Drinking Demons

by Kat Bostick

  “I don’t understand why any of those reasons would make someone dislike you.”

  “I’m an interloper.” By her tone, he suspected she meant more than at work.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I imagine antelope would taste delicious.”

  Mari nearly spit coffee. “You’re ridiculous.”

  ✽✽✽

  Mari

  It was hard to be nervous when Jasper was in such a good mood. The turbulence of the last month inspired doubts about their relationship. Were they really as good together as Mari thought? Or was whatever sweetness she stayed for fading away already? Today, Jasper was doing an excellent job of vanquishing those doubts. Nothing was serious to him. That playfulness matched some easy part of herself that Mari kept me tucked away. It was the part she’d always been told was irresponsible, the part that got her into trouble. The thing was, Jasper liked trouble.

  And so did Mari. Maybe a little too much.

  “If I’m supposed to be the liaison,” Mari considered aloud, her nerves finally striking as they passed the sign welcoming them to Hibbing. “Why didn’t Charlie give me more information about this guy we’re meeting? I didn’t know the pack even had outside contacts.”

  Hibbing was the type of place she would have considered quaint before Humble Springs became her home. To an outsider, it was just another small Minnesota city with the standard collection of shops, restaurants, and historical buildings. There was a community college and a variety of grocery options—at least compared to The Post—but it wasn’t big enough for a Costco or a real mall. She knew they were famous for some mining thing, but it wasn’t thrilling enough to make the top five places in Minnesota for tourists to visit. It wasn’t so different from her hometown, actually.

  Mari wondered what secrets hid beneath that layer of normalcy. If both Klein and Humble Springs were home to werewolves and witches, why not Hibbing? If she wasn’t so skeptical about Charlie knowing and working with magic folk, she would have thought their meeting today was with a true wizard. The Tech Wizard, or the man they were on their way to meet, was very likely to be exactly what his business card claimed: Some computer guy that unknowingly did business with a werewolf.

  “Charlie knows many people in many places.” Jasper gave her a mysterious smile. “I use the term people lightly.”

  Unlike some werewolves, Jasper had no problem being considered something other than a person. It wasn’t dehumanizing to him to be called a beast. Probably, Mari was growing to suspect, because he’d always been wolf, born not bitten, and thus never truly felt human.

  Even when Lyse and her coven referred to him as a violent creation, he was only offended by the part where they wanted to use him as a tool to gain power. In Jasper’s world, werewolves were violent creations. Monsters among men. Sometimes it was surprising that he wasn’t more wicked, given his nature.

  “Werewolves are people too.” Mari, on the other hand, was still sore over the whole issue of werewolf humanity.

  “What about wizards?”

  “Is this guy actually a wizard?” She turned in her seat to scowl at Jasper.

  He shrugged, not in the dishonest kind of way, but in a genuine show of uncertainty. “I’ve never met him. Only Charlie and Cash work with him.”

  “Why not just call him, then? Why are we here? This whole thing is weird. I don’t trust Charlie.”

  Jasper’s eyebrows jacked up his forehead. “You don’t?”

  Mari didn’t doubt that Charlie wanted the best for his pack. That love and loyalty was a ferocious force, deadly to anyone that crossed him. He was genuine in his kindness, to Mari and to the people in Humble Springs. Charles Dunne was objectively a good person. Yet, there was a part of him she saw, a part of him that either Jasper refused to see or hadn’t been witness to.

  The alpha was cunning and calculated. When it came down to it, he was ready to sacrifice Mari for the sake of the pack. She couldn’t fault him for that. In his shoes, she probably would have made the same decision.

  In a way, she had.

  To have the livelihoods and safety of six other people—his children—completely dependent on him was an enormous weight. It was a responsibility that required Charlie to be cutthroat. Cold, even. That was why Mari had come to suspect that the version of himself that Charlie showed people was a carefully crafted persona. He was charismatic and lighthearted, but he played it up with well-practiced skill. There was a layer beneath that veneer of charm, a dark and vicious layer, that made Charlie the alpha that he was. That was where his true power dwelled.

  One of the very first details Charlie divulged about himself was that he was a thief. He joked about safe cracking—werewolf hearing was perfect for it—and making off with money from bank vaults, but it wasn’t the only unscrupulous way he earned his initial wealth. Charlie was a con artist. A good one. If she was smart, Mari would never forget that about him.

  He wasn’t the only one included in the charade, either. Clem and Cash were known to use phrases and words that had long since disappeared from everyday conversation. The problem was that they did it too often and the phrases they used were from random time periods, nothing that painted a cohesive picture of a specific place in history. Mari wasn’t sure if they were masking their age for her sake or the rest of the pack. She also wasn’t sure if they did it because they were much older than they appeared or because they wanted her to think that they were.

