The sizzle of burgers and the smell of food wafting out of the diner doors reminded that I was drop down, growl and howl, starving. I was a cook one of the best restaurants ever and I could eat with the pack every morning, yet somehow, I’d managed to miss two meals. A dangerous thing for a witch and especially for a werewolf to do, and I was a rare both.

Now I was standing outside a mediocre diner, waiting anxiously to get inside and start eating. I imagined ordering a cake from behind the counter, one they had ready then to serve right away and devouring it before the meal came. Immediately ready dessert sitting in glass counters was a huge advantage to a place like this, the second was that my pack were food snobs. They’d never come to a simple diner, which meant they wouldn’t be hovering around to watch me meet internet date number, more than I’d like to talk or think about. I had enough trouble on first dates without them teasing, or even just watching with amused smiles.

It was a clear and blisteringly hot day, and I’d shown up fifteen minutes early for the date. A terrible mistake, because waiting in the heat was also helping to make me seriously cranky pants. I should have set the date earlier. I thought about going inside, relaxing in the cool AC, enjoying the free bread that came with sitting down and ice water, before I had to work at making awkward small talk with a person who wasn’t supposed to know about my wolfy or witchy attributes. 

If I said I was a cook, they would want to know where and ‘a secret restaurant exclusive to supernatural creatures’ wasn’t a great answer. So, I claimed to cater and act as a temporary personal chief for the rich. That always led to questions about who I’d met and me hiding behind non-existent non-disclosures. Lying wasn’t a great way to start anything real, but what could I do? Say, I’m a werewolf who cooked a meal for some trolls just yesterday?

I found myself hovering in what little shade the newly planted saplings along the edge of the parking lot could offer. That was the problem with clear summer days, they quickly turned into sweating and freckling. People were hurrying past me, in a rush to get from their cars and into the blissful cool of the air-conditioned restaurant where I was supposed to meet my date for brunch. I toyed with the idea of just going inside and ordering a cold drink, there was just one problem. I didn’t want to sit in the restaurant like I was supposed to meet someone, only to have them not show up. Internet dating had provided me with enough sympathetic and pathetic looks from waiters to last me a bazillion life times. 

I tossed some more of the tiny cookies I’d baked to the fairies that had taken to waiting with me. Their nearby nest was another reason this diner was a decent place to come for a meal. If something bad happened they could help and feeding them was more calming than feeding ducks in a park. 

“Nervous about your date?” Sereloo asked. The tiny Welsh fairy who’d trained me to be a witch and helped me through my transition into werewolf was throwing pebbles into a puddle of sprinkler water like a bored child, which in a way the half foot tall fairy was. There were three other fairies with her, from a nearby nest. The other reason I’d chosen to be here. It was nice to be close to potential friends if things went seriously south.

“No,” I said, to which she gave me an annoying little, I know you’re lying, look. “I mean.” I genuflected, “I clearly haven’t had the best luck dating lately.”

“Your last one blew up pretty spectacularly,” Sereloo said. “Like a burning firework warehouse. It was horrifying to behold but at the same time you’re like whoa, that’s amazing and then you can’t stop telling everyone about it.”

“Glad you enjoyed it,” I said sarcastically. Wiping a bit of sweat from my brough before it rolled down into my eyes. 

“I didn’t enjoy it, I just enjoy telling people about it,” Sereloo skipped a flat pebble over the puddle. She liked to claim that she’d appeared to the animator who’d been drawing Tinker Bell, inspiring the famous character’s design.  I wasn’t certain I believed her, she didn’t even have wings, then again most fairies didn’t. Instead, she flew around on a weed, like a witch on a broom, her red hair trailing behind her. Plus, she’d never be caught dead wearing a little dress made out of leaves. She loved sewing the most elaborate outfits imaginable. Today’s was a bright red dress, which would have put any medieval wedding dresses to shame. I felt hot just looking at the frilly thing. 

“I don’t understand why you don’t just date Jacob?” Sereloo asked. “He might be the most handsome person I’ve seen outside of the catalogs, but those guys are photoshopped and Jacob is right there with all his intoxicating pheromones.”

“Jacob’s just a friend,” I said feeling somewhat like a broken record. The truth was that I had a serious crush on the slightly older, and beautifully chiseled werewolf. Problem was, I’d only known that werewolves and witches existed for six months, just long enough to feel totally lost and confused about the way the magical world worked. It didn’t help that I felt like the pack was keeping me in a sort of bubble, like a puppy they were trying to protect. I wasn’t ready to try getting rejected in the dating world by a member of the pack I’d just joined and still didn’t fully understand. Heck, I was waiting in the hot sun at a mediocre diner just to avoid the drama of dating in front of them. Can you even imagine if I were to bring that drama home with one of their sons?

“So, you flee to the internet and search for someone who has no knowledge of the magical world?” Sereloo said.  “There’s a whole world of Fey, Trolls, Dragons, for you to date. None of which you’d have to hide what you are from.”

“Normal is safe,” I responded. Wiping the some sweat from my brow. I wondered if they had too go cups for milk shakes in the diner. 

“Safe is boring.” Sereloo shot back.

“Better boring than crazy Keith,” I said referring to the last witch I’d dated. “Remember when he wanted to have the séance with a serial killer’s ghost? Just so he could hear the most messed up scary stories.”

I shuddered at the memory of walking in on him, candles lit, skulls piled, his blood in a basin. Embarrassingly I’d just walked out but hadn’t broken up with him over that. My excuse was I was new to this world and didn’t know enough about witches to know what normal was. Should have just realized that what I wanted mattered more than what was normal. Aka. Keith was actually crazy. 

“Don’t forget the time he cheated on you,” Sereloo said.

“Or as I like to call it, rescued me by giving me an easy way out of the relationship,” I said. 

He’d likely cheated on me more than once. Apparently, he enjoyed picking up normal humans, using expensive gifts as a way to get the shallow to like him.  

I checked my pocket watch. Electronics tended to fizzle around magic, which created random electronic pulses, so I no longer had a cell phone. The guy I was waiting for was only five minutes late. It felt like I’d been standing in the sun for hours. If I went in now he might not realize, since he couldn’t’ call. So I did my best to distract myself from the heat and hunger by taking in the scenery.

The diner was at the edge of the suburbs, close enough to the mountain that my heightened wolf and witch senses could see the meadow flowers hiding among the trees. I could see a sasquatch that most people would never see. I watched the furry creature lumber its way through a meadow, pick some herb to cook with its supper before making its way back into the trees. 

I checked my pocket watch again. Only one minute had passed. It felt like I’d been here an eternity. 

“This is what I get for having to show up early to everything,” I told Sereloo.

I froze like a ‘me’ who’s just seen my worst ex, Crazy Keith. “Crudsicles, Sheep Farts, and Bear Dung.” Crazy Keith had emerged from fairyland and was waking towards me looking furious. 

I thought about running. Werewolves were so much faster than people, even in human form, heck even his broom might not be fast enough to catch me if I managed to stay below tree branches. It even entered my head to sick the swarm of fairies that lived nearby on him, but I resisted that urge. Magical assault probably wasn’t the way to go. He’d been a horrible boyfriend, but he hadn’t resorted to anything like that. Then a new thought occurred to me. This might be a good thing. We weren’t dating anymore and that meant I could really let him have it.

Keith started screaming well before he reached me. “Piper Anne Emerson!” He started by saying my full name. What a tool. That was what angry parents did, not weird exes. “I heard you asked Austin out on a date. What the hell were you thinking?”

Austin? I thought for a moment. Oh yes, the guy from the internet that I was meeting for a date. I didn’t really care why Keith was angry about it, but I figured I could use that to my advantage. 

“I was thinking, he’s cute and I’m done dating that crazy lunatic Keith so…” I did my best to sound nonchalant, but I was a little flustered. How had he known the name of my date? Had he hacked my web dating account.

“He’s my cousin,” Keith’s voice came out in a pathetic growl. Now that we weren’t dating anymore, and after negotiating with a giant the week before, his anger seemed amusing. 

Sereloo gasped and started laughing like she was watching a bad soap opera. Despite the fact that I had become skilled at ignoring fairies, I still gave the little fairy an annoyed glance. Sereloo responded by laughing harder, causing Keith to turn his scowl briefly on her. 

“Don’t worry he’s a lot nicer than you,” I said with a calm shrug. Obviously, I had no idea, having never met him and I would never have dated Keith’s cousin on purpose. In fact the knowledge of who he was made me profoundly uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to let Keith know that. 

“Shut up, you know you’re not supposed to date your ex’s cousin,” Keith yelled his face growing redder than a painful pimple, which he pretty much seemed like.

“That’s not a rule,” I laughed, still playing calm to drive him nuts before I unleashed my fury. “I’m not supposed to date my X’s brothers or best friends. Cousins are fair game. Especially when the X was as much of a prick as you were. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to worry about your feelings at all.”

“What!?” Keith yelled before breaking down into enraged spluttering. 

I smiled. This was actually kind of fun, when there wasn’t really anything at stake. 

“What in the world could he have been thinking?” Keith snarled somewhere in his crazy rant.

“I’m pretty sure he thought, she’s beautiful, and I feel bad for her. She just got out of a relationship with a crazy lunatic,” I supplied, still keeping my calm voice.

“Shut up!” Keith said again. In addition to being a crazy jerk he lacked any semblance of creativity. Why had I ever gone out with him in the first place? 

“Let’s see what he does when he gets here and I talk to him,” Keith continued to rant.

“You’re not going to talk to him,” I said, letting a bit of the wolf growl into my voice.  

“Like hell…” Keith began his next screamed sentence but spluttered off when I let my eyes go dark, allowing my wolf’s will to push against him.

I could smell Keith’s fear as he fell silent. He was trying to look away from my eyes, but he couldn’t. I had locked him up in a predatory gaze. He was the rabbit; I was the wolf. Obviously, I’d never done something like this to him before. It was wrong to win an argument with a boyfriend using one’s powers. But Keith wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. He was now a crazy guy who’d cheated on me and was threatening to make a scene in front of the man I was about to go on a date with. “You’re going to leave. Now!” I barked.

I could feel him drawing in magical energy and my heart sank. So much power. More than I would have imagined. Maybe I was the rabbit? Then, without another word, he stormed off, and I felt a rush of satisfaction as I watched him stomp away. There were some advantages to being a werewolf. Although I did wonder what would happen in a few days when Austin found out I’d dated his cousin. Keith would probably say something eventually, being intimidated by me wasn’t exactly like hypnotism, but it was close enough. Which meant that my influence would eventually ware off. Besides, social media and gossip would eventually bring it out into the open, even if Keith didn’t. 

I bit my lip and checked my pocket watch again. My yelling match with Keith had only taken about a minute. Meaning, Austin was now seven minutes late. That was enough time for me to leave without being rude, right? I wished I had a phone and was thinking of dropping by my own cousins how to have her message him when I smelled something that made my heart drop.

A vampire.

I looked up to see her walking towards the restaurant with a hypnotized, oblivious looking young man. She smelled a little like salami. That is to say preserved meat, not exactly rotten but clearly long since dead. She had on an expensive perfume so that humans couldn’t smell what she was, but that added fragrance of spices and musk’s just made her smell more disgusting to someone like me. She glanced at the boy next to her like I would look at a hamburger. I felt a growl rising in my chest. This vampire might as well be going out on a date with Thanksgiving dinner for all she cared about the naive looking man next to her.

“Hello, Piper,” the young man called to me and I felt befuddled for a moment. Who? “Its Austin,” he said, and with that I recognized him from the picture my cousin had printed out for me. “Kathy here said it would be fun if we had a triple date.”

The growl returned. The vampire, ‘Kathy’ had mesmerized Austin and come to the date so that she could make me feel bad. Not that she’d known or cared who I was, she would have been just as happy to make any random stranger feel bad. Vampires could be jerks that way, or so I’d been told. Again, I’d only been in this world for six months so my encounters with anything outside of the fairies I fed and the werewolves I worked with were minimal. 

I wanted so desperately to tear that smug smile from the vampire’s face. To grab her by her own throat with my wolf teeth and teach her what that felt like. This wasn’t the first time I’d encountered something evil that I wasn’t certain I could defeat, and this wouldn’t be the last. In six months I’d lost my temper and ended up getting myself stupidly hurt twice already. I felt like one of those yippie dogs, a pug or fat bulldog that kept trying to chaise bears away. Basically, I was the chihuahua of werewolves. 

Still, this time I hesitated. I’d never been in a fight with a vampire before, much less one who looked so certain of herself as she strode towards me. The vampire paused part way to me, her eyes focusing on Sereloo for a moment then shot back up to me uncertainly.

I hoped I looked as smug as she did. The vampire clearly wasn’t very observant. She’d had no idea I was a witch until now; I was betting she’d be doubly shocked when I told her I was a werewolf. 

“Walk away,” I growled at the vampire. Austin looked startled and the vampire’s eyes narrowed.

“Is bitty wittle witch worried that I’m encroaching on her bitty territory?” the vampire said in a baby voice meant to grate. 

