Monster

by Jennifer Blackstream

  “Thank you so much for your vote of confidence. And I’ll be sure to tell Mother Hazel that you called her a ‘dark creature.’”

  “She’s been called worse. Much worse.” Peasblossom pressed harder against my neck. “And she’s deserved it.”

  I was vaguely aware of Mother Hazel’s…history, but I didn’t want to prompt the pixie to offer details. Not when I’d seen my mentor’s home as it appeared in another dimension. Familiar chicken legs holding up her cottage in the center of a fence crafted from human bones, skulls with fiery red eye sockets watching the shadowy forest around it. Watching for the unwary soul who might next wander up to the old witch’s home looking for help. One post always empty, waiting for a skull…

  A change in subject was needed.

  “We can’t be certain that Stephen did it.” My voice came out a louder than I’d intended, filling the small confines of my newly repaired Ford Focus. “There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he had the victim’s blood on his face.”

  “Such as?”

  “He could have found the body already dead. It’s sad, but accidents happen in the woods. The poor man could have fallen and broken his neck, or bled out from a cut on the femoral artery. If the wolf found him shortly after death, he might have still been warm, and—”

  “And so he thought he’d have a snack?”

  Admittedly, my alternative narrative was unlikely. I bit my lip. “Werewolves make mistakes. A temporary loss of control isn’t the same as murder.”

  “He’s not just a shifter. He’s a cop and a ranger. Between the hard work his alpha would have put in helping him learn control after he started shifting, and the training he would have gotten as a police officer, he should have the self-control to resist having a nibble on some random human—dead or alive.”

  “What about foul play?” I countered. “Maybe someone—or something—influenced him, made him do it.”

  Peasblossom considered that. “You mean like a will-o’-the-wisp having a lark?”

  “Yes!” I nodded emphatically, relieved to have an option that didn’t include a murdering lycanthropic police officer. “Exactly, a will-o’-the-wisp. How many times have we saved someone’s life after a will-o’-the wisp let a game go too far?”

  “They can be right bastards, can’t they?” Peasblossom gave a derisive sniff. “I’m not saying I never had a bit of fun with a wandering human, but you don’t see pixies bobbing along and leading innocent drunks to die in bogs, do you? We have more class than that. More honor. Why, a pixie would take a bullet for you, lose their own wings to save a chap in need.”

  I tuned her out for the rest of the drive. Once Peasblossom got warmed up on the valiant nature of her kin, she could go on for hours. And since the alternative was being forced to discuss a case that—the possibility of fey interference aside—did not look good, I was only too happy to listen to her attempt yet another ballad for the noble race that was the pixie.

  Stephen’s neighborhood was a higher-end suburb of North Olmsted, well off enough that everyone’s lawn was mowed and their shrubs trimmed, but not so fancy as to encourage thieves to put it at the top of their Christmas wish list. The houses were siding more often than brick or stone, and the fences were wood, not iron. More than one home had a sign in the front yard proclaiming they had a child in band or football. A family-friendly neighborhood.

  When my GPS informed me I was two blocks from my destination, I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car near a split-level home with a bicycle lying in the driveway.

  “And the size of a pixie’s heart, is challenged only by the size of its— Why did we stop?” Peasblossom leapt to her feet, grasped a strand of my hair, and leaned over as far as she could to peer out the window. “That’s not his house.” She peered down at the GPS. “It didn’t tell you to stop,” she said, pointing at the screen. “You keep going until you get to the little checkered flag. Did you forget how it works?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten how it works,” I said, exasperated. “I stopped here on purpose.”

  “If you’re lost, you can say so,” Peasblossom said. “I won’t laugh.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I am not lost. I stopped here because I need you to fly ahead. Go to Stephen’s and find a way inside. Liam should be there guarding him while they wait for me. With their hearing, they’ll know when I pull in the drive, and I want you to make note of their reaction and remember anything they say.”

