Red Wolf

by Jennifer Ashley

  Dimitri growled again, charged across the open space between garage and house, and kicked the back door in.

  It fell open after one blow. Dimitri was already inside, ducking away from the doorframe in case someone was there waiting to attack. He slipped into the shadows, and Angus followed him as quickly.

  Jaycee moved even faster than the wolves, skimming down the back hall and coming to land in a crouch near the opening that led to the main hall. The room beyond was dark, no lights on, no one partying or cleaning up.

  Ben sauntered inside last and stopped near Jaycee. “You guys know no one’s in here, right?” he asked in a normal voice.

  Jaycee rose and began to make her way to the living room. Dimitri got there first, as did Angus. Jaycee sensed Ben following her closely, his warmth on her back.

  The entire first floor was dark, silent. The Shifters moved soundlessly, and Ben didn’t make any noise at all. Jaycee wondered if his glam could affect hearing as well as sight.

  The only light they could see came from the upper hall. Dimitri swarmed up the stairs without hesitation or discussion. He knew, as Jaycee did, that they had to do this with shock and surprise, catch Brice and his people off-guard so they didn’t have time to fight back or flee.

  Except Brice’s people didn’t seem to be around. Jaycee caught Angus by the shirt as he prepared to ascend after Dimitri.

  “You said they were here,” she said in a fierce voice. “What are you leading us into?”

  “I thought they were.” Angus’s scowl increased. “They said they were coming. They should be here.”

  Jaycee let him go. Angus’s surprised bafflement seemed genuine, and she scented no deceit on him.

  As Angus moved up the stairs after Dimitri. Jaycee paused to pull her leather tunic off over her head, leaving her in the form-fitting tank top, easier to move in than the tunic.

  She hurried up after Angus, wanting to catch Dimitri before he kicked in any more doors. If Brice was behind one waiting to strike, she wanted to be next to Dimitri to defend him.

  A noise came to them. Very faint, but it had all three Shifters and Ben freezing in place. The light at the top of the stairs illuminated them, including Ben, who must have dropped his glam.

  Jaycee heard it again. A vague thumping, followed by a muffled groan.

  Dimitri’s between-beast’s hearing pinpointed it. He strode down the hall on strong legs and knocked in a door to a bedroom with a double-kick.

  “Honey, I’m home!” he sang out.

  Angus was right behind him, and Jaycee ran to catch up. She made it to the bedroom to see Dimitri stop abruptly in surprise, shrinking back down to his human form.

  On the floor, alone in the empty bedroom, was Casey, feet and hands tied, duct tape over his mouth. He’d been beaten to a bloody pulp, his face dark with bruises and abrasions. The sounds were groans in his throat and the pathetic tapping of one of his wolf paws he’d managed to move on the board floor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Dimitri dropped to his knees beside Casey, but before he could reach for the man, Jaycee was there. Her competent fingers closed around the duct tape, easing it gently from his mouth.

  “Casey,” she said, her hand on his shoulder. “We’re here. Tell us what happened.”

  Dimitri waited as Casey tried to look at them. One of his eyelids had been ripped, the eye so smashed Dimitri wondered if he’d ever see from it again. Dimitri rested his hand on a relatively blood-free patch of Casey’s shirt, knowing touch comforted and could start the healing process.

  Casey would need more than touch—he’d need a doctor or a Shifter healer. For now the man edged toward Jaycee, seeking her comfort.

  “Brice,” Casey croaked.

  “Brice did this to you?” Jaycee asked in a dangerous voice. She bent closer so Casey wouldn’t have to strain to speak. “Or had his Shifters do it?”

  Casey managed a nod. “I didn’t want to go.”

  Angus bent down on his other side, suddenly alert. “Go where? Case, it’s me, Angus.”

  “Yeah, I thought I saw your ugly mug.” Casey attempted a smile, but it died quickly. “He took them. I didn’t really believe he would.”

  “Took them where?” Dimitri asked without a stumble.

  Casey turned his working eye, bloodshot and full of tears, toward Dimitri. “He liked you. He wanted to wait for you.”

