The Black Wolves of Boston (eARC)

by Wen Spencer

  "A what?" Keegan asked.

  "God, didn't your grandfather teach you anything about common political tactics? A false flag is a covert operation designed to appear as if it's committed by someone other than the people that actually carried them out. The Wickers obviously wanted any wolf that found Samuels' body to believe that the Grigori were behind his murder. They killed your grandfather simply to trigger a war between us and our ally."

  "Then we should be looking for the Wickers," Dan said.

  Seth clenched his fists tight to keep from smacking the older man. "It is vital that your grandfather is cremated as soon as possible. A witch can..." Then he remembered why his people always cremated their dead. "Get in the car. All of you. We need to go now and do this."

  "Why?" Cameron at least pulled out car keys.

  "With your grandfather's body, the Wickers can control the entire Albany pack. Come on. We have to hurry."

  24: Elise

  "What the hell?" Bethy whispered for the third time. "You were going to shoot him."

  Elise was glad that if the girl insisted on stating that over and over again, she was at least doing it quietly. Obviously she wasn't going to stop until Elise actually answered her. "Some evil cannot be contained. It can only be eliminated."

  "You were going to shoot him!" Bethy whispered.

  The emphasis had changed slightly. That was progress. Maybe.

  "He was going to kill us. He killed your neighbor. The police wouldn't have stopped him. In fact, they would have helped him."

  "Why?"

  Why was Elise going to shoot him? She'd covered that. Why would the police help him? Being that they were standing at a murder scene, surrounded by officers, that wasn't a subject she wanted to discuss. Luckily the uniform nearest to them was busy throwing up. Cabot had done an impressive amount of damage in a matter of seconds. The warlock's head was a good twenty feet from his body.

  "All the things people have told you are just legends and myths and make-believe are real," Elise whispered. "Except for the tooth fairy. It's totally creepy once you think about it in depth; some magical creature stealing baby teeth out of children's bedrooms in the middle of the night. I think that's made up; certainly I've never killed one. Whatever."

  She was rambling because she was trying to vector possible attacks and counterattacks. The Wickers knew she was in the area, what vehicle she was driving, and where she'd spent the night. They'd also figured out they'd lost contact with the huntsman because she'd stopped it. They weren't sure where their construct had been destroyed; Clarice had sanitized the police reports on Saturday as soon as Elise verified that the bodies been used as seedbeds. Nor had the Wickers realized that she was allied with the wolves. That, however, had just become obvious.

  Even with the warlock dead, the Wickers had the upper hand. She needed to get one step ahead of them: figuratively and literally.

  She needed to leave as soon as possible, but first, she should learn what she could of the dead man. Wickers never bothered with such things as driver's licenses and credit cards. There would be no ID on him. No sales receipts. No random slip of paper.

  The warlock had left behind a littering of puppets.

  One was curled on the ground, howling with fear. "Make sure he's dead! Make sure he's dead!" Another was unconscious, knocked out by Bethy. Neither one of those would be useful. She'd kept Cabot from killing them because they were most likely innocent of any true wrongdoing.

  "You were going to shoot him!" Bethy had tenacity in spades, which might be the reason she was immune to Wicker's powers.

  "Yes! He was a bad man," Elise whispered but it came out louder than she intended. The police officer erecting a tape barrier around the warlock's body glanced their direction.

  She flashed her Interpol badge again. "I shot at the wolf. I think I hit it. It fled that way. I'm going to try tracking it."

  She pointed in the direction that the puppets had fled.

  Six black and white squad cars had responded so far to "multiple gunshots fired within city limits." All the vehicles had "City of Utica" written on their doors, not New Hartford. None of them seemed like puppets running on scripts. They did have silver ammo; they'd checked their magazines once they realized they were dealing with a wolf.

  At the moment, she was safe from the Wickers. It would take the coven time to realize that the warlock had been killed. If the Wickers arrived while she was in police custody, it would be a death sentence.

  "What the hell..." Bethy started loudly.

  "Shush! Please!" Elise needed to find one of the other puppets. She scanned the ground. She'd shot at least one of them.

