Samhain (Matilda Kavanagh Book 2) (3 page)

“Oh gods.” Ronnie’s hands went still as she looked at me over the two pumpkins. “Please don’t tell me…”

“That he needs a healing potion for the
ailment
he contracted from someone other than his wife? Sorry to disappoint.”

“Gross,” Joey said, and I nodded.

“I voted for him!” Ronnie said, stomping her foot.

“So did I.” I stabbed at my pumpkin again, imagining Fox’s stupid grinning face.

“Are you going to brew the potion for him?” Joey asked.

“Of course. I mean, a customer is a customer, and he’s gonna pay for it, believe me.”

“Should let the toad squirm,” Joey said before she headed back into the living room and settled on the floor in front of the coffee table.

“You’re going to need some special items for that kind of healing potion,” Ronnie said. “I think I’ve got everything in the shop that you’re probably missing. Unless you’ve brewed one of these potions before?”

I glanced at Ronnie and shook my head. “No, this will be a first for me.”

“Careful people don’t find out about your new services,” Joey called over her shoulder. “Your apartment will be flooded with infected nymphs in an Underworld minute.”

Ronnie and I shared a sour look.

“Thanks for the heads up,” I said.

“Anyway,” Ronnie said with a dramatic sigh, “come to the shop tomorrow, and I’ll have everything you need ready.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Ronnie turned away at the sound of the timer and went to the oven to pull out the last batch of cookies. The melted chocolate and warm sugar smell was really getting to me, and my stomach made a rude noise. When I pushed out the last piece of my jack-o-lantern’s mouth, I pushed away from the table and strolled into the kitchen.

Leaning against the counter, I said, “I’ll need a few other ingredients too.”

“Oh?” Ronnie prompted, not looking at me as she slid the cookies, one by one, onto a wire rack.

“Yeah.” I picked up a cookie from the nearest batch. “He also needs a sort of anti-love-banishing potion.”

“For the love of toads, Mattie! I said no.” Ronnie struck at me with her spatula, but I danced out of the way with a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie.

“What’s the anti-banishing thingy for?” Joey asked.

“Anti-love and banishing,” I said. “The girl involved in the whole thing is, I guess, kind of obsessed with the creeper.”

“And he wants you to fix that little problem for him?” Ronnie asked.

“Yep, yep,” I said before I popped the last bite of cookie in my mouth.

“Bridge dweller,” Ronnie muttered as she wiped her hands on her apron. She came back to the table and picked up her carving knife, gripping the handle hard enough to make her knuckles turn white. “I tell you what, I am not voting for him next year.” Ronnie slammed the knife into her pumpkin, the blade sliding in almost to the hilt. It actually looked kind of cool with the deranged face she’d managed to carve into it.

“You should dribble some fake blood on it and leave the knife,” I said.

Ronnie smirked and picked up another knife to finish working on the nose. Ronnie and I finished our jack-o-lanterns within minutes of each other. We turned off all the lights, and I blew into my hands, creating two cold, blue flames. I tipped them inside the hollowed-out pumpkins. The faces were menacing and creepy as the flames flickered, casting shadows all around the apartment. Satisfied with our handiwork, we set to cleaning up.

Joey opened the door for me as I walked my armload of pumpkin guts and wet newspaper out to the trash chute in the hall. I was struggling with the hatch, trying to open it without spilling the goopy mess all over the floor when I heard a door slam down the hall.

“What are you doing?” a familiar and terrifying voice rang through the hallway.

Thank the gods I was already tipping the mess in my arms into the chute, otherwise, I would have dropped it on my feet and ruined my new black-and-purple Converse. With my shoulders hunched up around my ears, I turned, slowly and reluctantly, until I faced a fuming Frankie, one of my werewolf landlords. Frankie’s family owned our building, but only she and her brother actually lived there. Therefore, they were mostly responsible for the building as a whole.

Frankie was temperamental at the best of times, but during the days leading up to a full moon, she was a real beast. Pun intended. Tonight, her spikey, trendy hair was a shock of blue. The tiny pieces framing her eyes set off her glowing yellow irises, warning me of how close to the edge she was. For one terrifying moment, I thought I saw her fingers lengthening into claws.

