I found the wound. Jagged. Nasty. I swallowed my fear and leaned in to look. As I pulled at the wolf's shredded hide, my hands pulsed with warmth, tingling and powerful. It was magic again, but different from the blue lightning.
The power flowed through me, along with a rush of something else. Joy. I closed my eyes and saw Chet's mother, panting on the floor. She was scared. “They're coming,” she'd said between gasps. I'd taken her hand, looked into her eyes, and told her to drink her damn beverage. The shock had quieted her long enough for me to deliver her baby. The me in this scenario was Winona Vander Zalm, in one of her finer moments.
I opened my eyes to the present moment, in the forest. I'd barely located the gash in Chet-Wolf's pelt, yet it was already healing, stitching together under the orange glow coming from my hands. He whimpered softly on my lap.
The forest around us blurred as I tended him from head to toe, using my orange-flowing hands and fixing one gash after another. As his breathing settled, he got smaller. He was shrinking, down to the size of a regular wolf, and the wounds were shrinking along with him, but they were still horrific. The flying beast's sharp beak and talons hadn't been for show. He tried to shred my beloved, I thought.
My beloved? I hadn't realized Winona's bond with Chet was quite like that.
A woman's voice startled me out of my reverie. “Is your doggy okay?”
I turned to find a pleasant-faced woman in a red hat, walking a gray miniature Schnauzer in an equally red vest. The Schnauzer regarded Chet-Wolf with apprehension, one front paw frozen in mid-air.
“Your doggy,” the woman repeated. “Is he injured?”
I found my voice deep within my gut and answered. “He got scratched up on some branches, but I think my, uh, doggy's okay.”
“He's so big,” she said. “Is he a purebred?”
“Definitely,” I said with a nod.
“What kind? He almost looks like a wolf.”
“It's a European breed,” I answered, which seemed to satisfy her.
“See you around,” she said breezily, tugging at her dog's leash as she turned away.
I pushed Chet-Wolf off my lap, got to my feet, and waved goodbye. The woman's Schnauzer was so transfixed by Chet-Wolf, it let itself be dragged for several yards on stiff legs before finally getting its paws working.
Once they'd disappeared from sight, I turned again to tend my hero.
He was no longer covered in a thick pelt of fur.
He was standing.
He was human.
He was completely naked.
I let out a surprised shriek.
Chet's eyebrows rose over his bright-green eyes. “Now you scream?”
Chapter 24
I distracted myself from Chet's nakedness by helping him hunt down his clothes in the nearby brush.
“No peeking,” he said. “I can feel you checking me out.”
I snorted as I picked up one of his shoes and shook the dirt from it. “You wish,” I teased. “If I had been looking—and I'm not admitting to anything—it was only as a professional healer. If you have any more wounds from that nasty bird, let me know, and I'll fix them for you.”
“You can look now,” he said. “I've got jeans on.”
I glanced over and caught an eyeful of his remarkably fit upper body. I took a moment to inspect his body carefully for scratches. Very carefully. Especially the abs.
“You don't even have any scars,” I said. “How is that possible?”
“It's magic,” he said. “I don't know how it works. Regular physics don't apply. My weight as a shifted animal is rarely the same as my weight as a human. Where does the mass come from, or where does it go?”
“Are you asking me?” I handed him the shoe I'd been shaking free of dirt for at least a minute while staring. “How would I know where the mass goes?”
“You're a witch, Zara. Your kind always has explanations for the physics of magic.”
“My kind?” I blinked innocently. “What makes you say I'm a witch?”
“Zara, I saw you shoot a fireball from your fingertips.”
“So? That doesn't prove someone's a witch.”
“What else could you be?”
I shrugged. “I'm a freakishly good conductor of static electricity. The air is rather dry at the moment, and I was working in the library all day. We have dehumidifiers to keep the books from getting musty. What you saw must have been static discharging.”
“Nice try.”
I handed over his shirt and waved for him to cover his nakedness. “Regardless, thanks for saving me from becoming bird kibble for Mr. Pointy Beak.”
“You're welcome.” He continued getting dressed, keeping his eyes down as he dusted dirt and dried leaves from his clothes.
With a gentle tone, he said, “Thank you for healing me, by the way. I could have stitched up on my own eventually, but it's almost impossible to shift with an injury.”
“Chet, you owe me more answers. It's no coincidence I moved in next door to you, is it?”
He frowned and looked down as he brushed debris from his jeans. “How would I know? I'm not in charge of the whole world.”
“But you know about me. You knew I was a witch, maybe before I did. You didn't tune into my webcams and chat with the other Zara-fans on Tuesday nights just because you enjoyed my sparkling wit and my unique take on popular culture.”
He kept looking down. “I can't say I agreed with all your movie reviews. You gave a lot of thumbs-down reviews on perfectly good action movies.”
“Chet, don't make me shoot you with a blue lightning ball.”
He met my eyes. “You couldn't hit the side of a barn right now, let alone a moving target. And that's assuming you can even muster one up.” He glanced up at the dark canopy and rubbed his arms. “Let's get walking home. We're both depleted. It's a good thing we had all that chocolate, or we'd be staggering like zombies right now.”
