by Ruby Loren
January decided to let it slide. She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose my enchanter status isn’t as much of a secret as I thought it was.” She sighed. “Maybe I can still reason with him?” She mused, wondering if what he’d said about killing everyone else who’d stood in his way was true. Had he meant it literally, or as some kind of modern slang, that wasn’t quite so final? She’d have to do some digging into his history.
“What I want to know, is how the hell did he get in?” Gregory’s voice was a low growl.
January shot him a withering look. “Hmm, I don’t know. It might have something to do with your clever candles that mask everyone’s scent, so no one knows who’s what.”
Gregory’s expression cleared and then clouded. “Oh. Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
7
Well, that was a disaster, January thought when she pulled up outside her house for the second time that night. She hoped that this time, she might actually make it inside without further incident.
The sight of a man standing at her front door firmly crushed that hope.
“Who are you? Another King Magician?” She asked, but she already knew who, or rather what, this visitor was.
He was a werewolf and she didn’t recognise him.
“I’m Joe Milan, leader of the pack of wolves who’ll soon be running the Witchwood pack.” He said it so matter of factly that January didn’t doubt him. The Witchwood pack hadn’t had a strong leader since being overthrown by Luke, the were-jaguar. They’d subsequently picked meathead Dominic as their champion, but that hadn’t ended well. For any wolf as authoritative as Joe appeared to be, taking over would be relatively simple.
“Okay,” January said, simply, looking into his dark eyes and doing her best to act neutrally. “Just one thing…”
The wolf raised a dark eyebrow and January noticed the way he subtly dropped into a more defensive stance. This wolf evidently knew more about her than the members of his pack she’d come face to face with in the woods.
“I think a wolf called Cedric is the current leader of the Witchwood pack, and he’s a nice guy. I’m pretty sure if you went and spoke to him, he’d let you take over without a serious challenge, or the need to fight.” She’d already noticed the more than adequate amounts of muscle on her visitor’s arms. He was also a head taller than her and seemed to have everything going for him. He was strong, smart, and exceedingly good looking.
January bit her tongue. That last bit wasn’t part of her ‘potential pack leader’ analysis, was it?
“That sounds like a good plan. I’d rather not have to kill anyone, of course,” he said, and January found she liked this wolf already.
“I can get you Cedric’s number, if you’d like to call him?” She suggested, unlocking her front door. “Come on in!” She noticed Joe’s hesitation. “I promise I don’t bite!” She added and then grinned. “Impaling is more my style, but I promise not to do that either.”
“What about magic? I heard you’re an enchanter,” Joe said, stepping inside, none the less.
January raised another eyebrow while she was still facing away from her visitor. Word really was getting around about that supposed secret. She was definitely going to have to find out how it had got out…
“Just between you and me, I’m not the magical marvel people seem to believe. Just don’t tell the mad magician or the bounty hunters who want my head on a stick.” She smiled again at Joe, who looked dark, handsome, and thoroughly baffled by her frankness.
“Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we’re not fighting, but I came here thinking that you wouldn’t exactly welcome me as the new pack leader of the wolves.” Joe was still standing in the entrance to the sitting room and open plan kitchen.
January turned on her coffee machine and offered him a drink. He accepted, but January could tell he would be watching her every action to check she wasn’t poisoning him. Jeez, why doesn’t anybody get that I’m the good guy? She thought to herself and then shrugged it off. It was probably because she’d spent so long being the bad guy.
“If you talk to the Witchwood pack, you’ll find out that we’ve just worked out an accord. They get some of the forest to run around in on full moon nights, and we get some too. There are boundaries and rules and it’s a new arrangement, but I’m hoping it will work. The wolves can do what they like with their pack and territory, and my motley crew can do what they like.” She passed a coffee over to Joe and then made a point to sip her own.
“So, you’re not involved with the wolves?” Joe was frowning.
January echoed his expression. “Why, what have you heard?” She asked.
“A wolf we met in the woods and talked to said that they thought Cedric was basically your puppet, and that you’re still running the wolf pack.”
January ran a hand through her curly, white blonde hair and tugged at a tendril. “Honestly! What more have I got to do for them?!” She said, exasperated by the way the wolves were thinking. She shook her head. “I hope you do take over the pack. You strike me as a strong leader. Hopefully, it won’t cross anyone’s mind to call you a puppet.”
Joe’s mouth turned up at the corners. He tilted his head and looked at her like he was really seeing her for the first time. “Thanks! I hope it all works out in my favour, too. I’ll arrange a meeting with Cedric then and perhaps we can meet again. Together, we’ll go over arrangements and keep this accord you’ve set up.”
January nodded. “That sounds great. You have made my night. Although, there probably wasn’t anything you could have done to make it much worse,” she added.
Joe looked at her slinky black dress and ridiculous heels. “What…” He started to say, but January shook her head at him.
“Unless you have got a lot of free time, you don’t want to know.”
Joe looked amused and rubbed a hand across his dark stubble. “Hey, well maybe sometime,” he said and something about the way his dark eyes looked at her made January’s stomach fill with butterflies.
