The Bite of Winter (International Monster Slayers Book 2)

by Bethany Helwig

  “And there you have it,” the reporter says to draw the attention back to herself. “Authorities have not been able to locate the animal and commented this is very unusual behavior for wolves who tend to shy away from human contact—”

  She drones on but it’s clear no one actually saw Ashley change—well, except for the vampire. And why was a vampire here in the first place? On top of being out where it could be seen, it attacked someone in a very busy part of town? Was everyone drinking a glass of stupid here?

  “I’m going for that alley,” I say. “You’re welcome to try and stop—”

  Charlie isn’t there. I glance around and spot him already receding into the shadows of the alleyway. How did he get there so fast? I push my way through the crowd, bypass the reporter, and jog into the alley after him. Steam issues from the restaurant on the right and billows in the cramped space shared by dumpsters and recycle bins. A cold breeze off the lake scoops up the foul odor of the trash and carries it away.

  Next to the last dumpster at the end of the alley I find Charlie kneeling on the ground, a massive purse in his hands.

  “Uh, what are you doing?” I ask.

  Instead of answering, he pulls from the depths of the purse a long, glossy looking wrap the color of ash. The more he hauls it up, the less like cloth it appears to be. The light from the restaurant’s floodlight catches it and I realize it’s not cloth at all. It’s skin. The skin from a seal to be more precise. I know exactly what that is.

  “There might not have been a vampire here,” Charlie says and heaves a heavy sigh. “But there was definitely a selkie.”

  Chapter 3

  At the word “selkie,” all the facts I know about them pop into my mind like hits from a web search.

  Selkie—a seal that sheds its skin to become human, then puts that same skin on again to transform back. They come mainly from Scotland and Ireland, and it’s a rare occurrence to see one in the States. Take a selkie’s skin and they can’t transform back. People have stolen skins before as blackmail to keep a selkie under their control, so selkies guard the skins with their lives. Finding one here must mean there’s a selkie nearby.

  “But . . .” My brain comes to a stop when I put that knowledge in context with what’s before me. “A selkie wouldn’t attack Ashley. They’re not monsters, and they don’t look like vampires.”

  “I know that,” Charlie says irritably. “But whoever this belongs to probably knows something about what happened. I’m not buying it as a coincidence that there was an attack and a selkie skin in the same alleyway. This is the most solid lead we have. I’ll believe a selkie was here but I’m still holding off on accepting a vampire was waltzing around in the middle of a busy city hub.”

  “But Ashley—”

  “Wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a stranger accosting her in an alleyway and a freakin’ movie star painted with glitter.” He gestures between the pair of us. “We have training. We can tell what’s what. She doesn’t. She saw what she wanted to see.”

  “Why would anyone want to see a vampire in an alleyway as opposed to a regular guy?”

  He nods thoughtfully, a rueful look on his face. “You know, I’ve been asking myself the same question ever since Anne Rice starting writing vampire novels.”

  “Who?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Forget it. We still have to figure out who this skin belongs to and why they dumped it in an alley. A selkie would never do that.”

  I don’t want to admit it but he’s right. Even if it wasn’t a selkie that attacked Ashley—and it’s highly unlikely that one did—maybe the selkie saw what happened, or knows where we might find that vampire. The fact we found a skin just lying around is a very bad sign.

  Charlie tucks the skin back into the purse, stands, and shoves the bag into my hands.

  “Carry this,” he orders and stalks out of the alleyway.

  “Why can’t you carry this?” I snap back. I’ve known Charlie for less than an hour and my automatic response is already to start an argument with him.

  “Seriously?” he calls back without stopping. “I’m not going to carry a purse.”

  I sling the strap over my shoulder and clutch it tight to my side. I’m not going to be the one to lose something this precious.

  The reporter and cameraman are packing up so the crowd is quick to disperse now that the camera’s off. Charlie walks back to the street and hails Melody who is on foot on the sidewalk. There’s no sign of Jefferson, Ashley, or the SUV anymore. The three of us meet outside the entrance to the nightclub.