  So maybe Brice didn’t know Dimitri and Jaycee had been planning to betray him tonight. But maybe Brice had figured out that Dylan was coming for him and had taken his Shifters to some remote place Dylan would never find him.

  Jaycee asked gently, “Wait for us to do what, Casey?”

  “They wouldn’t let him,” Casey said, giving her an imploring look. “They took them all. I didn’t want to go. So they beat me down.”

  “Who did?” Dimitri asked urgently. “Come on, Casey. Where did Brice go?”

  “Basement,” Casey whispered. “Down there.”

  Dimitri remembered the cellar turned rec room and bar. “What’s so special about the basement?” And why would Brice have Casey beaten if he didn’t want to go down to it? Dimitri didn’t ask the last question, not wanting to task Casey with too much at once.

  “Maeve went,” Casey said sadly. “She let them hurt me. Didn’t protect.”

  “What?” Jaycee said, rage in her voice. “She’s your mate. She had no business not protecting you, even if she disagreed with you.”

  Good to know Jaycee felt that way, Dimitri thought, his heart warming. “Peace, Jase. Why the basement, Casey? What’s down there? What’s going to jump out at us when we go to rip the bastard apart?”

  Casey looked a bit surprised. “I’ve been praying. Praying to the Goddess to help me. I didn’t really think you’d be her angel of mercy, Dimitri.” He tried to laugh and coughed up blood.

  Ben knelt next to him. “Do not move. I’m going to take care of you, all right? But you have to tell Dimitri what to expect. Are Brice and his crew waiting in the basement?”

  “No,” Casey said, his voice a croak. “They came. And the Shifters went. Maeve is gone.” He started to cry, shaking with sobs.

  Dimitri knew they wouldn’t get anything more coherent out of him. He rose. “Angus, Jase, with me. Ben . . .”

  “I’ll help him the best I can.” Ben gave Dimitri a black-eyed stare. “If you need me, you scream. I’m short, but I’m great in a fight.”

  “No,” Casey whispered. “All of you go. Find out what happened. They can’t hurt me anymore.”

  Ben didn’t like that, and neither did Jaycee. Dimitri became aware that they all turned to him, the alpha in the room, to make the decision about who did what.

  It was true that Dimitri could use Ben and his strange senses that were Shifter-like but different. He also didn’t want Jaycee out of his sight, and he didn’t trust Angus enough yet to leave him behind.

  He drew a breath. “M-make him as comfortable as p-possible, Ben, and join us. Angus, Jase, you’re with m-me.”

  Jaycee had risen next to him, and now she slid her hand into Dimitri’s, her fingers cool and strong.

  “Let’s go see what we see,” she said.

  She tugged at Dimitri, but Dimitri made sure he led the way out.

  * * *

  The house remained silent as they descended. Jaycee liked that Dimitri didn’t shake off her hand or again insist that she bring up the rear. Her position put her next to Dimitri, where she could protect him.

  They moved quickly and noiselessly to the door to the basement stairs, which led into more darkness. Jaycee’s nerves prickled, and she wanted to shift. Her skin itched with it, her leopard growling.

  Don’t go into the basement. Wasn’t that the first rule of horror movies? Jaycee had always considered that the humans who rushed down the steps at the first noise were foo
ls. Why didn’t they wait, listen, scent for danger? But humans weren’t good at that, and humans in movies always seemed too stupid to live.

  Dimitri led the way, the tension that came through his hand telling her he felt the same uneasiness. There was danger there, though Jaycee couldn’t smell much. Shifters, yes, but she didn’t scent a group, not the several dozen Shifters that had filled this house the first time they’d come.

  She did smell smoke—not of fire, but of something sweet and stuffy, like incense. Sage, she recognized as they descended. Jasmine used it when she did psychic readings.

  The incense had been burned in a brazier. Jaycee knew that not from the scent but because she saw the brazier on the stand as Dimitri carefully opened the door at the bottom of the stairs—no reckless kicking this time.

  The brazier glowed faintly, its flames already spent. Its dim light glinted on the glasses hanging over the bar and on the mirror in its frame. The mirror looked misty, as though the smoke dusted it.

  No one was here. No Shifters, no humans, nothing. Angus fumbled along the wall and flipped a switch, flooding the room with light.

