Page 15 of Curse of the Wolf
“I can’t tell that, no, but… my tingling chest insists that I go that way.” Worried the guy would move out of range if we delayed, I hurried off on foot, clutching the mocha and water bottle.
Duncan looked toward Sylvan Serenity for a moment, then decided to trot after me. I didn’t know if eschewing the van was the right decision or not, but the tingling led me to cut down an alley, through an unfenced backyard, and around thorny blackberry brambles.
Had the thug gone this way? Maybe the potion was simply pointing me along the most direct route to catch up to him.
Duncan matched my pace, turning when I turned and cursing at the thorns when I cursed—actually, he called themcheeky little buggers.
“What happens if we have to cross the freeway?” he asked when the rumble of traffic grew louder.
“We’ll get to test our abilities to dodge six lanes of traffic whizzing by at sixty miles per hour.”
Duncan slanted me a look. “From what I’ve observed of the gridlock freeway traffic here, we’re more likely to encounter an unmoving car park.”
“That’ll make dodging easier.”
Before we reached the freeway, the tingling prompted me to turn parallel to it, jogging through trees and parking lots. To one side, a light-rail train whizzed past. Before the station came into view, I had an inkling of where we were going.
“Huh.”
“Huh?” Duncan asked.
“The potion might be leading me along the exact route he took rather than pointing me in the vague direction of hiscurrent location.” I gestured to the back of the station, the tracks heading to it.
“Then I’ll hope he was as scraped up by those thorny brambles as we were.”
“Maybe he wasmorescraped up. He’s a big guy.”
The tingling wanted me to go through a back door of the train station, but I opted for the front. Inside, commuters were standing ready to get on the next train. I hoped to spot the thug in one of the queues—or, more likely, brutalizing people as he shoved them aside to cut to the front—but didn’t see him. I got the sense from the tingling, which wanted to draw me south as well as toward the doors leading to the tracks, that he’d already departed.
My feet led me to one of the doors as a train pulled in, but I halted.
“I didn’t bring my purse.” Not that it would have mattered. I hadn’t taken public transportation in a while and doubted my ORCA card had any money on it.
“Allow me, my lady.” Duncan stepped forward, fingers delving into his pockets.
My first thought was that he meant to use his magnet to trick the pay machines into letting us pass, but he fished out handfuls of change.Dampchange.
“Is that from the koi pond?”
Duncan grinned at me as he fed coins into the machine. People behind us in line sighed at the slowness of using physical currency, especially currency dropped in one dime or quarter at a time.
“I thought you said American money isn’t magnetic,” I said.
“It’s not, but the pond wasn’t deep.”
“You fished out coins people threw in to make their wishes come true? That’s kind of…”
“Noble.” Duncan waved us through when the machine indicated we’d paid enough for two fares.
“Noble?”
“Coins can be toxic to fish, even those not large enough to accidentally eat them. They corrode and release metals into the water.”
I squinted at him, wondering if he’d made that up.
“I read a news story once,” Duncan continued as we boarded, “that a turtle in Bangkok died from blood poisoning in such a pond.”
“Are you sure you just didn’t want a coffee and you forgot your wallet in your van?”