  “Ashley freaked out after she saw the reporter here,” she explains. “Jefferson’s trying to calm her down, but she’s in a right state. I need to drop them off so they can wait at our office until we’re done here. Did you two find anything?”

  I hold out the purse. Melody discreetly examines the contents and purses her lips. She and Charlie share a look that is a conversation all on its own. Melody stares him down and he goes from angry to irritated to resigned.

  “Okay, fine,” he says without any context at all. “I’ll go.”

  “Good,” Melody says and smiles.

  I hold up my hand to get their attention. “Sorry, what just happened?”

  Melody passes the purse to Charlie who promptly shoves it into my arms again. He huffs and explains in an undertone, “A group of selkies came to town on one of the salties at the beginning of fall and they tend to hang out at the Blue Comet.”

  “Saltie?” I interrupt.

  “Ocean-faring vessel. Selkies would never come this way by plane so they rode through the St. Lawrence Seaway, across the Great Lakes, and parked in Duluth,” he rolls off then continues as if I hadn’t said a word. “But Melody and the selkies don’t exactly get along—”

  “Threatening to skin one alive tends to elicit that sort of reaction,” she comments offhand. “But they just love Charlie, don’t they?” She gives him a crooked smile and he goes rigid. “They’ll talk to him but they won’t even let me in the club. Phoenix, why don’t you go with him and see if they know who this skin belongs to?”

  “What?” Charlie and I protest at the same time. We glance at each other before avoiding any more eye contact.

  “You could use more hands-on experience, Phoenix,” she says. “And Charlie could use some backup.”

  “I don’t need help,” he says flatly.

  Melody tosses her hair back. “Just like you didn’t need a hand when one tried to drag you into the lake with her?”

  His face turns brilliant red and he stalks away into the Blue Comet without another word. Melody shoos me after him.

  “Well, go on then!” she says and pushes me towards the door.

  I swing the purse onto my shoulder and push in the black door Charlie disappeared through. The wintery chill outside disappears into heat and a thick atmosphere inside. A neon sign above my head announces Blue Comet with a flashing picture of an actual comet below. The walls are black but decorated with florescent splashes of orange, green, and blue. Black lights overhead turn the paint vibrant. The air is heavy with the smell of sweat, cheap cologne, and alcohol. I walk carefully down the short entrance and into a large room pulsing to a techno beat. Flashing strobe lights make my head dizzy and I pause on the edge of the dancers filling up every crevice of the club.

  A hand lands on my shoulder and I flinch away, spinning about to grab the person’s wrist before they can make another move.

  Charlie jerks his arm out of my grip with a grimace and shakes out his hand. “Nice reflexes, psycho. Come on, it’s this way.”

  He pushes through the dancers, past a bar with an illuminated glass countertop, and to another black door hardly visible in the far wall. A huge man larger than the door itself stands before it, arms crossed, tattoos up and down his forearms, no neck, no hair, and a massive jaw. I don’t see any tusks poking out between his lips, otherwise I would think he’s a troll.

  “Heya, Quincy!” Charlie says wit
h a wide smile and smacks the big guy on the arm.

  The guy doesn’t move an inch but his tiny eyes narrow on Charlie who, despite being tall himself, is at least a foot shorter than him. “Charlie,” he says with no inflection whatsoever. “The girls have missed you.”

  Charlie’s smile never dims but his face turns a brighter shade of red. He shrugs like it’s no big deal but there’s a bit of a twitch in his left eye as big-man-Quincy lets Charlie through. I make to follow after but find an arm the size of a tree trunk blocking my path.

  Quincy squints down his thick nose at me. “Who are you?”

