“Yeah,” she said. “Mom’s side.” She finished and pulled back. “There. I just marked you with a blessing for extra protection. You’re now invisible to anyone following you with intent to do you harm.” At Justin’s dubious look, she raised an eyebrow. “Don’t have much faith in Magic, I take it?”
“Actually, one of my father’s oldest friends is a witch.” He snorted. “It’s funny – she was the only Human he trusted to tell about us. Otherwise, he didn’t want anyone to know about our existence. I’ve seen proof of her powers, though, so yeah – I know witches are just as real as werewolves.”
“Well, thanks for that vote of confidence.” She smiled as she continued pulling together the items from her altar, stacking bowls and folding up the white cloth. “Given your situation, I can see where it would be hard for you to trust. Your nerves are on edge. I get that.” She finished packing up her ritual items in a small case and closed the lid. “But you can relax, now, and come inside. I’ll see if I can look for the counter-spell later; right now, I’ve got a restaurant to open.”
Justin blinked. “You own a restaurant?”
“Co-own,” she corrected. “This whole building, in fact. The restaurant’s on the main floor – but then, you probably didn’t see it while cutting across the rooftops last night.” She picked up her case and started for the stairs. “Anyway, I’ve got to start prepping for lunch.” When they reached the door, she stopped suddenly and turned to face him. “The first thing you’re going to do is hit the shower. No offense, but you really do reek, and if you spent the night in a pigeon coop I don’t want you bringing any lice or other diseases into my home. I’ll give you a plastic bag to put your clothes in until I can get them into the wash.”
He snorted. “What am I supposed to wear, in the meantime?”
“I’ve still got some of my dad’s old clothes.” She looked Justin over. “He was a little taller than you but otherwise you’re pretty close in build so they should fit.”
Justin stared at her for a long moment. “Why are you helping me?” he asked. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but…you don’t even know me.”
She treated him to another smile. “There’s something you’re going to learn about me,” she said. “Being a witch means I’m also a caregiver. I care for the planet and I use my gifts to help anyone in need.” She opened the door. “You’re also my Familiar. Until I can find a way to reverse the spell, we’re connected. What affects you, affects me.”
That made Justin smile. Sounds like something Mom would have said, he thought. “So, does taking care of me also mean feeding me? Because I’m starving.”
She glanced back at him. “You did hear me say I run a restaurant, right?”
“Just checking…” Grinning, Justin followed her inside.
Chapter Nine
I have a werewolf for a Familiar.
Savannah had to keep letting that thought roll around in her brain, like one of those games where you had to tilt the board until the ball bearings fell into a hole and stayed put. A werewolf. Who is also wanted for murder.
She remembered her gut feeling from the previous night, right after Justin had stumbled into her ritual area. She could tell he was in trouble and she had felt compelled to help him. That had been before he told her why he was on the run. It occurred to her that he could be lying, but with the Familiar bond she believed she would be able to tell. It’s so weird how I can feel his fear, she thought, as she went into Daddy’s former closet and rooted around for something Justin could wear when he got out of the shower. She found a pair of jeans and a brown Henley and returned to the bathroom where she could still hear the water running. She knocked. “I’ve got some clothes for you,” she called through the door. “Is it okay for me to come in?”
“Yeah, sure,” he replied.
Savannah opened the door. She saw the white plastic trash bag she had given him for his dirty clothes, now filled and tied off. “I’ll leave these on the back of the toilet,” she said, setting down the loaned items before collecting the bag. “I’ll take your stuff down to the laundry and throw them in the wash right now.”
“Thanks,” he said from behind the drawn curtain. He poked his head out, his blond hair darker when wet and plastered against his skull. “You wouldn’t happen to have a razor anywhere, would you?” He gave her a charming smile and a bat of his water-spiked lashes.
“I’ve got Daddy’s old cordless one,” she said. “I can go get that for you, too.” She pulled a fresh towel down from the linen cupboard and placed it on top of the folded clothes. “Anything else you need, right now? Because I’ve got to get downstairs.”
