He looked down at himself, almost like he’d forgotten. “Before all of this happened I thought I was in pretty good shape. But now … I’m wondering if I have to go back to being the Pillsbury Doughboy.”
I smacked his arm. “Ouch!” I shook my hand. “Stars, what are those things made of, granite?”
Nick grinned and did some kind of Ironman pose.
“Yeah, yeah. Ya wanna get back to work? Your arms might look great, your feet on the other hand….” I gave his paws a pointed glance.
He curled them as far under the couch as he could manage and reached for a book.
I laughed and went back to searching. Advanced spell books were usually fairly topical. The table of contents was organized and finding a mention of the retraxi spell wasn’t difficult, but I didn’t want to try the spell without making sure it was the right one for the job. Grandmother Honeysuckle was one of the craftiest witches I knew, but without giving her the exact details of the situation, she could only offer so much direction. Before I raised my wand against my friend, I was going to make damn sure I fired off the right spell.
Nick and I studied the spell books and scrolls for an hour, mostly in silence, stopping only to exchange ideas or answer questions along the way. We took a break when Adam returned armed with two huge bakery boxes and extra-large cups of coffee from Siren’s Song.
“Any luck?” he asked before taking a massive bite out of his moon pie, nearly scarfing the entire pastry in one bite.
“I know how to do the spell,” I replied, gesturing at the open book that gave the detailed instructions. “But before I do, I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.”
He chugged his coffee. “Like what? Side effects?”
“Sort of. Spells are best used with proper context. It’s not as black and white as potion work. One of the many reasons why spellcrafting has never been my strong suit. I like definitive rules.”
Adam raised a brow. “That so?”
I stared back, unblinking. “When it comes to magic, yes.”
Sure, there were other areas of my life where the lines blurred. Chasing rogue vampires, running illegal potions businesses, and dueling with a crazed sorceress weren’t exactly moves straight from the Good Witches Playbook.
The front door opened, cutting off Adam’s no-doubt-sarcastic retort.
Evangeline pushed inside and shrugged out of her thick winter coat. She hung it on the pegs beside the door and came into the living room, rubbing her hands over her arms. She stopped short at the sight of the towers of books intermingled with half-eaten pastries and coffee cups. “What in the Otherworld is going on in here? Some kind of overzealous book club?”
I smiled at her. “Something like that. Wanna join?”
“Sure.” She rounded the couch and plopped down beside Nick. She smiled brightly, extended her hand, only to jump back a split-second later. “Whoa!”
“Evie, it’s—” Adam started.
“Nick? Is that you?” she asked, peering at him.
“Nick,” Adam finished flatly.
“Let’s just say that things didn’t go according to schedule last night,” Nick said, giving her a weak smile.
“Oh, Nick. I’m so sorry.” She patted his knee. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Without hesitation, she dove into the pile of books, grabbing one at random. “Any idea what we’re looking for?”
I caught her up and her eyes brightened. “A retraxi spell?” She flapped a hand. “Piece of cake!”
All three of us stared, mouths open.
Evangeline stood, unsheathed her wand, and leveled it at Nick. She shook back the long sleeves of her knit sweater.
“Evie, wait!” Adam said, reaching for her arm.
She frowned at him. “I know what I’m doing, Adam. I promise. I wouldn’t use Nick as some kind of guinea pig.”
“It’s not that, Evangeline.” I pointed at the books. “It’s more than just doing the spell. We want to make sure it’s the right spell. What do you know about it?”
“We just studied this in my correspondence spellcraft class. It’s used to return things, or in this case, people, to their original form. It’s helpful for transfigurations gone wrong.”
“Or randy fox-shifters,” I muttered.
“Erm, sure?” Evangeline replied.
“Never mind.” I shook my head. “You really don’t wanna know.”
“So, if you do the spell, I’ll go back to normal? No strings attached? I don’t have to … I don’t know, sacrifice my first born or avoid mirrors or something?”
