Midsummer Curse

by Megan Derr

  "Goblins don't do magic," Kerry said stiffly. "Ain't my thing."

  Brayton snorted in amusement. "What I hear, anything requiring effort ain't your thing. You ain't welcome here. Get out, or I'll forcibly remove you."

  "Not your house," Kerry said, words clipped, cold, angry, the precise opposite of Brayton's rolling mountain drawl. "And it's none of your damned business what goes on between me and my boyfriend, asshole."

  "Ex," Ferdy said then, pushing away from the window he'd been leaning against, hands falling to his hips. "You're my ex, and I really want you gone. So go."

  Kerry sneered and said, "You'll come around. I'm the only good? thing that ever happened to you, Ferdy. Who else is going to put up with the fact you hide in machines because you're no good at anything else?" His implication could not have been plainer, even if he hadn't added the leer.

  Annoyance quickly moving to truly pissed off, Brayton growled again. "I seriously doubt that Ferdy is the bad lay in this room."

  In reply, Kerry only laughed. Beside Brayton, Ferdy flinched and recoiled. Brayton contemplated simply smashing Kerry's face in, but he hated the way Ferdy withdrew more. Reaching out, he yanked Ferdy close and bent, kissing him hard. Ferdy froze for a moment, but then began to respond with startled enthusiasm.

  And definite skill. Brayton's growling eased to a pleased rumble, and he held his Itty-bitty a bit more gently, tugging him closer and easing the kiss, making it softer, slower, deeper, and delightfully more thorough. Brayton rumbled softly, fingers sliding over fabric, pushing beneath to get at smooth skin.

  The sound of something breaking snapped him from it, reminding him abruptly that they were not alone. He pulled away, reminding himself that he was on a job, he wasn't in the habit of kissing clients, and gremlins weren't his thing. Brayton blinked at Ferdy, whose eyes were dark, lips wet and swollen from being thoroughly kissed, and the skinny little body wasn't all that—

  Pulling futher away, Brayton turned back to dickhead Kerry, who stood in the doorway, obviously ready to start some shit.

  Brayton smirked. "Like I said, Ferdy ain't the one in the room who's a bad lay."

  Though Kerry obviously wanted to stay and hold a violent discussion on the matter, he was just smart enough—or coward enough—not to challenge a werewolf. He left.

  Sighing in annoyance, Brayton said, "Now the pizza is cold."

  Ferdy stood, silent and red-faced for a moment, but then seemed to realize that Brayton had said something. He turned an even deeper red and coughed. "Um—sorry, you, uh got mixed in that. I didn't think he'd come around here again. You—thanks," he finished awkwardly.

  Brayton shrugged and tried very hard not to remember every nuance of that remarkably fine kiss—or how that damned scent had returned, better and stronger than ever. What the hell was it? Why did it feel more and more like he was missing something where that scent was concerned?

  He brushed the strange notion aside with another shrug and went to fetch the pizza from his car. Carrying it all back inside, he then had to juggle around piles of crap until he finally unearthed a suitable table and spread the food out.

  The sound of movement drew him, and he looked up to see Ferdy hovering in the doorway.

  "Come and eat," Brayton ordered, then added, "You could use some meat on your damned bones. Do you mean to look like you're starving to death? Is that the popular look with gremlins? I thought they usually had a bit more heft to them."

  "I eat," Ferdy said, doing that trying-to-scowl thing that was really just a pout.

  "Yeah, probably barely enough to feed a kitten," Brayton retorted.

  Ferdy poked at the breadsticks. "Like it matters what I do or do not eat?"

  Brayton started to say of course it mattered, but realized how ridiculous that was. Ferdy was right; it shouldn't matter to him. He was just here to do a job, a job which, unfortunately, did not include more kisses—

  He growled and took a bite of pizza, wondering what in the hell was wrong with him. Clients were not his thing. Half-pints were not his thing. Skittish, starving, half-pint clients were definitely not his thing.

  But there'd been nothing skittish about that kiss and enough strength in Ferdy's grip to hint that a hell of a good time might be possible, and gremlins were damned good with their hands, and it really was not helping at all that Ferdy clearly wanted him.