  Bethy wouldn't be silenced, but at least she kept to furious whispers. "What the hell is going on? Who the hell are you? Interpol? Interpol? And what the hell was that?" She pointed toward the bed and breakfast. "That was not a wolf. I have spent the last two days learning everything there is to know about wolves. The average grey wolf is two and half feet tall and slightly over five feet long and weighs at most a hundred and twenty pounds. That thing was way too big to be a wolf!" She had learned everything. "And---and it talked!"

  "I would have started with the talking." Elise shifted so it seemed that Bethy was pointing at her. "Don't bother telling the police about what you saw. They won't believe you. Hell, seven percent of Americans believe the moon landings were faked."

  "If they won't believe me, why are you bothering to tell me that?"

  "Because I don't need this becoming more difficult than it already is." Elise spotted blood drops heading away from the parking lot. She nodded to the officer nearest her and followed the trail.

  For some odd reason, Bethy stuck to her side. Maybe because Elise hadn't actually answered her question.

  "That man that just attacked us..." Elise attempted an answer that would rid her of the girl.

  "The one you were going to shoot?"

  "Yes, the very bad man who killed your neighbor and just tried to kill both of us. He was a warlock; a male witch. Witches never work alone. If there's one, there's always two to twelve more. I believe there were close to a dozen people in his coven, or at least, what's left of it. They're down at least three that I know of. There's also a woman driving a red Bentley and Daphne's supposed mother, the Wakefield woman that was at the press conference with your parents."

  What was her name? Monsters weren't supposed to have names. Yet another reason Elise hated hunting Wickers. Monsters were supposed to be hiding in a dark hole with the bodies of their victims strewn clearly around them. Wickers walked in broad daylight and hid the bodies in shallow graves.

  "Dahlia Wakefield. She's Daphne's mother and she drives the Bentley. She hates that she's stuck doing the grieving mother bit especially since she's angry with Daphne for screwing everything up."

  "She told you that?"

  "No. I eavesdropped on her before the press conference. It wasn't very hard; she doesn't seem to understand 'indoor voice.' No one is saying it but it's suspicious that Reed Wakefield and Daphne were both mauled to death, miles and miles from each other. Someone went through my parent's place, stole a bunch of stuff and killed my neighbor. My brother is missing. Someone is obviously after him. I have to suspect everyone."

  Except Elise. Or maybe Bethy didn't have filters on what she told friends and foes.

  "When a coven moves into an area, they pick out the best house for their needs and take it," Elise said. "The true owners are kept like dogs in the basement. That house across the road from the high school was too small for the entire coven. It was just a satellite residence. It gave them access to the school and a private backyard to do small creations. They would have someplace bigger, lots more bedrooms and more probably more land."

  "This is not Saratoga Springs," Bethy said. "No one has money to maintain the mansions built back in the day. Most of them have been turned into offices or bed and breakfast places, just like the place you're staying at."

  The blood splatters l
ead to the corner and stopped. Elise swore, walking in a large circle, trying to pick up the trail.

  Cabot caught up to them on her second pass. He wore a different T-shirt and second pair of blue jeans, so tight that she suspected he borrowed them out of Seth's suitcase. He padded up quietly in worn penny loafers.

  Bethy didn't seem to notice Cabot at first. "Where are we going?"

  "I'm tracking the puppet that I wounded."

  "Puppet?" Bethy pretended to have a sock puppet on her hand.

  Cabot snickered.

  Bethy jerked around to glare at him. "This is a private party. Get lost." Obviously she thought he was a random stranger just walking past.

  Cabot questioned Elise with a raised eyebrow.

  Elise shook her head. "He's with me. We---" She made it clear by pointing back and forth between her and Cabot who "we" included. "---are going to track the wounded puppet. You are not invited to this party."

  "I don't give a shit if I'm invited or not," Bethy said. "I'm not completely following all the weird crap that just happened, but I got one thing straight. Some scary ass people are after Joshua and they seem to think you know where he is."

  "Do you?" Cabot's voice went low and dangerous. Werewolves were famous for how protective they were of their young.

