“I’m Charlie,” I said. “This is Raff and Damien.”
“Nice to meet you. Bryce Foster. I take it you’ve seen my show.”
He grabbed a chair from the empty table behind us and dragged it to the end of the booth, even though there was plenty of room to sit in the booth itself. The waitress gave him a dirty look behind his back, probably sick of people rearranging tables to suit their whims (I hated it when people pushed the tables around at Yogurt Time), but she put on a cheerful face when she approached to take our orders.
Once she was gone, conversation resumed.
“So, you’ve made a potion for werewolves,” Raff said, his tone hard as his eyes bored into Bryce like laser beams.
To his credit, Bryce did not look uncomfortable to be asked, even though all of us were openly staring at him.
“I did. Well, rather, I tried to. Didn’t quite work.”
“You don’t say,” Raff said, a growl humming under the words.
His fist clenched under the table. I reached over and grabbed one of his hands. Raff’s eyes widened and he looked askance at me, surprised. His hand was warm, and for the first time, I didn’t immediately let go.
“Yeah, well, my friend, the werewolf, tried it a couple months back. Didn’t work. He still shifted. So it was a bust.” Bryce shrugged. “I’m sorry if you were hoping to get it. I’m planning to try again, but I need to work out the kinks first. Might take me a while.”
I let go of Raff’s hand. “So you haven’t been selling your anti-shift potion to werewolves?”
Bryce’s brow knit. “Of course not. I just told you it doesn’t work. Why, has someone already done it? Because if so, I’d love to know their secret.”
“Their secret is theirs doesn’t work either,” Raff said.
“Well, that’s a shame,” Bryce said. “It’s a strange magic, werewolf shifting. It’s rare for magic to be so out of the owner’s control.”
Raff’s jaw clenched. Bryce didn’t seem to notice.
“Honestly, I think it might be easier to develop full-on cure to lycanthropy than a single-use anti-shift potion, not that it would be easy.” Bryce’s smile was casual. He was making conversation, thinking aloud. “But the magic functions more like a curse than an inborn magic, and it might be easier to rip it all out than to try and temper it.”
“That’s not something anyone wants,” Raff practically growled as he slid out of the booth and stormed off.
Bryce watched him leave and turned to us with a questioning look.
“Someone is selling an anti-shift potion that’s laced with poison,” I said, in part to explain Raff’s abrupt exit.
“Oh,” Bryce said, eyes going wide. “You don’t think I—?”
The three of us suddenly found interesting things to study on the table.
Finally, Damien said, “We didn’t think the killer would flaunt their crimes on the internet, but we figured it wouldn’t hurt to speak with you and see if you knew anything. Besides, I’m fascinated by your work. You can really make a potion that protects mortals from vampire glamor?”
Bryce nodded, but shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Vampire glamor was a power where vampires could stare into a person’s eyes and suggest things to mortals who, dazed and confused, would comply. Apparently it worked best on mortals who’d let vampires suck their blood, but most mortals were slightly susceptible to mild magical suggestion. The only time I’d ever seen it done was when Damien suggested to the police detective and our landlord that the chains in my werewolf shifting room were not actually there and the gouges in the wall were the result of a wild raccoon who’d gotten inside and nothing to worry about. It had been supremely creepy and afterward, Damien had looked both tired and mildly disgusted. I didn’t think he was big on using that particular ability.
“Why would you want a potion for that?” I asked, honestly curious.
Damien’s gaze flickered to Michael briefly, who rolled his eyes.
“I’m fine,” Michael said. “We hardly ever hang out with your friends.”
The way he said “friends” sent a shiver down my spine. I studied Michael’s face, still gaunt and pale, though not nearly as pale as his immortal boyfriend’s. I wondered how often he spent time with other vampires, and how they treated him. He never spoke of it, not even on his Youtube show. Then again, he knew I’d be jealous that he was getting to meet other vampires, since I was the one who had studied them so relentlessly. I knew of several who lived in the area, but based on my research, one was excessively cruel and another super aloof. There was a reason I’d chosen Damien to be my sire during my ill-fated quest to become a vampire. He was young, reasonable, and fairly affable. But I didn’t know whom Damien associated with, and I’d never found out exactly who had sired him in my research.
I swallowed down the discomfort. Three months ago, the thought of Michael cavorting with vampires would have made me burn with jealousy, but now, while the spark of envy flared, it was small and short-lived. I found that the thought of being trapped in a room full of vampires—ones that my own vampire boyfriend thought I might need magical protection against—did not sound appealing as it once had.
That was a strange revelation.
“I’m happy to provide you with whatever potions you might want, assuming they actually work,” Bryce said. His smile was friendly. “And provided you pay, of course. A guy’s gotta make a living.”
“We don’t need an anti-vampire potion,” Michael said as the waitress appeared with our burgers.
She did not seem bothered by this comment, or indeed at all interested in anything we were saying.
“Have you talked to anyone else who’s tried to make a similar potion?” I asked.
Bryce shook his head. “No. But I’m sure it’s not a unique idea.”
That might have been true, but someone had tried to replicate his potion, right down to the bright green color.
