Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “We haven’t been formally introduced.” The vampire held his right hand out to me. “I’m Kettil, Grand Conclave investigator —”

  “ ‘Executioner’ would be more accurate,” Desmond interrupted.

  I stared blankly at the vampire’s offered hand. I was doing a lot of that lately.

  “I apologize for the incident on the bridge. I’ve discovered that I need to be … satiated to be around you for extended periods.” Well-fed, he meant. I made him lust for blood. Delightful.

  “Playing nice now?” I asked as he inclined his head. “I’m still not going to touch you.”

  Desmond laughed. No love was lost between these two predators, and maybe that was the problem. Vancouver was an awfully small territory for both of them to occupy. And here I was stuck in the middle — right now, literally. A cold wash of fear ran down my spine, but I covered by stepping toward and reaching for my umbrella. I didn’t fool either of them. When I turned back, I had two sets of too-bright eyes watching me. Perhaps the pre-dawn gloom didn’t help, but I had the distinct impression I was a mouse being tracked by a cat or bat. The bat thought amused me, at least internally, and McGrowly smirked as if he could read my thoughts. He couldn’t, of course; that wasn’t within his werewolf abilities, according to the Compendium. He could smell my fear abate, though, and for some reason, that amused him.

  “Come then,” he said as he turned toward the thick of the trees, where Kandy had headed.

  “I don’t want to go in there, do I?” I asked no one in particular, but the vampire — Kettle-whatever — answered.

  “The necklace and the knife should shield you, if you access their magic.”

  “What knife?” Desmond asked. He kept moving forward, but glanced back at Kettil.

  “The magic-imbued one she keeps, obviously invisibly, strapped at her hip. I guess your enforcer missed it.” Kettil spoke all distantly cool and without a lick of sneer.

  Desmond’s face turned into a reasonable facsimile of stone as he huffed off into the trees. I felt bad for Kandy. I was pretty sure she was the enforcer Kettil had mentioned, and that her lord and alpha was now probably pissed with her.

  The feeling of wrongness increased with each step I took. Access their magic, the vampire had said, but I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. Still, I curled one hand around my necklace and one hand around the hilt of my knife. I hadn’t even thought to pull it on the damn werewolf, McGrowly, when he was pawing at me. My instincts obviously needed a reboot.

  “I thought vampires didn’t like the dawn,” I muttered. I knew the vamp was somewhere behind me because I could still feel his magic, though I couldn’t hear his footfalls.

  “Myth,” he answered, proving he was hidden within the shadows of the gloom and the trees just to the left of my shoulder.

  Desmond snorted, but didn’t turn around. I wasn’t sure whether he was laughing at my question or undercutting the veracity of the vampire’s claim. I guessed I’d know one way or the other soon enough.

  I rounded another fir tree. The sun was rising somewhere behind the cloud cover, and I unfortunately had no problem following Desmond’s too-broad shoulders in the lightening gloom.

  I knew nothing good could be at the dark center I could clearly feel ahead. This darkness was encircled by other magical signatures … I knew Kandy well enough to pick her magic out from the others.

  I was right, of course. My newly honed instincts for horror and misery hadn’t deserted me.

  ∞

  Though the gray sky was attempting to lighten with the dawn, the stand of trees was swathed in darkness. The boughs were so thick overhead that only an occasional drop of rain made it through.

  I kept my eyes on the center of Desmond’s back; he was wide enough to block most of my forward view. I tried to not interpret the magic I was walking into. I tried to concentrate on the warm, earthy power emanating off the werewolf, or even the cold sharpness of the magic of the vampire behind me, whom I could still feel rather than hear. Actually, everyone but me was moving as if equipped with silence spells.

  More magic surged up a few feet ahead. More werewolves. I wondered again at my heightened sensitivity, and whether the previous night’s reveal spell was more active than I thought. I wondered if this was going to be permanent, and wasn’t sure I’d be so enamored with that idea.

