Pack of Freaks: Beasts Among Us - Book 2

by Jennifer Zamboni

  I tried the heavy brass knob, but it seemed to be locked.

  I put my nose to the antique keyhole and sniffed. As I suspected, the door would open up to Doug’s room when we discovered the key. How thoughtful, the house was trying to help bridge the gap between us.

  I was definitely not ready to be sharing rooms with Doug, but then again, it would provide us with a way to keep Percy’s curiosity at bay.

  I threw on a sweater and tromped down the stairs to the empty kitchen, then followed my nose to the library, where Percy sat reading a book on law while munching a large red apple.

  I took a seat on the couch. “Learning anything new?”

  “No, just refreshing my memory.” She glanced up from her book.

  I picked up an old copy of Down East, which had a picture of a birch bark wigwam on the cover. I didn’t have any intention of actually reading it, so I set it back down.

  “What do you need? You look like a woman on a mission.” Percy set her book aside.

  “Amanda called me,” I stated.

  “And?”

  “And I’ll tell you if you stop interrupting.” I glared at her jokingly.

  She held up her hands in self-defense but kept her yap closed.

  “She quit her job, and she wants to know if she can get in here. I told her she doesn’t need to bother with a resume since we already kinda know her.”

  Percy’s face broke into a smile. “Absolutely, when can she start?” She’d always liked Amanda, even if she was a prime source of competition in the area. Having her join us would only improve our marketability against Triple H.

  “Really? I’ll give her a call and find out.” I raced out of the room and back upstairs to my phone.

  “So?” Amanda answered without preamble.

  “She asked me when you can start.” I bounced excitedly on the edge of my bed.

  “Yay! Tell her ‘thank you thank you thank you,’ and I can start tomorrow if I can bring my stuff over today and get things set up.” Her voice mirrored my excitement.

  “She won’t have a problem with that. Come over whenever you’re ready.”

  “All right, see you in a bit,” she said.

  “’Kay, bye!” I set my phone back down and I flew to the library, flopping myself back down in my chair.

  “She’s starting tomorrow, and she’s coming today to get set up and get acquainted with the place. And remember, she doesn’t know about us.” I referred to our less than human qualities.

  “Great. I’ll text the girls and let them know so they don’t spill the beans on us.”

  “Good. I’m getting breakfast.” I bounded towards the kitchen and was greeted by good smells and the sight of Doug manning the stove.

  What was with the men in our house? I wasn’t complaining, trust me. It was just a little odd that they were both going through a cooking phase.

  “Hey, beautiful.” He approached and gave me a quick kiss.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Cooking you breakfast. I figured this was the quickest way to appease, and woo, both you and your wolf.”

  “Good call.” I took a seat and took up my waiting cup of tea.

  “I heard you get up. When did the door get there?”

  I shrugged. “It was there when I woke up. You don’t happen to have the key, do you?”

  “Not that I know of.” He piled food onto two plates and carried them both to the table, setting one in front of me before taking his own seat.

  So the house was helping us take it slow—while it hurried us along.

  I shrugged my shoulders and dug in.

  “Would you like to take a walk with me, before you go to work?”

  This was a new bone of contention between us. I worked and possessed way more than my fair share of savings in the bank, and he didn’t have a job. It was he who had the problem with this, not me. I was supporting him for now, despite the fact that we didn’t have that kind of relationship yet. My reasoning was, as a new werewolf, he was too volatile to work with humans. That was in theory anyhow, I hadn’t actually witnessed a flip out yet. I was more likely than him to do that. But still, I preferred he be safe than sorry.

  “Sure,” I said, taking his hand.

  We meandered through the woods, admiring what was left of the foliage. There wasn’t a whole lot of talking, which was fine with me. I needed to get used to simply being with him. Words didn’t seem necessary for that.

  We walked shoulder to shoulder as the scent of rabbit wafted by.

  “Can we chase it?” he asked eagerly.

  “Sure, but I’ve gotta stay like this, and it would really help if you did too. I can’t afford to wolf out right before work.”

  He grinned goofily at me and took off after the smell. I was right on his heels, then blasted right by him.

  The scent got stronger as we hunted, the trail only an hour or so old. When the rabbit scented us, it gave us a zigzagging, willy-nilly trail to follow, until we chased it down its burrow.

  We had to restrain ourselves from digging it out, even in our two-legged forms.

  The fear wafting from the hole was too much for me, so I turned and gave myself a few yards worth of space between me and the titillating smell.

  Doug followed suit, reducing the feeling that I was missing out on something. He sauntered away, and I was able to follow.

  “That was fun,” he commented as I caught up.

  I nodded. It had been a true pack experience, even if it was only the two of us.

  “Thanks for stepping back.”

  “No problem.” He looked over at me, grinning and speeding us up to a gentle jog.

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Band practice.” I played the electric violin for the band Chaos Theory, which consisted of three other members: a guitar player, a bass player, and a drummer, whose house we normally held our rehearsals at.

  This was a special rehearsal. A while ago, after one of our gigs, we were approached by a man who ran a recording studio down in Portland. He was interested in our sound, and we had the money. We were fortunate enough to get paid for most of our gigs, as bars and clubs like the extra draw a band brings through their doors. We were pretty well-known in the area, so we played a lot of gigs.