  Growling, Brayton gave up on his pizza and left the room, biting out a brief, "I'll be back." In the front hall, he opened the door a crack then stripped off his clothes. Folding them up neatly, he set them with the clothes he had early discarded. This sort of trip, he would not be taking his wallet and other essentials with him. Brayton weighed his options.

  The strong, lingering scent of Kerry made him bare his teeth in a snarl, and he really wished that tracking the bastard down and tearing out his throat could be considered a prudent action. Setting the tempting thought aside, he picked up a steady pace and made for the town proper. It would have been more practical, perhaps, to take the car, but he had energy to burn and his wolf form would afford him several advantages while he explored the old town hall.

  He made it into town in good time, tensing from habit and moving cautiously as he reached people. Normally, he would go nowhere near a town while in wolf form, but this town was more than a little strange.

  It really was so strange he thought, moving through town, weaving around people who paid him no more mind than passing curiosity. There were no shrieks, no threats, no stench of fear—nothing but curiosity over a stranger. Midsummer, huh? He'd have to remember the place if he was ever back in this area again.

  Continuing on, he didn't pause until he reached the old town square, a picturesque little small town kind of place right out of the movies—benches, flowers, quaint little shops, cobblestones, a fountain, everything. It was rather obnoxious.

  And looming over all of it, the final postcard touch, was the clock tower. In older days, had they used this same spot to burn paranormals under the crime of 'witchcraft'? How long had the top vamp in the area lived here?

  Irrelevant, Brayton reminded himself. He focused on the job at hand and headed into the mess of construction clutter that spread like a blight on the postcard setting. When the work was done, though, he bet it would all be perfect enough for a Christmas card.

  Padding his way over, through, under, and around the mess, he finally slipped inside the hall. Access to the clock tower was the door straight back, and someone had left it slightly ajar. Good. If they hadn't, he'd have had to shift back and hope he could get it open—all the while stark naked.

  Nosing the door open, he climbed up what proved to be stone steps. His claws clicked on the stones, echoing along the stairwell. A wash of smells assaulted him as he reached the top of the tower and made him sneeze hard, three times in a row. Old smells of dust, mold, decaying wood, old stone, rotted fabric, old brick. There were new smells too: people, normal and not. His gremlin's smell was the strongest, metal and machine oil and that elusive, spicy-sweet but not scent that seemed to be simply Ferdy and no one else in the world, and it really did smell better every time he inhaled it.

  He frowned over that, taken aback by the fervor of the stray thought. Obviously running about as a wolf was not expending energy enough or expunging thoughts of fucking his little gremlin until he screamed—

  Brayton whined, frustrated and annoyed and confused. This wasn't normal behavior for him; he was a loner—a true lone. He only fucked other wanderers, other loners. Itty-bitty was obviously a settle down, stay in one place, community and family type. Brayton had no business going anywhere near that, even if he didn't have a policy in place about mixing business with pleasure. He'd learned the hard way it was best to keep the two strictly separate.

  Whining again, hating that he felt confused, that he could not forget that stupid kiss he never should have stolen, Brayton tried to shove the thoughts away and attempted yet again to focus on his job. Putting nose to the ground, he started to
poke around.

  The guts of the tower clock mechanism were all over the place, along with tools, oil, rags, books, diagrams, and page after page of notes. Looked like itty-bitty wasn't simply repairing the thing; he was all but building it over again from scratch and clearly makes notes to put to use elsewhere.

  Gremlins.

  Rumbling in amusement, Brayton pushed and prodded at everything, nosing through the gremlin-organized mess—

  And sneezed with so much force it hurt.

  Then the substance he'd inhaled began to actually hit him, setting fire to his blood in a way that made Brayton whine and whimper in dismay and fear. Bolting away, he raced back down the stairs, fighting the madness clawing at him. Reaching the main door, he closed it, trapping himself inside—he hoped he was trapping himself.

  Moving unsteadily back up the stairs, swaying on his feet now, he stumbled to the center of the roof and gathered enough strength and will to throw his head back and howl as loudly as he possibly could in warning, pleading for help, hoping the pack would hear him.