  Desmond stopped and looked back at me. His eyes glowed green in the gray light. I couldn’t interpret his expression. He was too inscrutable for me.

  He stepped to the side. The tall blond and the petite brunette werewolves from the club stood with Kandy in a small clearing beyond Desmond. They were all looking down at something on the ground, but shifted their glowing eyes up to me. It seemed everyone had enhanced vision here but me, and I was the only one hesitating to look down at the dark, oily patch of magic I could feel on the ground before me.

  I looked down.

  I’d already known what I was going to see. Why else would they have hauled me here? Why would all the wolves I’d met — except one — be gathered here?

  Still, I expelled a painful moan before my throat closed up with emotion.

  Hudson lay, obviously dead, beneath the fir trees. His body was sprawled across their roots, his beautiful, lean, sexy body flung like a teenager’s empty beer can — slightly crushed and utterly empty.

  My chest hurt. I might not have been breathing.

  Hudson’s eyes — now a dull, lifeless hazel — were open. His head was canted to one side.

  “He was with you last night,” Kandy spat, but I barely registered her anger.

  I was two steps away from his hand. It was palm up, fingers slightly curled. I wanted … oh, God, I had wanted to feel those hands on me … I had wanted …

  “What the fuck is wrong with her?” Kandy said.

  “She’s not breathing,” the vampire — Kett — murmured.

  The gray of the day was starting to blacken at the edges. The necklace, which I was still clutching, was cutting into the soft skin of my hand.

  Desmond whacked me between the shoulder blades. The trapped air in my lungs and throat expelled in a sob. I stumbled forward as if only my held breath had been keeping me upright. My body demanded I inhale, and with the painful intake of air, the sickening stench of dark magic filled my senses.

  I choked. I fell forward and then twisted to one side as Kett caught my right arm just above my elbow. I angled right, going down on that knee as my stomach heaved.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Hudson’s dead gaze.

  “She’s going to throw up,” Kett said.

  “She can’t do that here,” Desmond replied.

  “What the hell is going on?” Kandy asked with a snarl.

  “The magic makes her sick,” Kett murmured as I wrenched my arm from his grasp and tore my eyes from Hudson.

  I stumbled away but didn’t make it far. I fell to my hands and knees, my empty stomach heaving as my body tried to expel the oily, dark magic I’d inhaled.

  “Here,” Kandy said as she pushed a wet wad of paper towel into my hands. I’d given it to her with the cupcakes.

  I had nothing to throw up but bile. Large hands, almost too hot but soothing because of that, brushed my hair away from my cheeks.

  “She couldn’t have done it, then?” Kandy asked in a whisper to whoever was holding my curls from my face, suddenly sticky with sweat. I brought up another wave of bile into the paper towels cupped in my hands.

  “No,” Desmond answered. “But she has a scent for the magic now. She’s a tracker.”

  “I’m not a tracker …” I twisted my head, hair, and body away from him to lean against the tree I’d fallen by. Kandy tried to take the paper towel from me. I fought her for it. It was just gross.

  “Let her have it, witch,” Desmond snapped. “You don’t want it anywhere near here when the human authorities get their hands on the site.”

  Kandy folded the
used paper towel and then took off through the trees. Feeling insanely weak, I peered through my tangle of curls at Desmond, who still hovered over me. I really, really wanted to close my eyes, but was wary of doing so with him in the vicinity.

  Next thing I knew, the petite brunette with the bee-stung lips was leaning over me with a bottle of water. Her eyes were rimmed red from unshed tears. I grabbed the water and knocked it back, only to have Desmond snatch it out of my hands after just one sip. Water dribbled down my chin and he wiped it off with a swipe of his thumb.

  “Slowly,” he cautioned. Could I get any weaker or more inept in front of this man? Probably not. I squeezed my eyes shut, forgetting my earlier caution.

  “Thank you, Lara,” Desmond said.

  By her quick retreat, he was obviously dismissing the girl. Okay, I peeked. He settled down on his haunches to glower at me from a more even level. I refused to look at him, but did accept another sip of water.

