Isaac let Avery in and then shut the door behind him. “Well, you’re a tough lady, aren’t you?”
Dana wasn’t sure how to take that. Was it a compliment or an insult?
“They told us that Cole Randall made them do it,” said Avery.
“Oh, that story, huh?” Isaac laughed. “Yeah, they started that up right after Randall was arrested as being the wolf serial killer. Guess they remembered him from Brockway High. They’d say anything to get out of here, you know.”
“You don’t think it’s possible they’re telling the truth?” said Avery.
Isaac shrugged. “Anything’s possible. But it doesn’t seem likely to me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if he put them up to it or not. They still participated in the conspiracy. And they’re the ones who actually killed the people. So… they’re going to stay locked up no matter what. As for Randall, well, if we ever catch him again, he’s going to get locked up too. Right? So, I don’t see that it’s much important whether or not they’re telling the truth.”
Maybe not to the SF, it wasn’t. But to Dana… well, it was very important. If Cole had something to do with the massacre, she wanted to know.
“Did you find out why they were saying your name?” asked Isaac.
“Actually, no.” She’d been distracted when they’d mentioned Cole, and the conversation had taken a turn away from what she’d come to discover.
“I wonder if they brought Randall up just to throw us off course,” said Avery, making a face.
“You two going to stick around and try to figure those two out?” said Isaac.
Dana sighed. She hadn’t planned on doing that. She’d planned to be in Brockway this afternoon. “Actually, we’re going to check out Hunter’s Moon Farm in Brockway.”
Isaac cocked his head. “That’s not in your jurisdiction.”
“Brooks and I are the only people doing work with genetic werewolves,” she said. “Until the southern branch gets a team together to do what we do, then our jurisdiction is everywhere.”
“What makes you think the folks at Hunter’s Moon Farm are genetic werewolves?” said Isaac.
“Well, I got a tip from another pack.” She chewed on her lip. “Of course, now that I think about it, she didn’t say whether or not they were genetic. She only said that they had an alternative approach to packs.”
Isaac snorted. “That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”
“You know about this farm?” asked Avery.
“We’ve been trying to crack those nutsos for nearly ten years. There’s been some concern that they might be a danger to the community. But we can’t get in, on account of the fact that they’re real wary of male wolves, you know.”
“They are?” Dana was intrigued. “But why?”
Isaac shook his head. “No one knows. We can’t get in. Whenever people see them in town, it’s always groups of women and children, that’s all. They tend to keep to themselves, anyway. They don’t go out in town much.”
“Why not send a female agent?” Avery said.
“Well, we don’t have a lot of female werewolves signing up to be trackers down here,” said Isaac. “Just don’t want to look at all the blood and guts, I guess.”
Sure. That was what it was. Dana narrowed her eyes. It was pretty clear that the southern branch of the SF was a boys’ club. It was probably tough as hell for women to get into any of the positions that were earmarked for men, like trackers. The southern branch probably relegated all the women to jobs like secretaries or rehabilitation. That was apparently the way it had been in the northern branch back when Ursula King had started working. She and a few other women had really paved the way for people like Dana.
“Women are usually more used to looking at blood than men,” said Dana. “Seeing as it’s part of our natural cycles and all of that.”
Isaac made a face.
She couldn’t help but smile.
“Look, that’s not the point,” said Isaac. “The point is, if you’re already heading up there, then maybe you could look into a few things for us, and report back? It would give you a chance to follow up with White and Klebold.”
It wasn’t a terrible proposition. After all, she was already on her way to the farm.
Dana looked at Avery. “What do you think?”
“Oh,” said Isaac, “you probably won’t want to bring him with you. They won’t let him in. No way.”
CHAPTER THREE
when Cole Randall was seventeen…
Cole was aware that he was one of the few lucky kids that still got to attend school. The others had all been forced to quit before high school. That was probably because they were girls. Cole was the oldest son of his father. His only brother—half-brother, of course—was only ten years old.
There weren’t a lot of kids either. Hell, his father had more women than he did children. Not all of the women managed to get pregnant.
Cole was well aware that his mother was one of the lucky women—one who’d actually managed to conceive. And a son at that. The oldest son. It was the one thing that kept his mother in high standing, considering Cole’s father had long ago tired of her.
Cole and his mother got to live in a trailer on the edge of the property. They got to live separate—didn’t have to live in the big house with all the other younger women.
His father was always recruiting younger women.
When Cole was a kid, it had never bothered him. After all, when he was eight or nine, seventeen still seemed ancient. Now that he was seventeen, there was something about it that disgusted him. But he knew better than to say anything. That wasn’t the way. His mother had taught him well. Keep quiet. Don’t make waves. Causing a fuss never ended well.
That afternoon, Cole stepped into the trailer he shared with his mother, letting the door clatter behind him.
Inside, the entire place had a yellowy glow from the lamps his mother used to light the place. There was a tattered sofa in what passed for a living room. No television, of course. Televisions served only to rot people’s brains and fill them full of impure ideas. (Cole managed to watch TV at his friends’ houses whenever he could, though, of course.) Pictures on the walls of Cole’s father. Even one portrait of the three of them—Cole, his mom, and his dad. Cole had been a baby then. It was back when his father still seemed interested in his mother.
