Siren's Song: Shifting Magic Book Two

by Lysa Daley

  Great, what exactly had I just walked into?

  The red-haired guy’s patience with me seemed to be wearing thin the more I looked around. “Hey, how exactly can I help you?”

  I thought about leaving my number for Kelly or showing this guy a photo of Morty. But then thought better of it.

  “I’m looking for Kelly. I’ll come back later.” I turned to walk away.

  Suddenly, the red-headed man’s hand was on my arm. “Why don’t you come on in and wait.”

  I tried to pull away, but his grip was crazy strong. “Let go of me.”

  He laughed a low, deep laugh from the back of his throat like an animal’s growl.

  His grip was too tight for me to shift into a bird or another animal. Instead, I took my free hand, pulled the redwood wand from my bag and prepared to do a basic defensive spell that would push him away from me. Unfortunately, he jerked me forward before I was ready. Instinctively, I swung my wand around. The energy from its tip blasted the guy off his feet, slamming his body into a wall filled with tools. He slid to the floor as metal tools rained down on him.

  “Whoa!” I said, looking at the borrowed wand. I hadn’t meant to use so much power. Not so limp, after all.

  Before he could get to his feet, a loud roar thundered behind me. Startled, I spun to see a large motorcycle rolling towards us. It was huge, all chrome and shiny black paint, with bright flames painted on the body. The bulky rider wore a motorcycle club jacket with dark wash jeans and brown motorcycle boots. He wore no helmet but opted for mirrored aviator sunglasses instead.

  The redheaded man staggered to his feet with his head hung low in fear. If he was afraid of the guy on the motorcycle, I wondered if I should be afraid too.

  The motorcycle rolled past me and parked by the garage’s office in the far corner. The rider powered it down and moved toward me. He was something of an extra-extra-large pretty boy, with lots of dark blond curls to match his dark blond beard.

  Sort of like Thor but rougher and tougher.

  “What do we have here, Rex?” he asked the red-haired man as he sauntered closer, not taking his eyes off me.

  Rex averted his eyes and answered, “This lady came out here to talk to you.”

  “Did she, now?” he said like a man who knew he was the boss. “Doesn’t seem like you were being very hospitable?”

  Rex averted his eyes, like a submissive dog.

  “Clean up those tools then get back to work,” the man ordered.

  Rex tucked his chin and scurried into the garage.

  Motorcycle man turned his attention to me and smiled warmly. “Good morning. I’m Kelly Jackson. How can I help you?”

  So this was Kelly Jackson.

  I’d made the sexist assumptions that Kelly was a woman. But of course it was also a man's name. And quite a man this was. I could feel him crackling with supernatural energy.

  I swallowed and tried not to look nervous. “I’m Lacey McCray. I was hoping to ask you a few questions about my boss.”

  “Of course. I hope Rex wasn’t rude when you arrived.”

  “He was fine,” I said. Then I blurted, “You’re a werewolf.”

  Kelly Jackson’s eyes practically glowed. “You need to be careful what you say around here, little witch.”

  So he could feel my energy too.

  And I wasn't sure if the “little” meant he thought I wasn't powerful or that I was just young.

  Rumor had it there was a lot of werewolf activity once you got outside the city and into the mountains and pasturelands of California. Plenty of wild and wide-open spaces for them to run as a pack and stay hidden.

  Out here in the west end of the valley, he was just on the edge of Los Angeles County. If Kelly Jackson was the leader of a pack of werewolves so close to the city, then he must’ve been a very strong leader.

  Werewolves were often associated with motorcycle gangs and crime: car theft, drug running, and robbery. Adrenaline junkies who did it as much for the thrill as they did for the profit.

  Either way, Kelly Jackson was clearly one scary, but handsome, dude. What did nice, quiet Mr. Mortimer have to say to a guy like this?

  “No offense, sir,” I said, trying to sound submissive. My only chance of getting out of here unharmed when dealing with a werewolf was to let him know he was the alpha.

  “None taken. What brings you to my humble establishment?” he asked.

