: Chapter 21

Savannah

The next morning, I awoke in another strange room far from Belmont.

Aunt Laurel’s house.

I hadn’t had nightmares. This time, the nightmares had been real.

In a vain attempt to get a little control over my life, I’d broken into Jaxson’s auto body shop, stolen my car, and was chased by the damn werewolf alpha himself down the back alleys of Magic Side. To cap the night off, I’d gotten jumped by the very psychos I was trying to avoid. Not to mention, the horrifying image of Sam ripping through her clothes and shifting into a wolf was now burned into my memory forever. I’d never be able to look at her the same.

What a freaking mess.

Terror wasn’t something I experienced anymore. It was just a part of my life.

I sat up and groaned. Every part of me ached. The mattress felt like it had seen a lot of use since the late eighteen-hundreds, and my ass and lower back missed the motel.

The LaSalles’ guestroom had apparently been decorated by a blind person with a side job at a thrift store. There might have been a theme, but I was too overwhelmed to find the connection between framed antique sketches of pineapples and jaunty sailboat bookends.

God save me.

I’d learned about these people less than forty-eight hours ago, and now I was staying with them. Temporarily.

Still, it was insane. But so was this city. Either way, I would need to find my own place once the rogue wolves were behind bars. Or dead.

Maybe somewhere in southern France.

At least I had my car back.

Well, not technically, but kind of. In theory, the Gran Fury was currently sitting in another auto body shop in a part of the city run by demons. I assumed that was going to raise a whole new set of problems, but still, no one was holding it ransom at the moment. As soon as Zara installed the magic regulator and the Fury was up and running, I’d feel a bit more in control, and the extreme weirdness of the situation would be more bearable with a viable exit plan.

California. Texas. Cabo San Lucas. It didn’t matter.

Until then, I would have to make the best of a bad situation.

It was like the woman in my dream had said: You cannot outrun your fate, Savannah. They’re coming for you. Beware the wheel of fortune. It does not stop. Time is ticking. You need to learn who you truly are so that you can stop the ones who are coming.

Fate had nearly got me, this time.

I showered, and while the hot water ran over my skin, I tried to figure out what to do. No matter how much I disliked the idea of working with Jaxson, I needed to help him stop the damned rogue wolves. Clearly, they were hunting me, and I had to find out why. There were three things I could do.

One, I’d make a scrying potion with Uncle Pete and use it to spy on the wolves.

Two, I could go with Jaxson to the Seer. I would have scoffed at that notion three days ago, but apparently dream warnings and fortunes were a real thing.

And finally, I could mine the LaSalles for information about my parents and my magic. Maybe I could figure out why the wolves were hunting me from that.

In the worst case, I could probably learn to blast them.

I hopped out of the shower, dried off, and dug through my bags. At least, after everything that had happened, Casey and I had been able to go back and get my stuff. Jaxson would have probably agreed to just about anything to get us out of pack territory, especially after the hellfire Casey had unleashed.

Once I was dressed, I staggered down the stairs and wandered into the kitchen. Someone had left a yellow sticky note on the coffee pot: Make yourself at home, and help yourself to anything.

I shook my head in disbelief. Somehow, I had gone from having no family to having a dangerous and untrustworthy family entangled with dark secrets, and then straight to living in their house in under forty-eight hours.

Well, supposedly, adaptation was the key to survival.

I put a kettle on and rummaged around the kitchen for tea. The first cupboard I opened was loaded with boxes of sugar-coated kids’ cereal. I smirked. Casey, one hundred percent.

How was he still eating this kids’ stuff in his twenties? I hadn’t had sugared cereal since I was fifteen, because it rotted your brain and teeth and attention span. I preferred donuts…which, okay, weren’t much better, but at least my guilty pleasure didn’t come with a prize in the box.

My fingers twitched. I grabbed a box of Count Chocula and poured myself a huge bowl and topped it with milk from the fridge. Then I plopped down at the table and dug into the sugary goodness.

I could adapt however I damned well wanted.

Halfway through the bowl, my stomach started to rebel against the sickly sweet milk and sodden marshmallows, but a rising sugar craze drove me on, spoonful after spoonful.

A waft of nutmeg drifted into the room, and shortly after, Aunt Laurel swept around the corner. “Savannah, you’re up! And good, I see you’ve gotten breakfast. Count Chocula. You and Casey are so alike.”

My stomach churned in protest, and I slowly set my spoon down.

Casey limped into the room seconds later, and Laurel looked from one of us to the other. “What have you done?”

“Nothing!” Casey protested.

Aunt Laurel rested her fists on the heavy wooden table in a gesture that reminded me of a silverback gorilla. “Are the cops involved?”

“I don’t think so,” he mumbled.

Her eyebrows rose. “Are we going to get sued?”

“Maybe? Probably not, actually.”

“Did anyone die?”

I trained my eyes on my cereal. Technically, yes.

“Hey!” Casey exclaimed. “What’s with the third degree? Everything is okay. And also, don’t ask any more questions.”

