At first, I had thought that Archer meant he was taking us to his home but the further we travelled the more I realised he was just retracing the journey Mathew and I had taken to get to the party.
Before I knew it, he had pulled the truck up to the kerb outside Sage Apothecary.
How the hell is Grandma Joan going to react? I thought with a shiver even as Archer climbed out of the truck and rushed to the front of the store and pushed the doorbell that had a small ‘deliveries’ sign tacked above it.
He returned to the truck just as quickly and even as I began to help him pull Mathew from the backseat, I heard the turning of a key and the dinging of the bell as the door was pulled open.
“Hello? I’m not expecting any deliver…” Grandma Joan began.
“Joan, it’s us!” I called to her, and at the sound of my strained voice, she stepped out onto the pavement in a lilac and white striped dressing gown.
“By the Gods! What has happened?” Joan gasped even as she rushed to help us with Mathew. I had no idea how Archer had managed to carry him on his own the first time, but this time it took all three of us to carry him swiftly into the shop.
Archer locked the truck with a swift gesture, key fob in hand, and then the store door slammed shut behind us.
“Let’s get him down to the basement. All my supplies are down there,” Joan instructed, sounding way calmer than I’d expected her to.
Neither of us argued, but it was one hell of a task to carry Mathew down an entire flight of stairs. Several times I thought we were going to drop him, but before long we’d managed to place him on what reminded me of a doctor’s examination bed.
“What attacked him?” Joan asked even as she grabbed a bottle of clear liquid from one of a multitude of shelves and began to douse a clean cloth in it.
“Werewolf,” Archer said matter-of-factually.
To my astonishment, Grandma Joan didn’t even blink at the answer. Instead, she turned to lean over Mathew and said to Archer, “Remove the bandaging so I can take a look.”
I stepped back to allow Archer to get a better vantage point and watched as he began to unwrap Zoe’s blood-soaked cardigan from Mathew’s chest.
“Goodness!” Joan paused for only a moment when she saw the wounds. Her face became pale, but she held onto a professional facade as she began to dab at the wounds with the cloth she’d soaked. As she did, the strong smell of alcohol hit my nostrils. Mixed with the irony scent of blood, it threatened to make me gag.
“Bri, why don’t you go and wait upstairs?” Archer suggested as if he sensed my sudden need to puke.
“No, I want to help,” I protested. I really didn’t want to see the wreckage of Mathew’s chest, and yet I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Dried blood was smeared all over his chest, and yet fresh streams were seeping from the gaping claw marks.
“She’s right. I need her here,” Joan spoke up then as she gestured at a large chest of draws across the room. “I need thread, a needle, fresh gauze and bandages from those draws.”
Relieved at the chance to do something that wasn’t staring at Mathew, I hurried to fetch the things she needed. My hands fumbled through the draws until I found everything that she’d requested, and then I hurried back to the table.
“I hope you know what you’re doing old woman,” Archer grumbled even as he held the temporary t-shirt bandage on Mathew’s wounds in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.
Joan simply glared at him for a moment before turning her attention back to her grandson.
“Douse your hands,” she ordered Archer as she shoved the bottle of alcohol at him. “I need you to hold the wounds closed while I stitch them up.”
Archer didn’t say a word. Instead, he did as she asked. She turned to me once more.
“Brianna, I need you to come around here and hold Mathew’s shoulders for me,” she explained gently, guiding me around the table. “If he moves too much while I’m doing this, it’s going to be a real mess.”
I wasn’t sure he would move at all. In fact, he was so still that the only hint I got that he was still alive was the ragged rise and fall of his wounded chest.
I stepped up to the head of the bed and clamped my hands down on his shoulders. What was left of his shirt was sodden with blood and it was cold beneath my palms, but I tried to ignore it as I pushed down.
“Okay, are you both ready?’ Joan asked, and Archer and I nodded.
Everything happened so quickly after that. Archer removed the t-shirt and clamped the wounds together, one by one as Joan began to sew like her life depended on it. My hands squeezed Mathew’s shoulders every time he flinched and groaned, fighting weakly against me.
“Hold on, Mathew, it’s going to be alright,” I whispered into his ear as I crouched over him, “Everything is going to be okay.”
I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to reassure him or myself more, but I did realise that I was crying all over again. My tears streamed down my cheeks, falling from my chin to wash away the smears of blood that covered Mathew’s face.
Soon Joan sighed, stepping back from the bed with her hands raised as if she didn’t want to touch anything. The blood that coated her hands almost looked black in the dimness of the basement, and I couldn’t help but wonder how good of a job she could have possibly done with so little light to see by.