  “You were with him, then? Last night?” he finally asked, kinder than I had any hope of him being in this moment.

  “No,” I answered, and then had to pause to work around the sobs that started to choke my throat again. Desmond surrendered the water bottle to me completely, then looked away.

  I struggled with the well of emotion a bit longer, then finally gave into the tears, allowing them to stream silently down my cheeks. I banged my head lightly back against the tree trunk and gritted my teeth. “I hardly knew him,” I finally cried. My voice was far too loud in the stillness of the trees.

  “He had that effect on people,” Desmond murmured, but he still didn’t look at me. He didn’t seem uncomfortable; more respectful than judgmental.

  I tried another sip of water, as I brushed the tears from my cheeks. “We were supposed to go out for dinner.”

  “Supposed to?”

  “He stood me up.”

  Desmond fixed his green-flecked eyes on me and raised one eyebrow in a smirk. It was darker than the tawny, untamed hair on his head. “I doubt that.”

  “Is there … is there a trinket on him?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  Desmond nodded. “Three.”

  I clamped my hand across my mouth to stop the moan of pain this confirmation triggered. “I’ll destroy them all,” I said.

  “That would be a shame,” Kett said. He had appeared out of nowhere to loom over my right shoulder.

  “They … they’re obviously evil!”

  “No. Someone is using them to anchor their spells. Whoever it is must feel they need the extra magic, because whatever they’re doing is destroying all the magic contained in the trinket, as far as I can tell. You might be able to pick up some residual magic. I cannot.”

  “Who is strong enough in this town to take down Hudson?” Desmond asked.

  “Me, I supposed,” the vampire answered. “Not many others, unless I have a rogue on my hands. But rogues don’t usually dabble in black magic.”

  “Vampires don’t do spells?” I asked, my curiosity momentarily distracting me.

  “No, they just are black magic,” Desmond answered with a growl.

  Kett ignored McGrowly to turn his cool blue eyes on me. For a moment, I thought the vampire wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “Rogues rarely take the time to develop such skills.”

  “Yes, they’re usually too busy running from the executioner,” Desmond said.

  “The same could be said of the shapeshifters,” Kett answered coolly.

  “Shifters don’t choose to be loners,” Desmond snapped, his energy visibly bristling around him. Well, at least I could see it.

  “There are exceptions to every rule,” Kett said. He turned his attention back to me. The vampire and the shifter assessed me for a moment, and I gathered the subject matter had shifted back to include me. “A group of magic users might be strong enough to take down a werewolf of Hudson’s status. Perhaps more easily if he was surprised. A coven, perhaps.” The vampire held out a hand to me.

  I guessed he wanted to help me to my feet, but I wasn’t particularly interested in touching him. He raised a rather mocking eyebrow at me. It was an oddly human expression on his ice-carved face. “Your resistance to the magic will grow,” he said. “We need you to take a closer look at the body, to tell us what sort of magic we are dealing with, and hopefully how many casters.”

  The body … You mean Hudson, I wanted to scream, but didn’t.

  Desmond stood with the fluid move that freaked me out every time I saw it. I was starting to figure out that the more powerful of the Adept spent a lot of time trying to pass for human when in mixed company. It must be exhausting to do so.

  I rolled to my feet, using my knee and then hands to get up. I was unsteady, but I wasn’t interested in leaning on anyone. “I have no idea how I can help,” I said.

  “I’ll show you where to look,” Kett said. “None of us has your gifts, nor your connection to —”

  Kandy appeared suddenly from the trees, once again moving far too quickly to be wholly human. “Too late,” she said. “We’re almost busted.”

  Kett and Desmond both turned their heads as if listening, but I didn’t hear anything.

  “Yes,” Kett said, though what he was agreeing with, I didn’t know.

  “Take her home, Kandy,” Desmond said. He stepped back toward Hudson.

  “What?” But then I heard the sirens, far off but approaching. “You’ll let the cops take him and see this?”

