by Amy Boyles
It did that for several seconds before Erasmus crossed to it. The key continued its movement, but it did so faster, as if agitated.
“That’s strange,” Erasmus said.
“What?” Axel said.
“It appears as if the box the key fits is missing.”
My eyebrows shot to peaks. “Missing?”
Erasmus nodded. “Yes. But there’s no record of it. If it had been checked out, when the key bonded with the lock in the anteroom, we would have been notified by the screen. But that didn’t happen.”
Axel’s shoulders tightened. He strode forward, fists clenched. “Are you saying the box was stolen?”
Erasmus grimaced. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t know how, but someone managed to enter the Vault and steal the box that belonged to Argus Amulet.”
I scoffed. “But how? How could that happen? You’re on duty like all the time?”
Erasmus gave me an embarrassed grin. “Perhaps…I was on a potty break?”
TWENTY-ONE
So while Erasmus was on a potty break, the box that held Argus’s labradorite had been stolen. It didn’t take many guesses for Axel and I to figure out who it could be.
I mean, Samuel was the logical choice, right?
But how had he sneaked inside and pulled it off?
We were in Axel’s car, zipping through town. My head throbbed something fierce, and it took all my focus to try to push the pain away.
“Maybe the guy’s a better sorcerer than y’all give him credit for. And when I say y’all, I mean the entire town of Magnolia Cove.”
Axel gave me a weak smile. “You mean Betty Craple.”
I gripped the leather seat as another laboring pain ripped through my noggin. “According to Betty, she knows the thoughts of all the residents.”
Axel chuckled. “I don’t know why I even bother to find anything out for myself, if she has all the answers.”
“That’s what I’m saying, too.”
As another wave of agony tore into me, I exhaled, focusing on my breath as a way to distract my thoughts.
“You’re pale,” Axel said.
“I’m surprised I’m not red, the way it hurts so much.”
He squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry. I’m on my way to Samuel’s. We’ll grab the labradorite and get you fixed.”
I gnawed my bottom lip. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Axel, I don’t think I’m going to make it. I can’t last that long.”
“Hold on, Pepper, we can do it.”
At that moment a wave of pain sharp as lightning fissured straight through me. I screamed and crumpled in half. Never in my life had I experienced anything so horrible. It felt like I was splitting in two.
“Hold on, Pepper.”
I gripped the dash with fingers of steel. “Where?” I panted. “Where are we going?”
“I’m going to do what I should’ve done from the very beginning.”
“No,” I said weakly.
But pain overcame me. I fell back in the seat, writhing and twisting against it. I kept my eyes closed, praying that soon it would be all over. That the torture would disappear and that this nightmare—the one Rufus had caused—would stop.
It seemed like an eternity before Axel came to a screeching halt. I heard him unlock his seat belt and open the door. Next thing I knew, fresh air swallowed me as my door opened.
Axel freed me from the seat belt and scooped me in his arms.
My eyes fluttered open. “Where are we?”
“My house.”
I curled my fingers in his shirt. “No, Axel. We’re supposed to be in the forest.”
He took the steps to his porch as if he was light as air and I weighed nothing more than a feather.
“There was no time to get to the forest. Besides, it’s not dark. This is the only shot you’ve got.”
“But Axel,” I said weakly.
He opened the front door and pulled me inside. Cold air from the electric unit prickled my skin as it washed over me. We reached the cellar, and he kicked the door open.
Within moments he had a candle lit. He laid me on a fur rug and stroked my hair from my face. He kissed my lips tenderly. If I’d had the energy to drink deeply from him, I would have, but there was nothing left in me. The pain was too much. It stole my drive, and unless Axel moved to erase it, it would soon steal my life.
“Know that I will always care for you,” he whispered in my ear. “And there’s no time to undress, so let’s hope this works.”
Before I could respond, he started speaking. The words flew fast and violent from his mouth as if the situation angered him to the point of wanting to slam his fist in a wall.
But instead of hitting brick, Axel spewed the spell in anger. Light hit my eyelids and fluttered open. A golden halo surrounded Axel. Objects near him teetered and fluttered on shelves. A few items crashed to the floor, but then others lifted as if the sorcerer inside him was bending gravity, changing the very magnetic pull around him.
Axel was looking down at the book, and when his gaze met mine, I gasped. The blue eyes that captivated me were no more. In their place were black orbs, resembling those of an animal.
He pointed at me, and the halo washing over him shot out, roping me like Wonder Woman’s freakin’ lasso.
Pinned by the binds, I could only watch as Axel began to morph into the beast. At the same time I felt the spell tying me to Rufus go slack. I could feel the line tethered between me and the sorcerer die bit by bit as I watched the man I cared for die in a different way.
He wasn’t physically dying, but his body did as Axel shifted hair by hair and bone by bone into the beast.
His forearms stretched and sprouted fur. The shirt on his back split open, revealing a chest twice its normal size. His jeans ripped and shredded.
And all the while I could only stare helplessly. In the middle of it all, Axel panted heavily.
The magical words rushing from him at an accelerated rate stopped.
