Page 12 of Relics of the Wolf

I didn’t have adelusionabout my identity, but I kept my mouth shut since we wanted information from her. I also glanced at Duncan, surprised to learn he might have had to ingredient hunt for me. He’d gone through more work than I would have guessed to have my potions made.

In the beginning of that quest, he might have thought to use them to get on my good side—or get into my apartment to search it—but after I’d caught him, he had to have known that I wouldn’t let him have the case, no matter how many potions he plied me with.

“I may not have mentioned that she’s blunt.” Duncan shrugged apologetically at me before following Rue into the apartment. He didn’t respond to the woman’s comment about ingredients.

“As long as she can make what people need.”

Before following him in, I glanced again at thewitchanddemongraffiti on the door. She probably didn’t deserve that, assuming she wasn’t using her power to do anything harmful to people. Since she’d mademea potion to help, I was inclined to believe she didn’t regularly put hexes on the neighbors or turn kids into toads.

“Those who know what to ask for, yes,” Rue said, waving us to cushions and mats on the floor and surrounded on all sides by stacks of hardback books with yellowed pages and tattered bindings. A square of glass rested on one of the stacks, turning it into a table with two oil lamps and a cup of tea on it. “Shoes off, please. You may relax, as I have sent my familiar off to hunt in the alleys.”

“A cat,” Duncan told me, then shook his hand as if it had been bitten. Maybe ithad. Cats did not care for our kind.

I removed my shoes, and more scents than incense inundated me as I followed Duncan to the mats. Smoke coalesced near the ceiling, and what had once been white paint was dingy gray. Countless hooks had been drilled into the drywall to support hanging plants and baskets of who knew what. The handywoman in me cringed, and I wondered if half the notes on the door had been placed by an aggrieved property manager.

“My sophisticated werewolf abatement elixir did not work?” Rue settled on a cushion near her tea mug. “You reek of lupine power and barely restrained chaotic energy.”

“Well, we were just talking about my ex-husband.” I sat on a cushion next to hers and pulled out my phone, intending to show her Bolin’s mugger on the off-chance she’d seen him before.

“That accounts for the latter,” Duncan said, plopping down on another cushion, black-and-tan checkered socks on display.

“You account for it some too,” I informed him.

He splayed a hand over his chest. “Moi?”

“He also vexed me during his visits,” Rue told me. “But he also flirted with me, as if I’m a youthful beauty, so I did not inflict upon him genital warts. As you doubtless observed during your coital times.”

“There haven’t beencoitaltimes.” I glared at Duncan.

He was still hand-splaying and looking innocent.

“No?” Rue asked. “He is quite virile for a werewolf of his years.”

“So he tells me,” I murmured.

“I asked him what talisman he wears or elixir he consumes to give him superior power to a normal one of his kind, but he would not tell me.”

“He hasn’t told me either.” I eyed Duncan, glad to have my hunch about him confirmed.

“I’m all natural, ladies. The virility is in my blood.”

“I have a talisman that allows me to sense when clients are lying to me,” Rue stated.

“Blunt,” Duncan whispered to me.

I waited to see if he would say more. I was curious about his extra power too.

“Ms. Rue,” Duncan said, “Luna’s intern was attacked by a man I don’t think is a werewolf but who has greater than human strength.” He pointed to my phone. “We thought you might know ifhehas a talisman or potion that could account for such.”

“There are many magical items and elixirs that can grant supernatural strength to a person,” Rue said. “Most have side effects. A trade-off, if you will, for the power that is shared. That is particularly true of the elixirs. Sometimes, the items do not cause physical unpleasantness, but your muscles, relying upon the magic from an external source, may atrophy over time.” She looked at Duncan again. Still wondering about his virility?

“Nothing is atrophying here, thank you,” he said. “Luna can attest to that. She’s seen me naked.”

Rue looked archly at me, as if the statement confirmed her suspicion that we were mates.

“Only when he changed forms,” I said. “We hunted together.”

“And you did not mate afterward? From what I’ve read—” Rue waved toward books on a shelf rather than in a stack, “—a bonded wolf pair will often feel amorous after a successful hunt, especially after feasting on fresh prey.”

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