Afterlife

by Dannika Dark

  When I pulled into the driveway, I spotted Blue lounging in one of the Adirondack chairs by the firepit. A gust of wind blew her hair to one side, her feather earrings dancing in the breeze. I parked beside her blue Mustang and got out.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked, slamming the door.

  “Not long. Your dad has a nice place. No cars go by.”

  “This street doesn’t go anywhere,” I pointed out as I approached. I didn’t usually see her in T-shirts, but today she had on a white one with brown pants. “Nothing but a few more trailer homes. He doesn’t own all the land behind him, but it’s undeveloped, so it’s pretty quiet out here. No traffic noise.” I sat on the flat arm of the chair across from her. “This is where I spent most of my childhood.”

  “You were lucky. I pity the children who grow up in the city. They don’t know peace and quiet, the sound of wind in the trees and—”

  “Neighbors firing off shotguns,” I said with a laugh. “It’s not totally quiet out here. How are you feeling? How’s your leg?”

  She stretched it out and then knocked her heel against the ground. “Perfecto. I just feel so damn guilty.”

  “About the girl?”

  She leaned forward. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice. Even Niko didn’t sense her. She’s a kid, so her energy is weak. But that’s no excuse. We were so preoccupied talking about the case that we didn’t notice someone in the car. Had I parked that car directly in the sun, she wouldn’t have made it. And if we had stayed just a few minutes longer…”

  “But she’s fine. Viktor gave Kira time off to take care of her, and Shepherd’s checking in on her every hour. Christian mentioned that she ate something this morning, so that’s a good sign.” My chair started to tip, so I got up. “I’ve got a key. Let’s go inside.”

  “We should wait for the Relic. He might get spooked if he pulls in and doesn’t see us here.”

  “He’s a big boy. Did you bring your file?”

  When she stood up, she revealed she’d been sitting on it. Both of us were feeding Wyatt information—every detail we uncovered about the victims. A few had given us pictures even though being photographed was discouraged among immortals. I collected her file and put it with mine.

  “Are you sure your father won’t mind we’re in his home?”

  “He won’t even know.”

  I hiked up the porch steps and knocked on the door. When I didn’t hear any barking, I unlocked the door and peered in. No sign of the dog. Maybe he took it to work. Then again, maybe he took it to the pound. I tossed the files onto the kitchen table when I heard a car pulling up. Blue jogged down the steps to meet Graham. Except for his belt, which was too tight around the waist, he dressed nicely. He took a comb out of his back pocket and combed back his short, wavy hair.

  When I noticed sweat stains on his blue button-up, I grabbed a few cold soda bottles from the fridge and set them on the table.

  “I keep saying I need to move farther north to get away from this heat,” he said, entering the trailer. “But how far north do I have to move? Alaska?” Graham pulled out a vinyl chair and sat, the metal legs creaking.

  Blue took the chair next to his. “I’ve heard that cities with a higher Breed population have more extreme weather than other places. It’s never consistent but always warmer or colder than everywhere else.”

  I set the bottle opener on the table. “Would you rather have water?”

  He dabbed his forehead with a paper napkin. “Do you have any cold chicken? That would hit the spot.”

  My brows arched, and I turned back to the fridge. Who the hell walks into someone’s house and asks for chicken? I had to laugh. Probably my father, and if anyone had cold chicken in the fridge…

  I peeled off foil from a plate and set it on the table. Crush was not only a connoisseur of frozen dinners, but he also liked to buy large quantities of meat at the local barbecue pit. “Want some?” I asked Blue. “I can get you a plate.”

  She shook her head while popping the lid off her soda bottle.

  I sat on her right, across from Graham. We opened up our respective folders and began laying out the papers.

  Graham chewed the meat off his chicken leg. “Tell me everything you found. All the details, and don’t leave anything out.”

  “We don’t have anything concrete,” Blue began. “But several people mentioned the victims not feeling good.” She glanced at me. “Did you get any more of those?”

