Mother Hazel dragged the pad of one finger over the window ledge, shaking her head at the layer of dust. “It has not gone that far. Liam was clear he desired only for someone to provide a means to quarantine his wolf while the coroner determines cause of death.”
“So until the human coroner rules Oliver’s Dale’s death a homicide, no Vanguard.” My shoulders sagged, and I leaned back in my chair. So she wasn’t asking me to work with the Vanguard on a murder case. Thank the Goddess for small favors.
“Shouldn’t take long.” Peasblossom drummed her hands on the edge of the bookcase. “Even a human can tell when someone’s been gnawed on by a wild animal.”
“Which is why it is such a convenience that the Vanguard has agreed to accept our own Mother Renard as overseer,” Mother Hazel said.
I froze, my relief evaporating like a snowflake on the brow of a fire demon. “You… You talked about me with the Vanguard?”
“Only Gertrude, in the call center. You remember Gertrude?”
Of course I remembered Gertrude. It was hard to forget a talking flea whose claim to fame was a brief dalliance with Hermes…
“So I’m supposed to activate the collar, then stay there and oversee the investigation so I can call in the Vanguard if he’s guilty?” I asked.
“Yes. Though the Vanguard do not believe Liam would hide a murderer in his pack, the rules state that an interspecies murder must have a representative outside the race of the accused. You are that representative.”
I tried not to think about Mother Hazel bringing me to the Vanguard’s attention—in whatever form. I had a past I wasn’t proud of; the last thing I wanted was to give Otherworld’s Interpol a reason to notice me. “You said you wanted to make me a deal. What is it?”
Mother Hazel turned from her disapproving inspection of my dirty windows to nudge a near-invisible bit of debris on the office carpet with her foot. “You will take the collar to the hungry little werewolf in accordance with Liam’s wishes. Once that task is complete, you will find out what happened to Oliver and you will report your findings.” She studied me then, dark eyes penetrating and far too intense. “If you fail, then you will give up this silly private investigator business. You will continue on as a proper village witch. Only a village witch.”
My stomach bottomed out, but I gritted my teeth and held her gaze. “And when I solve the case?”
Mother Hazel didn’t blink. “I will owe you a favor.”
If I hadn’t been sitting down, I would have fainted. Peasblossom wasn’t so lucky. She’d balanced on the brink of the bookshelf in an effort to better hear the conversation, so when she jerked in surprise, she lost her balance and plummeted. She was saved from an unpleasant collision with the floor only because Mother Hazel is much, much faster than she looks.
A favor. A favor from Mother Hazel.
If a witch existed that held more power than Mother Hazel, then I’d never heard of one—and I’d never met anyone who had. Mother Hazel was only the name she’d been going by when I’d first encountered her. She had other names—older names spoken only as whispers in the dark, and only by the exceptionally brave or the incredibly stupid. If she was offering me a favor—an unqualified, unlimited favor…
“I see your minimalist arrangement applies to more than your house,” the crafty crone continued, as I fought to gather my scattered wits. “You favor a plain office too.” She sniffed. “Not very becoming of a witch. If your workspace always looks as if you’ve just arrived, then people will assume you’re lazy, not applying yourself as you should.” She narrowed her eyes. “This reflects badly on me as your mentor.”
“I don’t see a need to clutter every available surface,” I said, for once relieved at the familiar argument. I could have this conversation in my sleep. “I like space. And it’s not so hard to keep things tidy if you make it a priority.”
Mother Hazel smiled, and I tensed. There it was again—the look that hinted there was an I-told-you-so in my future. I hated that look.
It was exactly what I needed to snap myself out of the stupor her offered deal had plunged me into. I opened my mouth to retaliate against that look, but before I could speak again, she deposited Peasblossom on my desk and marched into the small bathroom against the left-hand wall, leaving the door open behind her. I could practically hear her assessing how clean the room was, making mental note of the bits of white fluff that would betray my use of paper towels to clean the mirror instead of using a squeegee or newspaper.