It worked. But the words also took me back. Talking about witches in front of someone who wasn’t supposed to know they existed. At least I didn’t think he knew. He didn’t smell like a witch, even if he was cousins with one. 

“Poor bitty little witch,” the vampire continued.

Something in her snide attitude caused me to just loose it. I sent a blast of energy racing towards her, which she deflected easily enough, but it was distraction enough for me catch her by surprise when I leapt at her. 

The Velcro that held my sundress together separated as I expanded into a wolf-human hybrid. Austin screamed, as did one or two other people nearby. The startled expression on the vampire’s face made the lapse in judgement worth it, however. She back peddled away from my teeth. I saw her purse swinging at the side of my head, right before it smacked into me. 

Pain exploded in my head. My ears rang like a broken fire alarm. Pain wasn’t enough to stop an enraged werewolf, however. I kept going, however, super chihuahua me, I tore into the vampire’s side with my teeth and got hit upside the head again for my troubles. The blow was hard enough that I smacked into the sidewalk with a sick thwap. There were flashes of light, as I struggling dizzily to get up. 

Through the pain and the stars, I was vaguely aware that Sereloo hit the vampire with a spell at almost exactly the same moment the vampire had hit me, knocking her to the pavement. Then the swarm of fairies I’d been feeding came screeching in their war cries echoing around the parking lot. The vampire scrambled away from them on the ground for a few paces before popping into the shape of an owl. I struggled to my feet and tried chasing after her, my wolf throat rumbling in a drawn out snarl. I continued the chase even after she’d flown into the air and it had long since been pointless to do so. 

I turned back around. Austin was long gone as was basically everyone else. I sighed. They wouldn’t remember what they’d seen for long, at least not exactly. They might think a dog had attacked someone or that they’d seen this in a movie. Magical events don’t stay in the minds of normal people for long.

Police sirens wailed. Crud. Someone had been cognizant enough to call the police, however. Careful not to rip it I scooped up my sundress and underthings with my mouth and bolted before they arrived.

Eight blocks away I hid in someone’s toolshed. Crouched next to stinky lawnmower I returned naked to my human form. Being a werewolf is filled with very unglamorous moments. My dress had a little oil stain on it, whether from the shed or the parking lot I couldn’t say. The Velcro tearaway style made it easy for my clothes to pop off when I transformed but it still meant I had to spend time putting the clothes back together. A process not helped by my shuddering hands. 

I had to find Austin, and soon. The vampire could return, could go after him again. Heck, she could come strolling into this shed at any moment, as could the owner. 

Sereloo was standing watch outside the door, but it wasn’t like she was going to attack some innocent person who happened to be walking to their own shed. 

A glowing wisp of light floated into the shed and dropped a small piece of note paper in front of me, then vanished. 

“Keith,” I scowled, recognizing the overly fancy notepaper immediately, but remembering that Keith was Austin’s cousin I decided to read it.

“Austin is safe with me,” The letter said, followed by, “He only remembers something about a wild dog, nothing about you transforming.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and managed to get dressed a little quicker. I passed the paper on to Sereloo. Ordinary people almost never remembered magical events properly, and eventually what he did remember would seem like nothing more than an odd dream he’d had once. With Austin safe, I found a door into fairyland, and stepped through what to most would appear to be empty air, and into the fairy world. 

Here, in fairy land, the trees were twisted. Like giant bonsais. There were so many spirits and fairies they became part of the background, like an enchanted Times Square of little creatures. Most weren’t hustling past, however, most were content to sit and watch, and talk, and occasionally laugh. I hurried along a maze of short paths, reemerging into the human world outside my pack’s homes. Fairyland acted as a short cut between points in the mortal world. Allowing me to travel a dozen miles in a few moments.

My pack lived hidden in plain sight, in what appeared to be a few, ordinary looking suburban homes. At least ordinary looking on the outside. Inside they had steel plates for walls, to protect us from spell fire, medieval looking weaponry, and hovering magical balls of energy instead of electric lights. Each of these houses was connected by a large underground room that made them essentially one home. 

We were pack, which meant very little privacy, a concept I wasn’t quite used to yet. The other werewolves had been born into wolfdom and so they didn’t see the need to keep much of anything private. Even teen werewolves didn’t have secrets. It wasn’t unusual for them to date right there in front of their parents, or to tell me things that made me flush and I would rather they had kept secret.

I might have many of the instincts of a werewolf, enough to inure me to the worst of the lack of privacy, and keep me from going bonkers in the house of share everything. Still, I’d been human for twenty two years before that. I enjoyed some privacy, which is why I was the only one, besides the wizard they’d hired to help with magical problems they or I couldn’t solve, who had their own room.

I breathed a sigh of relief the moment I crossed the threshold. It was nice to be back in the den after today. 

“How’d it go?” Liza asked a little after I’d stepped inside. The living room of this particular house was right off from the entrance. Meaning I was now in full view of the three werewolves sitting there talking. 

“I’m as hungry as a squirrel who’s been accidently trapped in a car overnight,” I said be way of response. Yes that had happened and yes the squirrel had been furious, I still had the scars to prove it. 

She frowned. “Is not eating during a date a human thing? Because it seems like half the point of dating is to have an excuse to eat better than normal.”

“That’s the whole point, otherwise you could just chat on the phone,” er. I Couldn’t chat on the phone anymore. “Otherwise you could just fling paper airplane letters at each other.” 

This last part was said with a slight edge of anger, but it made her laugh anyways.

“I’ve been dating a really nice werewolf,” Liza said. “Always brings more than enough food for the whole family to gorge, perhaps he has a packmate or a friend.”

“Thanks, but I’m just going to get something to eat,” I said. Yep. Terrible way to end the conversation, I know. In my defense, it had been getting into territory I wanted to avoid. Dating in front of everyone. I’d witnessed Liza’s dates. Her boyfriend was nice, and I defiantly enjoyed the food he brought, but I wasn’t ready to have my date with more than a score of opinionated werewolves. 

I strode into the basement, not the giant room connected the houses, the one where we stored the cured and curing meat, and smiled hungrily at the alluring scent of hams. The secret to perfect food is creativity and patients, and in the case of cured meats, a lot of patients. The prosciutto I pulled from the ceiling had been hanging for almost a year, half a year longer than I’d been in the pack, flavors growing ever more interesting with age.  

I could even feel my canines enlarging slightly in anticipation of the feast I was going to treat myself to. I carried the prosciutto up to the pack’s kitchen where I found Jacob slicing a multitude of ingredients. Sereloo’s mention of possibly dating him had been an insight into my darkest, deepest, but probably not so secret desires. Even the sight of him was enough to make my heart flutter.

He was hot. You know, the wiggle your toes, doodle your names together repeatedly, People Magazine cover hot. 

Sereloo smiled at my momentary pause to stare at him working. 

Pause over I hurried the rest of the way into the kitchen, ignored the deli slicer we had, it cut the meat far too thin for how hungry I was, and just hacked off a thick slice of meat with a large butcher.

“I take it someone’s hungry,” Jacob said as he looked up from the steaks he was prepping.

I showed him my canines. “Honestly, I was so tempted to just start ripping hunks of meat off with my teeth like it was an oversized turkey leg.”

“Just a sec,” he pulled out a camera and pointed it at me. “Go for it, it’ll make an amazing picture for a behind the scenes with our chefs.”

“Can you imagine?” I laughed. “Check out our ravenous cook. She needs big tips to feed her oversized appetite.”

“See, the ad campaign writes itself.” He grinned at me. “I wonder if this camera can take a billboard sized photo? Cause ad needs to be visible from space,”

I groaned, ate the first hunk of prosciutto and then sliced off another hunk, then went to the fridge to get something to cook with it.

“Here,” Jacob said as he flipped one of the steaks, he’d been cooking onto my slice of prosciutto. 

Wow it smelled so good. “I couldn’t,” I said, but I was already sprinkling some of the gorgonzola and mushrooms he’d cut over the top of it. 

“What are you making?” I asked through a mouthful of steak that had a rich flavor I couldn’t quite place and prosciutto. He was so astounding at cooking, practically a local celebrity for the food he made at the restaurant. 

“Experimenting, with nut flavors mixed with meat,” he said. 

That clued me in to the fact that the flavor I hadn’t quite placed on his steak was walnut with spices, and it worked really well with the meat. I didn’t enjoy it perhaps near as much as I should have, however, given that I ate it as fast as a dog that wants to finish the roast on the table before anyone sees them.

“Thank you,” I told Jacob. “It was amazing.”

“You should try experimenting on a few?” he said. Tossing me a package of raw steaks.

“Me?” I arched an eyebrow. 

“You brought the prosciutto for something,” he said. “You didn’t tear into it like a dingo into a kangaroo, so I assume you were thinking of cooking it in some interesting way.”

Really, I hadn’t been planning to do anything with it that other people would want to eat. I’d just wanted to throw as many things together that I liked as I could and start feasting, but I decided that it might be nice to cook with him for a while. The sizzling of frying the prosciutto with a steak, mushrooms, chestnuts, and mozzarella was mesmerizing to my hungry mind. Cooking had become far more enjoyable since I’d become a werewolf and could smell so many more complex flavors and Crafting new foods was something the Wolf Gastropub was known for. I enjoyed being a part of that. 

“I smell something burning,” someone said as they walked into the kitchen. “You must be thinking pretty hard,” Brandon said as he came to stand beside me, laughing at his own joke.

I caught Jacob’s eye and we gave each other a bemused look. Not because the joke had been funny, so much as because Brandon’s reaction to it had. The alpha of any pack is essentially the father of that pack and Brandon lived up to that. Not only by being father and grandfather to most of the members but also by enjoying his own terrible humor. I smiled at him and shook my head. It was hard to believe by looking at him that he was hundreds of years old and Jacob’s great grandfather, werewolves didn’t age so he so he looked like he was Jacob’s age. Although they didn’t look that much alike. Brandon was surprisingly baby faced, despite the fact that he was by far one of the most clever werewolves in the region. Even the alpha’s of other packs would sometimes differ to him. 

“Some of the fairies told me you ran into a vampire,” Brandon said.

Jacob gave me a startled look. “You ran into a vampire and you let me talk about trying to enhance the flavor of nuts in dry rubs?”

“The vampire wasn’t that big a deal.” My statement might have been more believable if talking about the encounter hadn’t caused me to start shaking. “A swarm of fairies attacked her, Sereloo blasted her with a spell, I bit her, not in that order and she freaked out and ran away. Problem solved.” I’d tried to at least have a clam voice to match my words but, that was anxious too. 

Still, it was nice to note that Jacob actually looked impressed and I would have loved to bask in that look, but Brandon looked far more concerned. I braced myself for a lecture. 

“You did the right thing,” Brandon told me. “I want to make that clear. It’s our job to protect people who have no hope of protecting themselves. If you encounter a vampire stalking someone, you should try to drive it off, if you can, and clearly you could.”

I was so shocked by his approval that it took me a moment to stop waiting for a lecture and breath a sigh of relief. This was followed by a slight feeling of euphoria. As a werewolf, approval from my alpha could make me beam as happy as toddler getting a high five for a finger painting. Was this silly? Sure, but that didn’t detract from the emotions. 

“I’m going to assign someone to watch over you, in case the vampire seeks revenge,” Brandon continued in his calm dad voice.

I blanched internally. Warm, fuzzy, emotions over. For some reason his assigning someone to watch me felt far worse than a lecture would have. 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I told him. With much more snark in my voice than I actually wanted there. You know cause I’m the chihuahua of werewolves, I sort of have to bark at nothing, even if I instantly regretting it. 

“Not a babysitter,” Brandon said, his voice growing a touch more no nonsense. “A bodyguard, like Merral Streep or Lady Gaga would have.”

“Ooo ra ra,” Sereloo sang a chorus, prompting Jacob to smirk. 

“Jacob,” Brandon said. “You’re watching Piper for at least a week.”

“What?” I asked my heart racing. Sereloo grinned and winked at me out of sight of Brandon and Jacob. 

Swamp water. I think I must have started flushing. Either Brandon didn’t notice or simply ignored what I was sure was a growing redness to my cheeks. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure her Gaganess stays safe,” Jacob said with an exaggerated bow.

“But why him?” I asked but then bit my lip. Questions like that could bring to questions about my feelings about him. Which were far too positive to spend every waking hour with him for a week. Yet, I wasn’t ready to have that discussion. 

“Jacob has already fought off two vampires, one without any help, and a half dozen other monsters,” Brandon said. 

Wow. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that caused the butterflies in my tummy to stir even more. I shot Jacob an impressed look. “And all you talk about is cooking?”

Jacob smiled at me. “Cooking is an art, so far more interesting then capturing the monster flavor of the week. I mean, if you ran into Walt Disney would you ask him about his time in the Red Cross during WW1 or the comedic timing of Donald Duck?

 “I’d like to think I could talk about both,” I said.