  He slowed to a walk. “Am I allowed to come watch or are practices private?”

  “I don’t see why not. Austin’s wife is usually around. But I’ve gotta warn you, it’s not going to be exciting, we’ll be picking our music apart and practicing the same stuff over and over again.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “This isn’t going to be a regular thing, is it?” I asked cautiously. A shudder ran through my body as I pictured Doug becoming clingy now.

  “Not if you don’t want it to be, but I’d like to see how all that stuff works. I only know about performing at a circus.”

  “I can’t say performing music is all that dissimilar, it’s all still heightened reality.”

  I walked on ahead, finding that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

  Amanda was already in the salon when I made it downstairs after cleaning up and changing into work clothes.

  “Hey, lady!” She gifted me with a brilliant smile as I approached.

  She was going through the station that had housed Lacey-Marie’s things not all that long ago.

  We’d cleaned it out, mostly, as my former best friend hadn’t been able to pack a single thing before she’d left. An open cardboard box, overflowing with styling implements, sat on the floor next to the chair.

  As Amanda had booth-rented previously, she’d been required to provide all her own tools and equipment, which meant she wasn’t stuck having to plunk down a large amount of money on supplies or take over the blindingly pink tools that the former occupant had favored. Her particular set was black, with silver spray-painted zebra stripes. We wouldn’t have a problem telling her stuff apart from our own. We each had our own color that we pretty much stuck with. My
stuff was red: clips, capes, blow-dryers, everything. Percy was baby blue, and Meredith was now green.

  Meredith had started out with a mishmash of different colors, then figured out our system and invested in all one color.

  I kept finding odds and ends that had belonged to Lacey and threw them all straight into the garbage. I didn’t want the reminder of who I’d let myself trust for over 20 years. You kinda lose that after they try to kill you. Thank goodness for Hades, though I was sorry helping me had gotten him banished.

  “What’s up, chicky?” I asked, hitching up one leg to sit on her new vanity.

  “Well, my awesome friend Gretchen put in a good word for me so I could get this great new job, so now I’m cleaning this up before I put all my junk in it. Do we have any wood polish or anything? Lacey made a mess.” She dug at a fleck of dried color with one short blue-painted nail.

  “Probably. It’s just a matter of finding it. I’ll try and hunt it down before we open.”

  I glanced up at the clock, I only had a couple of minutes.

  Meredith came flying through the doors, pausing at the clock to gloat over the fact that she was on time.

  I still thought she should be early to get settled in, but at least she had arrived before we officially opened the doors.

  Fern dashed in right on her heels.

  “You have some early massages?” I asked her. Fern tended to schedule her appointments a half an hour or so after opening. She felt that it gave her a more relaxed start, making her work more effective.

  “Yeah, and I had to kick her butt to get her out the door on time. We carpooled today.” Fern headed towards her back room.

  When the killings were occurring, we’d urged Fern to invite Meredith to become roommates. It had been a good idea at the time, but I had a feeling that Fern appreciated her privacy. I didn’t know how much longer the arrangement would last. I could only hope that if Meredith moved out, it would be because she could finally afford her own place, and wanted it, not because Fern kicked her out.

  That could create some extra unwanted tension at work.

  “Coffee?” Fern asked from the doorway.

  “There’s a fresh pot in the waiting area. Grab it while it’s hot.” Percy waved at the location.

  Fern danced over to the pot, finishing with a pirouette and a brief pose, then grabbed a mug and poured herself some of the magic brew, leaving it black as she continued her way back to her solitary room to adjust the temperature and start the soothing background music that usually consisted of a mix of Norah Jones and George Winston.

  The house had given the room its own thermostat, though we’d told Fern we had it put in when she first started. At this point, we could probably tell her the truth about the house, or as much of the truth as we knew, and she wouldn’t bat an eye.

  We’d been forced to reveal ourselves when Doug was bitten, and we’d asked for their help keeping him alive. Just about begged and kidnapped, in fact. We couldn’t let them out until we were sure they’d keep their mouths shut. They being Toni, Fern, and Meredith.

  We’d mostly kept them busy, while Hades had kept guard over the door. Maybe it was best we hadn’t told them about the house. They only needed to know so much about reality.

  Heck, I only needed to know so much about reality. There are some things I’d prefer not to know. Living with Percy had opened my eyes to the world of the fae, far beyond that of my little space, occupied by werewolves and vampires.

  I excused myself from Amanda’s personal space to search out some lemony-smelling wood polish. Perhaps we should have sanded down and repainted the whole thing. It would certainly look a lot nicer. I’d bring it up to Percy later, as the stuff actually belonged to her.

  She’d had the whole salon set up before she’d brought in Lacey-Marie and me. She’d found us at different salons, reunited us at Olympians, and offered us a home, as she knew exactly what we were and had the means to protect us and humans.

  Lacey-Marie and I had met in cosmetology school. We hadn’t exactly been best friends right off. But that was during my more volatile days, and we had agreed to keep each other accountable: no killing humans.

