4.0 - Howl Of The Fettered Wolf Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Thanks for Reading

  Acknowledgements

  Other Works by Krista Walsh

  About the Author

  Howl of the Fettered Wolf

  An Invisible Entente Novel

  By

  Krista Walsh

  All Rights Reserved

  This edition published in 2017 by Raven’s Quill Press

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity is purely coincidental.

  Cover art: Ravven (www.ravven.com)

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. The rights of the authors of this work has been asserted by him/ her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  For Chris, with love

  1

  Vera Goodall settled into the dining chair as Dr. Adam Taylor gasped for breath. His lips were already turning blue, the whites of his terrified eyes blossoming red as the blood vessels burst.

  Amazing the damage a single olive and a slight psychic nudge could do.

  Vera crossed her legs and watched as Taylor’s body lurched forward. His palms slammed against his blue-and-gold placemat and knocked over his glass of water. The glass rolled to the edge, tipped over, and smashed against the laminate flooring.

  She raised her feet to avoid having her shoes splashed. It wouldn’t do to leave water prints on her way out.

  “It’s nothing personal,” she said. “I usually prefer faster methods for the sake of expediency, but my client insisted.”

  Vera didn’t know why she had decided to stick around and keep Taylor company. Her usual routine was to set the scene and then stay just long enough to make sure everything would play out as intended. It wasn’t like she enjoyed watching people die. It was simply her role in the universe, a part of her heritage. After twenty years of accepting clients, she couldn’t bring herself to feel guilty or emotional. And she didn’t have time to hold their hands while they died, either. Especially not lately, with summons coming in several times a week.

  How so many people had suddenly learned of her existence was beyond her understanding, but for the last two months her vengeance revenue had nearly matched what her bookshop was bringing in — for the first time in her history. Even when her mother was the reigning vengeance demigoddess, people’s interest in permanent repercussions for personal insults or injuries had been on the decline. And for Vera it had been even worse — until now.

  While the extra income was a nice bonus for her ledger — money she had tucked away in her retirement fund — Vera was overwhelmed by the change to her routine. She wished it would settle down. A line of people were waiting for her to decide whether or not she would accept their offerings, and she couldn’t put off answering them much longer. Her role as an enabler of vengeance was part of the balance of her world, and to let that balance go off-kilter would add another stress to her already long list of things to worry about.

  For now, spending time with Dr. Taylor while he died was a good way to hide from her to-do list, so she remained seated while he slumped out of his chair and his body thumped on the wet laminate. A low gurgle escaped his throat as he dragged himself across the floor. Vera had no idea where he thought he was going, but she made no move to stop him. His death needed to look natural, which meant she could have no hand in it after she set the scene in motion.

  Taylor’s wife, Wendy, had reached out to Vera two nights ago. Apparently the good doctor, a dermatologist, had a bad habit of sleeping with his patients. Wendy had discovered a pink thong in the pocket of his lab coat when she’d surprised him at his office with a home-cooked lunch.

  A few minutes later, she had marched out, leaving lunch behind — most of it sprayed over Taylor’s suit.

  Vera had pulled that image from Wendy’s mind during their discussion, and it was a highlight of her week. Vengeance summons were meant to be official, serious matters, but it had taken all of Vera’s self-control not to laugh at the mashed potatoes and gravy streaming down the man’s cheeks.

  He didn’t look much different now as he crawled across the floor, remnants of his dinner splashed on his face through his panicked flailing. This time, Vera had no desire to laugh. He looked too pathetic as he clung to life, likely praying for someone to help him — someone other than the strange red-haired, gray-eyed woman who had shocked him by walking into the dining room and was now watching him die.

  Having been the weapon of choice enough times in her life to appreciate the horror that comes before death, she sympathized with his struggle. Dying never appeared to be an enjoyable experience. She almost felt bad for nudging his mind to believe the olive was choking him, inciting the panic that made his throat close around the food and block his windpipe. Personally, she felt Wendy’s reaction was extreme for the crime, but it wasn’t Vera’s place to judge. She simply considered the value of the offering, carried out her job, and allowed the consequences of her actions to rest on the conscience of the person who’d hired her.

  Taylor took another ten minutes to fall still. Vera remained in her seat for a while afterward, listening to the ticking clock on the wall. After the racket of his struggle, the silence was both oppressive and a relief.

  She pulled her planner out of her jacket pocket, opened it to today’s date, and marked a line through the ninth item on the list: Finish contract. Another paycheck earned.

  Lights from a passing car cut through the dining room windows and shook Vera out of her thoughts. She rose to her feet, stepped over the body, and headed for the back door that took her down the lane behind the houses to the main street.

