AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I angled my head. “I accepted werewolves pretty damn gracefully.”
“About that,” he said. “The wolves coming won't be graceful about accepting you. Be ready to bite back.”
???
Harry Shan's shop, Spellbound, lay tucked away among dilapidated homes and three family apartments outside Hartford. The sheriff was oblivious to the chain link fences, barking dogs and broken needles as we passed beneath laundry hung to dry across adjacent buildings. Into a narrow alley between homes we passed, straight into an ugly, weed-strewn backyard.
The man from the website stood in his silk pajamas filling a birdbath. At a flash of Caelan's badge, he dropped the hose and scurried around to shut the water off. Licking his lips, eyes darting left and right, he smoothed his white mustache with a wrinkled, nervous hand. “Whatever they sent, it was old.”
“Harry, Harry, Harry,” the sheriff sighed, rounding on the man a few steps ahead of me. “What am I going to do with you, Harry? You swore on your dear mum’s grave you’d quit.”
The man paled, tripped on his birdbath as he backed up to his house. “I did! I haven’t rented any more space to someone with luggage that leaks!”
Caelan caught him calmly by the elbow and proceeded to walk him toward the truck. “Not only was my analyst traumatized when that thing latched onto his face, the ink stained so bad we had to shift to remove it. Needless to say, my clothes were ruined.”
“I’m sorry.” Holding up his hands, Harry tried to step out in front of the sheriff. “I’ll cover any expense.”
“I really liked that vest, Harry.” Eyes square on his target, Caelan stopped and called back to me, “Marcy, my brother’s in town today, is it?”
“Yep,” I said, straight-faced. “And he didn’t eat on the plane.”
“Let’s keep this quick and easy, Harry,” Caelan said, releasing the smaller man to consult his watch. With a satisfactory nod, he slipped it into his vest pocket. “Or you might could be joining us for lunch. Bayberry General lists you as a regular annoyance on their grounds. Can you provide me with the date of your last visit?”
“Oh.” Mr. Shan tightened the knot in his pajama pants. “I have nothing to do with that wolf.”
“The date of your last visit, Mr. Shan.”
“Late December. People want Christmas miracles.”
“Ah,” Caelan said, scribbling in his notebook. “So my witness claiming to have seen your handsome moustache at the hospital minutes prior to the attack must be mistaken.”
“I haven’t addressed anyone from L’enfer Requins since you came.” Mr. Shan waved his free hand at the empty yard. “And I haven’t left my home in days.”
“Got any witnesses who can confirm your whereabouts?”
The man chewed his lip, glancing from one nearby home to the next. “I heal wounds, sheriff. I do not create them. I can give names, but they will not talk and they will see to it I never talk, either. In fact, an innocent man rests now in my shop, recovering from the bullets I took out of his leg three days ago.”
Behind his back, Caelan indicated the far side of the house. “Listen, Harry, might I call you Harry? Thank you.” He draped his arm around the old man's back, steering him past the birdbath. “We don't want to trouble you more than necessary. I don't want a neighborhood to lose a respected and honorable healing man...” His tone, smooth as a river, faded as I approached the back door.
Screen, glass, barred and locked. From what I could see through the layers, boxes and the occasional dirty plate filled the ‘shop.’
I crept to the next window and drew a cautious glimpse of the interior. A man lay reclined on a sofa, facing a television opposite me. From the angle, I couldn't determine whether he'd suffered an injury, but a gun lay on the end table beside him.
The visual didn't scare me the way it would have a couple months ago, hell, a couple days ago. Slipping back out of sight, I imagined this stranger’s head exploding the way James' had and felt sick. I didn't want to spill more blood, be it mine, Caelan's or anyone else's. I hated the feeling of killing someone, and the thought of having to use a gun again sickened me, even though I knew it was a real possibility.
I returned to Caelan and Mr. Shan, but couldn't focus on anything the men were discussing, instead replaying James’ death over and again.
On the matter of changing faces, Harry Shan offered two names. These were practitioners of what he called true dark magic, people who, his quavering voice claimed, had knowledge of the old ways that lifted the veil beyond this world and the next. If anyone had the skill to work with or for Ingram, it was them.
The first was a woman in Bridgeport who called herself Skeleta, which Caelan ordered an actual deputy investigate. The second was a man who ran an unnamed shop on the fringe Nokhurst Crossing, a large shopping district in West Hartford.
Nothing in Connecticut was far, but the shop was forty minutes from my house vs almost two hours for Skeleta’s Den of Dark Delights.
A real shaman, he was rumored to be. Witch Doctor. Fertility expert. Purveyor of exotic needs. The shop lived up to its name - or lack thereof: a black, solid door with an old scratching of a jaguar’s or leopard’s head with its tongue sticking out. For the hustle and bustle of a wealthy shopping district, this was not the kind of store I'd ever noticed on my trips. Invisibility was a good thing, I thought, as the shop bell chimed and we entered a twilight-tented wonderland. It was a marvelous night circus within, masked in purple and black striped fabric along the walls, with dark, star-speckled drapery overhead. Wire bulbs and flickering candles softened the shadowed atmosphere.
Even if I'd never seen the dead rise, stepping into this hushed world made me feel as though black roses were in bloom beside empty graves as bones waltzed beneath the moonlight. Incense, gathered herbs, and shriveled animal limbs gave the room a rotten cake batter smell.
“Hello?” I called into the quiet. A stuffed raven’s wings extended over a display of handcrafted ritual tools. I traced the lip of one hammered copper bowl.
