Charming People

by A. L. Tyler

  I crawled as fast as I dared toward the other set of library doors, hands flat on plush rugs laid over marble floors, keeping as much distance as I could between myself and the wolves’ line of sight.

  Bless my synesthesia, at least I could always hear where they were. My warded jacket combined with the abundance of magical artifacts in the room seemed to mask the magic of the Topaz inside me. Just as I had been to Axel, the wolves only saw me as one more shiny gem in a sparkling cache.

  The wolves were nosing through priceless shelves of books and cabinets of the world’s most expensive magical implements. Artifacts toppled to the floor as they bumped and growled along, occasionally fighting amongst themselves over minor treasures as they trampled elaborate glass instruments and snapped chairs and tables like they were toothpicks.

  I slid across the floor, shaking and sweating, watching the new computer terminals go down as a brute climbed atop them to reach for a display of harping crystals on a high shelf.

  My heart leaped into my throat when Nick appeared right next to me. The blacks of his eyes were wide and filled with dark certainty. We were going to die.

  You have a plan. Stick to the plan.

  Nick didn’t know my plan, and he still had a gun in his hand. His grip tightened as he gave me a nod. He wanted to go down fighting.

  “No,” I hissed, landing my hand on the piece before he could do anything stupid.

  Nick’s eyes flashed in anger. He was right; he was supposed to be in charge here. He was the handler. I was his attached resource. He made the decisions. No conversation. This relationship was a one-way street, even if he wanted to drive us off a fucking cliff.

  No. Not today.

  Sweat was dripping in my eyes as cold air. The smell of a hundred wet dogs poured in through the broken window. I stared at Nick with determination and nodded toward the library doors. If we could get there without drawing any attention, we might be able to get out before the pack descended on us.

  I might be able to ward the doors strong enough that we could run.

  They might hold long enough for us to make it.

  Assuming we got there, and we got the doors shut behind us.

  That’s a lot of maybe. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Just get to the doors.

  We were only twenty feet away, but there weren’t any desks or bookcases to hide behind on the final stretch. I swallowed my fear and kept moving.

  Fifteen feet. Ten.

  Wards sang to life on the doors, sealing them shut from the outside.

  Fuck! I exhaled a little too loud, and the anxiety buried in the pit of my stomach came shooting out my left palm as a single bright blue spark. Exposed in the middle of the floor, I bit my lip against the pain as a wolf looked toward us. His lips curled as his snarl ripped through the air and straight to my core.

  I froze. Nick froze.

  Another wolf slammed into the first, and the two of them crunched a cabinet of potions that sounded like punk rock as the vials broke and things that shouldn’t mix started mixing. Fights broke out as the animals tried to gain a better position near the quickly spoiling magic, and in the midst of the tearing flesh and snapping jaws, Nick decided to make a move toward the doors.

  I grabbed his shoulder and shook my head. He stared at me like I was insane, and that was when I saw it.

  Just over Nick’s shoulder, thirty feet away, there was a visual catalog of minerals. Right next to the delicate, spiral wrought-iron stairs to the astronomy loft. Nick glanced back, then furrowed his brow, shaking his head. He had no clue what I was thinking.

  I wasn’t thinking.

  Moonstone! Now or never. “Follow me!”

  I jumped up and ran, grabbing a heavy, metal-framed portrait off the wall and slamming the corner hard into the glass of the display. Rock samples fell everywhere.

  Where is it! No time. I scooped up as many as I could before darting up the stairs. Something took a snap at me and I whirled around, unleashing a massive fireball in its angry eyes. The wolf yelped in pain and surprise, turning his head to the side before coming back at me with fresh hatred.

  Something else grabbed me by the back of my coat. The inertia prevented me from twisting to fire off another shot.

  When Nick wrapped an arm around my waist and slowed to a stop, we were at the top of the observation deck next to the telescope and wolves were coming up after us.

