Samhain (Matilda Kavanagh Book 2) (13 page)

“I understand.” Edwin held out his hands for the potions. “After he’s added the blood, does he need to be the one to give it to her?”

“You mean, can he foist this unpleasant task onto a lackey?” I arched a brow and watched Edwin’s lips thin into a tight line before he nodded. “I guess. I mean, it’s his mess, he should clean it up, but no, that part doesn’t matter.”

“Excellent. This is for you.” He pulled an envelope from his bag and handed it to me.

I stood in front of the door, refusing to move until I’d counted the entire amount. It was a good thing I did, because it was light by a thousand dollars. “Where’s the other half?”

“Once Mr. Fox is satisfied with your product, we will send the second payment.” Edwin tucked the vials into his bag, as if I couldn’t get them back from him.

“That wasn’t our deal.”

“I’m sorry,” Edwin said. Like magic, his face transformed. He was suddenly the guy who’d asked me to take the job at the valet stand, looking embarrassed about working for such a slimeball.

“Sorry doesn’t pay my rent or buy my silence.” I crossed my arms, tapping the light envelope on my arm.

“This is how Fox does business. If the potions work, you’ll get the other half.”

“Somehow I think that’s toad scum.”

“Ms. Kavanagh, you and I both know that your going rate for one of these potions is only a hundred dollars, so you’re really not losing anything here.”

“No, but Fox will if I don’t get the other half.” I glared at Edwin, knowing he didn’t have another cent on him and keeping him there wouldn’t do a damn bit of good. Stupid bridge dweller. “Look, if I don’t get the second half of my payment by Sunday at eight p.m., Fox will hear from me and he won’t like it. You got me?”

“Of course.” He nodded again and lifted both brows, waiting for me to get out of his way.

I opened the door and stepped back to let him pass. “Sunday night. Not one minute late. I am not the witch he wants to play games with, Edwin.”

“Thank you for your cooperation.” Edwin pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose again and turned to walk down the hall to the elevator.

I slammed the door and threw the locks into place, punctuating each one with a choice swear word. I should have known that the stupid, slimy son of a hobgoblin would try to double cross me. I’d just thought that Edwin was a good guy, a man of his word, and wouldn’t let Fox pull any crap. I’d really thought Edwin would show up with the full payment, especially after I’d knocked five hundred bucks off the total.

“Well,” I said, looking across the apartment and locking eyes with Artemis. “If he tries to stiff me, it’ll be the biggest mistake of his life, even bigger than sleeping with that woman and her
awkward ailment
. Stupid bridge dweller.”

***

Later, after not enough hours of sleep, I was back in my kitchen and busy bottling potions for my apartment full of customers. This year, I had an almost equal mix of humans and supernaturals waiting for their orders. With Halloween less than six hours away, people’s nerves were pulled tighter than violin strings.

I took care of my regular customers first, doling out pain relief potions and charms, because they were the easiest. I could get them out of the apartment quickly and give us all a little more breathing room. I always seemed to forget that Halloween fell on the last day of the month, when my regulars needed their refills. Next year, I had to be better about scheduling my appointments.

But I couldn’t really complain; I had so many orders for anti-hex and anti-jinx potions and charms that I would be able to enjoy the Samhain festival better than I had in years, even with Fox trying to short me. I would be able to buy any food or trinkets my little heart desired without counting the coins in my purse, terrified I wouldn’t make rent.

By the time I was down to the last handful of customers, my kitchen was almost too warm to stand. I opened my window and Artie jumped onto the sill, his tail flicking back and forth as he growled in frustration. He never did like it when I had too many people in the apartment.

“I know, boy,” I said as I stoppered the last three bottles of anti-jinx potion. “But they’re almost gone, and then we can curl up on the couch and watch some trashy TV. I promise.”

Artie twitched his whiskers at me like he didn’t believe me.

“Okay, here we go,” I said, walking out into the living room. I stopped short. When I’d gone into the kitchen, there were only three people waiting. Now there were five.

Two punk rock kids were standing close to the front door, eyeing the trio of gremlins on the couch. The gremlins glared right back at the human kids. Gremlins didn’t trust humans nearly as much as most of us because they were so often captured by the government. Their metal-working powers were used to develop new and inventive tanks, planes, bombs, and whatever else the government abductors could think of.

