Taming the Hunter

by Michele Hauf

  “Cool. I’ve got you scheduled through the week. I can arrange a flight for you, as well. Will text the details.”

  “Thanks, Jason.”

  Dane hung up and tugged at the zipper on his wet suit.

  The key goal in finding this dagger would, with any luck, answer the questions he’d asked himself since he was eight. Was this the same dagger?

  The secondary goal was more emotionally rooted in the limited knowledge he’d been given about his father. He’d always wanted to learn as much as he could about a man his mother had described as “having his head in the clouds.” And he’d lost track of how many times she’d admonished Dane not to be like his father.

  Having one’s head in the clouds didn’t sound dangerous to Dane. Only if one also lacked logic and rationality, which he subscribed to. Always.

  What an opportunity that would be, to hold something his father had actually owned. Or rather, to hold it once again.

  But had the old man been a witch hunter?

  “Doubt it,” he muttered, and grabbed his board.

  * * *

  Dane had joked with Jason about Minnesota being thirty degrees on this January day. Actually, it was two. Degrees. He’d left the beach for two degrees. And he felt both those single digits breeze through his lightweight wool jacket and permeate his tweed vest and the dress shirt beneath as the chill fixed itself into his skin and sent out wicked feelers for the network of his once-warm veins.

  He rushed down a sidewalk edged with dirty snow heaps the city plow had pushed up as his cab had parked in the nearby lot. The concrete was white from the chemicals added to the sodium chloride used in abundance on the roads. The first time he’d ever heard the term “salting the roads” Dane had imagined a large kitchen saltshaker suspended from the back of a truck. His childhood imagination had been so vivid (when his mother wasn’t aware).

  He had that very imagination to thank for being here right now. And he wasn’t sure whether or not it was something he should be thankful for. Fantasy was best served in small doses, and even then, only on the silver screen or the pages of a novel. Very well; his mother had been right.

  Dane whispered his thanks when the antiques shop door opened to whoosh a welcoming warmth across his frozen cheeks. He huffed and clapped his gloved hands together, stomping his feet, even though there was no snow on his leather loafers. The weird stomping-clapping performance managed to get the warmth flowing through his system.

  A kind-looking woman, who looked to be in her eighties, appeared from behind a glass case and sailed over to the counter, which was littered with an assortment of Halloween ornaments and wooden black cats, bright orange Halloween Festival buttons and a plethora of orange-and-black garland.

  “I’m Dane Winthur,” he announced, with a chill invading his tone. “A colleague of mine should have called about a dagger two days ago?” Jason had said he’d handle alerting the shop that Dane was on his way.

  “A dagger?” The woman shook her head and adjusted the frothy white hair piled loosely atop her head.

  “Yes, uh... I was told Mr. Stuart is the owner? Is he in?”

  “Mr. Winther, I’m so sorry, my brother and his wife are out of town for a family funeral. Just left this morning, actually. Oh, wait now. I do recall him mentioning something as he was going through the list of things for me to do in his absence. You’re the scientist, yes?”

  Dane bristled but tried his best not to show it. The owner of this antiques shop had known he was coming to pick up the dagger. Traveling halfway across the United States and—he wasn’t here? That took some kind of nerve, to up and leave without calling to let him know.

  “Yes,” he answered, calming his rising ire. “I’ve traveled from California to your lovely yet icy state for the dagger.” He patted his vest pocket, where he’d tucked the dossier and a printed photo of the dagger, and pulled it out. Unfolding it, he showed it to the woman. “Did Mr. Stuart leave it in your care?”

  “Not exactly.” She squinted as she studied the photo. “Harold did mention you were coming as he headed off to the airport. He was in a hurry because they managed to snag a pair of last-minute standby seats for the flight to Hawaii. I’m so sorry, Mr. Winthur. You know how funerals are. Can’t plan for them.”

  “Of course. Well. Does not exactly mean no, not at all, or maybe, I might know where the dagger is?”

  “It means maybe, I don’t know where it is. I mean, I do know where it is, but I don’t have access to it. We were going to close the shop, because I’m not much for handling inventory and the finer items my brother stocks, but I do like to hand out my cookies to the locals. Help yourself.” The woman gestured to a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the counter that Dane hadn’t noticed before.

