Empty.
I already knew that. I just hoped that somehow I’d missed a drop at the very bottom that might whet my parched whistle.
Nope.
I cross my arms over my chest, and do a little ‘hug myself to ward off the chills’ dance. It’s a lot like my ‘I need to pee’ dance, but with more upper body wiggling.
As I run my hands up and down my arms, creating friction, I look around me, peering out into the shadowy woods.
I’m getting close to the tree line. The pines and aspens up here are scraggly and short, stunted by the high alpine environment. Soon, the trail will take me out from the cover of the thin and scraggly trees, onto an open rock face.
I can see, through this last little stand of trees, that the mountain’s peak is not far from me. Though it’s hard to judge distance without trees, I guess that it’s about half a mile away. The rocky face is tinted pink. The sun, across the valley, is sinking lower. The sky is a dusky greyish blue, with some faint hints of lavender.
I’ve almost completed the whole hike up this mountain, and I haven’t picked up one sign of a werewolf.
Not one print.
Not one howl.
Not one clump of fur.
I furrow my brow, thinking hard as I consider my options.
Return down the mountain
Keep heading up the trail
Stay where I am
Go check out that flickering orange light, that I can see through the trees.
Yes! I’m not kidding. That really is one of my options now! I’ve just noticed a flickering orange light. It looks like a fire.
Ahhhh. The thought of warming up by a fire sounds beyond delightful. It really doesn’t look far off, either.
D.
I’m definitely going to go with option D.
I step off of the trail and begin bobbing and weaving my way through the trees to the right of the trail, working to keep the firelight in view.
I keep my footsteps light. I’d rather catch a glimpse of whoever built that fire before they catch a glimpse of me. There is a murderer on the loose around Hillcrest, after all!
I keep sneaking through the woods until I can see a figure, sitting next to the fire.
It’s a man.
He’s alone.
Even though he’s sitting in the shadows, I can make out his dark beard and his grey beanie. He’s the second man I saw enter the inn on the night that Raul died. When he jumped out of the window, he turned into a black wolf.
I’m relieved that it’s not the Lux werewolf, sitting by the fire.
If luck is with me, this Tenebris wolf is a good guy.
Just in case, I check in my messenger bag and verify that my gun is there and ready to use. It is. I see the little pearl handle. I also spot my handcuffs. I pull them out, get them into the ‘loaded’ position, and slip them into my sweatshirt pocket. Then I step out from behind the tree.
The man looks up. He’s in a squatting position, pushing around logs in the fire with a stick, but at the sight of me he stands. He looks nervous.
“Hi,” he says. “Can I help you?”
“Hey,” I say, stepping further into the clearing around his fire pit. “Sorry to bother you. I got a really late start on my hike, and I caught a chill. I spotted your fire, and...”
He seems to relax. He looks at the fire. “Go ahead,” he says. “Warm up, if you want to.”
I step in closer to the fire, and hold my hands out to it. Warm air meets my freezing fingers.
“Oh my goodness!” I say, turning my hands this way and that. “The heat feels so good. Thanks.” I smile at the guy.
He returns my smile. He has warm, twinkling eyes.
I don’t think they’re the eyes of a killer, but I probably shouldn’t jump to any conclusions just based on the quality of the guy’s twinkle. What kind of PI would do that? No—I have to ask some questions.
“Are you camping up here?” I say, to start things off.
I’m been known to jump into my interviews a bit too abruptly. I’m working on easing into things.
The guy nods. “Yeah. For a few nights now.”
So far so good. Time for my next question.
“Are you a werewolf?” I ask.
Hm. Well, that was a little bit abrupt, but what can I do about it? I already saw this guy change into a wolf before my very eyes, and if we’re going to make any progress here, I can’t beat around the bush.
To my surprise, my question doesn’t seem to catch him off guard.
“Yeah,” he says. He’s been looking into the fire, but now he turns and meets my eye. “Are you a witch?” he asks.
My eyebrows rise, and I feel my eyes grow wide. “Excuse me?” I say, completely taken aback.