  “I wanted to see if my boss, Mr. Mortimer AuClaire, came here to talk to you yesterday afternoon.”

  “Mortimer?”

  I put my hand on my bag, pausing before I opened it. “I have a picture of him, if you don’t mind…”

  He nodded and I pulled out a small black and white photo that Maybelle had given me. It was several years old, but it was still a good likeness of Mr. Morty.

  He barely glanced at it. “Yeah, little elf dude came out here. Not yesterday. Day before yesterday.”

  “Can I ask what he wanted?”

  “Why?” he replied. “Who is this guy to you?”

  “He’s my boss. I work in a library. He’s been missing and his wife is concerned.”

  He nodded skeptically, sizing me up and down. “You don’t look like a librarian.”

  “No?” I was curious. “What do I look like?”

  “You look like a cop.”

  “I’m not a cop. I promise you. I’m a grad student at UCLA, and I work part-time in a corporate library downtown.” Maybe I shouldn’t have been giving out so much personal information. The trouble was Kelly Jackson oozed with animal magnetism. I had the sudden urge to give him my cell phone number too. Luckily, I stopped myself.

  He smirked. “Funny, you remind me of someone I used to know.”

  “That a good thing?”

  “Who knows? I used to like lanky brunettes like you, but my ex-wife had to go and sour me on women in general.”

  “Well, on behalf of all the brunettes out there, I’d like to apologize. We’re not all bad.”

  Half of his mouth curved into a smile. “Yeah, the old man came out here. Said he was looking for his brother. Guess the guy disappeared.”

  That made sense. Maybelle had mentioned a brother. She’d said he’d run off with a nymph or something.

  “Disappeared? Or ran off?”

  “Your boss seems to think something bad happened to his brother.”

  “Did he say what he suspected?” I asked, wondering if I was getting in over my head. Did Mr. M suspect that werewolves had attacked his brother? Were-animals are known to be some of the most dangerous and unpredictable supernaturals around. Once they transformed out of their human state to their were-state, it was nearly impossible for them to control their behavior. The beast literally took over.

  Kelly Jackson shook his head. “If he did suspect something, he didn’t say anything to me.”

  “Do you know his brother?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral. I didn’t know Morty’s brother, but it was hard to imagine that an elderly elf hung out with a pack of motorcycle riding werewolves.

  Kelly seemed to consider his answer. “I’d seen the brother around.”

  “Where?”

  “Bar in Malibu called the Seahorse Inn,” he said. That was the hotel from the key Maybelle had found in Morty’s stuff. Kelly Jackson hesitated, like he wanted to ask me something. Finally, he sniffed the air. “What are you? You’re no regular hedge witch.”

  I almost never told anyone what I was. But weres were also a sort of animagi, except they didn’t have any control over their transformations. Some believed that animagus had originally been were-creatures who had learned to focus and manipulate their powers. To a large extent, this made sense. Of course, I didn’t feel the pull of the moon the same way Kelly Jackson did, but I felt a primitive urge to run with the moon from time to time. I liked to get lost as a bird or a beast. It wouldn’t surprise me if we were distant relatives.

  “I’m an animagi. Just a Class II.”

  His eyes wen
t wide for a brief second, then he grinned. “Well I’ll be damned. I’ve heard your type exists. Never met one before.”

  “Not many of us left,” I confessed, as my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I let it go to voicemail.

  “A buddy of mine ran into a Class IV in Europe. Said the guy could transform into a wolf that rivaled a lycanthropist.”

  Maybe I should have kept this information to myself, but I replied, “That was probably my dad.”

  “Really?” He seemed to be warming up to me. “What’s a Class II doing working as a librarian?”

  I handed him the card that Mr. Stroud had given me if someone needed to get in touch with us. He took it and clearly recognized the symbol on the card. If he were the leader of the pack, he would know all about the Society.

  “Ah, the good old Society,” he murmured, like I had somehow tricked him. “Not a big fan.”