“Now what?’ I asked, finally breathing out the breath I had been holding.
“Now we wait and see if he turns.” Archer huffed. He ran the back of his hand against his forehead to wipe away the sweat that had formed there, leaving a smear of blood in their place.
“Correct me if I’m wrong but don’t werewolves only turn on a full moon?” I asked.
“Werewolves are triggered by a few things. Their first transformation is triggered by being bitten, and it can happen at any time after that. It could happen minutes, hours or even days after if they survive the attack,” Archer explained, almost sounding like an audiobook on ‘the truth about werewolves. “The second trigger is indeed the full moon. Other than that a werewolf can transform at will if they are in control of their wolf. They can also be triggered by intense emotions or illness if they are not in control.”
I glanced at Joan in order to see her reaction, but her expression was impassable. There wasn’t a hint of confusion in her eyes, and that left me feeling even more so.
“Archer, there are chains in the cupboard,” Joan explained as she gestured to a door that was set into the wall of the basement. I hadn’t noticed it before, but then again I had been too worried about Mathew to really look at the room.
It was huge and must have spanned the entire length and width of the building. Although it was dark and dank, the room was filled with the scents of herbs just as the store was. And like the store, every wall was covered from floor to ceiling in shelves of jars and bottles. A table close by held all kinds of equipment that almost looked like medieval torture implements.
My attention was drawn from the room to Archer by the sound of metal clinking as he pulled something from the cupboard.
“Chain him to the bed,” Joan advised as Archer returned to us carrying length after length of metal linked chains. A heavy padlock hung from one link.
“Is that really necessary?” I gasped even as Archer set to work, wrapping the chains around Mathew’s body and the bed.
“If he turns, he’ll be angry and violent. This is the safest thing for him and us,” Joan explained. “He might hurt himself or attack us, and if he does that I know he will never forgive himself.”
My heart hammered heavily in my chest. How had things changed so quickly? Only a couple of hours ago I’d been kissing Mathew, and now he was chained to a bed after being attacked by a freaking werewolf.
“Let’s go and get cleaned up,” Joan suggested before I could give any kind of protest.
I glanced down at Mathew once more, but his feeble flinches had stopped, and if it hadn’t been for the chains or the tightly wrapped bandages around his chest I might have believed he was simply sleeping.
I opened my mouth to say that we shouldn’t leave him alone, but Archer spoke before I could say anything, “Don’t worry. He isn’t going anywhere.”
* * * *
Sitting at the kitchen table in the apartment after showering was almost unbearable. I’d dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, but I still didn’t feel clean. Even scrubbing my skin with an exfoliating sponge that Joan had given me in a package of supplies, I felt as though I could still feel Mathew’s blood all over me.
I cradled the mug of hot chamomile tea that Grandma Joan had given me, allowing the steam to caress my face even as she and Archer sat at opposite ends of the table, both of them looking uncomfortable but otherwise unreadable.
“Are you alright, dear?” Joan asked as she leaned over to place a hand on my shoulder. I jumped in my seat at the suddenness of her touch. The moment she touched me, I began to realise just how numb I felt.
Instead of answering her question, I asked, “When will we know if he...if he is…”
I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. Instead, I turned my attention back to the murky purple liquid in my mug.
“It’s hard to say,” Joan replied.
“There’s no definite time for this sort of thing,” Archer said. His voice was harsh and uncompassionate as if he didn’t much care. “But don’t worry. When he does, I’ll be here to protect you both.”
He fingered the hilt of the blade that was placed before him on the table as though he was ready to grab it.
“If he turns, we shall have no need for your services,” Joan insisted. “As I said before, you may leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere, grandma.” He said the last word as if it were an insult, and I had to fight the urge to slap him. Not that I could have with how far away he was sitting. “If he turns I’ll have no choice but to put him down.”
“Nobody is going to be putting anybody down in my store!” Grandma Joan snapped and slammed her fist down on the table.
Archer was scary, but in that moment Joan was absolutely terrifying. I had never imagined that such a peaceful, sweet grandma could look so angry.
“Then I’ll take him outside and put a bolt through his head.” Archer smiled menacingly, but Joan continued to glare at him as though he had no impact on her.
“You will not lay a finger on my grandson, hunter.” She snarled the final word as though he was the lowest of the low.
With that, Joan rose to her feet and began to make her way towards the stairs. “I am going to go and check on him. I want you gone from my home by the time I get back.”