Peasblossom scurried across the desk, leapt onto my arm, and shimmied up to my ear. She clung to me like a living earring so she could speak directly into my auditory canal. “The werewolves will expect you to put the collar on and leave. There’s no official cause of death yet, and don’t think Sergeant Osbourne isn’t counting on that technicality to keep the Vanguard out. They won’t appreciate you hanging around while they try to solve the crime.”
I leaned toward the open bathroom door, raising my voice so the judgy crone would hear me. “And the alpha has no issues with me helping him with a crime committed in werewolf territory, possibly by a member of his pack?”
Mother Hazel barreled out of the bathroom, scanning the office for more signs of my ineptitude. “It didn’t happen in werewolf territory, it happened on public land. It so happens that the head of the park rangers is also the alpha of the local pack and a handful of the rangers are his wolves. It’s his jurisdiction as detective sergeant, not as alpha.” She studied a smudge mark on the wall. “Naturally, I spoke to him before coming to you.”
It was a distinction without a difference. Each werewolf pack claimed the privileges of a sovereign nation among the people of the Otherworld, and they valued that designation. Given that human ignorance of the Otherworld made registering the land as their territory tricky, the subject of land ownership was grey. But regardless of paperwork, that park was werewolf territory.
“So he’s all right with me investigating?”
“He would prefer to handle it himself,” Mother Hazel said nonchalantly. “But I’m sure he’ll soon see the value in having a witch’s help. People always do.”
I swallowed a groan. Liam would not welcome my help. Especially not when the evidence against his wolf was so damning. She was sending me into a very unpleasant situation that would make me yet another powerful enemy.
But the favor…
My finger found the groove in my desk from the earlier damage. With a flex of my will, I filled it with a pool of green energy, then used a finger to draw it into smooth, flowing lines. The polished wood healed itself, leaving the furniture as pristine as it had been before my mentor’s sudden arrival.
“I will never understand your obsession with keeping things new and unused,” the old witch mused. “It’s not good for you, you know.” She pursed her lips. “Healing furniture is an outrageous use of magic.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Being old and worn doesn’t automatically make something superior.”
The words escaped before my brain could give them a proper once-over, and my internal censor screamed in horror. Tension crackled between us, giving me plenty of opportunity to realize how my last outburst had sounded.
Mother Hazel didn’t move, didn’t react. Just let me squirm.
Typical.
“You don’t think the werewolf killed him. Is that why you’re sending me?” I asked, fighting through the awkward moment.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you too busy?” She made a show of looking around the stark office. “Do you have loads of other cases occupying your days? Has Agent Bradford retained your services for another FBI case?”
I winced and dropped my gaze to the even wood grain of the desk. No, Andy—Agent Bradford—wasn’t on his way with an FBI case. I hadn’t gotten any calls from him since the missing person case over a month ago. And even though I’d solved that case, I doubted I would get another call from him any time soon.
“You used me. You used me, and then
when I was no longer convenient for your plan, you used your magic to drug me, and you left me behind. How the hell am I supposed to trust you now? How am I supposed to believe anything you tell me?”
His voice echoed in my head, hot with fury. For the last four and a half weeks, I’d tried to convince myself he was wrong, that what I’d done had been necessary to keep him safe. Yes, I’d needed him, and I’d invited him in on a dangerous plan. But he’d stubbornly refused to hide, refused to let me do my job.
I wasn’t wrong, not entirely. Just wrong enough to feel guilty.
A movement outside drew my attention to the three large windows that formed the far wall of my office. Grateful for the distraction, I rose from the desk and glared at the house across the street—or rather, at the man who’d exited said house.
Mr. Grey, the landlord for the building that held my office, passed through the pool of sunshine circling the sprawling sugar maple that blessed his front yard. His brown hair was greasy, as always, his half-beard in obvious conflict about which direction to grow. A plain black shirt and pants looked as if he’d beaten them into submission, the threadbare material hanging limply on his frame.
