Wicked Hour

by Neill, Chloe

  “What about Cash?” Connor asked.

  “Cash doesn’t care what happens around here as long as it doesn’t attract human attention.”

  “That sounds very frustrating,” I said quietly, and was glad she’d figured out a way to get some distance from the drama.

  “It sucks,” she said. “They’re family, but it sucks.”

  “Do you know where we can find Zane?” Connor asked.

  “No. She was telling the truth—he does disappear. Sometimes they go up or down the shore. Like she said, he gets obsessed with things. Some idea or hobby or whatever. He’s been secretive lately, which is a new one for him. He usually likes to talk.” Her voice was dry. “I had the sense he’d fallen into some new project. I don’t know what—’cause secretive. But when he was here, he was on his screen more than usual, said he was doing his ‘research.’”

  “What about his friends?”

  “John, Beyo, and Marcus,” she said. “His own little gang.”

  “He was in charge?” I asked, reading her tone.

  “Oh yeah. Zane doesn’t take instruction well; he decides. And the others are basically zeta males. They’d do whatever Zane said.”

  Connor looked away for a moment, gazed at the water, brow furrowed as if considering . . . or deciding, before shifting his gaze back to her. “Evelyn, I’m going to level with you—I think your brother is involved in the attacks on Loren and on the bonfire. We need to find him before anyone else is hurt.”

  She just looked at him, expression blank. “I can’t say I’m surprised. But I honestly don’t know where he is. You could ask his friends, but even if they knew, they wouldn’t tell you.”

  And presuming they were here, I thought, and not with Zane. Given the attack had involved multiple creatures, the latter seemed more likely.

  “Do you think your mom would let us look through his room?” I asked.

  “Oh. Um, she probably wouldn’t.” Evelyn smiled, and there was nothing happy about it. “But I pay the rent, and I will.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “Zane borrowed something of mine,” Evelyn threw out as we passed her mother, still on the couch, now with a beer in one hand and a screen in the other.

  We followed her down the hallway, passing a small bathroom cluttered with knickknacks to a bedroom on the left. She opened the door, and the smell of unwashed sheets and stale beer wafted out.

  “He’s classy,” Evelyn said, surveying the carnage.

  I’d have said it looked like someone had tossed the room, except that I suspected that was its normal state. There were a small bed, a bureau, a nightstand, a desk. An entertainment screen and a closet with two sliding doors. There were clothes everywhere—socks on the floor, jeans across the bed, a pile of shirts in a laundry basket, a pile of everything spilling out from the closet floor. Empty beer bottles stood in groups in the few empty spaces not covered with clothes, like bowling pins waiting for the roll.

  This was a far cry from Georgia’s cabin or ours, from the house Marian and Arne shared. And farther still from the Pack’s Chicago HQ.

  “I’ll wait outside,” Evelyn said, and left us alone.

  “Thoughts?” I asked. “Hazmat suits?”

  “What a fucking mess,” Connor muttered, and I had the sense he wasn’t just talking about the debris field.

  “Yeah.” Giving up any hope that I’d walk out of this room without needing a shower, I dived in.

  The bureau was closest, so I went there first, picked through the detritus with a fingertip. There were coins and credit tokens, pieces of gum, pens, peanut shells, and crumbs (assorted). No wallet, no notepad with scribbled secrets, no magic potion.

  “He’s a pig,” I said.

  “No argument.” Connor flipped back the blankets on the bed, throwing discarded clothes and funk into the air.

  I opened a few drawers, found them mostly empty but for a random T-shirt here and there. Not surprising, given most of the clothes were on the floor.

  While Connor kicked through the stuff on the floor, I walked over to the desk. Here, there were glimmers of the boy Zane had been. A small yellow car, a baseball, a scouting pin, all of it scattered with the same garbage as the bureau.

  I unwadded a ball of paper, scanned an old-fashioned receipt, the kind handwritten on a carbon paper pad. The store’s name was printed on the receipt, the amount listed but the items identified only as “Misc.”

  “Have you ever been to the Crystal Inferno?” I asked him.

  “Not that I’m aware of. What is it?”

  “Looks like a store in town. A few weeks ago, Zane spent four hundred bucks there. Or he has the receipt of someone else who did.”

  Frowning, Connor came around the bed, glanced at the receipt I held out. “What the hell does this guy want with crystals?”

  “Maybe that’s his latest obsession,” I said. “But if he bought crystals, where are they?”

  “That’s a very good question,” Connor said, glancing around. “You find anything else?”

  “No. But I haven’t gone into the closet. I’m not brave enough.”

  He chuckled. “Let’s start with the receipt and see how far we go.”

  We walked back into the living room. “Have you ever been to the Crystal Inferno?” Connor asked Jude.

  She snorted. “I’m not wasting money on hippie crystals and herbs. We’re already magic. Don’t need any of that nonsense.”

  I guessed she wasn’t aware her son’s feelings were different.

  “Then we’ll thank you for your time and get out of your hair.”

  “Sure, chief,” she said, and lifted her bottle in salute.

  * * *

  * * *

  We met Alexei in a plot of green between the Williams house and our cabin.