“Naw, I’m fine.” He pulled the curtain shut again.
Savannah retrieved her father’s shaving kit. For a moment, she stood there with it in her hands, stroking the old leather case. Wonder what he would have said, she wondered, about me bringing a werewolf into his home. Daddy had always been open-minded – after all, he had married a witch – and while he had never elaborated, he did say he had “seen some crazy shit” while serving his country over in the Middle East. And by “crazy” she knew he had meant “supernatural.” He had always been a good judge of character, though, and could tell in an instant if someone was bullshitting him. Would he have believed Justin’s story about being falsely accused? Would he have trusted him?
Leaving the shaving kit on the edge of the bathroom sink, Savannah headed downstairs with the bag of dirty laundry. She wrinkled her nose again as she stuffed everything into the machine – with the exception of the leather jacket, which she hung on a metal rod next to a cluster of empty wire hangers. Something dropped out of one of the pockets and she looked down, seeing a roll of cash. She blinked. That looks like an awful lot of money to be carrying around. She bent and picked it up, gently thumbing back the edges and seeing a lot of twenties and a few tens. It’s none of your business where it came from, she told herself, and stuck it back into the jacket. Leaving the washer to run, she went back up to the restaurant to begin her daily prep work.
Thirty minutes later, Justin ventured in. He glanced up at the framed photo on the wall, that of Savannah’s parents standing in front of the newly-renovated restaurant with the name above the door. “’The Goode Soul Café?’” He pointed to the sign in the picture. “You do realize the word ‘good’ is misspelled, right?”
Savannah snorted. “It’s our last name, fool. ‘Goode is the name, and Food for the Soul is our game,’ as Daddy used to say.” She finished washing a bunch of carrots and celery and gave them a brisk shake. “Hence the name, ‘Goode Soul.’”
“Gotcha.” Justin sniffed the air. “Damn, something smells fantastic.” He wandered over to the stove and peered into the stock pot simmering on one of the burners. “Mmm…minestrone?”
“My grandfather’s recipe.” Savannah glanced up from chopping vegetables and gave him a brief appraisal. “I see I was right,” she said, smiling. “Daddy’s clothes fit you just fine.”
“Well, I did have to roll up the cuffs on the jeans,” Justin said. He had his boots on again, but it looked like he had cleaned them up a bit. “It feels good to be showered and shaved, though.” He ruffled his still-damp hair, leaving it in a disarray, and then rubbed his now-smooth jaw. “Thank you, again.”
“You’re welcome.” Savannah scooped up the sliced carrots, celery and onion and dumped them into another pot filled with chicken stock. He cleans up nice, she thought. “You know how to cook?” she asked, as gave the soup a stir.
“Not really,” he replied. “We always had people who did that.”
Savannah looked at him. “’People,’” she echoed. She found a lid and covered the pot. “You mean ‘servants?’”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, then added a hasty, “but they weren’t black.”
“Oh?” Savannah raised an eyebrow at him. “Your dad not an equal-opportunity employer?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…” He huffed out a sigh. “When I sai
d we had servants, I didn’t want you to think that we’re, you know, racist.”
She chuckled. “Relax, Wolf-Man. I’m just messing with you.” She turned to begin working on her baked goods. “So, you said your daddy was the Alpha – I’m guessing that’s like royalty among your kind, right?”
“Sort of,” Justin replied. He leaned back against one of the counters, his hands hitched on the edge on either side of his hips. “You ever heard the story about how Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, turned the Welsh king Vereticus into a werewolf for not wanting to convert to Christianity?”
“I’ve heard about him chasing the snakes out of Ireland,” Savannah said. She pulled out a bag of apples and started to core and peel them. “But I don’t remember any stories about him turning people into werewolves.”