  Now that he did, his frozen senses thawed and the scent of sugar and chocolate teased sweetly. He picked up a cookie. It was warm, bless the cookie gods. Had he been annoyed about something? Who could remain angry when biting into chewy, warm chocolate and sugar?

  A funeral. He couldn’t possibly be rude and insist on anything, but he would nudge as best he could. “How long will your brother be away?”

  “Four or five days. The flight takes almost a whole day, so that’s two days of travel time right there.”

  “The funeral is in Hawaii?” A much better place—for a vacation or a funeral—than this Arctic tundra. “Lucky fellow.”

  “Ah? Hmm...” She tugged the plate back to her side of the counter.

  “Sorry. I mean, really sorry. For the, er, bereaved.” So he wasn’t a master at compassion. Feelings were so...complicated. “Did Mr. Stuart leave the blade in a safe or some such?”

  “Oh, he did, but it’s a newfangled fancy-doodle kind of thing that requires him putting his eye up to it to open.”

  “Oh. Biometric, eh? Quite a fancy-doodle thing, indeed.”

  Especially for a run-down little shop that currently offered a sale on 1970s disco balls, as displayed in the front window. After New Years Discount! Get Them Before They’re Gone! Had he stepped into the seventies?

  “I really do need to get my hands on that dagger,” Dane said. “The information I’ve collected about it states it once belonged to Edison Winthur. He was my father.”

  “Oh, my. That’s mighty interesting. He’s passed?”

  “Yes, when I was very young.”

  “I’m so sorry.” The cookie plate was pushed closer. “Harold should have left the dagger out for me to sell to you, but he’s always been so careful about the weapons he sells. High security, and all that fiddle-faddle.”

  “Fiddle-faddle can be a bother.” Dane crossed his arms high on his chest and fought to keep from asking if he could take a look at the safe. But it would be impossible to crack if it required the owner’s retinal scan.

  “The agency I work for has a penchant for tracking down weapons with a fantastical legend attached to them.” He never explained the Agency beyond that. What people didn’t know regarding the Agency, they didn’t need to learn. “I’m also a geologist. The metals used in ancient swords and blades fascinate me.”

  “I thought geology was rocks?” the old woman asked.

  “It is, but the cold iron used in the—” Dane winced and nodded. “Yes, just rocks. Uh, so your brother will be back...when?”

  “Friday.”

  And today was Monday. Must he stay here an entire week? In what closely resembled a storm-ravaged tundra? And the old man had insisted someone pick up the dagger in person. He hadn’t wanted to send it by post. A wise decision when it came to weapons that could possess a volatile nature. Of course, Mr. Stuart couldn’t know about that. Or could he?

  Hmm...

  Dane smiled at the woman through a tight jaw.

  “Will it be a problem for you to stay in our fine little town for a bit? There are hotels along Highway 10, not far from here. Oh! And there’s the Winter Fantasy Ball this evening over at the Bleekwood mansion. You might stop in. I suspect the local girls would lo
ve to marvel over such a fine, er, studious fellow as yourself.”

  Dane nodded appreciatively even as he felt the back of his neck heat. A geriatric flirting with him? It was sweet. But a week in this icebox? He wasn’t sure his sand-and-surf blood could manage that long without freezing.

  A biometric safe. Just his luck.

  On the other hand, he did favor a rousing adventure. Learning to survive in the icy tundra? Sign him up!

  He shoved a hand in his pocket, where he touched the comforting curve of a plastic Bic lighter. He always carried one with him. He wasn’t a smoker, but when he became agitated, he calmed himself by flicking it over and over.

  Hey, to each his own.

  He palmed another cookie and bit into it. “Tell me the best place to stay around here?”

  Chapter 2

  “Oh, Eryss! You look gorgeous!”

  Eryss Norling turned to spy her coworker Mireio Malory flouncing toward her in an eighteenth century ball gown, replete with a pink powdered wig and décolletage cut low enough to make promises without a single spoken word. Eryss hugged her and smiled at Mireio’s signature sugar-candy scent, then tucked a stray bright red curl up under her friend’s wig.

