in the parking lot?”

“They already knew that, but now they think Rue trains wolves and was responsible.” My words spilled out quickly, influenced by a mixture of frustration, bleakness, and worry.

Duncan blinked. “What led the police down that back alley?”

“I shifted to fight some of the thugs in the parking lot, and Rue was there. One of the ghost hunters got a photo of her patting my back. My lupine back. Now, on top of everything else, I have to worry about the police arresting her.” I bent forward, the night’s events—no, the whole last month’s events—surging to the surface and making me emotional. Needing support, I gripped my knees. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s all me, and the police don’t even know it. Unless I confess. Would they believe me if I did? I can’t let her take the fall. But I… don’t know what to do.”

Duncan came around to my side and rested a supportive hand on my back. “We’ll address our problems one at a time.”

“We? You’re one of my problems.”

“Are you still trying to rescue me?”

I straightened to say an exasperated, “ Yes ,” to his face.

“You’re a lovely woman, do you know that?”

“I may punch you.”

He grinned. “And have my van towed?”

“This very instant, yes.”

Jasmine watched us and glanced toward the door, like she didn’t know if we were about to fight or have sex. Or both.

“Do you want me to give you privacy?” she asked.

“Just for a minute.” I waved her out, though I didn’t have fighting or sex on my mind. I wanted to ask Duncan a few things that he might be less likely to answer with an audience present. Half the time, he didn’t even answer me when I questioned him.

“Not for long,” Duncan told her. “I’m going on a hunt soon.”

“The police…” I warned.

“Won’t spot me. I’m swift, like a cheetah on the savannas of eastern Africa.” He winked.

“Have you treasure hunted there?”

“Off the coast, yes.”

After Jasmine stepped out, closing the door behind her, I said, “Do you know where Radomir and Abrams are now?”

“In one of their lairs, I’m certain.” Duncan waved vaguely. Because he didn’t know? Or he didn’t want to tell me? Perhaps sensing the unspoken questions, he added, “I believe they know you’re thinking vengeful thoughts about them. They haven’t been staying in one place.”

“I bet a lot of people have vengeful thoughts about them. They’ve enslaved you, had their thugs steal from my mom, shoot her and Emilio, and they’re still staking out her property, like they think she’s going to go on a vacation and they can sneak in and steal the medallion back.”

“Then their itinerant choices make sense.”

“I’m ready to kick their asses across the ocean. Maybe all the way to the savannas of eastern Africa.”

“A few islands and continents in the way would make it difficult for you to punt them to that destination from here.”

“I’ve got a strong free kick with a lot of clearance.”

“Goodness, an American using football terms? I’m falling in love.”

“My kids played soccer. We do have it as a sport over here.”

“An improperly named sport.”

“ Duncan .” I gripped his hands. “This isn’t the time for banter. If you don’t know where they are…”

“Finding them won’t help with this problem.” He pointed his chin around the ransacked apartment.

“Oh, I know, but I want to free you. Completely free you.” I looked at his scar and almost spoke about my plan to steal the control device, but what if they called him back and could coerce him into sharing whatever I told him in confidence? I hoped that couldn’t happen, but I kept that plan to myself.

“I do also desire that,” he said, his voice and eyes more serious. “But I’m here now. Let me help you.”

“I thought you were hunting for the other wolf medallion.”

“I was, but… as you requested, I came to help you put an end to your local crime problem. And anything else that I can assist with. ”

“Does that mean you’re at a dead-end and can’t find the medallion?”

“No. It means… I regretted that I disappointed you by going with Radomir’s thugs.”

“Oh.” My snark faded, emotion tightening my throat.

“I have the sense that you’ve been disappointed a lot in your life,” he said softly.

“Just the normal amount, I think.”

“That’s too much.” Duncan hugged me.

I leaned into him, glad for his support, glad he’d come. He rested his hand on the back of my head, fingers gently stroking my hair.

“I am at a dead-end with the medallion,” he said, his tone dry, “but that alone wouldn’t have made me leave. I’m quite the determined treasure hunter.”

“I have no doubt.”

After a minute, Duncan lowered his arms. “I do wish to go after the men who robbed you. While the trail is still warm. If we don’t get that sword back, you’ll never get an opportunity to prong me with it.”

“That would be lamentable.”

The smiles we shared were more grim than pleased. We both knew that if I had to prong him, it would be because Radomir had control of him. The blade, with silver mixed into the alloy, would be the only thing that might allow me to stop a powerful bipedfuris.

