Page 7 of Relics of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic #2)

7

The next morning, I walked out of my apartment with the largest coffee cup I owned, and it was filled to the brim with a potent Americano. With bags under my eyes and yawns accompanying me to the leasing office, I felt like Bolin. It had crossed my mind to make two huge caffeinated drinks, but since I lived a hundred yards from where I worked, it would be easy to slip back and make a second coffee later.

The parking lot came into view before I reached the leasing office, and I paused to stare. Someone with his back to me—was that Bolin?—was shooting a rifle-sized water gun into the trees near the G-wagon. A roll of paper towels, a squeegee, and a bottle of Windex rested on the sidewalk beside him.

In the nearest tree, a pair of robins squawked and left a branch when the water streamed past.

I rubbed my head as I diverted in that direction. “What are you doing, Bolin?”

He scowled over his shoulder at me. “Defending my Mercedes.”

“I don’t see any motorcycle gangs,” I said, referring to the last time we’d had to defend the parking lot. The thugs who’d rode through, breaking windows, had been a lot more menacing than robins.

“The gangs are up there.” Bolin waved the water gun toward the tree. “Snickering at me.”

“Birds hang out in flocks, not gangs, and that’s called chirping.”

“That’s how they snicker.” He raised his voice to add, “After they poop all over your SUV.”

“It’s a lot shinier than the other cars in the lot.” I waved toward my pick-up truck in the staff spot next to his overpriced behemoth of a vehicle. The factory paint had lost its sheen, if there had ever been a sheen, a long time ago.

“Thus making it appealing to poop on?” Bolin sprayed water into the trees again. By the time it reached the upper branches, it lacked any force, and the remaining birds didn’t bother moving. “It’s happening every day I work here.”

“I don’t think your activities are illegal, per se, but they seem odd for a druid.” I waved to the water gun. “Would your father approve?”

“My father is able to park in a garage like a civilized person, so his car doesn’t get spattered. Besides, he’s not a druid, and neither am I. We just dabble. Grandfather was the druid.”

“Would he have approved of such activities?”

Bolin sighed and lowered the water gun. “No.”

“I’m surprised the birds pester you. Usually animals can sense the magic in the blood of one with paranormal genes.” Even I’d been able to feel a bit of Bolin’s power when I’d still been taking the potion that had dulled my senses. Now, it was easier for me to identify that he had the ability to use magic and even that it was druidic magic.

“They don’t bother me . Just my car.”

“Maybe it’s their way of saying you don’t have a sufficiently druidic mode of transportation.” My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out.

“Cars in general aren’t druidic. Unless you mean I should get a Subaru Forester or something.” His nose crinkled. “Those are very… pedestrian.”

“You mean affordable to the average person?” The number had a local area code, but I didn’t recognize it and debated whether to answer.

Bolin wrinkled his nose again.

“I’ll take that as a yes. A druid probably shouldn’t have a car at all. Maybe you can ride a reindeer to work.”

“Hilarious.”

“I’m just saying, you never see a reindeer with bird poop on its antlers.” The phone stopped ringing, and an alert came up, saying the caller was leaving a voicemail. “Why don’t you spray and squeegee my truck while you’re there? I think washing the boss’s car is in the job description for an intern.”

Bolin looked balefully at me, but it was unclear if it was because I’d asked him to do menial work or I wasn’t sympathetic enough to his plight. Maybe I should have been since I’d had to pressure wash the walkways around the complex more than once. A number of tenants hung feeders on their little patios and balconies, so birds nested in the surrounding trees by the hundreds. They did tend to leave droppings everywhere.

As I headed for the office, I tapped the recording to play the voice mail.

“Aunt Luna?” a woman with a young voice asked. “Are you there?”

It sounded like my niece, Jasmine. She was the one who’d scared away my original alchemist to ensure I couldn’t get potions and would have to face the world—and its dangers—with the power of the werewolf fully intact.

“Call me back, please,” Jasmine continued. “Someone came on your mom’s property last night and attacked her and wounded several pack members. I’m not sure if Emilio is going to make it.”

I gaped at the phone. Who’d attacked my seventy-year-old mother? And Emilio, the salami-loving werewolf who thought I was okay , despite what my cousins had said about me? He was a goofy innocent-seeming guy, and I’d liked him right away. And Mom… Well, who would attack an old woman? She still had power, but she was dying. She wasn’t a threat.

When I called, Jasmine answered right away.

“Luna,” she blurted with relief.

“Sorry, I didn’t recognize your number. Is Mom okay? Where are you?”

“Yeah, she said the bullet only grazed her.”

“ Bullet ?”

Someone walked past with a dog, and I waved, then hurried to shut myself in the office so the conversation would be private.

“Yeah. Normally, it would be a super minor wound for one of us,” Jasmine said, as if getting shot wasn’t that alarming, “but it was a silver bullet. That’s all they were shooting. And the one lodged in Emilio’s side is more problematic, and he’s already weakened from it. The pack’s wise wolf is extracting it and giving him potions to stave off a magical infection, but those guys knew we were werewolves and came prepared.”

My stomach sank. “What guys?”

“A gang of thugs. They were strong, abnormally so. At first, we thought they were werewolves, but they didn’t smell right for that. There was another kind of magic about them.”

My stomach sank further, descending all the way into my shoes. “Did one of them have long blond hair? And look like a drummer from an eighties metal band?”