He doesn’t back down. “A witch,” he says. “You’ve gotta be a witch. I saw you—last night at the Hillcrest Inn. You were standing on the sidewalk when I chased after Zeke. I was wondering why you didn’t scream when you saw me shapeshift. The only thing that makes sense is if you’re magical yourself.”
“I’m—Yes. I’m becoming a witch.” For some reason, I feel the need to clarify this. “I’m mostly just human, though. You picked that up, just because I didn’t scream?”
He chuckles. “Believe me, if you didn’t have a background with magic, what you saw last night would have short circuited you.”
Short circuited! That’s what happened to Chris. The phrase fits the look on Chris’s face, when I showed him the ball of light, perfectly.
He continues. “You would have either screamed or fainted. Instead, you and your friend just watched. Plus, you’re dressed in all black. You’re too pretty to be a goblin, and you don’t have the dental structure of a vampire. You’re not transparent like a ghost, so that leaves—”
“Witch,” I say with a nod. Then, for some strange reason, I grin. It feels good to be talking about magic, and I find that I like being recognized as a witch. Plus, this guy called me pretty. What girl doesn’t like a compliment now and then?
The man in the beanie smiles again, too. This is going well. He reaches out his hand.
“I’m Silas,” he says. “Silas Switchback.”
“Penny,” I say. “Penny Banks. Are you... are you a Tenebris werewolf?”
He smiles wider. “Yeah, I am. You’ve done your homework, haven’t you, Penny Banks?”
“A little bit of research,” I say, adjusting my glasses.
Silas is still looking at me. It’s in a friendly sort of way. There’s a glint of curiosity in his eye as he studies me.
After a moment of silence, he speaks. “When I heard that the Earth Portal was open, I also heard a little bit about you. Magical beings were saying that there was a new coven guarding the portal. They said the leader of the coven was a girl named Penny. They didn’t happen to say how smart you were.”
Well! Now he’s called me pretty and smart.
I’m really starting to warm up to this guy!
I try to sound casual as I say, “My friend Max told me a thing or two about the history of wolves.”
“Doctor Max Shire?” Silas says. “I heard he was hanging out here these days too. That guy is a brainiac. Have you read his book, ‘The Curse that turned into Love’ then? Is that where you learned about the Tenebris Clan?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t read it yet,” I say.
“Oh!” Silas exclaims. “You really should. Be warned—there are some spicy sections.” He wiggles his brow, causing his hat to move up and down.
“So I’ve heard,” I say. Then, to get our conversation back on track, I quickly follow up with another question. “You said you chased after Zeke. I saw him—he was the man in the trench coat and the white hair pulled back in a ponytail, right?”
Silas’ grin fades. “Yeah, that was Zeke all right,” he says. “I was chasing him—but I didn’t catch him.”
“Have you seen him since?” I ask.
“No,” Silas says, shaking his head with disappo
intment. “He’s kept out of sight. I think he might be nursing his wounds.”
“Wounds?” I ask.
“Zeke was injured,” Silas says.
He squats down by the fire again, and reaches for a stick that is lying on the ground. Using the stick, he starts moving around the logs in the fire. As he rearranges them, the flames, which have been beginning to die down, flare up higher.
He keeps rolling the logs and the fire grows even more. I squat down too and hold my hands out, enjoying the warmth from the renewed fire.
“How?” I ask. “What happened?”
Silas glances over at me. “It’s a long story,” he says. “You sure you want to hear it?”
Now that I’m even closer to the fire, I’m really getting warm. I pull my sweatshirt hood down off of my head. I take off my bag, too, and set it down at my side. There. I feel comfortable. Toasty. Relaxed. Ready to listen.
“I didn’t skip lunch and hike up this mountain not to find answers,” I say. “Yeah, I want to hear your story.”
“You skipped lunch?” Silas says. He hops up to his feet and moves away from the fire. I hear the rustling of a plastic bag. “Oh, shoot,” he says. “I’m out of hot dogs. All I have is stuff for s'mores, and some apple cider.”