  "I saved him from a huntsman." Elise didn't want to tell Bethy where her brother was. The woman couldn't keep her mouth shut to save her soul. "I hid him where he'd be safe and the Wickers wouldn't be able to find him."

  "And you didn't think to mention it?" His voice still rumbled with menace.

  "I was a little busy. Seems some idiot needed to be pulled out of a creek, patched up, fed, and given clean clothes and some place safe to sleep. Joshua's where the prince would be sure to find him, if he wasn't busy trying to find the idiot in the creek too."

  "Fair enough," Cabot grinned sheepishly. "So he's safe."

  "For now. It was him on the phone earlier. He remembered seeing the daggers at the barn."

  "A hot chick like you gave Joshua her phone number?" Bethy snorted. "Not likely."

  "Technically, no, I didn't give him my number. He borrowed my friend's phone."

  Cabot snapped his fingers as he remembered something. "Speaking of phones, I left mine in New York. That's why I came back; I wanted to borrow your phone to call Seth and find out where he was."

  She wasn't the only one letting things slip. Seth had tried to give Cabot his phone last night. The prince must have forgotten about it this morning. "Give me the room key."

  As they swapped the two, Bethy lost patience with being ignored. "Where is my little brother?"

  Elise wasn't about to tell her. Even if she didn't blab it to a Wicker directly, she could tell someone like her parents who weren't immune to the witch's Persuasion. The girl, however, wasn't going to leave them alone until she had an address. Elise's first thought was to send her to Wolf Castle but that wouldn't end well for Bethy. Annoying as the woman might be, she was an innocent in this. "In Philadelphia. 123 Elfreth's Alley."

  Cabot recognized the address of Grigori Central. Confusion spread across his face. He was trying to fit "where the prince can find him" with "Philadelphia." The wolf apparently thought that Virtues couldn't lie any more than they could have sex.

  "Philadelphia?" Bethy didn't sound convinced. "Why would he go to Philly? How would he even get there? He was nearly broke."

  "I sent him. I rescued him from a monster in Central Park in New York City." Since the Grigori weren't allowed in Manhattan, hopefully Cabot would realize that she was completely lying. She didn't want him muddling things by asking questions. "Afterwards I gave him money for a train with a map to my cousin's place."

  Clarice could deal with the girl. Give her Greek coffee, lokma soaked with honey, and run her in circles. There were far worse fates.

  Bethy had taken out her phone. She muttered as she typed in the address. "Elfreth. Sounds made up to me. Elfreth's Alley. Huh. What do you know."

  There was weird loud groan, as if the Earth itself moaned in horror.

  "What the hell?" Bethy said.

  "The Marquis of Albany just died," Cabot said. "This is what happened when my grandfather died."

  The marquis was ancient. What were the chances that his death was sheer coincidence?

  "Call Seth." She turned to Bethy. "Give me your phone."

  "Wait! What was that sound? Who died?" Bethy demonstrated why, despite her abilities, she had no place in dealing with the Wickers. She would burn up their time and attention trying to get her up to speed with no guarantee she wouldn't be a liability. At least she handed over her phone without more questions. "Who are you calling?"

  "My cousin," Elise stated. "The one who lives in Philly."

  "Hello?" Clarice answered the unfamiliar number without identifying herself.

  "Αυτό είναι Elise." Elise used Greek since she was about to give her password information. "Οι αμαρτίες του πατέρα μολύνει το αίμα."

  "Central," Clarice responded. "Report."

  "The Marquis of Albany just died," Elise said. "I don't know details but I hate the timing. Cade's blades might be involved. Warn anyone in the area, the wolves might be on the warpath."

  "Understood," Clarice said.

  "I want to talk to Joshua." Bethy held out her hand for her phone.

  Elise hung up and deleted Clarice's number.

  "Hey!" Bethy cried.

  "It's going straight to voicemail." Cabot tapped in another number. "He might have his phone off so he can dodge Bishop telling him to go home."