I pressed my lips together. As a rule, I don’t judge people by appearances, or even by rumors. When I rented this office, I’d done so determined not to assume my new landlord was the sour, unpleasant hermit everyone said he was. After all, Dresden was a tiny village. People gossiped.
“Tell me, how do you like having Mr. Grey as your landlord?” Mother Hazel asked.
I opted not to answer. If I knew my landlord, he’d paint a picture of himself all on his own.
Declan Grey oozed over the ground like an oil spill, heading straight for the trunk of the sugar maple. Shadows danced over his tight features as he raised a hand and put something inside the squirrel feeder, careful to tuck it away so the wind wouldn’t blow it back out. He didn’t smile, didn’t laugh. Just put whatever food he’d brought them into the feeder then retreated inside.
Peasblossom perched on my shoulder, the breeze from her wings stirring the delicate hairs at the back of my neck. “He’s poisoning them again, isn’t he?”
In response, I drew a simple gesture in the air, breathing my magic into it. Silver lines of power swept toward the tree, passing through the large windows. The spell touched the feeder, flowed into a net that covered the small wooden box. Something sickly sweet pulsed against my senses, and I clenched my jaw. “Yes, he did.”
“What a grouch.”
“He’s more than a grouch—he’s a bully.” I jerked the top drawer of my desk open. The small bowl of peanuts inside rattled with the force of the motion, but I ignored them, snatching one up and looking at it in light of the detection spell still alive in my mind. A faint blue glow surrounded the peanut, and I nodded and passed it to Peasblossom.
“This is the third time he’s done this,” I said grimly. “Forget that it’s illegal to poison squirrels; it’s wrong. If he doesn’t want them around, there are other ways to handle it. I offered to help him with them.” I glared at the pale blue door to the ranch-style house that appeared far too innocent to belong to such a cruel man. “He put up a squirrel feeder, for Pete’s sake.”
Mother Hazel studied me as if it were my face and not the conversation that was interesting. “And you’ve been using magic to neutralize the poison? That’s a complicated spell. You must have studied very hard.”
A flush rose up my neck. “I hired Dominique to do it.”
Dominique was a powerful enchantress who owned the occult supply shop The Cauldron. Mother Hazel didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow, but I felt her judgment all the same. I didn’t bother saying I’d tried the spell myself and failed. It wouldn’t help matters. It also wouldn’t help to point out that if she’d bothered to teach me any real magic during my apprenticeship, then maybe I’d be capable of more complicated spells. Such an accusation would lead to her pointing out all the skills I’d learned, languages I could speak, and knowledge I’d gained from years and years of reading. It was a battle I’d fought and lost before.
“Don’t you want to ‘have a word’ with him?” I asked instead.
Again, she stared at me with that unsettling scrutiny. “You are the one bearing witness to his crimes. It is your prerogative to have a word about his tactics, don’t you agree?”
Peasblossom held on to my earlobe, and we both stared at Mother Hazel. My mentor turning down the chance to “have a word?” It was one of her favorite things, if experience was anything to go by.
Peasblossom recovered first, holding the peanut against her chest and flying out the open window to place the spelled nut in the squirrel feeder. The endeavor took less than thirty seconds, Peasblossom being unwilling to linger with hungry squirrels about. Not that they would try to eat her, but they didn’t always watch where they were leaping, and she’d been knocked out of the air by a flying furry body before.
Speaking of flying furry bodies…
“I don’t suppose you’ve given any more thought to Majesty,” I said lightly.
Mother Hazel crossed her arms. “Yes, the eternal kitten. I suppose it was only a matter of time before a human tried such foolishness. First they make the dogs teeny-tiny, and now they’ve robbed a cat of the most basic of rights—growing old. Monstrous.”
“I’ve been calming his energy as best I can, but the spell is too thick, too complicated. It’s bound to him in a way I can’t unravel.”
“What’s done is done, and is not for us to undo.” She pursed her lips. “That spell is evil and foolish. The person who cast it may be either or both.”