The look on Archer’s face said he would do no such thing, but he kept his mouth shut as we both watched her leave.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded as soon as she was gone. I turned my gaze up to Archer and glared at him. All fear of him was gone, my mind too focused on the fact that he had just threatened to kill an innocent man.
“I already told you.” Archer shrugged. “It’s my job to kill supernatural creatures.”
“Mathew isn’t a supernatural creature. He’s a human being. He’s a grandson and a son and a decent person!” This time I was the one to slam my fist on the table.
Although I was exhausted after everything that had happened, I could feel energy whipping up inside me. It started in my chest and began to tingle throughout my body just as it had weeks ago when Lola had confronted me with her little minions in the shower room at Gilford High.
“Watch it witch, or his won’t be the only life I take tonight,” Archer snapped at me.
“So you’re threatening me now?”
I sat up straight in my chair and continued to glare at him. He might have caught me off guard in the car park, but now I was ready for whatever he might throw at me. Of course, I wasn’t sure what I would do if he threw one of his blades at me, but I was pretty sure I had a better chance now than when he’d had one pressed to my throat.
“Don’t take it personally.” Archer shrugged.
“It’s just your job,” I mocked him back.
Archer nodded. “My family have been hunting supernatural creatures for centuries,” he told me as if I’d asked him a question. “I guess you’d say it’s in my blood.”
“Then I feel sorry for you,” I spat at him.
Archer’s eyes widened as if I’d stung him and I had to bite back a smile.
“You feel sorry for me?” He eyed me with suspicion. “Why the hell would you feel sorry for me?”
“Because it sounds to me like you’re a little puppet who does whatever he’s told to do whenever his strings are pulled.” I practically laughed at him, still feeling the energy bubbling inside me. Even though I hadn’t called to them, I was almost sure I could feel the elements all around me. I suddenly felt warm air caressing the back of my neck and smelled a fresh summer stream bubbling through a meadow.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Archer said through gritted teeth.
“You mean just like you don’t know anything about me or Mathew?” I demanded.
“I know enough to know he’s not really your cousin.” Archer smirked when he saw the surprise that flashed across my face. “It’s my job to know these things.” He shrugged again, and I felt the urge to smack him once more.
“I also know that grandma Joan isn’t quite as innocent as she makes herself out to be,” he continued with a snarl, “I know that she makes a habit of helping the supernatural creatures who come into her store.”
That’s why she wasn’t surprised by Mathew’s attack! I thought. Now it made sense. If she knew about the supernatural world, then she knew of the dangers.
“We’ve been trying to shut her down for a long time now, but she’s well protected by her witchy friends,” Archer continued, his voice turning into a snarl.
“Maybe that’s because us witches aren’t fans of bullying and attacking innocent old women.” I stared back at him, determined not to allow him to scare me anymore.
“Is this where you tell me witches are the good guys and hunters are the problem?” Archer laughed.
“How many witches have you met?” I asked.
“Enough to know that they all go dark in the end.”
My mind suddenly wound back to Celestria and all that she’d been doing at the Winterwood Academy. Yet even knowing that I also knew that there was no way in hell I could ever go ‘dark’ as he said.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve met a damn sight more witches than you have and I have only ever met one witch who deserved to meet the end of your blade,” I said before I really knew what I was saying.
Archer raised his eyebrow at that.
“I thought you said you’d never hurt anyone?” He glowered at me.
“I haven’t!” I insisted. Of course, I had slammed Lola into the countertop in the shower room at Gilford High, but I hadn’t exactly hurt her. And I’d put nasty girl Rhea on her ass the first time she really annoyed me down by the river on the Winterwood campus, but she’d more than deserved it.
“So you’re saying there’s a dark witch out there who hasn’t been taken care of?” Archer asked, and by taken care of, I knew he meant killed.
I shivered at his meaning even though I was certain that Celestria deserved whatever he might do to her if he ever got the chance.
“She...umm...she’s a long way from here,” I said quickly. I mean, I couldn’t exactly lead a hunter right to the Winterwood Academy that was filled with witches. He’d probably have a field day with all his shiny blade., “Besides, isn’t there a werewolf out there for you to hunt?”
“Oh, don’t worry about him. My friends are already on his trail,” Archer assured me.
It was then that a deafening crashing sound came from downstairs.
Archer and I moved almost as one and I had to fight to get in front of him as we both hurried down the stairs. The second I hit the bottom step I turned to find Joan with her back pressed against the basement door.
“He’s broken the chains!” She yelled at us, and Archer shoved his way past me in order to throw himself against the door beside her. “We need to keep this door in place, or he’s going to destroy the entire shop!”
Her words hit me with a wave of realisation. Mathew had turned!