Page 8 of Stubborn as a Shadow

“A magic wand? Or a magicwand?” Jeremy waggled his eyebrows and gestured to his crotch.

Sometimes I wondered if Jeremy was still going through puberty. His humor and questions often circled back to sex or penises.

Dillon, bless him, blinked and glanced at Ash for guidance. “I’m not sure I understand. It’s just a wand.”

“Is it spewing anything? Like sparkles or something?”

“I…” Dillon’s forehead creased. “I don’t remember any spewing.”

“No, Jeremy, the wand is not an ejaculating or urinating penis,” Ash muttered to his friend.

“Oh, is that what he meant?” Dillon’s cheeks darkened.

“No whizz in wiz? So disappointing.” Jeremy frowned.

“Why are you interested in supe history?” Adrian asked in an obvious attempt to steer his mate’s brain back to a normal conversation.

Jeremy shrugged. “Seemed like something I—I mean Parker—should know now that he’s in the supe world. Me too, I guess, since the Eternal Magic upgraded me from human to supe-lite.”

“That’s not the reason. This has nothing to do with Parker. You just want to look up the supe wars.” Ash rolled his eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you to remember the whole vampires versus werewolves argument you had with that D&D obsessed kid when we were in high school. What was his name again? Roy? Yeah… That’s it. You thought he was cute until he argued against you and said vampires would win.”

“That’s my mate.” Adrian grinned. He held his fist out to Jeremy to tap with his own. “Werewolves are the best.”

Jeremy grinned and knocked his knuckles against Adrian’s.

“Well, if Parker finds the answer to important questions like that when he’s casually reading about other historical events, it is what it is.” Jeremy tilted his chin up.

From there, the conversation devolved even further somehow, as if talk of spewing wands wasn’t weird enough already. But when Jeremy was around, anything could be—and often was—discussed.

I didn’t need to be a part of it, though.

I had another sip or two left in my pint, then I could go. Maybe I’d go skulk through town or do a perimeter check around the town boundary. Ever since those paranormal hunters had been in town in October, we’d all been running extra patrols.

Yeah. That sounded like an excellent idea. And it’d give me enough of a goal that I wouldn’t drift too far, even if I shifted.

My phone rang.

Every single person in the room looked at me.

Damn it.

I shrank under their unabashed curiosity. But I understood. Of everyone in Willow Lake, I was the least likely to receive acall. Hell, even Old Thom, cantankerous bastard that he was, probably received more calls than I did.

I yanked my phone out of my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number, but the starting sequence suggested the call was coming from the SC.

Oh now, wasn’t that interesting? And what a perfect excuse to leave.

No one tried to stop me when I got up from the table, not that I expected them to. Although Jeremy’s eyes lingered on me longer than I felt comfortable with. He was always so damn curious about everything.

I answered the call on the fourth ring, just as I was exiting the pub. Since I lived at the inn attached to the pub, I could have gone up to my room, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. Some days, the four walls felt like they were closing in on me, and I suspected this would be one of those times. Still, it was a relief to be away from everyone in the pub.

“What?” I asked as I walked to the side of the building and into the darker shadows.

A persistent layer of frost clung to this side of the building. I shivered. I should have brought a jacket. In my human form, I was more susceptible to the cold.

“Nelson?”

I tried to place the feminine voice on the other end of the line. It had to be someone I’d worked with in the past if they were calling me Nelson. Most people at the SC knew me by EY, the initials on my SC paperwork. The E stood for Emil and the Y for Young. Both were correct, except no one ever called me Emil Young. And only my friends knew me by my middle name, Nelson. “Yes. Who is this?”