  Peasblossom fluttered to stand on the steering wheel, her glittering pink eyes giving the illusion of a multifaceted, insect-like gaze. “Oooh, I like spy work. You think they’ll let something slip?” She paused and frowned. “Wait, I don’t get it. Liam can’t be in on it, else he wouldn’t have called for the collar, would he?”

  “I don’t think he’s in on it. I just want to understand the nature of their relationship. Is Stephen angry and shouting at his alpha? Is he begging for leniency? Demanding the chance to clear his name? I need to know if Liam believes he did it, or if this was all a bluff. When they hear me pull in, that will be Liam’s last chance to appeal to Stephen before going through with the collar. Whatever he says will tell us a great deal about what we’re getting into.”

  “Trouble, that’s what we’re getting into. We’re investigating a murder where the number one suspect is a shifter and a cop.” Peasblossom wagged a finger at me. “But I’m going to be supportive and not tell you what a foolish thing you’ve done taking this case.”

  “You’re too good to me,” I said dryly.

  “Right that.” Peasblossom’s wings flicked behind her, launching her off the steering wheel. She grasped the edge of the window and used it to fling herself into the wind. I watched her ride the air currents, darting about like a hummingbird, all effortless grace. For a fey who preferred to ride my shoulder whenever possible, and would climb my hair to get to my head, she was a very skilled flyer.

  I gave her a head start, allowing myself ten minutes or so to collect my thoughts. Werewolves had incredible senses, and their ability to monitor physical reactions could be as informative as mind reading. To go in there with any kind of authority, I needed to present a confident front. I started to wipe my sweaty palms on my pants, then turned on the car’s AC instead and held my hands to the air blowers.

  “I will owe you a favor.”

  My erratic heartbeat provided the perfect accompaniment to the echo of my mentor’s offer. I stared at the car vent, not really seeing it. It was an unheard-of bargain. Literally. I’d never in my life known of any witch, especially one of my mentor’s ability, offering what amounted to a blank check in the magic world.

  I looked at my reflection in the car’s rearview mirror. “She thinks you’ll fail.” I furrowed my brow, considering what I’d just said to myself. “Probably. But she wouldn’t have offered a deal if it wasn’t possible for me to succeed. She does pride herself on being fair. Well, what she considers fair.”

  The clock on my dash ticked down another minute. I tore myself out of my musing to put the car in drive and ease away from the curb. “Either I’m good enough to be a detective or I’m not. If I’m not, then I shouldn’t keep going anyway. And if I am… Well, if I am, then why not start my career with an ace up my sleeve?”

  The GPS led me through a simple grid pattern of a neighborhood, and I followed its directions to a small, ranch-style building with pale tan siding and dark brown shutters. A short wrought-iron fence outlined the narrow stoop, and the sidewalk leading from the driveway to front stoop was free of debris, despite the fresh mulch that had recently been laid around the scattering of bushes lining the front of the house.

  My knock sounded much louder than it should have, a sign my nerves were wound too tight. I took a deep breath in for the count of seven, then let it out for the count of eight. Then the door swung open, and I couldn’t breathe at all.

  There is no sensation comparable to standing in a shifter’s aura. Leaning against a ho
t dryer in the middle of a heavy cycle on a cold night was the closest sensation I could think of. I blinked and concentrated on resisting the urge to sway forward.

  Alert blue eyes settled on me, squeezing out the rest of my breath. “You must be Mother Renard. I’m Detective Sergeant Osbourne.”

  Werewolves aged almost as slowly as witches. Liam didn’t look a day over forty-five, which meant he was probably over seventy—significantly older than his dark brown hair would suggest. Broad shoulders filled out the crisp lines of his stark white shirt, but his bulk had an understated shape to it that said it was genetic and not a result of the gym or manual labor. He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up to the elbows, giving the impression he was a hands-on sort of leader. I tilted my head to meet his gaze. Six foot three, I guessed.

  I smiled and raised my hand. “Please, call me Shade.”

  “No title?” He raised an eyebrow. “Your mentor made it sound rather important that I address you properly.”

