by E. A. Copen
I shouted in frustration and threw the gun aside.
“I think we know who the real coward is, then.” Istaqua picked up the gun. He held it out to Sal who, at some point, had shifted back into his human form and found a pair of gray sweats to pull on.
Sal looked sadly down at the gun and took it, his face going blank.
“No!” I screamed and tried to get up and stop him but Istaqua came and put a hand on my shoulder. That hand might as well have been a hundred pounds for the magick that he poured into my body. An electric current ran from him into me, slowing time and electrifying with every rain drop that struck my skin. I fell over in slow motion, burying the side of my face in the mud.
Sal put the gun to the back of the first man’s head and pulled the trigger, his face as empty as the barren landscape. Then he went to the next man. The next man bent over weeping through the pillowcase they had over his head. His whole body shuddered with cold and fear.
“Please,” the man pleaded. “Please, I have a family!”
“Sal, don’t,” I whispered into the mud. “Don’t. This isn’t who you are. It isn’t who you have to be.” He hesitated a moment, and I thought that maybe I’d finally gotten through to him. “Would Chanter want this?”
Sal’s face hardened. “Chanter’s dead,” he said in a cold tone. Then he fired the gun into the last man’s head twice.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I lay there in the rain and deepening mud, numb to everything. The world was far away. All that existed were the warnings swimming in my head. I had killed before, taken more lives than was my right. My hands weren’t clean. But this, this was different. Sal had a choice and he had let the wolf make it. This was wrong.
The rest of the people gathered in approving silence as Sal surveyed his handiwork. Emotion came back to his face and he blinked as if he were just waking up. He let the gun fall from his fingers and recoiled from it.
“What have you done?” growled Shauna behind me, her voice raw and gravelly.
“Only what was needed,” Istaqua said.
I pushed myself up out of the mud to sit on my knees. The rainwater had pooled an inch deep and carved its way through the nearby mound of dirt to fill the pit.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Istaqua said, stepping in front of me. He pulled a cell from the inside pocket of his leather vest. He hit a single button and then placed it against his ear. When the caller on the other end picked up he said, “It’s done,” and then promptly hung up. He looked down at me, fat raindrops running down the side of his crooked nose. “And now you come with me.” He wrapped his fingers around my arm.
Sal suddenly stood over Istaqua. Posture is important among werewolves. It can speak in ways that even words can’t. It was unthinkable for a subordinate to tower over a superior as Sal was doing. Even if Istaqua wasn’t a werewolf, the message was a clear challenge. Istaqua had to acknowledge it, which he did by casting an amused look upward.
“You don’t touch her,” Sal said in a harsh tone I’d never heard him use before. It wasn’t a request. That was a command. “You won’t ever touch her again.”
Istaqua smirked. “Boy, you’d better tuck your tail,” he said. “Stow your wolf machismo before the girl pays the price.”
I didn’t know what Istaqua had planned for me, but, to my surprise, both Bran and Shauna stepped up to stand with Sal. “That is enough,” Bran said in his thick accent.
Shauna showed her teeth. “I don’t owe you any loyalty, coyote. I’ll rip your throat out and piss in your entrails if you don’t let her go right now.”
Istaqua released his hold on my arm and stood. He was a good half head shorter than Sal, but that hardly seemed to matter to him. He was more than comfortable looking Sal straight in the eyes, even given Sal’s enraged state. “You’ve just killed two men in front of a federal agent,” he informed Sal. “Your prints are all over the gun, her gun, I might add, and there are a dozen witnesses here. You sure you want her to walk away, knowing what she knows?”
“She is mine,” Sal growled, his voice only barely human. His irises had already shifted into the glowing gold eyes of the wolf.
“She’s a fed, loyal first to her own skin. She’s already proven that.”
“She is mine,” Sal repeated. “Leave. You’re not welcome here.”
Istaqua hesitated, his lip rising in a snarl. “You would choose loyalty to her over loyalty to the club?”
“My alpha said leave.” Shauna stepped forward. There wasn’t much room to do so and even the tiny step she took brought her nearly nose to nose with Istaqua.
Bran frowned at her. By his look, he had hoped simply standing with Sal would be enough to force Istaqua to disengage. Worry etched his face. If violence erupted, he would have to make a choice that would cost him a great deal. “Istaqua, let us go on. Our part here is done. Our enemies are slain, and we have already said our goodbyes to our fallen brother. Let’s go and remember him in our own way, yes?” When Istaqua didn’t move, he added, “She cannot speak truth without incriminating herself. There is no danger here.”
Istaqua sneezed once and shook his head. Bran relaxed and the atmosphere shifted from one of violence to resolution. Without another word, Istaqua walked off, but not without slamming his shoulder into Shauna’s as he passed. Even though she was more muscular than he was, she staggered back half a step.
Bran turned to Sal and offered him a hand, but he was careful not to meet Sal’s eyes. “We will take care of the bodies,” he offered. “I will make sure you get Chanter’s truck back. And, should you require anything more today, brother, you should call me instead of Istaqua. Coyotes are bastards when they’re hurt.”
