A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

think werewolf and werefox like it was an ordinary day? Like this was her life now?

Well. It apparently was an ordinary day. At least in this neighborhood. As to whether it would be her life, who knew?

“Later for them,” Garsea vowed. “Mighty will be my wrath!”

“Don’t worry,” Lila soothed. “You don’t sound like a cartoon villain at all.”

“Okay, so the wretches are colluding, fine, we should have realized. And it would seem there’s now a good chance Sam and Sue Smalls are alive.”

“Oh my God.” Lila rubbed her head. “Sam and Sue Smalls named their baby Sally? I bet they thought it’d be cute. I bet they thought it would be downright adorable. And I bet they were sorry about a month in.”

“We’ll deal with the cubs later. Right now, we need to reach Sam Smalls—or the person impersonating him. And we must ‘watch out for Maggie’ as well.” Garsea was pacing back and forth from the living room (where Sally had retreated after giving up the older kids) to the kitchen. “And the first step toward any of it would be—oh.” Garsea stopped, went to the front door, let in a firefighter before he could knock. “Hello, we’re all in the kitchen. Mostly.”

“Yep,” Lila said. “Here we all are. In my kitchen. Mostly.”

The firefighter, who had been trudging behind Garsea, straightened up when he saw Lila. He was a bullish man of about six feet who looked even bulkier in his heavy coat and boots. He had bushy, short dark hair and chocolate-brown eyes, with shoulders he could probably use to hold up the Hollywood Sign, and his head was a block. He smelled like smoke and sweat and smoke, and there was a long silence while he looked her up and down, nostrils flaring, forehead furrowing, finally coming out with “…huh.” Then he turned to Macropi. “Definitely on purpose.”

“Well, hell, Benny,” she sighed. “That’s nothing I wanted to hear.”

“Accelerant was avgas.”

“You know that already?” Lila asked. “Your lab must be humming twenty-four-seven. That was so fast.”

She got another long stare, followed by a laconic “Lab’ll hopefully narrow it down.”

The lab, your preternatural senses, toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe. Is it me or does this guy look like a great big chocolate lab?

Oz spoke up. “I’m just gonna ask. What the hell is avgas?”

Benny blinked mournful smoke-reddened eyes. “Aviation fuel.”

“That’s unusual, right?” Oz replied. “It’s not like people keep a can or two of aviation fuel in their garages.”

“Not this time of year,” Lila deadpanned.

“I’ll talk to the chief, get more info. Insurance guys’re gonna be poking around later this morning. Cops’ll be looking, too.”

Oh, goody. I can’t wait for them to let themselves in whenever the mood hits.

“Thank you, Benny. You should go on home and rest, you were up half the night.”

“Paperwork,” he replied, which was apparently how he bade farewell, because he left.

“Aviation fuel,” Garsea said, puzzled.

“Good thing this case isn’t getting weirder by the hour,” Oz sighed.

Before they could speculate further, there was a knock at the back-kitchen door. Cop? Insurance adjuster? Avgas salesman?

“Wait!” she hissed as Garsea presumptuously went to answer. The other woman froze in mid-step.

“What is it?”

“Just…wait.” Another knock and another long silence. And after yet another long moment, there came yet another knock, this time on the front door.

Lila all but ran into the living room, dropped to her knees, smirked to hear Oz’s sharp intake of breath behind her, crawled over to the window facing the driveway, peeked. “See?” Garsea, Oz, and Macropi had all knelt behind her, which was more than a little amusing. “See what he’s doing?”

“He’s…leaving. Getting ready to leave, anyway. Nice rental car, though,” Oz added.

“If by ‘nice,’ you mean idiotic,” Lila replied, staring at the blue Ford Mustang convertible.

“Naw, by nice I meant nice.”

“Pfftt. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get frostbite. And look! He’s getting ready to leave! To go work on his frostbite!”

“Lila, why are you so—”

“You don’t understand. He knocked on one door. Then he knocked on the other door. And now he’s leaving. And why? Because I didn’t answer the door! Either door! Don’t you see how revolutionary this is?”

“Oh, for the love…”

“This is the first time this has happened in all the days I’ve lived here!” Lila hissed triumphantly. “You could learn a lot from this guy, gang. This, this is how you call on people you don’t know.”

“A revelation,” Garsea said sourly. “But he is still leaving. Shouldn’t we find out what he wants? Now that we have to watch for an arsonist, we shouldn’t let anyone just slip in and out as they like.”

“Excellent point,” Lila replied, standing. To Oz: “Well, don’t just stand there. Go get him, tiger.” And slapped him on the ass for emphasis.

“Right!” Oz did exactly that, rushing out the door and straight to the convertible.

Macropi and Garsea rose to their feet, and Garsea’s grin was positively gleeful. “I like how you chased him out of here before he remembered he’s wearing your shorty robe.”

Chapter 22

“You’re telling me that my friends are dead but perhaps not and while you try to determine which, someone tried to burn my goddaughter alive?”

As a summation, Lila thought, it is devastating in its accuracy.

“Unacceptable!” This in a roar. An actual roar; Magnus Berne was one of those people who filled every room they were in, like Churchill and Lady Gaga and the Phillie Phanatic. He towered over all of them, even Oz, though she thought Oz might be able to give him a run for his money. Oz’s wolf, she’d decided last night, was nothing to be fucked with.

But Magnus made even the bulky firefighters look like wraiths: He looked to be in his mid-thirties, was well over six feet, with thick brown hair that had an odd violet tint. Shoulders like cement blocks, fists like bowling balls made out of cement blocks. He sported a deep tan, dark slacks, a navy-blue sweater with epaulets, and sturdy shoes. He’d flung his tan trench coat over his shoulders when they followed