by WB McKay
Contents
Copyright
Title Page
Newsletter
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A Note From the Author
Bound by Faerie
Chapter One: Bound by Faerie
Thank you
www.McKayManor.com
Copyright © 2017 Robert McKay
Copyright © 2017 Faith McKay
Cover designed by Najla Qamber Designs
All rights reserved.
WOLF MAGIC
(Wolves of Faerie, #1)
WB McKay
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CHAPTER ONE
I'd been standing still at the front of my property too long. I knew it had been too long because the Colton boy was squinting at me like he expected something awful was gonna happen. Of course, I shouldn't call him a boy. Fifty years is plenty old enough to be called a man. That was something I never got used to: human aging. When I sold off this land, parcel by parcel, selling the biggest chunk of it to the Colton boy's grandfather when he was right about twenty-five years old, I don't expect either of us thought I'd be back there getting the evil eye from his grandson. Of course, he had less of a reason to imagine that than I did.
I turned my gaze to Mount Lassen, standing tall and proud in front of me. Nothing between me and it but Tilly, a field of tall, green grass and blue and purple wildflowers, the occasional poppy, and past that, a whole lot of pine trees standing sentinel for the mountain. She was a little smaller than she was when I was human, but as pretty as ever. There was something comforting about her patches of snow even now, in early June. Sunny skies? Volcanic insides? None of that was going to stop her from sporting a bit of snow; she did what she wanted.
I had an odd, kindred spirit thing going on with that mountain, I knew that.
Tilly brushed her nose against my fence. I didn't know if that was her name, but damned if I was going to ask the Colton boy what he called the animal. Every time he let her roam in the fields she came right up to my fence and watched me. I couldn't decide if she was too smart to be afraid of a soft touch like me, or if she was too dumb to know to be afraid of a werewolf.
Some pixies flew up behind me, swarming Tilly's head. I didn't expect they knew I could feel them coming; they acted like they were trying to spook me. That was my interpretation, anyway. I didn't know them well; they hadn't spoken to me yet. I was waiting them out.
Tilly shook her head and backed up a step or two.
"Yeah, you hear it, too, girl?" There was a truck rumblin' up the road, and it wasn't one of the usuals. Even in Julia's body, I heard better than most people. It took Tilly longer than I'd expected to pick up on the unfamiliar grinding of gears.
The truck slowed to cross the creek, and now it held my attention. To go to the Coltons', or pretty much any of the other places back there, you had to turn before the bridge. Crossing that bridge meant a plan to drive right into the Colton's field. Or up to my gate.
Nobody drove up to my gate.
I ran up to my porch, faster that I ought to if Colton was still looking—I really needed to plant up some trees or something to block their view—and was about to reach inside the door for my rifle when the truck drove up the side of my property, well past the main gate. Were they really going out into the Coltons' field? What were the Coltons going to think of that?
I started to relax, expecting to watch some asshole drive donuts in their field and either get stuck in the mud out in the wetter parts, or get shot by the Colton boy, when the truck came into view. There were three bodies crammed together behind the glass, and seven or eight hanging off the sides of the truck bed like a bunch of idiots getting ready to die. If they got stuck in that mud, they were going to be hootin' and hollerin' out there the rest of the day; I just knew it.
And then Nathaniel Thatcher jumped off the back of the moving truck, and with wolfish grace, planted his dirty boot on my front cattle gate.
I went for my rifle.
By the time he looked up at me, I'd already taken aim. It took him a couple more seconds to recognize me, and I knew when he'd done it because the expression fell off his face. You see the gun pointed at you, you son of a bitch? I was about to say it, I was about to give him fair warning because I'm a lady like that, but then the bastard grinned.
I pulled the trigger.
THE TRUCK FULL OF wolves jerked to a stop I expected I was about to have a pack of angry bastards come runnin' at me, but they must have known Nathaniel Thatcher as well as I did, because it wasn't two seconds later the air filled with raucous laughter.
"You know when it's not funny?" Nathaniel asked them. "When you're the one who's being shot! Now, shit, Julia. It's not like I knew you were here. What's it been, a century?"
"You're the reason my fences look like this, aren't you?" I shouted at him. He could hear me from that distance if I whispered; I was just pissed. He'd fallen back to the other side of the fence where he belonged. Damned good, too, or I'd have kept shooting limbs until he backed off.
"That's just wear and tear," he muttered, like a child, with his lip sticking out and everything.
"Bullshit. I was here and fixed these fences not ten years ago," I told him. "And you can see as well as I can that there have been break-ins."
"Not as many as woulda if I hadn't chased 'em off every chance I got!" He looked genuinely offended, which would have almost had me feeling sorry for him, but I didn't do that. "Thanks for sayin' hi, by the way," he grumbled.
I was about to move on and yell at him some more, but like a fool, I took the bait and asked the question he was angling to get out of me: "What are you talking about?"
