Excerpt
– Chapter 1
Brynn
Atwood observed the entrance to McQueen’s Auction House, as she had done for
the past few minutes while she gathered the courage she needed to leave the safety
of her rental car. A steady stream of vehicles entered the parking lot and
ejected browsers and buyers, all eager to view today’s auction and visit with
acquaintances seen only during these once-a-week sales. Not Brynn. She was
certainly the only person who’d showed up today intending to prevent a murder.
Walking
alone into a town populated with and run by loup garou wasn’t the smartest
thing she had ever done in her twenty-four years, but it certainly counted as
the bravest. If she managed to achieve her goal, even her father would have to
admit to her courage and to the validity of her visions. He didn’t trust in her
seer ability, nor did he believe that her vision of him being murdered by a
loup garou would come true.
“Surely
you know I would never put myself into a situation that would result in such a
calamitous outcome,” her father, Archimedes Atwood, had said the previous day.
And as with every chilly encounter between them in the last few months, he’d
spoken with the impatience of a strict teacher correcting a belligerent child.
“Perhaps some of your visions have come true on occasion, but do not use me to
distract attention from your own disgrace. I have no more time for this
nonsense.”
Her
visions were always nonsense.
Archimedes
was a Prime Magus in the Congress of Magi, one of four, as well as a powerful
practitioner of elemental magic. He’d never hidden his disappointment over
Brynn’s uncontrollable precognitive powers—powers he had yet to acknowledge
were real—or her inability to one day claim his spot on the Congress. She was
too weak, a failure as a Magus. She couldn’t even manage to keep her job as a
Congress tutor for more than two years. All she had left were her infrequent
visions, in whatever time or manner they chose to come.
And
worse yet, he had all but accused her of fabricating this vision and the need
to save him in order to make up for the shame she’d brought to their name when
she was fired. She didn’t want the vision to be true. She wanted her father
alive for many years to come.
She
would figure out how to save him on her own. She would prove her value.
Brynn
climbed out of her car and surveyed the quickly filling parking lot. In any new
situation, her best first step was to observe her surroundings, study others,
and discover the way to best fit in. She had never before attended a public
auction of any sort; she knew only that antiques and other goods were bid upon
and purchased, sometimes at outrageous prices. Some patrons walked into the
building carrying their own boxes, clearly expecting to purchase items. Others
entered carrying only cups of coffee or soda, or small children.
The
variety of patrons surprised her: young and old, scruffy and well-kempt,
couples and singles and large groups, and families. Some drove up with pickups
and vans; some parked expensive cars in the narrow, crowded lot. Everyone
seemed at ease.
I
must stick out like a smoking vampire in daylight.
Standing
there like a fool would only garner her unwanted attention. Subtlety was the
route to accomplishing her task. Brynn forced her feet to carry her forward,
past other vehicles, toward the main entrance. Everyone seemed to be entering
the large, barnlike building through those glass double doors. A few people
came back to the parking lot from the side of the building, which indicated a
back entrance/exit, as well. She’d tried to find blueprints of the layout
before her arrival, but getting any sort of in-depth information on
Cornerstone, Pennsylvania, was next to impossible.
The
town had a small population of six hundred forty-one residents, and Brynn could
guess that about ten percent were human. Cornerstone was founded by a run of
loup garou nearly two centuries ago, and was one of a dozen similar safe havens
around the country. Much like the Congress of Magi and a few surviving nests of
vampires, loup garou runs required secrecy and anonymity to survive in the
modern world. The weekly auctions at McQueen’s brought outside income to the
town without the interference of tourism or industry, and it kept them from
appearing too insular to the outside world.
Her
father stubbornly refused to have any faith in her abilities, but Brynn’s
visions of the future came true without fail, and the most recent had led her
here to McQueen’s Auction House. Led her to the loup garou she’d seen standing
over her father’s broken body. The man her careful research told her was named
Rook McQueen.
The
boy, she corrected.
As
a general rule, her people did not trust technology. The Magi trusted tradition
and magic above all else. Growing up an only child with few friends, Brynn
spent hundreds of hours on her computer—a gift awarded by her father on her
twelfth birthday, as a means to keep her mind occupied beyond the limited
resources of their home’s physical library. Only weeks before, she had spoken
to him of her first vision. In the middle of reading a book, she had seen a
clear image of a baby bird falling from a nest. It disturbed her so much that
she’d fled into the backyard in time to see it happen. She scooped the tiny
robin up and climbed the tree where she spotted the nest, returning the lost
baby to its siblings.
She
was so proud when she told her father about it that night—not only the bird,
but the premonition. Her very first display of a Magus power. “Manifestations
of a child’s overactive imagination,” he had scoffed. “Do not bother me with
these small things, daughter.”