S'mores?
Apple cider?
Yep. The Tenebris clan of werewolves are all right, in my book. There’s no way this guy can be a murderer. A murderer wouldn’t offer up a delicious dessert and refreshing cider, would he?
Usually I’m a very logical person. My appetite may be skewing my natural abilities, at this exact moment. Possibly.
Soon, Silas has hooked me up, and I’m sipping cider while roasting a marshmallow over the fire. I couldn’t be happier as Silas launches into his tale.
“Let’s see,” he says. “How can I explain how Zeke was hurt? I guess I’ll have to start from the beginning.”
Chapter Ten
“Please do,” I say. If this story lasts long enough, I might have time to make two s'mores.
Silas pierces the bottom of a marshmallow with a pointed stick and holds it over the fire, next to mine. He starts rotating it slowly, speaking while he works.
“I was living out in the Water Realm. That’s where I was born, you know. I loved it there. I still do, actually. I enjoy surfing.”
Hunh. Surfing? That’s not what I pictured when I imagined the Water Realm. Silas goes on before I can pester him for more details.
“One day,” he says, “I came back to the pack after a long day of surfing, and Raul called a meeting.”
Here I manage to squeeze in a question. “You were in the same pack as Raul?”
“Sure,” Silas says. “I was the Beta to his Alpha. Raul was our leader. He was good at it. That evening—it must have been about a week ago, now—he told the pack about an opportunity to move. He’d gotten wind that the Earth Realm portal was basically unguarded.”
“Basically unguarded?” I say, taking offense. “That’s not true! My coven and I are the guardians of the Earth Realm portal.”
Silas lifts his marshmallow out of the fire. It’s golden brown. “Yeah, but you’re all new witches. You don’t know how to properly guard a portal. So, it’s basically open.” He finishes studying his marshmallow and puts it back into the fire.
“Whatever,” I say. I’m going to have to let this one slide.
“Raul suggested to the pack that we try out earth. He said that there was lots of land open for the taking. In private, he promised me that if I helped with the move, he’d help me secure some land of my own, so that I could become an Alpha wolf and begin to sire offspring.”
Suddenly I’m curious about how the pack structure works. Do werewolves marry? Do Alpha wolves have one wife, or two, or several?
That would be totally off topic. I want to figure out who murdered Raul, so I keep my lips zipped and let Silas continue.
“Raul and I decided that we’d cross through the portal and start checking out the Earth Realm for a month or two. If it all looked good, we’d go back to the Water Realm and get the rest of our pack.”
“So you just waltzed into town?” I ask. “Through the portal?”
“It was easy,” Silas said. “Like I said, you’ve left it basically unguarded. No one even noticed us at first. We came off of Hillcrest Pass and booked it right into the woods. The first day we just explored—looking for land suitable for camping unnoticed.”
The fire crackles as burning logs settle into place.
Silas continues. “We needed an area with plenty of wild game, and clean, fresh water. We also wanted it to be public land—safe to live on for a while. We figured we’d camp out and start learning how to earn little paper squares—I mean, money. Once we were able to buy land, we could bring in the rest of the pack.”
“Okay,” I say. “That makes sense. Where did things go wrong?”
Obviously, seeing as Raul wound up dead in the Hillcrest Inn, their plan didn’t quite pan out.
“Well, we spent one night in the woods,” Silas says. “One. That’s it. And Raul decided that ‘camping wasn’t for him’. Can you believe that?” He rolls his eyes, and pulls his marshmallow out of the fire. It’s dark brown now, and puffy with bubbles. It looks perfectly roasted. This guy is good.
He’s already gotten his graham crackers lined up, with a square of chocolate on one of them. See? He’s a pro. He places the grahams on either side of his marshmallow and uses them to slide the sticky roasted marshmallow off of the stick.
I’ve become so mesmerized by his s'mores assembly technique that I’ve let my own marshmallow droop. I see a little flare up of flames form the corner of my eye, and look over just in time to see my marshmallow disintegrate into ash.
