Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella

by Cecilia Dominic

  The lady dug around with the stick and finally said, “Aha! Got you, you little nasty.” She pulled out a dark blob that glowed with a sickly green light and put it in a leather satchel. Max coughed and fell backwards. I caught him and gently laid him on the bed.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Backlash booger,” she said, the concept sounding profane coming from her lips. “Yes, that’s what it’s called. When you’re untutored in powerful magic and you get caught in it, that can happen. It’s like a fast-growing tumor.”

  Max’s color crept back, but he still struggled to breathe.

  “Now I have to detoxify him from its energy,” she told me. “If I left him as he is, another would form. Hold him down and don’t let go no matter what you see or feel.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “All in a day’s work.”

  I helped Max to a sitting position and once again held his hands behind him. She put a hand on his forehead, and—

  A torrent of icy glacial water, can’t move or breathe or think, just hold hold hold.

  I blinked, the after-echo of the water’s roar ringing in my ears, and the reverse image distorting my vision. Surprised not to be soaking wet, I looked down and saw I still held Max’s hands. He shivered, but he breathed more easily.

  “And that should do it,” she said and moved backward. “You can let him go.”

  “Your grip is like iron,” Max said, rubbing his wrists. “Are all of you that strong?”

  I flexed my fingers, which felt stiff and cold like I’d been walking around in a blizzard without gloves while holding hands with an ice fairy, maybe Reine’s cousin. “I don’t know,” was the only answer I could manage. “Isn’t your wife?”

  “She’s strong enough,” he said, and his half-grin told me he felt better. “As for your hands and anything else you may feel, you’ll get your head straight in a few minutes. That kind of magic can throw you if you’re not used to it.”

  I blew on my hands, which stung when the hot air hit them, and I flinched. “Seems like every kind of magic does something nasty.”

  “Spoken like a true wolf-man,” the lady said. “Your kind has never trusted us. Probably for good reason.” The look she gave me simultaneously beckoned and warned.

  “Thank you,” Max said. He stood and stumbled but found his balance back before I could grab him. “When can we start learning the precautions I need to use blood magic?”

  “Why didn’t you learn them before?” I asked. “It seems stupid not to.”

  He looked at the floor. “I didn’t have access to someone who could teach me, and as I said, I was only using small quantities of it and followed the rules and requirements, such as they are. I didn’t know that exposure to a lot of blood would pull the power out of me and corrupt me.”

  “He speaks the truth,” the lady said. “It is a forbidden art for a reason. He knows the rules, but sometimes the spilled life force gets confused and bends or breaks them if the wizard doesn’t know the subtleties of the art. It happened to one recently.”

  “That’s why it needs to be studied, not forbidden.” Max sat on the bed again. “Who knows how many others have been hurt by experimenting with this type of magic in what they thought were safe amounts?”

  “Those politics belong to your kind, not mine.” The lady had packed her tools in hidden pockets in her dress. “We can start in a few days when you’ve recovered. Until then, take it easy, make lots of love to your beautiful wife, and absolutely no magic use.”

  “That sounds like a reasonable prescription.”

  “Now the opals?”

  I stepped out of the room so Max and Reine could complete their exchange and make their arrangements. Lonna sat at the kitchen table with Abby in a high chair beside her and fed her some sort of pureed fruit. My nose told me apricots. When Lonna saw me, she stood.

  “Is he…?”

  “He’s fine, if a little weak. He’ll be down in a few minutes. They’re finishing up.”

  She sank to the chair. “Thank goodness.”

  I sat across the table from her so she wouldn’t see my legs shiver. I still had cold flashes, and I hoped they’d subside. “Whatever you do, don’t tell that woman your or Abby’s names. She’s not human.”

  “I gathered. She puts off some interesting energy. Cold.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Footsteps on the stairs told me the strange woman helped Max descend. Lonna stood and hesitated.

  “Go on,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye on Abby.”

  “Thank you. She shouldn’t go anywhere, but you never know what babies will do if you leave them unattended. Especially that one.”

  With that vague warning, she left the room, and I took her seat by the high chair. I picked up the spoon, and the baby bounced in her seat.

  “Oh, so you want more?” I asked.

  She looked at me with big green eyes. She had a couple of smears of orange stuff on her cheek and in her hair, which was reddish blonde like her father’s. I thought about feeding her, but had Lonna stopped because she felt the child had eaten enough? Having had no siblings and very little exposure to children, I didn’t know what the protocol was for giving food to small people.

  A wave of protectiveness for this little family swept over me, and I exhaled slowly to let the pressure out of my chest.

  “A wolf needs a pack, my boy,” my father said. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there from the prickling at the back of my neck and the feeling that someone or something watched me over my shoulder.

  Abby looked over my shoulder and giggled, reaching one small fist out and opening and closing it. An invisible force pried the spoon from my hand and dipped it in the jar of pureed apricot, then moved it to the baby’s mouth, scooping the dribble from her chin and into her smacking lips. The spoon then came to rest in the jar.