  A chalk circle had been drawn on the floor in front of the bar, the outline smudged here and there with a brown-red substance. Blood. Jaycee’s leopard growled, and her nose wrinkled in distaste.

  “I don’t like this,” Angus said. “The whole place stinks of magic.”

  “Brice is a Goddess fanatic,” Jaycee said. “Maybe this was another of his rituals. Whatever it was, it’s over now, and everyone’s gone.”

  Dimitri moved behind the bar, keeping his eye on the mirror. Beer bottles, open and unopened, rested on the counter. Dimitri put his hand around an unopened one.

  “Still c-cool.”

  Ben had come in while they checked over the room. “They haven’t been gone long, then,” he remarked.

  Jaycee turned to him. “You were already here, in the group, before we arrived that first night. Did you have time to explore the house? Are there secret exits? Tunnels? Kendrick always made sure we had a back way out for whenever we had to escape and scatter. Did Brice have a similar thing?”

  Ben shrugged. “Not sure. He was good at having his Shifters come and go without being seen by humans in the neighborhood as long as they didn’t leave all at the same time. No mass exodus. But think about it—if all his Shifters had escaped through a secret door or tunnel, we would have noticed Shifters milling around as we rode into the neighborhood. We didn’t see much of anyone.”

  Angus growled softly. His hair had become a little shaggier, his eyes so gray they were almost white. “I’m thinking they didn’t leave here alive,” he said.

  “I don’t smell death,” Jaycee countered, and Dimitri gave a slight shake of his head. He didn’t either.

  “Not death. Taken.” Angus’s voice grew more guttural as he shifted to his half beast, a huge black wolf, his shirt tearing. “Death comes later.”

  “I don’t think he’s wrong,” Ben said. “What ritual did they do here? What did it summon? Or do to them?”

  Jaycee slid out her phone. “I’ll call Kendrick. He’s a Guardian—he’ll know about Goddess rituals. Or if this even was a Goddess ritual. Plus, he can tell us if Dylan is close.”

  “Dylan?” Angus swung around. “Dylan Morrissey?”

  Jaycee started and looked up. She hadn’t meant the name to come out of her mouth, but then, she supposed it didn’t matter now. The Shifter Dylan expected them to have ready for him was gone.

  “What do you have to do with Dylan Morrissey?” Angus demanded, his voice edged with fury.

  “As little as p-possible,” Dimitri answered. “But he wants Brice.”

  “You’re from the Austin Shiftertown?” Angus’s glare didn’t soften.

  “Not exactly,” Jaycee said. “But we occasionally work with them.”

  Angus swung on Dimitri. “You know that Dylan’s been pulling Shifters out of Shiftertowns and carting them off Goddess knows where, right? Some have gone from our town, and our leader is not stopping it from happening.”

  Jaycee moved to face Angus. “What are you talking about? Dylan’s an arrogant pain in the ass, but I don’t think he’d do that.”

  “You’re naive, then.” Angus switched his glare to her. “It’s been going on for a few years now. What is he doing with these Shifters? Killing them? Imprisoning them? Selling them?”

  Jaycee listened with disquiet. She trusted the Morrissey family now, though she hadn’t when they’d first moved to Texas, before she’d seen how Liam and Sean took care of their families and their Shifters. Dylan was a little more frightening—he was an old-school Shifter, having lived a long time before Shiftertowns were ever conceived. He’d lived longer than most Shifters, period.

  She knew Dylan always had something going on, whether he was tracking Shifters like Brice, or keeping his eye on Shifter Bureau, or working with Shifter leaders in other towns, especially those in Las Vegas, North Carolina, and Montana.

  If what Angus said was true, and if he wasn’t wrong, then Dylan must have a reason for making Shifters disappear. She wondered if Kendrick knew, and what he thought about it. Or, Jaycee went on, her heart sinking, if Kendrick was helping him.

  Jaycee glanced at Ben. He was examining the circle on the floor, keeping his face averted. Jaycee noticed, with heightened Shifter concern, that Ben was perspiring and breathing faster than usual.

  “Ben, you knew about this?” she asked sharply. “About what Dylan is doing?”

