Warmongers and Wands

by Dunbar, Debra

  I was letting her go. I was letting this witch walk right out of my life, possibly to never return, and it was killing me.

  “They’re here for you,” I told her.

  She lowered the frying pan, her brow creasing. “Who? My sisters? Why didn’t they come in?”

  “They sent a werewolf to retrieve you.”

  The frying pan came up again. “A werewolf? Why would they send a werewolf?”

  “I don’t know. They’re your sisters. He said they’re anxious to see you. That’s why he’s here in the dark of the night. He says that he’s strong enough to carry you up the mountain.”

  Her frown deepened. “Ophelia would have come with him with her medical supplies. Cassie would have come. Actually, they all would have come crashing through the woods. They would have never sent someone else. And especially not a werewolf. This…this isn’t right.”

  I glanced toward the door. “I didn’t necessarily get along with Lucien in hell. It could be that he doesn’t trust your sisters with me.”

  She laughed. “Then he would have come himself, not sent some werewolf. Who is it? Which werewolf?”

  “I didn’t ask his name,” I told her, feeling like an idiot admitting that.

  Her expression told me she was feeling the same. “You were going to hand me over to some werewolf without even asking his name? Let him in. Hopefully it’s Shelby, and you just can’t tell male and female werewolves apart. I mean, I have a hard time telling them apart sometimes.”

  I opened the door and the werewolf entered, eyeing me cautiously, then glancing over to where Diebin sat, cleaning a paw. “You okay?” he finally asked Bronwyn.

  “Stanley. Why are you here?”

  “I’m here to get you, to bring you back. We got your note. Dallas said to come get you.”

  “You got my note?” Bronwyn shot a scowl at Diebin, who ignored her.

  “He’s a raccoon,” I explained. “Two-legged is two-legged to him.”

  She nodded, then turned back to the werewolf. “Do my sisters know I’m here?”

  He hesitated. “Dallas sent me. He was going to let your sisters know. I’m supposed to bring you to the compound. I’m guessing we’ll either drive you down to the town, or your sisters will come up and get you.”

  Bronwyn tightened her grip on the frying pan. “No.”

  The werewolf blinked. “No, what?”

  “No, I’m not coming with you. Let my sisters know I’m here and they can come get me in the morning. Until they arrive, I’m staying here. With Hadur.”

  Stanley threw up his hands. “Come on, Bronwyn. Dallas told me to fetch you. You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

  “Last time I checked, I wasn’t Dallas’s bitch,” she countered. “Now get going. If you’re afraid of Dallas, go ask Cassie for asylum, or go over to Clinton’s faction and join them. I’m sorry if you’re going to get in trouble, but I’m not coming with you.”

  He eyed me, clearly sizing me up. Then he looked at the frying pan in Bronwyn’s hands. “What did you do to the pan?”

  She lifted it, spinning it around. “Remember Pete’s towel?”

  The werewolf flinched. “Sheesh, Bronwyn, why you gotta be like that?”

  “Because you’re a werewolf, and werewolves have a habit of getting physical. Now get out of here or prepare to face a demon, a raccoon, and a witch with an enchanted frying pan. And if I were you, I’d be most scared of the raccoon.”

  Stanley glanced over toward Diebin, but it was clear he was more intimidated by the frying pan than any of the other threats facing him. “Fine. But Dallas is going to be pissed.”

  “Yep, and I’m just terrified of Dallas Dickskin,” Bronwyn drawled. “Go. Now.”

  She waved the pan, an eerie blue light snaking up around the edge. Stanley squawked and ran out the door with inhuman speed. The moment he was gone, the light vanished. Bronwyn lowered the pan and slumped down to the bed, her face pale. I raced to her side, easing her on the bed and gently lifting her leg.

  “Thought I was going to pass out or throw up for a moment there,” she said, her voice breathy and strained. “Barely got myself upright in time. I didn’t want him to know how hurt I was.”

  “But you know him? It sounded as if you’re friendly with him.”