  Her shoulders twinged with fatigue as she pulled the collar of her coat close around her neck to fend off the autumnal wind. Although the temperatures had improved since the unusual snow storm that had held the city of New Haven hostage almost two weeks ago, the dampness remained in the air and set off her desire for a cup of tea and a low fire in the grate.

  She glanced at her watch, and peacefulness settled over her. Taylor’s contract, despite taking longer than expected, had only stolen two hours of her evening. She’d still have time to sit and read after taking her dogs for a run. A blessed change from the last couple of weeks. For the past year, she’d begun to dread her vengeance work. It had become so boring and repetitive, her clients always bringing up the same issues, human nature continuing to disappoint her. And yet, she’d had no good reason to turn her clients down. As a result, she’d been so busy, she’d even forgotten to visit the cemetery to leave fresh flowers for her parents. That just wasn’t like her.

  Vera didn’t understand how a single event that had happened nine months ago could be having such long-lasting repercussions. Strict adherence to her schedule and deference to the daily to-do list in her planner had always been her top priorities. Then one twenty-four-hour period had
scattered her planner to the winds, and she was still working to put the pages back in order.

  When the warlock Jermaine Hershel had transported seven strangers into a magically sealed room and tasked them with figuring out which one of them had killed him, Vera had taken on the challenge with the same frame of mind she tackled everything in life: Get to work and don’t stop until it’s done.

  They’d accomplished their goal, but the time away from the shop had made it difficult for her to see her old routine in the same light. How could she? She’d been introduced to so many new otherworldly people — people who had managed to survive a battle by working together.

  Including Gabriel Mulligan, the charming Gorgon-Fae, who had stared at her in such a fascinating way when she’d looked him in the eye. As though she’d thrown his entire world into a whirlwind. That memory had remained with her in sharp detail, surprising her with daydreams in the middle of her work day and even disturbing her sleep.

  Such quick distractions weren’t usual for her, and she couldn’t wrap her head around the change.

  Perhaps it was the ease with which Jermaine had plucked her out of her life and planted her in the middle of his. The man always did have a knack for being the strand of hair in a fresh coat of paint. The suddenness of the shift had made her see the fragility of her carefully structured life. What she’d always seen as sturdiness was only an illusion.

  Since then, she’d worked hard to regain her solid footing, but it continued to evade her. Everything seemed to be on the edge of teetering into chaos, no matter how desperately she tried to hold on to it.

  And she couldn’t even pinpoint where her stresses rested. Her shop, Yggdrasil Books, was doing well. She and her childhood friend and business partner, Ara Vellis, had a band of loyal customers who never went a week without popping in to check out the latest additions to the shelves. Every day, people came in to sit down after stopping at the coffee shop on the corner, and they’d read for hours. The sight always filled Vera with a warm buzz of success, which only increased when they purchased the books on their way out.

  Then there were her dogs, Vidar and Baxter. Both of them had been with her since the shop had opened five years ago and had become a source of constant companionship and affection. She held their routines more sacred than her own.

  But at the moment, the thought of going home to them and taking them through the usual steps of her evening felt like just one more obligation. The structure that used to keep her sane was now driving her to the brink. With so many plates in the air, the challenge of keeping them spinning had begun to take its toll, and she didn’t know how long she could keep going before one of them slipped and shattered, like the glass of water Taylor had knocked to the floor.

  Vera shuddered and hugged her coat tighter around her middle.

  She would have to find a way to get herself back in control of her life. Any other route would make her appear weak, and she’d worked too hard to prevent any such extreme character flaw.

  A blaring horn tore her out of her thoughts. As she turned around, she caught headlights bearing down on her as a car cut the corner. Images of a different car flashed through her mind — the blood spray across the asphalt, the reek of gasoline and burned rubber, the ambulance siren, the squeak of a wheel as the paramedics rolled a stretcher across the road.

  Vera just had time to leap clear of the vehicle before it hit her. Her shoulder decked the side mirror and the plastic cracked, sending the mirror clattering across the pavement as the car took the next turn so sharply the tires squealed.

  She watched the brake lights disappear, her hand pressed to her chest and her breath coming quick and shallow.

  That had been too close. If the car had hit her at that speed, the driver would have been killed. Like a movie playing out in her mind, she pictured the frame of the car buckling against her body, folding in on itself until the traction kicked in and the car stopped moving. And there she would have been, standing in the middle of the wreckage with nothing but bruises. It would have meant questions. Media.

  Vera groaned and stared down the empty street, counting her breaths to slow the pulse rushing in her ears. Her stomach cramped, and she bent over to ease the nausea. Too close.

  Almost the same way, she thought.