“Hey!” Brandon commanded. He didn’t say it very loud, but he didn’t need to. When he spoke with authority even the chihuahua of a wolf inside of me sat up and listened. “You don’t leave her side for a week,” he told Jacob. “Clear?”

Jacob nodded and so did I. 

“Now you can go back to flirting,” Brandon said. I flushed and the butterflies in my stomach turned into a flock of giant flamingos. Okay, I guess I had been flirting, but there was no way Jacob had. Was there? I looked over at him out of the corner of my eyes, trying to assess his mood. His beautiful, beautiful face was marble. Like a Greek god playing poker. 

Brandon said goodbye and left us in awkward silence, while I was trying to assess Brandon’s mood. Just like a father, say something embarrassing then leave everyone to shuffle uncomfortably in their wake. 

So, um. I thought. Thank goodness I avoided saying my stammered. ‘I have no idea by what he meant by flirting, were you flirting?’ I wanted to blurt out. 

Instead I found myself hand grinding nuts into creamy sauces, mixing in spices in uncomfortable silence for a solid five minutes before we started talking again. It took me a little longer than I care to admit to realize that Jacob had clearly been embarrassed by Brandon’s words as well. Did that mean he liked me as well? Or that he was embarrassed of the idea of me liking him? Or was this a case of a father figure like Brandon embarrassing their great grandchild? 

None of that matter for too long before we started having a pleasant conversation again. Pleasant enough that we sort of lost track of time. At least I did.

The kitchen door was practically ripped from its hinges as Nataly whooshed into the room like a tiny red-haired whirlwind. She was wearing a blue couture dress like she was planning to walk the runway, or attend a movie dinner party in the 1950s, which was pretty typical of her. Not the attending dinner parties, the over dressing for things. 

“Hey Jacob, the others wanted me to find out what was taking you…” Nataly began before stopping when she saw me. “I see, you’re babysitting the stray,” She said, her voice just snide enough to feel like she was scraping fingernails along my spinal column. 

Nataly had the build of a beach volley-ball Olympian with hair so thick and perfect I hated it. Her eyes shifted back and forth between us. Reminding me for all the world of a shifty over the top cartoon character trying to figure out what evil to plot. I half expected her to give an evil chuckle when she figured it out. 

Jacob scowled at her but somehow, she was able to ignore that. “Piper has been helping me fix dinner” he said.

“Hmmm,” Nataly said, moving her lips in such a way as to make them pouty as possible. I imagine in hopes of looking more attractive for Jacob? I really wasn’t certain what she was thinking most of the time. “Well if you’re giving private cooking lessons. I’d love one.”

“Sorry, he’s playing bodyguard for me all week,” I said. Yeah, okay I felt a little more smug about it than I should have but Nataly had been rude to me since day one. She was an extremely talented wizard, with more knowledge jingling around in that evil little head of hers than I could imagine. Thus they’d hired to help the pack, so she looked down on me as just, as she put it, ‘a lost puppy they’d found.’

“I’m sure he doesn’t want to play games with the puppy every night,” Nataly said. “Surely he could take a break for some grownup fun.”

Wow she was almost as shameless as he seemed adorably, but also worryingly, clueless to her advances.

“It’s not a game,” Jacob told her. “Vampires are serious business.”

“Vampires?” Nataly asked her voice growing anxious. 

I pulled the last of the steaks off the grill, putting it on one of two large platters of them to bring out to the pack, and our guests. In addition to the normal restaurant we also had a system of inviting certain fairies, witches, and wizards, to dine with the pack. Relationships were at a premium in the magical world after all, as had been proven by the fact that I’d essentially been rescued from a vampire by tiny fairies. Nataly didn’t need to know this part of the story, however.

“I might have kicked one’s keaster,” I said flippantly enough to annoy her. Even if the thought of the encounter still gave me the chills, I couldn’t let Nataly know that.

“Brandon’s worried the vampire might seek revenge, so he told me to watch Piper for a week, probably more,” Jacob said as he scooped up a pile of plates. “While you’re here could you help carry the plates?” He asked Nataly.

The expression of shocked dismay on Nataly’s face was so ridiculously satisfying. I gave her my best, obviously fake innocent look, while I scooped up two platters of steaks to take out to the pack. I was grabbing the vegetables, when Nataly huffed out of the room holding some plates. Jacob left a little after. 

“Being attacked by a vampire might be the best thing that ever happened to you,” Sereloo said once Jacob was gone. “Well, second best thing to meeting me, of course.”

I paused just before leaving to give her an incredulous stare. “How could that possibly be good?” I asked.

“You get to hang out with Jacob for a week,” Sereloo said. “I recommend reminding him that by your side at all times can include shower time.”

“Awk,” I made a sound that lied about how appealing I found the idea of showering with him. “I was actually wondering why was meeting you was so great?”

The tone in my voice was teasing. And Sereloo rolled her eyes at what had basically been a joke. But I couldn’t help but worry. She had made every relationship I’d had since meeting her just that much more complicated. A thousand years old she might be, but she still had a childish view of relationships and she was practically always with me. Everyone called her my familiar but in truth I was more like her witch. That is, I worked for her, kind of. The bond was much closer than that. Regardless, she was pretty much always around.

“Shower thing aside, you should defiantly go swimming,” Sereloo continued. “A lot.”

The images that brought to mind, of Jacob and what I imagined were his perfect washboard abs in a swimsuit were pleasant, but also a little embarrassing. For one thing, I would be in a swimsuit with him. I was saved myself from further such discussions when I exited the kitchen, stepping into the dining room where twenty-seven members of the pack and some Fey guests were waiting, not at all quietly. The rest of the pack was out patrolling the community or working at the restaurant.  

Before I’d become a werewolf the thought of sharing a home with so many others would have driven me crazy and I still wasn’t entirely used to the idea. The wolf inside me, however, wanted to snuggle up with all of them in one large den, like a box of puppies. The human that I mostly was, was glad they’d given me my own room. 

Oh, Shakespeare’s ghost! 

Was I going to be sharing a room with Jacob? Was he going to sleep at the foot of my bed in wolf form or drag another bed in there? I wondered if Brandon had even thought about the fact that unlike nearly every other pack member I wasn’t related to him. He’d mentioned flirting, so maybe?

I could hardly look over had Jacob as he sat next to me. Sereloo sat cross-legged on the table itself, and a green toothed Fey with cows’ ears and wet reeds for hair sat next to me. He was just an inch taller than me, so slightly short for most men but not tiny by any means. 

“I’m Thergot,” he introduced himself.

“Piper and Sereloo,” I said, nodding at my familiar. 

We paused for a moment to pray. 

“And this must be the infamous Jacob,” Thergot said, leaning forward slightly to greet Jacob who had forked over a steak for himself. 

I began eating with gusto. Yes, I had just eaten but that was lunch, this was dinner, and there was no way I wasn’t going to try one of the steaks that had been baked with a puff pastry around it. Plus, I was still trying to determine how to bring up the sleep situation with Jacob. 

“Infamous how?” Sereloo asked, sharing some of the food from my plate. 

“Jacob fought off a whole clan of nixies that had been causing trouble in the area,” Thergot said. “With them gone my clan was able to expand into their lakes without any effort.”

“You make it sound like I didn’t have half a pack helping me,” Jacob said, sounding somewhat embarrassed by the praise.

“Credit goes to the leader,” Thergot said. “You drove off our rivals and now we have more elbow room.”

Jacob ate a few quick bites of food. “As long as you know, hurting humans is off limits in our packs territory,”

“Thergot held up his hands consolingly. “That lesson was projected loud and clear,” Thergot said, before laughing. “I imagine a lot of creatures are nervous about muscling into this territory now.”

I furrowed my brow. Another event I hadn’t heard anything about. I was very defiantly starting to get the feeling that the pack had been keeping me in the dark about some of its more adventurous activities. Perhaps this was there way of keeping me safe? I felt a mix of angry and hurt. I was a part of this world now, keeping quiet about how things worked would probably just get me into trouble, so I was going to have to confront Jacob about it once our guests had left. 

The pastry shell around the steak was perfectly crunch and flaky, perfectly complementing the melt in your mouth soft steak were the prosciutto, mushrooms, and hazelnuts inside. 

“You are a genius,” I told Jacob after swallowing my food. 

“You made that one,” he reminded me. 

“You made the pastry wrap,” I told him.

Sereloo giggled. “Their cooking just complements each other perfectly. Don’t you think, Thergot?” She asked the nixie who was busily eating his own steak. A similar one that had been marinated in a nut-based sauce.

He nodded emphatically. “They make a perfect pair,” he agreed, probably not understanding that Sereloo was teasing me by dragging him into this. “This meal is excellent.”

I flushed. See? Sereloo’s always being there could make things far more embarrassing. 

“Oh, right. I’m bringing some food to the fairies who helped me today,” I told Jacob.

“I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to go waltzing back into the vampire’s territory,” Jacob said. “We’ll have someone else do it for you.”

“I’m not going to thank the fey who saved my life by sending someone else to say thank you,” I said. I didn’t say it but given that Nataly was the packs wizard they would likely send her to talk to the fairies, and I defiantly didn’t trust her to act on my behalf. 

“Sereloo,” Jacob appealed to the familiar spirit who didn’t bother to swallow the food in her mouth before talking.

“I’m pretty sure that Gaga tells her bodyguards where she’s going and they just have to deal with it,” Sereloo said with a wink.

“This is why being a babysitter is so much better,” Jacob groaned. “I could sit you in a time out whenever you talked back.”

“Trust me,” Sereloo said. “Babysitting Piper would be far, far worse than just following her into a vampire’s territory to bring a gift basket to the fey.”

Thergot was pointedly eating without looking at this exchange, although he defiantly had a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. See, this is why I didn’t like having personal conversations here.

We had over a dozen guests in addition to the Thergot, a troll, a pixie, and many others I couldn’t quite place. After eating I got to mingle. I started talking with a fairy, that looked like a stripy cat children would name Tiger, except sadly, her name was Elota. She did have hands and some mushrooms growing along her back to set her apart from a normal cat. Apparently, word of my adventure that day had spread far and wide, as had the fact that I’d been at the restaurant to meet a blind date. 

Ugh. 

“You don’t know who you’re going out with at all?” Elota asked, her voice confused by my explanation of online dating. After a second her eyes brightened with realization. “Does your mother arrange it with their mother? She asked. “Like through a series of gossip chains?”

I inhaled a little of the lemonade I’d been sipping, choking at the amusing thought of my mother gossiping with her office to try to find me a date. If that’s the way the world worked I doubted any of them would ever manage to get any work done. 

“No,” I shook my head. “It’s all just done through computers.”

Elota cocked her head uncertainly, her eyes confused again.

“Human magic,” Sereloo said. 

“Oh,” Elota said. “Human magic is so strange, like I don’t understand how you can just light a fire. I mean, one moment your nose feels like it’s going to freeze off and the next moment there’s a toasty blaze for toasting biscuits on a stick.”

I shrugged, not certain how to respond. Experiences of the fey and witches who lived deeper in fairyland were so different from my own past that we often spent most of the time trying to explain things to each other. For example, it turned out that humans had a lot of magical powers they didn’t realize were magical. Most Fey couldn’t light fires, make crafts, do art of any kind, or cook nutritious meals. Which was one reason our Gastropub was so successful. 

“So, the vampire showed up with the boy you met through human magic,” Elota prompted me to continue the story. 

Apparently, a number of my packmates and Fey had been waiting for the ‘good part,’ because they all turned to listen more closely to my story at this point. My face grew warm from the attention. Even warmer when they all laughed at how I’d lost my temper, and warmer still when the clapped at the part where the vampire ran away as if it were the epic climax to a Shakespearian play. 

“You should have swept this Austin off his feet,” Elota said her voice gushing. “Romance heroes are supposed to carry their loves off for a romantic respite after they’ve defeated the villain.”

“He ran off and Keith found him,” I said.

“That’s going to be one of the most wonderful terrible first date stories ever,” Brandon said.   

I cocked an eyebrow at the Alpha, uncertain exactly what to say. 

“Terrible first dates are the perfect conversation piece,” he said. “Funny, relatable, and this one has the added benefit of making you heroic.”

It’s very defiantly won me over,” Thergot said, his amused smile no longer hidden. 

“Me as well,” Elota said, her cat tail swishing back and forth. “I presume you’re still going after the vampire?”

Uh. Was I? I looked at Brandon.

“The pack will be looking for the vampire,” Brandon said. 

He didn’t include me, as in, she and the pack, just ‘the pack,’ so I assumed I wouldn’t be involved. I was very much okay with that. One fight with the vampire had been far more than enough. “Good, good,” “Good, good,” Elota said. “I’m pretty good at sniffing out violence.” She said this last part with a disturbing amount of excitement. Like a football spectator talking about never missing one of their teams games. “I’ll see if I can find this vampire of yours.”

“Thank you,” I said. More and more glad that I wouldn’t be expected to fight, because I had a feeling that Elota was going to spy on the battle, or maybe just show up with a bucket of popcorn and a giant foam hand. 