  “I did that with you once upon a time. You make things too complicated,” the voice said, and with a swirl of cold air, the presence disappeared.

  “Maximilian wasn’t the only one touched by the blood magic,” the white-haired lady murmured from the door.

  I turned to face her and moved so my body was between her and the baby. “What do you mean, Lady?”

  She shook her head. “That’s for you to discover in your own time, Wolf-man. As for the babe, do not fret. She is safe from my kind for now. Do watch over this family. They straddle two worlds, which is a dangerous place to be, as you’ll come to find out.”

  With those words, she disappeared. The spoon jumped out of the jar and clattered to the floor, and bright orange mush splattered everywhere.

  10

  When I woke the next morning, I wasn’t sure if Max’s illness and the fairy’s visit had been a dream. After Reine had disappeared, I’d wiped the floor and left Lonna and Max to their discussion and baby. Max assured me they would be safe, and Lonna already had Wolf-Lonna, her psychic double, on the prowl. I wished I could say I felt more peaceful as I drove home in the late twilight knowing that Max was going to have some training in this dangerous magic he’d use. However, after having seen the toll it could take, I’d lost some confidence in his assurances that he knew exactly what he was doing. Had I pledged my support for the Institute prematurely based on Lonna’s and Joanie’s word without knowing enough about the lycanthropic reversal process itself? I’d trusted them based on their knowledge and my gut instinct.

  Plus, the lady’s warning to me to watch over them stuck with me, and I suspected worse was to come. This unease translated into me squinting at every shadow along the side of the road and watching my rearview mirror to make sure I wasn’t being followed or stalked by something otherworldly, or that would aim silver arrows at me.

  No ghosts visited me that night, and I woke from what I’d perceived to be a dreamless sleep. Detective Luke Garou didn’t look nearly as well-rested when I arrived at his office at nine o’clock sharp. His eyes had dark circles under them accentuated by l
oose folds. “More baggage than a Pan Am flight,” we’d say, back when Pan Am was a relevant airline.

  I shook my head at that little intrusion from my past, but at least it was from my own past and no one else’s. My father’s ghost seemed to pull me in that direction. What else did he want me to see? I resisted that train of thought and reached to accept Garou’s offered handshake.

  “Feeling better, I suppose?” he asked with a barely concealed growl.

  I ignored the challenge. “Yes, it’s amazing how restorative a good night’s sleep or two can be.”

  He glared at me but didn’t respond to my barb. Instead, he said, “And you must then be coherent enough to give a statement as to how you sustained a concussion during your investigation. Lady Morena has cautioned me not to let any detail, however insignificant it seems, slip by me.”

  “How lovely of her to be so concerned for my welfare,” I muttered. The detective was a canny one, I’d give him that. He remembered my excuse for withholding information from him two nights before and threw it back at me.

  “I’m ready whenever you are, Investigator,” he told me and bared his teeth in an almost smile that was a challenge.

  “You do know that with some head injuries, you end up with memory loss,” I said. “I’m afraid I can’t remember anything that might be helpful to you.”

  “I’ll be the judge of what’s helpful.” He tapped the eraser end of his pencil against the pad in front of him. “And what’s suspicious. Such as your behavior, Investigator.”

  “Don’t challenge me, Garou.”

  “I’m only doing my job, as you cautioned me to when we met at the Institute. As for why you won’t answer my question, could it be that you’re protecting someone?”

  I stopped myself from changing my breathing pattern, shifting in my seat or doing any of the other nonverbal things that would tell him he’d hit home. “Trust me, I’d like whoever bashed me on the head to be punished for their crime, but I honestly didn’t see who did it.” There, that was enough of the truth that it would hopefully not come back to bite me later.

  “They snuck up behind you? Where?”

  “In the alley behind the West Port Inn,” I told him. “I didn’t realize he was there until he bashed me.”

  “And you’re sure it was a man.”

  “There aren’t many women who can hold me immobile like that.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Did he talk to you, say anything?”

  “No, he was silent.”

  “Was anything stolen?”

  “Only my pride.” It occurred to me that it would have been easier to say my wallet had been, but he would’ve then asked about me filing a report of a robbery, and I preferred to lie as little as possible. In my experience, lying was more trouble than it was worth and always came back to bite me in the ass.

  “Now if you’re done with your questioning,” I said, “I’m going to resume my role of Investigator and ask about what you’ve found so far. I read your preliminary report, and you seem to have been adequately thorough with the crime scene.”

  Garou pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s only been two days. I’m still waiting for the evidence the forensics team gathered at the scene to be processed. Both scenes,” he said. “Doctor Fortuna found the closet where the security guards had been butchered last night.”

  “Excellent,” I said, not giving away that I already knew Max had found it and had suffered for it. “I’m sure your people are sorting through it as we speak.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Investigator. You have secrets like anyone else. I know you were at Doctor Fortuna’s house last night and that you had a visitor of a supernatural nature.”

  “And how did you know that?”

