A London Werewolf in America

by A London Werewolf in America (lit)

  The bell over the door jingled. Customer. Relieved, Darinda swept the cards off the counter before she looked up. Her welcoming smile froze on her face, and her greeting shriveled away.

  The woman let the door swing shut. She wore a smart red designer dress that clung to her like tape. Her face was perfectly made up, her hair expertly coiffed. She narrowed her yellow eyes and assessed the shop. Her aristocratic nose found the place not at all to her liking, to judge by the severe wrinkle that appeared in it. She pointed that nose at Darinda, and her scarlet lips pulled back from her teeth. Coraline Duquesne.

  “So here you are,” she hissed.

  “Yes. Here I am,” Darinda said warily. “What can I do for you?”

  “Stay away from Roderick Chase. He’s mine. He was promised to me. He’s not interested in you at all. You’re just a stain on the carpet.”

  Darinda came out from behind the counter. Probably not the wisest move, but she’d had enough werewolf bigotry lately to last her a lifetime. “I don’t work for Roderick any more. You want to protect him, go right ahead. You have my blessing.”

  Coralline took a threatening forward stride. “I don’t need your permission, or anything else from you.”

  “Fine. Hate my guts. I don’t care. I’m done with him in particular and werewolves in general. Now get your tail out of my store.”

  “Don’t lie to me, you monkey slut. You want him. I can smell it on you.” A growl built in her throat, making her words hard to follow. “You need to be taught your place in the world. It isn’t with him.”

  “I don’t—” Darinda started, then gave it up. Any wolf who invaded another’s territory and threatened them in their own den wasn’t about to listen to reason. “Okay, you win. You’re right. We’ve been screwing each other for days. I’m probably carrying his litter right now. What are you going to do about it?”

  Coraline aimed a hard slap at her face. Darinda caught her wrist. The were was strong, but Darinda was ticked. She let Coraline yank and curse for a couple of seconds, then let her go with a shove of air. Coraline staggered back several steps before she regained her footing. The she-wolf rubbed her wrist and snarled ferociously.

  Too late. That one touch had told Darinda everything.

  “That’s the only one you get,” Darinda warned her. “This is my place, the heart of my power. Quit while you’re ahead.”

  Not until she’d trounced her supposed rival, said the snarl in Coraline’s voice. “Don’t think you can scare me off, or snare him with your magics. He’s alpha. How long did you think a weak little ape like you could hold him?”

  “I wasn’t trying. When were you planning to tell him you’re half coyote?”

  That wiped the snarl from Coraline’s lips and all the color that wasn’t makeup from her face. “I should have figured,” Darinda went on. “You’ve been spying on me at Meadowlands. Blonde woman, blonde wolf. A rare hair color for wolves, but not for coyotes. That explains the gallons of perfume, too. Disguise the musk from the mixed heritage. Good thing for you your family dropped out of the Registry, isn’t it? Be tough to prove a pure lineage.”

  “You won’t tell him,” Coraline spat, her anger surging back. “He’s our chance to bind ourselves to a full-blooded pack. My shot at respectability. No stinking monkey’s going to muck that up.”

  “What’s Alfie to you?” Darinda persisted. “Cousin? Brother? Lover?”

  Coraline leaped and shifted. Her smart little red dress fluttered across the shop in shreds. Darinda hit the floor with the raging yellow wolf on top of her.

  Darinda had learned a few things from her encounter with the coyotes at Valley Forge. She grabbed the she-wolf by the ruff and just barely managed to keep Coraline’s teeth from her neck. A head butt to Coraline’s sensitive muzzle stopped her attack long enough for Darinda to thicken the air and fling her off. Coraline tumbled into the rack of wizard robes. While the wolf snapped at linen sleeves and untangled her legs from the folds, Darinda cast about for a weapon.

  Coraline shook off the last of the garments and charged. Darinda snatched up the nearest tin of powder from the counter display and pitched its contents into Coraline’s face. Coraline skidded across the floor. She shook her head. A cough tangled up with a sneeze. She pawed at her muzzle. The sneezes grew into a howl of pain. She glared at Darinda through watery, reddened eyes and barked incomprehensible threats.