He looked at me. The beast was like seriously in him. What I mean was, Axel was still there, but I knew that within moments he would be lost and all that would remain was the werewolf.
“Pepper,” he said in a gravelly voice, “you’re almost free.”
“Stop,” I said, trying to reach for him. “The headache’s nearly gone. You can stop this.”
He shook his head. “In a few moments I’ll be done. When that happens, the rope around you will disappear. At that point, there’s one thing I need you to do.”
Tears stung my eyes. “What?” I said hoarsely.
“Run.”
“Don’t,” I pleaded.
He took my hand. “Promise me you will find the strength to run.”
The headache had zapped a lot of energy from me. “I don’t know.”
“Promise, me,” he insisted.
I swallowed down a knot of emotions and nodded. “I will.”
Axel turned around and faced the opposite direction. He spoke again, and this time the intensity jacked up like a thousand and one degrees while his transformation quickened.
As I watched Axel’s body lengthen and morph into something completely different, I felt the last bit of connection to Rufus die. I waited for it to peter out into nothing.
It did so with an audible snap.
In hindsight I don’t really know whether that was the spell or simply Axel’s body making one final adjustment before he morphed completely into the beast.
Either way, the lasso roped around me dissolved. I fell to the floor with a thud. My headache was completely gone, thank goodness, but before me stood a massive, towering, flesh-eating werewolf. The wolf was three times larger than Axel had been as a man. I likened his beast form to the Incredible Hulk of werewolves. No joke. He was that big.
The sound caught the beast’s attention. Axel in wolf form flipped around. Dark eyes met mine, and a primal wave of fear flooded every single cell in my body.
I scrambled to my
feet and did the one thing he’d said to do.
I ran.
TWENTY-TWO
I flew up the stairs and threw the door shut. I could hear the wolf’s steps at my back. My only hope of making it out of the house alive was that the doorways would be too small for him to maneuver, and if they didn’t stop him, they’d at least slow him down.
Like any too-stupid-to-live heroine in a horror flick, I turned my head when I reached the hall.
The cellar door flew open. The beast was lodged in the frame, his shoulders too wide to fit through. I saw him push and heard wood splinter as he shoved his way from the cellar.
I had to get out and warn everyone. Let the people know that Axel was loose—before anyone got hurt.
As the beast pushed, I reached the front door. Thank God Axel hadn’t locked it. My fingers trembled; my knees shook. If I’d had to work a stupid chain lock, I would probably have been dead by now.
Just as I pulled the door open, the beast smashed free of the cellar. I yelped as I yanked the door shut and ran for the car. Axel’s Mustang was a stick shift, and even though I was a little bit country and had ridden on my grandpa’s tractor a time or two, and had even kissed my first boyfriend between shifting gears in his ancient pickup truck, I wasn’t good enough at clutching and shifting gears to make it into town without killing the engine.
And thus I’d probably be eaten by a werewolf before I got there.
So the truck it was.
The door was unlocked. I jumped in the cab and looked for keys. None. There also wasn’t a push button to start the engine.
Holy smokes. I was in deep doo-doo.
What was I going to do? Maybe the wolf would be stuck inside the house and wouldn’t be able to escape. I had shut the door behind me, and the beast had claws. It’s not as if he had thumbs that would help him turn a knob. That wasn’t going to happen.
That meant my only choice was to get out, find the nearest neighbor and use their phone. It seemed my one and only option.
I grabbed the handle and pushed open the door when a crash caught my attention.
My gaze darted up to the house, where a front window had been shattered.
“Holy shrimp and grits.”
The beast stood on the lawn, shaking out his coat.
“Son of a gun.”
The animal had jumped through the window and now stood on the grass, staring directly at me with gleaming black eyes.
For a second I thought Axel lived in the beast somewhere. That it might just run off in the opposite direction when he realized it was me, Pepper.
But oh, y’all, I was so wrong.
The wolf launched straight for me. Before I even realized what I was doing, I placed my hands on the dash and shoved all the fear and anxiety I’d been experiencing the last few days into the truck.
Magic buzzed from my skin over the plastic and seeped inside. It was like watching a sponge soak up milk. Not that my power was white—it wasn’t; it was sort of like a bluish film that I couldn’t really see, but I could sense and feel.
Then the most miraculous thing happened—the engine roared to life.
And it was just in time. The werewolf bounded onto the hood. I hit the gearshift into reverse and backed down the gravel drive at a speed somewhere between reckless and death-wish.
Luckily it was closer to reckless.
I swung onto the road, hitting the brakes so fast the wolf tumbled off the hood and onto the ground.
I slammed the stick into drive and barreled down the road. I shot a quick look into the rearview. The wolf rose, shook its head and took off following me.
I gunned the engine and laid on the horn. It was the closest thing I had to a siren. My mind raced. There was only one place I could think of to go—the one building where there were enough people that might be able to stop the wolf.
The police station.
As I approached the heart of downtown, I blared the horn, trying to get as many people’s attention as possible.
