“You mean the werewolves that followed you from New Orleans?” he said, his words harsh.
“Yeah,” I sighed, “those werewolves.” Once again, in Evan’s eyes, I had put Mol in danger. And I was just about to make that worse. “They’re trying to make mates and I think they’ve discovered that witches might work better than humans.”
Evan cursed foully under his breath. I walked out of the house into the night. Alone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
And if the Fangheads Kill Them?
I stopped at the herb shop and parked in the shadow of a massive flowering plant. The big leaves were elongated, heart-shaped, and, this time of year, the entire small tree was covered with odd flowers, dark fuchsia, sharp-pointed petals, with dark blue centers. Molly had told me its scientific name, but all I remembered was Japanese butterfly bush. Today, the long, limber branches were trailing the ground, heavy, bent by rain. I brushed a straggling branch and it sprang back like a kids’ weapon, nature’s squirt gun, scattering water all over me. I grimaced up at the dark sky. “Thanks. I needed another drenching.”
Before I went inside, I walked around the café and shop, sniffing. A wet breeze danced in the dark, lashing my face and body with overgrown shrubs while the muddy earth sucked at my footing and roots and vines tried to trip me. Around back, a small ditch funneled rainwater down the steep hill, gurgling. Rising on the breeze, I smelled werewolf. It wasn’t fresh tang, but the wolves had been here recently. I had been too distracted to notice when I came for breakfast, or I’d have caught the scent. The dang dogs were everywhere. I had smelled them at Molly’s, now here. Maybe it was more personal than targeting witches for mates. Maybe they were deliberately targeting my friends. In the electronic age, it wouldn’t have been too hard to discover who I cared about.
I went inside, to stand on the mat just within the shop, keeping my muddy feet off the floor. Regan and Amelia, the human Everharts, were working, Regan at the cash register ringing up a final sale, Amelia mopping up muddy footprints. They acknowledged me with matching grins. When the customer left, Amelia said, “We missed you at the café. It’s good to see you, Jane.”
Regan offered me a bakery treat and the last cup of a flavored tea. I pulled off my muddy boots to keep from messing up the clean floor, and sat at a table while the girls worked around me, closing up the shop, chattering about college and term papers and Amelia’s new boyfriend. I ate and drank and nodded. When I was finished with the mega-muffin—lemon-poppy seed, bigger than a softball and Oh My Gosh delicious—I told them about the wolves, concluding with, “They’re trying to rebuild their pack and trying to make mates. And even though you’re human, you smell like witches, females who might be able to survive the wolf bite.”
The girls, who had gathered closer as I spoke, looked at one another and got this look. I never had a sister, but I knew what silent, instantaneous, nonverbal communication looked like, and this was it. Almost as one, the girls swiveled and disappeared behind the front counter. They popped up with guns. Big honking guns. I started laughing.
Amelia was holding a perfectly legal 12-gauge shotgun, and Regan was holding two very different semiautomatics with matte black grips. Regan said, “The handguns are loaded, of course; this one”—she held up the H&K—“with silver nine mils for vamps, but I hear it works well on weres too. This one”—she held up the S&W—“is loaded with hollow points for humans and robbers.”
My brows went up. Hollow point rounds explode just after impact, and when they hit anything made of flesh, that explosion shreds everything in its expanding path. They are for killing, not stopping. And not something I ever expected an Everhart to own.
Amelia patted the shotgun, “Molly sent us to the guy who hand-loads your silvershot and this baby holds four of the silver fléchette rounds. That’s all we could afford.”
Regan said. “But we got plenty of regular ammo for robbers.”
“Rapists.”
“Kidnappers.”
“And drunken good ole boys.”
“We been robbed once,” Regan said, her eyes narrow. “Never again.”
Still laughing softly, I finished off the tea, debating whether to tell the humans about the predicament with their witch sisters. I decided against it for now, and stood, pulling on my boots. “Stay safe. Don’t shoot the good guys.” They turned the lock when I left the shop, and it fell with a clunky, defiant finality. Molly’s sisters were an interesting bunch. Dangerous as heck. But interesting. I was in the SUV, trying once again to get dry, when my cell beeped. I smiled when I saw Rick’s new number in it. “Hey there,” I said.
“You know where Henrii Thibodaux’s Bayou Queen is?”
“Yeah. I ate there once.”
“I have a gig playing here tonight. And I smell something familiar.”
I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What?”