  “Anything?” Connor asked.

  Alexei shook his head. “Gone. Cabin’s a mess, small for the three of them, and needed airing out. It was disgusting, but they haven’t been there in a few days. Smelled musty. Milk’s spoiled. I dug around, didn’t find anything that indicated where they might be or how they’re making the transformation. You find anything?”

  “Nothing about where they are or what they’re doing,” Connor said. “Zane’s a punk—and not in the charming way I was a punk,” he added for my benefit. “Family confirms he’s a troublemaker, gets fixated on things, and leads the others around.”

  “We did find this,” I said, and offered him the receipt.

  Alexei’s brows lifted. “Who spends four hundred bucks at a place called the Crystal Inferno?”

  “Someone buying magic supplies?” Connor offered.

  Alexei nodded. “That could work. You going to check it out?”

  “Yeah. Maybe we can nail down their location. In the meantime, can you talk to Georgia? Presuming Traeger’s right about the ‘clubhouse’ being out in the woods, the clan needs to get people out there looking, searching.”

  Alexei nodded. “Fat chance, but I’ll ask.”

  “We’ll meet you back at the cabin,” Connor said. “Be careful out there.”

  “Same to you,” Alexei said, then slid his gaze to me. “And be careful with that damn sword.”

  * * *

  * * *

  We walked back to the cabin to get the bike for the drive into town. Connor rolled his neck and shoulders as we walked, as if fighting back tension.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Frustrated,” he said. “Shifters are allowed to live their lives without worrying about politics, drama. But there comes a point where it just seems they’ve stuck their heads into the sand. It makes me . . . punchy.”

  “Would you like to spar? I’d give you a fighting chance.”

  Connor snorted. “I’ve already seen what happens when we spar, brat. And we’ve got work to d
o.”

  I couldn’t really disagree with that.

  The drama notwithstanding, it was a beautiful night for a drive. Clear and just breezy enough. We took the old main road toward town, then veered away from the shore into the set of tidy blocks where the courthouse and post office stood. The Crystal Inferno sat at the end of the road, the slender bookend in a row of buildings that included a bar and a bank.

  The store name blinked in neon letters, a crystal ball among them. It lit in stages: bottom, middle, top. Bottom, middle, top, the neon buzzing quietly in the darkness. It was late, but the store was still bright despite the hour, either for the thrill of humans dipping a toe into the occult in darkness or for the Supernaturals who apparently shopped here. Crystals hung from strings in the windows that flanked the door, and the shelves were well stocked.

  “Ready?” Connor asked.

  “Yep. We playing humans or ourselves?”

  His smile was a little bit feral. “Oh, ourselves. Feel free to be scary if you need to.”

  Jude hadn’t been far off. There was plenty of hippie in the Crystal Inferno, from guides to joining the world’s consciousness to dreaming your way to happiness and wealth. There were lotions and oils, crystals and geodes, and a small selection of health food staples intended, according to the sign, to “increase the body conscious,” whatever that meant. A woman sang in Gaelic on the store’s speakers, and the air smelled like patchouli and pepper.

  And beneath all the trappings was the subtle buzz of magic.

  “Good evening,” said a cheerful voice from somewhere deeper in the store. We followed it to the counter, where a woman with tan skin and dark hair used a scoop to portion dark seeds into small glass jars.

  She was tall and curvy, her eyes wide and dark, her mouth generous. She wore a flowy dress with wide sleeves and a V-neck in a floral pattern, and her nails were carefully manicured in pastel pink.

  Not a shifter, not a vampire. A sorceress. Bingo.

  “Welcome,” she said, without looking up. “Feel free to browse, or let me know if I can assist you. We have palm reading appointments for tomorrow, but none left tonight, I’m afraid.”

  She looked up, and her eyes went wide. “Well, well,” she said with a laugh, and put down the scoop. “You aren’t who I expected to see tonight. Connor Keene and Elisa Sullivan. I know you from TV, the screen,” she said. “What brings you to our little backwater?”

  “Family” was all Connor said. “And you are?”

  “I’m Paloma,” she said, and began to screw tiny lids onto the tiny jars. “We don’t have any blood, but we’ve got some nice kombucha.”

  “We’re actually just here for information,” he said.

  “Information? About what?”

  “Let’s start with why a sorceress is holding court at a shop in a backwater.”

  She flinched, turned her gaze to me, and there was a lot less welcome in it. “Hey,” she said. “I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t out me.”

  “You don’t tell people you’re a sorceress?” I asked.

  “No, and you don’t have to be rude about it. This isn’t Chicago, and there are many reasons not to tell people, including discrimination. Humans might think of me as eccentric, but they think of me as human.”

  “That’s fair,” I said.

  “Does the Order know you’re here?” Connor asked.

  A blush rose high on her apple cheekbones. “I’m nonpracticing, so I don’t have to be registered. I run a legitimate human-oriented business, so either tell me what you want or get out.”

  Our questions had been pointed, but not rude. So they didn’t explain the sudden nerves or high-pitched protests.

  “We just want information,” Connor said. “About what you sold Zane Williams.”