She stormed toward me, forgetting to lock her door, and stopped within inches of me. I flinched when her hand shot out, but she only grabbed the handle of the trash chute and pulled the hatch open. Tiny slivers of pumpkin guts clung to the hinges, and I said a silent prayer that I would make it out of this alive, if not unscathed.

“What. The. Hell.” Frankie bit off each word. She leaned forward, her face dangerously close to mine.

I smelled the forest and the tang of blood under her cloying perfume. My mouth went dry, and I forgot how to speak as I watched her eyes shifting with power, her pupils growing long and thin.

“We were carving pumpkins,” I whispered, but I couldn’t even hear myself clearly.

Frankie pressed closer to me, her nose almost touching mine. I tried not to look at her mouth, scared I would see her teeth shifting into fangs.

“And you just threw that mess into the trash chute? So that slime could coat the chute and bring flies into the building?” She wasn’t yelling.

I think I would have been less terrified if she were. Her hissing whisper crawled up my spine and pulled my skin tight against my bones, and I knew if I so much as twitched a muscle, she would be on me like a dog with a bone. “I’m sorry,” I squeaked.

“Sorry?” Frankie let go of the hatch, letting it slam closed, and I jumped.

A cold sweat broke out at the small of my back, and I was terrified to even breathe. “I’ll clean it, I promise,” I managed to choke out.

“You’re damn right you’ll clean it,” Frankie hissed.

I felt the power rippling around her, her wolf rising inside her and threatening to rip out my throat and feast on my body. I closed my eyes against that image. Frankie growled, and I almost fainted. I heard the
ding
of the elevator just before the doors slid open. Frankie stood up straight, pulling out of my personal space so quickly I nearly fell over. My heart was pounding, having lodged somewhere in my throat, and I fought to swallow it down. My knees were weak, and I worried I would collapse right there.

“Hey there, gorgeous,” a familiar, soothing voice called out behind me.

Frankie smiled, rearranging her face so fast it was like a magic trick. “Kyle,” she purred, stepping around me to meet him.

I let out the breath I was holding. My shoulders slumped, and my arms shook in relief.

“Hey there, Mattie,” Kyle said jovially.

I turned around, trying to smile, but it felt like a grimace. I tried not to look at Frankie as she clung to his side, her hand on his chest. I think if I hadn’t been there, she would’ve pressed him against the wall and taken him right there in the middle of the hall.

“Heya, Kyle,” I said, my voice stronger but still shaky.

“Everything okay?” His black brows drew together as he looked at me.

I couldn’t help but flick my eyes to Frankie. She was glaring at me, daring me to out her. I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, but I didn’t have a death wish.

I managed a weak smile and shrugged. “Peachy keen.”

Kyle nodded slowly, but the look on his face told me he didn’t really believe me. “All right.” He glanced down at Frankie. She was twining two of his thin, long braids between her fingers, waiting impatiently for me to leave.

“How’re the headaches?” I asked, not wanting to be rude or obvious by running away, screaming, from the maniac she-wolf.

“Better, thanks to you,” Kyle said with a bright white smile. “Probably need a refill this week though.”

“Just come by,” I said with a wave. “Well, you two kids have fun tonight.”

I slowly edged around the werewolf couple, walking backward toward Ronnie’s door. I just wanted to put that slab of wood between me and Frankie’s golden eyes. Frankie liked Ronnie, and I knew she’d never do anything to damage Ronnie’s apartment, unlike mine. She’d happily rip my door from the hinges and bill me for the damage.

“See ya,” Frankie said, making me jump. She waggled her fingers at me, the blood red paint on her nails catching the light.

“Night, Mattie,” Kyle said.

I was already opening the door and slipping inside. I slammed it shut with a loud sigh of relief. With my face pressed against the cool wood, I heard what sounded like nails dragging across the other side of the door. I put my eye to the peephole just in time to catch Frankie’s glare as they walked toward the elevator.

“You okay?” Ronnie asked, making me jump and almost scrape my face against the metal peephole.

“Frogs!” I pressed my hands to my chest, as if I was trying to keep my heart from bursting through.

“What is the matter with you?” Ronnie asked, her hands up in surrender.

“Just a run-in with our favorite neighborhood werewolf.”

“Why doesn’t Frankie like you?” Joey asked from the living room floor.

“No idea,” I said, pushing my short black hair away from my face, trying to tuck it behind my ears.

“Because you’ve been late with the rent too often,” Ronnie said, nudging my hip with hers as she turned to go back into the kitchen.