Sal didn’t take Bran’s hand or look at him. He was too busy fuming. As incensed as he was, I was surprised not to see steam rolling off his shoulders in the cool rain. Bran lowered his hand and nodded, unperturbed by Sal’s mood, stomping off to join the rest of the club over by the bodies. They’d pulled a big, blue tarp from somewhere and were heaving the bodies onto it. I looked away.
“Shauna.”
I flinched at the angry tone in Sal’s voice. Part of me was afraid of what he would do and the other part was as pissed as he was. Okay, maybe not quite that angry. I wasn’t going to turn into an animal, but I had every right to be angry. Sal had betrayed me. At least, that’s how it felt. He was supposed to be on my side, one of the good guys. Instead, he’d made me an accomplice to murder.
“Yes, alpha?” Shauna chimed.
“You and Ed fill that hole back up. Nina, see to it that Valentino is fed.” Sal looked up into the sky. “And when the rain stops, we’ll begin preparations for what comes next.” He reached out and grabbed my arm as Istaqua had done.
I intended only to jerk away, but my temper got the best of me. Magick pulsed down my free arm unbidden and I took a swing at him. He caught my fist before the strike could connect, eyes, nostrils, and temper flaring. “Unwise,” he advised, and then used his hold on both my arms to pick me up off my feet.
I must have looked the sight, being hauled up and tossed over his shoulder like a heavy bag. I don’t know what made me want to fight him. Fear, maybe. Anger. Confusion and loss. Maybe all of it was mixed into one big, wet, miserable sensation in the center of my chest. If I didn’t get it out somehow, my heart might jump out instead. I didn’t waste my time and effort hitting or kicking. I thought hard about resorting to biting and scratching, but I didn’t want to give anyone any more ammunition against me. The pack already saw me as a pathetic, weak human, always in need of help, rescue and protection. That was the part that hurt the worst, the thought that I hadn’t done enough to fix things. I should have tried harder, moved faster, acted smarter. I should have been stronger.
When we were out of sight of the rest of the pack and in front of the house, I struggled a little harder. The motorcycles belonging to the Kings started up and roared away along with Chanter’s truck, which Istaqua drove, so I didn’t have to
worry about being heard when I told him to put me the hell down or else. I didn’t know what else I could threaten him with, and so the threat hung in the air unheeded. Sal had already lost everything.
The screen door closed with a bang behind him but he didn’t stop in the kitchen. He carried me into the living room and dropped me down roughly on the sofa from high enough that I bounced on the cushions. I scrambled up into a defensive posture with my knees drawn in front of my chest and my head low. If he wanted to hurt me, we both knew I couldn’t do anything to stop him, not unarmed as I was. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to protect myself.
Sal didn’t make an aggressive move toward me. He stepped back and dropped his head. The sound of his teeth grinding made me wince and look up. His eyes were closed, fists clenched, every muscle in his body tense. “Judah...” There was a plea hidden in his voice. “I can’t...I’m not...”
That’s when I realized I hadn’t lost him, not completely. Both Shauna and I worried that killing in his current state would send him over the edge and he’d be unable to stop. The beast liked to kill, Shauna had said. He had almost killed Valentino, had killed the two captives outside. Something in his voice and the trembling in his limbs told me he was still fighting it. If he was fighting to keep himself together, I had an obligation to help. No, not because I cared about him. I wasn’t sure how I felt after watching him kill those two men. But because if I didn’t, there would be more bodies.
I very carefully lowered my knees and sat forward.
“He needs to be grounded.” Chanter’s ghost sat down on the back of the sofa beside me and lit a phantom cigarette. The smell of burning tar and paper made me want to sneeze. I gave the ghost a questioning glance. “Don’t look at me. Look at him. Look.”
I turned back to Sal with my aura sight and restrained a gasp of surprise. All the energy I’d seen pouring down into the pit earlier in streams of beautiful rainbow color now flowed into him as ribbons of light and magick. His aura was glowing gold, silver, and orange, pulsating and swirling with red.
“Do you see?” Chanter said next to me. My shoulder chilled as he leaned forward and brushed against it. “Stupid boy knows what he’s supposed to do with it but you’ve got him twisted twenty-six ways to Sunday.”
“Me?” I said quietly, and then recovered before Sal started to think that I’d gone crazy, too. “What about me?”
“I’m dead and even I can see how much he cares about you.” Chanter’s voice softened. “I know you’re angry. You’ve been forced into an uncomfortable position. So has he. You need each other to move forward. Istaqua wins if you remain divided. Marcus wins. This is what your enemies want!” He reached down and flicked me in the back of the head. Surprisingly, it hurt. I turned to glare at him. “Take it from the ghost of a wise old Indian. You two will have plenty of time to bicker later. Take love and peace while you can.”
“Hippie,” I muttered.
Sal lifted his head. “What?”
“Nothing.” When I looked back, Chanter’s ghost was gone.
I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, letting it out slow. When I opened my eyes again, I was still mad, but I understood. Appeal to the wolf. Speak without speaking. Move forward together, grounded.