"When you were here fixing the fence ten years ago," he said. "Thanks for stoppin' in, saying hi. Ahh, those were some good ole times we had, right?"
"Right," I said. "Too bad we missed out on that opportunity for us to have a meetin' of minds like we are right now. How's your leg feelin'?"
His buddies back in the truck had just calmed their cacklin' when they started hissing with laughter, like a pack of hyenas instead of full grown wolves. They sprung outta there and formed a loose half circle around Nathaniel, still careful to keep their distance. I hoped my rifle had 'em spooked. While I wouldn't have necessarily shot any of the rest of 'em on sight, if that was what it took to keep 'em all away from me, well, I'd shoot anybody I had to in order to keep folks away.
"Julia." It came rough from his chest, a plea artfully thrown to skewer me right through the ribs. It hurt, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing it. I ran my tongue over my teeth with my lips closed shut, knowing how it intensified the glare I shot back at him. He grunted in response. "Don't be like this. The fences were aged anyway. When I got some spare time I was planning on fixing the damage. It's not like I knew you were gonna show up."
"Well I guess dancing on my cattle gate doesn't give you much time for being a decent human being, now does it?" If he thought he was going to win me over, he had another bullet coming his way. I didn't lower the gun, but I stepped up and closed the distance between us. We didn't have to
shout or nothin', but to anyone who might have been watching, it'd look awfully strange. Though anyone watching was probably on the phone with the police by now.
His friends were standing around looking down at him, like they were waiting for the next act in the show.
"Hey Julia."
"Hey Benjamin." He tipped his hat, which I didn't see enough of anymore. Another few years and no one would do it. It didn't use to be something I did, even when I started wearing pants and breaking all other kinds of womanhood traditions that would have killed my mama, but then I noticed I missed it, and so I picked up the habit a few years prior. I thought I'd be part of the tradition's death rattle. So I tipped my imaginary hat to Benjamin, and he grinned, like he always did, mouth tight and lips to the side.
Benjamin was always the better of the duo. Average height, tanned and muscled like anybody who works outside, with hair tucked up under his hat so often it was easy to forget what color it was.
Brown. His hair was dark brown. I caught it when he bent over to look at Nathaniel's leg and his hat tipped forward.
"You ever heard of somebody holdin' a grudge for this long?" Nathaniel asked Benjamin, thinking he was getting in a good jab at me. He should have known better than that.
"You should know better than that," said Benjamin. "That woman doesn't forget a thing."
"That's right," I told him. As far as reputations go, it was definitely one I aimed for. "That woman," I gave Benjamin a look, "doesn't forget a thing. If you don't want to be shot, maybe you shouldn't do things worth someone shooting you for. Did you ever think of that?"
"Good to see you," Benjamin said, cracking his grin a smidge wider.
"She shot me," Nathaniel said.
"You're welcome," I told him, and rolled my eyes.
"I'm welcome? Welcome?"
"You gettin' a stutter?" I asked him. "That'll trip you up with the ladies, you know."
"Why am I supposed to thank you for shooting me, you crazy woman!"
"I think we can all agree that anybody shootin' you is probably not crazy. You've got a lot of bullets owed to you, don't you think?"
"And I'm thanking you again, why?"
"Because now you're the center of attention," I told him. "You got exactly what you always want." I shouldered my rifle and turned on my heel. I didn't have nothing else to say to him, and if I stood there long enough, I was likely to give him another bullet to match.
"What was all that about?" I heard one of the wolves I didn't know ask.
"That was Julia Grayson," Benjamin said.
"The one who...?"
"Yep."
I would have liked to finish that sentence a dozen different ways, but I knew what he wasn't saying. Damned near everybody did.
CHAPTER TWO
I didn't have anything to do in the cabin, but I didn't intend to stand out there on display for the lot of them to stare at. I had plans in a few hours. In the meantime, I'd been meaning to take some time to spruce it up in there. I liked to tell myself that cleaning things up would make it feel more like a home and less like a memorial. I liked to tell myself a lot of things.
The cabin was what a realtor might call "rustic". A perfect square broken into four rooms, there was no electricity or running water, though the kitchen sink did drain out a pipe on the side of the building.
It was a small space, but there was plenty to do in there. Days worth of chores, truly. I could clean the kitchen sink. I could dust off the shelves and see what books I might have left up there that the mice hadn't gotten to. I could open the chest and see if Mama's quilt was still in good shape, or… or I could get rid of it, if it wasn't. It was just a quilt. It was probably in tatters after so much time. I knew that. I could handle it.
Instead, I escaped.
I exited through the back, which was routine but had the added benefit of facing away from the pack so none of them would feel the need to talk to me across the field. They were doing something for the Colton boy; I didn't pay attention to what.
