Wizard in a Witchy World (11 page)

"Joe. Stop. We can't talk out here," I said.

"What?"

"Have you talked to your grandmother?"

"She's just a crazy old woman." The smell of alcohol wafted freshly across my nose.

"Get in," I said, pushing him toward the passenger side of his black, four-door pickup.

"You're not driving my rig," he said.

"What? Things aren't bad enough? You want a D.U.I. on your record?"

He grumbled something, but complied, opening the passenger side door. I climbed into the driver's seat and adjusted the seat back. He picked up a bottle of cheap whiskey from the center console and took a swig. "Want to get caught up?" he asked.

I shook my head, started the truck, put it into reverse and turned around to look out the back window. A lump formed in my throat at the sight of two kid’s car seats.

"Where does she live?" I asked, heading toward downtown.

"You’re going in the right direction," he said. "Now talk."

"How about we start by you telling me what you remember," I said.

"No damn way," he said.

"I'm going to take a guess. If I'm right, you have to tell me everything," I said, not waiting for him to agree. "Friday night you felt sick, probably didn't go to work. The next thing you remember is waking up, not in your house, naked, miles from home."

"Who put you up to this?" he asked. "Did you do something to me?"

"I'm not through. You had blood on your hands and fur or feathers in your mouth?"

He pulled a gun from his waist and pointed it at me, tears running down his face.

"What'd you do? I have a family," he said.

"Put the gun away, Joe. I'm the least of your problems. I'll help you if I can, but I need you to tell me what you know. It's not safe for me to tell you some things," I said.

"Safe? From what? We're in my truck."

"Just tell me."

"Yeah. It pretty much went like you said. I wasn't feeling good, so Jen slept in Sienna's room. I woke up in a ditch next to a corn field, naked. That's not the worst of it. I'd eaten an entire rabbit, guts and all. It was all there when I threw it up," he said. "You know how hard it is to get home when you're naked and ten miles from home?"

"Sounds messed up," I agreed.

He continued, talking in a far-away, monotone. "When I got home. I thought someone had broken into my house. The bedroom was torn up and my partner Sandy was still there talking with Jen. They thought I'd been abducted. I told them about waking up in the field."

"What about last night?"

"I didn't go home last night," he said.

"Slept in the truck?"

"I tried. I had a crazy dream."

"Dream?" I asked.

"I was running through fields, hunting," he said. "I had four legs."

"You're wondering if it really was a dream, aren't you?"

He didn't answer other than to take another long pull on the whiskey. We continued to drive for another twenty minutes, Joe giving terse directional changes until we pulled up to an old farmhouse on the edge of town.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," he said as he jumped out, slamming the door behind him, stalking toward the back door of the dilapidated building. I got out and followed him.

"Josepho. I asked myself who would be visiting Nanna so late in the evening," she said, grabbing his face in her hands. She was speaking a dialect of Spanish that I couldn't place, but her words were easy enough to understand. I chuckled at her reference to the early hour. "And you've brought a friend. No? Come in."

An invisible force stopped me from entering the home, holding me back. Initially, Joe and his grandmother didn't notice and I allowed my spirit to inspect the protection. It was nothing I'd ever come into contact with, but I could sense that unraveling it would not be particularly difficult. I also understood that I would alarm Joe's grandmother if I did.

"What is this? You bring a brujo to my home?" she asked, stopping short and turning toward me.

"Nanna. Felix is like you. He's no witch. He made me come here," Felix said.

"You speak of things you do not understand. Be gone, brujo, or I will cast you to hell," she said. At least she said something close to that. The more excited she became, the fewer words I understood.

I felt an updraft of wind behind me and the familiar sensation of Maggie's claws latching onto my shoulder as she folded her wings and landed.

"Heya, Maggie," I said as she rubbed her beak against the side of my face. I'd always considered it a sign of affection, although it could just as easily have been her way of cleaning rotten meat from her beak.

"Ancient one," Nanna said. "Welcome." She was clearly talking to Maggie, but her barrier dropped all the same. Maggie lifted from my shoulders as I took a step toward the door.

"Come by tomorrow. I'll pick up meat," I called after her.

"Caaw," she called back, but kept flying.