  “She’s with me,” Charlie says and pushes the huge arm out of the way. He grabs my shoulder and starts tugging me down a flight of steps before there’s any argument. As soon as the door shuts behind us the stairwell becomes dead silent except for the clunk of our shoes on the metal steps. I look back and see a flickering blue, transparent light covering the door like some kind of florescent plastic wrap.

  “There’s a dragon’s barrier on the door?” I ask, surprised. “For a place like this?”

  “Yeah, duh. When there’s a dragon around they like to put up barriers.”

  I pause on the steps and brace a hand on the wall. “There’s a dragon here?”

  Charlie stops and turns about to face me a few steps down. “Did I stutter? Pretty sure there’s been one in the area for a while now.”

  My jaw pops as I shift it back and forth. “Okay, what’s your problem with me? Stop dancing around whatever it is and just spit it out, will you?”

  We both remain where we are, glaring each other down. He half turns like he’s about to ignore the question and keep walking, but apparently changes his mind and charges up the steps. He stops directly below me and puts his hands on both walls, leaning in so much I’m forced to tilt back. Despite myself, I actually find him sort of intimidating.

  “When I first told you Ashley was under arrest,” he says in a low, very serious tone, “your only concern was what had happened to her.”

  “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

  “The first thing that pops to mind when I hear someone is arrested is who did they hurt? We don’t arrest werewolves because someone hurt them. You never even bothered to consider potential victims. She’s a werewolf, Mason. Part of them is human, sure, but part of them will always be an animal, no matter how much serum you pump into them.”

  I open my mouth to argue but he cuts me off before I even get the chance.

  “Before you try and tell me that’s not what happened tonight,” he says, his eyes dark and dangerous, “let me tell you something you should try and remember. Werewolves never want to be exposed. What happened with Ashley was a fluke accident. They normally guard themselves so well that exposure is a nonissue. Ninety-five percent of all werewolf arrests are because they bite someone. Whose defense should you really be jumping to?”

  The words to defend my actions fall flat in my mouth. I went to Ashley’s defense because she’s my friend. Innocent before proven guilty, right? But if she hadn’t been my friend, then would my first thought be about the safety of others? Have I gotten too close to the issue to be able to see objectively? Granted, I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to. If it had been Hawk in Ashley’s place today, I would have already broken him out of custody and not listened to a word from Charlie or Melody. What kind of IMS agent does that make me?

  Charlie finally pulls away and continues down the stairs. I follow after with lead feet, considering what he said. I wonder if he took my defensive attitude about Ashley so strongly because he’s been affected personally by something of the same nature. Maybe someone he cared about had been a victim of a werewolf or monster before. Everyone gets into the business somehow, right? If it hadn’t been for my own parents being murdered by a werewolf, I might not be where I am today.

  The stairs continue for three floors until I hear music coming from below and we arrive at another black door. Charlie yanks it open, clearly ready to get away from me, and reveals a rather different scene from the one upstairs.

  The walls inside are made completely of aquariums but no aquariums I’ve ever seen. There are no fish or sea critters inside but different colors of water swirling through the thin panes. Regular people have a miniature version of these—what are they called . . . lava lamps. Right, like giant thin lava lamps of bright red, blue, green, purple, and orange water slipping past and around each other in endless loops. Concrete channels crisscross the room and flow with the same water creating vivid streams between the feet of the people inside. The lighting is low and I almost stumble on a boulder sticking out of the floor. There are larger ones like it around the room used as chairs. It would be almost beach like if not for the bizarre water.

  Women—tall, tan, athletic, and beautiful—are having drinks and dancing to a mellow techno-beat laced with the sound of waves and seagulls. Even though it’s winter outside, they’re all wearing short skirts and tank tops with sequins. I note no one except me and Charlie are wearing shoes. My winter jacket is becoming unbearably warm so I quickly unzip it to air myself out.

  “Stay close,” Charlie warns. “They tend to get a little competitive with other women.”

  I snort. “I can handle myself.”