“Maybe someone saw your video and got inspired,” I said.
Bryce shrugged. “Maybe. That video only has a few hundred views, but anyone searching the internet for ‘werewolf potion’ would find it. It’s on the first search page. I’ve checked.”
He seemed proud of that fact.
After that, conversation slowed as we ate. I scarfed my burger down quickly, because, despite my roiling stomach, I hadn’t eaten since this morning, when I’d had a couple of PopTarts before work. I was starving.
Raff did not return. As soon as I cleaned my plate, I went outside in search of him. His car was still there, which I hadn’t expected. I figured he’d driven off, and I’d be getting a ride with Damien and Michael.
I found Raff standing behind the restaurant, near a lot full of trees that sat between the burger joint and the strip mall a block over. A white sign indicating the lot was slotted for development stood on the edge of the trees, just behind the restaurant’s dumpsters.
Raff was staring into the trees, as if meditating on this tiny patch of soon-to-be-paved woods.
“Hey,” I said.
He grunted and didn’t look at me. I leaned against the restaurant’s back wall.
“I’m kind of relieved it’s not Bryce selling the poison,” I said. “He seems nice.”
Raff sneered. “You would like the warlock. You certainly have a type.”
My heart hammered. “That’s not what I mean. He just seems like a cool guy, so I’m glad he’s not trying to kill our kind.”
“Or so he says. Can we go or what?”
I blinked. “You think he’s lying?”
Raff huffed and turned toward me. “I think it’s a pretty big coincidence that the potion people drank was the same green color as the stuff in his video and that he posted it right before the potion surfaced.”
“It wasn’t right before,” I said, my throat tight.
It wasn’t that far off, though. Bryce struck me as sincere, but I’d been very wrong about people before.
“What, could you se
nse he was lying or something?”
Raff’s expression softened but only a little. “I can’t tell. But he’s part demon, so who knows.”
I considered that. “I believe him. I think maybe whoever made the potion searched around the internet to see what a real one should look like in order to make it convincing and used Bryce’s video as the model.”
Raff huffed again. I didn’t know what was making him so irritable, but on some level, I understood his disappointment. It would have been nice to have found the guy and put an end to this. As it was, the killer was still out there, and while the local packs had been warned, he could go elsewhere and peddle his poison, killing who knew how many innocent werewolves before they, too, discovered what the potion really was.
“I don’t like him,” Raff finally said.
“That’s not the same thing as not believing him.”
“No one needs an anti-shifting potion.” He said it more to himself than to me, and he kicked a rock off the pavement into the dirt as he spoke. “Who does he think he is, trying to ‘fix’ us?”
“That’s not what he’s doing,” I said without even thinking.
Raff glared at me, his expression hardening again. I put my hands up.
“He’s just trying to help people. He said himself he has a werewolf friend who finds the full moon can come at the worst time. I totally know what that’s like. Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to get the full moon off work. What if you had a family wedding or a high school reunion or jury duty or something? Being able to drink a potion and take a pass on transforming would be a life saver.”
Raff shook his head. “That’s not why anyone who drank the potion did it. They wanted a cure.”
I remembered Tracy and Rob’s text messages. He wasn’t wrong. The potion only promised one night free of the moon’s pull, but, if it worked, there was nothing stopping someone from drinking it every month, assuming they could get their hands on enough.
“That’s not what Bryce is trying to make,” I countered.
The wind kicked up some leaves and trash and it danced across the pavement. Raff continued to brood and stare off into the trees.
“Your burger is getting cold,” I said.
It was a stupid thing to say, because his burger had probably been cold for a while now. Raff grunted, not interested. I turned to go back inside and get it wrapped up to go. If he wouldn’t eat it later, I definitely would.
I got three steps before I paused and said, “Wanting a break from something isn’t the same as wanting to lose it forever. Everyone wishes they could step out of themselves sometimes.”
I didn’t wait to see if he turned around. I just marched back inside to get his food and hand Michael some money so we could leave.
Chapter 13
The next day, I was back at work, and it was deader than a cemetery.
“Can we just close for the holidays or something?” I asked Dia, who shook her head and went to do her sidework so she could leave early.
Since she was the opener, she got to cut out first if it was slow. Lucky. So I stood behind the counter of Yogurt Time staring at the door. We’d had a rush of customers a few hours ago, largely the post-church and post-brunch crowd, but then business had suddenly halted and no one had come in the door since.
I kept thinking about Bryce and how he’d created a green werewolf potion and then a similar potion turned up at the Underground Market. He might have been lying, but he hadn’t seemed malicious and I couldn’t figure out why a warlock would want to peddle poison to unsuspecting werewolves. My theory that the fakers had just used his version to make their own look real felt right, and yet Raff’s hostility toward the warlock made me doubt.
Dia was refilling the sprinkles and spilled some on the floor.
“Little help?” she asked.
I pulled myself up from my leaning position and went in back to grab the broom. The air back there was freezing, and I quickly saw why: The shop’s back door was slightly ajar. I frowned, because while we had to keep it unlocked from the inside under the fire code, it was always shut tightly and only opened from the inside.