  Her lips pursed. “If he’s complaining about the price, we negotiated that, and he said it was fine. It’s past the return date, and we don’t give refunds.” She pointed to the sign beside the cash register. It did, indeed, state NO REFUNDS ALLOWED.

  “We don’t care about refunds. Have you seen him in the last few days?”

  “Zane? No. Why would I? I know in Chicago Sups are one big happy family, but Sups don’t mix up here. We keep our magic to ourselves, and I don’t have anything in common with the clan.”

  The bell on the door rang, and we all looked back. Four humans—all women, one of them wearing a white “Bride to Be” sash. They were all giggling and immediately began pawing through the merchandise.

  “A bachelorette party,” Paloma said. “Just what I need.”

  “What did Zane buy?” I asked.

  “Why do you—”

  “Paloma,” I said, leaning over the counter, “let me make this simple: We’re trying to find Zane. We’re looking for information that will help us find him so we can all get on with our evenings, okay? The faster we do that, the less chance those girls have to figure out who we are and wonder what we’re doing here. So maybe knock it off with the questions?”

  Her eyes widened. “Okay. I’m just— I don’t get many nonlocals in here. Or many people trying to interrogate me. He bought a geode.”

  “A geode,” Connor said quietly. “He spent four hundred dollars on a rock?”

  “It was a really gorgeous rock,” she muttered. “And there were a few other things.” She closed her eyes. “He bought some wax and a brass seal, some essential oils, a quartz crystal.”

  There was absolutely no way the Zane Williams whose room we’d surveyed was going to seal envelopes with fancy wax.

  “Did he buy anything magical?”

  This time, all the color went out of her face. “Keep your voice down. I don’t sell real magic here.”

  “Do they know that?” I wondered, gesturing toward the bridal party.

  “Humans believe what they want to believe. Spellselling without a license is illegal.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t even sell charms, grimoires, because I don’t want to get in trouble with the Order.”

  In addition to her body language and the nervous magic, that she wouldn’t meet my eyes told me she was lying.

  I’d play along. For now. “Why did Zane want a geode? From what we hear, he’s not exactly rolling in money.”

  “I don’t know,” she said quickly. “Maybe he liked the look. Wanted to spruce up his decor.”

  “Paloma,” Connor said, leaning over the counter, “Loren Owens is dead. And we think the person who killed him also attacked Carlie Stone and tried to attack us. We think Zane and several of his friends are involved in that. So if you have information that would help us find them, we need it. Now.”

  “I don’t know,” she said again, this time defensively. “But I think Zane was hoping to sell it—to break off the crystals and pass them off as gem-quality amethysts.”

  No way was Zane that organized. And I couldn’t imagine anyone would be dumb enough to buy fake gems from him. Who would have trusted him enough to do that?

  “Why do you think that?” Connor asked.

  “He asked about the stones, if you could take the stones out. I said you could probably chip them out, but why would you want to, because it would ruin the geode?”

  “Do you know where he was going to do this potential selling?” Connor asked.

  “No. I don’t even know if he was going to do it. He was pretty keyed up when he left, but I haven’t talked to him since.”

  * * *

  * * *

  We left her after that pronouncement to let her handle the bachelorette party.

  “She was lying,” Connor said, glancing back through the glowing window.

  “Oh, completely,” I agreed. “She made up the story about the geode. Not that I’d doubt Zane would pull the con, but he isn’t organized enough to do it.”

  “And the brass seal,” Connor said, shaking his head. “
Because he has a lot of fine correspondence to take care of.”

  “Right?” I looked back. “There’s magic in the air, but it’s faint. I think she sold them something magical. A charm, a spell, an amulet, a potion, something that contributed to what’s going on now. She may not know what it was for—or she doesn’t want to know. But she’s involved.”

  “We need her to tell us the truth.”

  “We can’t make her talk.”

  He just looked at me, a gleam in his eyes.

  “We can’t legally make her talk,” I amended. “If she’s the only sorceress in the area, yeah, it’s likely she’s the source of the magic. But it’s not positive, and we don’t have any evidence she was involved other than the receipt, which could be totally innocuous.”

  “It’s not innocuous.”

  “No, it’s not, and she’s lying. But we need more information, or something to pressure her with.”

  That gleam came back.

  “You’re very bloodthirsty today.”

  “Sayeth the vampire.”

  “I’m bloodthirsty every day. It’s part of my charm. We need leverage. Maybe Theo can find something when he reaches the Order that we can use against her.”

  Bells jingled, and Connor looked back at the store, watched the bachelorette party walk outside, each carrying a small white bag with CRYSTAL INFERNO printed on it. They strode down the street in their short dresses and stiletto heels, then slid into the back of a waiting pink limousine.

  “Why do humans do that?” Connor asked.

  “Ride in limousines? Fastest way to get from point A to point B while also drinking cheap champagne.”

  “The sash and the giggling.”

  “Do you have any idea how many giggling girls I’ve seen you with?” I touched a hand to his arm. “‘Oh, Con, you’re so strong. And you’re just so handsome.’”

  He just stared at me with a mix of horror and amusement in his eyes. “Never happened.”

  “Oh,” I said with a grin, “it happened. And gave me plenty of ammunition.”