Page 41 of Minions and Magic
“I need you to see if you can divine where Stanley is,” I told Ophelia.
Her eyes widened. “He’s gone? You don’t think…”
“Stanley?” Tink shrugged. “Maybe he went home? I was meaning to go over and talk to him, but by the time I finished forcing a couple of my packmates to talk to Alberta and Shelby, I couldn’t find him.”
“Petunia said a werewolf came and told him to meet…meet someone in the woods. Brown hair. Brown beard. Bright red nail polish.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Tink said. “I’m glad someone is reaching out to him.”
I threw up my hands in exasperation. “It’s not nice. That someone is trying to kill him. A werewolf tampered with Stanley’s car last weekend, then followed him and kicked the jack out when Stanley was under it. If I hadn’t come by, he might not have made it. This werewolf with the red nails lured him into the woods, and I think she’s the one who tried to kill him before. I need to know what female in your pack likes to wear bright red nail polish.”
I knew none of that probably made much sense, but I didn’t have time to explain it all to Tink in detail.
“Well, me, but obviously it’s not me.” Tink held up her hands. “I only do red in the fall and winter. Summer is for corals and fun colors like lavender and lime green. Unless you’ve got a formal event and a red dress, but even then I’m not a fan of the matchy-matchy stuff.”
“Tink!” I curled my hands into fists to keep from shaking her. Shaking one of the pack alphas wouldn’t be a good thing. “Who else? We need to know.”
She pursed her lips and tapped them with a manicured coral fingernail. “I remember Briarly always has her nails red. Says it reminds her of blood after the hunt. She’s romantic that way.”
“Briarly?” I wracked my brain trying to remember if I’d ever met her.
“She’s Bart’s sister. She never liked Stanley, but I can’t think why she’d be going after him now. I mean, she should be happy about his exile. She hated that they were always together, fishing and hunting, and watching those survival shows, drinking beer down at Pistol Pete’s. But since Stanley was exiled, Bart won’t even mention his name. Bart’s loyal, and Stanley’s betrayal hurt him deep. There’s no reason for Briarly to want Stanley hurt or dead. Not now, anyway.”
“Crap,” Ophelia muttered. “Stupid Mercury retrograde. I can’t get a fix on him. All I see is forest, and red, and something that looks like a rock.”
I ground my teeth in frustration. We had a name, but that wouldn’t do us any good if we couldn’t get to Stanley in time. Was he hurt? Was he already dead? His safety mattered far more to me right now that delivering justice to this Briarly wolf.
Although that was a strong second on my to-do list.
“Can you track him? Or her?” I asked Tink. “Is there any way you can lead us to Stanley? Or if not him, to this Briarly?”
“I’ll do my best to pick up a scent.”
Tink headed to the perimeter of the clearing where we were holding the party and began weaving her way back and forth among the trees and bushes, her mouth slightly open as she breathed in. Adrienne and I followed her while Ophelia went to get Cassie and Lucien, and to alert the other alphas. As we moved, I noticed Addy brushing her hand across bushes Tink had already sniffed and murmuring something.
“Mobilizing my insect friends,” she said at my questioning glance. “Insects use odor signals to communicate with each other, and their ability to detect these scents over distances as long as several miles is great. I’ve asked them to notify me of ‘food’ that came out of the clearing and headed into the woods.”
“Flies see us as food?” Ugh, that was so disgusting. We’d used Addy on occasion to keep ants away from our picnic baskets, but I’d never considered that bugs might be as interested in us as in our lunches.
“They don’t see us as food—well, unless we’re dead because then we’re food for everyone. Flies see us more as the food delivery guys. We eat meat and they eat meat. We sometimes have food residue on our clothing and skin. Our sweat and breath often smells of last night’s dinner. They’re not dumb. They know if they smell a human, or in this case a werewolf, that dinner is most likely nearby.”
Disgusting, but intriguing. “What about fairies?”
Adrienne knelt down to put her hand beside an ant’s mound before responding. “Insects don’t like fae. Well, except for trolls. From what a few flies have told me, fae smell bad. I think it’s a lavender odor, but I don’t know if it’s intentional on their part, or part of their natural scent.”
“But trolls?” I was definitely intrigued.
“Trolls evidently can change their scent pattern. Their glamour abilities are the highest of the fae, and since they enjoy gardening, they take care not to offend or repel useful insects. They like to blend into their surroundings, and mesh with the circle of life, so their scent changes from neutral to whatever balances best with their current environment.”
“I’ve got it!” Tink cried out, cutting off any further conversation on insects and fae odor.
Tink took off and Adrienne and I ran after her, struggling not to lose sight of the werewolf as she barreled through the forest. Just as she vanished out of sight, I heard a snarl that sent shivers down my back, followed by a ripping sound.
Adrienne and I burst into a rocky clearing just in time to see Tink launch herself at a werewolf in human form. The werewolf cowered before her alpha, but survival instinct overruled pack hierarchy, and in a flash the two wolves were rolling across the ground, snapping at each other. The wolf that I assumed was Briarly managed to roll free and tried to run for the woods, only to be tackled by Tink within a few strides.
Tink was a tiny werewolf in her human form, and she wasn’t as large as the other werewolf in her animal form, but the alpha was fierce and fast. Still, the other werewolf was steadily overpowering her as they rolled and bit. Knowing I’d only end up hurt if I got in the middle of the fight and tried to help, I turned away from Tink and looked for Stanley.
The other werewolf wasn’t in the clearing, so I headed to where I’d seen Briarly standing when Tink had first jumped her. Climbing a pile of rocks, I pushed myself up and onto a flat boulder and nearly fell off the other side where a sheer drop of twenty feet ended with a narrow shelf and a tree growing sideways from the rockface.