  I fished out a few papers I’d clipped together. “These guys. Most of the others were away from home or alone, so no one really knows anything other than they died.” I held up one paper. “I’m not sure about this guy. He was a lone wolf—no mate or partner. I had a hard time getting details about his death. Ren put him on the list because he dropped dead in the middle of a bar.”

  Blue looked around. “Do you have a pen?”

  I rummaged through my dad’s junk drawer in the kitchen and tossed her a ballpoint. She scribbled question marks on a few papers and set them aside.

  Graham pulled a few of those toward him and reviewed the info. “You can’t connect every single death. You have to factor in how and where they died. This lady died from a snakebite.”

  I looked at the file. “Her boyfriend didn’t mention that.”

  “Of course he didn’t. She had a lot of money, and he didn’t. I know the Relic who saw her. She had all the symptoms and a swollen leg, but the boyfriend wouldn’t allow him to treat her.”

  “Why did he call a Relic?”

  “He didn’t. A concerned neighbor called. I don’t think the boyfriend had anything to do with the accident, but I suspect he didn’t mind nature taking its course.” Graham cleaned off the meat from the bone in one bite and set it on the plate. “Do you have any statements from a Relic who examined them? Any clues left at the scene for these?” he asked, looking at the papers with question marks on them.

  Blue shook her head. “Not those.”

  He wadded up the papers and tossed them into the kitchen. “Then they have to go.”

  I shrugged. “Fair enough. But what about the guy who fell off his motorcycle?”

  He held a chicken wing close to his face and inspected it. “If I had a nickel for every Shifter who died in a car accident. Some of them think they’re immortal and can heal from any injury. But they can’t heal if they’re impaled or unconscious or bleed out. Most of them are young, arrogant boys. What’s next on the list?”

  I created a separate stack. “These are all your clients.”

  “I questioned most of them,” Blue said, tapping her finger against her orange soda. “The twelve-year-old girl collapsed. Do you have any medical history on her? Kids just don’t drop dead.”

  “That one had anxiety issues since she was little. Medication didn’t help, so I suspect she had an underlying medical condition. Even something as simple as sleep apnea can wreak havoc on the body, and it’s not easy to catch. Parents don’t want to put their kids through a battery of tests.”

  I played with a paper clip. “That’s not true. I once had a rash, and my dad took me to five doctors until they decided it was an allergic reaction to a detergent he was using.”

  Graham chuckled. “You’re a Mage, right? Your early experience is with humans. We’re talking about Shifters.”

  I glanced at Blue. “Who found her?”

  Blue’s shoulders sagged. “Her mother found her in the kitchen with a glass of milk spilled all over the floor. She hadn’t been feeling well. We’ve got a lot of similar stories about chest pain and headaches. If this is a virus, it hits them fast.”

  Graham wiped his barbecue-stained fingers on a paper napkin. “A virus by design is contagious. It jumps from one host to the next, either through airborne droplets, saliva, or blood. We would see more cases.”

  I gulped my drink and sat back. Graham had a point. “Maybe it just affects people with a certain blood type or something. Nobody studies Breed genetics or DNA, do they?”


  He tore meat off the second wing. “That’s a loaded question.”

  “I’m not talking about you, but are there secret labs somewhere? You’re a Relic. You’d know about that kind of thing.”

  He lifted his gaze to meet mine. “Would I? Do you think we have some national alliance with secret meetings?” Graham erupted with laughter. “It’s a competitive field. We all have inherent knowledge passed down from our ancestors that suits us for specific areas of work. Some specialize in Chitah disorders. Others are skilled therapists and counselors who work through harmony issues within a group or help with mental problems. No two Relics possess the same knowledge, so there’s no way for me to know who specializes in what. For the right money, I would imagine that some go rogue and work in secret labs. I’ve heard stories, but I don’t know if those are just rumors.”

  “What’s your skill?” Blue asked.