Laurel whipped out of the room in a rage.

“Uh-oh,” I muttered.

She came back moments later and slammed a little glass vial full of red liquid down in front of him. “Drink.”

“Ah, no, Mom. I’m gonna go to a doctor, and they’ll heal me in—”

“You are not going to a doctor. We have perfectly fine healing potions here.” She shoved the vial toward him.

“Oh, gods,” he moaned.

“That potion will heal your ankle?” I asked.

“Well, it’ll get most of the work done, though he’ll have a bit of a limp for a while,” Laurel said. “They’re expensive and time-consuming to make, which I hope Casey and you will keep in mind on your next extracurricular adventure.”

Casey looked at the potion with a dubious expression.

“Drink it,” she ordered.

“Won’t it make you better?” I asked, not understanding his hesitation.

“It’s one of Dad’s. He believes the worse a potion tastes, the better it works. His are legendary.”

My uncle’s low voice resonated from behind me. “It’s true. The flavor is how you know it’s going to work.” I turned, and he beamed. “You ready to cook, Savannah? I’ve got everything ready.”

“Absolutely.” I leapt from my chair, leaving Casey to his fate, and poured the last of the cereal down the disposal, vowing never to eat it again. Then I followed my uncle to the back door with an eager bounce in my step.

Casey’s gagging echoed off the hallway walls. “Oh, gods, it’s so bad! The broken ankle was better!”

We headed out through the backyard to a shed. My uncle turned the key in the lock and did something with his hand like Casey had last night…perhaps disabling a spell?

“It’s good to have the workshop away from the house,” he said as he worked. “That way, if something goes wrong, the house will be left standing.”

Holy crap.

I followed my uncle into the interior of the workshop, my stomach churning. My parents had died when the house burned down. Had one of them been making potions? Was that what had happened?

Wonder drove the intrusive thoughts away. My uncle’s workshop was everything I’d imagined and more. The long workbenches that ran along the walls were covered with a bizarre assemblage of glass apparatuses—yellow curlicue tubes, beakers, flasks, and all assortments of devices. Potions—I assumed—bubbled on a few low burners at the back, slowly distilling into vials. Thousands of jars, boxes, and tins sat in racks on the wall, alongside dusty cupboards with long drawers and a couple of mini fridges. One was labeled Beer, the other Not Beer.

I’d wandered into the lab of a mad scientist. Or mad sorcerer. Or madman. I hadn’t really asked my uncle what he was, and I needed to rectify that. “Are you a sorcerer like Casey and Aunt Laurel?”

“Yes, ma’am. We tend to stick together. Other people don’t understand our magic.” He started organizing a few trays on the table.

“How so? What’s the difference between a sorcerer and, I don’t know, a witch?”

He handed me a pair of heavy rubber gloves, and I put them on.

“Magic Side has every kind of spellcaster you can imagine,” he explained in his low, earthy voice. “Witches, mages, druids, demons—you name it. What makes us all different is where we draw our power from. Mages are scholars. They cast spells using scrolls and books and formulas and learn their craft through intense study. Witches, on the other hand, draw power from their covens—from each other.”

“What about sorcerers?”

“We draw power from ourselves, from within.”

“Like our souls?

“Our bodies, our blood, our souls, all of it. It’s a very personal art. A witch might make you a spell to go—you can carry it around and cast it later. We don’t because we’re not about to let people go waltzing around with a little bit of our soul in their pocket. I’d never sell one of my healing draughts, but I’d let Casey drink it. He’s all the soul I’ve got.”

I nodded, wondering if that’s how my parents had felt about me. “So how do potions work? I don’t know much about casting spells.”

“Spells are one thing, and your aunt can teach you those. Potions are another. They’re like a spell in suspension. You drink it, and it goes off. The ingredients don’t entirely make the spell— they just hold it there, ready to be consumed.”

My uncle lifted a tiny iron cauldron and set it on a burner, added a little clear liquid from a tin, and set the flames on high. Then he motioned to a tray of plants and boxes of powder. “I’ve got most of the ingredients here so you can look at them.”

He listed them off. Some names I recognized—ginseng, ginkgo, amanita, cinnabar. Most, I did not.

Step by step, we measured each ingredient precisely with a scale, and dumped it into the cauldron. “You’ve got steady hands,” he commented as I dusted some powder off a slip of paper into the brew.

“I shoot. And draw.”

“That’s good for making potions.” He checked a list. “Always remember that the order of ingredients is important. If you add the amanita first instead of last, you make a hell of a potion. Instead of seeing whomever you’re thinking about, they’ll see you,” he explained, and chuckled.

“We didn’t mess up the order, right?” I hedged.

“I don’t think so.”

My trepidation checked in to see if I was going to need it again, but I shooed it away. Uncle Pete knew what he was doing.

I hoped.

Soon, the cauldron was frothing, and the workshop smelled like so many repulsive things that it made my head spin. Sardines. Old rotting grass. Foot fungus.