The
computer became her gateway to the outside world, a link to knowledge far
beyond the borders of her home in Chestnut Hill. And like the young sleuths in
the slim novels she’d loved so much, Brynn taught herself how to research and
investigate—skills that had served her well these last few days as she raced to
identify her father’s killer.
One
of three sons of Thomas McQueen, the auction house’s owner, Rook was two years
younger than herself, a recent college graduate, and the former lead singer of
a popular local rock band—not exactly the portrait of a killer, loup garou or
otherwise. And yet the brief glimpse of him in her vision, skin marked with
tattoos, human teeth bared, and hands covered in her father’s blood, showed him
capable of violence, as all loup garou inevitably were.
She
would not allow her father to become Rook McQueen’s victim. Archimedes Atwood
was too important, not only to herself but to the Congress of Magi. The Magi
were small in number, and they relied on their leaders to protect them from
their enemies, including the volatile, deadly loup garou. And as an elemental
Magi, he was among the most powerful. Few others shared his ability to
manipulate fire. Their people needed him, so Brynn needed to protect him. She
had to find a way to prevent her father’s murder before it occurred.
The
biggest blank in her research was Rook’s relationship to the run’s Alpha. Brynn
had no access to the Congress’s files on the loup garou, and she couldn’t
directly ask her father for the name of Cornerstone’s Alpha—her father had no
idea she’d identified his would-be assassin, or that she was in central
Pennsylvania doing reconnaissance on said assassin, instead of at the family
home wallowing in her professional disgrace.
A
random loup killing her father carried a very different meaning than a loup
from within the higher ranks of the run’s Alpha family—the latter could easily
be considered an act of war against the Congress of Magi. A foolishly begun
war, as the Magi and loup had maintained an uneasy peace for the last sixty
years.
Concentrate,
foolish girl, before you get yourself killed. This isn’t one of your novels,
this is real.
Brynn
smoothed her palms down the front of her green t-shirt and tugged at the hem.
She stopped, recognizing the nervous gesture, a habit from the two years she’d
worked as a Congress tutor, which required skirts and blouses and high heels.
The t-shirt, denim shorts, and Keds combination she’d chosen for today’s
mission had been partly for comfort in the August heat and partly to blend in.
The final piece of her costume was the Magus pendant hidden behind the t-shirt,
which would act as a sensory mirror and hide her natural scent—any loup
sniffing her for signs of “other” would smell a common human female, instead of
a Magus. The auction attracted dozens of human buyers, but the people who ran
it and worked there were still loup. The pendant was her only real protection
against their sense of smell.
The
stolen pendant, you fool. Plucking it from her father’s office had nearly given
her fits, and her father would be apoplectic when he discovered it was
missing—yet another reason to finish her task and return home posthaste. Maybe,
just maybe, she could prevent this vision from coming true. She had to try.
Nerves
twisted her stomach into a tight ball that nearly squeezed the air from her
lungs. The thump of music and drone of voices greeted her as Brynn pushed open
the door and stepped inside McQueen’s Auction House.
Avesta,
protect me, your loyal daughter.
Plea
to the Magi’s patron sent, Brynn forced her anxiety into the background and
paid closer attention to her surroundings. The entrance was spacious, with a
short hallway and a brightly painted “Restrooms” sign on her immediate right.
On the left was a bulletin board covered in layers of posters and flyers
advertising yard sales and on-site auctions. Past it was a roped-off stairwell
going up to parts unknown. A handsome young man in cowboy boots and a matching
leather hat leaned near the stairwell, sipping from a Styrofoam cup, as though
he lived solely to hold up that particular wall.
His
intent gaze landed on her, and she didn’t have to search for the copper flecks
in his brown eyes to know he was loup garou. Brynn’s insides froze, but she
forced out a calm, flirty smile. She knew she was attractive enough to gather a
few second glances, and he was what she might hesitantly call beautiful—if a
man could be considered so—with a slim nose and perfectly symmetrical features.
However beautiful, this man was also her enemy. His body was fit, impeccably
toned, and even at ease he thrummed with the power of his caged beast. He also
wasn’t Rook McQueen, so although he was quite pleasant to look at, he did not
hold her interest.
He
tilted his head in a friendly gesture, then winked. Brynn blushed and ducked
her head, a reaction she did not have to fake. Male attention of any sort
nowadays left her insides squirrely, a sense of bitter panic residing where her
confidence had once dwelled. She also needed to remain inconspicuous while
here, and flirting with a local cowboy was not the way to stay alive.
Brynn
followed an elderly couple out into the main room. She slipped over to her
left, out of the flow of traffic, and absorbed the scene of orderly chaos. An
elevated pair of cash registers stood near the entrance, with lines on each
side. The customers in line traded personal information for a large index card
with a number written in black marker. Cards in hand, the customers went to one
of many places in the cavernous room.