  I wonder how much truth she’d revealed to me at the time. It was New York City in the ’80s, and no one noticed a missing bum here and there. She always smelled clean and proclaimed to be living off of blood donor bags, just as she had once we moved into Percy’s house.

  I myself had slipped up quite a few times. I was really no good at locking myself up during that time of the month. It was fine if I was in the middle of nowhere. Not so fine if I was in an apartment and someone complained about the barking and howling coming from apartment 37.

  How I managed to stay in hair school, I’ll never know. It helped, I suppose, that I always rented my space under assumed names, and registered in school under my own, or rather the name I came to use. “Gretchen” was the name I chose when I reinvented myself.

  I found the polish in a previously nonexistent closet. I wondered where the house had been keeping it. Perhaps it simply liked to keep me confused. I presented it and a rag to Amanda a few minutes later.

  “Perfect, thank you.” She took the can and spritzed the station, rubbing the old cloth gently over the wood.

  A windowless navy blue van pulled up front and parked soon after we opened.

  I managed to keep in a little yelp of surprise and kept my client from seeing out the window while I signaled Percy with my eyes.

  She was completely oblivious to what was going on outside. Completely oblivious to who stepped out of the dark van, and with company.

  I was forced to excuse myself from my client for a moment, hustling to Percy’s station, finally succeeding in drawing her attention.

  “I just need a quick word with Percy, if that’s all right with you?” I asked her client.

  The young woman nodded, not seeming to be in any particular hurry.

  I tugged on Percy’s arm and directed her out of hearing distance of the clients and our coworkers.

  “Um, I take it you haven’t noticed that we’ve got some unexpected visitors unloading themselves outside the salon,” I whispered hurriedly, tilting my head toward the van.

  She glanced around my shoulder, and her eyes widened in surprise. Normally, we saw eye to eye, but with her glamour pulled on, she lost several inches. In fact, she appeared as a completely different person when we were around humans. Her hair darkened, shortened, and waved up. Her eyes turned chocolatey brown, and her figure favored a slight plumpness that her full-on goddess mode lacked.

  “What on earth are they doing here?”

  “My point exactly. I need to get back to work before someone else notices who’s outside.” I glanced over my shoulder, making sure my client was still faced away from the window and prayed she’d not be able to see out of it through any of the mirrors.

  I caught a glance of Hades racing around the side of the house and hurrying our unexpected guests out of sight.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to my client. “Sorry about that. We got some visitors we weren’t expecting, and I was making sure there was someone to make them comfortable.”

  I took another peek out the window and was satisfied that there were no stragglers.

  I’d only recognized one of them: Bob the necromancer who was in charge of Hades’s security. The others, in various stages of decomposition, were the zombies he puppeteered.

  They functioned like lumbering security cameras, though Bob’s zombies looked abnormally fit, and not as clumsy as I’d expected them to be. They only went into action if Bob commanded it, or if he somehow dropped his control over them. Hopefully, that wouldn’t happen, because I didn’t like to think about what the result might have been.

  Thank goodness it was too chilly out to have the windows open. I could only imagine the effect of dead bodies on our clientele. The whole zombification thing was a new concept to me, and one of those things I wish I didn’t know about.r />
  Amanda finished dusting, polishing, arranging, and rearranging her new station, and so decided to take the time to call the rest of her clients. She’d already called the clients she was supposed to have worked with that day the previous evening. Now she was taking the time to go through the rest of her appointment book, informing everyone about her change in situation, hoping that most, if not all, of her clientele would follow her to Olympian’s.

  I cashed out my client and left her to it, taking a moment to gulp down some room temperature tea.

  I was experiencing a rare busy day. Thank goodness I didn’t need the money, else I would have been royally screwed. As it was, I mostly worked to have something to do. I don’t take to boredom all that well. I tended to get into trouble when bored.

  My next client was a 5-year-old boy. People puppies are entertaining when they’re in good moods.

  They’re smarter than most people think, and just listening to them talk could lighten my mood and bring on the belly laughs. The parents were usually less than thrilled by their precocious youngsters, as they often repeat things their parents said when they thought no one was listening, or what this or that cartoon said that they shouldn’t have been watching in the first place. Again, entertaining for me, often mortifying for their parents.

  This kid was no exception.

  “So how’s school going?” I asked, turning on my clippers and combing his hair according to his growth pattern.

  “Good,” he replied, giving me a small smile.

  I took a few swipes with the clipper before asking, “What grade are you in this year? Second?”

  “No. I’m in kindergarten!” He giggled and wrinkled his little nose.

  “Oh, so that makes you, what, 13?”

  “No-o! I’m 5! I’ll be 6 next week.”

  “Oh really? That’s exciting. Are you going to have a big party?” I ran my T-Edgers around his ears and neckline.

  “Mason, your birthday isn’t until March,” his mother interjected.

  “No.” He shook his head adamantly. “It’s next week.”

  “Mason, what day were you born on?” I asked.

  “March 10th,” he replied. “Next week.” He couldn’t keep it in any longer, his serious face broke into a huge grin. He’d been pulling my leg.