  

Despite the fact that the sun had set it was still warmer for a hike than I would have liked. Jacob had decided that most of the routes I would normally take through fairyland were too dangerous, as there were far too many smells for us to easily pick out the vampire from among them. As a result we were strolling along the sidewalk. Jacob walking just a touch ahead of me and off to the side. Although I couldn’t see it, I imagined his eyes were darting back and forth. Every once in a while I could hear him take in a deep breath through his nose.  

Jacob seemed nervous about the passing cars. This deep in the burbs there weren’t a ton of them. Still, Jacob’s pack had only recently chosen to integrate with human society. From what I understood, most witches and werewolves lived so separated from humanity, spending much of their time in fairyland, and might only see glimpses of cars on occasion. 

The night had come alive with the smell of magical creatures. I’d never imagined how vibrant the world of scents could be before I’d become a werewolf. Through the blowing breeze I could detect fairies trying to court each other, a young witch who was excited that she’d finally learned a particularly complex spell. At least I presumed that’s what she was excited about. I could smell her exuberance and the fact that she was casting the same spell, over and over again. I could even smell humans having ordinary but beautiful moments. Families together. Young couples walking their dogs. 

I couldn’t see most of this, so I had to piece together what was happening. A far better puzzle than crosswords ever were. I did occasionally spot some of the fairies as well, they mostly avoided entering the halo cast by the streetlights, but my eyes were better at picking up their forms in the dark than a human’s would be. I scowled as we went past Keith’s house. I could smell him primping, he had some new and terrible smelling cologne. I mean just awful. Like a grapefruit had a child with a musky skunk bad. Thank the stars I’d escaped that relationship. It was faint but I could also smell Austin in his house, at least I knew that he would have some protection, in case the vampire returned. Keith might not be great as a human being, but he was a powerful enough wizard that he worked entirely in the magical world now, no side jobs in the human world to make money. 

A tooth fairy was squeezing under the door of a neighboring house. Unlike the myth they didn’t leave money, instead leaving blessings for the child. Blessings humans frequently squandered, of course. 

“A lot more goblin’s than usual,” Jacob said nodding out the window. I glanced to see that sure enough, the knobby, deformed fey were creeping between houses.

“You think it’s something to be concerned about?” I asked. The goblins weren’t a single thing but a multitude of fey that had become twisted through anger and greed until it had become obvious that they no longer fit in normal fairy society. 

“I’m not sure,” Jacob said. “It’s not uncommon for goblins to be attracted to places where vampires and evil sorcerers are active. They’re opportunists who take advantage of the distraction caused by bigger concerns to steal from ordinary humans.”

“So, more opportunist than dangerous themselves?” I asked hopeful. 

Fairies were morphable creatures. Their appearance shifted to reflect who they were. At least to a point. Goblins were fairies that had become twisted and obsessed with wealth, that despite being smaller than a raccoon, they managed to look terrifying. The one I’d seen had looked like a half melted walk figure. One side stretched with a droopy side of the face and one arm that was elongated to a creepy extent. 

“Usually, they aren’t a problem” Jacob said. “It’s more concerning that they would show up at all. Perhaps the vampire’s managed to be more active than I would have thought.”

That was concerning in and of itself. We weren’t that far from the den, we should have heard something if the vampire had been here for a while.  

Another few blocks and the Hag of Queens Hill (named after a the hill we were currently walking past) flagged us down. She looked like a witch from nightmares, her skin was like a toads back, covered in rough, weird wart like petrusions, and a splotchy greyish green. She jittered her teeth together like she was shivering, the clacking sound was unsettling. 

Unsettling or not, we turned to walk respectfully towards her.

“If it isn’t the pirate wolf,” the hag said between teeth jitters. I’d never asked but I presumed this nick name was due to the fact that I had a black patch over one eye while in wolf form. 

“Arrg,” I responded somewhat playfully. I even managed to keep the anxiety she caused me out of my voice.

The hag’s face wrinkled with a frown. “You’re on my land again.” She said it like there weren’t thousands of people living on her land. Sereloo said she’d likely chosen to pick on me as a way of molding me, and insuring I wouldn’t become too big for my britches. Yeah, like that was a danger. 

I sighed. “Which is why I brought you a sandwich,” Technically I might have been able to debate whether I could come here without her permission or not. Each piece of land was owned by multiple layers of beings. There were the original spirits of the land, the tutelary spirits, and the Fey, the witches and wizards, and sometimes the beings like the hag claimed it as well. Even so I figured it was better to just try to maintain peace as best I could. 

“Your far too picky in your quest to find someone to make googly eyes at, it keeps bringing you trouble” the hag said after I’d handed over the sandwich, which had been slathered in mustard. The hag loved mustard but hated garlic and fennel. Yes, vampire rules applied to hags as well.

I tilted my head at her choice of words to express whatever it was she was trying to say. Hags tended to have a fairly dark view of the world. Like bears they might mate but they rarely mated for more than a few minutes before returning to their caves alone. 

“Werewolves and people like careful relationships that we can make permanent,” I said.

“That’s silly and flouncy,” the hag growled. “Like all humans. Interrupting my sleep with their noisy machines.” She imitated the sound of heavy machinery used in construction. “So much work to make a place to live, just dig a hole in the ground already.”

I didn’t bother explaining how ridiculous an idea that was. Once () got grouchy it was best just to let her complain. She did for a solid five minutes before hobbling off, still muttering about the ridiculousness of people. 

The diner where I’d encountered the vampire was far more crowded now that it was getting late, than it had been earlier. There was even something of a cluster of people waiting outside the doors, likely for a table to open up. I was rather surprised by this, although I always did lunch dates. Dinner was with the pack and our guests, or working shifts at the restaurant.  

“What a romantic place he picked for your first date,” Jacob commented, a little sarcastically as we got out of the car. I think he was probably just teasing me, but sometimes it’s hard to tell.

“I picked it,” I said, to which he gave me a surprised look. “Is someone kind of a restaurant snob?” I asked, smiling at him.

“It’s fine for what it is but I’m a chef,” he said with a shrug. “You’re a chef. Do you think Mozart wandered across town to listen to a bar singer?”

“Maybe if he want to keep his hanging out at a bar a secret,” I said.

Jacob nudged my shoulder with his, while flashing me a grin. “The fairies from dinner, the hag, Brandon. How the keeping your love life a secret working out for you?” 

I fluttered my lips like a horse in response.

On a moment of inspiration, I steered towards the entrance of the restaurant, giving Jacob a noncommittal, “You’ll see” answer to his inevitable question about what we were doing. As the number of cars and the people outside indicated there was a huge crowd of people inside the restaurant waiting to be seated. They only had two small benches and everyone else had to stand. The restaurant had no ambiance lighting at all, being lit like an office. The décor was more functional than anything else. Yet, it reminded me of childhood birthdays and fishing trips with my parents. Things I suppose Jacob had never done in a place like this. Perhaps that’s why I felt the urge to defend it. 

The people were all dressed casually. Jacob was right on one score. This wasn’t a typical dating spot. The people were families, married, business people traveling, or those who had been dating for a long time and now just got comfortable bites to eat. 

“This is where people choose to go when they are comfortable and happy with life,” I told Jacob. “No need for pretense.”

I ordered a six slices of their chocolate cake to go. Again, there was an advantage to a place that had dessert in a glass counter at the entrance. Busy as it was, there would still be less of a wait.

“Dating after college is like getting a Christmas present from the great aunt you haven’t seen in a while.” I told Jacob once we were standing, waiting near the entrance. “You never know what you’re going to get, but odds are it will be far too immature for you and nothing like your taste at all.”

Jacob snorted. “I had a date who tried to hire me as a hitman to get back at their ex.”

I made a sour face. “Yeah, that’s hilariously bad, as Sereloo would say.” The fairy in question chuckling to herself. “Despite it all, I actually like blind dating.” I told him seriously. “I get the chance to know someone who is so different, sometimes bizarre. It’s better than a modern art gallery. Everything is weird and confusing, but at their core there is a larger, beautiful story.”

“That’s one of the things that makes you so amazing,” Jacob said. 

I gave him a quizzicle look. Was he being sarcastic? Mocking me? Perhaps I was paranoid through the years of social conditioning known as bullying. But when someone responded by calling me amazing, after I said something unusual about myself, I got defensive. 

“Somehow you’re always able to see the world as fun and interesting,” Jacob answered the look I gave him. Then his voice grew kind of sad. “I gave up on dating so long ago all I remember is the aggravation of the experience.”

After picking up my cakes I handed Jacob one of the little boxes. “Dessert is the first rule to a better postdating experience,” I said. “That’s why places like this, with an insane variety of amazing options are a must for first dates.” I took a bite of the cake and exaggerated my reaction. It was an amazing slice of caking. Focusing on meat and sides I didn’t quite understand how they could get a bread to be as creaming as the ice cream they hid in the layers of cake. “After all, if someone is going to lie on their online profile, they can at least make up for it by buying something sweet.”

The fairies clearly knew we were coming because they had gathered anxiously beside the road. Their little feet waddling back and forth on the lawn, their short tails waggling. They reminded me of penguins at feeding time in the zoo. Which if you haven’t seen, you should really check out. It’s terrifying and adorable to watch them catch fish.

Jacob took a bite of his own cake and his eyes actually widened. “Wow, this is actually impressive.”

That was all the endorsement the fairies needed to rush us. We spent the next few minutes cutting up cake and giving each fairy a slice of the slices. They were small, so when the cake was included with the meat and cheese we’d brought it didn’t take much to fill the fairies into a relaxed food crash. Soon the lawn was littered with the little fairies, laying, sleeping, or chatting contentedly with each other and us. 

I sat down among them as well, despite the dampness of the grass. Jacob, however, remained standing. Apparently taking his role as bodyguard very seriously, his eyes, nose, and ears continuously scanned the area around us. 

“Ready to go?” Jacob asked after a few minutes. 

I said my goodbyes to the clan of fairies, and left them a little more cake. Once more, we were strolling along the sidewalk.

“I don’t understand why we live so deep in the suburbs, I mean the mountains are back there,” I said pointing a thumb behind us. We’d been driving for about twelve minutes. Getting further and further from the beautiful mountains as we drove through intersection after intersection and into the part of the suburbs that all felt uniform. I mean, we’d actually passed the same coffee house franchise three times, and it wasn’t like we were driving very fast. “It would be nice to roll out of bed and stumble out into the forest.”

“It would be,” Jacob agreed. “But it’s easier to keep track of what’s happening in town if we’re actually in the town.”

“I guess,” I sighed as the repeat coffee house franchise came into view yet again. “I just miss being able to go out bird watching, fishing, and bow hunting every day,” I said.

“I didn’t know you went,” Jacob said. He had more to say, but the smell of the vampire in the night air had caused me to stop listening. Worse than the vampire was the tang of someone’s fresh blood. The vampire had attacked someone else, someone not able to defend themselves.

“The vampire,” I called as I bolted through someone’s yard before  Jacob or Sereloo could respond. It was probably a stupid move on my part, but I couldn’t just let the vampire attack an ordinary person. 

My heart racing wildly, I leapt over a high fence, and sprinted across a back yard, leaping over another fence. Jacob caught up to me, now in his red and smoky grey wolf form. 

Right, I’m faster as a wolf. Feeling somewhat sheepish at having forgotten my second form in the panic of the moment I changed shape, my Velcro clothes ripping and dropping away, except for my skirt which somehow got caught on my hind foot. I shook my back leg a few times, unable to understand why just come off. Then after leaping another fence I gave up trying to kick it away. 

The smell of the vampire and blood was coming from a house that couldn’t be described as anything more than a mansion of the Mc verity. It had all the fancy architectural features just sort of crammed haphazardly together, in a blocky, unappealing but looming form. The kind of place people have made when the find success in an unexpected job, like successful plumbers or construction contractors, rather than being born to wealth. 

I ran round the house, following Jacob’s lead by jumping onto the garage and jumping into a window the vampire had left open. The vampire was already gone. There was another concern, however, the smell of the body they’d left behind. I poked my head out of the window and whined at Jacob to let him know that the vampire could wait. He looked at me, then after the direction the vampire had gone, snorted once, then followed me inside. 

The living room was much more tastefully decorated than the outside of the house would have led me to believe. I could smell the presence of three other people in the house. A woman and two children. They were downstairs while the body I was smelling was on the third floor. My heart clenched at the thought of them coming home to find their husband and father dead. 

I rushed up the stairs to the third floor, where the blood was, my claws clicking on the wood floors. 

Jacob and I reached the top of the stairs at the same time and I practically screamed, but in wolf form it came out more as a whine. 

Sitting at the desk, doing something on the computer was the corpse of the person the vampire had just killed. Was he a zombie? A newly made vampire? Did vampires smell like corpses immediately after being made?

The body put his hand to his chest in an overly dramatic imitation of someone who was startled and made the terrified O with their mouth as if he were a robot following at a simple program, or more disturbingly, an alien practicing miming human behavior. He then went back to doing something on his computer as if we weren’t there. I stood frozen, uncertain what to do. I’d been expecting a body laying on the ground, drained of blood, not one sitting at his computer.

