Page 3 of Relics of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic #2)

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“Did Chad say what the case is for?” I asked as Duncan drove past the Space Needle on his way to wherever the alchemist lived. “How he got it? Or why he wanted it?”

I was reticent to bring up my ex, not wanting to discuss him in any capacity, or even think about him, but the need to know more about the wolf case overrode my distaste for the topic.

At first, Duncan didn’t answer, and I thought he might claim there was some confidential employer-employee relationship that treasure hunters and those who paid for their services claimed. But maybe he was simply trying to remember their encounter because he did eventually answer.

“He didn’t tell me anything about it or its purpose or provenance. What led to him wishing to hire me was a discussion about werewolves. He saw me in a brawl with riffraff on the dock in Costa Rica that I mentioned—they wanted to steal some of my pricy locating equipment—and he recognized that my attributes couldn’t be entirely human.”

“You are strong. Even for a werewolf.” I eyed him. “I dug up the footage of you gleefully ripping pieces off motorcycles.”

“Yes, I’ve found that it’s more acceptable to the authorities in this and other lands if you rip pieces off property instead of people. When someone swings a tire iron at me or someone in my company, I’m more inclined toward the latter, but as I’ve grown older and more silvered, I’ve learned to rein in my instincts some.”

That had been a lot of words to not answer my implied question.

“Do you take an alchemical substance to enhance your abilities further?” I asked more bluntly.

“I do not. I work out, and I eat sardines.”

“Uh, sardines?”

“Their health benefits are great, and they’re shelf stable, thus easy to store in a van. In addition to being good for your bones and muscles, they help make your coat lush and glossy.”

“So, if I open that cabinet back there, I’ll find stacks of sardine tins?” I waved toward an upper door above a rack of SCUBA equipment.

“The drawer by the mini fridge, actually. There are anchovies too. Feel free to help yourself.” Duncan glanced at the chocolate bars in my lap. “I understand the antioxidants in cacao beans are also health promoting.”

“Is that your way of saying you’d like a couple of squares?”

“Quite. Had you brought the kind with bacon pieces in the chocolate, I might already have leaped upon you, unable to restrain my inner wolf.”

“You have urges to be that juvenile? Despite your silvering pelt?”

He’d called it that before, and I glanced at his salt-and-pepper hair. It was lush and glossy.

“Maturity can’t entirely subdue one’s base instincts. I like almonds also. And salt.”

“As we all do.” I opened the bar, broke off a couple of squares, and held them up to entice him. “After Chad saw you fight, what did he say?”

“Ah, those are bribe bars? Not amiability-earning bars?”

“You’re already amiable. It’s the information you like to withhold that I’m after.”

“Hm.”

Duncan looked at a brick building on a corner with retail on the bottom—there was the package-delivery service he’d mentioned—and apartments above, metal balconies attached to some of them. His window was down, and a hint of incense wafted to me over the smells of gasoline, the nearby fish market, and sea air drifting in from Puget Sound. Duncan drove around the building, looking for parking. Numerous bars and restaurants in the area ensured the lack he’d promised.

“Your ex-husband asked if I was indeed a werewolf and then spoke excitedly about research he’d done on our kind. His questions seemed innocuous enough, and I even thought… Well, I’ve encountered fanatics before.”

“Werewolf fanatics?”

“Those a touch obsessed with the lore. Sometimes, they have even known actual werewolves, though I don’t have to tell you that we’re a dying breed.”

“No.”

“Your ex said he’d been studying werewolves for ages,” Duncan continued, “and that he’d picked up numerous trinkets on business trips around the world.”

“In between sleeping with women in exotic locales, no doubt.”

Duncan looked over at me. His expression was sympathetic, but I felt immature since I’d mentioned Chad’s betrayal to him multiple times already—I’d mentioned it to a lot of people. As one of my friends had pointed out, Chad still lived rent-free in my head.

I longed to rise above it all and put him out of my mind, and I’d been making progress… until this. His return, however obliquely, to my life had stirred up all the old emotions. There was a part of me that wondered if I should have just handed the case to Duncan and let Chad have it, but it seemed pertinent to me and my kind, not a human fanatic .

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m working on getting over my bitterness, but being mature is an ongoing challenge.”

“You lack the silver in your pelt to convey the needed peace and wisdom.” Duncan smiled, glancing at my hair before wedging his van into a parking spot a Toyota half its size had vacated. It was a good thing the Roadtrek had a sliding door in the back, as there wouldn’t be room to open the passenger door.

“I use hair dye. My pelt is silvering. Trust me.”

“Oh? Your fur was a beautiful raven black as a wolf.”

“Was it?” I knew it had been in my youth, but I hadn’t caught my reflection at any point during the last two changes. I’d assumed my fur was as hoary as Duncan’s, who’d been a similar salt-and-pepper color as a wolf. “You’re not lying to me to flatter me, are you?”

“You’re shrewd, being highly aware that I’m salivating over the chocolate you’re waving about, but I am not lying to you about your raven lushness. It was quite striking with your blue eyes.”

I squinted at him. He appeared sincere, but I would verify my lushness with one of my werewolf relatives later. Maybe my niece, Jasmine, who seemed to be on my side and should have no reason to flatter me.

In the meantime, I handed Duncan two squares of chocolate, more to keep him talking than as a response to his praise. Even if a part of me craved such attention from a man. I didn’t want to need it, but it had been a long time and was nice to hear.

“ Thank you, my lady.” He popped the chocolate in his mouth. “Your ex said the case was a trinket he’d picked up at a street market in Bangkok.”

