Page 52 of Kin of the Wolf

I didn’t wearthe gas mask to clean, but Ididleave all the doors and windows open as I scrubbed and sprayed. Smells of pets—and pet scat—were almost as difficult to get rid of as cigarette smoke, but at least the apartment didn’t have any carpet. In most of the units, I’d long ago replaced that with durable vinyl floor planks. Despite Duncan’s complaint about how they chilled his wolf flanks, they resisted stains and didn’t trap odors. In my world, that made them practical.

Jasmine had watched me work for ten minutes before noting that my job wasn’t that glamorous for a werewolf and losing interest. Before leaving, she’d polished off Bolin’s coffee, proving they had similar tastes, preferring a dreadful amount of sugar in their espresso drinks. Maybe, if he plied her with mochas, she would look twice at him. Thus far, I hadn’t seen any of the prospective tenants he’d attempted to flirt with return his interest. I wasn’t sure they’dknownhe was flirting, especially when he’d started talking about spelling bees and word origins.

During a break, I wiped sweat from my brow and dialed thenumber that Rue had left when she’d sent in an application for an apartment.

“Greetings, wayward werewolf,” she answered on the second ring. “I’ve been hoping you would call. I grow weary of dealing with the—” she raised her voice, “—miscreant shits-for-brains that keep defiling my door.”

“Are they… there now?” I imagined her leaning into the hallway for that last.

“There is fresh graffiti, and the grandma who waves her holy book at me just walked past. She isnotholy.”

“Those who leave menacing messages on people’s doors rarely are.” I grabbed a soapy rag to rub at suspicious marks on the trim but had already accepted that I would have to paint. The marks were barely noticeable next to all the nail holes, gouges, dents, and scrapes.

“Exactly.I told the landlord, and he blames me.”

“Strange.”

“Quite.”

“Well, I called to let you know we have a vacated unit. I’m cleaning it now.”

“That will be acceptable. I mind my own business and do not bother anyone. Unless one counts the misty vapors that filled the hallway recently and made those who passed through it itchy. They should be thankful. The vapor formula has a much more potent version.”

I paused in my cleaning to eye the phone, starting to have second thoughts about offering Rue an apartment. Originally, I’d been thinking it would be handy to have a potion supplier nearby again, but I hadn’t been taking the sublimation concoction lately. Did I actuallyneedan alchemist? Maybe I should have talked to her landlord before offering her a unit.

“We don’t have hallways here,” was all I said. “The units have exterior doors.”

“That is fine. In fact, that is preferable. When can I move in? I have four grandsons and two granddaughters that I can put to work packing.”

“Lucky them.”

“In my culture, it is an honor to serve your elders.”

I had a feeling her neighbors would all chip in to see her leave too, but I didn’t voice the thought. Silently, I told myself that having her nearbywouldbe handy. Besides, she couldn’t be any worse than the switch-plate thieves with their poorly trained cats.

“The apartment will be ready in four days.” Normally, I would have said two, but painting took some time, and I had to allow for relatives interrupting my work with their efforts to kill me.

“I will be ready to move before the weekend. Goodbye.”

After lowering the phone, I rotated stiff joints and thought longingly of my bed. That morning, by the time things had settled, I’d been too awake to go to sleep. Ihaddozed in the chair in the leasing office during the lunch hour until a tenant had come by to report a leaky showerhead. She’d caught me with my shoes on the desk, my head dangling over the arm rest, and drool at the corner of my mouth. But I’d had extra cartridges for the showers in the office and had done the repair on the spot, so she shouldn’t have had a reason to complain. With the threat of the Sylvans selling the place looming, I didn’t want to do anything that would give them an extra reason to want to bail on the property.

Beeping sounds floated in from the parking lot. That was probably the truck I’d ordered to pick up the furniture the Donovans had left behind. When I stepped outside, I found darkness creeping over the city once again, the encroaching nightalmosthiding a naked man jogging through the parking lot.

“Duncan,” I blurted, sensing him before my eyes could identify him with certainty. Not that anyone else was likely to run naked through the parking lot while a big junk-hauling truck backed into a spot up front.

I wanted to run over and check on him—had he walked all the way back to Shoreline? I wished I’d known where he’d ended up. I could have picked him up.

But the junk guys were climbing out of their truck, so I first stopped to direct them. By the time I reached Duncan’s van, he’d put on clothes, so I couldn’t tell if he’d been injured.

“Are you okay?” I leaned through the open sliding door. “I have your other clothes in my truck.”

“Are you keeping them hostage or is that a suggestion that I should retrieve them?” He was sitting on the bed, tying his shoes.

“The latter. I don’t want them, unless you think I should keep them to use as dust rags.”

“There was a Brioni sweater in the mix. Using it to dust would be egregious.”

“Is that so?”

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