  “We have someone following the wizard,” he told me through gritted teeth. “Not by my orders, but by those of someone above me.”

  “Interesting.” Since he supposedly reported directly to me, anyone above him and me would have to be on the Council.

  “Is there some problem with the wizard?” He referred to Max as Reine had talked about Max’s family, as more of a curious object than a person.

  “He should be fine.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Investigator.” He pointed the pencil at me.

  “The wizard Maximilian and all that concerns him is classified Institute business.”

  “And if you had allowed me more information about the Institute and the controversial nature of its operations from the start, Otis LeConte might not have been murdered. We would have had someone patrolling in and around the grounds.” He stood and leaned forward, his palms on the table. “Sometimes secrets can kill, Investigator. I thought you and I were on the same side with trying to expose them for the protection of the Council and all of wolfkind.”

  “Have a seat, Detective. It’s too early for your dramatics.”

  He sat and rubbed a hand over his face.

  “When was the last time you slept?” I asked. The man’s behavior at the Institute had seemed odd, especially his inviting Selene to the Solstice ceilidh.

  He waved his hand. “The sun is up late, and so am I. I cannot sleep when the sky is light and birds are singing, particularly when something is on my mind like a potentially key witness withholding information.”

  “They do make blackout curtains and sound-blocking devices.”

  “I am too sensitive to the sun being out regardless of those things,” he said.

  I decided to move on. “Summarize what you’ve got for me so far, and I’ll leave you alone.”

  “As I mentioned, I do not have anything to share about the evidence we collected, but I do have this.” He opened a file. “Two groups have come forward to claim the murder.”

  “Wait, how did they know?”

  He pulled a printed article from the Lycan Crier, the lycanthrope news site, detailing the murders.

  “This was supposed to have been kept from the press.”

  He ran a thumb and forefinger over his eyes. “It was. We have a leak, I suspect in the forensics department. It’s being looked into.”

  I kicked myself for being so preoccupied with other Council business and putting out Institute-related fires that I hadn’t bothered to look at the news, now delivered to us lycanthropes through encrypted emails with a password. “The groups?”

  “Two guesses.”

  “The Purists and the Young Bloods,” I said, thinking of what David Lachlan had told me at the pub. “They were on my list to interview, anyway.”

  He nodded. “I will take the Young Bloods if you tackle the Purists,” Garou said. “You, being a Council member, have easier access to Cora and Bartholomew Campbell.”

  “Theoretically.” I suspected Cora had been one of the votes against me the day before.

  He shook his head. “You have a better chance of getting her to talk than I do.”

  “You could bring her and Bartholomew in for a statement. The Purists taking credit for the attack warrant their interrogation.”

  “I would prefer for them not to be hostile when I speak with them. They are more likely to treat the Council Investigator amicably than a humble detective.”

  The edge of frustration in his voice kept me from arguing, and I understood what he meant. In spite of their supposedly “love yourself no matter who you are” position, Cora and Bartholomew Campbell could out-snob most of the English when it came to social class consciousness, and that was even beyond our lycanthropic tendency to define everyone in terms of where they stood in the hierarchy. I still ranked above Garou when it came to class and old blood, even though I was considered a junior Council member.

  “Fine, I’ll talk to them, and you can tackle the Young Bloods. Do you know who their leaders are?”

  He snorted. “Of course. I have the name of their Facebook page administrator. I will start there and report back to you.”

  “Of course there’s a Facebook page. Idiots.”

  “We are monitoring i
t. Don’t be concerned—it looks like a typical LARPing organization, except instead of live-action role playing, they engage in live-action complaining about being werewolves. It’s rather amusing, actually—they drive the humans crazy.”

  “Good. I’ll let you know if Cora and Bartholomew have anything interesting to say. Oh, and I’m going to talk to Lonna and Max about the applications they’d received for the program today.”

  “I trust you will share what they tell you if it impacts the investigation,” he said, but his tone and the expression on his face conveyed doubt that he could trust me.

  “I take my role as Council Investigator seriously, Garou. I would not willingly stand in the way of your job as detective.” At least only to the extent that I’m delaying you going after Selene.

  “It is the unintentional obstruction that concerns me more, Investigator.” He stood and held out a hand.

  I stood and gave it a hearty shake. “Then you’ll just have to trust my judgment.”

  “Right. Innocent until proven guilty, as the Americans say.”

  With those words, he walked out of his office and left me to show myself out. I respected his motivation to be thorough, and as I walked out of the small office building that served as the Lycanthrope Police Station—labeled as the Council Offices to throw off the humans—I reminded myself not to be angry with him for doing his job. I also appreciated how he was letting me tackle the Institute contacts in spite of there being a reason for me not to be objective around them, namely the Institute being my pet project, as David had hinted.

  That reminded me—he had a story to finish. I called and left him a voicemail that I’d like to meet for lunch, if possible, and headed to the Institute to talk to Lonna. I also called Laura and had her set up something with Cora and Bartholomew Campbell for the afternoon, if she could manage it.