  Werewolves didn’t like being regulated. They wanted to be wild and free. Unfortunately, the Society, along with the Magistrate of Magic, had to make sure all supernaturals followed the rules and no unsuspecting humans had their still-beating hearts ripped out and eaten like the werewolves of the ancient woods had once done. They believed that the human heart gave them super strength. A few hundred years ago, it was a rite of passage that a young werewolf wasn’t fully accepted into their pack until they ate a still-beating heart.

  Not surprisingly, the Society of Shadows put the kibosh on that terrifying ritual a century ago. But every now and then, a werewolf would go off the reservation and kill a human this way. Frequently, it turned out to be more of an interpersonal squabble than an ancient ritual.

  I could see the wheels in his head turning. “And you work in their library, which means that the librarian for the Society has disappeared. Now that is a more interesting story, isn’t it?”

  “If Mr. Morty was looking for his brother, I’m not sure that the two things are related,” I replied. “Give me a call if you remember anything else.”

  “Will do.” He slipped the card into his pocket and tipped his head. “Give me a call if you ever want to run with the pack under the full moon.”

  I couldn’t think of anything that sounded more terrifying, but I forced a smile. “I will keep that in mind.”

  “You should. You might like it.”

  Back in my car, I listened to my voicemails. One was from my best friend Ellie, asking about my new apartment. The second was from Stryker. He got straight to the point. “Stroud said you were talking to someone about Morty going off the radar. I’m in Malibu on something unrelated, but I happened to stumble upon Morty’s car in a parking lot. I’m sending you the address.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Some people found the Malibu Pier a big disappointment.

  The narrow, rickety wooden pier came to an abrupt end at a little cafe. It was dwarfed in comparison to the massive Santa Monica Pier, with its amusement park, arcades, shops and restaurants a few miles south.

  After I left Kelly Jackson’s illegal chop shop, I drove a straight shot from the valley, across Malibu Canyon Highway, to the beach. The quintessential California beach town was dormant in February. Not only was it off-season, it wasn’t even peak hours for the locals, who occasionally showed up around lunchtime.

  In my opinion, winter-Malibu beat summer-Malibu any day and all year. Yes, the air felt a bit nippy despite the golden sun up in the sky. But the ocean sparkled a radiant sapphire blue, without the crush of humanity trying to soak up the rays.

  I pulled into the parking lot and saw Stryker’s big black Range Rover parked next to an odd looking, faded green car that could have driven right out of 1950s Paris.

  In the nearly empty lot, I parked my Civic on the other side of the old car.

  “This is Mr. Morty’s car?”

  “Pretty sure,” he replied, rummaging through the glovebox. “Not many of these old Citroens left. Especially in pistachio green. I stumbled on it as I was driving north. Called in the plates to confirm.”

  “I thought your case was down in Huntington Beach?” That was twenty-five miles down the coast to the south.

  “It was. But my missing necromancer and the mermaid connection brought me up here.”

  “Find anything?”

  He’d moved on from the glovebox to the side door storage pockets. He stood up empty-handed and slammed the heavy metal door with a loud ka-chunk. “Not a damn thing. How about you?”

  I told him about my trip to see the werewolves and how Morty had been looking for a lost brother. Stryker was part were so I half expected that he knew Mr. Jackson. If he did, he didn’t say anything. Maybe werebears and werewolves didn’t mix.

  “Did he tell you if Morty explained what he thought happened to his brother?”

  “No. But he mentioned a place here in Malibu where Mr. Morty’s brother may have hung out.”

  “Where?”

  “A bar called the Seahorse Tavern.”

  Stryker laughed.

  “What?”

  He pointed over my shoulder. I turned to see a large sign on top of a long elegant building that read “The Seahorse Inn and Cafe.”

  “You’ve got to me kidding me?”

  “Guess his next stop after the werewolves was here,” Stryker said. “Let’s go take a look.”

  We walked toward the Seahorse Inn, a medium-sized seaside hotel with three stories and not more than fifty rooms. White paint covered the clapboard, with gray nautical trim on the shutters. It reminded me of something straight off a Cape Cod postcard.

  We entered the small lobby with upscale velvety furniture, lots of seashells, ocean-themed art, and a massive flower arrangement that probably cost as much as my rent.