Oh no, she was definitely well on her way to developing a bit of a crush on the new wolf in town. It was probably just her way of rebounding after Ryan. It’s too soon, she silently whispered to herself.
“By the way, were you watching me earlier tonight?” She asked, remembering the person in the woods when she’d arrived back for the first time that evening.
A little bit of colour rose on Joe’s face and he cleared his throat. “Afraid so. I was going to talk to you then, but I heard a bloodsucker coming and didn’t want to get involved with any of that.”
January had to hide a smile. If he was going to be the pack leader of Witchwood, he was going to find himself involved. Gregory liked to stick his oar into everyone’s affairs and Joe was no doubt going to find himself face to face with a fanged envoy very quickly - if he gained the leadership.
“Okay, good to know it wasn’t a bounty hunter,” January said.
Joe’s forehead furrowed. “You keep mentioning bounty hunters…” He said and then grinned. “I guess that’s part of the long story. You really must tell it to me soon.” He drained his coffee and January smiled. It looked like the wary wolf was starting to believe she wasn’t the bogeyman of wolfish rumours.
“Bye, Joe, let me know about that meeting with Cedric and if there’s anything else I can help you with,” she said, handing over Cedric’s number.
“I’ll let you know,” he promised and January had the feeling that this wasn’t the last she would be seeing of Joe Milan. In fact, she was kind of hoping that was the case.
She’d just instructed the coffee machine to make her another latte when there was a knock at the door. She looked down at the slinky dress she was still wearing and tried not to feel too exasperated. It was only now that she realised she hadn’t repaired the ward on the door that would have told her who was paying her a visit. Leah had blown it apart with a magical bomb.
January frowned remembering that she’d had to foot the bill
for the new door. That would be another thing to take up with Leah.
January crept along the corridor, trying to stretch her magic out to see if she could feel who was there. She’d never tried to do it before.
“Good God, that feels horrific. What are you doing?” The deep voice said, sounding as unruffled as ever.
“Sorry,” January said, opening the door to find Gregory stood just beyond her ward. She opened it a sliver to let him pass. It would appear that feeling people with magic was a bit of a faux-pas. “What’s up? Your party must still be in full swing. It’s only…” January glanced back at the clock on the wall and sighed. “Two in the morning.” It was no wonder her sleeping patterns were messed up.
“Yes, but I thought we should probably talk about… Bob,” Gregory shaped the name as sceptically as possible. He slid past January and immediately installed himself on her sofa, lounging around as if he owned the place. Technically, he did, but it still irked her.
“Do we have to talk about him? I’m kind of hoping that if we all resolve to ignore him, he’ll go away,” January said, only half-joking.
“I’ve figured out that he almost killed me tonight and that you saved my life… again,” he said, his tone completely sober.
January stopped sipping her drink and looked up at Gregory. “It wasn’t a big deal,” she said, trying not to think about the sheer strength of Bob’s attack on Gregory. She also had a nasty feeling he hadn’t even been trying particularly hard.
“I can tell from your face that it was. You think he might be better than you,” Gregory observed.
January wished he wasn’t a master of reading emotions. She sighed and sat down on the armchair opposite Gregory. “He probably is better than me at magic. In theory, I’ve got all this potential, but I haven’t had much training and it’s going to be hard to be taught. Also ‘in theory’, my magic works differently from the rest of the world’s. And by the way, he may look about twelve, but King Bob could be over a hundred. You know what decent witches can do…” she said, thinking of Tor and his son, Simon. They’d both aged pretty favourably.
Gregory nodded, seriously. “So, we need to kill him.”
“Really? I was going to check tomorrow if he was telling the truth, or not, about killing other witches. He might have just meant figuratively…” she trailed off. Gregory was giving her an ‘are you serious?’ look.
“He’s an annoyance we don’t need. Do you really want to be worrying about him as well, when the real bounty hunters come?”
“Hey, maybe they’d fight each other instead of us. You never know, bounty hunters may not want the competition,” she suggested, trying to see a bright side.
“It’s more likely that they’ll team up and stab each other in the back after you’re dead,” Gregory said.
January tried not to sulk. He was right. “So… killing King Bob,” she said, already feeling depressed. He may allegedly be the most famous magician around and be hell bent on killing her, but she couldn’t help feeling that he was also an idiot. Perhaps she was underestimating him, but it felt mean killing him the way she had in mind.
“We find out where he’s staying, follow him and then end it,” Gregory said.
“You should be a bounty hunter,” January said, dryly, and then bit her lip. “He really was powerful. There’s a good chance he’ll have some kind of protection against attacks. Anyone who’s not magical would probably come off pretty badly…”
“Dead, yes,” Gregory said, completely unnecessarily. “You should probably ask Leah to give you a hand. Now that she’s on our side and everything…”
January tried not to glare at Gregory. He didn’t have to bring her into this. “She’s on my side, remember? Not yours. I asked her and she still wants you dead.” She just really wanted to get one over Gregory.
“Useful to know,” he said.
January silently cursed. It was no wonder that Gregory knew everything. “Time for you to leave, please,” she said, as politely as she could, given the late hour.