  I set another blazing jet of magic straight down and kept it up until the stairs burned red hot and threatened to collapse with a series of whines and uneasy shudders. The platform wobbled, uneasy. The wolves leaped away. Others were already testing the nearby stacks as a ladder.

  “What are we doing?” Nick demanded through gritted teeth.

  I pointed at the window behind us and the three-story drop below. “We’re going out. Use your gun, shoot the window, get us away and don’t talk!”

  BAM!

  Cold air whipped past my face, and even with a daywalker to soften the blow, the landing wasn’t as soft as I would have preferred. I stifled my groan and winced as pain shot through my left hip, and then Nick scooped me up and started running.

  Too fast! “They’ll sense you—slow down!”

  Nick slowed. He stopped in a grove of trees near some large boulders. Propped up against the rough, lichen-covered surface, I tried to quiet my nerves to listen for wolves. I could hear them, wandering, making their way toward the catastrophe at the library—but not near us.

  I pulled the stones from my pocket and sorted through them by the light of my phone until I found a moonstone. And another.

  I handed one to Nick.

  “Swallow it,” I whispered. “It can disguise us. They’ll think we’re wolves, too. Just don’t talk, or run, or look them in the eye, or anything else that might piss them off.”

  His face changed. “That’s an old wives’ tale.”

  “I had a teacher at the academy that said there were rumors that there was some merit to the practice.”

  “Those that can’t do, teach!” He was staring at me like I was crazy. I probably was. “Your plan is based on a rumor? And these aren’t normal gods damn werewolves! What does this do to vampires?”

  I swallowed my stone. “It’s all I’ve got, just like the rumors. Knowing werewolves—let alone testing such rumors—is forbidden by the Bleak. I’m going with it.”

  What would a moonstone do to a vampire? I had no clue. Until thirty seconds ago, I would have told anyone that swallowing a moonstone to prevent werewolf attacks was as useless as a case-sensitive search engine. Werewolves played rough, even with their own.

  The sound of scratching mouse feet was getting closer.

  “Nick...” I said under my breath.

  A pair of yellow eyes whipped around and looked directly at me. Nick swore under his breath as I lowered my gaze and assumed a smaller posture as I shoved my phone back in my pocket. Out of the corner of my eye and through the drizzle pouring down, I saw Nick put the moonstone in his mouth.

  The lost wolf lumbered forward, and his eyes seemed suspicious as he looked me over. His massive legs sank a foot deep into the muddy ground, and he used his front paws to steady himself, almost like a gorilla, as he got close.

  Wet, hanging jowls pressed up close to me as a snout the size of a softball sniffed and snorted mucus onto my jacket. My knuckles were white against the hard boulder next to me. I prayed.

  He exhaled a low growl and used one massive paw-hand to flick me to the ground, exposing my stomach. Nick started to stand, but I waved him off. It wouldn’t help now, anyway. We were both goners if the moonstones were a lie.

  The wolf nibbled and dug at my jacket for a moment. He finally set one paw directly on my chest, leaning on it hard as he bent down over my face.

  He growled deep, teeth snapping inches from my nose as he turned his face to look me in the eye, unblinking. He was judging me.

  Oh, no.

  Everything I knew about wolves, lost wolves, pack dynamics,
and wolf culture flashed in my mind. There was a reason I only saw male wolves around here. Werewolf social structures were decades behind, and women bearing the curse was taboo.

  I was dressing in drag, and this old man didn’t like it. He expected me to prove my right to run with the men.

  It’ll heal. It was still going to hurt like a bitch.

  His shaggy, gruesome face blocked out the few stars I could see through the breaking clouds above us, and his glowing yellow eyes stared directly into mine as he breathed low and deep. My lungs filled with the smell of half-digested raw meat, and I knew where it came from.

  He nosed at my arm, again and again, becoming more persistent. Nick took a step forward. I twisted my head to the side, biting the collar of my jacket and groaning at Nick to stop.

  CRUNCH. I screamed through the pain. The wolf released my arms and pawed at his mouth, confused by the unripped leather.