Dozens
of tables of merchandise were set up along the perimeter of the room, three
rows deep, and at the center of it all was a dais, two stools, and a
microphone. Directly behind the dais was a long row of antique furniture and
four glass cases. Rows of mismatched chairs covered the rest of the floor
space, facing the dais. At least half the chairs were marked by either sitting
bodies or empty boxes waiting for their owners. In the far back of the room,
close to Brynn’s position, was a food counter advertising sandwiches and chips
and cold sodas, and it produced the bitter scent of over-brewed coffee.
Opposite Brynn was another set of propped-open double doors, and a steady
stream of people moved in and out of a second room that seemed crowded with
boxes.
Someone
jostled past on a waft of coffee-scented air, alerting Brynn to the competing
odors in the room. The food counter fought with the tang of human body odor, as
well as the musty stink of old paper and leather. A damp smell, like rain, hung
over everything else, reminding her that even though she was surrounded by
human beings, nonhumans also mingled. Every loup in the room posed a threat to
her safety.
Brynn
walked along the back wall, out of the heavier flow of people, alert for her
prey. She spotted three other men who set off her loup alarms. Each wore a
black t-shirt and jeans, just like the man outside in the cowboy boots.
McQueen
employees. They must be.
One
of them lingered near the dais, chatting with an older woman in a purple caftan,
giving her his full attention while still managing to observe the room. He had
a strong facial resemblance to the loup in the entrance, and a stronger
resemblance to the photo she’d found of Rook. Each could easily be one of
Rook’s two brothers. Brynn swallowed hard, mouth dry. If two of the three
McQueen brothers worked here, maybe Rook did, as well. He could appear at any
moment.
Your
brother may one day murder my father.
The
thought saddened her. Rook wasn’t just a potential murderer. He was also a
brother and a son, and his family would miss him if he were gone. They would
also fight to protect him the moment they considered her a threat.
You
can’t think about that now, foolish girl.
Brynn
inhaled a steadying breath. She palmed her right hand in her left, the fingers
of her left hand smoothing over the gold band of the ring she wore on her right
index finger. The top of the ring appeared to be a piece of costume jewelry, a
blue gem the size of a nickel. A blue gem filled with a paralytic poison,
developed decades ago to specifically target the loup garou’s nervous system.
One tap of the ring would send a dose of poison down the ring’s band to her
hand, and one firm handshake with any loup would put enough on his skin to kill
him within an hour. No one would suspect such an innocuous item to be a deadly
weapon, which was exactly the reason she’d stolen it from her father’s study.
As
a small child, she had once overheard him boasting to another Magus of using
the ring to drug an unsuspecting loup garou, and they were none the wiser. She
had thought this made her father particularly clever, and the moment had stayed
with her. Brynn Atwood might walk alone into a loup sanctuary town, but she
wouldn’t walk in unarmed.
She
had a single dose of the antidote hidden in her car in case she accidentally
poisoned someone—no sense in leaving that to chance. She might be willing to
kill to protect her father and she would defend herself if attacked, but she
would not hurt an innocent loup.
If
loup could be considered innocent. Her father would scoff at the notion.
She
had considered her plan a dozen different ways before engaging. She didn’t rush
blindly ahead. She rarely undertook any sort of action without having first
clearly considered the potential outcomes. The only action guaranteeing her
vision never came true was her removing Rook from the equation. Murdering him
first. That was, however, a last resort action that almost guaranteed her own
death at loup garou hands, as well as bringing the full power of her father’s
anger down on their run.
She
preferred the plan where she observed, gathered information, possibly
discovered who the run Alpha was so she could introduce herself, and then took
steps to prevent her vision that left all involved happy and healthy—her father
especially.
Awareness
prickled up her spine just as a male voice said, “You look a bit lost, miss.”
Brynn
turned, not terribly surprised to find the cowboy from the entrance watching
her. The cup was gone, but he still wore the silly leather hat, which cast a
shadow over his eyes. It didn’t hide his beauty, though.
Enemy.
“I
was supposed to meet someone here, but I don’t see them yet,” she said, the
rehearsed lie falling easily from her lips.
“That
explains it, then.” His tone was light, his voice lyrical and calming, but it
still held a hint of danger. And challenge.
“Explains
what?”
“Why
you looked like you were casing the place.”
She
laughed without forcing it, finding actual humor in the comment. “Do you often
have problems with armed robbers staging stickups here?”
“No,
but we’ve caught a few thieves over the years, trying to break in and steal
items before they go up for sale.”
“Are
you saying I look like a thief?”
“You
just looked a little lost, that’s all. This your first time here?”
“It’s
that obvious?”
He
lifted his left shoulder in a shrug. “My father owns the place, and I’ve worked
for him since I was a kid. I know all of the regulars, and most of the
semi-regulars. New faces are easy to spot, especially faces as pretty as
yours.”