  Darinda skimmed the printing on the tin. Heart Happy. A diet additive, main ingredient cayenne pepper. “Ouch,” she murmured.

  Before Coraline could resume her assault the door swung open and Peri lunged inside. “Get ‘im, boy!” she yelled and tossed Springsteen at the wolf. The cat landed square on Coraline’s shoulders. At last, a hated canine to rend. He dug in his claws and went to work.

  Peri and Darinda darted behind the counter, away from the violently thrashing, rolling mass of flashing teeth and fur. All at once the wolf vanished. A screaming, sobbing, crimson-eyed Coraline staggered desperately for the door. Springsteen leaped off her back and flashed around the counter. Darinda would have sworn he was grinning.

  Coraline made it to the door. She yanked it open, then turned to face them. Her makeup had flaked off during her shapeshift, and left her reddened face looking puffy and ugly. “I’ll kill you!” she shrilled. “I’ll rip out your guts and your damned cat’s too!”

  “Go home, Lassie,” Peri said and air-shoved Coraline through the doorway. She wasn’t as adept as Darinda. Coraline hit the frame more than once. Or maybe, Darinda considered, she was only as good as she needed to be.

  “Witch!”

  “Bitch.” Peri slammed the door in her face. After a final pound on the glass, Coraline stumbled off.

  “Yeesh.” Peri surveyed the wreckage. “That was one unhappy customer. You okay, Dar? You need rabies shots or anything?”

  “I’ll live.” Darinda assessed her own personal damage. She had some scratches on her face, hands and arms, and a big sore spot on her back end from that trip to the floor. The shop was in far worse shape, with jars and upset displays and wizarding robes scattered everywhere. “Thanks, you guys.” She patted Springsteen. The cat endured her gratitude for a moment, then strutted across the powder-strewn floor to his windowsill, growling every high-step of the way. He’d be a while settling down. And so would—

  “Crap.” Darinda dove for the tank, from which steam rose in a mushroom cloud. Stormin’ Norman was building up to overload. She wrapped a thick robe around her arms and carefully lifted him out. His tongue speared the air frantically. “It’s okay, baby, mommy’s okay,” Darinda soothed. “Good thing you showed up when you did. Norman’s about to erupt. Another minute and we’d be calling the fire department.”

  “Yeah. I saw you two through the window. Who was that, one of your werewolf’s girlfriends?”

  “Fiancée.”

  “Youch.” Peri winced. “Nothing like a jealous bitch to put a cramp in your day.” She went outside and retrieved a shopping bag heavy with ice cream and pretzels. She fed a bite of pretzel to Norman. His back spines relaxed. “We’d better charm the door. No dogs allowed.”

  “I don’t think she’ll be back.” Darinda shivered. She could still smell hot, meat-laden breath in her face, and feel truth in the palm of her hand. She set Norman down inside his tank. “I have to call Roderick.”

  “Leave her. The dog catcher’ll get her.”

  “Not about that. The coyotes have been trying to kill him, and Coraline’s half coyote. He needs to know. They all need to know.”

  She used the wall phone to call Meadowlands. She already knew the number by heart, a heart that pounded increasingly hard when the phone rang and rang and no one picked up. After the twenty-fifth ring she gave up. “He’s not answering.”

  “So call the cute one. Officer Charlie. He’ll need to bail her out sooner or later anyway.”

  “Forget it. I’m not pressing charges. Too hard to explain. Let her go.”

  “She won’t go
too far without this.” Gleefully, Peri held up a remnant of Coraline’s once-sharp little red dress. “Not even on South Street.”

  So that’s what all that yelling and those sirens outside were about. Darinda reached for the phone again. “Hope Charlie’s on duty.”

  “He isn’t. I checked when I—”

  She broke off guiltily. Darinda stopped dialing. “While you were out there peeking through the window, watching me fight for my life, did you happen to call the police?”

  “Um…I might’ve.”

  The timbre of the shouts changed in tone, fright and panic ascendant. How humans might sound if, say, a bleeding naked woman suddenly turned into a wolf before their eyes. All at once a series of shrill yelps arose, as if said hypothetical wolf had just gotten tasered. “You’re an evil being, Peri,” Darinda said.

