Page 12 of Minions and Magic
Stanley shook his head. “I’m gonna ask Sheriff Oakes to drop it. I was working on the car earlier, so it was probably my fault about the leak. And the jack.”
“What happened? Did you receive a threat? Was there another attack?” I demanded.
“Told him he needs to let it go,” Bart told me.
I stared at him, wondering how the werewolf so upset over his friend’s injuries and determined to get to the bottom of this had changed his mind in less than twenty-four hours.
Bart must have seen my thoughts in my expression because he sighed and ran a hand through his bushy brown hair. “I know, I know. After I got Stanley home though we got to talking and I got to thinking. Now’s not the time to be stirring up things in the packs. Give it a few months and this will all start to blow over. If Stanley lies low, then whoever this is will probably leave him alone. He pushes it, starts insisting on being accepted as a lone wolf, starts attending functions and hunting with the packs, and it will only get worse.”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. “But you’re still coming to the barbeque, aren’t you?” I asked Stanley.
He shook his head, his eyes not meeting mine. “It’s not wise, Glenda. Best to let the two packs patch things up without my putting a burr under the saddle.”
I knelt down beside the recliner. “Stanley, you didn’t do anything that would have triggered this attack on you. You’ve stayed away from Heartbreak Mountain. You haven’t participated in any pack events. Since you were exiled, the only thing you’ve done is get a job at Petunia’s and go back and forth from work and your house in town. If someone found your presence in Accident, your very existence, reason enough to attack you, then what makes you think laying low is going to prevent it from happening again? This person clearly wants you dead.”
Stanley stiffened and Bart came around me to put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be here. Two sets of eyes, you know. Pair of us will make sure nothing happens.”
Stanley made a low grumbling noise. “Gonna follow me back and forth to work, Bart? Stay here every night? That’s gonna piss off the pack more than me going to a durned barbeque or having Sheriff Oakes investigate.”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Bart assured him.
The other werewolf shrugged off Bart’s hand. “It’s not gonna be okay. And if I’m going to wind up dead, I’d rather the law makes sure Dallas punishes the killer. Or the witches punish the killer.”
Bart sighed and held up his hands. “Okay, but I’m telling you right now that if you wind up dead, Dallas and the witches ain’t gonna be able to punish anyone, ‘cause I’m gonna take that wolf out with my own claws.”
A smile flickered across Stanley’s face. “I’ll go the barbeque, but I don’t want you there. I don’t want to risk you losing your place in the pack, or having others target you.”
Bart frowned. “You think I can’t be at the barbeque and pretend I’m shunning you?”
Stanley chuckled. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. One of us is going to say something or act friendly, and you’re going to be a target as well. Can’t do nothing about what’s happening to me, but I’ll be danged if I do anything to cause you to lose your pack.”
There was a low, long growl that came from Bart’s throat, and Stanley reached up to pat his arm. “Knock it off. You’re the one who said to lay low and that things will get better soon enough. It’s too late for me to erase that target on my back, but no sense in having one on yours as well. Stay away from the barbeque, and we’ll meet up for fishing Sunday morning. I’ll even bring the beer.”
Bart shook his head and scowled. “Okay. But only ‘cause you’re bringing beer next Sunday.”
Stanley lowered his hand, then he took a deep breath and looked over at me. “There’s a few things I need to tell you if I’m gonna go ahead with this. Once I started feelin’ better, I started remembering more. That foot I saw? Had a boot on. It was a sort of hiking boot with a red stain about the size of a dime on the toe.”
“Blood?” I grimaced, not wanting to make an assumption here. Werewolves were hunters and it wouldn’t be all that unusual for one of them to have blood on their boots.
“Not blood. Wasn’t colored like blood,” Stanley said. “It was like paint or something. Not soaking into the leather like blood would, but sitting on top. Thick and bright red.”
I considered that for a moment, not sure what to make of the fact that the assailant had red paint on their boot. Werewolves tended toward neutral colors in their home décor, but one of them might have been painting a child’s toy, or something else. Maybe it wasn’t a werewolf that had attacked Stanley. We’d all been assuming so, but perhaps one of the other supernaturals in town had a grudge about an auto repair, or the length of his grass or something like that.
“A boot,” I mused. “That rules out a handful of residents like satyrs, centaurs, and minotaur who don’t have feet to wear hiking boots.”
“It was definitely a werewolf,” Stanley told me. “I caught his scent.”
“Then you must know who it was.” I stood, excited at the prospect. One phone call to Sheriff Oakes, and another to Cassie, and they’d be on their way up to the mountain to arrest the assailant.
“I don’t.” Stanley looked embarrassed at the confession. “It all happened too fast, and he was covering up.”
“He was what?” I had a sudden vision of a werewolf in paint-stained hiking boots and a burka.
“Covering up,” Bart interjected. “It’s when we use something to hide our scent. Werewolves got good noses, so we can’t totally hide it, but it works short term when the wind is in your favor.”
“Like mud? Or coyote urine?” I asked.
Both werewolves made a face.