  “You must be Marie Antoinette?” Eryss guessed.

  “Natch,” Mireio said, with a flutter of her lush false lashes. “She’s my spirit animal, you know.”

  “I thought that was a mermaid.”

  “That, too! And in a poufy dress! But look at you, all silver and blue and looking like the Snow Queen herself. Love the wig.”

  Eryss adjusted the too-tight tinsel wig with a tug above her ear. She’d found it at the local costume shop just down the street from the brewery. “I wanted to get into the snow fantasy. Winter is my season.”

  “And you never feel cold. Always so warm.” She clasped Eryss’s hand and squeezed. “See? You’re warm as toast. And my tits are in desperate need of a nice warm sweater. Or I’ll take a handsome male head lying on them if I can manage that. The eligible bachelor pickings tonight are slim. Have you seen Valor?”

  “I think she headed to the kitchen to check the keg. We should have enough Iced Kiss for tonight, but there’s a lot of people here.”

  The ice beer they brewed had a high alcohol content—and a touch of wintergreen mixed with quartz gem elixir—and they served it in shot glasses shaped like icicles.

  The town’s annual Winter Fantasy Ball, held in the Bleekwood mansion every January, had been featuring The Decadent Dames’s microbrews for four years, as long as they had been in business in Anoka. Eryss was proud of their beers, but despite the rumors, she’d never confess that the four witches who owned the place also stirred in a bit of magic with each batch.

  “I’m heading home,” Eryss said. “Your eligible bachelor count is correct. Unfortunately. And I’m restless. I need to ground myself in the conservatory.”

  “Still having those dreams about the man? I thought you were going to cast the anacampserote?”

  “I did perform it on solstice eve. Haven’t had another dream until last night. I dreamed again of the great love I once lost. I can never see his face. It’s a portent, I know. But with the spell cast, I should be able to recognize his soul should he come into my life. Though, you know, it might not be today or tomorrow. For all I know, it could be thirty years from now.”

  “I don’t think so. You will find your great love when you are still young. Maybe you’ll get him for your birthday?”

  Eryss turned thirty in a week.

  “Sure, maybe. But I am in no mood to wander these bleak halls in search of some steamy man flesh. It isn’t going to happen tonight. I’m restless because I—aggh, I just need some hot and heavy sex, you know?”

  “Darling, I know.” Mireio fanned her bosom and cast a glance about the ballroom, where the band had just ripped into a bouncing jitterbug. “There aren’t many men left in this town we haven’t served at the bar.”

  “And after getting to know them from across the bar,” Eryss added, “I want to clock half of them over the head.”

  “You’re telling me. We should drive downtown to Minneapolis one night. On a man hunt. Or try Tinder!”

  “Ugh. Dating apps are for hookups.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes a hookup is all a girl wants. You know? But wait, maybe you don’t know. You’re the one looking for the happily-ever-after. Oh, sweetie, you’ll find him.”

  “I know I will.” Eryss chuckled at her friend’s hopeful dramatics. Friends would never admonish one another for wanting some mind-blowing, no-strings-attached sex once in a while. She hugged Mireio. “Oh, you are freezing.”

  “It’s the décolletage, don’t you know.” She ran her fingertips over her corseted bosom. “I can never stay warm in winter. Remind me why I live in Minnesota?”

  “You were born here, and you love the changing seasons.” Eryss took Mireio’s hands and held them together between her palms. “Warmth,” she whispered with intention.

  “Thank you,” Mireio said. “I felt that magic all the way to my toes. But just so you know, if your plan to open another brewery out of state comes to fruition, I vote for California.”

  “Me, too. And it is on my list. I’ll see you tomorrow at the brewery.” She kissed Mireio’s cheek, being careful to avoid the little black heart patch. “I’ll make sure Valor has the new keg in place.”

  “See you tomorrow!”

  Valor had indeed already replaced the spent Iced Kiss keg with a new one. That, along with the half keg of the Uff Da IPA Lot, should last for the remainder of the evening. That beer name had been all Mireio’s doing.