I stepped over a tree's snaking root and began walking. He caught up with a carefree skip. We continued in the direction we'd been heading before the attack began.
I started to ask him who or what the bird was but stopped myself. A theory was forming in my head, and I didn't dare utter it aloud. I needed a few minutes to mull it over.
After a moment, he broke the silence. “You don't fight like a witch with sixteen years of experience. Have you been ignoring your gift?”
“Let's not dig into my history. Who do you really work for? Is it MIB? By which I mean Men in Black?”
“Don't they deal with aliens?”
“Are you saying your organization doesn't deal with aliens?”
He chuckled. “I'm not authorized to tell you about my employer. Just that we're looking into the Vander Zalm case, and I may need your help eventually.” He coughed into his fist. “If not on this case, maybe on a different one. Or a cold case.”
“Cold case?” I skipped to keep pace with him. I was a speedy walker, but Chet had longer legs and bigger muscles, not to mention the power boost of shapeshifter DNA.
He answered, “I'll tell you more... once you're ready.”
We walked for a moment in silence before he said, “I'm surprised you're not more skilled with your magic. Your defense was lopsided and weak. It's almost like you're a total newbie witch.”
“Thanks,” I snorted. I didn't offer more. Sure, Chet had just saved my life, and he looked like a calendar model in the nude, but I didn't trust him. If he didn't know I was a late bloomer, I wasn't going to tell him. Never reveal weakness. The less information people had about my limitations, the better.
“Why were you so shaky?” he asked. “Are you out of practice?”
“Of course I'm out of practice,” I said. “For the last sixteen years, I haven't had to deal with horrible creatures flying at me from trees, not unless you count a teenager. And my defense skills in that regard are excellent. First, you have to make sure your teenager gets enough sleep. Second, you should always have granola bars in y
our purse.”
“Always?” He lunged for my purse. I reflexively slapped him in the chest with a fizzle of blue light. My flaccid magic slowed him down, but he grabbed for my purse again with remarkable speed. Within seconds, he'd located the granola bars in my purse and gotten most of one into his mouth.
“You might want to take off the wrapper,” I said.
“Oh.” He swallowed. “Too late. Do you want the other one?”
“Help yourself,” I said. “You need it more than I do.”
He pulled off the foil wrapper and ate the second granola bar in three seconds flat.
We emerged from the forest. The bright late-afternoon sunshine felt surreal after our ordeal.
We exchanged sheepish looks and continued walking toward home.
“You don't have to tell me the name of your employer,” I said. “But does your boss know you're a werewolf?”
He let out a low, disapproving growl. “We prefer the term ‘shifter.’ We can change at will.”
“What's the difference?”
He growled again. “While the moon does affect us, we're not slaves to its cycle.”
“Are the other investigators all shifters? Or witches?”
“I'm not authorized to provide that information.”
“Is the Vander Zalm case a homicide investigation?”
“Yes.”
I gasped. “Really?”
“Suspected homicide,” he said.
“Who are the suspects?”
“I'm not authorized to provide that information.”
I growled back at him, though my growl sounded like a Chihuahua's compared to his. “Am I in danger?”
“We haven't ruled out the possibility it was simply an unfortunate accident. People kill themselves in bizarre, unplanned ways all the time.” After a minute, he added, “But accidents don't usually cause ghosts, and you do have a ghost in your house, don't you?”
“Maybe,” I answered cagily. This time it was my turn to say, “I'm not authorized to provide that information.”
“Touché,” he said.
“Am I a suspect?”
He gave me a surprised look. “Of course not.”
“Is your son Corvin a shifter?”
He was slow to answer. “Leave Corvin out of this.”
“Listen, Chet. I may be a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but your son's name literally means raven, and we just got attacked by what appeared to be a mutant radioactive raven on steroids. Don't tell me you're one of those clueless parents who can't believe his sweet little angel could ever do anything bad.”
His walking pace slowed. “That wasn't Corvin back there attacking us. Are you always so paranoid?”
“Are you always so quick to label a sharp woman who asks questions as paranoid?”
He let out an audible breath. “Sometimes,” he admitted.
“On that note, don't you think it was a strange coincidence that we were attacked by a magic creature at the exact moment you wanted to talk to me about your secret?”
He shot me a wary look. “You're driving at something.”
“The whole attack was magnificent. Effective, even. It was a great way for you to win my trust. How convenient that you got to be my big, strong hero.”
His upper lip curled up in a wolfish snarl. How had I not noticed how sharp his canines were before now?
He growled, “You think I enjoy getting my hide sliced to ribbons? You think shifters don't feel pain?”
I shrugged. “The end justifies the means. You endure some pain now so you can get what you want down the road.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and glanced around. “We shouldn't be discussing this in public.”
“Plus you're not authorized to tell me anything interesting.”
He didn't respond.
We reached a main street, peopled with others out walking their dogs or running errands.
“Clam up all you want,” I said. “I have my own resources. And if there's one thing a librarian knows how to do, it's access resources.”
I sounded so confident, I believed my bluff.
We walked the rest of the way home in silence.