“I’m sorry,” I said, recovering quickly. “Do you have an appointment?”

The two kids looked at each other, as if deciding who was supposed to be doing the talking.

Finally the girl turned toward me and said, “No, sorry. I didn’t know we needed one.”

“Just a minute,” I said, nodding toward the kitchen table.

They were quick to take the silent direction, and they hurried past me, out of the line of sight of the gremlins on the couch. The three gremlins, a man and wife and their small daughter, were well concealed by a complicated glamour spell. They looked like average humans, even if they were at least half a foot too short. But really, who was I to call someone short?

“Okay, here you go,” I said, handing the bottles to the gremlin man. “This one you each take a swallow of. It’ll work for twenty-four hours, so if you take it at midnight tonight, it’ll get you through Halloween. Another swallow at midnight tomorrow, and it’ll get you through Samhain.”

He took the first bottle, held it up to the light, and squinted at it.

“And this one,” I said, handing it to his wife, “you sprinkle at your doorstep or wherever someone can enter your property. It will repel anyone who means you harm or mischief.”

She took the bottle with her free hand. Their young daughter clung to her other hand and peered out at me from behind her mother. When I tried to smile at her, she darted back, hiding her face.

“Thank you, Ms. Kavanagh,” the gremlin man said in his gravelly voice, touching the brim of his fedora with two fingers.

I nodded and moved to the door to hold it open for them. When they were gone, I locked the door and turned back to my unexpected visitors. They looked like human teenagers, but they could’ve just had young faces. They were both vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t pinpoint where I might know them from. The girl’s skin was so pale, I was worried she was sick, but her thick black eyeliner and bright pink lips told me that she may want to be that pale. She had light blue hair that shifted in tone until the tips were a deep turquoise. It was the kind of hair you would think a mermaid would have. Her earlobes were stretched and held open with clear plugs.

Her fishnet stockings were torn in multiple places and disappeared into purple combat boots that weren’t laced properly. She’d chosen a teal-and-blue pleated skirt that was so short, I was sure she couldn’t bend over without showing off her goods. Under her lightweight Army jacket and half a dozen necklaces, I could just make out the logo for Black Witch White Magic on her T-shirt. At least we liked the same music.

The boy was Japanese. His skin looked fair rather than pale, and his dark eyes were clear of any makeup. His jet-black hair was caught in a topknot like some modern-day Samurai. He wore boots like Fletcher’s that came all the way up to his knees, about a half a dozen silver buckles on each. His black pants were so tight, I had to avert my eyes or else risk feeling like a creepy old lady. His T-shirt was ripped to shreds, exposing slices of skin, but I thought it used to show a grinning skull. He was wearing a long black coat with a Mandarin collar that he left open, showing off his carefully chosen outfit.

“So,” I said, walking up to the table and resting my hand on the back of an empty chair, “what can I do for you?”

Again they shared a look. Clearly they hadn’t discussed their strategy before coming over. Maybe they had expected me to intuit their needs.

“All right, are we looking for a spell? Maybe a potion, a charm?” I lifted my eyebrows and looked from one pale face to the other, waiting for a response. “Maybe a glamour for the epic Halloween party you’re going to tomorrow night?”

Still they looked to the other to say something. I felt my patience waning, and I could hear my couch calling.

“All right, kiddos,” I said, throwing up my hands. “Why don’t you come back later when you’ve got your courage up and have rehearsed your script a couple of times?” I turned away from them and headed toward the front door.

“Our friend is missing,” the boy blurted, stopping me in my tracks.

I turned around slowly, afraid to make any sudden movements in case I scared them back into their temporary muteness. “I see. So you need a seeking charm then?”

They turned to look at each other, and I had to fight the urge to yell at them.

“Maybe,” the girl said, but she kept her eyes on the boy when she spoke to me.

I moved toward the kitchen. “Well, that’s the best I can do. I’m not a tracker or a private detective; all I can do to help you find your friend is make you a seeking charm. It’s fifty dollars and should only take me a few minutes. You’ll need to have something of his that I can use to invoke the charm.”