Dia must not have closed it properly when she’d taken out the trash, and the wind probably blew it open. I glanced inside the office, which was locked and dark, and then inside the storage room, just to make sure no one (or no random raccoons or whatever) had come inside.
There was nothing. I took a deep breath and stepped up to the door. Through the crack, I saw a man in the alley. He was staring right at me. I shrieked and slammed the door shut.
Then I tried to process what I’d seen. A guy in dark clothes and hunting cap, looking at me.
Dia came running. “What? What happened?”
I swallowed and shook my head, unable to explain. Nothing had happened. There was just some guy in the alley, maybe a worker from an adjacent store taking out the trash or having a smoke break. I’d seen someone and panicked for no reason. Now I felt supremely stupid.
“Charlie, are you okay?” Dia demanded.
“Fine,” I managed.
I gestured to the door. Dia opened it before I could stop her and looked out. She held the door open, and I peered over her shoulder. There was no one. I stepped up to the door frame to poke my head outside. The alley was empty. The guy was gone, if he’d been there at all.
It might have been one of the Portland wolves, but as far as I knew, they’d given up following me around. Apparently, I was boring and not worth their time.
“You left the door open,” I said, voice shaky.
“Oh, sorry,” Dia said. “I thought I closed it but sometimes the latch sticks.”
“I thought I saw…”
I shook my head. What had I seen? Nothing. A stranger, who may or may not have existed at all. I was being paranoid.
“Saw what?” Dia’s brow knit.
“Nothing. Sorry. I just got spooked.”
She eyed me strangely for a moment. The bell over the shop’s front door sounded, meaning we had a customer. She pulled the back door closed. I grabbed the broom as I’d intended to do. Dia ran upfront to serve our guest. The more I tried to solidify the image of the man I’d seen in my mind, the more it faded like a dream. I tried to shake it off, but the uneasiness sank into my bones.
Of all the things I expected being a werewolf to involve, paranoia and hallucinations had not been on the list.
The moment I got home from work that night, Raff jumped up from the sofa like I’d stuck him with a hot poker.
“Good, you’re here, we’ve got to go,” he said.
I stared at him, tired and not comprehending. “Go where?”
“Jean’s. For dinner.”
Raff looked at me expectantly. I racked my brain for any memories of such a dinner happening tonight. Raff seemed to read my thoughts.
“I told you like five times.”
“When?”
Raff sighed, crossing his arms over his muscular chest. Which I was seriously not noticing because who cared what kind chest my buff werewolf roommate happened to have?
“This morning.”
“When I was rushing around trying to get to work on time?”
I hadn’t heard much of anything as I’d struggled to get out the door. After last night’s adventure meeting Bryce, I’d come home and done some research, mostly watching almost every video on Bryce’s channel and learning what I could about the guy. I even tracked down his werewolf friend, a guy named Colby, who did in fact live in a suburb of Chicago. Via email, Colby confirmed he’d tried the potion and it had been a dud. The fact that Colby was alive proved that version had lacked the poison. Everything he’d told us seemed to be true.
But that meant I hadn’t gone to bed until four in the morning, which made getting up in time for work at nine am extremely difficult.
“We’re supposed to be at Jean’s in a half hour,” Raff said, pointedly ignoring my question, which told me he was aware that yelling something as I ran past on my way t
o work wasn’t actually the same as giving me information.
Also, Jean’s orchard was more like a forty-five minute drive, so we were going to be late.
“I’ll go change,” I said, because there was no way I was going to a wolf pack dinner in a bright pink Yogurt Time polo.
Raff knew better than to argue. Five minutes later, I’d managed to refresh my mascara and lip stick, throw on some extra eyeliner, and put on a black t-shirt dress and leggings, complete with a purple and black scarf, and my Doc Martens. Raff was already in the car, so I locked up and jumped in.
“Why tonight?” I asked, buckling my seat belt.
“The Portland Pack members are leaving tomorrow. It’s like a send-off or something. An appreciation dinner.” He eyed the clock. “That we’re going to be late to.”
“I’m sure they won’t mind. I mean, I had to work. That’s kind of out of my control.”
“Yeah,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “I guess it’ll be all right.”
He pulled away from the curb, driving slightly faster than normal. It was a narrow residential street, so he couldn’t go that fast, but I had a feeling he was going to gun it on the freeway.
“As long as the Portland Pack doesn’t try to make it into a thing.”
“How could they make it a thing?”
Raff shrugged. “Pack politics get a little dicey sometimes. If the pack Alpha decides to take our tardiness as an insult, it could lead to trouble.”
I rolled my eyes. “That would be absurdly petty.”
Raff shot me a quick look. “That’s just how this stuff works.”
I didn’t get why being supernatural creatures suddenly meant we had to adopt archaic rules of hospitality and politeness like we’d been transported through a portal to a royal court in the 1500s, but there was no sense in arguing. Raff didn’t make the rules.
Jean’s house was brightly lit, windows glowing with yellow light, and she answered the door mere seconds after Raff rang the bell, which was something of a feat given how large the house was.
Wicked Moon (The Reluctant Werewolf Chronicles Book 2) Page 9