Two
things solidified for Brynn then: this man was definitely one of the McQueen
brothers, and he was definitely flirting with her. Inbred disgust at the loup’s
attention seized her, and she barely managed to stall a physical reaction.
He
jumped, then his hand went to his jeans pocket. Brynn’s rising alarm calmed
when he whipped out a vibrating cell phone and checked a message. “Damn,” he
said as he tucked the phone away again. “Work calls.”
“Don’t
let me keep you.”
“I
hope your friend shows soon. In the meantime, take a look around. We’ve got a
lot of great stuff today.”
“Thank
you.”
“My
pleasure.”
He
eased past her and walked straight up the center aisle of chairs to the dais,
directly to the other man she suspected of being a McQueen. She watched them
from the corner of her eye, but the other man gestured at the furniture behind
the dais. They didn’t seem to be talking about her. She’d just had a
conversation with her target’s brother and no one suspected a thing.
Don’t
get cocky. Things could still go badly in a moment’s time.
She
pushed away the voice of reason. A little more confident now, Brynn gave
herself permission to look around. It was her first auction, after all. She
wandered to the other side of the room, as much to make a show of belonging as
to check out some of the items for sale. She’d always assumed auctions were
full of dirty antiques and shiny glass baubles, but the table nearest her was
covered with books. Boxes and boxes of books—hardcovers, paperbacks, textbooks,
in all genres and on all subjects. The reams of knowledge in those boxes made
her chest ache for the satisfaction she used to get from teaching.
Until
last month, when she was fired from her tutor position and found herself with
zero standing among her people, and with no hope for her future.
Maybe
after this you’ll find a new calling as a Congress investigator.
Smiling
at the ridiculous notion, she picked up a thick copy of the annotated works of
Homer and smoothed back the torn corner of its dust jacket. Nostalgia for
school and learning settled heavily in her chest, so heavily it tried to force
up tears. She’d briefly considered returning to school and earning a new
degree, since history and education hadn’t served her very well. Briefly. If
the Alpha reacted badly to her presence in his town, or Rook took issue with
her allegations, she’d never get the chance to reconsider her education more
thoroughly.
She’d
never get the chance to do a lot of things. Her father once said that loup
justice was swift and merciless.
She
put the book down and pinched the bridge of her nose, damming the tears and
steeling her nerves. She would not cry, not here in public. Not when she needed
to accomplish a job that required her full attention.
A
flash of movement caught her attention, and Brynn turned her head toward the
entrance. Her gaze drifted up. Above the entrance, probably accessible from
that roped-off staircase, was a large window and a room behind. Two men stood
at the window, talking and gesturing, in what looked like an office. Probably
the manager’s office, which gave him a bird’s-eye view of his business.
The
shorter of the two men captured and held her attention. Hints of a tattoo
peeked out from beneath the sleeve of his black t-shirt. Metal glinted in his
right earlobe, and another tattoo—or possibly the same—crept down his ear to
his neck and disappeared into the collar of his shirt.
Even
in profile, Brynn knew him. Fear and rage collided in a storm of cold and heat,
and she clenched her hands into tight fists.
Rook
McQueen. Her father’s future killer.
Blood
rushed hot in her veins, and her heart thumped harder. He wasn’t just a face in
a vision any longer. He was real.
“Ma’am?”
The strange male voice alarmed Brynn into spinning around too fast. Her elbow
clipped the voice owner in the chest and he grunted. Brynn’s stomach bottomed
out. The man from the front of the room, her second McQueen brother suspect,
frowned darkly, and she saw her own death there.
“I’m
so sorry,” Brynn said. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.
I’m sorry to bother you, but do you drive a white Dodge Neon?”
She
blinked at the odd question about her rental car. “Yes, I do.”
“Someone
reported that they backed into your car. You may want to come with me and
exchange insurance information.”
“Oh
for Av—God’s sake.” Brynn mentally slapped herself for the near slip. Using
“Avesta’s sake” in the presence of a loup garou was as obvious as wearing a
t-shirt that said “Yes, I’m a Magus Spy. Kill Me.”
“Small
lot, so it happens once in a while,” the man said. Up close, she better saw the
resemblance to the cowboy-wannabe in his narrow nose and hooded eyes. However,
the slight roundness in his cheekbones and higher forehead showed a more
pronounced similarity to Rook. And he was definitely older than the other two.
“The auction doesn’t start for another forty minutes, if you’re worried about
missing something.”
“No,
it’s fine,” Brynn said, even though it wasn’t. The coincidence unnerved her,
but she had no choice except to see how this played out.
He
stepped to the side. “After you.”
She
walked to the end of the row of chairs and made her way back toward the auction
house entrance, keenly aware of her shadow’s presence, and that she’d just
turned her back on one of her people’s greatest enemies.