  He howled until it became too difficult to manage, until he was keeping control of himself by the barest of threads. Then he curled up in a little ball on the floor, whimpering, whining as he fought the madness-inducing effects of extremely potent wolfsbane that someone had secreted away amongst the clutter upstairs.

  The arrival of at least four wolves drew his attention, and he began to growl against his will. He trembled with the effort it took to hold himself still; the arrival of another alpha helped to calm him, the weight of an equal's presence steadying.

  It kept him under control just long enough for the strange non-wolf to approach him and draw out a syringe. He smelled like wolf, like the alpha, and like medicine, and then the odd wolf was stabbing him with the needle and injecting him with something. Brayton whimpered in pain and relief as the world went black.

  *~*~*

  He woke with a throbbing headache and roiling stomach, and all the strange smells in the air did not help.

  There was one scent, however, that separated itself quite clearly from the others and managed to calm him a bit—the strange, elusive, addictive scent that was Ferdy.

  Slowly sitting up, Brayton stared bemused at Itty-bitty stretched out on the floor with his back to the wall, facing the bed, arms folded and his head drooping at an angle that would not be fun for his neck when he woke up.

  Hadn't anyone thought to get the idiot a chair? Or, better still, made him go to bed? What was Itty-bitty even doing here anyway? And where was here? Brayton bit back several choice words and raked his hair from his face.

  He wrinkled his nose in concentration as he sifted through all the strange smells. Lowell. Someone who was likely Lowell's mate, given the way their scents combined. Medicine. Food. Coffee. Best guess, he was in Lowell's house. That didn't explain Ferdy's presence. Brayton started to say or do something to wake him up when he heard and smelled someone drawing close. The mate.

  The door opened, and Brayton realized he'd already seen the man—the odd smelling man who'd injected him, and now he did remember Lowell saying something about his mate being the local doc for paranormals. He was handsome enough, very small town doctor looking, with the glasses and the coat. "You smell like wolf and yet not," Brayton said, nose twitching over the puzzle.

  "Yes," the doctor said, but offered no explanation. "My name is Peter, and, as I'm sure you've already deduced, Low's mate. You're Brayton, right? You got hit bad by some really good wolfsbane. You should be mostly fine now, though I wouldn't eat any heavy foods for the next twenty-four hours. The antidote I gave you contained trace elements of 'tincture of the moon'."

  Brayton grimaced but nodded. The havoc that would have wreaked on his body, it would have also forced out the wolfsbane he'd inhaled. When he found the bastard responsible for doing such a dangerous, stupid thing, he would beat him to a pulp. "Thanks, doc."

  "Sure," Peter said and chuckled softly. "Low is just as pleased as you about the wolfsbane. He sent the pack out to ask questions while he and Sally went back to the clock tower. They've been a couple of hours, and no one has called, so I guess they're still busy looking."

  Nodding, Brayton jerked a thumb at Ferdy. "What's he doing there?"

  "He heard the howling and came by a little while ago to ask what had happened. When he realized what happened to you, he insisted on hanging around." Peter shrugged and smiled faintly. "He's quite upset you were hurt trying to help him, the poor thing. I thought I'd convinced him to go to bed, but it looks like he snuck right back over here."

  "What time is it? How long was I out?"

  "It's almost midnight," Peter replied. "You've been out not quite five hours; remarkable recovery time for a wolf bit by bane, though you are a purebred alpha."

  Brayton grunted. "I'd have been better off a mongrel." Being of thinner wolf blood, mongrels were not quite as severely hit by things like silver and bane, though they were still hit pretty hard.

  "Mmm," Peter agreed, "but more likely to have succumbed to the madness. Whatever the case, you are mostly better now. Ferdy brought your things, and I've got some broth and bread prepared if you want to give it a try."

  Brayton scowled at that; he'd never gotten to eat much of the pizza either. Broth and bread? If he were a wolf right then, he'd have whined.