  Bronwyn gasped as I settled her leg on a few pillows and covered her with the furs. “Stanley’s not a bad guy. Got a temper when he’s drinking. Likes to brawl, but he’s okay.”

  “But you don’t trust him?” Clearly, she didn’t if she had refused to go with him.

  “I don’t trust Dallas. Right now, I don’t trust any of the werewolves.” She took a breath and leaned her head back on the pillow. “When I wrecked, when my truck went down the mountain…I don’t think it was an accident. My brakes didn’t work. My emergency brake didn’t work. I was up at the werewolf compound doing some work for them when the storm was coming in. It would have been the perfect time to screw with my truck. They could have blamed it all on the weather. Even the rockslide could have been their doing. It all would have looked like an accident.”

  I sat on the bed beside her. “These werewolves want you dead, but you were doing work for them at their place of residence? Why would they want to kill you? And if they wanted to kill you, why are you helping them?”

  She scowled at me. “I’m not an idiot. I didn’t know they wanted to kill me when I went up there to do welding for them. I could be wrong. It just seems like a crazy coincidence that my brakes went out in my truck during a storm when I was leaving the compound, and halfway down the mountain, that a rockslide sent me over a cliff into a remote part of the mountain where nobody ever goes.”

  “But why would they want you dead? Did you screw up the welding job you did for them?”

  Bronwyn glared at me. “I don’t screw up. Not my enchantments and not my welding. As for the werewolves wanting me dead…I don’t know. Cassie definitely got on their bad side recently. She’s been coming down hard on them, making them alter pack laws so they comply with the laws of Accident. No more exceptions to werewolves. That means she’s offered sanctuary to some of them who wanted to leave the pack.”

  “Sounds like a good reason to kill your sister, but not to kill you,” I countered.

  “It’s not just what Cassie has done, it’s what she—what all of us Perkins witches—are going to do. We’re in favor of allowing more than one wolf pack, of allowing wolves to choose if they join a pack or not, of limiting the authority of the alphas and making them subject to the laws of Accident. Dallas doesn’t want that. Actually, Clinton doesn’t want that either, but Dallas especially doesn’t want it.”

  “Again, sounds like a good reason for him to kill Cassie.”

  “Except I’m the bird in the hand, right there at his compound. Opportunity. And we’re close. If I were to die in a horrible tragic accident…well, Cassie wouldn’t be as motivated to interfere with werewolf affairs. She’d be devastated. She’d be grieving.”

  She wouldn’t be the only one, I thought.

  “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.” Bronwyn sighed. “I mean, if Diebin took my note to them, I can see Dallas sending someone to get me and getting the honor of presenting me to Cassie like he was giving her a present or something, thinking we all owed him now for bringing me up the mountain and letting me stay the night in the compound.”

  “Or he never told your sisters and never intended for you to make it off this mountainside alive,” I added. “Would Stanley kill you if this Dallas told him to?”

  Bronwyn shivered. “Dallas is the alpha, and Stanley is a wolf who does what he’s told. So yes. He wouldn’t like it. He’d feel bad about it. He’d make it as quick and painless as he could. But yes, if Dallas told Stanley to murder me, he’d do it.”

  I reached out to touch her cheek. “I won’t let them take you. I promise that I won’t let anyone but one of your sisters take you from me.”

  She smiled. “I appreciate that, but we need to seriousl
y think about defense. Even if we can get Diebin to deliver a message to a non-werewolf next time, we might have to face an attack before my sisters arrive. I don’t know if Dallas is going to send a dozen wolves to drag me out of here by force, or try to blow up your cabin, or something.”

  “Blow up the cabin? They have weapons to do that?”

  “Everyone has weapons to do that. It’s pretty much household cleaner shit nowadays. But I don’t think he’ll go that far. Dallas won’t want to risk burning down half the forest, or worse, alerting Clinton’s faction that there’s something going on on this part of the mountain. They’ve got a bit of an internal issue going on right now, a war of their own. They’ll want to do this quiet and stealthy like, and to make my death seem as much like an accident as possible.”