  On the way out, Eryss said her goodbyes to everyone. She knew many and many knew her because they frequented the brewery. A few knew her because they’d had occasion to believe and had been desperate. A love spell here. A breakup spell there. The repulsion spells against violent lovers were always difficult but necessary. Those who received the benefits of her craft kept their mouths shut, guarding Eryss’s secret.

  It wasn’t easy being a witch, even if the town she lived in was the official Halloween Capital of the World.

  At the top of the stairs that fronted the mansion, she stepped out onto the patio where a bonfire toasted partyers regaled in myriad costumes. The air was warm and tainted with ice and burned oak. Dozens of people stood around the fire with plastic champagne goblets and beer mugs in hand. Among the elves and witches and faery princesses were snowcat racers (the easiest way to bundle up and dress in a sort-of costume without looking out of place), loggers (lots of flannel and thick, warm boots)—oh, those lumbersexuals—and one daring caveman who wore a fur Fred Flintstone number that strapped over one shoulder. Poor guy, he might develop frostbite in places he’d never imagined possible.

  Chocolate and marshmallow oozed out between graham crackers as s’mores were handed around. A game of ice bowling was set up along the side of the patio. The balls and pins had been chipped out of ice harvested from the nearby Mississippi River. Laughter sprinkled the air as if it were crystal snowflakes. The evening could be magical—if a girl had a man on her arm with whom to share those sweetly tempting s’mores.

  Yet Eryss was an introvert and didn’t feel at all guilty about leaving the party early. She’d come to make nice with the locals because area businesses and the city council always invited the brewery to Anoka events, and—okay, she’d had the gown. Why not use it?

  Though she wouldn’t have minded dancing, if any man had asked. Of course, she might have had to hang out near the dance floor for that to happen, and well, introverts didn’t tend to do such things.

  With a nagging hankering for gooey marshmallow and chocolate teasing her, Eryss turned and was roughly bumped into from the side. “Oof!”

  Though a deflection spell teased the tip of her tongue, she wisely held off from speaking the words. She and her fellow witches did their best not to flaunt their craft at public events.

  “I am so sorry.” The man’s cold hands grip
ped her forearms to steady her. “I wasn’t looking. That was entirely my fault. I slipped on the ice.”

  There was no ice on the fire-warmed concrete steps, but Eryss wasn’t about to point that out once her gaze landed on the man’s face. Deep brown eyes were shadowed by thick black brows. She had never seen such a rich iris color and thought perhaps there were also glints of gold winking back at her. A five o’clock shadow brushing his jaw emphasized an exquisitely masculine bone structure. Thick coal hair, swept messily back from his face, screamed for her to touch the loose curls that tickled those red ears.

  And suddenly, her heart performed a skip and every part of her being stood up in recognition. Was he...?

  “I’ve been looking for you,” she murmured in awe.

  “Uh...you have?”

  Giddy warmth flooded her heart. Her veins. Her skin flushed and she—well, she felt it in her very soul. This was the man. The one.

  He had to be.

  “Oh, what?” Eryss shook her head out of the deliciously muddling awe and back to reality. “Sorry. Did I say I was looking for you? I mean, uh...” What to say? She couldn’t come right out with the revelation that she suspected he was her long-lost soul mate. Just because the man gave off smolder vibes did not make him receptive to her beliefs of reincarnation. “You need a hat,” she decided quickly. “Looks like your ears are burning.”

  He gave a funny wince. Obviously, he’d picked up on her comment, but wasn’t going to press. “They are. The blood vessels in my ears have started to constrict and blood is being shunted away from my extremities—ah. Ha-ha!” His smile revealed bright white teeth and squinting eyes that captured Eryss as if a love spell had been cast. “Sorry about that. I have a tendency to expound on silly things. Suffice it to say, I’m from the West. Didn’t expect it to be quite so cold.” He touched an ear and winced again.

  “We call it frostbite here in Minnesota.” She marveled over the lingering laughter in his smile. Wonderful. And he was hers. Maybe? Yes, he had to be. But how to know for sure? “We should step over by the fire.”