“I wasn’t late this month!” I called.

“You’re on a roll then!” she yelled back with a smirk.

“Witch,” I muttered, smoothing down my shirt. A few orange strings stuck to the black fabric. “Great.”

“She’s always nice to me,” Joey said, threading another amethyst chip onto the purple string.

“You don’t owe her money.” I picked at my shirt before I gave up on getting the pumpkin off it. I walked over to my bag, dug out the vial of anti-aging elixir, and stalked across the room to thrust the vial at Ronnie. “I cleaned ‘em. You get to coat ‘em.”

Ronnie took the vial with a smile. It didn’t take her long to paint the insides of the pumpkins with the elixir. It wasn’t a fair trade for cleaning out both of them, but Ronnie had promised me a dozen cookies and a bag of roasted pumpkin seeds, so I didn’t make a big fuss about it. I slung my bag over my head and shoulder before I struggled to pick up my pumpkin. It was so big, I almost couldn’t wrap my arms around it. Joey got the door for me again.

I hesitated at the threshold, glancing up and down the hallway to make sure Frankie wasn’t out there. “Don’t forget,” I said over my shoulder, “a full dozen cookies!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ronnie said with a wave before returning to the bowl of pumpkin seeds.

Joey smiled at me as I turned to go. The hall was long but blessedly empty. I punched the call button for the elevator with my elbow, catching my balance before I toppled into the wall under the weight of the pumpkin.

The ride to my floor, just one level below, was as treacherous as ever in the old, rickety elevator. I worried the immense weight of my pumpkin would be too much for the ancient box, but after a few moments, it
binged,
and the doors opened to my floor. I stepped out cautiously, making sure Frankie wasn’t lying in wait for me. I knew she wouldn’t ruin her date with the tall, dark, and handsome Kyle, but on the week of the full moon, I wasn’t taking any chances.

Artemis, my black smush-faced cat, was waiting for me when I opened my door. I’d set the pumpkin on the floor so I could unlock my door and undo the freezing spell I always set on the locks.

With my foot, I shoved the pumpkin over the threshold to just inside the door. “That’s where you’re gonna live until Halloween, all right, Jack?”

I closed the door behind me, throwing the locks and setting the freezing spell with a touch. Artemis gave the creepy face a sniff, flicking his tail as he turned his attention to me. He twined his body between my legs, trying to trip me.

“Dude, I know,” I said, lightly flicking my foot at him as I tried to extricate myself from his trap. “Calm thyself, your majesty.”

“Prrrrow,” Artie said as he followed me into the kitchen. He leapt onto the counter and sat beside his empty bowls, waiting.

“What is with you animals and the week of the full moon?” I asked as I pulled the cream out of the fridge. I spilled some into his bowl. “Do you guys get a fresh batch of bitchy pills?”

Artemis lifted his head from the bowl, tiny beads of white clinging to his chin. He twitched his whiskers at me before returning to the bowl.

“Whatever, grumpy.” I returned to my fridge for a box of cold sesame noodles and a can of soda.

I nudged the door closed with my hip and set the can on the counter. I dug a pair of chopsticks from the silverware drawer and stabbed at the cold noodles, digging around until I found a hunk of chicken. Munching on it, I leaned against the counter, watching Artemis clean his bowl, even pushing it a few inches in his enthusiasm.

“Maybe I should just give Frankie some cream too,” I said, lifting a wad of noodles and tilting my head to shovel them into my mouth. “Maybe that’ll calm her down.”

“Mrrrow,” Artie said as he sat back, cleaning his paw.

“Yeah, I know. Wolves aren’t cats, they’re dogs,” I said around the mouthful of noodles. “But I don’t think she’d appreciate a bone.”

Artemis stopped grooming to look at me, blinking his wide, golden eyes.

“It was a joke,” I said, stabbing into the container with the chopsticks. I popped the tab on my soda, and the fizzle filled the silence in the apartment. “But still, it might not be a bad idea to slip her something. Maybe a calming draught or something.”

Artie made a noise as I took a sip of the soda, the carbonation tickling my nose.

“I know,” I said with a sigh. I set the can on the counter again and went back to my leftovers. “The last time one of my potions was slipped to a Were, I almost got killed. I’m not really gonna do it.”

But it was fun to think about.