Wizard in a Witchy World (20 page)

"You need to leave," she said.

"I will. But, you need to call your Nanna. Better yet, drive out there and talk to her. She can't lie to you in person," I said.

"What do you know about Nanna?"

"You feel the truth in my words and it scares you. Talk to your Nanna, but when she says Joe can't be saved, don't listen. I don't buy it," I said.

"Your time is up."

I opened the door. "Joe has my number if you want to talk."

"Why do you think I'll be talking to him?"

"Because Joe is an honorable man." She was in no mood to hear anything else, so I moved through the doorway.

"What happened?" Joe asked, still standing on the sidewalk next to his truck.

"You're going to need to give her time to cool down. I'll help you load your stuff in the truck," I said.

"This is my house," he said defiantly.

I picked up an armful of clothing and walked it over to his truck as he watched.

"Not tonight and it's going to rain," I said.

Joe shook his head and pulled the cover back on the bed of his pickup. "I really want to kill that bastard for biting me! He’s lucky he's in jail."

"Where'd Daphne go?" The moment I said it, I realized I'd already broken my promise.

"Her name is Susan and she's just up the street."

"Hang on a second," I said. I pulled out my phone and called Leotown Bank and Trust. Joe continued throwing his possessions into the truck bed.

"David Phibbly, please," I said.

"He's not available right now. May I take a message?" A woman informed me after I'd already been transferred twice.

"No. How about Kim Munstel?"

"I'll try her for you. One moment." I tapped my foot and looked at the ground, not making eye contact with Joe.

"Who may I say is calling?"

"Felix Slade," I said.

Only a few moments passed when Kim answered. "Kim Munstel. How may I help you, Mr. Slade?"

"I was trying to get ahold of Phibbly. I have a question about the trust," I said.

"Sure. I can help with that," she answered.

"Once I pass the test, how long before I can take possession?"

"I'm not sure, but I can read through the trust and get you an answer. David said something about inspections," she replied.

"I'm coming over to the bank right now. Will you be there?"

"I will."

"Would you see if you can find Phibbly?"

"I'll do my best," she said.

I hung up and noticed that Joe had finished loading his truck. "What was that about?"

I ignored his question and handed him my apartment keys. "Take Daphne to my apartment. Make sure she behaves herself. I have something I need to take care of. And what happened to the light brown wolf?"

He glared at my reference to Daphne. "Jerry is lying low. You don't need to worry about him," he said. "You're not going to tell me what you talked to Jennifer about?"

"Baby steps. We'll talk tonight," I said and walked over to my truck.

"Seriously?"

"And, keep Daphne out of my stuff." I hopped in my truck and drove off.

I dialed Gabriella.

"How busy are you?" I asked when she picked up.

"Why?"

"I might need some lawyerly help."

"Are you in jail again?" She asked.

I laughed. "No. I'm getting some resistance from Phibbly. I think it might be because I don't talk lawyer."

"He's good, but I've heard he can be a stickler for detail. That's actually a good thing for a trust administrator," she said.

"He lied to me today."

"That doesn't sound like him. About what?" Gabriella asked.

"I asked him if he knew how the police came up with the trust document. He said he didn't."

"You're sure he lied about that? How would he even know you were being held by the police?"

"I don't know. He definitely lied though," I said.

"What do you think that’s about?"

"There was a test I had to pass to prove my family lineage."

"What kind of test?"

"A dangerous one. You remember how I told you the lycan were trying to get Clarita to open a door in the mansion?"

"Yeah…. What's this have to do with Clarita?"

"Test required I open that door. There were bad things in that basement. I think someone has been trying their best to get me out of the way. Things that I believe Phibbly thought would kill me. "

"You're serious."

"I am. There were three other claimants listed on that trust and not one of them has returned from the mansion after being vetted by the bank. At least one of them was still dead in the basement. Phibbly thought I'd be number four."

"What do you need from me?"

"I guess I just wanted to talk it out. I think that old mansion is wrapped up in this mess." I said as I pulled into the bank's parking lot. "Ahh, shit."

"What?"

"Fred's here," I said.

"The red lycan Amak was fighting with last night?"

"The same," I said. Fred was seated on his motorcycle in a parking spot next to the front door watching me as I pulled in.