I scoffed. “I know that’s a lie just from the research Bolin and his dad did on it. It’s of druidic origins, and there’s Ancient Greek writing on the bottom. There’s no way it came from the Far East.” I slid a square of chocolate into my own mouth. The mixture of salt and sweet, with crunch from the almond pieces, soothed me slightly.

“I did sense that its magic was nature-touched, not born of witches, sorcerers, alchemists, or necromancers. But Greek? I didn’t know druids lived in that part of the Old World.”

“Apparently, they got around back in the day. But not to Thailand.” I gave Duncan another piece of chocolate, feeling like a dog owner handing out treats for good behavior. Bribes, indeed.

“Items do move from country to country, especially in this day and age, but it’s possible he lied to me. Now that I’ve heard your side of what he said about your relationship and you… I believe he lied to me about many things.”

“He did,” I said, then admitted, “but I guess there’s no reason you should, as an outsider, believe me over him.”

“Sure there is.” Duncan pointed to the chocolate bar. “ He didn’t give me food. He didn’t even give me a deposit. If not for the uniqueness of the item and promise of adventure in this land I hadn’t visited before, I would have been far less enticed.”

I didn’t want to be touched that he said he believed me over Chad, but it was hard not to feel mollified. “Do treasure hunters usually get a deposit?”

“Established ones being requested to find a specific item do. I generally require twenty or thirty percent of the agreed-upon fee, depending on how many flights and train rides I’ll have to take. If I have to hire sherpas and trek into the Himalayas, it’s fifty percent.”

“You’ve done that?”

“Visited the Himalayas, yes. But I shifted into wolf form and trekked myself. Our kind are hearty, even at high altitudes.”

“You’ve led an interesting life.”

“I strive to do so. Traveling the world is far preferable to the alternative.” Duncan slid a square of chocolate into his mouth before climbing into the back of the van.

“Staying at home and having a steady job?” I unbuckled my seat belt to follow him.

“That was never my alternative.” He gave me a wistful look as he slid open the side door so we could ease out that way.

Something about his words and look made me wonder if he’d been running from something when he first left home. A fight with his pack? He’d once said he’d never had a pack, but there must have been at least a mother and siblings at some point, surely.

I thought about asking, but voices sounded nearby, couples and groups walking past on the sidewalk. To follow Duncan, I had to squeeze past a driver-side mirror jutting out and almost clipped my chest on it.

“This is why I don’t go downtown often,” I muttered.

“Difficult parking conditions?” Duncan led me past shops and a sushi restaurant, then around a corner toward an entrance in the building, presumably for the upstairs apartments.

“An overabundance of people.”

“Your wolf side makes you crave the vast solitude of the wilderness? I understand completely.”

“Yes. Also not having my boob mashed against oversized vehicles.”

“It may be your female side that makes you crave that. I understand that less.”

“I’m sure you don’t like having your male parts mashed either.”

“Indeed not.” Duncan paused outside the glass doors and looked up.

The smell of incense had grown stronger, and I followed his gaze toward a slight figure standing on a second-floor balcony and looking down at us. A woman? It was hard to tell, except by the size. She had a hood up, and I couldn’t make out her face, but the incense scent seemed to waft out of her open door. Further, twists of dried herbs and strings of roots and bulbs dangled from the railing.

Duncan lifted a hand but didn’t call up to the woman, only opening the door. “She might have sensed us coming. She has power of her own.”

“Alchemists usually do, I think. It’s not just the ingredients but the addition of a person’s magic that makes their potions potent, right?”

“I believe that’s correct.” Duncan led me inside and to carpeted stairs instead of an elevator. “Wolves don’t mix up concoctions, so I wouldn’t know.”

“I don’t mix more than cake and brownie batters, so I’m not an expert either.”

“What is a brownie?”

“Kind of like a big chewy chocolate cookie but thicker. You make them in a pan and cut them into squares. You haven’t encountered them on your world travels?”

“It’s possible they’re called something else in other countries, but chocolate, you say?” Duncan glanced over his shoulder at me as we climbed.

“Yup. I have a recipe for bacon-caramel brownies that are amazing.”

“I’m salivating again. I didn’t know I was such a fan of chocolate until I met you.”

“You must not have had the right kind.”

“The kind with salted meat cubed up in it is new to me.”

“You were missing out before.”

“Clearly.”

The second-floor hallway was empty, but something raised my hackles as we headed toward a door near the end. I thought of the wolf howl we’d heard, but it wasn’t an approaching enemy that had my instincts bristling. This was an unease prompted by the proximity of magic.

I stopped before reaching the door Duncan waved to. It was covered in graffiti, and notes and signs stuck around the frame held messages such as witches aren’t allowed, demon worshipper, and devil-spawn be gone.

I eyed them, wondering what the alchemist did besides burning incense. Maybe her magic stirred up other people’s hackles as well. When it came to detecting paranormal influence, humans didn’t have senses nearly as strong as werewolves, but many did have some sensitivity.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked.

“I am.” Unfazed by the graffiti, Duncan knocked on the door.

He’d been here before to get my potions, so the alchemist presumably didn’t greet visitors with guns—or wands. That reassured me slightly until I remembered, with a jolt, that I hadn’t taken her potions. Would she be offended? If she had power, she would sense that my werewolfness wasn’t being subdued.

“Is she going to be—” The door opened, and I didn’t finish with upset I haven’t used her potions. Instead, I turned the sentence into, “—okay about seeing us without an appointment?”

“We’ll find out.”