Evangeline nodded. “It’s a relatively simple solution. If it doesn’t work, we’ll keep looking, but it’s usually best to start with the most obvious solution and go from there.”
Nick drew in a breath, holding it for a moment before puffing it out. He slapped his palms against his thighs and stood. “Okay. Hit me with your best shot.”
Adam grinned. “Fire away.”
I rolled my eyes.
Then rapidly closed them, unable to watch as Evangeline began conjuring the spell.
A pulse of heat washed over me and I dared to peek through one eye.
“Stars! I can’t believe it actually worked!”
Nick was staring at me, his hands on his face. “It worked?”
“Look at your feet, Twinkletoes.”
He did and immediately flung himself at Evangeline. “Thank you!”
“Happy to help,” she replied, her voice strained as Nick squeezed her tightly against his still-burlier-than-usual chest.
He took a step back and realized that he was still thirty-something pounds heavier than before, even though his legs were back to their normal shape and the paws had returned to proper feet.
“Whoa. All of the muscles, none of the claws or fur,” Nick said, inspecting his thick biceps.
Evangeline cocked her hip. “Thank your lucky stars. I mean, I would have given you a discount, but all that waxing would have hurt more than just your wallet.”
Adam’s plans to run the forest during the day were dashed early thanks to the police presence in the woods. They had the crime scene blocked off and Adam wasn’t able to get a close look at anything. He returned after thirty minutes, frustrated and edgy. He spent most of the day upstairs in his room and I left him alone. Things between us were still strained after the previous night and while we’d been back on our usual footing when Nick and Evangeline were with us, the lingering awkwardness was glaring when we were alone.
To keep myself busy, I accompanied Nick to his condo and waited as he packed a duffle bag with a few days’ worth of belongings. Though he was back to his usual form—and then some—he was wary of changing back unexpectedly and opted to take me up on the invitation to stay a few more days at the manor. We kept the conversation light, not dwelling on the previous night’s events. We returned to the manor and I went out to the greenhouse with Boots to get some work done.
Surprisingly, even with all the madness, the day felt normal and we all gathered for a big, family-style dinner, Posy and Earl included. Lacey wandered down at some point to get her nightly vacuum-sealed pouch of faux blood. She’d informed us a few weeks ago that canned blood was “so 2000s.” I caught her eying Nick’s new form, but she didn’t ask about it, or the change for that matter.
After dinner, Adam disappeared upstairs for a while. When he returned, he was wearing a pair of jeans, a flannel shirt, and his signature leather jacket. He had on a pair of hiking boots and carried a water bottle.
I jumped up from my seat on the couch, unceremoniously dumping Boots onto the floor. “Where do you think you’re going?” I demanded, already knowing full well what his plan was.
“Holly, I—”
“Oh, no you don’t! Don’t give me some only I can save the world kind of line here. You can’t go out there. It’s not safe!”
He frowned. “You know, that’s pretty rich coming from the woman who charged after a deadly sorceress and nearly
got herself killed barely a month ago!”
“Argh!” I threw my hands up into the air. “When are you going to let that go, Adam? You can’t keep throwing it at me!”
“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?”
I stared at him, my hands balled into tight fists. Magic pricked at my fingertips, begging to be released. Whenever my emotions swung too far in one direction or the other, the magic coiled up inside me loosened and fought to get free. There was no chance of me letting loose on Adam. Tempting though it may be…
“I’m going with you,” I threw back. “You either let me go too, or we both stay here.”
Adam returned my cold stare. “No way, Holly. There could be more of them out there. If it was a wolf that was shot last night, his pack will come looking for him.”
“They won’t be wolves. Not tonight!”
No full moon equaled no were-anythings.
“We don’t know that,” Adam said, the edges to his voice softening. “Nothing is certain anymore. Nick is walking, breathing proof. We have no idea how many little fanged soldiers Sasha had time to create before we took her down. She’s not here anymore, but we really don’t know what kind of legacy she left behind. The SPA is looking, but she spent years being one step ahead of them.”