  Jasper trusted them regardless and so she did her best to as well. To an extent, anyway.

  It was becoming clear that the “no secrets in a pack” rule either didn’t apply to the Dunnes or only applied to secrets that could do harm. Or so she hoped as they drove down a main street in Hibbing. Something was off about this entire liaison assignment and it had her feeling antsy.

  Jasper didn’t share her disquiet. He was comfortable following Charlie’s lead. The alpha gave them a task and the wolves completed it. He was by no means a dictator—Charlie was open to suggestions and criticism—but he still expected a surprising amount of obedience. Maybe that came naturally to werewolves. It definitely didn’t come naturally to Mari.

  She wasn’t happy to cede control over her life that easily. She’d fought hard to get away from that when she left her father’s house. Alan Sowka was a control freak and he expected that Mari would do as she was told or else. The “or else” changed as she got older, until eventually Dad realized the consequences weren’t severe enough to thwart a rebellious and freedom hungry young witch.

  Instead, he started dangling opportunities over Mari’s head. That was how she ended up living in her childhood home. Renting it from Dad was the only way to ensure he didn’t sell it. He also made it possible for Mari to go to school without accruing thousands in student debt.

  It wasn’t until she left Klein and set out on her own that she saw just how many layers of control there were over her life. No wonder Dad was seething when she refused to come home. He couldn’t control her up here. Couldn’t keep her from doing magic, couldn’t keep her safely mundane.

  “Why don’t you trust Charlie?” Jasper sliced into her thoughts.

  “What you see isn’t always what you get with him.” She fiddled with the plastic lip of her coffee cup. “He plays games.”

  “With purpose. He’s wiser than he lets you believe.” One of his hands left the steering wheel to seek out hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

  “We’ll see.”

  The Tech Wizard storefront looked mundane enough. There was a dimmed bulb in the illuminated “T” and the tinted windows could use a spritz of Windex. Mari’s suspicion flooded back in when she and Jasper stepped through the door and a strange heaviness settled over her body. It wasn’t uncomfortable, more like the feeling of a big down comforter wrapping around all of her limbs. Maybe they just kept the heat cranked up in here.

  “What is that?” Jasper brushed his arms as if he’d walked through a spider web.

  Okay, maybe it wasn�
��t the heater.

  The interior of the shop still fit the bill for an ordinary computer repair and printing service. Ink cartridges, charging chords, and various tech items with bright red price tags decorated the open wall to the right. On the other side of the room was a vinyl top desk that walled in a long table littered with seemingly disorganized piles of computers and computer parts. It was tall enough that it almost blocked the man sitting on the other side of it from view. He was hunched over in a rolling chair, scowling at a monitor.

  “We’re here to see the wizard.” Said Mari, trying to draw the man’s attention away from his computer. He started at the sound of her voice. “I can’t believe I forgot my ruby slippers.” She chortled, realizing too late that she hadn’t even begun the meeting yet and she was already prattling nervously.

  Jasper hummed an amused noise, but tension stitched him taut. For the brief hour they were in the car together, she’d forgotten how edgy he’d been this month. She had to wonder what Charlie was thinking, sending only Jasper to accompany her to what was potentially a delicate meeting with a pack contact.

  Jasper wasn’t particularly delicate as of late.

  “Fill out the form for laptop repair and leave the computer in one of the drop boxes.” The man responded, his voice accented with what she thought was Russian. It wasn’t so heavy that he was hard to understand but his home country clung to his words in a throaty tone. A moment of silence ticked by before he cocked his head and quietly said, “But you are not here for computer repair, are you, witch?”

  Mari studied the man, feeling no obvious sign of power. She shifted her gaze, focusing not on the room around them but the magic in the surrounding area. There was the faintest glimmer of green and gold shimmering between her and Jasper, much fainter than it usually was. The rest of the room was an oddly muted blue, like when she opened her eyes after tilting her face toward the sun. Mari was relatively new to reading auras, but that definitely seemed off. The entire place seemed off.

  “Charles Dunne sent us. From Humble Springs.” She was hesitant to say more, even if he did appear to know what she was. “We came to follow up on an information request.”

  The man stiffened and when he did, Jasper did too. “Charlie sends a witch to do his dirty work?”

  Mari made a show of looking around, though this wizard or whatever he was still hadn’t turned. “Seems clean enough to me.”