Right then, though, his mother was sitting in the cramped kitchen at the fold-out table. She was there with Julia.
“Hi, Cole.” His mother was beaming, like she’d just touched the face of god or something.
Cole knew what that meant. “He was here, wasn’t he?”
His mother nodded, smiling. A tear leaked out of one of her eyes. She didn’t bother to wipe it away. “He did grace me with his presence, darling. He has a task for you.”
Cole thought it was funny that his dad never told Cole these “tasks” face to face. Instead, his father’s instructions were always filtered through his mother. Cole took off his backpack and slung it on the couch. “What’s Julia doing here?”
“She’s part of your task,” said his mother.
She was? Cole eyed her, feeling confused. Julia was one of his father’s newest additions. She was only seventeen, but she was his father’s current favorite girl. Why would his father want him to do anything with Julia?
In fact, Cole often felt a bit of wariness from his father when it came to the younger girls these days. There was the time when his father had found him in the kitchen helping Tasha knead bread, for instance. His father hadn’t been the slightest bit happy about that.
Cole had gotten the message pretty clearly. The women belonged to his dad. All of them. Cole needed to stay clear. Or else.
“I’m going to school,” said Julia, grinning. “Jimmy says I can.”
Jimmy was his father. Brother Jimmy to those who were a little less intimate with him than Julia currently was.
“Jimmy wants you to help her get settled in,” said his mother. “You’l
l tell everyone that she’s your sister.”
“We don’t look related.” Cole gave Julia a dark look. He didn’t like this one bit. It wasn’t fair. Why could Julia go to school, but not any of his sisters? “We’re the same age. Are they supposed to think we’re twins or something?”
“You’ll figure it out,” said his mother.
“I can pretend to be younger,” said Julia. “I missed my whole junior year, anyway.”
Cole guessed that would work. He was a senior. If Julia was a year younger, then maybe they wouldn’t suspect… “Why can’t Tasha go to school?”
Julia laughed. “Tasha doesn’t want to go to school.”
“But you do?”
“Jimmy wants me to,” Julia said.
“You know that whatever your father thinks is best, don’t you?” Cole’s mother still looked blissed out from having seen him.
Cole grimaced. He didn’t know that. He didn’t know that at all.
* * *
Dana stood at the gate to Hunter’s Moon Farm. Her car was still idling.
A woman on the other side of the gate was shading her eyes against the sun. She wore a long, patchwork shirt and a peasant blouse. She had a scar on one side of her face, a long rope of scar tissue from her eyebrow to her chin.
Without thinking about it, Dana’s hand went to her own scar, the one that Cole had given her in his basement. She fingered it.
The woman was older than Dana, but Dana couldn’t tell how old. She could have been anywhere from her late forties to her mid sixties.
“I really would have called,” Dana said. “But I couldn’t find a number.”
The woman squinted. “Who are you again?”
“I’m Dana Gray. I’m an unattached alpha wolf. I have a pack, but no mate. And Mabel Smith seemed to think that possibly you folks might be able to help me. I want to try to break the bond with my pack.” For some reason, Dana didn’t feel like it was prudent to mention the SF. These people didn’t seem like the kind who’d be open to that.
“You heard of us from who?”
Dana repeated the name of the woman from Pennsylvania.
The woman shrugged. “I never heard of her.”
Dana reached into her car and turned it off. “Do you think maybe there might be someone here who could help me?”
“Maybe,” said the woman. “Maybe. But we don’t usually let in outsiders.”
“I see.” Dana was getting a bit of the creeps. She couldn’t see much from the gate. There was a dirt road that wound off into the distance, flanked by fields of crops. It looked like any other farm. But she remembered the things she’d heard about Hunter’s Moon Farm when she was a kid living in Brockway. People said it was a hippie commune, and that everyone there ran around naked all the time, doing all kinds of weird drugs. Everyone had been a bit leery of the place. “Well, I’m not a threat or anything.”
“You’re all alone?” said the woman.
Dana nodded.
The woman sniffed her. “And you are an alpha, like you said.” She shook her head. “A female alpha? I didn’t even know that it was possible.”
That was strange. “You didn’t? There aren’t female alphas here?”
“Alphas? Plural?” The woman opened the gate. “Oh, no. There’s just Jimmy here. I’ll take you to him. Maybe he’ll be able to help you.”
* * *
when Cole was seventeen…
Cole did as his father asked and took Julia to school. He told everyone that his father’s new girlfriend was his sister. He did his best to distance himself from the legacy of the Hunter’s Moon Farm at school. He knew what the community thought of the place, and he knew that if he was associated with it, they’d treat him differently.
Back when he’d been a little kid, and he and all his sisters had attended elementary school together, he remembered the way the other children had whispered behind their backs. The way that the teachers had kept their distance—or worse, been overly concerned and asked prying questions. No, it was better if they didn’t know, and Cole had worked hard to distance himself from his past. No one remembered that he’d been a kid from Hunter’s Moon. Not anymore.