"Sit, Josepho. You are sick, no?" she asked as we entered the well-lit kitchen. "Why have you come to Nanna?"

"Tell her, Joe," I said.

"Tell her what?"

I slid the wide silver ring from my left ring finger. I held it out for Nanna to inspect, but didn't give it to her. She looked warily from the ring back to me.

"Hold your hands out, Joe," I said.

He shook his head, but made a cup with his hands and held them out anyway. I dropped my ring into his outstretched hands. For a moment, he let it rest there, but no more than twenty seconds later, he dropped the ring to the floor, shaking his hands out as if they had been burned.

"Josepho, what is this about?" Nanna asked, leaning over to pick up the ring, turning it over in her hands.

"He was bitten," I said.

"Hombre lobo," she said, not asking. "Did you turn?"

He sat heavily in a kitchen chair. "I… I don't know. Yes. Maybe."

"Does Jennifer know?" she asked. When she said the name it sounded more like yennifer.

"He didn't go home last night. I'm sure she's worried about him. He changed last night too," I said.

"What is your role in this?" she asked.

"I was there when he was bitten, but could not help him."

The old woman shook her head. She’d seen too much in her long life. "There is no medicine for the lobo."

"Talk to me, Nanna. What are you saying?" Joe asked.

"We must talk, Josepho," she said.

"The wolf who bit you was a werewolf, Lozano," I said. "Nobody broke into your home, but you already know that. It was you, Joe."

"I thought werewolves only changed at a full moon," he said.

"Hombre lobo learn to change at will," Nanna said. "But you will lose your soul to the lobo. Josepho, you must leave before this happens, for the sake of your family."

I'd left Joe to talk with his grandmother, choosing instead to sit on her front porch. The conversation had turned into a train wreck and I didn't have anything to add. Her assessment, while cold, was exactly what I'd come to understand – there was no such thing as a good lycan. The romantic notion of a noble beast, struggling against his inner rage, calmed by the damsel, didn't jive with the limited reading I'd done. I'd hoped that Nanna, being a Virarica Shaman would have some ancient wisdom. Turns out, she did. It just wasn't what either Joe or I wanted to hear.

The back door of the old house slammed open and Joe's angry voice yelled something I didn't recognize. I got up and jogged over to the gravel lane only to see Joe's truck accelerating out of the drive onto the asphalt highway. Without so much as a look in my direction, he tore down the highway, abandoning me at his grandmother’s house.

I looked over and saw Nanna standing in the doorway backlit by the weak light of her back porch.

"What happened?" I asked, walking up to her.

"He is upset," she said.

"Right. You know of nothing that can help him?" I asked.

"It is too late for Josepho," she said. "Hombre lobo does not care for the character of his soul. It will devour everything within him."

"I can't believe you're giving up on him," I said. "He's your blood."

"He is not my blood. If he were, he would be dead," she said.

"Explain that?"

"Stupid brujo. It is your kind who created the lobo and now your creation has turned on you. Be gone and do not return," she said and slammed the door between us.

Not only was she unwilling to help Joe, but she wouldn't even explain the simplest detail of what was going on. So far, I was batting a hundred percent at finding jackasses in this town. It completely flew in the face of my experience with Judy and the girls. Geez, I missed them.

I pulled out my phone and was gratified to find plenty of service bars here on the edge of town. I pulled up a car-service app and punched in Nanna's address. A thirty-minute wait and thirty-five dollars would bring someone to out, eventually.

The headlights of a sub-compact approached and sped past just as I was getting cold. The driver hit the brakes and turned around a hundred feet after passing me. I climbed into the tiny back seat and had to push fast-food trash out of my way. I'd wondered why the driver had a low rating, but this far out in the country, I was just glad someone agreed to come for me.

"Felix Slade," I said, giving a quick wave to the driver.

"Angela Feland. Friends call me Angel," the woman replied. I returned her smile in the rear-view mirror.

"Thanks for coming so far out. My ride took off without me."

"Better fare coming out here and my little pony gets great mileage," she said, patting the dashboard. I followed her hand. The dashboard was covered with small plush toys – dragons, unicorns, squirrels and bunnies. "You've long legs, I'll pull the seat up for you." She leaned over the center console and wrestled with the chair, finally getting it to move.