  “I mostly have wolf clients but not all. Most human medicine is ineffective on Breed. It’s weak and, in some cases, doesn’t work at all. I’m basically your average medicine man. Nothing exciting about that.” Graham sipped his drink and grimaced. “I’m a milkshake guy myself.”

  “Sorry. No milkshakes in this house,” I informed him. “What about Ensure? I could throw that in the freezer.”

  He frowned. “What’s Ensure?”

  I chuckled. “A human drink with vitamins and protein. Never mind.”

  “Why would you have human drinks in your house?”

  “This isn’t my house. It belongs to… a friend.”

  Graham blanched and looked over his shoulder at the hallway behind him. “Are we alone?”

  “Want me to give you the tour?” I offered. “I don’t want to jeopardize your reputation or career for helping us. I promised you a private location, and this is it.”

  He shook his head, looking at the papers with a chicken wing still in his hand. “This is scandalous research. Scandalous! If you can’t find a connection and any of these Shifters find out what you’re researching, they could file formal complaints.”

  Blue and I shared a look. Formal complaints were the least of our worries after a night battling bears and wolves, then rescuing a child.

  “Some of the packs bury the bodies on their land,” I said. “What if we dig up a few and run some tests? You might find something in their blood.”

  Graham choked on his chicken. “You must have a death wish. They’re not going to let you dig up the dead. Do you have anything on the rest? Anything new that was overlooked? If not, you should drop it.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not dropping this. I’ve made a decision, and I think this is worth pursuing.”

  Blue folded her arms on the table. “It could ruin us, Raven. Some of these look really fishy to me, but he’s right. If anyone gets wind of why we’re really asking questions, and they think for a second it might have something to do with a virus, that’s going to set off a panic.”

  “One you can’t undo,” Graham added. “The higher authority lost a lot of credibility after that recent scandal. Even if the reps made a public statement that the virus gossip was a misunderstanding, no one would believe it. You could inadvertently start a war. That might dissolve the only law organization we’ve got, and nobody wants that. Nobody!”

  I spread out the papers. A young woman found dead in her sleep, an older woman dead in a chair, a young boy who drowned, several young men who had all collapsed. And as much as I wanted to rule out the bear on the motorcycle, I couldn’t. I got up and unwadded the papers Graham had discarded on the kitchen floor so my father wouldn’t find them. “What about the Donner pack?” I asked Blue. “The one you saw yesterday afternoon.”

  I felt a sharp stab of guilt when I remembered that they were the ones she had a run-in with.

  Blue held a look I couldn’t discern. “The victim was a young man—eighteen, I think. They said he collapsed while repairing a broken window. They’re saying it was dehydration or a heatstroke, but I wouldn’t rule out foul play. They were in a rush to get us out of there. Something fishy was going on in that pack. Not many women, but a whole bunch of little girls.”

  Graham heaved a sigh. “Some people shouldn’t be allowed to breed.”

  I stared at the papers. It was so random. None of them had anything in common except that they were Shifters. Different ages, genders, animal types, and even causes of death. The only thing we could trace to some of them was that they died unexplainably. “Could it be a genetic mutation instead of a virus?”

  Graham sucked the sauce off his thumb. “What do you mean?”

  “What if some Shifters are born with a mutation that kicks in at random times, like an autoimmune disorder? Except instead of making them sick, it just kills them.”

  “I don’t think that would go over well in the Shifter community either. Unless we can prove it, we can’t even suggest it.”

  Blue rubbed her temples. “If it’s true, they have a right to know. Someone will have to organize a task force to research it. They’ll have no choice but to dig up the bodies since it’s something that would affect the entire population.”