  “I already told that werewolf that I’d been here for two hundred years, that I couldn’t leave this area,” I mused. “So even if they don’t know you’re hurt, they’ll know you’ll stick close to me, and there’s nowhere I can go outside this circle.”

  “So, we need to be prepared for a dozen wolves in the dark of the night.” She stirred as though she was going to get up, then slumped back with a gasp. “Correction, you need to be prepared. I don’t think there’s much I can do right now to help you.”

  I was a demon—a war demon. I didn’t need a witch’s help to fend off even an army of werewolves. I could handle them, not just by fighting them, but by turning them against each other. They had internal strife? A faction that had split and was warring against them?

  Good. That was totally my jam, as they said in the Tiger Beat magazines. Let them come. Let them cross into my circle. I’d have them killing each other before they got within a hundred feet of the cabin. I wouldn’t even need to lift a finger.

  But that wasn’t something Bronwyn needed to know. At least not now. She’d been nervous about my being a war demon—scared even. Let her see the dark side of me later, when she might be more willing to accept and even understand it.

  “I’ll stand guard while you sleep. Diebin will ensure you awaken if you need to defend yourself. And you have the frying pan.”

  She began to laugh. “Uh, yeah. The frying pan. I lied, Hadur. I couldn’t do anything to that pan besides the pretty blue lights. By the time I’d gotten out of the bed and managed to get the sheet around me, I was so exhausted and in pain that I couldn’t enchant my way out of a paper bag. The only thing I could have done with that frying pan was whack Stanley over the head with it. And I would have had to hobble my way over to him with a broken leg first.”

  I scooted the pan over near her hand. “Well, just in case. Here’s your weapon.”

  She wouldn’t need it. I’d take care of the army of werewolves before they were more than ten feet inside my circle. But I knew she’d feel better if she had some weapon at hand.

  “Maybe in the morning I can enchant a few things.” She ran a finger around the edge of the frying pan. “This. My nippers. If I’m strong enough, then maybe a fork or two.”

  “I’ll give you my power,” I promised. “You’ll still need to be careful about physical exhaustion, and I can’t do much about any pain, but I can help with your magic.”

  “Thanks.” She reached up and ran her fingers through my beard, tugging me closer. “I’m pretty good at enchanting things. Mostly metal objects, but if I’m really motivated, then I can do other things as well.”

  “Like the towel?”

  She blinked. “Towel?”

  “You told the werewolf that you’d done the same enchantment on the pan as you had on somebody named Pete’s towel. What does the towel do?”

  She grinned. “You don’t want to know. Just suffice it to say that you should fear the towel.”

  Fear the towel. This witch was so very strange—and I was absolutely falling in love with her.

  Chapter 9

  Bronwyn

  I’m not sure how I managed to sleep at all that night. Probably because Hadur stayed in the bed beside me, spooning me and making me feel safer than I’d ever been in my life. Diebin stayed outside, no doubt prowling the perimeter of the circle as a guard. Although I’m pretty sure Hadur would have been instantly awake and ready if someone so much as stepped a toe over the magical boundary of what had become his home.

  Something about his nearness—Hadur’s, not Diebin’s—made me stronger, refreshed. It had only been four days since my accident and I had no right to feel as good as I did. Even my leg felt better. Yes, it still gave me sharp twinges of pain, a reminder every time I tried to do something beyond my injured abilities. Yes, I was hobbling around the cabin on uncomfortable, uneven, makeshift crutches, dragging a splinted leg behind me. But I knew that broken bones shouldn’t feel quite this sound four days in. I didn’t even have any Tylenol for Pete’s sake, and I was hopping around like a champ.

  The moment I stirred, Hadur kissed my forehead and got up to fix breakfast, apologizing that it would be oatmeal as he’d instructed Diebin to stand guard and not go on a thieving expedition to Walmart. I was more interested in raiding the demon’s very strange collection of clothing that had been acquired by the raccoon over many decades.

  “Do you…do you actually wear this?” I asked, holding up a bright purple paisley rayon shirt with the biggest pointed collar I’d ever seen. I looked at the tag, and realized that there was no way Hadur could ever wear this shirt. It was a men’s medium. He’d never get this thing buttoned across his massive chest.

