Lord of the Wolfyn - By Jessica Andersen Page 0,4

leather jacket Reda had pulled out of her closet that morning because there was no reason for her to dress like a cop these days. And yeah, those were her deep blue eyes at the back of the dark hollows that had taken up permanent residence. But if that was her, what the hell was she doing?

Normally, she wouldn’t go anywhere near the kitschy magic, witchcraft and whatnot shops that lined the Salem waterfront unless someone called 9-1-1…but then again, normal circumstances had hit the bricks six weeks earlier. And she had asked MacEvoy, the owner of Cat Black, to find the book for her.

“It’s here,” his phone message had said. “And if you liked the picture you bought, you’re going to love the rest of it.”

Like it? Heck, she’d spent the past four days staring at the framed woodcutting of a dark, eerie forest of gnarled and twisted trees, with just a hint of eyes in the shadows. More, she had dreamed about the image…and others like it.

A clatter startled her and she flinched for the weapon she wasn’t carrying, then winced when she saw that the noise had come from the shaking of her hand on the door latch. Worse, she didn’t know how long she had been standing there.

“Don’t be surprised if you have sleep disturbances, panic attacks, behavioral changes, even compulsions,” the department shrink had told her. And yeah, she’d had all of the above…except for the last one. This was her first full-blown compulsion. Or rather, the strange urge that practically dragged her into the creepy-ass store earlier in the week had been the first. This was her second. And it was much stronger.

It’s not the same book, she told herself. It’s just another copy. Except that her maman had said it was one of a kind. You’re just transferring, trying to solve something that’s solvable because you know the real stuff isn’t. That was the practical part of her talking, her father’s daughter. And suddenly she saw the major in the shape of the blue eyes that stared back at her, and in the ramrod posture that made her look taller than her true five-six. Inwardly, though, her mother’s voice whispered, At least take a look. What have you got to lose?

“My sanity,” she muttered under her breath, ignoring the ache that fisted beneath her heart. She hesitated another moment, then shook her head and pushed through the door, causing a distant bell to ring in the back of the cluttered shop.

As before, the place smelled disconcertingly like foot powder—gritty talc with a cloying perfumed undertone that made her think of funerals. Display racks near the door held the usual suspects: artsy postcards, books on the witch trials, copies of The House of the Seven Gables and such. But the racks themselves were made of wood rather than the usual cheesy wire, and the sides were carved with strange, sinuous curves and the hint of scales and teeth. The walls were painted black, with greenish white accents she bet glowed in the dark when MacEvoy turned off the lights. It would make the perfect backdrop for him to pull out the three-foot-high grim reaper statue that was locked in a glass case behind the register at the back of the store, and which she’d bet a hundred bucks converted, Transformer-like, into a giant bong.

Yeah. This was so not her scene. She should just leave.

“Miss Weston!” MacEvoy came through an employees-only door with his hands outstretched and his red-rimmed eyes holding an expression of pleasure that might or might not be faked.

A middle-size, middle-age grasshopper of a man, he was all arms and angles inside a faded black suit that made him look like a Victorian mortician and, she suspected, had come from the clearance rack at Cosby’s Costumes a few doors down.

Don’t be bitchy, she told herself as she shook his hand and returned his greeting. It’s not like he came looking for you. And it wasn’t his fault she felt totally out of place. The problem wasn’t with the location, or with him.

“Right this way.” He headed to the register area, where a wood-and-glass case held a collection of impressively ugly silver-and-moonstone jewelry, along with a sterling frog whose garnet eyes seemed to follow Reda when she moved. But that was just her imagination. Right?

Holding back a shiver, she reminded herself that she didn’t believe in magic, that this was all just a put-on for the tourists. If the atmosphere was working on