Pet Psychic Mysteries Boxset Books 5-8 (Magic Market Mysteries Book 2) by Erin Johnson (simple ebook reader .txt) 📕

A steady drip sounded from somewhere, echoing off the round walls between the splashes of our footsteps.

Neo half-turned. “No one knows, okay?”

I frowned. “What?”

“No one’s ever seen Ludolf Caterwaul shift.” Sacha’s low, slow voice sounded behind me, and I turned and raised my brows at him.

“Seriously?”

He nodded, his bald head slightly stooped in the low tunnel.

I turned around and shrugged. “I thought that was just a rumor.”

Neo shook his head. “He’s very private.”

Weird, in my book. As someone who’d lost her ability to shift, I’d hardly hide being an owl, especially when living in an underground full of other shifters you didn’t have to hide your true nature from.

Even during my heyday of hiding my identity to further my career as a lawyer, I’d spent a few nights a week winging over the island in my owl form. I’d needed that freedom of the wind rustling my feathers, wings stretched, to be able to tolerate the stilettos and stuffy offices.

I’d been down here a few times now, so when we made a left where we usually would’ve gone right, I frowned. “Where are we going?”

Neo’s shoulders tensed. “Hex makers’ lair.”

I stopped for a moment, before continuing on. Had Ludolf actually found a cure for me? He’d told me he’d put his hex makers to work to find one.

A mix of excitement and dread churned in my stomach. After breaking shifter code and turning in not only one of our own to the police, but one of Ludolf’s illegal money lenders, I had no idea how I stood with the shifter mob boss.

We followed the sewers through many twists and turns, the tunnels growing narrower, darker and more crumbled. I guessed we were moving in an older, less visited part of the underground system.

Finally, a reddish light glowed up ahead, bouncing off the rough stone walls. I ducked and followed Viktor and Neo through a half-collapsed doorway into a large, round room. Shelves lined the walls, some made of rocks and stones that jutted out, others formed from alcoves and holes in the walls. Glass vials, bottles, and jars of glowing potions of all colors littered every available space.

A few stone tables sat in the middle of the room, similarly covered in bottles, beakers, and small cauldrons. A walk-in fireplace against the right-hand wall housed a roaring fire that warmed the space and cast a reddish glow over everything. Above the fire, a huge black cauldron of glowing green liquid bubbled.

An old woman, hunched, with stringy hair falling into her face, stirred a wooden paddle around and around. Two other women who looked like her clones worked at the tables in the center. One mashed with a mortar and pestle and the other used a black knife to slice open the entrails of some small dead creature.

I cringed and looked away.

“Glad you could join us. We’ve been waiting for some time.”

Ludolf’s quiet, raspy voice startled me. I looked around the room until I found him, perched on a wooden stool in a shadowy corner. He drummed his talon-like nails on the stone wall. Tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap.

A chill ran down my spine, but I threw my shoulders back, determined not to show this man my fear. I shrugged. “Came as quickly as I could.” I gestured around the room. “I mean, who would want to miss this?”

Neo flashed his eyes at me.

He was right. I probably should show some respect—it was just hard when I had none. Ludolf exploited the vulnerable state of shifters in general for his own gain. When Will’s anger had caused him to publicly shift and lose everything, he’d come to Ludolf, desperate for help. Ludolf had set him up in his current clinic in exchange for patching up his goons when they got into scrapes. And Will still had to pay Ludolf such a steep “protection” fee to basically keep Neo and the boys from vandalizing his business and threatening his life that he could barely afford to eat. I glared at the bony, creepy man. He was just a more intelligent, cunning version of Pearl and Ralph Litt—a scam artist.

He rose. It was like he slowly unfolded himself, growing taller and more menacing as he stood. He turned his sharp, hooked nose in my direction. “I think you won’t want to miss what I have to say to you.”

I gulped.

He smiled, and I wished he hadn’t. He revealed tiny, pointed teeth, his cold eyes sharp and mirthless. “I believe I’ve found a cure for you.”

33

A Confession

I recoiled in spite of my best efforts to hold my ground. One of the old ladies cackled, a rasping, coughing sound, and the other two—they had to be her sisters, they looked so alike—took it up, their barking laughter echoing around the room.

Viktor joined in with uncontrollable giggles until Neo shot him a hard look, and Sacha came up from behind and wrapped him in a tight bear hug. His tic quieted and he grew still, though a muscle in his face still twitched.

I gulped and wished, desperately, I was in my bed.

The lady cutting the creature set down her knife and handed Ludolf a beaker of glowing green potion. It steamed and bubbled. He approached me, his movements deliberate and eerily controlled. I felt as though I were being stalked.

Neo and the boys edged away from me. Cowards. I balled my hands into fists at my sides to hide their trembling. I thought back to what Opal had said about potion masters being able to possibly find a cure for a curse. I lifted my chin as Ludolf’s hard eyes locked on me, his pupils so wide, nearly his entire iris was black.

“No offense.” I licked my lips. “But you’d need to know exactly what curse was used against me to concoct a cure.”

He didn’t stop his slow advance.

My mouth grew dry. “I understand that trying to cure a curse without a thorough knowledge of it can do more harm than