  BAM. BAM. BAM. The wolf fell forward. I rolled onto my mangled arm, choking on tears and hot, blinding pain that pulsed through me. My legs were trapped beneath the dead beast, but Nick pulled me free, and despite all warnings, he ran.

  The howls that broke out cut into my psyche like hot knives. They punctuated the throbbing pain in my arm, and the sounds of scurrying and clawing feet around us made me twitch and recoil in fear. They were running every which direction, riled by Nick’s presence, my presence, the sound of the gun, the chaos in the library...

  When Nick finally slowed, he cast me another long look that said I was crazy. Yeah, I agree.

  He unzipped my jacket and pulled my arm free before I could protest, moving so fast that it felt like the pain took several seconds to follow. Maybe my brain was on a delayed processing schedule because my senses were overloading. Maybe I was going into shock.

  “Santersana.” Nick said the spell under his breath. He glared at me, keeping his hand on my arm as he held me close until the pain stopped. My bones wove back together, and the sound of the spell was louder than I would have preferred, but all of the wolves were back by the house now.

  Hot tears slid down my cheeks. Nick helped me back into my jacket—probably the only reason my arm was still attached—and looked me in the eye as he slid the zipper back up. Lightning laced across the sky. I could smell my sweat clinging to the musty leather of the jacket, and I thought about the ocean.

  Nick could make it. We could make it.

  But there were people still inside the house, trapped with a killer. The library doors wouldn’t hold forever, and when they gave, the shit would hit the fan.

  I knew what Nick would do. He knew me, too.

  We set off at a slow pace, working our way back toward the house. Just as the lights of one of the terraces came into view, Nick itched at his ring. I knew what that meant: some had set off the wards he’d laid to keep people in their rooms.

  Hopefully, they didn’t go looking for us in the library.

  As we approached the mansion, the trees thinned out. The manicured lawn came into view, and some garbage scattered across it drew my eye.

  It wasn’t garbage. A hand here, and a thigh bone there...

  I glanced back at the mansion, spotting the grim porch where Axel Hayden had been dragged from the house. These were his remains, and knowing our killer was still active, I had to seize my chance. A wolf was moving around the side of the house, sniffing at windows and bothering about the bushes. I touched Nick’s shoulder and nodded toward the scattered pieces of the corpse.

  He took one look at the wolf and shook his head, pointing adamantly at the house.

  The job comes first. I ignored him, walking low and slow toward the largest piece of dismembered flesh I could see. If any spell work or hex was left, it would be there.

  “Jette!” Nick hissed.

  The wolf stood upright, growling at both of us just as I reached Axel Hayden’s gutted torso. It charged like a rhino, stopping with a deep growl just before us as it reared up to its full height.

  The thing was at least ten feet tall. With one massive paw, he walloped Nick and sent him flying toward the house. I bowed down, averting my eyes, but mostly trying to bring myself closer to the torso to listen—listen—

  If only I could hear over the animal’s grating growls.

  Nick fired off a warning shot, and the animal twisted to growl at him.

  Idiot! Save your ammo for someone who won’t require the whole fucking clip—we might need those bullets!

  “Hey!” The wolf glared back down at me. This one, at least, seemed somewhat less bothered by my missing Y-chromosome. I still didn’t want to face another dominance trial. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I know what you want. It’s yours. I’m down with it. You can have it...”

  I pushed the torso at his feet, trying not to vomit as blood and guts spilled over my hands. Another firm push. My offering couldn’t be mistaken.

  My hand landed on a smooth edge in the dark. Was something hidden inside the body?

  The beast glared down at me, and I laid myself flat on the ground. I rolled to expose my stomach in submission. I kept my hand on the strange thing I felt in the body.

  It was the top of his spinal column. Something had removed his head, but it hadn’t been ripped off. This felt more like the smooth removal of an ax or saw. It was the kind of sharp-edged cut I saw on every cut of meat in the grocery store.

  In autopsy pictures, too. I let my fingers form the image in my mind.