  I held the smile in place with some effort. “If it pleases you to call me Mother, then by all means. Personally, I find it more satisfying when someone can show me the proper respect without the reminder of using my title.” That, and while Mother had been a natural way to address a witch once upon a time, it now made people outside the Otherworld give me odd looks. I still didn’t understand how Mother Hazel had managed to convince the entire village of Dresden to use it without batting an eye.

  His other eyebrow joined the first at the edge of his hairline. “All right, then.” He bobbed his head and stepped to the side, gesturing for me to enter. “Please come in.” A shadow fell across his face, making the lines around his mouth stand out more. “Stephen is in the den.”

  I stepped inside. A large grey sectional couch took up most of the living room, with a television dominating the rest. I walked the thin path between the coffee table and the TV, my feet sinking into the thick cream and navy-blue rug. It took a little concentration to avoid looking around for Peasblossom, but I managed. If there was one thing I trusted her to do with no coaching from me, it was snoop. Pixies possessed a natural nosiness that was unrivaled. Even among humans.

  “Are you all right?”

  I blinked, surprised to find Liam had stopped walking. I opened my mouth to say yes, and ask him why he’d asked, and noticed two things simultaneously. First, I stopped walking when he did.

  Second, I was leaning on him.

  Heat flared in my cheeks. My arm and his arm were joined without a sliver of light between us, and my nerves hummed under the touch of his aura. I stepped back, putting enough distance between us to be polite, but not so much that I seemed embarrassed and overcompensating. When I’d centered myself enough to look him in the eye again, I found the alpha studying me with a guarded expression that said I had ten seconds to come up with a reason for cuddling with him before I lost all professional credibility forever.

  “You’re radiating heat like a fire hazard,” I blurted out.

  A hint of disapproval pulled down the corners of his mouth. “I’m sorry?”

  I resisted the urge to take another step back, not wanting to look like I was retreating. It wasn’t easy to hold my ground. I wanted to lean closer again, feel more of his energy. He thinks you’re flirting. Say something. Fix this!

  “I get that you’re upset,” I said, trying for a Mother Hazel smile—equal parts empathy and condescension. “It’s understandable, given the situation. But your energy is chaotic. I can feel it burning like a furnace ten seconds before it explodes. My instinct is to calm that energy before it gets out of hand, especially when I’m going to be working some fairly complicated magic. I was trying to be subtle because I don’t want to embarrass you. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

  There. He’s the one losing control, and I’m the capable witch trying to help. Mother Hazel would be so proud.

  He studied me, the creases between his brows deepening. He obviously didn’t believe me, but like most people, he seemed uncomfortable calling a witch a liar. Excellent. I watched him parse his options, holding my witchy smile firmly in place.

  “I apologize,” he said finally. “It’s a difficult time. I didn’t realize you were so sensitive to shifters’ energy.”

  “Please don’t apologize. It’s quite all right.”

  I shoved my hands into the pockets of my red trench coat, curling them into fists to smother the tingling in my fingertips that begged to touch him again. For pity’s sake, had it been that long since I’d been near a shifter?

  Liam stopped before we could cross the threshold from the living room to the hallway, and it was through the grace of the Goddess herself that I didn’t collide with him. Tension squeezed his shoulders as he turned to face me.

  “You are not what I was expecting.”

  His voice was calm, but that didn’t soften the critical quality of his tone.

  I stiffened, letting some of the congeniality leak from my smile. “Oh?”

  “Not at all, in fact,” he continued. “When I spoke to Mother Hazel initially, I thought she would handle the situation herself. When she said she was sending you…”

  “You had a different image in mind,” I guessed.

  He looked down at my leggings. The emerald and black abstract design hinting at diamond shapes in a paint-slash grid pattern were one of the more understated pairs I owned—only two colors. I hadn’t thought twice about wearing them to this meeting. Now with the detective staring at them, I felt the familiar sting of judgment.

  My hackles rose. “I see.”