When I leapt off the top step, my boots sank into layers of pine needles and soft, dark soil. It made for a harsh contrast with the front. It was always dark back there. And quiet. The creek ran along the back of the property, and if my hearing was still human, I'd only catch the water streaming over the rocks in the distance and the trees creaking as they swayed high above me. The pack and their noisy truck were probably half a mile away in the field, but when I let my guard drop so I could enjoy the sounds of my own place, it was their huffin' and puffin' that reached my ears. So much for the peaceful quiet of the woods.
Just another reason to get out of there for a spell.
My truck started right up, bless her twenty-year-old engine. Her and I had been through a lot in those years. I liked to get to know my vehicles intimately. Finding a good mechanic was tough, and I appreciated a quiet engine more than most.
I hoped the dusty road wouldn't wear on her too rough. It was about a mile and a half to the main road and even at a careful five miles per hour, billows of dust trailed behind my tires.
We bopped over two cattle guards before we reached the pavement of Thatcher Mill Road. I always complained about the rattling of the cattle guards, but in truth, it was a quirky reminder that I was home.
Trees lined Thatcher Mill Road, keeping the cars locked in tight. It was like driving through an ancient tunnel. Despite my age, the woods still managed to spark a sense of wonder in me that felt, well, magical—which was a ridiculous thing to say. I knew magic, and it did not, as a matter of fact, feel "magical". But that was beside the point. It felt the way young Julia, human Julia—a Julia who feared monsters, never dreaming she'd become one—thought magical should feel.
My thoughts were ridiculous. I was ridiculous. Thinking like that did no one any good—it's this place, making me think like that, I thought, snap out of it. You have plenty of problems to be thinking about. That thought sobered me right up.
"Well," I said to the empty cab of the truck, "I guess that takes care of letting the pack know I'm in the area." I'd had some idea in the back of my head that I would go pay my respects to the pack, all formal and proper like, sometime soon. That's how I'd been thinking it—sometime soon—like sometime soon ever happened. No, them seeing me at the cabin was the only way that was ever going to happen. I could admit that now. It's better that way, I decided then. It would set up clear boundaries. I didn't intend to be disrespectful, but they should know upfront that I wasn't interested in joining their pack. I was not a team player. Sign me up for solitude and nothing else.
"It's for the best," I lied to my truck, and immediately felt guilty. Lying to myself was one thing, lying to my truck was another.
I'd been home three days and already I could feel it starting. The weight of things being complicated. Of course it was complicated. Memories of pain and misery and more than a human lifetime of guilt and failure and—and of course it was complicated. That was enough heft for anyone's mind.
And then there was Nathaniel. My mind couldn't come to grips with Nathaniel. I'd been telling myself that he might have moved on, might not have been in the area any longer. Like I said, I told myself a lot of things.
CHAPTER THREE
I had jobs I did for money and usefulness. I dated folks sometimes. And with the rest of my time, I pursued my hobby: tracking wolves with a taste for killing. If I were a human, I'd be a hunter. As it was, there wasn't much of a name for me, though lots of folks came up with plenty on their own. Obsessed, dangerous, a little off in the head. Wolves didn't think it was right I was policing my own. Alphas kept their own pack safe. If a lone wolf was doing something wrong, well, it was the local alpha's job to take care of it—and if they weren't in a pack's territory, they would be someday. If a whole pack was killing? Eventually some other pack would take care of that, too. The general idea was, none of this was any of my business as I wasn't anybody.
I was somebody who could stop killers,
and that worked as credential enough for me.
Mostly, my hobby offered me a sense of purpose while I bided my time.
The lead that brought me back home was a solid one. What I knew of the crime scene was barely enough to say wolves were involved, but it had been bloody, and from what I could gather, the local police had the sense that something was "off". Humans thinking something was "off" was as solid a lead as they came. But the key, the real heart of the thing, was the child witness. I hated myself plenty for being excited about this child's pain—seeing their family murdered wasn't something I wished on anyone—but today's interview was a big one for me. I took the opportunity presented by the forty minute drive to the girl's grandparents' house in Redding to get my head on straight. Regardless of how strange I'd felt since coming back, I was working a lead now. Focus was everything.
It was a little after noon when I arrived, and a light breeze made the eighty degree day a comfortable one for sitting outside. Luck must have been on my side, because the girl was sitting on a swing in her front yard, fiddling with a tablet. A waist-high chain-link fence went around the property, a barrier meant to keep people and animals out, but not something that would stop me from conversation. Aware of what a perfect opportunity it was, and not wanting to squander it, I didn't hesitate to cross the street and approach the girl. The reports said she was ten years old, but she looked younger. I rarely spoke to children. Typically, even wolves intent on killing avoided children. I didn't exactly coo at babies on the street.
"Hello," I said to the girl. As good a place to start as any.
She gripped her tablet tighter.
"I didn't mean to startle you," I assured her.
Her grip didn't relax, and her voice cracked when she said, "S'okay."
Trauma victim, I reminded myself. "I live down the street," I lied. "I'm sorry for your loss."