“Yeah, well, according to my ancestors, the guy was the furthest thing from a saint.” Justin smirked. “He was a witch – a Christian witch. I’m sure that’s hard to believe, since everyone thinks Christianity and witchcraft are diametrically opposed.”
“Not necessarily,” Savannah said. “My grandmother was Strega – an Italian witch – but she was also Catholic.” She sliced up the apples and put them into a big mixing bowl along with sugar, cinnamon, and some corn starch. “As a child, she told me that a lot of Catholic iconography was just Witchcraft in disguise, that when the Church of Rome first came into power there were witches hiding among the clergy, and they helped to shape Catholicism by layering the religion over the top of the ancient rituals. All the candles, the incense, the incantations…the holidays themselves were set over sacred Pagan celebrations. They even put a crown of flowers on statutes of the Virgin Mary on the first day of May, which is Beltane – what many Pagans consider to be the wedding day of the Lord and Lady.” She set the apples aside and started to prepare the dough for the pie crust. “So it doesn’t surprise me that Patrick was a witch. That’s pretty interesting about him creating werewolves, though.”
“Well, that’s our origin story,” Justin said with a shrug. “It’s what I was always told. Vereticus was the first but Patrick turned others into werewolves, too. That’s why our Clan motto is Welsh.”
Working the dough with her hands, Savannah gave him a side-eye and a smile. “So I guess you’re telling me you’re descended from royalty; is that it?”
“Kind of,” he said, “but not from Vereticus. I am part of a bloodline that goes back several hundred years. That’s why, as the first-born son, I’m supposed to be the next Alpha. No matter what I’ve done in the past, it’s my birthright.” He grimaced and looked away. “Well…it was.”
“Until they said you killed your dad?” Savannah supplied.
“Before that, actually.” Savannah looked at him and he sighed. “My dad had just got done busting me down to the lowest rank in the Pack the night he wound up dead. We had a few words over it, someone overheard us fighting and that’s one of the reasons they think I killed him.”
“Just because they heard you fighting with your dad?” Savannah snorted and shook her head. “That sounds like a real weak reason.”
“Well…they also had surveillance video,” Justin admitted. “It looked like me, but I don’t remember anything. One minute, I was drinking in my room – a few hours later, someone’s pounding on my door, I’m covered in blood, and they’re telling me I did it.”
Savannah let out a whistle. “Yeah, I can see where they might think you’re guilty.”
“Oh, thanks,” he snapped irritably. He pushed away from the counter and paced over to the sink. “This is the kind of shit that I’ve been dealing with all my life – anytime something goes wrong, I get blamed.” He reached out to grab the hose and squeeze the trigger, spraying water into the basin. “I was a disappointment from the day I was born – to my parents…to the rest of the Clan…” He released the hose and clutched at the edge of the sink with both hands, head down. “I went from being invisible to living under a microscope, judged for every little thing I did…and nothing I did was ever right.” He turned around and faced Savannah. “I’ve done a lot of stupid shit over the years, but no matter what anyone thought or still thinks about me, I am not a killer.”
Savannah regarded him thoughtfully. “I believe you,” she said at last.
He blinked in surprise. “Y-you do?”
She nodded. “Mm-hm.” She turned her attention back to rolling out the dough. “Back when I was in high school, there was this boy named Kevin who would make my skin crawl every time he walked past me. I didn’t know why – he didn’t dress or look or act in any way that would raise suspicions. But he just left me cold.” She moved the flattened sheet of dough to a pie pan. “Then one day, he stabbed one of the teachers. When the police tried to contact his family, they found his mother, aunt, and two little brothers dead. He had killed them all before he came to school that day.” She spooned the apples into the pie shell. “When they asked him why he did it, he said ‘I just wanted to know what it would be like.’”
“I remember hearing about that,” Justin said. “He was just a kid.”
“He was a psychopath,” Savannah said. “That’s what they call a ‘natural-born killer.’ Someone who can take a life without remorse.”