Gregory stood up but moved towards her instead of the door. “You know, you never got me a birthday present, or said thank you for that outfit you’re wearing.”
January stood up too and stared right back. “The outfit was a political decision made by you, and as for a birthday present… I think saving your life is a pretty good one.”
Gregory put on his best pained expression but January wasn’t buying it. “Another time,” he said.
January was so tired that she accidentally nodded. She stopped as soon as she realised, but Gregory had already seen it and was now looking as smug as she’d ever seen him. Stupid vampires, she thought and shepherded him towards the door, before he could make another bid to overstay his welcome.
“One more thing, January,” he said, pausing on the threshold. She braced herself for the last ditch attempt to stay the night. “The way you got the wolf on your side tonight was a very smart move. Take every opportunity to gain his trust. We need all the allies we can get right now,” he said, seriously. January had opened her mouth to ask him what he was talking about when she heard the rustle of leaves, as something ran back through the woods.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” She said to Gregory, who gave her his most innocent look and ran off into the night.
On top of everything else, she now had to deal with a jealous vampire, who had probably just completely undermined any bridge building she’d done with Joe earlier that night. She had no doubt that it had been a wolf running back through the woods.
Vampires really did suck.
8
January looked out of the window of the train, as it slid along the tracks on its way to London. Next to her, Leah had headphones on and was listening to James Phoenix’s latest proposed demo tracks that were soon to be recorded professionally. They were supposed to have learnt their parts for the recording already, but Leah hadn’t bothered. Annoyingly, January suspected that the drummer would probably still manage to nail it.
She watched the trees and fields zip by and wondered what to do with her life. It was such a big question and one that there wasn’t really a right answer to. Mostly, her life consisted of trying to stay alive, despite numerous attempts to murder her. However - King Bob aside - she’d had some breathing space recently. With Ryan gone and her lack of a job, (with the exception of James Phoenix’s band) she needed a new project.
Starting a business was something she’d always wanted to do, but the business in question had already been taken. Simon’s Black Cat Bakery had gone from strength to strength, and despite infuriating every single local baker in the area by hijacking their best cake recipes and ideas, (although they never could work out how he’d done it) he was undeniably successful. His shop sold out of cake everyday, and January also happened to know that he was inundated with special occasion orders. She sighed. It probably wasn’t worth attempting to compete with Simon. She had a shrewd idea that he was helping his success along with a bit of misused magic.
She would have to think of something else to do instead.
“Hey, we’re here,” Leah said.
January looked up and discovered they were standing outside the building, where Ollie had instructed them to meet.
January shook her head free from drawing blanks on business ideas and frowned. “Are we early?”
“Yup, by about half an hour,” Leah said. January looked at her. The vampire-witch shrugged. “What? It annoyed me the way they were all high and mighty when we were late. I’m gonna tell them that we were given the wrong time,” Leah said and smirked.
January rolled her eyes. “Are you trying to give Ollie a nervous breakdown?”
“Maybe,” Leah said with a grin.
January momentarily entertained the idea that Leah might like Ollie, or maybe even James. She dismissed it just as quickly. Leah was so old, she probably wouldn’t still be playing games when it came to having feelings. She’d also probably never consider a human
worth a second of her time. January suspected that Leah thought her a baby. It was only her potential infinite lifespan that interested the vampire-witch.
“Oh! You’re already here,” Ollie said, arriving with a big folder of paperwork, fifteen minutes before they were scheduled to meet. Leah smiled sweetly at him but said nothing. January observed how his hands nearly fumbled the folder, as his level of stress visibly increased.
He unlocked the door of the studio and walked into the building first. Leah turned and flashed January an amused grin, which she didn’t return. Playing with humans wasn’t her kind of sport.
“We need you guys all of this week and probably the next one as well, to record on this album. Some of the tracks have a lot of digital backing, so you won’t need to be here for that. It shouldn’t take as long as a regular album but you probably both need to quit whatever jobs you have right now. Trust me, you’ll be well compensated for it,” Ollie addressed January and Leah, once the guitarist and the promoter had also arrived. James, it would appear, had better things to do.
“What do you guys both do, anyway?” He asked.
January shot a sideways glance at Leah, who inclined her head, motioning that she should go first. Thanks a bunch, January thought.
“I, uh, sort of worked at a bar, but I’m actually between jobs right now, so time off isn’t a problem for me,” she said, deciding to opt for the simplest answer. She smiled at Leah, wondering what her imaginary occupation was going to be.
“I run a digital marketing agency.” She tilted her head. “I guess you could call me a web designer, but really I just tell a lot of people what to do and make a lot of money.”
Ollie’s jaw dropped. January could see that he was regretting his ‘well compensated’ phrase.
“But this job sounds way more fun, and the agency runs itself these days,” Leah said, surprisingly deciding to throw the hapless music manager a bone.
January tried not to glare at the drummer. Did she always have to one-up her? She wondered what would happen if Ollie tried to verify Leah’s occupation and assumed Leah would have it covered. She’d either glamour him, or who knew? Perhaps she really was the leader of some huge and successful marketing agency. Nothing would surprise January when it came to Leah.