"Get out of there," she said.

"I'll call you back," I said and hung up.

"Turn around, slick," the man growled as I approached.

"Probably not," I said, making a bee-line for the door.

With preternatural speed, he jumped from his motorcycle and blocked my passage into the bank. I pulled up short, inches from his face. The wet-dog smell and foul breath assaulted my nose as he jabbed his finger into my forehead. "You're not listening."

I swatted his hand from my head, which was, of course, the wrong thing to do. It can't be overstated just how quickly a lycan moves. My hand barely made contact before he'd grabbed my wrist and pulled it behind my back.

"What's going on out here?"

The automated door to the bank opened behind us and a uniformed guard stood in the entry.

"Back inside," Fred growled, momentarily loosening his grip. I used the distraction to release energy from my thumb ring. It was the same ring I'd underutilized on my first encounter with Shaggy and I wasn't about to make that mistake again. I dumped the entire energy store into the lycan's midsection and he dropped like a rock.

The older guard looked from the fallen lycan to me and back. "Not sure what his problem was," I said. "But he said he had a gun. Any chance you have cuffs on you?" I pushed a suggestion on him that I was probably an officer of the law and he bought it enough to hand me the cuffs. I pulled the gun from the lycan's belt, laid it on the ground and then cuffed his hands behind his back.

"Get inside." The guard's hands shook as he pulled keys from his pocket. I stepped over the lycan and into the foyer. The guard pulled the door closed and flipped the lock. "Heather, I'm placing Pine West on lockdown. I've detained an armed man who assaulted a customer," he said into a radio he'd pulled from his belt.

"I'll just be upstairs. I have business in the trust department," I said, pushing him once again so that he wouldn't try to keep me from leaving the foyer.

"Hello?" I said. The receptionist tore her attention away from the front door and looked at me, confused.

"Mr. Slade," I heard from behind me. I turned to see Kim Munstel approaching. "Welcome back, I was told we shouldn't expect to see you."

"Oh?"

"Yes. David said you wouldn't be coming after all."

"Weird. Is he in his office?"

"I'll take you up." She led me to the elevator and we rode up to the third floor.

"Knock, knock," I said as we arrived at Phibbly's office. He looked up from his desk, startled, as recognition set in.

"Kim, would you give us a moment?" he asked.

"Certainly," she said, looking at me for agreement. I nodded and she retreated down the hallway.

I closed the door behind me as I stepped into Phibbly's office. "What do you know about all this, Mr. Phibbly?"

"I'm quite sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"You need to come up with a new line. That's the second time you've lied to me today. You're involved in two murders and the kidnapping of a six-year-old girl. How long are you going to keep your job when that gets out?" I asked.

"That's not true. I've nothing to do with any of that," he said.

"Maybe not, but you called someone when you heard I'd retrieved the jar. Whoever that was, they sent one of their killers to ambush me in front of the bank. Your guard has him in custody and I'm sure the cops are on their way. Whoever tried to kill me is linking you to the murders so you can take the fall," I said.

"That's preposterous."

"Maybe," I agreed and pulled the jar from my pocket and set it on the desk. "Regardless, it's time to finish the test, Phibbly."

Phibbly looked at me, the blood draining from his face. To his credit, his hands were solid as a rock as he dialed the phone. "Kim, could you bring the Tenebris file?"

Moments later, she knocked gently on the door before opening it. "Is that it?" She set a file box on Phibbly's conference table and nodded at the jar I'd put on his desk.

"We'll soon see," Phibbly said, rising from his chair.

"I've been reading the charter," Kim said. "It says we place the smaller phial that was activated with the applicant’s blood into the larger jar retrieved from the mansion. If the jar is authentic, it should turn a bright blue. Is it a chemical reaction? I've never seen a paternity test like this."

"Must be." Phibbly removed the still glowing green phial from the file box and dropped it into the carved crystal jar in his hand. The glowing green showed through the jar as if it was simply glass, which I suspected it was.

"What does that mean?" Munstel asked.

"Looks like it wasn't a good match. I'm sorry, Mr. Slade. It doesn't appear to be your lucky day. I'm sorry for your trouble," he said. "Kim, would you escort Mr. Slade to the lobby?"

