Page 4 of Relics of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic #2)

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Duncan bowed to the woman who’d opened the door, her hood back, revealing white hair, a wizened face, and almond-shaped eyes. Almost a head shorter than Duncan, she squinted up at him, the light from the hallway bright compared to her dim apartment lit by oil lamps and candles. What was the woman’s name? Rue. That had been it.

“Greetings, my lady alchemist. Your radiant beauty and superb skills in your profession have brought me to seek advice from you again.”

Her suspicious squint changed into a shy smile, though she grew wary when she glanced at me. “I sell potions, not advice, but you are welcome inside.” She didn’t look anything like Beatrice, the retired nurse alchemist who’d lived in my apartment complex, but she had a familiar vibe, and I could sense the paranormal about her. I didn’t doubt that she could imbue her potions with magic. “And you…” She pointed her finger at me. “Who are you?” Her eyes widened with enlightenment before I could answer. “Oh, you are his mate. The confused werewolf. Yes, you may also enter.”

“ Mate? ” I mouthed, but Rue had already turned to go inside.

“I didn’t tell her that,” Duncan whispered. “I told her you were a female friend who I was doing a favor for. That’s it.”

“Men who are only friends with women don’t go to great lengths and collect ingredients from dangerous locales to buy them potions to further their identity delusions,” Rue said without looking back. Her age didn’t make her hard of hearing.

I didn’t have a delusion about my identity, but I kept my mouth shut since we wanted information from her. I also glanced at Duncan, surprised to learn he might have had to ingredient hunt for me. He’d gone through more work than I would have guessed to have my potions made.

In the beginning of that quest, he might have thought to use them to get on my good side—or get into my apartment to search it—but after I’d caught him, he had to have known that I wouldn’t let him have the case, no matter how many potions he plied me with.

“I may not have mentioned that she’s blunt.” Duncan shrugged apologetically at me before following Rue into the apartment. He didn’t respond to the woman’s comment about ingredients.

“As long as she can make what people need.”

Before following him in, I glanced again at the witch and demon graffiti on the door. She probably didn’t deserve that, assuming she wasn’t using her power to do anything harmful to people. Since she’d made me a potion to help, I was inclined to believe she didn’t regularly put hexes on the neighbors or turn kids into toads.

“Those who know what to ask for, yes,” Rue said, waving us to cushions and mats on the floor and surrounded on all sides by stacks of hardback books with yellowed pages and tattered bindings. A square of glass rested on one of the stacks, turning it into a table with two oil lamps and a cup of tea on it. “Shoes off, please. You may relax, as I have sent my familiar off to hunt in the alleys.”

“A cat,” Duncan told me, then shook his hand as if it had been bitten. Maybe it had . Cats did not care for our kind.

I removed my shoes, and more scents than incense inundated me as I followed Duncan to the mats. Smoke coalesced near the ceiling, and what had once been white paint was dingy gray. Countless hooks had been drilled into the drywall to support hanging plants and baskets of who knew what. The handywoman in me cringed, and I wondered if half the notes on the door had been placed by an aggrieved property manager.

“My sophisticated werewolf abatement elixir did not work?” Rue settled on a cushion near her tea mug. “You reek of lupine power and barely restrained chaotic energy.”

“Well, we were just talking about my ex-husband.” I sat on a cushion next to hers and pulled out my phone, intending to show her Bolin’s mugger on the off-chance she’d seen him before.

“That accounts for the latter,” Duncan said, plopping down on another cushion, black-and-tan checkered socks on display.

“You account for it some too,” I informed him.

He splayed a hand over his chest. “ Moi ?”

“He also vexed me during his visits,” Rue told me. “But he also flirted with me, as if I’m a youthful beauty, so I did not inflict upon him genital warts. As you doubtless observed during your coital times.”

“There haven’t been coital times.” I glared at Duncan.

He was still hand-splaying and looking innocent.

“No?” Rue asked. “He is quite virile for a werewolf of his years.”

