Page 1 of The Wolfing Hour

Chapter

One

Chapter One

“Bloody damn Mary.”

“Ida, I really don’t need this from you right now.”

“I don’t even drink tomato juice anymore, did you know that? Not since I was a kid.”

“You’ve mentioned it several times since we left the house.”

My octogenarian best friend Ida, magical cat Fennel, Cecil the environmental anarchist chaos gnome, and I were heading into East Pluto in my orange Mini. One of my tenants, Señora Cervantes, had asked us to meet her there.

“Takes forever to get to East Pluto. Hence the name,” Ida grumbled.

East Pluto was an unincorporated town on the eastern edge of Smokethorn County, on the state line between California and Arizona. It took an hour to get there from my place, which was in the town of Smokethorn.

“Everything’ll be closed. I swear, East Plutonians roll up the streets at the end of the day. It’s got the population of a half-full Greyhound bus spread out over miles.”

My eyes watered as I suppressed a sneeze. The acrid scent of alfalfa mingled with the earthy smell of the cattle fields we passed—windows all the way up, of course. I could handle the alfalfa, but manure put my sinuses on red alert every time.

“This isn’t about East Pluto. It’s about Bloody Mary,” I said, sniffling as I reached for the vial of non-drowsy natural antihistamine in the glove compartment. I’d crafted it for exactly this sort of situation.

“It’s partly about it,” she replied. “The last time we were in this town, you almost got smoked by a graveyard ghoul.”

“Smokedis a strong word.” Not too far off base, though. I’d been doing a job for my demon grandfather—though I hadn’t known he was my grandfather then. I’d picked up a package containing a Mictlan mandrake. “And if I hadn’t done that job, you wouldn’t have Meredith.”

“Meredith is the only good thing that came out of that trip.” Ida fished the little mandrake out of her oversized purse and set her in the cup holder. The little plant stretched her fronds and squinted angrily at me before gazing fondly at Ida.

“I had a feeling you brought her.” I sniffed a dose of the antihistamine and immediately felt clearer.

Ida took the vial from me, corked it, and tossed it back in the glovebox. “Of course, I did. Would you rather I left her behind so she could scream and break all the windows in the park? It’s nearly midnight.”

“Ronan said he’d keep her with him.”

“She doesn’t like anyone but me. What if she screamed at your boyfriend, and his wolf popped out and swatted her into the wall?”

I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Do me a favor and don’t phrase Ronan’s shift as his wolf ‘popping out’ in front of him, okay? Besides, he could handle it.”

She switched off the radio. It had been tuned to my favorite station, KLXX. Bread’s “If” played. It was a dreamy sort of song, and I wished I was back in my little house in the center of the Siete Saguaros Mobile Home Park, snuggled in bed with Ronan listening to it.

Instead, I was on the road out to the middle of nowhere to confront a possible mirror demon with my grouchy bestie by my side. Fennel and Cecil were cuddled in Fennel’s booster seat in the back. They’d fallen asleep before we hit La Paloma, and the gnome was snoring like a malfunctioning buzzsaw. Meredith swayed to the sound like it was music.

I turned the radio on again, and Meredith changed her rhythm, adapting to the Bread song instead of Cecil’s sleep apnea.

“You didn’t have to come,” I said gently. “I know you and Mary have a history.”

“That’s one way to put it.” She crossed her arms and stuck out her jaw. “She came after my cousin Joyce. Flew right through the mirror and grabbed her. Hate to think what might’ve happened if I hadn’t been there.”

“Didn’t Joyce marry your first fiancé?”

“If you’re asking if I ever regretted not letting Mary drag that hussy into hell for a real long time, the answer is yes. I did. But, in the end, Joyce saved me a lot of heartache. I would’ve married a guy who clearly wasn’t in love with me. Best to learn that before the wedding. Even better to learn it before asking someone to marry you, but no one ever accused Gerald of being smart.” A faraway look came into her eyes. “He was a beautiful man, though. He and Joyce had four wonderful years together before she left him for a lifeguard she met at a municipal pool in Baltimore.”

My lips curved, and a laugh bubbled out of me. Ida started laughing, too.

“You have the wildest stories,” I said.