"Odd," I said. "But that's not the jar I brought in."

"How's that?" he asked.

I'd felt a wave of unusual energy from him when he'd stood up from the desk and it had prompted me to pay closer attention. I didn't actually see him switch the jars, but he'd shuffled his hands in such a way that it didn't take much of a guess.

"
Altum Visu
," I said, waving my hands in front of my eyes.

"What's going on?" Munstel asked.

"It's all right, Kim." I scanned Phibbly's office. As I suspected, the jar had a unique magical signature which was easy to pick up with my wizard's sight. "I think you'll find my jar in the fern."

"
Finis
," I said. Strictly speaking, I wasn't supposed to cast spells in front of mundanes, but wizard's sight wasn't a particularly obvious spell.

Neither Kim nor Phibbly moved, so I took a quick step over to the potted plant and retrieved the jar. It had been a nice bit of sleight of hand on Phibbly's part.

"What happened to your eyes?" Kim asked.

"Are our conversations confidential if I'm a customer?" I asked.

"Of course," Kim replied.

"I'd ask that you keep what you saw to yourself in that case." I set the jar on the table. "Let's give that one a try."

"David. What's the meaning of this?" Kim asked.

"Just do it," he sighed, his cocky attitude deflating.

A bright blue glow emanated from the jar as it was combined with the green glowing phial containing my blood.

"That's it!" Kim exclaimed. "It's blue. It's magic." She clasped her hand over her mouth as realization sunk in.

"Maybe we could avoid using that word, eh?" I asked.

"Really?" she whispered.

"What now?" I ignored her question. "When do I take possession?"

"It's immediate," Kim said. "I read the charter through this morning. There's no provision for inspections. Mr. Slade, you're now the proud, probationary owner of the property at 230 Happy Hollow Boulevard."

"This is a nice upgrade from the interrogation room," I said as I was dropped off at an office where Lieutenant Dukats sat behind her desk. "Does this mean I'm not under arrest?"

The police had arrived at the bank shortly after I'd finished up my business with Phibbly and Munstel. One thing had led to another and after a call to the station, Dukats had requested a visit.

"We're still checking your story. According to bank personnel, you were assaulted on your way to a meeting," she said. "There's more to it though, isn't there."

"Joe Lozano should be able to identify this guy as being one of Clarita Barrios' kidnappers," I said.

"You know we take a dim view of vigilantes, right? You need to leave the police work to us."

"I was assaulted," I said. "If it weren't for that guard, I might have been shot."

"Don't play me, Slade," she said. "We both know the guard wasn't physically capable of taking that man down. I haven't looked at the bank's video yet, but I'd be willing to bet when I do, your story falls apart. Fill me in. What’s really going on?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said. I mentally face palmed, realizing my statement was chum in the water for a curious mind like Dukats'.

"You don't think I know this has an occult angle? I've been to your apartment, Slade."

"I really can't say anything about that," I said.

"I’ll bet you wouldn't be surprised to learn I've received a call from the Feds. They insist we keep Flaeger in solitary and I suspect they're going to want me to do the same with Bothelman."

"Bothelman?"

"The gentleman you claim assaulted you outside of Leotown Bank and Trust," she said. "Both Flaeger and Bothelman lit up AFIS like a Christmas tree. The thing is, they read more like muscle for hire than they do brains."

"I've no idea what AFIS is or why you're telling me this."

"National fingerprinting database. And I'm telling you this because you need my help. You're in over your head, Slade. Feds are about to take this case and my Captain is going to shut it down. Bad guys are behind bars, case closed."

"If you know all this, why'd you drag me down here?"

"Because there's something brewing out there and it's about to boil over - all over my city," she said.

"I hope you're wrong, Lieutenant. Shaggy was bad news and I'd hate to think there's more where that came from," I said.

"You're free to go, Mr. Slade," she said.

"You don't need Joe to clear me?"

"He already did."

I stood up. "I don't suppose I could get a ride back to my truck?"

"You're at the center of this thing, Slade. Put me on speed dial and I'll see you get a ride," Dukats said.

***

I pulled a slice of pizza from the box on the broken coffee table in my living room. Joe and Daphne had ordered in and were on their third pie.

"You guys always eat this much?"