"Thanks," I said, stretching my legs out as much as the tiny vehicle would allow.

"We'll get you home in a jiffy."

My phone buzzed and I pulled it from my pocket. I'd received a text message from Amak.

AMAK: We need to talk, Rose and Crown pub, midnight.

FELIX: What's up?

AMAK: Not on phone. Drinks on me.

FELIX: See you there.

"Angel. Do you know where the Rose and Crown pub is?" I asked.

"Sure. You want to go there?"

"If it's not too much hassle," I said.

"You're the boss."

She pulled up to the bar about eleven thirty. Rose and Crown was in a two story yellow and green painted brick building with parking lot on all sides. Loud music spilled from the open front door and copious amounts of smoke rose from an outside terrace. I looked for Amak's Jeep, but from the back of the tiny vehicle I wasn't able to locate it.

"Thanks for the ride, Angel," I said, approving payment for the ride and giving her a five-star rating.

"I'll be around if you need a ride home," she called after me as I closed the door.

I thought it a good sign that I recognized the music spilling from the front door as I walked in. I hadn't even made it to the bar when something brushed my butt and a hand snaked around my waist. I wasn't surprised to see Amak had sidled up next to me.

"Showing up early makes you look eager," she purred into my ear, swaying her hips and bumping them into me as she steered me toward the bar. Her visage was back to the tall, sultry human and her light brown hair was cut close to her neck with a long wave pulled across the front. She was wearing high leather boots and a simple, sleeveless dark brown leather dress that barely made it to mid-thigh. I found it ironic that a troll projected a sense of style well beyond any capacity I might have.

"You had me at free drinks," I said.

She laughed and backed down on the slutty a little. "Hah, you're not such a stiff after all. What are you drinking?"

I smiled. "Irish Car Bomb."

Amak did a double take, and then turned to the bartender, a tall woman in a knee-length, frilly red dress, complete with corset. "Make that two, Rose," Amak said, voice raised.

"I see you found a kindred spirit, Amak," Rose replied as she started drawing a Guinness into one of two tumblers she'd set on the bar top.

"He's just flirting," Amak said. "You know how boys are."

Rose adjusted her corset and smiled. "I sure do." She finished the drinks off by dropping a double shot glass filled with whiskey and Irish cream in the center of each stout.

"Down the hatch, kids," Rose said, sliding them across the bar.

Amak knocked her glass against my own, slopping the whiskey and Irish cream into the Guinness. The drink was well named because as soon as the alcohols mixed they started blowing up. I was ready and tipped the glass back, catching the shot glass against my teeth as I finished it off. It burned all the way down, but in the best kind of way.

"Well, hell yeah!" Amak said, slapping me on the back.

"Something for the table?" Rose asked, smiling as I wiped tears from my cheeks.

I glanced at the rows of alcohol behind her, but my eyes were still watering. "Midlist scotch on ice?"

"Make it a double. Vodka cranberry for me." Amak led me to a table where three twenty-something men were seated, watching us approach.

"Heya, sweets," the largest of the three said.

"Beat it," she growled menacingly, her visage slipping momentarily as she did.

"What the heck? She’s a monster," one of them said. The noise in the bar was such that I didn't think anyone else had heard, but it wasn't the sort of attention we needed.

"Hey, that wasn't nice," I said. "Maybe you should call it a night." I used my influence and pushed the suggestion at them.

They looked at each other and one by one stood up from the table. The big guy nodded. "Yeah, sorry, we were just leaving anyway."

"My hero." Amak flopped down in a newly vacant chair, her long legs proudly displayed as she put her feet up.

I took a seat next to her and tipped it back against the wall. "So what'd you want to talk about?"

"I thought you were just here for the drinks," she said.

A waitress set drinks down in front of us and picked up the previous occupant’s empties, frowning at the lack of tip. I'd have rectified the tip situation, but I'd burned all my cash at the morgue.

"Right you are." I picked up the scotch and sipped it. The two shots in the car bomb were going to my head. I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes.

"Isn't Rose great?" Amak asked. The table she'd chosen gave us a good view of the bar. Indeed, Rose was slinging drinks and chatting people up at a manic rate.

"Wait. Is she a…?"

"Her mom and mine are cousins," Amak said.