My phone rang, and I grimaced. What now?

Duncan stepped back and removed his shirt while I turned to check it. I didn’t recognize the number and waffled over whether to answer it. I didn’t need more heavy breathers threatening me. Unless I could get clues from them about where they had taken my sword. As good a nose as Duncan had in wolf form, he would be out of luck if the men had gotten into a car or on their motorcycles, and I assumed they had.

“Hello?”

“Luna? It’s Lorenzo.”

Worry made me forget about the theft. “Is Mom okay?”

Duncan, naked and ready to shift, paused near the door.

“She is no worse than when you saw her. After you left, she decided to reach out to her Aunt Concetta.”

“I didn’t realize she had any aunts left alive.”

“Concetta is ninety-eight and doesn’t go on hunts or do much with the pack anymore, but your mother visits her in her home on the edge of town from time to time. Concetta has kept records for the family for decades and is the closest the Snohomish Savagers have to an archivist.”

“Oh, Mom did mention her, just not by name.”

“After you spoke of Duncan’s quest, your mother asked Concetta about the lost medallion. She located a book that had been kept by the last archivist. It’s handwritten in ink that has faded, but most of it is apparently still legible. In it, there is mention of a werewolf named Tommaso who left the pack after losing his mate. Sometime after his departure, what the archivist called the male version of the Medallion of Memory and Power was found to be missing. Nobody had any proof, but the archivist believed Tommaso stole it. Some of the pack members went after him to find out. They chased him up to the forests west of Mount Baker, but he disappeared near a lake up there. Neither he nor the medallion was ever seen again.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. Since Duncan had been hunting along waterways in the forests in that direction, maybe Radomir and Abrams had found similar information.

“The archive just referenced a lake ?” I asked. “No name?”

Since this was the rainy side of the mountains, there were thousands of lakes about. Even saying west of Mount Baker didn’t narrow it down as much as one would hope.

“That’s all that the archivist recorded, yes. It may have been too small a lake to have a name. Or it may not yet have been named by anyone other than the native tribes. This all would have happened a hundred years or more ago.”

“Okay. Tell her thanks for checking. I know Mom has other things on her mind.”

“It would please her to see the matching medallion returned to the pack so that a rightful male alpha could wear it again and protect our kind.”

“Yeah. I just wish… I’m sorry I don’t have a solution for her more permanent problem.” It would be wishful thinking and nothing more to imagine the medallions, once reunited, would have the power to cure her of her cancer. My experience thus far with these magical items was that the mushroom-shaped artifact in the wolf case was closer to something that might heal a person.

The thought made me look toward the doorway, reminded that I’d intended to ask Duncan if he could try changing next to the case and we could see if his bipedfuris aura could open it. What if we did that near Mom? Maybe her illness would activate the artifact inside and prompt it to heal her.

But Duncan had left, his clothes draped over the upturned couch. He’d only just arrived, and he was already off, trying to solve one of my problems. I hoped it didn’t get him into trouble—more trouble.

“I don’t think there’s a solution for that,” Lorenzo said sadly. “Even for those with magical blood, our time in the mortal realm must have an end.”

“Unless you get bitten by a vampire.” I tried to make my tone light, but the night had left me grim and somber.

“I do not believe your mother would care to be beholden to a vampire master. There are some prices that one doesn’t pay, not even for immortality.”

“Yeah. She doesn’t even like being beholden to her nephews for fixing her internet.”

“True,” Lorenzo said fondly. “She’s a proud woman.”

“Did Mom mention where her aunt lives?” I wondered if I could learn more if I spoke to the woman personally. “Or if she has a phone number?”

“I believe Concetta eschews modern technology and that her home is off the grid.”

“Does that mean no address?”

“Or modern amenities like power and plumbing.”

“Are you telling me that my ninety-eight-year-old great aunt doesn’t have an indoor toilet?”

“As I said, she eschews modern technology.”

“Some modern technology is worth adopting. Like refrigeration, electricity, and toilets.”

“Your mother says she can draw you a map to her home.”

“Tell her that she could stand to adopt some modern technology too.”

“I will relay your message.”

“Thanks. I’ll see what I can do about the medallion. If it would bring Mom peace to have it returned to the pack, I’d like to make that happen.” Because my to-do list needed more entries.

At least I knew Duncan would help with that quest. What I didn’t know was if, when we found the medallion, he would return it to the pack or he would hand it over to those who controlled him.