  “Trust me, they—”

  “No, trust me.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

  We move forward together and the second the dancing women spot Charlie, they smile and rush over like he’s a long lost best friend. He holds out his hands to try and keep them back but they’re running their hands through his hair, touching his arms, trying to hug him, and eventually start dragging him over to a rock in the middle of the room. They forcefully set him down and corral him so he can’t get up any more. He tries to keep up a cocky pretense but his face is flushed and there’s desperation in his eyes. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable but I also have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  “Ladies, ladies!” Charlie shouts over the music. “Please, I’m on business.”

  “But yer always on business!” a particularly tall blonde croons in a heavy Scottish accent. “Don’t you ever just come for comfort?”

  I’ve heard stories of selkies being seductive but this is just ridiculous. They’re throwing themselves at him. It’s then I realize he’s also the only guy in the room. Even the DJ in the back is a woman wearing a backwards ball cap. I guess it’s a good thing they don’t hang around in the general public, for everyone’s sake.

  “I need to ask you a few questions,” Charlie continues, trying to talk around a selkie stroking the side of his face.

  “You can ask us anything, Hunter.”

  Hunter? I think it’s a pet name or something before it dawns on me. I almost forgot Charlie’s last name is Jaeger, German for hunter. I’ve heard that name before. There’s a famous IMS agent with the last name Jaeger but a lot of people just refer to him as the Hunter. It can’t be Charlie himself, of course. The Hunter is no junior agent and I’ve heard stories about him for a while. Charlie could be related though.

  “Is anyone missing from your party?” he asks, and startles when the blonde plants a kiss on his check.

  “Well, you are every night,” she says and gives him a wide smile.

  Oh, for the love of—this is getting old really fast. I can’t take this anymore. I swing around the purse and haul out the selkie skin, holding it high so everyone in the room can see it.

  “I think one of you left your pajamas outside,” I say loudly.

  The music screeches to a halt and everyone falls silent. All eyes turn to me. The women in the room don’t look even remotely friendly now. Maybe I should have heeded Charlie’s warning. I clench my jaw and hold my ground against the burning glares I receive from every corner of the room. Then from the very back someone bursts out in laughter. The angry eyes veer and bodies part so I can see a single girl with black hair that falls to her waist. Her head is thrown back and she’s holding her s
tomach she’s laughing so hard.

  “Shut up, mercow!” the blonde next to Charlie shouts.

  Mercow? I look at the black-haired girl’s feet and realize there’s webbing between her toes. Selkies don’t have that feature when they shed their skin. The girl must be a mermaid, transformed. Oh, boy. Selkies and mermaids have some of the worst love-hate relationships known to the legendary community. Getting in the middle of one of their fights is the last thing I want to do. They’ve been known to haul people into the ocean for interrupting their spats. You’d think they can’t stand the sight of each other, and yet for some reason they always hang out together.

  The blonde spins about on me. I’m getting the impression she’s the leader around here.

  “Where did you get that?” she hisses.

  “Do you recognize it?”

  “Answer the question!”

  She’s still got a hand on Charlie’s shoulder and he’s wincing like she’s squeezing the life out of him.

  “Answer mine first, and then I’ll answer yours,” I say. “Official IMS business.”

  The blonde smiles sweetly and finally lets go of Charlie, who starts rubbing his shoulder, then stalks towards me. I lower the skin into the purse and hold it between us. She’s a good half-foot taller than me, gorgeous hair, long legs—a super model basically. Nothing like a good blow to the self-esteem when trying to be tough. She suddenly grabs the purse and tries to wrench it out of my grip. I hold on and can hear the fabric start to rip as it’s pulled in two different directions.

  “I don’t think so,” I growl. I grab her wrist to wrench her forward and hook my foot around the back of her knee. Unfortunately for me, she does the exact same thing at the same time. We both pull and twist in unison and crumple in on each other, landing in a heap on the floor with the purse between us. No one moves to stop us. Everyone just watches.