"Shifting takes a lot of energy," Joe said.

"Sue, you mind telling me what you were doing with Clarita at the mansion?"

She looked at Joe. "Go ahead," he said. "He's not going to make trouble. Right Felix?"

"I don't know, Joe. She helped kidnap a six-year-old girl and wanted to kill her," I said.

"I did not help kidnap her," she said. "I didn't even know I was a werewolf when that happened."

"But, you don't deny you wanted to kill her. I was there, remember?"

She looked at me with sadness in her eyes. "Your world is so simple, everything so black and white."

"When it comes to six-year-old girls, it sure is," I said.

"How about we try to stay on track," Joe said. "Sue, what were you doing with the girl?"

"We were supposed to get her to open the door to the basement."

"Did she try?"

Daphne … no Susan … nodded and dropped her head. "She did. Brand did. We all did. That door was stuck with more than rust. Mostly she just cried, though."

"Go figure. She'd just seen her mother murdered and was being held by werewolves," I said.

"Look pal. We all have baggage. If you hadn't noticed, our lives just got ripped apart too."

I sighed. She wasn't wrong. At some level, she had been victimized here, just as Jennifer and Joe had been. "How'd you meet Shaggy… er Brand?" I asked, trying to soften my voice.

"I waitress at a diner on I-35. He came in one night. I guess I have a thing for bad-boys. One thing led to another and we were sleeping off our party when he must have shifted and bit me. I woke up and after that, I had a hard time saying no to him," she said. "Look, I knew it was fucked up, but what could I do? I think he grabbed me so I could look after the girl. I guess he thought all women have a soft spot for kids."

"Guess he was wrong." I still wasn't ready to forgive her for threatening to kill Clarita. It felt like she was telling the truth, although, she and Joe were both hard to read.

"I've lived a crappy life and never wanted kids, so tough shit," she said.

"Tell me what you talked to Jennifer about?" Joe asked, changing subjects.

"I told her you're lycan and she should talk to her grandmother," I said.

"You told her? She's got to be freaking out. I can't believe you did that without talking to me." He rose from his chair, tossing a piece of pizza back into the box. Sue stood with him.

"Calm down, Joe. How'd you think it was going to go? You trash the house, then disappear and when you finally show back up, it's with another woman. You need to understand. This isn't a disease you take a pill for. Lycan don't get better. They ruin the lives of people around them."

Joe took my standing up as a provocative move and placed his hands on my chest.

My heart raced as I looked into eyes which had changed from brown to yellow. A low growl emanated from his chest. "It wasn't your decision." He pushed me backward and I stumbled, almost falling back into the chair.

"No? You called me, Joe. If you want to screw up your life without me, go ahead. It’s already a train-wreck. I just happen to hold out hope that you might be able to beat the odds. But you're not doing that without the help of your wife and even your grandmother. If you want to have it out, let's get after it. Better with me than Jennifer."

I stood completely still as he picked up a lamp and tossed it into the wall, roaring as he did. I could see the war within him. He wanted to respond physically, but was holding back, at least for now.

"You're pushing me," he said, his eyes returning to brown.

"No more than when you argue with your wife. You really think you're ready to be in the same room with her?"

He sat heavily in the chair and rested his head in his hands. "No. You're right. I was ready to rip your head off just then. What am I going to do?"

"You're not alone, Joe. The first thing we need to do is get Jennifer on board, but you can't push her. If she'll let you back in, then she sets the pace. For now, we need to wait for her to talk to Nanna and hope she reaches out," I said.

"And, if she doesn't?"

"We'll deal with it." I pulled a book from my shelf that had a few references to lycan and handed it to him.

"What's this?" He opened the book and started paging through it. "I can't read anything. It's in a foreign language."

"Welcome to my world. It's time to learn how to read Latin. The good news is, most of it isn't about werewolves, so you won't have too much to transcribe."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Oh, come on. Can you read Spanish?"

"Sure."

"Latin isn't that far off. Use the internet. Google will do the translation for you, but you'd be better off learning how to read it. All the material I have is Latin."

"We don't need moldy old books to tell us what it's like to be werewolves," Sue snapped. "We're living it."

