Read Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser Series) for Free Online Page B

the part of my brain that controlled movement and I ripped my eyes away from Mr. McGrowly — yes, it helped to make fun of him in my head — as if painfully, slowly, peeling a bandage from my brain. I was pretty sure he was going to eat me, but only after he played with me for a while. And not in a satiating, mutual bliss sort of way. This one liked to hunt, and he kept what he killed.
    I found Sienna’s eyes instead, and moved toward her. She stepped back and into the crowd, heading toward the exit. She’d been standing just to one side and behind the peripheral vision of McGrowly. Rusty peeled off from the bar where he’d been waiting, following her into the crowd at the doors.
    Hell, they were scared enough that they were distancing themselves from me.
    “Ah, Jade, don’t be like that,” Hudson moaned behind me.
    I kept walking. Once I felt buried in the people heading toward the exit, I chanced a look back.
    Hudson was standing next to McGrowly, both of them watching me leave. Hudson looked regretful, but he smiled when I turned back. McGrowly barked something at him that made his grin disappear, and he dropped my gaze. The green-haired girl was perched on their table, but at a nod from McGrowly, she slipped off toward the staff exit.
    Sienna appeared beside me, wrapped a hand around my arm, and began pulling me through the crowd. We stumbled out the doors hand in hand.
    I raised my face to the crisp air, the chill easing the last tinges of intoxicating magic. Rusty slung my jacket over my shoulders and I thrust my rapidly cooling arms into the sleeves. The fine dew of sweat from the dancing suddenly didn’t feel so pleasant.
    They didn’t talk. They just tugged me across the cobblestone street — one of the few left in Vancouver — while dodging slow-moving cars. The sidewalks were thronged with people exiting clubs and bars. No one in the immediate vicinity was over thirty. This area brimmed with nightclubs, all of which closed at 2:00 a.m.
    Time to go home.
    We turned a corner onto another street, Carrall or Abbott maybe. I get turned around easily. The crowd thinned to a few friend groupings and a couple of homeless people wandering in and out of the side alleys. The pavement here was wet. It must have rained while we were in the club.
    “You’re freaking me out,” I said, needing to break the oppressive silence.
    “We can’t go home yet,” Sienna murmured to Rusty, completely ignoring me.
    “Right. After-hours club?” he answered and asked.
    “Guys, it was just a dance,” I said, wrenching my arms out of their grips. I wasn’t going to be yanked across town. I needed at least a couple of hours of sleep before baking.
    Sienna rounded on me. “Do you know who that was?” she whispered, her voice soft but harsh.
    I shrugged. “Wolves.”
    “Wolves,” Sienna spat. “At least four of them, plus the one who didn’t dance …” She finished with a shudder.
    “You’re overreacting —”
    Sienna turned her head sharply toward the mouth of the alley we’d just walked past. “What’s that?” she asked with a hiss.
    “It’s nothing,” I replied. As long as being stalked by wolves was nothing, that is. I could feel the magic of the green-haired girl emanating from the shadows. I was surprised Sienna had noticed.
    Sienna’s lips pulled back off her teeth. Most of her face was eclipsed by the shadow of the overhead streetlight, which darkened her eyes until they seemed like nothing but pupil. “Do you have your knife?” she asked.
    “Sienna, it’s just the wolves playing. They’re not going to hurt us. We don’t need knives.” Sienna turned back to me into the light, and what I had mistaken for dark anger was fear. “Sienna, it’ll be fine. I’m going to grab a cab home. You and Rusty enjoy the rest of his birthday.”
    Sienna nodded and looked to Rusty.
    He wrapped his arm around her. “It’s okay, babe. It’s not the first time Jade’s attracted attention.”
    “That