  Elise handed back Bethy's phone. "I'm sorry that your family is caught up with this, but there's a dozen people dead here and another dozen dead elsewhere. Trying to explain all this so you can understand what's going on will take too much time. I need to find the person I shot, make sure they don't bleed out, and find out what they know about the witches before more people are killed."

  Cabot growled and tapped in another number. The third number answered. "Tawfeek, its Cabot. Where's Seth?"

  Elise couldn't hear the answer.

  "I know where the Jensens live," Bethy huffed in annoyance as she realized that Elise had deleted Clarice's number. "You are such a bitch. Why are the pretty girls always such bitches?"

  "Because we're sick of being 'pretty' like a piece of artwork!" Elise snapped and then paused as she parsed the rest of what Bethy's statement. "Who are the Jensens and why should I care?"

  "Carl Jensen. The man you shot! He drives a blue Cadillac DeVille nearly as old as I am. It's got two hundred thousand miles on its V8 engine and is a complete gas hog. It was sitting here when I drove in earlier."

  That would explain the lack of blood splatter.

  "And you know where they live?"

  "Yeah. I've driven them home after they've dropped off the DeVille for service. It's a fancy-schmancy place in New Hartford."

  Would the puppets return home? There was only one way to find out.

  Cabot held out Elise's phone, looking worried.

  "What did you find out?"

  "Wickers set up a trap. The marquis tripped it. It killed him instantly. Seth had to chase down the heir; he's sitting on him now. The Thanes are cleaning up ferals."

  "They need help?"

  Cabot shook his head empathically. "You shouldn't go anywhere near them right now."

  Elise could guess the form that the trap took. "I'm going after the Wickers."

  25: Elise

  Bethy was right about the DeVille and the fancy-schmancy house. It was a big two-story Tudor with a three-car attached garage sitting on five acres of wooded land. The Jensens had backed the DeVille through their flowerbeds to park it inches from the front door. All the car doors stood open. Luggage sat scattered around it. Obviously they planned to bolt, but something had stopped them.

  Elise drove over the yard to block them in. She didn't want them fleeing until she could question them.

  "Stay in t
he car," Elise told Bethy.

  The woman ignored her, sliding out. "I'm not going to let you shoot the Jensens. Again."

  Cabot growled softly, drifting toward the closed garage door. "Someone has been crafting here. I can smell it."

  Anything could be in the house. Elise holstered her guns and pulled out her daggers.

  Cabot sniffed loudly as he rattled the steel garage door to the two-car bay. "Locked." He leaned against it to listen. "Nothing is moving."

  "Let's clear the house first." Elise turned and realized that Bethy had already charged through the front door. "Damn that woman."

  "Hey!" Bethy called from the house. "Do you have a first-aid kit?"

  Elise caught Cabot's amused glance. "What?"

  He grinned sheepishly. "You're sexy when you're pissed off."

  She blushed, not sure how to feel about the comment. Most guys stopped finding her stunningly beautiful when she pulled out her weapons.

  Bethy came to the door. "Well? I figure if you go around shooting people, you probably do have a first-aid kit in your car. Do you or don't you?"

  "I have one." Elise ignored Cabot's snicker. "Who is in there and what are they doing?"

  Bethy crossed her arms with a huff. "Mr. Jensen took a header in the kitchen from blood loss. Bart is having a meltdown. Johnny and Mrs. Jensen are trying to cope."

  "Nothing else?" Elise asked.

  "Like what?" Bethy clearly had no idea what the Wickers were capable of doing.

  "Nothing...weird?" Elise didn't even want to try to explain constructs to the woman.

  "Weird?" Bethy asked.

  "Nevermind." Elise sheathed her daggers. She needed to get Bethy out of her life as soon as possible or she'd waste more valuable time trying to explain the impossible.

  At one time, in the near past, the house had been the showpiece of a well-paid interior decorator. Winged chairs and leather sofas were artfully arranged around islands of large oriental area rugs that covered gleaming wood floors. The custom wood paneling, the chintz drapes, and paintings of fox hunts all harkened to an English manor lifestyle, not a backwater town in Central New York State. The rooms had been set to "autumn" with pumpkin scented candles and silk flower arrangements in shades of orange and yellow.