Page 62 of Wicked Witch of the Wolf

Fennel meowed his agreement. He thought I had, too.

My cell vibrated, reminding me I needed to turn it all the way off before going in. If there was anyone around who might have especially sensitive hearing, I’d give myself away by leaving it on.

“Hello, it’s Betty.”

“Betty, it’s Gladys. Charlie Hannigan just got back to the bar. He says Ronan definitely took his wolf on his usual run late last night, early this morning. It’s a pack path east of here. He says he followed Ronan’s scent to a dirt road where it died out. He sniffed the path another half mile and couldn’t find a thing. He couldn’t find any of his belongings, either.”

“Nothing at all?” That seemed hard to believe.

“Nope. Sounds like he got grabbed by someone.”

“Or he went willingly,” I said.

“Could be. Though I find it hard to believe he’d just forget to tell us he wasn’t coming in. He knew the distributor would wake up Karen if they couldn’t find him. Some bosses wouldn’t care about waking her up after her working all night, but Ronan isn’t like that.”

No, he wasn’t. He was a conscientious boss who genuinely cared about his employees’ well-being.

“Did Charlie pick up any other scents I should know about?”

“Yeah.” Her voice dropped low. “You didn’t hear this from us, though.”

“Floyd’s?” I didn’t really think it would be. Why would Floyd do his own dirty work when he could just send out one of his wolf errand boys?

“No,” she replied. “Worse.”

“Mason Hartman.”

“Yes.”

Of course it was. The guy was like a contagious disease to which I had no immunity. Someone needed to develop a Mason vaccine. Maybe I’d set Cecil on the task after this was all over.

“Betty?” Gladys’s voice was shaky. “Can you get the boss back?”

How the hell did I know? I was one witch against a coven and a wolf pack.

Fennel head-butted me. Meowed.

He was right. I wasn’t just one witch. I was a smart-ass witch, a stealthy magical cat, and an ecological anarchist gnome who took the term “prescribed burn” a little too seriously.

I was the daughter of a witch who’d died to protect me and the granddaughter of a cemetery demon. I was a trailer-park manager with spaces to fill and bills to pay. And I was the “kind of” girlfriend of the best man I’d ever known.

“Yes. I’ll get him back.”

Or die trying. I didn’t say that part, though. It didn’t seem helpful.

I’d just pressed my thumb to the power button to turn off the phone when it grew so cold that I dropped it into my lap then bucked it onto the floorboards. It rang, the sound weirdly distorted.

“I was a second from not having to answer,” I muttered to Fennel.

Although, even if I had managed to turn off the phone, the call probably still would’ve come through. His power didn’t follow the rules of the human world, and he had little respect for privacy.

I snatched it up and tapped the screen. “Sexton, I know I promised to answer when you called, but this really isn’t a good time. Also, you froze my phone. Literally. Again.”

“My apologies. I forget your kind’s susceptibility to cold.” Instantly, my cell returned to room temperature. “Do you require my assistance?”

“No. Thanks, though. I’ve got this.” Sort of.

Okay, maybe I didn’t “have this,” not a hundred percent, but I’d be damned if I’d run to “Grandpa” every time something went sideways in my life.

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