“So he tells me,” I murmured.

“I asked him what talisman he wears or elixir he consumes to give him superior power to a normal one of his kind, but he would not tell me.”

“He hasn’t told me either.” I eyed Duncan, glad to have my hunch about him confirmed.

“I’m all natural, ladies. The virility is in my blood.”

“I have a talisman that allows me to sense when clients are lying to me,” Rue stated.

“Blunt,” Duncan whispered to me.

I waited to see if he would say more. I was curious about his extra power too.

“Ms. Rue,” Duncan said, “Luna’s intern was attacked by a man I don’t think is a werewolf but who has greater than human strength.” He pointed to my phone. “We thought you might know if he has a talisman or potion that could account for such.”

“There are many magical items and elixirs that can grant supernatural strength to a person,” Rue said. “Most have side effects. A trade-off, if you will, for the power that is shared. That is particularly true of the elixirs. Sometimes, the items do not cause physical unpleasantness, but your muscles, relying upon the magic from an external source, may atrophy over time.” She looked at Duncan again. Still wondering about his virility?

“Nothing is atrophying here, thank you,” he said. “Luna can attest to that. She’s seen me naked.”

Rue looked archly at me, as if the statement confirmed her suspicion that we were mates.

“Only when he changed forms,” I said. “We hunted together.”

“And you did not mate afterward? From what I’ve read—” Rue waved toward books on a shelf rather than in a stack, “—a bonded wolf pair will often feel amorous after a successful hunt, especially after feasting on fresh prey.”

“ I felt amorous.” Duncan smiled.

“Which is no doubt why I woke up with your hand on my boob,” I muttered.

Rue squinted at me. “You are certain you did not notice his lack of genital warts?”

My cheeks heated. Duncan’s smile only widened.

“This is the guy.” Eager to change the subject, I held my phone out to her, the video pulled up again. “He took something important that my intern was bringing to me.”

Rue watched the footage. “Your intern is lucky this man didn’t take his life.”

“I know.”

“I recognize him.”

I leaned forward. That I hadn’t expected. “You do?”

“Yes. Assuming he found an alchemist willing to make such a foul elixir for him, he likely imbibes a Tiger Blood potion regularly. It is one of the most potent strength enhancers that we can make, but the ingredients are dangerous to acquire. And immoral, some say. I refused to make it for him, even when he, and the others with him, brought the vials of tiger blood and freshly harvested human livers that are required. I am not squeamish about extracts of ox bile and dried porcine organs, but I must draw the line at certain ingredients.”

“Did you say human livers?” I stared.

“Those from fertile females, yes. They are high in iron and other minerals that are required for the strength-enhancing potion, and they have the aura of the recently sacrificed.”

I drew back, horrified. Women had to die for this elixir to be crafted? Die and have their livers harvested?

“I do have the formula in a very dark grimoire, but, as I said, I would not make an elixir requiring such ingredients. I told them so. They sought to force me to do their bidding, but that was not wise.” Rue’s eyelids drooped. She had to be close to seventy and weigh a hundred pounds, if that, but somehow I didn’t doubt that she’d threatened the men convincingly.

“So, they found someone else willing to make the elixir?” Duncan asked.

“Based on that one’s strength, it appears so.” Rue waved to the phone. “Other powers granted by the Tiger Blood potion are a strong immune system, regeneration equal to or even greater than that of a werewolf, and the ability to see apparitions, though some consider that a side effect rather than a desired attribute. Other deleterious effects of the potion are an upset stomach, the runs, shortened lifespan, infertility, and a propensity to develop toenail fungus.”

“People find that trade-off worth it?” I wondered.

“Some do. Often it is the employers of such persons who do. In this case, I believe the men knew about the side effects of what they requested, but it is possible they’d had enough that it didn’t matter. The Tiger Blood potion is, like so many elixirs, addictive. You are fortunate that the werewolf sublimation elixir is not. Especially since you do not seem to have taken it.” Rue’s eyebrows rose.