  Peter laughed and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Oh, my. What a kicked puppy. I'll be back." Still laughing, all the harder at the disgusted look Brayton shot him, Peter left to get the promised food, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  Stupid bane. Brayton wanted real food. Heaving a sigh, he glanced toward Itty-bitty and froze when he saw Ferdy was stirring. Sleepy eyes blinked at him, then snapped open. Ferdy hastily stood up, only managing to trip over himself in the process, tumbling forward to land half on the floor, half on the bed, face the color of a fresh-painted fire engine. "Sorry. Uh—are you feeling better? I'm really, really sorry—they said it happened in the tower—and they had to get Sally to go through it and then Peter had to give you silver—"

  "Shush, baby," Brayton cut in, cupping Ferdy's chin in one hand and putting a thumb over his lips to stems the flow of words. "I'm fine. Someone hid bane up there, yeah. It was probably to keep me, or rather wolves, from smelling something up there. Better, less dangerous ways to do it, though." His mind turned it all over and over, but the thoughts scattered as he heard a flood of racket from downstairs.

  "Umm—" Ferdy started to speak, then stopped, and Brayton only then realized that he was still holding Ferdy's chin.

  He let go and decided he'd been laying around long enough, but the sudden smack of cold air as he whipped the blankets away drew sharp attention to the fact he was naked. Brayton whipped the blankets back over as Ferdy moved to get out of the way, cheeks still a livid pink, and really, smelling lust on the air while he was naked and in a bed and with Ferdy that close—

  Really, he was going to have to kill someone before the day was over.

  "I brought your stuff," Ferdy said. "It's, uh, there." Then he bolted from the room.

  Muttering curses that would have had his mama going at him with a bar of soap, Brayton dragged himself out of bed and toward the tidy pile of stuff set on top of the bureau. Dressed, he felt slightly more together, if not altogether settled. He shoved his wallet and phone and keys into their respective pockets.

  He had the sinking feeling he was going to feel restless and scattered until he caved and pounded a certain Itty-bitty into the nearest suitable surface.

  Carefully putting that imagery aside, he yanked the door open and found his way downstairs. Low had returned and stood with Peter and Ferdy in the living room. Brayton looked at Low and asked, "What's wrong?"

  "The wolfsbane was only one of several things up there to keep out a whole slew of paranormal creatures should they poke around too much and find the body that was beneath the floorboards where the clockwork was before Ferdy tore it all apart."

  "A body that Fer
dy likely would have found at some point," Brayton continued the thought. "That explains the curse. It was probably another booby trap."

  "Probably," Low agreed. "Curses take a while to set, don't they?"

  "Yeah, especially if its' an open curse" Brayton said. "My impression 'til now was of a close, or personal, curse, and even those take a few hours to set after being cast. But an open curse takes even longer, so if it only started working yesterday, it could have actually struck as many as forty-eight hours beforehand. It's definitely the only way I can think of to keep a gremlin from mucking about with all those lovely, shiny bits of metal." He smirked at Ferdy, who only tried to scowl at him but, as per usual, failed miserably. "Why keep the body there and not bury it?"

  But no one even needed to answer that question. If the body had been hidden in the clock tower, then the victim had likely died very close to it, making the tower the nearest and best hiding place. Once hidden, getting it anywhere else in a town like Midsummer would have been impossible.

  So, better to simply fortify the tower against any and all possible threats. Brayton wondered how many other people had been victim of nasty booby traps. Given that precious few of them would have been poking around with permission or good intentions, they probably hadn't said a word to anyone and instead slunk off elsewhere to get the problem fixed.

  Whoever was behind it all obviously had underestimated just how devastating such a curse would be to a gremlin. He had also not fully understood the effects of wolfsbane—a less experience wolf would have caused untold amounts of damage after snorting as much of it as Brayton had. Anyone else, they very likely would be dealing with a slew of new wolves and a few bodies right now.

  "We need to figure out who's responsible for this before worse happens," Brayton said. "Did you identify the body?"

  "Yes," Low said. "Sally knew her immediately. A girl everyone thought ran off five years ago like she was always saying she would. Her neck was snapped, and she must have been put in the floor boards shortly thereafter."