Chapter 25
Never underestimate a librarian.
Librarians are soldiers in pink cardigans, tirelessly waging war against ignorance.
We get asked more stupid questions than should be legally allowed, and if we could cast a spell to turn people into kittens, half the world would be cats, but we keep showing up day after day, because we know we have the power to save souls. The right book at the right time can save a life, at any age.
A wise man—Neil Gaiman—says, “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.”
I needed somewhere between one and 100,000 answers, and since my primary source wasn't returning phone calls, I was going to bang on her door.
On Monday night at eight o'clock, I marched toward Zinnia Riddle's house with my daughter in tow. I'd already told Zoey about the attack in the woods and Chet's supernatural abilities. She'd been shocked but had taken the news like a champ. She quickly agreed that we needed to educate ourselves. Her searches on the internet hadn't been fruitful, nor had I found anything promising at the WPL. We wanted information, and we wanted it now.
Aunt Zinnia opened the door, took one look at us, and said, “You've been attacked.”
I looked down at my clothes. I'd forgotten I was filthy from rolling around on the forest floor. I had Chet's blood spattered all over my favorite charcoal-gray pencil skirt. To a casual observer, it might pass for a patterned fabric. The blood had dried and had a sparkling, metallic sheen.
Aunt Zinnia leaned down and picked at the dried blood. “This isn't human,” she said.
Zoey said, “You can tell just by looking?”
Zinnia straightened up as she licked the dark flecks from her fingertip. “Shifter,” she said.
For some reason—maybe because I was still in shock from the attack—I wasn't at all surprised to see my aunt taste-testing dried shifter blood. She was a witch. A redheaded, forty-eight-year-old witch who wore green corduroy skorts and weird flowered vests. Of course she would be sticking horrible things into her mouth.
“We're sorry to show up unexpectedly like this,” Zoey said. “I kept calling, but your voicemail is full now.” She wrung her hands nervously. As her mom, I knew she was just as upset over showing up at someone's house without an appointment as she was about her mother being attacked in the woods. She really hated to impose on people.
“I'm not sorry,” I said.
Zoey elbowed me.
I looked around to make sure nobody was walking by the front of the house. It would be better to conduct our business inside, but Zinnia stood blocking the doorway.
I put my hands on my hips. “We're here because you forgot to tell us about shifters,” I said. “Wolf shifters, and scary bird shifters, and heaven knows what else.”
“Now you know,” she said, putting her hands on her hips as well.
“Also, I can levitate things,” I said.
“Good.” She scrunched her lips together and looked me up and down. “How heavy?”
“Anything over five pounds is dicey.”
She nodded. “You'll improve with practice.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “As our elder, aren't you supposed to be guiding us through these strange new developments?”
Aunt Zinnia looked from me to Zoey and then back to me again. Her hazel eyes twitched, like she was planning to cast a spell to shoo us off her porch.
Finally, she said, “Come inside.” She stepped in from her doorway. “Don't just stand there on my porch talking about supernatural creatures like a couple of ding-dongs.”
I turned to my daughter. “She called us ding-dongs.”
Zoey gave me a thoughtful look. “I think that's how normal families are. They can call each other the worst things, but there's always love beneath the s
urface.”
I grumbled as we entered the house, “If she loved us so much, why didn't she return our phone calls or at least warn us about—” I didn't get to finish, because she'd grabbed my arm and tugged me all the way into the house. Her hands hadn't moved off her hips, yet I could feel her fingers on my forearm. It was unsettling, to say the least.
With her hands still on her hips, her fingers tapping impatiently on the green corduroy fabric of her skort, Zinnia used magic to shut her door and lock it.
“I've been busy,” she said. “My world doesn't revolve around you two. You know, I had a life long before you two showed up here in Wisteria.”
“Busy doing what?” I lifted my chin defiantly. “Writing reference letters and arranging for other long-lost family members to get job offers here in this town?” I paused to let the revelation sink in.
Her expression remained stony. “Pardon me?”
“You heard me,” I said. “I know all about your glowing letter—the one that convinced Kathy Carmichael to give me the job at the library despite my being less qualified than the other local applicants.”
“You're welcome,” she said snippily.
Zoey cut in, “You should have told us, Auntie Z. We wouldn't have been angry if you'd been honest from the start.” Zoey turned to me, her brow furrowed. “Why are we angry? I'm confused. What's so bad about Auntie Z writing a reference letter?”
Zinnia simply turned and waved for us to follow her. “Tea,” she said, more an announcement than an invitation.
Zoey and I exchanged a look. Zoey's stomach growled loud enough for me to hear. It was past eight o'clock on Monday evening. When I'd gotten home from my walk with Chet, we'd had so much to talk about that we'd actually forgotten to eat. That was a first for the Riddle girls.
I'd have fed her a granola bar from my purse on the walk over to Zinnia's, but Chet had devoured both of them.
“My daughter's stomach is growling,” I said as I leaned down to unlace my boots. “If you've got cookies to go with that tea, it would be an offer too good to refuse.”
Zoey gave me a playful hip bump, nearly knocking me over. “I can hear your stomach growling, too,” she hissed.
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