I looked at Jacob, my eyes as questioning as I could get them. Jacob ran to the window and pulled down the large curtains, tossing me one, then transforming under the other which he deftly tied up in a toga. I followed suit. Except the deftly part, I’d never tied a toga before so mine was wrapped around me more like a towel.

“It’s an automaton changeling,” Jacob said. “Left to cover up the fact that the person who lives here is missing.” Jacob looked at the computer screen. “What exactly is it doing?” He asked. 

I walked over to the screen. “I think its buying bitcoin,” I said, taking a step closer to the computer, holding on to the curtain I had wrapped around me to make certain it didn’t fall down. I felt ridiculous, standing there, practically naked with Jacob, and I’m sure my face was pink as a baboons hind quarters.  

“Bitcoin?” Jacob asked uncertainly. 

“A way of hiding that fact that he’s stealing the human’s money,” I said, giving the simplest explanation I could think of. “I thought changelings were made of leaves and mud, this thing smells like a body,” 

I took a nervous step towards the thing. It didn’t even flinch, which made it horror movie creepy.

“It is just mud and leaves. But its fueled by a small piece of the person’s ghost in them so they smell like death,” Jacob said. 

“The real question is, why would a vampire want money?” Sereloo asked. She’d flown right up to the changeling and was actually touching it while examining it. “They’re usually perfectly content to hide out in a cabin in the woods, maybe steal a little cash for when they go to a restaurant, that sort of thing, but I’ve never heard of one going out of their way to become rich.”

Jacob started searching the changeling’s pockets. It just sat there, like nothing was happening. “Look around,” Jacob said after coming up with nothing. “There has to be something that will tell us a little bit about this guy.”

I pushed the changeling, his rollie chair sliding him away from the computer. The fastest way to learn about the guy was probably through his computer. This close to the tech the screen started sputtering with static. One little spell from me and the whole thing would die faster than a teenybopper party hosted by grandparents. 

I hadn’t exactly been a computer whiz before becoming a witch but as with everyone else this guy’s social media account passwords were all memorized by the computer, allowing me easy access. 

“His name is Steven Gandar” I said. My heart sank at the pictures of him playing with his two children. The children I could hear and smell and hear playing right just downstairs. “He is a co-owner of a construction firm Gandar and Johnson Construction.”

I tried opening his email, but the computer couldn’t take my presence for long, so I barely got to scan the subjects when it shut itself down. 

The changeling wordlessly slid back into place when I was done and started trying to turn the computer back on. The magic that had been used to create it was all locked up inside its form, so it didn’t generate the static that I did and was able to, after pressing the power button repeatedly, get the computer to turn back on. 

“Shouldn’t we stop it?” I asked. I didn’t like the idea of the vampire robbing their victim blind. 

Jacob shook his head. “The changeling can only keep this form as long as the man it replaced is alive. I don’t know why a vampire would want so much money, but if we stop the changeling from doing this, the vampire will no longer have a use for the victim and will probably kill him.”

I pursed my lips. I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. The changeling was still blank faced as it entered the computer’s password. 

“It doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job pretending to be human,” I said. 

“It’s not made to fool us,” Sereloo told me “It has all the memories of the person they replaced, so around the missing man’s family they’ll do an adequate job.” She thought for a moment. “It will most likely play sick. Sick people aren’t expected to act normal and can spend most of their time being left alone in bed or at their computers.”

The computer was booting slowly. Probably because of the sudden shutdown I’d caused. I wondered how long it would take for the changeling to finish robbing Steven Gandar? More importantly, I worried what would happen to the real Steven, to the father of the children who were currently watching a child friendly scary cartoon downstairs. 

In a moment of inspiration, I cast a quick spell to cause the computer to glow for a second. It really didn’t matter what I cast and that was one of the easiest spells. The computer made a popping sound and as the power surge burned it out.  

“You can get another one in the morning,” I told the changeling who barely reacted to what I’d done.

“Ah, the wanton destruction approach, it’s the perfect way to get the job done,” Jacob said.

“The longer it takes the changeling to finish the longer the person the vampire took will be alive, right?” I asked.

“Hopefully,” Jacob said. “The vampire wanting money is basically unprecedented, so it might just realize that it doesn’t need this much and move on.”

I was hoping for more certainty than that, but I guess hope was the best I could do right now. 

Without a computer the changeling was just sitting there blankly now. I hated leaving that thing behind, but Sereloo assured me that it wouldn’t hurt anyone. We morphed back into wolves and went back out the window, leaving the curtains behind. 

We gathered up our clothes and found the darkest yard we good, then got dressed on opposite sides of the hedge for privacy. 

“I want to go looking for the vampire,” I told Jacob as I was velcroing the dress back together.

“The vampire knows your smell, and besides, I can’t act as a bodyguard if you’re running after the creature, I’m supposed to protect you from,” Jacob told me. 

“I can’t just do nothing,” I said my voice rising.

“Tshhh. Not so loud,” Jacob warned me. “We don’t want the people turning on their porch  light and looking out here.”

No, I did not. But I wanted even more to be involved in searching for Steven and the vampire who’d taken him. I might not be the strongest werewolf or the most powerful witch, but I couldn’t sit by, being protected forever, while the pack went running around purposefully fighting vampires, ogres, and nixies. 

Sereloo and I traded a look, letting me know that she was on board with investigating what had happened by ourselves if need be. 

The old house was creaking when I woke groggy the next morning.

“Hate mornings as much as I do?” I asked the house as I got out of bed.

I cast a spell to prevent the sounds in the room from escaping it, instantly burning away a little of the silvery magic by my bedside. 

Much as they’d tried to reassure me that the pack and Fey would track down the vampire, I felt responsible. I should never have let the vampire just run away to hurt someone else. But I’d decided I wasn’t going to argue with Jacob, and certainly not with Brandon, about whether I could be of help or not. There was a reason that the vampire was stealing money. Sereloo had stated that a witch or wizard was most likely behind this reason. The problem was, the werewolves and the fey didn’t even know what bitcoins were. I wasn’t an expert, but there was no way they could try to follow the money to figure out what was happening when they barely even knew what human money was, and had never touched a computer in their lives.

I made my way over to the mirror that hung from my door. I could imagine in wolf form and literally curled up against the outside of that door, ready to shatter it if he smelled or heard anything out of the ordinary. 

I took a brush to my staticky hair. It would be better to do this in the bathroom, of course, but that was across the hall. I just needed to make myself a little more presentable. 

“I defiantly look like someone who fell out of bed,” I whispered. My eyes were puffy, and my hair was all over the place. 

There was a slight creaking sound from the house.

“Who asked your opinion anyways?” I responded to the house. It wasn’t actually talking to me. I don’t think. I was just being playfully grouchy. 

“Who are you talking to?” Sereloo asked, her voice still sleepy. 

“Sorry,” I said. Pausing to make certain Jacob hadn’t woken. He was still breathing as though asleep. My spell seemed to be holding.

I’d discussed what I was planning with Sereloo the night before by passing her notes, like a kid in school plotting a childish conspiracy. In some ways I worried that my sneaking out a window in order to track down a vampire would come off as childish. Like a bad 80’s Halloween special. Except with real, and very serious potential consequences. 

Sereloo had loved the idea, but that didn’t help me think it wasn’t childish. Still, what was I supposed to do? Wait at home, wondering if fairies and werewolves born in the middle ages had come to a solid enough understanding of modern and technology to figure out who might be stealing the money and converting them to bit coins? 

Hair combed I changed into another sundress. They were comfortable and by far the easiest thing to deal with if I changed into a wolf. I had pockets of magical ingredients hidden around my thighs. Silvery nuggets of luck, a bottle of lightning, a tiny jar of wind, and a few other things that would burn away when I cast spells. I used a tish of the luck to help make it less likely that anyone would be watching when I lifted the metal shield from the window so I could jump down. It was a twenty-foot drop, but my werewolf legs absorbed the impact like it was nothing. Hopefully, by the time anyone realized I was gone, I’d already be at Stephen Gandar’s offices.

The morning birds started singing shortly after I’d dropped to the ground, meaning I’d timed my escape just right. Vampires didn’t burn up in the sunlight. Instead, the sound of morning birds singing made them fall to the ground as if dead. They wouldn’t be able to move for at least three more hours. Meaning I had nothing to worry about as I made my way through a series of fairy paths towards my cousin’s house. Well, except for the fury Jacob was about to bring down on me. 

“This is so great,” Sereloo said. She was currently flying loopedy loops on the tiny stick she used as a sort of witch’s broom. I couldn’t wait until I was strong enough in magic for my own broom. “I never would have expected you to have so much, initiative.” 

“Hey, that’s kind of insulting, I replied. Then had to admit. “Yet somewhat complementary because I’m clearly very good at jumping into things headfirst without thinking about it.”

“Losing your temper doesn’t count,” Sereloo said. “Even badgers can do that. This is you thinking ahead and deciding to take a huge risk all by yourself.”

“I can take risks.”

“Oh, I could never go out with someone in the pack,” Sereloo said in a near perfect imitation of my voice, all be it with an obnoxious lilt. 

I scowled up at her as she flew upside down right above my head. “I don’t sound like that.” 

She laughed in response. “On the other hand, I suppose going on crazy date after crazy date is sort of planned masochism.”

“Ugh,” I responded. 

I stepped through a tree, leaving the suburbs and entering the ancient forests of fairyland. Small Fey hurried around overhead, or merely sat on tree branches in little clusters, looking out over the woods and talking. This world was much larger than the human one, but there were paths crisscrossing it that allowed one to travel from much faster than they normally could in the human world. 

My cousin lived in a teeny house at the foot of the mountains. The spot I would much rather have lived. I could smell a deer not far off in the trees, one which no doubt walked into her yard every once in a while. 

The doorbell played a goofy little folk song when I pressed it. I could hear Betsy stirring in her bed, but not getting up, so I pressed it again, then again. Inside Betsy stumbled out of bed, grumbling. I could imagine her stumbling around, sniffing at clothes to find something to answer the door in. She opened the door in a t-shirt had clearly been worn the day before and brightly colored shorts. Her dark, normally straight hair was staticky, some of it hovering to the sides. 

“Piper?” she said like it was a question. “Do you know what time it is?”

“After sunrise,” I said as cheerfully as I could muster.

She just glared at me.

“I’m hunting a vampire, so mornings are safest,” I told her.

That got her attention. “Come in,” she said, walking away from the door. Betsy’s house looked a little like an old lady lived there, all be it one obsessed with gadgets and gizmos. Raspberry Pi’s and other computer parts sat in neat sections for tinkering, among antiques collected from relatives who had passed on from two continents. Betsy couldn’t stand to just toss anything, so when asked to clean out a Grandmother or Great Aunts home she kept the little knickknacks that otherwise would have become trash.

“How are you Sereloo?” Betsy asked. 

“Piper’s getting more interesting by the day, so I’m doing spectacular.”

Betsy smiled. She didn’t have a drop of magic, but we were so close, it wasn’t like I was going to keep my discovery of the magic world a secret from her. More importantly, she served as a link between me and the world of tech I’d been shut out of. Mostly she did very simple things for me, like setting me up with internet dates. In return I gave her little magical baubles. Things that could warm her tent when she was out camping, for example.

“I need you to look up Gandar and Johnson Construction,” I told her, “then maybe give me a ride to their offices.”

Mmm she yawned, walking a good twenty steps from me to check her phone, while I outlined what had happened the day before. Betsy scribbled down an address on a piece of notepaper and grabbed her car keys.

“Oh. I almost forgot,” I said reaching into one of my pouchy pockets. I precured a little bird shaped whistle. “This will call a bird to you and allow you to give it instructions. It’ll work three times three times.”

“You witches love math too much,” Betsy said as she followed me out the door to her Jeep. 

“Math is magic. One of the greatest wizards of all time was known for her great powers of algebra,” I said.

“Algebra, great magical powers? Don’t tell Miss Warner.” 

I laughed as I got in the back seat of the car with Sereloo. “You can’t still be afraid of her? We haven’t taken algebra since. I’m not even sure what junior high grade.”

“You used to be afraid of spiders and they don’t even bite,” Betsy shot back. 

She started the car and started driving. “So I can’t help but notice you don’t have your pack with you,” Betsy said after we’d gone for a good minute.

I looked at Sereloo uncertainly. “I’m asking forgiveness rather than permission.”

“She works for me anyways,” Sereloo said. “Familiars get dibs on witches; the pack is secondary. Everyone knows that’s the deal.”

“I see. So that wasn’t a covert sneaky look you shared with each other?” Betsy asked dryly. 

I looked away somewhat guiltily. “I might have crawled out a window without them knowing,” I said in almost a whisper.

“You just like tripled my enjoyment of this,” Betsy said. “Now I’m a spy and vampire hunter’s chauffeur, I’m totally writing a fan fic about myself.”