  “So the rumors are true.” He finally swiveled in his chair, staring them down with almond eyes. They were the exact same color as his hair and the beard that lined his very square jaw. A long finger tapped his meaty nose twice before he stood.

  At first, his gaze was harsh and hostile as he scrutinized the pair in front of him. Then his focus fell on Mari and his stern expression softened. The look wasn’t kind or friendly, more like mystified.

  “Yup, all of ‘em.” She tapped her fingers on the desk. “What rumors?”

  “That a young witch performed her rites without a coven. The first Wolfseggner to do so in decades.” He briefly eyed Jasper then, his disdain obvious.

  “That’s weird.” Mari murmured. “I don’t remember telling anyone about that.”

  “You didn’t have to. Magic folk have loose tongues.” His chair squeaked when his weight left it. “I was approached by that Lyse, you know. She had nothing that I wanted. Witches have such overinflated egos, even as they grow weaker all the time.”

  Not at all keen to talk about Lyse with a stranger—or anyone, ever—Mari shifted the conversation. “Who told you about me?”

  “The survivors.”

  Hollow, black space yawned in her belly. She could avoid it most days if she was busy enough at work or if Clem occupied her afternoons with another lecture. It took little to remind her though, little to draw her attention back to the slimy darkness that coated her like a sheen of grease.

  Mari hadn’t meant to practice dark magic. But that knife she used to kill Lyse was born of a magic so black and corrupt that it sang with devilish hunger when it came in contact with her skin. Like some living force was captured inside of it, demanding blood and power. Mari obeyed that demand, even if her intentions had been pure.

  Now, her hands were covered with a layer of filth she would never be able to cleanse away.

  As quickly as the panic and anguish and darkness came, it was gone. Gone because she swallowed it down and stuffed it into one of her well managed boxes. There would be a time for panic later. Later when Jasper couldn’t feel her come apart. Later when this stranger couldn’t see her potential weaknesses so easily.

  Mari broke the uncomfortable length of silence by whispering, “What happened to them? Where are they?”

  Charlie informed her that three members of Lyses’ coven managed to escape. She knew they were out there somewhere and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved they had a chance at redeeming themselves or afraid they would come back seeking vengeance. That was why she hadn’t asked Charlie if they knew who survived. Of the members she’d met, Mari had a good idea which ones would be vengeful and which ones would want to disappear.

  The wizard gave her a sardonic smirk. “Should I tell the hunters where to find their prey?”

  “No, I just…” Jasper’s hand on her lower back soothed her enough to finish her thought. “They weren’t guilty of anything but ignorance and inaction. No one should have died for her sins.”

  “The Wolfseggner is merciful, after all.”

  “I guess it depends on who you ask.” She did her best to paste on a smile, falling flat with a weird grimace instead. “I’m Mari. This is Jasper.”

  “Alexey. It’s a pleasure to be in the company of a witch once more.” Alexey’s hand shot out to shake hers. Reluctantly, Mari slipped a hand into his palm. Tingles climbed her arm as it extended across the desk. The taste of wood smoke settled on her tongue. Before he could shake it, she yanked her hand back and glared at him.

  “Protection.” Said Alexey in explanation. “The magic you feel is for my protection. It’s a dangerous world for a wizard without a guild.”

  Curiosity wiggled to the forefront of her mind, bringing with it the thousands of questions she’d wanted to ask Henrick and Lyse but hadn’t found the chance to. Why didn’t he have a guild? Were there any in Minnesota? How many? How did they function compared to a coven? How did he utilize magic without actively casting it?

  She decided to settle on a single question before she got too carried away. Charlie’s contact or not, Mari shouldn’t trust Alexey. “Where does it come from?”

  “A ward.”

  “Like a charm?”

  “Similar, though this ward encompasses a location rather than an object.” He looked pleased that she was asking. “Warding is intricate and difficult. It can take weeks, sometimes months to create one like this. The ward that you detect now is my most effective. It does not come without a cost.”

  “Doesn’t all magic have a cost?”

  Alexey didn’t answer, not really. “You are younger than I expected. More innocent. Why have you not joined a coven? Or were you wisely waiting for an invitation into a guild?”

  “I—” Such a simple question had a complicated answer. “I don’t want to join a coven.” And, she realized, it was true. Mari didn’t feel that deep, empty ache created by longing any more. Perhaps she didn’t feel her fit in the pack was snug and certain, but it satisfied that gnawing need. Someday it may even satisfy her want for acceptance, if the wolves could ever find it in their hearts to truly accept her.

  “A guild then? I can make that possible and solve both of your problems.”

  “I thought guilds were for wizards.” And hadn’t he just said he was guild-less?