He had a point. Bat wings.
“Something weird is going on out there,” he continued. “Until we get to the bottom of it, we need to be on our guards. There aren’t supposed to be wolves in our woods. Period. We don’t know what they were doing so close to the manor, but if there are more of them out there, I’m going to find out.”
“There are wards and enchantments covering every inch of this property. We don’t need to go after whatever or whoever you saw in the woods last night. Stay here and we’ll all be safe.” My argument was futile. He’d already made up his mind and there wasn’t a way for me to change it. Adam wasn’t the type to stay still when big, potentially dangerous questions were looming overhead. The problem was that I wasn’t either.
Adam sighed. “Holly, I’ll be fine. I’ve taken on wolves before.”
“That may be true, but if this is magic, that’s really my expertise.”
He threw his hands up. “Great. So, then let’s get Nick and Evie and that telepath friend of yours to tag along, too. Want a ghost? I’m sure Posy’s free. Maybe we can take Lacey, too. She’d probably love to get her teeth into something.”
“Be serious,” I scoffed, folding my arms.
“I am, Holly! You want to go storm the woods like we’re the freak-show Avengers, then let’s do it.”
Nick entered the living room from the kitchen, Evangeline at his side.
“Hey, you two,” Evangeline said, smiling at us, serenely oblivious to the firestorm they’d walked into. “Got any big plans for the night?”
“Adam thinks it would be a good idea to go traipsing through the woods,” I told her. “I’m trying to talk him out of it but not making a lot of progress. You wanna take a crack at it?”
Evangeline’s smile slipped. “Adam? You can’t go out there all alone.”
“I’m going,” he said, his voice stone cold. “If you all want to tag along, I can’t stop you. But if you want to catch whoever this is, you’d let me go alone. The more people hunting, the more likely it is we come back empty-handed. I work better alone.”
“Wolves hunt in packs,” Nick suggested.
Adam bristled. “I’m not a wolf.”
We all fell silent.
“Ugh! Don’t any of you have lives outside of the house?” Lacey demanded from the top of the stairs. “Oh!” She stopped short. “I didn’t see you there, Evangeline. I obviously didn’t mean you.”
Adam snorted and I rolled my eyes. “Actually, we were just contemplating invading the forest on a werewolf hunt. You want in, princess?” Adam offered. “That seems right up your alley. We’ll wait here if you need to change into whatever is trending for vampire huntresses these days.”
I pressed my lips together as Lacey’s ice-blue eyes narrowed into thin slits. “Hold your tongue, St. James, or else I know plenty of people who would be happy to remove it for you.”
“Aww, you wouldn’t do it yourself? That’s disappointing, Lace.”
She sneered. “I just did my nails.”
Nick looked a little green.
“All right, guys,” I interjected. “Let’s get back on track.”
“You’re really going on some wild-werewolf hunt?” Lacey asked coolly.
“In a nutshell, yes,” I replied. “When Nick and Adam went out last night, there was a strange werewolf in the forest. Someone was also shooting at it, or at them, or at something else entirely. We don’t really know what happened except that somebody was shooting and they nearly killed Adam. But this morning, Chief Lincoln told us a body was found.”
She froze. “In these woods?”
I nodded. “We think it was a wolf. In which case, we need to know why it was wandering so close to the manor and if there are more.”
Her fair skin paled another shade.
“What did the SPA have to say?” Evangeline asked. “Have either of you talked to your agents?”
I looked to Adam. He gave a slight nod. “I spoke with someone at headquarters. There aren’t any registered werewolves within a two-hundred-mile radius of the harbor.”
“So it could have been anyone,” she said glumly.
“Pretty much,” I agreed.
Lacey considered her freshly-painted fingernails. “Well, if you ask me, tearing off into the woods after someone was just found dead is about the stupidest thing you could do.”