The offices of Gander and Johnson were in one of those office parks that looked like the architects had been trying to immolate glass high rises except none of the buildings went higher than three stories, making them look more like a giant had accidently left some blocks in a parking lot, than the intimidating and impressive high rises they were meant to immolate. At least the view of the mountains, was pleasant, and there was a fresh smell of trees, even if there were only a few scattered around the parking lot and next to the building. 

I thanked Betsy for the ride and let her go. I had no idea how long I was going to be, and there was nothing she could do if I got into trouble anyways, and she had to get to work.

“It’s sort of a cheap reflection of one of the glass cities of fairyland,” Sereloo said disapprovingly. “If you’re going to try to do that, you should at least build glass trees.”

“I think the builders of the original glass building just wanted to reflect the world around them,” I said. Stopping as we got closer to the door. “This place smells of magic.” 

“What kind?” 

I sniffed the air. “There are a lot of fragrances. I’m not certain. None of the magical creatures seemed to use the front entrance.” I sniffed again and strolled over towards the side of the building. “It smells like they all went in and out through the back.” 

I took another breath, this time to steel myself. I’d come this far and there was defiantly something off about the building which I assumed meant I was on the right track, so, no turning back now. I could see a security guard right inside the door. Large, chiseled and intimidating looking. Is bulk hardly mattered, however, I was a werewolf. I could look intimidating when I needed to. I took three strides forward and pushed the doors and nothing happened. 

Oops. Feeling silly I pulled the doors open. I wasn’t off to a great start in attempting to appear intimidating. 

The moment the door opened my nose was assaulted by a dozen different smells, making it difficult for me to place them. The place literally reeked of magical creatures and a wizard’s magic, and I do mean reeked. There was the stink of goblins who had clearly been in and out of this building a lot. There were half a dozen smells I couldn’t place and a few more I could. The strongest smell was that of the a troll, letting me know that the security guard wasn’t human. No, not completely human, he was likely a mix, part troll and part human.  

The security guard looked the part of a troll. Not one of the ugly ones that lived in the wild as a part of the natural world, one of the beautiful ones that were seeking to overthrow the Asgardians and destroy the natural order. Despite his polyester uniform and clip on tie he looked the part of destructive god. His face was stunning, like an actor from one of my childhood romcoms, only with more world-weary maturity. He was clearly well muscled, hard like a Marvel hero who lives on a diet of boiled chicken and exercise. 

The part troll flinched when he saw us. I could see his hand moving towards his pocket, but he didn’t quite reach in and retrieve the knife I imagined must be in there. By in large guns are useless against the supernatural. Their mechanics are too easy to mess with, most of the times when someone shoots at a werewolf the gun won’t even fire. 

“May I help you?” the security guard asked, his voice overly calm, belying the tension we all felt in this moment. Why would someone with so much potential magic be working security at a rubber stamp office building? For that matter, why would this building reek so much of magic? Stephen and his family had smelled normal enough, so we’d just sort of assumed his offices would be too. It was nerve wracking wondering what other surprises might be waiting for me, yet I felt relief knowing I’d been right to check this place out. 

“We were hoping to speak with Mister Johnson,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice formal, in an imitation of an important professional. 

The troll glanced towards someone who was obviously human, they were standing and waiting for the lobby elevators just twenty feet to right. The troll looked back at me and stood silently until the man stepped onto the elevator without realizing that we’d been waiting for him to leave so we could speak freely. 

“I don’t think I should let a fairy of the Night Court and her witch into the building” the security guard said.

Oh right, Sereloo was part of Gwyn’s Court. Lord of night and winter in Wales. I sort of always forgot that part. 

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “A werewolf and a witch?” He asked with a second glance at me that obviously told him what I was. He shook his head. “I’m pretty certain that Mister Johnson wouldn’t be comfortable seeing you.”

I felt off balance. I’d sort of assumed I’d just be able to use my powers on a mortal guard, if there was even anyone gatekeeping, and waltz on up to Johnson’s office for a chat. I defiantly hadn’t been expecting to be rejected by a troll of all things. 

“This is important,” I said, taking a step forward. Despite having flinched on seeing me earlier the troll now stood his ground, his face hardening with resolve. Great, that’s all I needed. A confrontational alpha male hoping to demestrate what happens when I smack into an immovable force in a public lobby. 

Time to take a different approach. “Mister Johnson’s business partner, Mister Gandar, has been replaced by a changeling,” I said putting on my best concerned face. “His children could tell something was wrong with him, and…” I tapered off my lie dramatically like I was choking up. Acting is an important witch skill. Magical creatures, and well most humans really, are suckers for emotional stories. So far as I knew ()’s kids likely hadn’t been able to tell a thing so far. I hadn’t even spoken with them. My statement and acting did have the desired impact. The guard’s expression softened. 

“I just want to find out who might have wanted to hurt Stephen, so I can get him safely back,” I continued. My voice dripping with concern. My performance was played to perfection because it was grounded in truth. I was worried about Steven.

“Fine,” the guard said after a moment. “But I’m going up with you.”

The elevator ride with the muscle flexing troll was nerve wracking but thankfully short, Gandar and Johnson’s offices were only on the second floor. That is, they turned out to be the entire second floor, a cubical farm with the actual offices along the back wall. There was a secretary without a whiff of magic. The guard introduced me as Misses Wolf. At the guard’s urging the secretary allowed to go back to see Mister Johnson with relative ease. Apparently, Johnson had given the guard a lot more influence than security would normally have. Or perhaps the guard had taken it.  Trolls did have magical means of persuasion open to them.

There were a few curious glances as we walked through the cubical farm, and while most people’s desks were decorated with splashes of color and warmth, the whole place seemed strangely sleep inducing. There were six officers at the far end, all with windows but Mister Johnson’s, which had motivational posters with kittens where the windows would have been. 

The guard knocked, and responded to the inevitable ‘who is it?’ by saying ‘Cliff. I have a Wolf here to see you.’

I could hear Johnson through the door, scrambling with drawers. 

“You can come in,” Johnson called after a couple of seconds. His voice was trembling. 

Wow. Apparently outside of the confines of planned visits I could really freak people out. 

This observation was confirmed by the fact that the man inside the office, Johnson I presumed, was holding a war axe. A ridiculous look given how rotund he was. He clearly wasn’t one to work out, and I very much doubted he had much experience wielding that weapon he gripped tightly enough to make his knuckles white. He whispered a weak protection spell. The surge of magic involved was so faint I hardly noticed it. He was a wizard, that much was certain, but clearly a very weak one. Weak enough that he could use computers. He probably had to replace it yearly, but a lot of people did that anyways. 

The most interesting thing about his office was that it smelled as if goblins had been here recently. What kind of deals was this wizard making in here? Being the last one in, I closed the door behind us. 

The security guard stepped across the room to Johnson’s side of the office and pulled another axe out of a drawer, while telling his boss that we’d said his partner had been replaced with a changeling. 

Johnson nearly dropped his axe with the news, tears welled in his eyes. 

“How?” Johnson asked, his voice quivering.

This is where the fact that lying was a thing could be a problem. My first instinct was to feel sorry for the wizard, but logically I knew he could be lying just as I had. It didn’t seem likely his being a wizard who was willing to deal with goblins, and his partner having been attacked by vampires could be a coincidence.

“A vampire,” I told him, not certain if I should sound sympathetic or omonice. “The odd thing is that the changeling is robbing your partner, transferring their funds to bitcoins.”

Johnson winced. “A vampire?” He repeated in stunned disbelief.

“Can you think of a person who would want to hurt Steven?” Sereloo asked. “A wizard who might be overly interested in money perhaps?”

“What are you implying?” Johnson said, his voice toughening up a little.

“Someone magical sent a vampire after your partner,” I said. “And I’m not implying it, it’s pretty obvious he got caught up with someone he should have avoided.”

Johnson shifted uncomfortably, I could smell his sweat now. I didn’t have enough experience to know if that was normal anxiety at being accosted by a werewolf and a fairy, or if he was nervous that he would get caught. I glanced at Sereloo, but despite her tiny frame her face had taken on a terrifyingly stern expression. People often forgot that Tinkerbell was a dangerous antagonist in her stories, but with Sereloo’s expression there was no way I was going to.

“I,” Johnson began pausing for a second then starting again his voice shaking. “We don’t have any enemies with magical powers. The businesses we compete with. Well, they’re all run by ordinary people. Except.” He paused again. “Hexler and River Construction has a partner that has just enough fey blood to know about the magical world, but we’ve always gotten along with them. There are probably a lot of people though who would want our money. Which is why I insisted Cliff here get hired as the lobby guard.” Johnson said gesturing to the part troll. “I pay him extra under the table. The building doesn’t believe in hiring competent security and so doesn’t pay much.”

I nodded. “Thank you for your time.” Then I turned to leave, catching Sereloo by surprise. From her expression I’d half expected her to pull out a pair of thumb screws and I was pretty sure Johnson had was well. She gave me a quizzical look and with my back turned to Johnson and the Cliff I winked. Her expression becoming slightly flustered she turned to follow. I didn’t know if reversing for another question would actually throw Johnson off, or if throwing him off was a good idea. I’d never interrogated or even thought about interrogating anyone before this. 

I was just starting to open the door when I heard Johnson let out a breath as if relaxing. I let go of the handle, which made a chinking sound, and turned back around. Johnson jumped and stiffened up. 

“I’m curious about the goblins I smell,” I said.

Johnson took a step back, now I was able to pick up on how he was feeling, for he smelled like a frightened animal. “Well. I. Have to bribe.” His sweat had greatly increased. “The goblins make me. Pay for protection. Or else they will cause trouble at my construction sites.”

I considered him in what I hoped was stern silence, going for calm as best I could. Sereloo’s face was as hard as ever. Even the security guard was starting to smell nervous. I was so used to feeling intimidated by the world I’d become a part of that I’d never really realized that as a werewolf I could make other magical creatures as nervous as they made me. 

Is it wrong that I was kind of happy about that?

“I think it’s more likely that you pay the goblins to hinder your competitors,” Sereloo said, her voice now deadly soft. She took a step closer to Johnsonand I followed suit. “That way your competitors can’t take that many jobs and have trouble winning contracts,” Sereloo continued while taking another step into the office. 

“No. I would never,” Johnson managed to stammer out. 

The security guard stepped between us and (), twirling his axe suggestively. “I think it’s time for this conversation to be over.”

“Muscle playing the role of lawyer,” Sereloo said to the troll. “That tells me I’m probably close to the mark. Also tells me that Johnson is our top suspect. After all, if he’s so dirty as to hire goblins to interfere in the human world so he can make money, why not take his partners money and half of the business?”

“I would never,” Johnson repeated himself, a little more firmly now, apparently finding some semblance of courage. “I needed Stephen. He could sell anything. Look at me.” Johnson gestured to his belly. “Do I look like the kind of guy people would give multi-million projects to?” 

Well when he put it that way, he definatly did look like a slimy con man from an old movie. The kind that would get tarred and feathered before being run out of town. Real con men couldn’t look like that, people would have trouble trusting them. I didn’t know enough about the construction business to know how much that actually mattered. 

“Then you wouldn’t mind is someone came by to search your home later,” Sereloo said.

Johnson shook his head.” You could come by and search any time. Uh. Provided I’m not there.”

We got his address and left, for real this time. I was tempted to turn back a third time to make him sweat, but I wasn’t certain what he would say and I didn’t want to risk being attacked by an angry troll. 

I had just started to cross the parking lot and back to the sidewalk beyond when Jacob stepped out of fairyland, his expression briefly relieved, followed by furious. I gave a resigned sigh. This ‘conversation’ had been destined to happen the moment I snuck off without telling him. That wasn’t something a natural werewolf would do, so it wasn’t something he could fully understand. 

“What in the Colossal Neverland is wrong with you?” Jacob said, his voice on verge of yelling as he strode towards me.

“The vampire can’t move for another hour,” I said. “And I had to check up on Steven’s business partner. As it turns out he’s a weaker wizard who makes deals with goblins.” 

If that explanation was meant to calm Jacob it had the opposite effect. “Of all the ridiculous,” He began angrily. Then he tried to calm himself. “Let’s go.”

I was tempted to refuse, but I lived with him. What was I going to do, run away? I mean I guess I could, but that would be silly and I definatly didn’t want to move away from the pack. 

“Let me get this straight,” Jacob said once I was walking beside him, his voice disturbingly calm now. “You went into the offices of a man who may be working with a vampire and found out he could have had a small army of goblins there waiting to jump you.”

My heart clenched. What if the goblins had been in the office with Johnson when I’d gone up? Heck he could have had an army of dozen different creatures I’d been smelling in the lobby and the axe wielding troll? Would they have simply let me walk out of there? 

Okay, that had been stupid, and I could very definitely understand why Jacob was mad. The thing was, I couldn’t just back down and go back to being tucked away from what was happening. So I had to explain myself.

“Nobody else knew what bitcoins were,” I said. “And you probably wouldn’t have let me be involved in the investigation. Despite the fact that I might be the only one who can solve it.”