  “Hey, we aren’t all fairy dust and twinkles. My kind has a rep for heartlessness. Look it up. Besides, you’re my friend and you know I’m not a dog person. Now are you gonna help me clean this up or what?”

  Chapter 15

  Darinda cleaned, but first she phoned. She couldn’t leave Roderick on his own against the Duquesnes. When he didn’t answer a second time she tried Charlie at the police station. No response there, either. Fortunately Eugene was listed in the phone book. Aunt Letty picked up. “Darinda, dear. How nice to hear from you.”

  Darinda cut the chitchat short and relayed her grim discovery. “Coyotes?” Aunt Letty said. “Oh my. That would explain why they’re not in the Registry.”

  “I came to the same conclusion. Given the trouble your family’s been having, I felt Roderick needs to know.”

  “Can’t you tell him yourself? You are still protecting him, aren’t you?”

  “Not exactly. Something came up. I had to go back to the shop. Big Alex left a patrol in the yard. Roderick should be safe.”

  Darinda heard snuffling over the line, as if Aunt Letty were trying to gauge her scent through fiber optic cable. “Did something happen between you and Roddy, dear? Is he being a hound to you again?”

  “It’s nothing I can’t handle. Don’t worry about it.”

  “You have to understand, dear. The Chases are an old, blooded line. We can get a bit rigid in our thinking, especially where other species are concerned. If Roddy’s being boorish, I can—Emma has a phrase for it. Rip him a new one?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Darinda said, grinning into the phone. “Don’t put yourself out. Just get the world to him as soon as you can, okay?”

  “Of course I will, dear. This is serious. I can’t believe Ellis would be so deceptive. Detty’s not going to like this.”

  To say nothing of the Duquesnes’s reaction. Once news of Coraline’s pedigree leaked, that would end the wedding plans and any further reason to keep Roderick alive. “I tried calling Charlie, but he wasn’t in. Can you get hold of him, too? Let him know? Roderick may need police protection.”

  “Nonsense. You’re all Roddy needs. He likes you, dear, and so do I. So does the rest of the family. I hope you can get back to him soon. I’ve never seen him so relaxed and thoughtful toward someone who wasn’t a wolf.”

  Relaxed, right. Thoughtful, sure. Too bad magic couldn’t fix everything, Darinda thought as she hung up the phone.

  She’d done all she could. Roderick’s family would help him deal with the Duquesne situation. She’d deal with the rest on her own. It wasn’t a satisfactory solution, but right or wrong, it was the best she could come up with.

  She was able to put troubling thoughts aside for a time while she and Peri repaired the damage done to Set A Spell. Fortunately most of it was cosmetic. They’d lost some jars of herbs and a badger skull when one of the shelves toppled over, but that was the worst of it. “Why did we have a badger skull again?” Peri asked.

  “Ambiance, mostly. There’s some kind of spell you can use it for, but I can’t remember what just now. I’m more concerned about these candles. We can’t sell these as is. The holders are all dented. Look.”

  Peri turned one over in her hands and fingered the dimple in the metal. “Half-price sale?”

  “We’ll have to. I know. We can tell customers a poltergeist invaded the store and wrecked our inventory. We can have a store-wide event. Make a day of it.”

  “Sounds like fun. Better than having to tell people the place got trashed by a jealous werewolf.”

  She broke off. It didn’t matter that Darinda had her back to the door. She didn’t need to see the alarm creeping over Peri’s face or hear Springsteen’s hiss from the windowsill. She knew who’d just opened the door and made the bell go off. She knew whose harsh panting that was and whose yellow eyes were boring into the back of her neck.

  “Are you all right?” Roderick said to Darinda’s back.

  Slowly she turned round to face him. Thank Hecate he’d gotten dressed before barging back into her life. If you wanted to count that slapdash effort as dressed, she thought. His shirt tail hung out and his belt flapped loose and his jacket hung half off his shoulders. He had a faint smear of blood on his chin and a few gray hairs around his mouth that might have come from a squirrel. His eyes locked onto hers. What she saw in them dried up any smart remark she might have been tempted to make.