  “If we’d found him sooner, perhaps we could have tried to clean up. But it is better to go through official channels now,” Kett answered. “Our agendas are not one and the same, the shapeshifters and I.” The vampire turned to follow Desmond. I didn’t get the warning his last sentence implied.

  “Come,” Kandy prodded. “We need to go now to not be seen. You move so boringly slow when you’re walking, not like when you dance at all.”

  I ignored the green-haired wolf as Kett turned back. “I’ll pick you up as soon as I can arrange a viewing. Though it might not be until this afternoon.”

  A viewing … he meant the morgue. They wanted me to see Hudson in a morgue. I wasn’t sure I was up for that, and yet I felt utterly responsible and outraged at his death.

  “I’ll be ready,” I said. Kandy nodded her approval as I added, “Don’t … try to limit the number of people who touch him, please. Normals don’t really matter, I don’t think, except you might not know if they are magical or not.”

  “That won’t be easy. Intimidation doesn’t work well with the police, and Desmond and I are not especially —”

  “Diplomatic? Relatable? Charming?”

  “Yes,” Kett said. He walked away.

  “That was Hudson’s job,” Kandy whispered mournfully. She began to drag me through the trees in the opposite direction from which we’d arrived.

  “Diplomacy?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I could see that,” I said and didn’t bother stopping the renewed leakage at the corners of my eyes.

  A side glance at Kandy showed that she too wasn’t as tough as she pretended … or maybe Hudson had just been worth the tears.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  My brain felt bruised — overwhelmed or overloaded, maybe — but I didn’t actually have any answers to all the questions bouncing around inside it.

  Kandy was no longer dragging me. She walked at my side, unlike before, as we headed back to my apartment. We’d gone a couple of blocks before I became aware of my surroundings again. I was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign in regards to my mental state.

  “You thought I killed him,” I blurted suddenly.

  “He called me off, said he’d take the evening watch. His scent is all over your place.”

  “Outside, you mean.”

  “Yeah, by the bakery, stairs, front door of the north-facing apartment, in the alley.”

  On the stairs? By the front door of my apartment? But I’d sent Rus
ty out to look for Hudson. Maybe the werewolf had come by earlier when I was still the napping, then left.

  “Can you tell the age of scents, like how old they are?”

  “Not like by a clock or anything. But yeah, fresh, old, that sort of thing.”

  “And how long does a scent linger?”

  Kandy shrugged. “Depends on how long someone was in a certain place, or if they touched anything or held something. I just know … knew Hudson, so I’m … was … attuned to him.”

  “So he might have just walked by?”

  “More than that. But yeah, it wasn’t concentrated if that’s what you’re asking.”

  So Hudson could have just been checking up on me or checking out my place earlier in the evening. Silence fell between us. Kandy had looped back and up a few blocks from the park, so we were walking east on West Sixth Avenue. The rain had ceased for the moment, and a few early risers were taking the opportunity to walk their dogs.

  “Could you really break through my wards?”

  “Probably not, but Desmond could … most likely.”

  “He’s your pack leader.”

  “Yep. You just putting that together?”

  “Yeah, I’m slow like that.”

  Kandy barked out a humorless laugh.

  “And Hudson?” I asked.

  “Beta … or was. I guess the position is open now.”

  I sighed. Hudson had been high-ranked and probably powerful. I could see why Desmond couldn’t believe someone local took him out. The Adept, except maybe my Gran, weren’t exactly a powerful bunch in Vancouver, not in the same league as a werewolf. The Compendium had suggested that there was a werewolf pack in the North, a larger one in Ontario, and, as Desmond had confirmed, wolves didn’t choose to be loners. Vancouver was populated by a lot of half-somethings, like Sienna, Rusty, and me. Some of whom didn’t even know their magical heritage. But no werewolves that I knew of. Though, based on the Compendium’s suggestion of their solitary nature, we could have a resident vampire and not even know it. It was no wonder, as I put all this in together my head, that my mother rarely stayed in Vancouver long. She had to be bored out of her mind here.