That observation did not bode well. Magic like that, magic that forced nature in on itself, was unpredictable. Majesty could develop the ability to breathe fire or grow a set of antlers. Or he could explode. I took a breath to try again, to convince Mother Hazel to do something, anything, to help Majesty. She cut me off before I could get a word out.
“You haven’t accepted my deal yet, Mother Renard,” she said softly. “Was my reward not tempting enough?”
No more stalling. My nerves tightened until I feared they’d choke me, and I had to will my voice to come out as more than a squeak. “I’ll do it.” Only a little squeaky—well done, me. “Do you have the case file?”
Mother Hazel looked down her nose as if she were a mean-spirited school teacher about to assign homework over winter break. “No one will do the work for you this time. There is no file complete with suspects and dossiers and a vampire’s little notes scribbled in the margins. You must do the work yourself. All the work yourself.”
Anton would never have scribbled in the margins. There was a separate page for his notes.
The blush I’d thought disappeared had merely been hiding. It sprang back to full heat now. My first case had been brought to me by a vampire known for his…meticulousness. He’d hired me to solve a theft and provided me with a box of files detailing everyone he thought had the ability to carry out the theft. I’d identified the thief, but in retrospect, it did seem as if the training wheels had been on.
“Fine. I should get going, then.”
Mother Hazel nodded. “The collar waits only for your command to activate it. Fasten it around the suspect’s neck and the binding will lock into place.” She pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to me. “Here’s the address. Liam is waiting for you.”
“I assume I need the name of the werewolf to activate the spell?”
Mother Hazel grinned. That smile made my skin crawl, and I imagined I could see the shadows of iron teeth in her mouth.
“Oh, yes,” she murmured. “I almost forgot. His name is Stephen Reid. Officer Stephen Reid.”
Chapter 2
“She’s sent you to investigate a werewolf cop. She wants you to prove he’s guilty. Of murder.”
Peasblossom, as always, spoke directly into my ear, her tiny hands clinging to the curl above my earlobe. The gooseflesh on my arms grew firmer with ever
y hissed word, becoming almost painful as I fought to keep my attention on the road.
“Please stop speaking into my ear,” I said, for the tenth time.
“Mmuurrddeerr,” Peasblossom intoned, drawing it out with unnecessary drama. “A werewolf. A cop. A werewolf cop! Werewolves do not tolerate outsiders poking their noses into pack business.”
“I get it.” My knuckles whitened as I gripped the steering wheel harder, keeping my gaze locked on the unending line of orange construction cones. “Do you think I’m unaware of the situation?”
“You must be, or you would have turned down the deal.” Peasblossom released my ear and fell to her bum on my shoulder. “It was a human mistake. Typical, really. Some dark creature dangles a pretty promise in front of you, and you’re all too eager to sign on the bloody line. I’ll bet you’d mend an evil altar if a nice old woman asked you to.”
“Thank you so much for your vote of confidence. And I’ll be sure to tell Mother Hazel that you called her a ‘dark creature.’”
“She’s been called worse. Much worse.” Peasblossom pressed harder against my neck. “And she’s deserved it.”
I was vaguely aware of Mother Hazel’s…history, but I didn’t want to prompt the pixie to offer details. Not when I’d seen my mentor’s home as it appeared in another dimension. Familiar chicken legs holding up her cottage in the center of a fence crafted from human bones, skulls with fiery red eye sockets watching the shadowy forest around it. Watching for the unwary soul who might next wander up to the old witch’s home looking for help. One post always empty, waiting for a skull…
A change in subject was needed.
“We can’t be certain that Stephen did it.” My voice came out a louder than I’d intended, filling the small confines of my newly repaired Ford Focus. “There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he had the victim’s blood on his face.”
“Such as?”
“He could have found the body already dead. It’s sad, but accidents happen in the woods. The poor man could have fallen and broken his neck, or bled out from a cut on the femoral artery. If the wolf found him shortly after death, he might have still been warm, and—”
Monster (Blood Trails Book 2) Page 2