“Good thing no one asked you then, huh?” Adam snarled.
“You did, actually.” She dropped her hand. “My family has been hunting werewolves since your ancestors were still making cave paintings with dinosaur droppings.”
Adam growled.
She shook her long sheet of platinum hair. “If anyone is capable of finding a werewolf, it’s me.”
I blinked, shocked that she was offering what sounded like help. Well, once you peeled away the layers of sanctimonious, unbridled bragging, that is.
“Let me get this straight,” Adam started. “You’re volunteering to go with us?”
She took a long, pensive drink, then nodded. “You’d be fools to not take me up on the offer.”
Adam folded his arms. “And this help is … free? Out of the goodness of your cold, dead little heart?”
Lacey’s lips went into a cool smile.
“There it is,” he scoffed. “What do you want?”
Her eyes shifted to me. “Holly, I would like you to make me one potion.”
“Uh, okay. What kind?”
“I’ll tell you later. For now, just say you’ll owe it to me.”
I glanced at Adam. His expression was stony and unreadable.
“All right, fine,” I said, returning my gaze to Lacey. “I’ll do it. But nothing black magic.”
She held up a hand. “Of course not.”
With a decisive click of her high heel, she pivoted and started back up the stairs. “I’ll go get changed.”
Adam opened his mouth, wisecrack at the ready, but Lacey silenced him with a cold stare. “Don’t ruin it, St. James.”
She breezed up the stairs and we all released a collective exhale when the door to her bedroom closed.
“What did she mean when she said her family hunts werewolves?” Nick asked once she was gone.
“Well, you know how in most vampire movies, wolves and vamps are always at war?”
He nodded slowly. “I guess.”
“Most movies don’t get their facts straight, but they’re right on with that one. Vamps and wolves have always hated each other. There’s a long, complicated backstory of course, but for now, all you really need to know is that your kind and Lacey’s don’t get along and probably never will.”
Nick looked past my shoulder, at the door to the kitchen. “Should I be worried about her?�
�
“Attacking you?” I smiled. “No. Lacey’s not that kind of vampire. In fact, most of them have gone soft in the last century or so. I figure it’s like domesticating a dog. These days, they have bottled blood, more money than they could possibly hope to spend, and the security of strategically placed people in the human and haven governmental structures. They don’t need to go out hunting werewolves. There’s nothing left to fight over anymore. They have everything they want.”
“And then some,” Adam added in a sour tone.
I patted Nick’s shoulder. “Lacey likes you, Nick. In her own little frozen-heart kind of way. Don’t worry about it, all right?”
He nodded but a flicker of anxiety lingered in his eyes.
“The real problem is what we’re going to do with any remaining pack members once we find them.”
Chapter 9
Lacey reappeared twenty minutes later, wearing a pair of skin-tight black jeans, hi-top boots, and a long-sleeve shirt that looked reinforced with some kind of body armor. A black belt hung around her tiny waist, displaying an impressive number of knives. It was a far cry from the splashy gowns and mini-dresses she usually wore on her way out of the manor. Even when she was dressed for bed, her pajama sets were made from expensive silks and most nights she wore a full face of makeup, her hair never showing so much as one split end.
It really wasn’t fair. She was a living—well, sort of living—blow to my self-esteem.
“Stop gawking,” she snapped at all of us. Though, judging by the smile on her face and the little pop of her hip, she didn’t mean a word. She loved the attention.
“Adam, are you shifting?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from Lacey’s tool belt of terror.
Normally he would go to his usual place in the woods, strip, and then shift. He had a hollowed-out tree stump where he stashed his clothes, so he wouldn’t have to shift back and stumble into the house buck naked. I think at one point he’d pitched the idea of adding a giant doggy door to the manor. I could only imagine Posy’s reaction to the notion of sawing a giant hole into one of her antique doors.
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