  Ben lifted his head, his eyes carefully neutral. “Why should I?”

  Jaycee folded her arms. “Because you run a lot of errands for Dylan. I’m guessing that you’re here because of him too, but that he sent you on a different errand from the one he sent us on. The fact that we’re in the same place is a coincidence.”

  Ben’s usual good-natured expression died as he straightened, the friendly light in his eyes vanishing. As he looked sharply at her, Jaycee became fully aware that she faced an ancient being, one who’d existed for a thousand years and who did things for his own reasons. If Ben was ever helpful and companionable, that was by his choice.

  “It’s nothing I’m going to discuss with you, Jase,” he said quietly. “There are reasons for everything. That’s all I will say.”

  Angus grunted. “Maybe Brice was right to throw you off the balcony.”

  Ben held up his hands. “I wouldn’t go that far. Pain does not get easier to bear with age, trust me. But about all this . . .” He gestured around the room. “I’m in the dark. I don’t think Dylan had anything to do with it. The circle and the brazier are used in Goddess rituals, but I’m not thinking the Goddess reached down and snatched them all to the Summerland.”

  Jaycee shrugged. “Who knows? Casey believes it.”

  “Casey is gullible and wants to believe something wonderful will happen to faithful Shifters,” Ben said. “That’s how he strikes me.”

  Angus snorted a laugh. “You have him spot-on. He’s one of my clan. I told him not to trust Brice, but Casey is too nice for his own good. He’s why Brice lit into me, and why I stuck around to keep an eye on him and the fanatic Shifters.”

  Good for Angus. Jaycee felt more affinity for him. She’d have done the same thing if Shifters from Kendrick’s group had been enticed to join Brice.

  No, she’d have been more direct, like knocking the deluded Shifters upside the head and dragging them home. Or taking down Brice, which is what she wanted to do now.

  Dimitri was rummaging behind the bar. He came up with a butane lighter in this hand. “How about if we s-see what they were up t-to?”

  Jaycee did not want him to touch the lighter’s flame to the brazier, but Dimitri had already done it before she could protest.

  Sage smoke began to rise almost immediately, sweet smelling and making Jaycee cough. Ben didn’t seem to mind
it, the man standing in a cloud of smoke without wincing. Angus sneezed.

  Dimitri had come alert while Jaycee coughed, her eyes tearing up until her vision blurred. He abruptly hauled himself across the bar, caught Jaycee around the waist, and yanked her backward so hard she came off her feet.

  He’d do that only for a good reason, Jaycee knew, even as she fought to regain her balance. Angus was moving hastily back from the brazier as well, though Ben stayed still, curiosity in his bright eyes.

  Smoke had fallen to curl around the outline of the circle. The thin haze rose like a curtain, a barrier between the basement and the inside of the ring. Growls filled Jaycee’s throat.

  Light flashed behind the smoke. With it came noise. Not a roar or strange sounds, but the noises of people shouting, arguing, and, incongruously, laughing. Jaycee also heard snarls and growls—Shifter sounds. Over all this was a stench like acrid smoke and sulfur.

  The noise abruptly cut off, but the light remained, growing brighter and brighter until Jaycee had to screw up her eyes and turn away.

  She met the bulk of Dimitri, who wouldn’t move. Fine. She didn’t mind hanging on to him, burying her face in his warm chest.

  When the light died and Dimitri stiffened, Jaycee looked around. Angus shifted all the way to wolf, the rest of his clothes falling in shreds around him. Ben remained stoic, folding his arms. Dimitri growled, the sound rumbling in his chest.

  Two people stood inside the circle. One was Brice, who glared at them in fury. The other was a tall, thin man with hair the color of old bronze and eyes as black as Ben’s. He wore clothing made of leather and fur with rings of metal clinking in them, and he held a sword.

  The thin man stared around him with a look of amazement, right before Angus leapt at him.

  The man’s astonishment dropped away. He spun out of the circle, sword ready, meeting the attack with professional skill. Angus, just as skilled, redirected his leap to land on Brice, his teeth and claws tearing into the big man, his impact shoving him through the smoke and into the bar.