Page 17 of Relics of the Wolf

“I have equipment for that, no alcohol needed,” Duncan said.

“Equipmentwon’t fortify you with bravery while enhancing your senses,” Francisco said, “but maybe your kind don’t need enhancements. You seem especially…” He squinted thoughtfully at Duncan.

“Well fortified naturally, yes.” Duncan winked, then pointed toward the hallway. “We’ll check the job board. Thanks.”

“What about you,señorita? A margarita?”

“No, thanks.”

Francisco rested a hand on my arm and raised a finger. I bristled at the presumptuous touch, but a wariness in his eyes as he glanced again at Duncan, who was walking toward the hallway, made me pause without complaint to see what he wanted.

“Yourseñor… He does not work for the Savagers?”

“No. They want him dead. Or at least for him to leave their territory.”

“He is a lone wolf.” It was a statement, not a question.

“As far as I know, yes.”

“From… the Old World?”

“I think so.” I lowered my arm, hoping to walk away without answering more questions about Duncan. If the bartender wanted information, he could talk to Duncan directly.

“He is very strong, yes?”

I thought of the motorcycles that Duncan had torn apart. “Yeah.”

“I am relieved he does not work for thelobowho comes to extort me. This one is…” Francisco drew his hand back from me and groped in the air. “Like us but greater. The same but different. More dangerous. You sense this, yes?”

If I hadn’t seen Duncan fight, it would have been hard for me to think of him asdangerous, but even when he was simply standing in his human form, his affable smile didn’t entirely hide his feral power.

“You wouldn’t want to pick a fight with him, no.” I didn’t mention how many times I’d threatened to have his van towed. It wasn’t as if I was great about following my own advice.

“No,” Francisco whispered, the word barely audible over the music and nearby conversations. “He reminds me of the very oldlobisomem. Those who came from the mountains and into the villages along the river, tomyvillage in my youth. Those who could take the bipedfuris form and whose bite spread the magic of the wolf.” He turned his head and pointed to his neck, to faint scars near his carotid artery, an old pair of puncture wounds. Fang marks.

An uneasy chill of knowing went through me. Even though Iwasa werewolf, it was because I’d been born one to my mother, not because someone had bitten me. As I’d been discussing with Duncan, that magic had supposedly faded from the world long ago. I hadn’t realized it had existed as recently as in this guy’s lifetime. Fifty years ago? Sixty? Nor had I realized our kind had been able to take the in-between form and walk furred and deadly on two legs that recently.

“I don’t think he has that power.” I looked in the direction Duncan had gone. He’d disappeared into that hallway.

I admitted I didn’t know the extent of Duncan’s powers. Just because I hadn’tseenhim change into that form didn’t mean he couldn’t, did it?

As if my thought had summoned him, he leaned around the corner and into view, eyebrows raised as he looked at Francisco and me standing side by side. He tilted his head toward the hallway—had he found that job board and something promising on it?—and crooked a finger at me in invitation.

Nodding, I stepped in that direction, but Francisco touched my arm, his grip tighter this time, as if in warning.

“Please,señorita, encourage himnotto work for your pack. They have power enough. Those like me, those who wish only to do business for the paranormal… we do not bother anyone. It is not right that we should have to pay so much to werewolves who believe they are like the mafia. Some of us fled from countries with systems like that to work in a fairer place.”

“He’s not going to work for them,” I said, disturbed that Augustus and who knew how many other family members were acting like thugs. “I doubt he’ll even be in the area long. He’s a traveler.”

Saying those words aloud sent a twinge of sadness through me. I was still conflicted about Duncan, because of his association with Chad, but he was here with me once again, being helpful and pleasant company. Something I’d been without for a long time.

“Good.” Francisco released me, relief on his face and in his voice. “Good.”

As I headed toward the hall, I wondered if I would one day learn there was more that was disturbing about Duncan than that he’d taken a gig from my ex-husband. Maybe Ishouldn’tthink of him as pleasant company.

6

When I joinedDuncan in the bar’s short hall, he was studying a cork board with mostly normal and innocuous things on it, though there were a few atypical items. A voodoo doll pinned to one corner, a tuft of fur with a phone number stuck to another, and paper promising free samples of Tooth and Tongue Tonic. A couple of business cards also glowed slightly.

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