  Mmmm. His massive chest. It was so perfect. Just thinking about it made me want to drag him back to bed. Why hadn’t he made any more moves on me since that day with the bath? I mean, the guy seemed to have a perpetual hard-on around me and clearly welcomed every caress and touch of mine, but that was it.

  Crap, was I going to have to make the first move here? It wouldn’t be easy with a broken leg, but I’d do it if that’s what it took to get me some action here. A girl could only take so much sexual frustration before she exploded.

  “I have not worn that shirt, but I kept it in the thought that I might be able to use it for some purpose eventually.”

  “Well, it’s polyester, so you can’t start a fire with it or anything.” I put the shirt on, easily buttoning it down the front. It fit across my chest and midsection with ease. I was stupidly tall for a woman—just a hair over six feet—so the sides barely skimmed my hips and the front came right to my crotch. My ass was still hanging out from behind.

  It was silky. And the purple paisley cracked me up. Plus, with the top buttons undone, it looked rather sexy, like I was wearing my boyfriend’s shirt from 1970. “What do you think?” I asked.

  He didn’t even look. “I like you better naked.”

  “Yes, I know that, but I can’t exactly fight werewolves naked. And if my sisters eventually figure out that I’m missing and show up, I might not want to greet them naked with a splint on my leg.”

  He glanced over. “It’s lovely. Especially because your ass is still visible under the hem.”

  Yes, that was a problem. It meant I’d be especially motivated to make sure I was facing anyone—werewolf or witch. Or if I really got pissed, I’d turn around and moon them. I can’t think of anything that would send a bunch of attacking werewolves fleeing more than the sight of my naked ass. Except maybe my naked boobs and snatch.

  “I wish I had some sweatpants that would go over this splint,” I complained. “Or shorts. Or even underwear. Not the thong kind, though. That would sort of defeat the purpose here.”

  “I like you naked,” he repeated.

  I rolled my eyes. “We’ve been over this. It’s not like you’re walking around in the buff.”

  Hadur looked down at his jeans and t-shirt. I wondered how many pairs Diebin had hauled to the cabin before the raccoon had managed to get the right size?

  “Do you want me to walk around naked?”

  Yes. Yes, I did.

  “This human form has rather sensitive skin,” he continued. “
I’d end up scratched, bruised, and bleeding every time I went outside the cabin.”

  “That’s my point exactly,” I told him. “Fighting werewolves naked with exposed sensitive skin isn’t wise. And we’re not running a nudist camp here. I don’t want my sisters showing up with us both in the buff. Or Lucien. Crap, Cassie will probably bring Lucien along as well. That guy goes everywhere with her.”

  Hadur growled. It was a sexy sound, although I don’t think he intended it to be. “I don’t want Lucien seeing you naked.”

  I turned around. “Then you best help me do something about my bare ass.”

  It turned out the best solution was to tie a shirt around my waist. I still had to be careful not to flash anyone, but it would do.

  Besides, I’d gotten rather fond of the 1970s paisley shirt.

  After our oatmeal breakfast, I assembled the items I wanted to enchant on my bed, made myself comfy, and pondered what I wanted to do. Magical Taser? Confusion? Fear? Temporary blindness?

  Blinding someone with a fork would be hysterical.

  The big challenge with all these was that most of my enchanted objects required contact for the spell to take effect. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be close enough to a werewolf to stab him with a fork for him to be temporarily blind. What I really needed was to enchant these items with a magical word to activate the spell. Abracadabra or something. Basically, I needed to create a wand.

  And I wasn’t sure I had the skill to do that, even with Hadur lending me his power.

  “I’ll need some paper and a pen,” I told the demon. “And a knife or something to etch the spell onto the metal.”

  He brought the items over to me, then hovered, watching as I scribbled a few runes on the paper. No, that wouldn’t work. Electrifying the nippers would mean I’d get shocked as well. Which wouldn’t be pleasant. I crossed out the runes. Hadur lurked over my shoulder.