“I didn’t kill my dad and yet I still feel remorse,” Justin muttered. “They took me to see his body, right where they said I’d left it…God, I’m never going to get that image of my head…it was brutal.” He ran his hands down his face. “I can barely walk when I’m drunk – there’s no way I could have snuck up on him and ripped his throat out while he just sat there. He would have heard me coming, and knowing Dad he would have knocked my ass across the room the moment he smelled the booze.”
“If that’s the case, then you’re probably right about what you said, earlier: someone set you up.” She created a latticework top to the pie and wrapped aluminum foil around the edge of the crust to keep it from burning during the initial baking time. “But you also have to bear in mind that whoever did this wanted to see your father dead. They knew it would be easy to use you as a patsy and make you take the fall.” She slipped the pie into the oven. Closing the door, she straightened and turned to Justin. “So maybe instead of asking ‘who would want to frame me?’ you should be asking ‘who would want to kill the Alpha?’”
He made a sour face. “Apparently, everyone seems to think I would.”
“No,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Get off that train of thought because it just keeps taking you in circles. Start thinking about your father’s enemies. He had to have some – every leader does. Are there other packs of werewolves out there, maybe some rival of your own, that might have had some feud going on with him? Or maybe it was an inside job, someone who didn’t like him.”
“As far as I know, everyone loved him,” Justin said. “I never heard anyone say anything bad about him.”
“That would make sense,” she said. She cleaned up her work space in preparation to make a chocolate cake. “No one’s going to talk down the Alpha in front of his son, even if the relationship was strained. I never had a great relationship with my sisters but if I had heard anyone talking smack about them, I would have been up in some faces.”
That got a smile and a bemused grunt out of Justin. “Same, here,” he said. He looked around, sniffing the air. “Damn, the smell of that coffee is driving me crazy…”
Savannah chuckled. “The first thing I do every day when I come down here is to start brewing coffee.” She motioned. “It’s out front, behind the counter. Help yourself. Decaf’s on the left.”
He started to go only to stop and favor her with a strange look. “How did you know I’d want decaf?” he asked. “Are you one of those witches who can read minds?”
“No,” she said. “But I do know that dogs can’t have caffeine in any form, like coffee or chocolate. And since dogs are just wolf-descendants…” She swiped a finger along the rim of the bowl and came up with some of the cake batter. “You won�
�t be able to have any of this, either.” She licked her finger clean.
“I’m okay with that,” he said. He headed out of the kitchen. “You want some?” he called out.
“Sure,” she replied. “Cream and one sugar, please.”
“You got it.” He returned a few minutes later carrying two heavy stoneware mugs; he set one down on the counter near her work station. “Hope I got it right.”
Savannah paused to take a sip. She nodded and gave a thumb’s up with her free hand. “Mm. Perfect.” She glanced up at him and smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He leaned against the counter again, his own cup cradled in his fist. “So. I told you a little about me. What about you?”
She shook her head in amusement as she sprayed and floured two cake pans. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Well, for starters…where did you get those green eyes?”
“I was born with them,” Savannah responded smoothly.
Justin threw back his head and let out a mock laugh. “Ha! Funny.” He looked her over again. “Seriously, though…”
“Yeah, I know,” Savannah said. “People are always confused when they see me because I look black, but then they see the green eyes and it throws them.” She slid the cake pans onto another rack inside the large oven. “But to answer your question: my mother was white, second generation Italian-American. All the women in her family have green eyes, probably because they came from a region not far from the border of Slovenia. So I got that from her.” She used one hand to make a graceful, sweeping motion around her face. “This gorgeous cocoa brown skin, the naturally curly hair, and these luscious full lips are all gifts from my African-American father.” She gestured to the rest of her body. “The big tits and full, child-bearing hips come from both sides.”
The tinkling of bells from out in the dining area caught her attention. Savannah checked the clock on the wall. “And here comes the post-church lunch crowd, right on time.”
The Vampire´s Secret Baby Page 59