“Tell me what you need me to do.” When he didn’t answer, I added, “If I can help, you need to tell me what I can do. I don’t know what you know. I haven’t seen the things you’ve seen or been trained to do the things you can do, but it’s the same with me. There are secrets between us. Secrets mean we can’t trust each other. It means our enemies have ammunition to use against us.”
Sal growled at the word enemies and I wondered who he was thinking of.
He didn’t speak, though, so I kept going. “I need your help.”
Apparently, that was the right thing to say. His head perked up and some of the hostility went out of his face.
“But you need mine, too. We need each other, Sal.”
He frowned and looked away. “He doesn’t want to admit how much he needs someone else,” Sal said. ‘He’ presumably being the wolf that was threatening to show himself. “Needing hurts. It feels weak.” He sighed and shook his head. “But we need you. I need to know. It’s driving me crazy. I know you’ve been seeing Marcus.”
“Marcus?” I arched an eyebrow. “Marcus Kelley? Sal, those aren’t social calls.”
“I know,” he growled, back on edge. “I do. But I also know what he can do. I know how people get around him. The other day, and yesterday when you came back, I could smell him all over you. It’s stupid and petty, especially in light of everything else, but it’s all I can think about and it’s pissing me off.”
Jealousy. Of all the reactions I expected, that one hadn’t even registered. I thought the wolf would be angry that I’d objected to his killing. Maybe he would blame me for Chanter the way the rest of the pack seemed to. Instead, as silly as it seemed, the thing that was bothering him most was that I smelled too much like a vampire because I’d been spending too much time with vampires.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If the smell offends you so much, I can go and get cleaned up.”
“It’s not a smell thing,” he said his face flushing. “It’s...” He searched for a word but punctuated the sentence with a growl instead.
Shauna’s voice echoed in my head. “The mate and pack bonds are a lifeline that keep us from losing ourselves to the intoxication of the Change,” she’d said. I knew what he needed. He needed a partner, a mate, and he needed it more than just because of our relationship. Someone had to keep him grounded in reality and calm the angry wolf inside. I didn’t know if I could be that person, especially since life had kept me too busy to learn what would have been required of me. The pack keeping me at arm’s length didn’t help. Who else was there? The pack had gotten too small, and I wasn’t aware of any werewolf dating sites. Sal was slow to trust and even slower to open up to women. I cared more about Sal than anyone else. It wasn’t in me not to help him just because I was afraid of what that might mean.
I folded my hands in my lap, tilted my head to the side, and said, “You need me to be yours.”
“You don’t know what that means,” he said, sitting down on the sofa next to me.
“I know it means you won’t have to fight the wolf alone,” I said, putting my hand over his. “And I know it means you’re less likely to have your position challenged again. Istaqua is less likely to play mind games with either of us.” I shrugged. “I trust you. If it helps you, I’m willing to do whatever you need. Just no more killing. Not unless they deserve it.”
Sal’s face hardened. “They deserved it.”
I couldn’t help but agree a little now that there was more distance between me and the event. Istaqua had done his best to twist things and turn us against each other. For whatever reason, he felt the need to exert control over Sal and drive a wedge between us. The Vanguard had killed Chanter and would have killed Hunter. I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over the bad guys getting what they deserved. Because I still had to look in the mirror and see myself wearing a badge on occasion, I had to say, “I understand why you did what you did. As long as no official investigation gets launched, I’ll stay out of it, but I can’t cover for you. Not with BSI. People and their families disappear when they lie to BSI.”
He suddenly looked hurt. I guess it hadn’t occurred to him that Hunter or I could get hurt if things got out of hand. The bodies Istaqua had hauled away in Chanter’s truck were still a tough subject, and I didn’t want to talk about it, so I resolved to change the subject.
Sal made a strange face. It took a long moment for me to realize it wasn’t because of what I’d said, but rather, because my cell phone was vibrating in my pocket. I gave a frustrated sigh and jerked the phone out to answer it without looking at the number. One of these days, I’m going to learn not to do that. “What?”
“I have information that might interest you,” Father Reed said. “I don’t know if
it’s important or not, but it struck me as odd, and I thought I’d check with you.”
I sat forward on alert. “Tell me.”
“Did you notice anything odd about Marcus’ personal assistant?”
Sal growled beside me at the sound of Marcus’ name, evidently able to hear what Reed had said. I ignored him. “Why?”
“Something about her rubbed me the wrong way. I made a few calls, checked on a few things. Did you know she was fae?”
I blinked and looked at Sal who shook his head. “No,” I answered. “If she is, she’s not registered. How can you be sure?”
“I have connections outside Marcus’ organization, Judah, and my own set of useful skills. I know fae when I see it.” He paused and I thought I heard him make a small hissing sound through his teeth. “I don’t know what kind she is, but she’s worked very hard to keep anyone from knowing. Marcus might not even know.”
That was nice, but I didn’t see how that information fit with everything else that was going on. I had to remember it for later, but that was going to take a back seat to helping Mia.
“There’s more,” Reed continued. “I had a thought. Ghost sickness often works through family lines, killing off everyone. You also said you thought Emiko was behind this.”
“Well, at least that she was being used,” I corrected. “Someone is using her as a weapon. Brought her spirit back to attack Mia.”