  Something had sheared the bone, and I’d seen skeletons like this before.

  The Packs were known for using heads as proof of death.

  A loud growl shook me, and I yanked my hand away. The wolf grabbed the torso in his jaws and started to crunch around the remaining ribs. I took my cue and left him to dine alone.

  We stepped inside the house, the porch door left unlocked from Axel’s earlier exit. When I finally breathed again, I wished I would have remembered to do it through my mouth. The smell made me dry heave.

  Thank the gods I hadn’t eaten. If I puked up that moonstone, I was probably going to have to swallow it again. Broken arm and all, it may have been the reason the wolf went for my arm instead of my neck.

  “What do we do now?” I asked. “Wards were set off?”

  “Yes,” Nick said, gun still in hand. “We figure out where everyone is, and then I’m going to shoot Rogers.”

  “Rogers?” I asked. I gripped the sleeve of my jacket, where my muscles still felt a little tight after Nick’s healing spell.

  I needed to learn more healing spells. Nick was fantastic at them. My formal training was in taking things apart, not putting them together.

  “Magic-stripping bullets are the only thing that could have broken that window back in the library, and I know for a fact he has some.” Nick started down the hallway.

  I tried to keep up, nearly rolling my ankle for all the mud caked on the bottom of my shoes. “It was a hit. By the Packs.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I examined the corpse. The killer took the head. It was removed using a blade, not ripped off.” And ten to one, I knew where it was hidden now.

  “In the dark? With a wolf standing over you?”

  I hugged myself. My next shower was going to be the best one of my life. “I felt the cut on the spinal column. I’m good under pressure. This one time, I stole this thing called the Jarvais Topaz right out of a Bleak Vault and then made off with it before this psycho stalker named Alex Mordley could kill me for breaking his heart and stealing his take. You might have heard about that.”

  Nick smirked over his shoulder. “You’re the biggest badass I’ve ever known, Jette. Good work.”

  I wanted to smile. I didn’t quite manage, because something was bothering me about the whole situation, it finally clicked into place. “This doesn’t make any sense. If he got out of his room, and he wanted to make sure Amos was dead, why the hell would he bother doing something as stupid as shooting out the windows to kill us? That doesn’t make sense.�
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  “Criminals don’t operate on logic,” Nick said as we turned another corner. “Not the logic the rest of us understand, anyway. That’s why we call it deviant behavior.”

  Deviance. Like switching the mode of killing from hexing to poison and back again.

  But Nick was wrong. I was wrong. That was perfectly logical if one assumed the killer was behaving logically, as well.

  Two modes of killing. Two.

  Amos had been hexed, and somehow, someone had snuck out of their room. And instead of going after Amos, that someone had decided to cut off our exits and unleash the hounds. My vacation had been so distracting that I hadn’t even considered the possibility until now.

  A freelancing hitman. A head. A furious ex.

  Someone had killed Axel and Shaina. Someone had killed Molly. But of all the guests at this party, I was the only person who knew for sure that people wanted me dead.

  What if the killer was after me?

  Chapter 23

  I had to stop an lean against a wall as vertigo overtook me. It all made sense now.

  “Jette?”

  Lightning ripped across the inky sky, illuminating the darkened hallway. Thunder followed, and I knew the storms were putting up a final fight. Our one break in the rain had to happen at night, and while I was elbow deep in Axel.

  Figures.

  Two modes of killing. Two killers. Two targets.

  “It wasn’t Rogers,” I said. “Rogers didn’t shoot the window in the library. It was Cal, but I doubt he’s really Cal, because they would have wanted to be sure Skyla was the only possible surviving heir...”

  “Slow down.” Nick came back to stand in front of me.

  My adrenaline rush was slowing, and by the way it hurt to breathe, I was pretty sure the wolf by the boulders had cracked some of my ribs when he pushed me down.

  “One of my former crew hired Cal to kill me here,” I said. “On vacation. While I wasn’t expecting it. If you take Molly’s murder out of all of this, it makes perfect sense.”