“Not yet. My life has grown dangerous of late, and I thought I might need my heritage.” I had needed it to survive my cousin’s attempts on my life.

“I am relieved it was not a failing on my part that caused the elixir to be ineffective. It is always displeasing to the ego to fail in one’s career.”

“And to have to refund the money one charged to one’s client?” Duncan asked dryly.

“Quite. The expenses of living in the city are great, especially since the landlord of this facility charges me for the cost of painting over the graffiti that the ignorant denizens leave on my door. Twice, he’s had to replace the door altogether. Why he does not charge them for the vandalism, I do not know. I have provided him security-camera footage of the cowards leaving their marks.”

“Maybe you should try Shoreline,” I suggested. “We have a vacancy. My alchemist moved out, and she had a quiet spot in the back of the complex.”

Duncan smirked. Amused that I had turned into a leasing agent during our foray into Seattle? It wasn’t as if my property-management gig had set hours. Besides, I was responsible for keeping the units at Sylvan Serenity rented.

“The denizens up there are too busy going to work and making a living to notice witchiness going on in the buildings,” I added. “Though you might need to cut back on the incense.” I didn’t recall that Beatrice’s apartment had ever smelled from the outside. Inside was another matter, but she probably hadn’t invited the neighbors over for coffee that often.

Rue gazed at me. “What did happen to Beatrice? Mr. Calderwood assured me that you were not responsible for her disappearance.”

“Not directly, I wasn’t, but I eventually learned that my niece scared her into leaving the apartment. Apparently, she knew of the danger that would find me and didn’t want me to be able to get more potions.”

“Scared her into leaving? And this is the apartment you believe I should move to?”

“I’m just mentioning it as an option. Besides, I doubt you’d be scared away by a mid-twenties werewolf with a perky ponytail.” If the blond thug and a bunch of his buddies hadn’t fazed Rue, there was no way my niece would, not even if she changed into a wolf on the doorstep and showed off her fangs. Rue would probably grab a rolled-up newspaper and bop her on the snout.

“I will keep it in mind. I do enjoy the conveniences of the city, but the tenants in this facility are foolish and tedious.”

“You could also try living in a van,” Duncan said. “It’s quite freeing. Though it can be a challenge to find a parking spot where nobody is threatening to have you towed.” He gave me a sidelong look.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

Rue looked back and forth between us. “Not mates? You are certain?”

“ Yes ,” I said firmly, then stood, afraid that if we lingered, she would bring up warts again.

Duncan lifted a hand. “Rue, do you know what other alchemist in the area might have supplied those men? Or where we might find them? They didn’t mention an employer to you, did they?”

“They did not. They grew hostile when I said I would not make their elixir. Fortunately, I have ways to defend myself. As to other alchemists in the area, no. Even those that I would consider as having few scruples would be hesitant to make a potion using what could only be the stolen organs of dead, possibly murdered, women. In this city, one must worry not only about staying on the right side of the law but not drawing the ire of the paranormal watchers that patrol the area.”

Duncan nodded. I’d not heard of paranormal watchers and would have to ask him about that later.

“As to locating the men, you might ask around at El Gato Mágico, a bar in the industrial part of the waterfront that attracts quirky individuals affiliated with the paranormal. It’s known to be a place where those with particular needs can go to hire and be hired. You can also get an excellent margarita there.” Rue winked. “With a kick.”

“We’ll check.” Duncan stood, took her hand, and brushed his lips on her skin before releasing her.

“You’re a ridiculous flirt, Mr. Calderwood.” Rue managed to look pleased and stern at the same time.

“I am merely a werewolf who knows the importance of staying in an alchemist’s good graces.” Duncan bowed before heading out.

I left without kissing anything of Rue’s, though I did give her the name of our apartment complex. The smells and smoke-stained ceiling suggested she wouldn’t be an ideal tenant, but it had been convenient having a potion maker a few doors away. Given how fraught my life had grown of late, it might be even more convenient going forward.