  She’d been twelve years old, walking with her mother to pass a beautiful summer evening. She could still taste the sweetness of fresh-cut grass on the air and hear a radio playing from someone’s porch down the street. Crickets hiding in the bushes along the road added to the serenade. Then the car had squealed around the corner, and Susan Goodall had shoved her daughter out of the way.

  Vera remembered how the grass and dirt had scraped her elbows, the skin on her knee peeling as she’d skidded across the sidewalk. She’d rolled onto her back in time to witness the car hitting her mother, and to this day, twenty years later, she didn’t understand how it had happened. The car should have been totaled, and yet it had been her mother who’d gone flying.

  A freak accident, her father had said. A perfect strike at just the right angle, and with such force that there had been no chance of survival.

  The car tonight hadn’t been going fast enough to do the same damage, but the memory sent a stab of pain through Vera’s chest.

  She straightened and drew in a slow breath. You’re fine. Nothing happened. Keep walking.

  She forced one foot in front of the other and turned her steps toward the side street where her shop was located. Her small apartment was tucked onto the second floor. A cup of tea would set everything to rights quickly enough, but it would have to wait until after she’d taken Vidar and Baxter out for a run. Her weakness wasn’t enough of an excuse to forget about her dogs.

  She started toward the path that would take her to the back door of the shop, but a glint of light through the bay window out front made her pause.

  Had Ara forgotten to turn a light off?

  The idea was so inconceivable that Vera dismissed it as soon as it came. In all the years they’d known each other, she had never known Ara to be wasteful with electricity. The woman was an advocate for environmental efforts and a quick flick of a light switch was the easiest way to contribute. She’d lectured Vera’s father for years about his forgetfulness.

  Vera crept toward the window and peered through the glass. The light dimmed and shifted. Not a full light then. A flashlight?

  Her muscles tensed, and she curled her hands into fists.

  Not again.

  A week earlier, someone had broken into the shop, and Vidar had chased him away. Vera had thought it was over, but apparently this thief was determined.

  Keeping her weight on her toes, Vera opened the front door and braced herself for the piercing shriek of the burglar alarm. Instead, she was greeted with silence. The hair rose on the back of her neck at the implication. The security system was heavily protected by magic, a spell cast by a Ghurgzic demon. Disabling it without the passcode would have required advanced knowledge of the arcane.

  She left the door ajar behind her and stepped lightly over the hardwood floor. Cocking her head to better pick up the sounds in the shop, she heard a man grunt as the heavy door to the restricted section dragged open.

  Bastard.

  Of course he would go through the effort of trying to get at her extensive — and expensive — occult collection. They were books she didn’t keep on the main shelves, the contents too advanced and powerful for anyone who might walk off the street. She kept them with her first edition collection, available for private viewings and select sales.

  The restricted section was also where she kept her personal collection, believing her books to be safer in the locked and magically guarded room than if they were roaming free in her apartment.

  She would obviously need to reconsider her system.

  Softly, she stepped through the rows of bookshelves, the small light getting brighter the closer she got to the thief. No noise drifted back to her except for a few soft whisp
ers. She hadn’t spotted anyone else and only one shape appeared to be in the room, so she guessed the thief was talking to himself.

  Only one to contend with. Even if he had magic, she would be able to handle him. Her heartbeat settled, and she gave up trying to sneak up on him.

  She stepped into the small room, but he didn’t notice. Then she saw what he was doing, and her feet froze against the floor, astonishment turning her thoughts to static.

  She’d expected him to be going after the locked bookcases, the titles facing the room through glass panels.

  Instead, he had pulled one of the cabinets forward on its hidden hinges and was hunched in front of her safe, murmuring chanted words as he fiddled with the custom-made combination lock, clearly unaffected by the magical charms that had been set over the dial.

  Red flashed through Vera’s vision, and she grabbed the back of his coat. The man cried out and jerked away, but her grip remained strong as she hauled him out of the room.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  The man snarled. Green eyes flashed red in the glow of his flashlight, and he shoved her away. The force was enough to slam her backward into a bookcase. The man took off running. Vera braced her toes on the hardwood and sprinted after him around the bookshelves. The thief pushed one of the shelves toward her and she caught it on her shoulder, the weight pressing into her muscles. With a grunt, she shoved it into place and continued her pursuit, but by the time she got to the front door, the dark figure had already disappeared into the shadows of the quiet street.

  She sent a silent curse after him and brushed the dust off her coat where the books had fallen on her.

  As the adrenaline seeped out of her blood, worry rose up to fill the void.

  Twice now someone had broken into her shop. It suggested the thief was after more than a quick buck or an easy grab-and-go. Last time, he hadn’t made it far enough to give away the aim of his caper, but now that Vera had caught him in the act, the facts started worming their way into her mind, boring a hole through her confidence in her security system.