"And doing a bang-up job." I turned on her. "Your first act as a werewolf was to participate in a kidnapping and your second was to beg to kill a child so you could get on with your life." It was a low blow, but I was tired of her woe-is-me attitude.

She jumped back up and swung, landing a blow on my cheek. I saw stars and stumbled in the cluttered space, but didn't go down. "Shit."

"Sit down, Sue," Joe growled. "Knock it off, Felix. You can't keep poking her like that."

Her response seemed disproportionate, but he had a point. I wasn't holding back my anger in a volatile environment and I'd received a quick lesson in etiquette.

"You're welcome to my apartment for a couple of nights. After that, you need to figure out something else," I said, nursing my jaw.

"Where are you going?" Joe asked as I started stuffing books into my satchel.

"I'll be around," I said. There was no way I was going to feel safe sleeping in an apartment with two werewolves. "Just lock up when you leave."

Once I was in the truck, I dialed Amak.

"Booty call?"

"You gotta stop that! It's not easy for me to say no to you," I said, meaning every word.

"What! The sex is good," she said.

"And, I never know if you're being compelled to do it or not," I said.

"I've had worse jobs."

"That's not helping," I said. "I'm headed over to Happy Hollow, want to do a sleepover?"

"I thought you said that was off the table," she said.

"Sex is off the table, but you're still my friend."

"I'll bring the booze; you get food. I'm thinking gyros," she said.

Thirty minutes later I pulled into the circular drive in front of the Tenebris Manerium with a bag full of gyros. I looked up at the canopy of trees as I stepped from the truck. The weak light of the late October sky a dull glow behind the leaves. Mentally, I added exterior lighting to a quickly growing list of repairs I had to fit within the thirty-thousand-dollar maintenance budget.

The sound of a beefy engine and blaring radio broke me from my contemplation. I turned to see the lights of Amak’s Jeep bouncing along the entry lane as she avoided the many obstacles on her way in. I added clearing the lane to the top of my work list. It occurred to me that I might not own Tenebris Manerium as much as it now owned me.

"So is this place yours now?" Amak asked, swinging out of the Jeep onto the ground next to me. I appreciated that she was wearing loose sweats instead of the tight, revealing clothing she seemed to prefer.

"Who's asking?"

"Just me, but I can't guarantee Camille or Liise won't ask about it," she said.

"Everything you see here is mine," I said. "Such as it is."

"I love what you've done with the place," she laughed, wrapping a long arm around my shoulders as we walked toward the breezeway entrance. "It's so... so…"

"Gothic?" I asked, noticing the stone gargoyles staring down at us.

"If that means ‘about to fall down,’ then yeah, Gothic," she agreed. "I hope you brought a lot of gyros. I'm starving."

"I might not have thought very hard about how cold it was in October," I said as I pushed through the door into the mudroom.

"It'll be fifty tonight. If we snuggle, we'll stay warm." The brat waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"If we keep it to snuggling," I said.

"Did you ever make it to the basement?" she asked. "That's the thing Liise was all worked up about, although I think she doesn't care quite so much now."

"What do you mean, she doesn't care?"

"I transferred a call from the bank to her today that I might have listened in on."

"From David Phibbly?"

"How'd you know?" she asked. "Anyway he told her that you'd been confirmed as the heir to this old dump. She pretty much lost her shit on him."

"What's her tie to Phibbly?"

"He's a witch. Part of Illuminaire," she said.

"You don't see a lot of male witches," I observed.

"Illuminaire has three of them. There are only two other male witches in the whole city," she said. "You know, I should have brought a chainsaw. We could have made a fire."

We'd made it into the kitchen and Amak was looking at the brick fireplace next to the oven, its hearth at waist level.

"You want to see what all the fuss is about?" I asked.

"Like you have to ask," she said, pulling a beer from the 12-pack she had under her arm. "Want one?" She handed me the beer she'd just pulled out.

I led her back through the solarium, its walls empty of glass and open to the back woods. I mentally added ‘sealing breaches in the outside walls’ to my fix-it list. We walked through the casual family room where we'd first hidden, listening to the plans of the kidnappers. Finally, we made our way over to the back staircase. I pushed through the lock on the first door and we went down the circular stone staircase to the main entry of the lab. I had to put the beer down to manage the more complex lock, but I finally got it open.