“Just one more ingredient,” said Uncle Pete. “Your blood.”

I tensed. Jaxson had mentioned it, so I’d guessed it was coming, but the request made my stomach lurch. “Why?” I asked.

“A scrying potion has to be attuned to one person only. That requires a bit of blood.”

Shit. Blood magic. Aunt Laurel had warned me about giving out my blood. Her first lesson. But Uncle Pete would be okay, right?

“Here.” He pulled a knife out of a beaker with blue liquid. “Cut your palm a bit and fill up this vial.”

I looked up with my trepidation suddenly in overdrive.

He smiled. “You’re smart to be cautious. Always be careful with your blood. It’s one of the most powerful components in spellcasting. Never give it out, or at least, never give it to someone you don’t trust with your life.”

“Why?”

“Blood is bonded to you. You can use it to make a potion that only you can use, like we are today. Alternately, you can use it to store a little of your power. And that means you can also use it maliciously to cast a spell on someone whose blood you have, though that’s very difficult.”

My stomach churned. Someone with my blood could cast a spell on me. Thank God I hadn’t given any of it to Jaxson.

My uncle patiently waited, neither rushing nor coddling me.

Screw it. I was there for the potion and to learn. I pulled off my heavy glove and drew the knife along my palm, wincing at the bite of the blade. Tilting my hand over the vial, I flexed my palm, careful not to spill any blood on my clothes.

“That’s enough.” My uncle patted my hand and then grabbed a red potion from the shelf. He dabbed a bit on my cut, and my skin knit back together—though it stung quite a lot.

“Wow.”

He chuckled again. “It’s magic.”

Still in wonder, I put my heavy glove back on.

He poured the blood into the flames until he had just the right amount left in the vial. “Now you know I’m not going to use your blood for any sinister hocus-pocus.” With that, he handed me the vial. “All yours.”

I grinned and tipped it into the cauldron.

A cloud of noxious gas exploded up out of the vat, and I started hacking. “Oh, Lord, I didn’t think the smell could get worse!”

“It can always get worse.” My uncle coughed. “Okay, time for the spell.”

He stood over the little black cauldron and began to chant strange words in a language I didn’t understand. Light swirled around the room, and I gasped. Suddenly, I was in whirlpool of vivid green flame, darkness, and my uncle’s words. The workshop shook, and I grabbed the counter. Then there was a tiny puff from the cauldron, and the shadows of the world went back to their normal positions.

“Holy. Crap.”

“Oh, right, I should have warned you it gets a little spooky.”

An hour later, we’d distilled the potion and cooled it. My uncle set the flask on the table. Red droplets floated in the shiny, silvery solution, and I wondered if that was actually my blood. The thought creeped me out. “Are you sure this is safe to drink?”

“Safe? Perfectly. Appetizing? Absolutely not.” My uncle dug around in the fridge marked Beer, pulled out a plastic bottle full of dark orange liquid, and shook it. “You’re going to want a chaser.”

“Great.”

“I’ve found that carrot juice works best.” He poured some in a beaker and set it on the workbench.

“Do I drink the whole thing?”

My uncle shook his head. “Not unless you want to be watching your godmother for hours at a time. Just a sip. It will last you a minute.”

“How does it work? Do I have to do anything?”

“As soon as you’ve taken a sip, close your eyes and concentrate on your godmother. You’ll see her in your mind, like a movie camera floating in air.”

I held the flask up to the light. This really didn’t feel safe.

I took the tiniest sip possible and instantly regretted all my life choices. The potion burned my tongue like acid, and my body jerked in protest. My uncle grabbed the flask before I dropped it and shoved the carrot juice into my hand.

I chugged it down and swished the last of it around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the residual taste. “Oh, my God! That tasted like electrocuted sardines! What the hell?”

“Forget the taste! Close your eyes. Think of your godmother.”

I tried, but nothing came to mind. “I don’t think it’s working.”

My uncle’s tobacco-scented magic washed over me. “Focus on her face, the way she talks.”

I felt the power of his magic guiding me. Suddenly the world started to spin, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut to combat the lurching vertigo. Then, out of the blackness, I saw my godmother. It was like I was looking through an unsteady handheld camera, but I could see her.

She shuffled about in her garden, tending to flowers. One of the lawn gnomes had fallen in the path, so she knocked it out of the way. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what she said.

I ignored my churning stomach and watched her go about her garden chores. I’d always taken it for granted before, but now, the care with which she tended the flowers brought tears to my eyes. A glimpse of what normal had once been.

Then it was gone.

I jolted as the vision turned dark and I returned to my uncle’s workshop. “Holy crap, I did it!” I cried.

He beamed and stuck a cork in the top of the potion, then he handed it to me. “First time’s the charm! Now you can check in, but I’ll warn you, I was able to give you a little nudge with my magic since I brewed the stuff. If you tried on your own, it would be a lot harder. So don’t go trying without me. This stuff can be dangerous.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

A lie.