  Stryker picked up a brochure and scanned it. “Jeez, this place is pricey.”

  “It’s on the water. Anything on the ocean is going to cost you in California.”

  “I’ll go talk to the front desk. You check out the bar,” he said, and I couldn’t help but notice that a very pretty beachy blonde happened to be working the front desk.

  Why argue?

  “Sounds good.” I headed to the back, where a long narrow bar/cafe opened up along the waterfront. Guests and a few locals lingered over a late brunch.

  I’d been expecting something a whole lot seedier than this quaint little cafe. Maybe it was different at night, something that would attract werewolf biker gangs instead of the gaggle of upscale housewives sipping rose at 11:30 in the morning.

  I circled through the cafe, passing a small gift shop tucked into a corner. From the outside, it looked like it sold pricey swimwear and sunglasses to the guests. I stepped inside to see the prerequisite hotel gift shop counter stocked with toothpaste, Advil, and sunscreen.

  A young woman with wild, reddish-brown curly hair was unpacking T-shirts at the checkout corner.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Or is it really good afternoon?”

  I checked my watch. “Twenty more minutes until good afternoon.”

  “Can I help you find anything?” she asked politely, but something about her skin tone made me thing that she was ill. Dark circles rimmed her eyes and her pale skin had a grayish tint.

  “Just kind of browsing.” I replied, skimming the shop’s merchandise.

  “Are you a guest with us at the hotel?”

  “No, just meeting a friend for lunch.” I lied. Was she being friendly or nosy?

  “Well, let me know if I can help you find anything.”

  Near the front counter sat a display case on the side shelf filled with jewelry. A necklace with a light pink, heart-shaped crystal on a delicate silver chain caught my eye. It looked nearly identical to the necklace Maybelle had found with Mr. Morty’s belongings, except the crystal was pink and not blue.

  The clerk saw me leaning over the locked case to examine it. “Can I show you anything in there?”

  “Yes, can I see this pretty pink necklace?”

  The arty clerk came out from behind the counter, her
long floral skirt flowing behind her as she located the correct key from a crowded circular keychain and unlocked the case.

  “Oh that’s a nice one,” she said. “That’s made from a rose quartz crystal. It’s filled with feminine energy. This one speaks directly to the heart chakra and helps heal emotional wounds.”

  I could sense a whiff of magic emanating from her. It was either weak or murky. I couldn’t tell what she was. A lot of simple hedge witches worked with crystals and their energies, but it wasn’t a very powerful form of magic.

  She gently removed the delicate necklace and handed it to me.

  The price tag was shaped similarly to the one that Maybelle had found. I flipped it over in my hand to see that the handwritten price read $39. The one from Morty's pocket had been $42.

  “Do you like it?” she asked as I turned it over and held it up to the light.

  “It's very pretty.”

  “Thank you. I make them all by hand.” She smiled proudly.

  “You make all of these?” I glanced into the rest of the case to see a variety of earrings and bracelets. Most included at least one crystal, if not more. A few had interesting gemstones.

  “Yes, and I have a lot more if you're looking for something specific. Or I can take a custom order.”

  I almost pulled out the photo of Morty and asked her if she knew him, but something made me hesitate. I didn't want to tip my hand just yet.

  “I'll take it,” I said, giving the necklace back to her. It didn't seem to be enchanted in any way, but I couldn't really tell standing in the shop.

  “Oh fantastic.” Her face lit up. “Is it for you or is it a gift? Because I'm happy to wrap it.”

  “It’s for my mom,” I explained. “Her birthday is next week. I’d love it if you have time to wrap it.”

  My mother's birthday really was next week. I was killing two birds with one stone. I’d been planning to drive out to the desert next weekend to visit her and my stepdad. Having the clerk gift wrap it would give me more time to continue this conversation and snoop around.

  “Have you worked here long?” I asked. “This is such a great place. Near the ocean and all that.”

  “Not too long,” she answered vaguely as she took the necklace behind the counter to wrap it. “I mostly work nights in the bar.”