  Graham shrugged. “Sure. Tell everyone that their pack might have a genetic mutation and see how many of them start killing or kicking out relatives who might carry the gene. You need to think about it this way—if we can’t cure it, we can’t suggest it. It’s better if they just accept the deaths as part of nature. We don’t have specialized hospitals for Breed. We don’t have organized research teams who come up with cures for defects. We accept them. Otherwise you’d see more of these interbred children getting attention—the ones born with both gifts canceled out. Maybe in a few hundred years but not now. It’s possible they were born with a genetic flaw. That’s something I can’t rule out as a science man. But if so, there’s nothing we can do but protect the stability of the community.”

  I folded my arms on the table and put my head down. The human side of me wanted to do all the things we would do in the human world. But that wasn’t my world anymore. Everything had an impact. The stability of the Breed world was as thin as a sheet of ice over a lake. One wrong decision would cause fractures far and wide. The ramifications for spreading rumors or slander were substantial, and because it would affect our organization, I had to tread carefully.

  Yet Remi’s words resonated, and I felt compelled to see this through. Even if we could never publicly disclose our findings, I needed to know where this road was taking us. Maybe nowhere, but maybe we could save a few people along the way from bad situations.

  “Do you have any potato salad?” Graham inquired politely.

  I needed to end this meeting before he cleaned out Crush’s fridge. I lifted my head. “Can we schedule another meeting with you when we have more information?”

  “Absolutely. I want to help in any way I can, but I just don’t see anything suspicious.” He continued reading a few more papers while finishing his chicken. “You spoke to the Freeman pride?”

  I tucked my fist against my cheek. “Blue did.”

  Graham set down his chicken. “What did they say?”

  Blue guzzled her drink and then sighed. “Sambah lost a son. What do you think they said? He’s upset. They found him on the stairs.”

  “You spoke to Sambah?” Graham cleaned his hands with a napkin. “That’s a powerful pride, and King was next in line. At least that’s what I heard.”

  “You know them?” I stood, dumped the chicken bones into the trash, and put the empty plate in the sink.

  “I’m not their Relic,” he explained. “I tried to apply once, but they turned me down. They have a lot of money and power. I hope you didn’t upset him. Did he seem upset? I hope you’re not mentioning my name to any of these people.”

  Blue scooted her chair back. “We’ve been careful about what we tell them. We don’t want anyone getting suspicious about our visits.”

  Graham heaved a sigh. “Good. The last thing you want to do is make enemies with the
Freeman pride. I’ve heard stories about them.”

  I leaned against the sink. “What stories?”

  “Someone murdered one of their lions. Or was it a lioness? I can’t remember.” Graham loosened his belt a notch, causing me to look away. “It was a bar fight, I think. The Council rarely gets involved in family disputes. Sambah didn’t go to the killer’s pack. He sent his men to hunt down the two people involved in the killing and bring them back. Nobody knows what happened to them.”

  “If the killing wasn’t provoked, it’s within his rights,” Blue said, scooting back her chair. “An eye for an eye. The leader can ask for any compensation he desires.”

  Graham wiped his forehead. “Did you know that lions eat their enemies?”

  Striding to the door, I announced, “You better go. Blue and I have more work to do, and I’m sure we’re keeping you.”

  He rose from his seat. “Thanks for the snack. That should tide me over until lunch.”

  Blue couldn’t stifle her short laugh.

  Graham pushed in his chair. “It’s genetic. I have a slow metabolism and a big appetite.”

  I gripped the doorknob. “I’m not judging. I’m exactly the opposite.”

  He moved around the table and looked me over. “If you need an appetite stimulant, let me know. I have something for that, and it seems to work on all Breeds. Vampires are my biggest customer. Some of the old ones have gone so long without eating that food makes them queasy. Can you imagine?”

  “If food makes them sick, why would they want to eat?”

  He cleared his throat. “Everyone does business in restaurants and clubs these days. Food is a social activity, and they’re trying to gain people’s trust. Anyhow, let me know if you need a little boost.” He took a package of gum from his front pocket. “Gum?”

  “No, but thanks. I’m not a big gum chewer.”

  Blue raised her hand. “I’ll take one, amigo.”