Jacob clenched his jaw for a moment. “You scarred me.” He said simply, worry evident in his voice. That made me feel worse than his yelling would have. 

“I was coming back to tell you about the goblins,” I offered.

“I suppose you want to track them down and see what they know,” Jacob said, sniffing the air. “They have a well used path out of the building. I’m betting they visit this place a lot.”

“It makes sense for them to be involved, right?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. 

“Not sure?” Sereloo asked sounding irate. “Johnson’s dirtier than a pig in the sewer. Hiring goblins. Despicable.”

“He’s likely involved in something pretty shady and we’ll have to try to figure out what to punish him for it,” Jacob agreed. “Still I wouldn’t get my hopes up. As I said, goblins don’t usually get involved with vampires, they just hide nearby, but we’ll track them and find out.”

“Wait, you’re letting me be involved?” I asked. 

“I’m your bodyguard, not your babysitter. You decide what we do.”

I felt sheepish and a little guilty about sneaking off. The pack had never tried to control me. Sure, they hadn’t told me everything they were up to, but they had let me do whatever I wanted before. Of course, I still wasn’t a hundred percent sold that they wouldn’t had ordered me not to get involved, like a police chief would an unruly officer in a bad eighties action flick, but perhaps I should have given them the benefit of a discussion. 

It was awkward sniffing at the path in public, while also trying to tell Jacob about my encounter with Johnson. I left the troll security guard out for now. I didn’t need to let him know that I’d almost walked right into a hostile army without even thinking about it. Perhaps more disturbing, Sereloo was experienced with this sort of thing and probably had realized it. She seemed more and more Tinkerbell by the moment, ready to waltz up to a fleet of pirates without a care in the world, as it were. 

The goblin’s avoided getting too close to any one house, likely to avoid potential squabbles with the house fairies within. Not that they wouldn’t get into frequent fights, but they likely didn’t want to fight at every house all the way back home, so they stayed on the sidewalk for quite a ways. 

We passed a pair of vending machines outside an auto parts store and my stomach reminded me that I’d once again skipped a meal. 

“One second,” I said, digging around in my purse for a few coins. 

“Ah, vending machines, my old enemy,” Jacob said.

I snorted. “You sound bitter. You must have been really hangry and short for a candy bar at some point in your life.”

“I had some change, you know a little for emergency meals,” Jacob said. “I’d just chased down another werewolf that was causing trouble, and I couldn’t get anything to eat because I was in some industrial backwater without restaurants, and the machines kept breaking down around me.”

I laughed. I couldn’t tell if he was messing with me or he’d really been as frustrated as he sounded about not being able to get a candy bar. Then again, I was dying for something now. 

I managed to find enough random nickels and dimes to get something. The little tish of food turned out to be just enough to make me hungrier. 

Now starving, we followed the goblins across a pair of yards. Which we did at a run, hoping that no one was watching through a window who might yell at us. Not that they could catch us, given how fast werewolves could run, but it always felt awkward to have people get angry at me. I leapt over the fence dividing the two back yards, my foot landing in a kiddy pool, splashing me and Jacob with water. I couldn’t help it. Perhaps it was the release of the tension from earlier or simply the fact that I was now leaping fences like a child’s dream but I laughed as I sloshed out of the pool. 

“Thought I’d cool down a little,” I said, still laughing as we ran out of the yard and onto the sidewalk. 

There was a lot more traffic on this side of the houses, and a few businesses, with the prominent smell of a laundry mat. Along the roadway the houses were mostly dirty, the yards uncared for. It was strange how traveling across a pair of backyards could change the whole vibe of the community. Although the houses made it appear the people here were a little down on their luck, this neighborhood seemed more inviting. Children were running through the sprinklers and little dogs were barking from every other porch. This wasn’t far off from the neighborhood I’d grown up in. Although, unlike this heavy trafficked street, our street had been quite enough to bike and play dodgeball on. Still, in a way, walking down this weed filled sidewalk felt a little like coming home. 

Familiar as it was, I felt anxious. There were plenty of permanently parked old cars (some missing their tires), old sheds, and tall patches of grass for the goblins to hide in and watch us. Although not as strong as the trail, their smell was everywhere. 

I realized that I’d subconsciously gotten so close to Jacob that our hands were brushing together as we walked. That, at least, was pleasant. 

“Does monster hunting ever get easier?” I asked. 

Jacob shrugged. “Sometimes it starts to, but then, all at once there’s some new twist that causes you to feel fear all over again.”

“Like?” I asked.

He took a deep breath and continued to walk. Wow. I couldn’t imagine what would make him so nervous? I didn’t like that at all. 

“I’d hoped you’d say something, you know,”

“Macho,” Sereloo cut in. “Like don’t worry. I got this.” 

Jacob furrowed his brow. “You make me sound like a vapid disco tech jock.”

“Oh. I could so see him in a disco tech.” I said with a chuckle. “A dozen women on each arm, ordering embarrassingly named drinks.”

“Wolves don’t so wild oats,” Jacob said, his voice verging on angry. 

Sereloo burst out laughing. “Wild oats? What do you do instead? Visit sock hops and get a chocolate soda from the local parler for good wholesome fun?

Jacob snorted and I laughed. 

“See,” Piper said. “If things get too wholesome even you find it ridiculous.” 

“We’ve kind of circled away form the topic at hand,” I said. “What’s new twist has caused you to be afraid now??” I asked. Sure, maybe it was a question I shouldn’t ask. Both because it was personal, and because I might not want to know what could scare Jacob, after he’d fought of vampires and werewolves for years. But. I just couldn’t resist knowing. Besides, an informed wolf might be a safer one.

The goblin’s trail had turned up and gone into a tiny house, that stank of them, yet had soft undertones of iced tea and freshly baking cookies. The yard was neater than most of the others, with fastidious little flower gardens planted along every edge. Staring at it felt very Twilight Zony. This quite little house was home to goblins?

Jacob took a deep breath. “Truthfully. I’m worried I could lose you,” he told me.

Wait. What? I didn’t have time to ponder the implications of this statement, before Jacob started walking up to the little house. 

The creep factor was high. Like a horror movie where you find out the nice neighbors are secretly aliens, or in this case, goblins. 

I could hear some quick whispering inside the house, after we rang the doorbell, but I couldn’t quite make out what was being said. A few moments later an older lady opened the door. There was a sudden, strong smell of perfume that caused my nose to wince and drowned out all the scents inside. It was like looking into a spotlight for my nose. The lady had clearly realized what we were and sprayed it to keep us from learning anything about her or her home through scent. That wasn’t a good sign. 

“May I help you?” She asked, her parchment old voice tinged with so much sweetness it made my guard rachet up higher. She was dressed in what appeared to be a homemade dress of brown fabric. Her hair was done in a short easy to manage style, and her face had a warm vibrancy one would expect from a cookie box mascot, or maybe I thought that because of how delicious the smell coming from her kitchen had been, before it had been covered by perfume. 

The perfume made me sneese, then sneezed again.

“Bless you,” the woman said.

“What are the goblins paying you to do?” Jacob asked, apparently jumping right into questioning her. 

She shrugged. “The fairies need a place to stay, some home cooked meals and in return they teach me magic.” Her eyes lit up with the last statement. I knew how that felt. I wondered what I would have done if creepy little creatures had come and offered to teach me magic. Rather than Sereloo? Would I have just agreed to work with them for the opportunity to be a part of the magical world? Would I have had a choice? Perhaps a more important question was, why would the goblins choose this lady? There was a tendency by the fairies to choose someone whose personality they viewed as compatible to theirs.

“We need to talk to them about a business deal they have with Johnson’s construction,” Jacob said.

“The little darlings aren’t here,” The woman said, trying to slam the door in our faces. Jacob caught it, however, and pushed his way two steps into the doorway. 

His sneeze sort of broke the menacing look I presumed he was going for. 

“Drop the act,” Jacob said his voice still on the verge of a sneeze. “The perfume is thick but it’s not covering up the scent of dark magic.”

Oh snap. My heart dropped into my tummy causing me to feel queasy. I still couldn’t smell anything past the perfume. Dark magic was a misnomer for magic that used pain and death to fuel spells. Meaning this lady was into some messed up stuff.  

The old lady tried pushing on the door to force Jacob out for a moment, but Jacob’s hand was immovable. 

“The world isn’t interesting without a little ambiguity is it?” The old lady asked. 

“Tell me about your relationship with Johnson and Gandar,” Jacob said. 

“The fairies, er, ‘goblins’ as you call them handle that.” She used air quotes when saying the word goblins. “I just bake the cookies. Would you like to try one? Some tea maybe?” She sounded a little too hopeful.

“No, we’ll forgo testing how good you are and mixing potions into cookies,” Jacob said blandly. 

The witch’s face turned dark for a moment, and for a moment I thought she was going to try a more direct assault, but it settled into resignation somewhat quickly when she looked up at Jacob’s towering form.  

“Tell us about Johnson and Gandar’s relationship with each other,” I offered. Hoping to draw her into a conversation in which she could talk about other people, before spilling information on herself.

“Those two?” the witch said, her voice snide. “They’re so joined at the hip it’s practically like a sitcom. Met in college, formed a business. Spend more time with each other than their families. Not that I blame them. I never cared to spend that much time with my own kids.”

Wow. She looked like the perfect grandma type. Goblins or not, I’d expected her to be a sort of secretly creepy grandmother type. Obviously, I shouldn’t have judged this book by its chubby cheeked cover. 

“Don’t look so judgemental,” she said to me. Clearly, I wasn’t very good at hiding my expressions. “Before you have kids you kind of think of them as a little like interesting teddy bears. You imagine snuggling with them all day. Sure, they cry but noise doesn’t really bother me. Neither does smell, I love the little fairies that live with me, and let’s be honest, there are skunks who smell better after eating a mess of beans. Then the kids get older and have opinions and snide comments and.” She shuddered. “I had dreams of my own. Until the goblins came along, I thought the kids had brutally murdered their dreams with teenage angst and insistent whining neediness.”

“You dreamed of stealing millions of dollars and helping the goblins ruin people’s lives?” I asked anger rising in my voice. Yep. My poker face was terrible. Maybe I should start playing bad cop? Did that whole routine actually work? Just as important would Jacob be at all good at playing good cop? I rather doubted it on both accounts.  

She shrugged. “I grew up an idealist. You know. The summer of love, filled with lots and lots of love.” Her expression grew distant. “Everyone betrayed that in a rush to become yuppie captains of industry. They destroyed beautiful, eclectic neighborhoods and filled them with ugly boxy stores that pumped out more pollution than product.”

“So, you steal from Gandar and Johnson as a kind of revenge against the world?” I asked.

“No” the old lady seemed almost amused by the suggestion. 

“Is everything okay? Mrs. Patterson?” A man asked from behind us. 

I glanced back to see a rather ordinary looking man behind us. Ordinary enough that even his shirt was grey, like he was trying to blend to the pavement. Honestly he was the type of man in this neighborhood you would likely pass a hundred times without knowing he existed. Except, he now wore such an expression of genuine concern, I couldn’t help but be curious. Was he secretly in love with Mrs. Patterson? No he seemed far too young. Although. I suppose anything was possible.

“Yes, their just old friends who stopped by for a minute,” Mrs. Patterson said.

The man stood there for a while, nodded, said farewell and walked off. Though he kept glancing back at us.

“Neighborhood watch is so active,” Mrs. Patterson said. “It’s both nice and annoying. See. Nothing in life is perfect, if it is it annoys you with its perfection.”

“Mmm,” Jacob said noncommittally. “So, if you aren’t blackmailing, threatening, or stealing from them, what do you do with Gandar and Johnson?”

“Help them with their business in little ways,” Mrs. Patterson said. “Do design work for them. You know, goblins are very creative.”

I arched an eyebrow. 

“Sure,” Jacob said, elongating the ‘ure.’ “So, you and the goblins engage in creative havoc in rival companies work sites.”

She smiled. “Like I said. Just a little design work. Does this house look like we’re making a fortune, or that we even care about human money? Like most witches I’m more concerned with magic. Johnson tied to the human world by his obsessive friendship with Gandar.”

I felt my own brough furrow. There was an angle I hadn’t thought of but should have. If Betsy desperately needed money, would I use my own magical connections to try to get it? Obviously, I’d never use a vampire to steal money, but there were things I could do. Spells to locate truffles came to mind. Spells we currently used to collect delicious food for the restaurant. 

“So, what does Gandar pay you for your ‘design’ work?” Jacob asked. 

“Bits of magic, mostly pre-done spells. “I don’t have much more magic than a stage magician,” Mrs. Patterson said. “Heck I still haven’t figured out how they pull a rabbit out of a hat. I tried using real magic to make the tricks more effective, but I think the Summer of Love might have fried my brains a little because I can’t seem to figure out the magician’s tricks, even with real magic to help.”

I personally had no idea what to make of Mrs. Patterson. She’d started out seeming like an old cherub. Then she’d turned into a hippy turned crime boss. Now she was claiming to be stupid, even though the goblins had obviously chosen her to become their witch for a reason. Any clan of fairies only chose a single witch, and sometimes multiple clans would only choose one together. So, they chose very carefully.  