“You know him too,” the boy said. His voice was soft, like a feather drifting on the wind, but it stopped me cold.

At the edge of the kitchen, I turned to face them again. “Excuse me?”

“Our friend,” the girl said, pausing to swallow. “You know him. That’s why we came to you.”

“Who’s your friend?” I hoped against hope that they were wrong. With the werewolves fighting and P.E.A.C.E. knocking on my door with homemade bombs, I didn’t need anything else laid at my feet.

“Whelan,” she said.

The world shifted around me, and I had to hold on to the counter for balance. Whelan was a friend of mine. He had moved into the neighborhood when he started college, and he worked part time at a local record store that specialized in hard-to-find, underground music. He was going to college on a music scholarship because he was a gifted pianist. He also suffered from insomnia that I often treated with calming draughts and sleep stones. Now I knew why these two seemed so familiar; the three of them could have been members of the same punk rock band.

“How long has he been gone?” I asked.

“Three days,” the boy said.

“At first we thought he was just pulling a hermit crab on us, you know?” The girl stood, wringing her hands. “We left him alone for the first two days when he wouldn’t answer calls or texts, but we got worried and went to check on him today.”

“Yes?” I prompted, leaning toward her, desperate for her to go on.

“His apartment was empty. His cell phone was on the charger with, like, dozens of missed calls and texts. There were dirty dishes in the sink like they were some science experiment in the study of mold growth.”

“Laney,” the boy said, cutting her off.

“Sorry.” Laney shook her head, making her hair move like a wave of water around her shoulders. “So yeah, he’s just gone. None of his stuff is packed; his parents haven’t heard from him. No one has.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?” I asked, realizing that was something I should probably know.

Laney shook her head. “He always said he worked too much and had too much school crap to do to have a girlfriend.”

“Sounds like Whelan,” I said.

“Actually…” the guy said, looking at Laney. His brow was pinched as though he was debating whether or not to share his sudden thought.

“What?” I asked when I couldn’t stand his silence anymore.

“There was that girl,” he said, looking to Laney for help.

“Oh right! Bu said this one chick was coming around the record store a lot.”

“Bu?” I asked.

“Yeah, that would be me,” the guy said, holding up two fingers. “Shinobu, but people just call me Bu.”

“Ah,” I said. “So this girl?”

“Yeah, this chick was real hung up on Whelan,” Bu said, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. “She would come around every day and hang out for hours, but mostly just to moon over Whe, you know?”

“And you don’t know who she is?”

“I know she’s a Were.” Laney’s voice changed into something angry and hard.

“How do you know that?”

“Because the bitch wigged out on me,” she said, her voice rising. “She thought I was hitting on Whelan, and she followed me out to my car and threatened me with a fully clawed hand.”

“Easy, Lane,” Bu said in his gentle voice.

Even I wanted to calm down when he spoke. I had to wonder if he wasn’t fully human.

“So yeah, that’s how I know,” Laney said, her voice calmer.

“A Were, huh?” I tried to remain calm, but the bottom of my stomach had just dropped out and I felt a light sheen of sweat on the small of my back.

Whelan was a human, through and through, and only humans could be
turned.
I thought about all those smiling faces in Tollis’s camp and the huge number of humans living with all of those Weres. Tollis had sworn that no one was there against their will, but I didn’t know him well enough to just believe him. Jameson certainly didn’t trust him, nor did he believe that the humans were there willingly, at least not all of them. The unusual number of missing human teens was just too high, and I didn’t assume there’d been some mass runaway conspiracy.

More than that, I knew Whelan wouldn’t have run away to join a werewolf pack. He loved the supernatural community, but he’d never, ever talked about trying to become a Were. He’d talked about learning magic, trying to become a hedge or kitchen witch, but not a Were.

“He’s never said he wanted to become a Were,” I said, more to myself than to the others.

“No,” Bu said with a shake of his head, “he hasn’t.”

Bu’s eyes locked on mine, and we stared at each other in silence. It was good that he agreed with me. I hadn’t known whether or not Whelan had a girlfriend, so it was entirely possible there were other big things about him that I didn’t know either.