"Kinda bigger around the… you know… upstairs," I said.

"She's pretty, though, right?" Amak asked defensively.

"Sure. But, I'm probably not the right one to ask," I said. I immediately knew I was oversharing, but such was the nature of me and drinking.

Amak spun toward me, her face losing the witch's glamour. Fortunately, drinking had an additional ‘I could give two craps’ benefit for me and I just looked back passively at her gray face. Her brown hair had shifted to jet black and her forehead was a little higher. Probably the most prominent changes were the two tusks sticking up an inch from her lower jaw, dimpling her upper lip where they rested. Oh, that and her long, pointy ears.

"You got a problem with troll girls? You saying we can't be pretty!?"

Several people turned toward us, Amak's explosive tirade grabbing their attention.

I shrugged. "Sensitive much?"

"I thought you were gonna be cool, Slade, but you're just another bigot like all the rest of 'em," she said.

"Amak, you're drawing attention," Rose said. I hadn't even seen her leave the bar, but here she was.

"Slade here say we ain't pretty," she said.

"Pull it together, Amak." Rose pushed, her own glamour fading as she did. "If Felix Slade has a problem with us, that's his problem."

"I'm starting to think that pretty troll girls listen about as well as pretty human girls," I said. "And, by that I mean, not very well."

"Wait, what?" Amak asked, her face morphing back to strictly human.

"You asked me if Rose was pretty and I said I wasn’t the right one to ask."

"Damn. Stop twisting your words. Say what you mean already," Amak said.

"I don't like the glamour. Sure, you fit the mold of what people say looks right, but it's too fake for me. What's wrong with those little tusky things? I kinda like 'em. Tough and cute all at the same time," I said. I really wished I had a better governor on my mouth when I was drinking. "And Rose, all I was saying was that, you know, all the pictures of trolls I've seen are skinnier on top. Nothing small there about Rose. I think you're both sexy as hell."

I slapped my hand over my mouth. Drinking didn't explain what I'd just said. Sure it was in my mind, but I don't care how much I'd had to drink. I just didn't talk like this.

"What was in the drink, Rose?" I asked.

She leaned into the table and planted a wet kiss on my cheek. "Nothing much, dear, just a little something to help loosen you up. I have to say, you should speak your mind more often." She turned and sashayed back to the bar.

"What do you want to know, Amak?" I wanted to get the inquisition out of the way. I'd known something was up when she'd called and offered drinks. Nothing in life was free, but after the weekend I'd had, I didn't mind that much. Not like I had anything to hide.

"I want to talk more about how you think I'm sexy," Amak said. "But, I'm supposed to ask about what happened at the morgue."

"How do you know about that?" I asked.

"We have someone there."

"Jeffery?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, well, you might be careful with that one. I think he might be working with a lycan I call Shaggy."

"Jeffery blames you. He said you busted the place up," she said. "What were you doing there?"

"How do I know you're not on the wrong side of this?" I asked.

"I might be if you've got anything to do with the Whyte Wood Coven murders," she said.

"Why not ask Gabriella? She was there, too," I said.

"There's a lot of distrust between council members right now and nobody's sharing information with anyone."

"Who are you working for?" I asked.

"I report to Camille, but I get a lot of my orders from Liise Straightrod. You showing up caused quite a stir."

"Me? What do I have to do with it?"

"You don't think it's strange that a month after a wizard arrives in town, witches start getting killed?"

"You've been tracking me that long?" I asked.

"When Straightrod found out, she wanted to have you dumped in our dungeon right away. She said that you'd come to town to make trouble. And this was before Victoria Barrios was murdered, and before she knew you were a wizard," Amak said.

"How is that possible?" I asked. "I'd never heard of her before last week. Same with the Barrios family."

She raised an eyebrow. "You seem to be telling the truth. Let me ask directly. Are you making a play for Leotown? Is that why you came back?"

"I don't even know how someone makes a play for a city. My only skin in this game is finding that little girl who was caught in the crossfire." I was shading the truth, but whatever Rose slipped me allowed for it. Even though Gabriella and I weren't in a great place, I still held onto the feeling I'd had in the vision.

"Great." She looked relieved. Her glamour was fading, her eyes had lost their bright blue, dissolving to a muddy green and her hair was black again.