“Johnson didn’t seem like he had much magic himself,” I said. “He was even able to use computers still. How would he be able to provide you with any precast spells worth a darn?”

Mrs. Patterson shrugged. “Johnson is a clever man, as is Gandar. Between the two of them, I’m certain they’ve figured out all sorts of ways to turn money into magical goods.”

“Do you know much about vampires?” Jacob asked.

“Never met one,” Mrs. Patterson said. “The goblins are terrified of them. Which is enough for me to want to steer clear.” Once more she used air quotes when she said the word “goblin.”

Jacob nodded. “So, you wouldn’t have one working for you?”

Mrs. Patterson laughed. “I can’t imagine what I could do for a to a vampire that would get them to agree to work with me.”

Jacob took a step forward. His hand was still on the door, so it pushed open a little more, forcing Mrs. Patterson to take a step back. 

“You have become part of a dangerous world,” Jacob said. “What you and the goblins are doing is clearly a violation of the rules and it could get you into a lot of trouble. A vampire, however. Well. If you’re dealing with one of them that is worse than game over.”

Mrs. Patterson swallowed. “How worse?”

“Ever seen the Christmas Carol?” Jacob asked. “The ghost is forced to walk the earth in shackles to make amends for what it did.”

Mrs. Patterson swallowed. “You can do that?”

“A ghost can be shackled for centuries if that’s what’s needed for the person to make up for the harm that they caused,” Jacob said coldly, his statement followed by a painful minute of silence. 

I’m not doing anything with the vampires, and neither are the goblins.” She whispered nervously. 

“If you are,” Jacob said. “And () was returned home by midnight we’d all stop looking into what happened.” He let that statement linger in the air for a moment as well. “Have a good day Mrs. Patterson.”

She nodded and closed the door as soon as Jacob stepped back.

We walked some distance way from the house. Frustration brewing inside of me.  

“So if she returns Gandar we’d just let it go?” I asked somewhat surprised by the idea of that kind of bargaining.

“The most important thing is to get him back alive,” Jacob said. “But I don’t think she’s involved. I was thinking we might fight someone more powerful in their hideout. Someone who could deal with a vampire. Mrs. Patterson doesn’t appear to be that someone, and the goblins certainly aren’t. 

I ground my teeth a little as we continued to walk. Not the way we’d come but back towards the pack’s den, pretty much the opposite way. The smell of goblin’s was fainter here. Certainly they would come this way, but not nearly as frequently. It was like Johnson’s business acted as a second home for them. 

“It just doesn’t make since for Johnson to be a dead end, does it?” I asked. “I mean. A wizard involved with goblins?” I bit my lip. “How many other supernatural creatures are there who would even understand what bitcoin is?”

“I doubt there could be very many,” Jacob said.  The forefinger of his left hand was thumping his chin with a thoughtful tap. “Most Fey don’t know the name of the mortal country in which they live, much less anything about the economics of it.” 

That was the rub. Anyone with enough power to control a vampire would likely want magic, rather than boring human money. 

Stepping to a fairy path is essentially vanishing through a portal into another world. There was no visual sign that it was there, it was something you had to sense through magic, or smell if you were a werewolf. One moment I was stepping off the cracked sidewalk, the next I was standing in a vast forest. This was where most of the fairies and even the witches lived, removed from the human world. Although they all needed to spend at least a little time in the human world. There was a magical energy they needed from it, the way a person might need sunlight to help process vitamin D. 

Often a reflection of the human world. This part of fairyland looked like a mass of wild weeds. Here and there the tall grass and large dandelions were woven together to form triangular huts. Fairy children ran in and out of these huts, squealing and chasing each other. 

“This might have nothing to do with money,” Sereloo said. “It could simply be a sick form of revenge. Whoever was controlling the vampire might have found out about bit coins after the fact and decided to rob Steven so that he could be left sick and in poverty. 

Fresh waves of anger washed over me. Whoever had done this was clearly messed up. 

“Revenge for what?” I asked

That led to some more contemplation. 

“It’s hard to say but given that Steven’s business partner is clearly involved in some shady stuff, there might be a lot of fey seeking to give revenge on him through is friend.”

I sighed. This seemed to be getting more complicated the more we dug for information. And we hadn’t even gotten that far. 

Clearly sensing that I was worried, Jacob bumped my hand with his and smiled at me. I smiled back, feeling a little fuzzy inside. We looked at each other or a few moments. Corny as it might sound he had really dreamy eyes. Deep blue and shimmering like a secret of the universe captured by the Hubble. 

I was so tempted to attempt to give him a ‘kiss me’ signal. After all, normally, I loved just jumping blindly into a relationship, and sometimes kept them going long after they should have ended. Why was I being such a chicken about this?

I stopped myself at the last moment. 

Right. I couldn’t just back out of this the way I did other relationships. I mean, I could. But if things went really bad I was still a part of Jacob’s pack and a break up would lead to awkwardness, side taking, and snide remarks from Natalie. 

“You think we should search Johnson’s home?” I asked to change the conversation our eyes had been having with each other. 

Jacob nodded. “We should get something to eat,” he said. 

“Yes,” I agreed throwing my head back. “I swear I was getting ready to chase down a squirrel.” 

“There’s a restaurant near here run by a Folletto from Italy,” Jacob said, his voice starting to enter gushing territory. “They have this Arancini. Meat and cheese wrapped in deep fried rice. It’s amazing.”

The place in question was more of a food stand than a restaurant. It was made of wood and brightly colored fabric that draped out to cover just three tables, all taken, with a line of customers, mostly fey, waiting to order and to pick up their food when ready. 

The chef and his assistants, probably their children, weren’t more than two and a half feet tall and was currently in the form of a bipedal squirrel, sort of. I couldn’t identify his species, which wasn’t unusual. Put me in a crowd of fey and I still wouldn’t be able to identify half of them. 

I still entirely clear what arancini was, but it smelled delicious enough that I grew anxious to try it. The line was moving along smoothly, thank goodness. 

“Jacob,” the Chef waved us over to pick up some food before we’d even reached the end of the line. A few of the fey in front of us gave us curious glances as we walked over to pick up the piles of food we hadn’t yet ordered, but most seemed happy that Jacob was there going in front of them.

“Have to make certain you can get back to keeping us safe,” the chef said with a smile as he pushed the large paper bags of food towards Jacob (given his tiny size there was no way he was going to pick that much food up). 

“Thank you Bauthamalo,” Jacob said as he handed Bathamalo some silvery bits of luck.

“What are you after today?” One of the fairies, which resembled sort of a greenish penguin with a cat nose and arms asked us. 

“I’m searching for a vampire,” Jacob said. “Oh, this is Sereloo, and her witch Piper, the newest member of our pack,” he said gesturing to each of us.

The word vampire got the fey all whispering nervously with each other. 

There were some wishes of good luck, some thanks from Jacob, before we were able to navigate our way from the stand. 

“I take it you’ve been here before,” I said as we walked towards a flat area in the trees where a number of fey were eating.

“The secret to surviving the grind of hunting down dangerous creatures like vampires is good food,” Jacob said. “Also, I might have saved his stand from a boggart a few years back. Don’t tell Brandon, because I was very definitely too young for monster hunting.”

“Wait, what?” Sereloo asked. “Mister sock hop did something he shouldn’t have.”

“I’m not certain that rescuing a food cart counts as naughty,” I said. 

“The other secret to monster hunting is good conversation,” Jacob changed the topic, or returned to the original one.

He’d led us over to sit on a moss-covered log, beside a trio of hedgehog looking fey, among some particularly ancient trees. The Fey introduced themselves as Hith, Tash, and Ahrie. 

 I took a bite of the arancini. Oh yes, the breading, rice, molten mozzarella, and meat all sung in perfect harmony. 

“I can’t believe how good it is,” I told Jacob. 

He smiled and nodded. “Now you know why I had to save Bauthamalo’s place as quickly as possible.”

I nodded my agreement and took another bite. 

Jacob struck up a fairly pleasant conversation with the three fey about how they would gather luck. When people had particularly happy moments the luck would form into near invisible pools nearby that experience fey could find and gather into silver disks that was the most common currency in fairyland. It was what Jacob had paid for our food with and what I’d used to prevent sound from waking Jacob when I’d snuck out.

“Best place to gather luck this time of year are the parks in neighborhoods like this one,” Tash said in a nearly sing song sort of voice. His pudgy face was practically cherubic. “So many parents teaching their kids to ride bikes for the first time, the luck practically gushes.”

Hith put his face in his hands and groaned.

“Don’t give away all our secrets,” Ahrie said with an angry whisper, like talking quietly would stop us from having heard what Tash had said.

Tash’s eyes went wide, and he clapped his hands over his mouth.

“It’s fine,” I told Tash. “We like our own job. We’re not going to try and take yours.”

The conversation shifted then to working at a restaurant and the opportunities that provided us to meet with a lot of interesting fey. We invited them to come by and try our food of course.

“How’s Malath doing with gathering unhappiness?” Ahrie asked Tash after a lull in the conversation. “I still don’t understand why he would want to subject himself to that.”

Ahrie shrugged. “Say’s he only has to work half as long. All the loud construction going on.” Ahrie laughed. “There’s apparently a yogo studio near a construction sight that practically drips with unhappiness.”

The three fairies finished their meal, said their goodbyes and left us to finish the last bits of our food. 

“You remember how the hag said that she hated the noise of construction,” I asked. “Do you think she might have gone after Johnson and Gandar out of revenge for one of their construction sites.”

“It makes sense,” Jacob said.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” I said, crossing my arms. 

“I’m not surprised,” Jacob said. “I’m, impressed, I suppose.”

“Mmmm,” I said, grabbing up my last tidbit of food, both a little sadly that it was gone but very satisfied. 

“We should probably search Johnson’s house first,” Jacob said. “If the goblin lady was telling the truth, and they spend most of their time there.”

The sun was at cowboy showdown position and I was very much aware that the vampire would have long since woken up. Hungry, and likely more than a little angry with me for the walloping I’d given her the previous day. As a result, my nose was working double time as we made our way towards Johnson’s home, another McMansion. Mrs. Patterson was right, Johnson’s home smelled very strongly of Gandar, almost as strongly as Gandar’s own home had, meaning he’d spent a lot of time here. There was another smell, however, that of Gandar’s kids. Meaning they too would often visit. 

“Wow, I feel bad for Johnson now,” I said. “Knowing that his best friend has been swapped with a changeling but needing to keep it secret from the little nips.”

“Nips?” Jacob asked.

I stepped forward to help Sereloo undo the magical locks and protective spells meant to keep intruders out of the house. Sereloo was a master of picking magical locks, an act that was a little like a super involved Sudoku, clue finding, and computer hacking all in one.

“Nips are plural for nieces and nephews,” I told Jacob. “It’s such a perfect word I’m always surprised how few people know it.”

“Sounds like something you call a school of piranha or puppies,” Sereloo said.

“See perfect,” I responded. 

I encountered another spell meant to lock us out, and drew a series of symbols with my finger, burning away a few more bits of magic. Some of the lightning in the bottle this time, and the protective lock fell away. 

“For a weak wizard he sure has a pretty advanced security system,” Sereloo said as she knocked down quite a bit more of the magical protections than I did. 

I glanced down both ways down the street to make certain we weren’t being observed breaking in. Of course, odds are if someone was going to call the police on us it would be from the safety of their own homes will watching out windows with blinds or curtains mostly drawn. 

“We need to whistle, or do something to look more natural,” I said. 

“Whistle?” Sereloo asked.

“Like in all the cartoons. Donald Duck is a master of whistling to appear natural,” 

“Who?” Jacob asked. 

“You know, the duck who constantly loses his temper, tries to fight everyone and whistles to pass himself off as harmless.”

“Sounds weird,” Jacob said as he rang the doorbell. “Now we just look like we’re waiting for an answer, problem solved, no Duck whistling necessary.”

“Cartoons are supposed to be weird,” I told him as I swept away the last of the protective spells. “That’s what makes them funny.”

“It is pretty popular, and I enjoy it,” Sereloo said. She flicked her hand one last time, this time burning away a little of the gathered wind and the last of the locks fell away. “That’s got it.”

Jacob opened the door and we all filed quickly inside, keeping our ears perked for anyone who might be walking up to the house. Just in case someone had called the police. 

“Of course,” Sereloo said. “I had a whole cartoon phase after they animated me in Peter Pan.”

The home was stereotypically the bachelor pad. A number of walls had clearly been removed to make the whole first floor into one giant room, filled with leather couches, a pool table, a self service bar in the kitchen. The one thing that truly set it off was a ball pit with a slide, that smelled strongly of the children. 

A little vacuum robot was making its way slowly along the brown carpeted floor. 

“Is that some sort of remote-control car?” Jacob asked.

I smiled. “Automatic carpet cleaner,” I said.

“Does it work?” Jacob asked.