  He was still staring at my leggings. I held a hand up and snapped my fingers between his face and mine. His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “Let’s get one thing clear, shall we?” I straightened my spine. “I am a witch. And I am a damn good one. I don’t have to prove that to you. The fact that Mother Hazel sent me should be sufficient. I’m sorry my leggings perturb you, but they are comfortable, and I like them. Since they are my clothes, my opinion is the only one that matters.”

  He looked as though he wanted to argue, but to his credit, he refrained. “I apologize. I meant no disrespect.” He paused. “But I have to ask…have you ever dealt with a feral werewolf?”

  My heart skipped a beat, a sudden deluge of memories battering the walls I’d built to protect myself from that particular memory. My stomach rolled, and I swallowed before I tried to speak. “Yes.”

  “You have?”

  Tension squeezed my jaw so hard that I had to fight to get my answer out. “Yes.”

  I hoped that would be the end of this particular line of questioning. There wasn’t a lot of leeway in what one should expect from a feral shifter. Blood, death, and a special breed of terror. Details varied, but the meat of it remained the same. He didn’t need details of my particular encounter to have an idea of what I’d seen.

  Liam didn’t speak, didn’t move. He wanted the story.

  I took a few slow breaths to calm my pulse, organizing my thoughts so I could tell him the story while remembering as few details as possible. I had plenty of nightmares without adding fuel to the creative fire, and given my most recent nightmare, the last thing I wanted to think about was an out-of-control werewolf.

  “I was still an apprentice, living with Mother Hazel. Two hours past sundown, a young man knocked on the door. He was covered in blood. He said a wolf had eaten his parents. He’d been running through the woods when Mother Hazel’s hut appeared before him—which isn’t as strange as it sounds.”

  My voice maintained a near-monotone, a cold, dry recitation of facts. Even then, I could feel the pain waiting, the nightmares churning as they waited for me to remember, to let my mind return to that night I’d promised myself never to think of again. I was quiet for a long minute, shoring up my mental blocks against the memories. The facts, stick to the facts. Liam waited.

  “I’d been her apprentice for over a decade, and I’d gained just enough confidence to think I could do anything.”
I snorted. “Sad that an influx of knowledge is so often accompanied by grand stupidity. When she told me to wait in the cottage, I ignored her. I followed her.” I swallowed, but managed to maintain eye contact. “He was eating the mother’s body when we got there. It was…” I shook myself. “Mother Hazel bound him.” I averted my eyes before I said the next part. “The boy was wrong. A wolf didn’t eat his mother and father.”

  “The wolf was his father,” Liam said quietly.

  I nodded. “The boy had seen him go into the woods, heard a wolf howl and snarl, and he’d assumed his father had been attacked. His mother screamed at him to run, so he did.” The screams echoed in my memory. Not the victim’s. The poor woman died before I arrived. The screams I heard were the father’s. The wails of despair after Mother Hazel returned him to his human form and he learned what he’d done.

  “It is unusual for a shifter to be feral only in one form,” Liam said. “Usually, the madness leaks into the other form, wherever it starts. But it’s when it affects only the beast that it is truly terrifying. The disparity between man and wolf, the complete separation… That’s why balance is so important. Without it, you have a man and a monster, separate creatures instead of two parts of a whole.”

  I peered past him into the hall and toward the back rooms where I assumed Stephen was. “Do you believe he’s feral?”

  “No.” He followed my gaze. “It would be easier if he were. There’s protocol for feral werewolves, steps to be taken to attempt rehabilitation. My path would be clear. But Stephen shows no signs of being feral. Even that night, when I found him with blood all over his face, he didn’t fight me.”

  “And yet…” I prompted.

  Liam’s face hardened. “He’s withholding. He respects my authority, and he does what I ask, but his story… He is not telling me the whole truth. And that is unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable.” He shoved a hand through his hair and stared at my coat as if trying to see where the suppression collar was, where I’d hidden the piece of leather and metal. “This is not something I do lightly. This collar…it’s very serious.”