Jasmine hesitated. “One did look like that, yes. I wasn’t there, but Emilio caught some of it on camera with his phone. The blond bro didn’t have a gun, but I guess it doesn’t matter. There were at least eight of them, and they were strong enough to get the best of Aunt Umbra and Lorenzo. Only because of numbers though. And silver bullets . Because werewolves are strong too.” Indignation filled Jasmine’s voice, but then it grew smaller and quieter when she added, “Aunt Umbra and Lorenzo were lucky that Emilio was there. He’d come by to fix the internet. Having another fighter helped, and Emilio called the rest of the family. When some more of us arrived and turned wolf, the guys took off.”

“I’m sorry. That’s awful. I can come up there today if… Uhm, is Augustus there?”

The pack might not want me to come up there. After I’d been out of their lives for so long, they might object to me visiting again. Mom wouldn’t. She’d been waiting a long time for me to return to the pack—she’d said as much. It was the rest of the family I had to worry about, especially my belligerent cousins.

“Yeah, but your mom wants to see you. And I don’t think Augustus will do anything with Lorenzo there. Besides, he’d be stupid to worry about you right now anyway. The pack has a new enemy. How’d you know about the blond bro?”

“A hunch. I’ve encountered him before.” I’d encountered him twelve hours ago.

Had he and his thugs gone straight up to Monroe after running from Duncan and me? Why? To get back at me? They were the ones who’d started everything by stealing the case.

I slumped against the wall, hating the idea that I had, whether it had been my fault or not, somehow caused my mother to be hurt. And Emilio. A silver bullet lodged in a werewolf could be fatal. If it had struck his heart, it would have killed him instantly.

“In Shoreline?” Jasmine sounded confused.

It was confusing. I wished Duncan and I had managed to subdue the blond man and question him.

“Shoreline, Seattle… The guy gets around.” I remembered the bartender’s words that those thugs were from up north . “He stole something from me—technically from my intern. An ancient druidic case with a wolf head on the lid.”

“I’m talking to her now,” Jasmine said, her mouth away from the phone. “Luna said she’s seen those guys before.”

“Are you with my mom now?” I asked.

“Yeah. We’re in her cabin. She heard what you said about a wolf artifact and thinks you should come up here right away.”

“With salami,” came a masculine voice from the background.

“That’s Emilio,” Jasmine said.

“I gathered. If he can request meat, he can’t be that grievously injured.” I hoped.

“He’s sweaty, pale, and moaning and complaining every twenty seconds, but his appetite is okay.”

“A good sign.”

“I’ll be up there soon.” I hung up, set the phone down, and bent forward to grip my knees.

In addition to all my other woes, the question of whether I had enough money left this month for gas and salamis trickled through my mind.

“I’ll have to dig into the emergency fund.” I cringed at the idea, but family members being shot had to qualify as an emergency. At least I had a sufficient emergency fund these days.

Three honks sounded in the parking lot. Was that Bolin with the birds again?

Irritated, I grabbed my phone and keys, intending to tell him to answer the leasing inquiries or do something else more useful than battling nature. But when I walked outside, I found Duncan in his Roadtrek idling in the parking lot. Had he been the one to honk? Bolin and his squeegee and paper towels had disappeared.

Duncan rolled down the window and waved cheerfully at me. “Do you like my new tires?”

I headed for the truck, not in the mood to banter, but I did observe, “They’re even bigger than the last ones.”

“Yes, I upgraded. In case you need to borrow my van again to run over wolves in the woods.” Duncan waved toward the greenbelt where he’d battled my cousins.

“I’m sure it would be effective, but can you move? You’re blocking me in. I need to— My pack was attacked by the same guys we fought last night.”

The humor vanished from Duncan’s eyes. “In retribution?”

“I… don’t know yet. I need to go up there.”

“We didn’t even hurt the blond man. And none of the others were seriously injured.”

I spread my arms, confused and frustrated, and waved for him to move his van.

He started to put it in gear but paused. “Is your brutish cousin going to be there?”

“Unfortunately. It sounds like the whole family is gathering.”

“Do you want me to go with you? Do you want me to drive you up there?”

“No. You’re a lone wolf. They’ll attack you again.”

“They treat you like a lone wolf. What if they attack you ?”

I opened my mouth, wanting to say I could handle it, but could I? Even in my powerful lupine form, I hadn’t been able to best my cousins, not when it had been four against one. I might have knocked Augustus off that train trestle, but they’d then knocked me off. And what if Augustus blamed me for the attack on Mom and wouldn’t let me close enough to her cabin to see her?

“Let me take you up there, Luna,” Duncan said softly. “They’ll think twice about attacking you with me at your side.”

“They won’t think twice about attacking you .”

“Let them.” His eyes flared with feral energy, reminding me of how strong and dangerous he could be. “It sounds like your pack could use some of its weakest members weeded out.”

“They are, unfortunately, not weak.”

“Its non-contributing asshole members then.”

I couldn’t object to that description of my cousins, especially if it was true that they were taxing members of the paranormal community who were trying to do business in the greater Seattle area—in a part of that area that our pack didn’t even claim. What did werewolves need with that kind of money anyway?

Still, I hesitated, loath to get Duncan involved. I didn’t want him to put himself in danger on my behalf.

“Let me help, Luna,” he urged softly, watching the indecision on my face. “Like I said, I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything. You just…” I groped in the air. He had betrayed me, and I didn’t want to dismiss that, but I’d also let myself be drawn in by his charm when I should have been warier. I couldn’t blame everything on him.

“Need to earn your trust,” he said firmly.

“Are you planning to stick around long enough for that to matter?”

“I told you there are a lot of bodies of water to fish in here. I could be in Seattle a long time, and since fate is making it so our paths keep crossing…” He extended a hand, palm toward the sky.

“Our paths are crossing because you keep driving into my parking lot.”

“Fate.” His affable expression returned as he gave an insouciant smile and waved toward the passenger seat.

“This is a bad idea,” I muttered, but I got into the van with him.