  “I came as soon as I heard,” he plunged on. “Did she hurt you?”

  Darinda mutely shook her head. Peri, in spite of her obvious interest, picked discretion and quietly slipped into the back. Springsteen followed suit, an orange blur that went from sill to storage room in record time. Darinda’s brain barely registered either retreat.

  “Nothing happened,” she managed at last. “She came to warn me off you. Things got ugly. Springsteen took care of her. I called you, but you wouldn’t pick up.”

  “I was out.” He wiped the blood and squirrel hairs off his face with the back of his hand. “Where is she now?”

  “Either jail or the pound, I’m not sure. Depends on the shape she was in. You’ll have to talk to Charlie.” She could sense his heartbeat, fast and loud, pounding in perfect rhythm with hers. The ragged concern in his voice touched her at her core. If only she could forget this morning, everything would be fine. “Did you talk to Charlie?”

  “Aunt Letty. She said you’d been attacked by Coraline, then blathered something about coyotes and ripping me a new one. A new what? Oh, never mind. You’ve got to come back to Meadowlands. Obviously you’re still in danger.”

  “I’m not coming back. I quit, and you know why.”

  “I apologized for that. I was being a dog.”

  “I know.” She carefully set the dented candles back on the shelf, careful also not to look directly at him. “My word is important to me. I can’t work for someone who takes that lightly or expects me to. You don’t have to worry about me anymore, I can take care of myself. You’ve got Big Alex’s muscle. You don’t need a bodyguard. Now I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  He planted himself in front of the door. “Not without you.”

  “Yes. Without me.” She raised her hand. She couldn’t open the door because he was blocking it, but she could give him a warning nudge. “Don’t make me throw you into a wall again.”

  “Throw me around all you like. I’m not leaving without you and that’s that.”

  Damn stubborn wolf. “I’m not coming back to work for you.”

  “Yes, you are. If you won’t agree, I’ll simply stand here and howl until you do.”

  “That’ll bring in the cops.”

  “Of which Charlie is one.”

  “And let your enemies know where you are. Maybe even bring them down on you.”

  “We’re certain to catch them then, aren’t we?”

  “Stop saying ‘we’.”

  “No. We’re still a team. Don’t try to tell me quitting counts. You swore to protect me. You gave your word. You made a promise to me, and you broke it. Isn’t that in violation of the witch’s creed or something?”

  “You know damn well why I left.”
>
  “Yes.” He thrust his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry. I’m racist and speciesist and several kinds of a git. You’re not a monkey or an ape or a baboon or any form of the word ‘simian.’ You’re human and a witch, and I mean both in only the most complimentary terms. Is this sufficient, or must I beg?”

  “That isn’t necessary.”

  But Roderick had already gotten down on the floor. He lay on his back and tugged his shirt out of his waistband, baring his belly in werewolf submission. Horrified, Darinda ran to him. “Don’t! For Goddess’s sake, get up. What if somebody sees you like that?” Peri, for instance. The badly-muffled chortles from the back told Darinda she could abandon that hope. She hauled on Roderick’s arms and got him into a sitting position. “I accept your apology, you big stupid mutt. Now cut it out.”

  “Are you coming back to Meadowlands?”

  “No. I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “What, because of our bedroom scene? I apologize for how it ended. Not for how it began. I wasn’t the one who started things, remember?”

  Peri gasped. Darinda shushed him frantically. “Look.” She lowered her voice. “What happened between us…well, it shouldn’t have. That was my fault. I made a mistake.”

  “You are virgin.”

  This time Peri snorted. Loudly. Roderick looked around. “Is that bloody cat back there?”

  “Yes, and I’ll sic him on you if you don’t leave right now.” Inwardly, Darinda vowed to smack Peri’s pixie butt, just as soon as she got rid of Roderick. “A witch should never get involved with her employer. It’s a violation of oaths. An ethical thing.”

  “There’s no such oath. You’re making this up as you go.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Neither did her arguments, she realized. He was determined to out-stubborn her. Werewolves were masters at that. “If—if—I come back with you to Meadowlands, it will be as your bodyguard. Nothing else. No touchie, no beddy. Are we clear?”