Luckily it was later in the afternoon and people had already left work and had headed home. Traffic was light, and those who saw me coming—hazard lights blinking and horn roaring—stopped.
I saw their looks of horror, and a chill swept over me. Or maybe that was just adrenaline soaking my body with the jitters.
Yep, probably that was it.
This wasn’t like a high speed chase in an action movie where my vehicle swerves left and right, avoiding cars while people jump out of the way.
No. Magnolia Cove is a quiet town. Folks saw me coming or heard me about a half a mile away so that by the time I reached the busier intersections, people were already waiting to see who the heck was making so much noise and why.
I passed a woman in yoga pants walking her little shih tzu familiar. I even passed Betty Craple, who waved her corncob pipe at me. I pivoted my head and saw her get a good solid look at the werewolf and then take off sprinting behind me.
Lord yes, Betty Craple could’ve run in a geriatric marathon if she’d wanted.
Grandma might’ve won, too.
I kept my eye on the creature, making sure he was chasing me and hadn’t veered off when he saw something else. Luckily I didn’t have to worry. Maybe it was the horn blaring, or maybe he was like most animals and was simply attracted to bright, shiny objects, like me.
To me, bright and shiny means diamonds and jewelry. In the wolf’s case, the pickup was shiny and loud.
Finally I saw the police station ahead.
If I parked in the lot and jumped out, I’d never reach the doors in time. The wolf would have me in his jaws before I pulled the handle to get inside.
The only option was to jump the curb, get up on the sidewalk and either open the truck door and death roll out, or jump the curb, stop the vehicle and run for the door, praying the whole way that I beat the wolf into the station.
And maybe Betty would call ahead with magic. Heck, I didn’t have a phone, but that little lady had more power in one of her boobs than I had in my whole body. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of that, but I was pretty darned positive.
That hunch turned out to be correct.
Right as the vehicle lurched over the concrete curb, a half a dozen officers streamed out of the station, hands raised, magic ready to take down Axel.
And as much as that’s what was needed, I suddenly felt very protective of him.
“No,” I said to no one. “You can’t hurt him.”
The truck swerved as I hit the grass surrounding the station. I yanked the steering wheel to the right, and the tail swung wide. I was going so fast, and I hadn’t dropped my speed enough to avoid what happened next.
The truck bed slammed into the brick building. The crunch of metal filled my ears as the vehicle twisted and warped from the impact. My nerve endings were on fire from the adrenaline flooding my body. I looked in the rearview to see a man-sized hole had been bored into the station.
I could see Rufus smiling from his cell.
But I didn’t have time to process the meaning of that because the next thing I knew, the officers were aiming their magic at Axel in wolf form.
Threads of magic shot into his fur. The wolf must’ve been high on adrenaline too, because he acted like the power feeding into him was nothing more than an inconvenience.
And the animal was still barreling down on me.
I shifted over the bucket seat to the passenger’s side. I opened the door and fell from the cab.
The officers had increased their power. The wolf had paused but still wasn’t down.
Which was what I knew they wanted.
After scrambling to my feet, I raced past the officers into the station. I figured it was the safest place to be. Let them capture the creature. They had more experience with this sort of thing than I did, anyway.
Dust and debris filled the station from where the truck had burst through the wall. I coughed, waving away the particles. I pressed my face to the glass and watched the scene
unfold.
“Looks like your boyfriend went rogue.”
A fissure of anger raced down my back. I slowly turned to see the smug expression on Rufus’s face. I returned to glancing out the window.
The wolf had turned on the officers. He spat and snarled, leaping onto one of the men.
“No,” I yelled.
“That’s what happens when a monster is unleashed on a poor suspecting town like this one,” Rufus said. “You can hide a monster. You can even bury it, but eventually it will rear its ugly head. That’s just how it goes.”
I turned on him. “You. You’re the one who did this. You created this havoc just so you could laugh about it.”
“Moi?” he said in a terrible French accent. His gaze swept from my feet to my head. “Why would I do that when all I needed was to walk in and take what I wanted?”
“Axel broke your stupid spell. He’s stuck in that form for Lord knows how long.”
The officers had managed to free their friend from the wolf’s grasp. He looked unharmed. The wolf wasn’t retreating, and the men were still trying to bring it down with magic, which clearly wasn’t having any impact on the creature.
From the distance another slew of officers appeared, led by Garrick Young. My stomach clenched. Garrick and Axel were friends from way back, he wouldn’t want to hurt his friend—but if Garrick had no choice, he’d do what was needed to keep Magnolia Cove safe.
“Don’t worry,” Rufus said. “I’m sure they’ll have no problem containing that beast. Of course, they’ll probably have to get a silver bullet to do so, but then there goes your boyfriend. What a pity. Gone at the hands of the very people he called ‘friends.’”
I whirled on him. “You are a horrible person. Just shut up! Shut up!”
Rufus smirked. “You think it’s so terrible to want to live in the place that kicked me out?”
It infuriated me that he wouldn’t just shut the heck up. I wanted to walk over to the cell and slap him upside his head. But instead I stared at the wolf and the men surrounding him.