Oops.
Silas holds his perfectly assembled s’more up in front of him. “Who doesn’t like camping?” he says. “I mean, camping is awesome. Raul didn’t even give it a proper chance.”
“It’s cold out here, at night,” I say.
“Not when you’re covered in three inches of thick, insulating fur,” Silas says. “I’m a werewolf, remember? I can change form at will. Sure, it takes concentration, but with practice we can stay in our wolf form overnight.” He bites into his s’more.
I reach for the marshmallow bag and get a new, fresh marshmallow. Time for try number two.
Silas chews and swallows.
“Raul said that even in his wolf form he was uncomfortable on the rocky earth. It was hurting his back. He said that camping out would be fine once we found a nice cave, where we could set up some bedding, but until then he insisted on checking into the inn. I knew it was a bad idea. Out in the woods, we’re practically invisible. But in town, I knew that the locals would start to take notice—no matter how careful we were about staying under the radar. We’d heard about how suspicious humans were, but we had no idea how bad it could be.”
“We’re not so bad,” I say, defensive again.
“Oh, not you. I mean the human humans. The ones without a clue about magic. They totally reject anything they don’t understand.”
Silas’s words make me think of Chris again, and the way he reacted when I performed the Flamma spell.
Yep. The word ‘rejection’ seems to fit. ‘Move’ he said, in an ice cold tone.
If that’s not rejection, I don’t know what is.
What am I going to do about Chris?
What is going to happen to our relationship?
Silas’s voice pulls me from my musings. “When Raul booked a room at that little inn, I knew we were headed for trouble. The innkeepers were bound to wonder about him—where he was from, what he was doing in town... the whole bit. But Raul insisted.”
“And how did Raul get hurt?” I ask.
“Okay. So there we are—Raul in town at the hotel like a big baby, and me up in the woods like a cool, camper-guy. It’s no good being split up like that. Werewolves belong in packs. Alone, we’re weak. Vulnerable to attack. And that’s
just what happened.”
I pull my marshmallow out and check on it. It’s pale tan. Getting there, but I’m being a bit too cautious. I return it to the fire, sticking it a little bit closer to the flame this time.
Silas continues. “On Wednesday morning, I went into town to get Raul. We explored together for a while, but then ended up splitting up so that we could cover more ground. After a few hours Raul was going to meet up with me. I’d told him I found a spot up on Never Summer Peak, and that I’d meet him there. He was all nervous about finding me—said he needed a map and all this, but I told him just to start climbing and he’d find me eventually. Well, he got turned around, and ended up wandering around by himself for much longer than we planned. And guess who he crossed paths with?”
“Zeke,” I say.
“Right!” Silas says. “Zeke is an Alpha wolf, also from the Water Realm. He heard about the opportunity for land on the Earth Realm around the same time that we did. He came through the portal, looking for property too.”
“Sounds like you guys could use real estate agents,” I say, half sarcastically.
“That would be great,” Silas says. “But we didn’t know of any and we were kind of in a rush.”
“Of course,” I say. Could this conversation get any stranger? I seriously feel like I’m dreaming or something. At least I’m getting answers!
“Zeke was out prowling in the woods,” Silas says, “Looking for land that might be suitable for his pack. He spotted Raul and started a fight. The Lux wolves are like that. Zeke tore into Raul. My leader defended himself well, but ended up getting a cut on his leg. He limped back to the hotel room just after dark.”
That explains the bloody paw print, I think.
“So that was Wednesday,” I say. “Did you see him later that night?”
Silas nods. “He called me, from his room at the inn, and said that his paw had been badly cut up by Zeke’s claws. He asked for help bandaging it up. I was far down in a wilderness area off of the other side of this mountain. I had to run up the mountain and then back down it, to get to town. I didn’t get there until about midnight. Raul came out and met me on the sidewalk. I think when he left the inn, one of the innkeepers woke up.”
The Case of the Banishing Spell Page 11