But now he had to come up with some way to explain the sudden appearance of a sister. He hadn’t been sure how he would do it for quite some time. He didn’t want to tell the truth, that was for sure.
He knew that if anything happened to the Pack at Hunter’s Moon that it would hurt his mother. He didn’t want that. And besides that, he knew that his father claimed to be very powerful. Sometimes, he doubted the truth of his father’s boasts. But other times, he wasn’t so sure that they weren’t true. He didn’t want to take the risk.
So, he had to tell them something. And he found himself liking the idea of making his father look a little bad to the school system—infusing just a bit of truth into his lies.
Cole was realizing that, with every passing day, he liked his father a little bit less.
Cole and Julia were in the office with the dean of students, Mrs. York. She looked them over, confused. “Your sister, Cole?”
“That’s right,” said Cole. “Julia Randall.”
“You don’t mean your stepsister?”
“Nope,” said Cole.
“He’s my full blood,” said Julia, grinning. She was wearing normal clothes—jeans and t-shirt. On the farm, she wore long skirts like all the other women. Cole wondered how she’d managed to convince his father to let her wear pants.
“I don’t understand,” said Mrs. York. “Why is it that Julia has never been to school before?”
“Well,” said Cole, “my Pa, he’s always saying that there’s no reason for girls to go to school at all. But my Ma and I, we been working on him for years, and he finally caved in and said Julia could come with me.”
Mrs. York’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Cole nodded sadly. “Really. Now, I’ve been teaching Julia everything I learned at school ever since we were kids, so she’s pretty caught up.”
“Your father kept Julia out of school?” said Mrs. York. “But that’s illegal, Cole.”
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing he decided to comply and see reason, isn’t it?” Cole shrugged.
Mrs. York got up from her desk. “Listen to me, if what you’re saying is true, then I feel honor bound to report this situation.”
Cole winced. “Oh, no, Mrs. York, that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“What Cole said isn’t true,” said Julia, glaring at him. “He made it up. It’s my own fault I haven’t been to school. Our father tried to get me to go, but I fought him.”
Mrs. York put a hand on Julia’s shoulder. “Listen to me, you don’t have to protect him.”
Julia pulled away. “Just sign me up for classes, please.”
“But what you’ve just told me—”
“Is a lie,” said Julia. “Isn’t it, Cole?”
Cole hung his head. “Sorry, Mrs. York. I made it up as a joke. Julia’s right, of course. She’s been dodging school for sixteen whole years.” Did he sound a bit sarcastic? Oh well. Julia would have to deal with it.
Mrs. York folded her arms over her chest.
“If you tell anyone, then we’ll deny all of it,” said Julia. “Won’t we?”
Cole smiled at Mrs. York. “My daddy is a great man, Mrs. York. He’d never do anything as horrible as keep girls out of school.”
Mrs. York swallowed. She looked away.
“You’re not going to repeat Cole’s stupid story, are you?” asked Julia.
Mrs. York hesitated. “If you ever want help with him. Either of you…”
Cole rolled his eyes. Mrs. York had no idea who she was dealing with.
* * *
James David Hadley.
“He goes by Jimmy now,” said the woman who’d let Dana in. The two were walking up the dirt road, going deeper into the heart of Hunter’s Moon Farm. “Wait until you meet him. You’ll see. He really is an extraordinary man.�
��
“He’s an alpha, though?” Dana asked.
“He’s the alpha. He started the Pack here, and he’s been gathering his followers for decades. With every passing year, we grow stronger. Jimmy bought this farm land back in the seventies for a song, you know. He came into a little bit of money, and he was smart enough to know to invest it in land. He knew that no matter what happened in the world, having land would be a benefit to him. And he wanted his own place, where he could be himself. Where he could shift into a wolf at will. Where he could gather those he cared about close to him. And that’s why Hunter’s Moon is my home. And the home of every member of the Pack.” When she talked about Jimmy, she got a starry look in her eyes.
“Jimmy’s your alpha,” said Dana. “That means he’s your father, right?”
The woman laughed. “Well, in a manner of speaking, maybe. After all, we’re all connected by the ties of the Pack. And Jimmy is like our father in that way. A father to all of us. But not in any… well, biological way. Biologically, Jimmy and I aren’t related at all. But spiritually, well, Jimmy is my brother, and my lover, and my husband, and my everything, you know.”
Dana felt a tendril of fear begin to crawl up her spine. What was this place? “So, if he’s not your father, how did he become your alpha?”
“Well, there’s a ceremony. Jimmy bites us and conveys the gift of the wolf onto us. And at that time, he also binds us to him. It’s really very powerful.” The woman looked at Dana. “That isn’t the way you got your pack?”
“Not exactly,” said Dana. “My pack is… abnormal. Most packs are family groups. I would have thought that you’d know this. A man and a woman mate—they are the male and female alphas over their offspring—their pack. That’s the natural way of things. But there’s nothing about my pack that’s natural.”
“Are you saying that we’re abnormal?”
Shit. She’d been insulting, hadn’t she? Something told her it wouldn’t be wise to insult these people. Not at all. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sure that your practices are very important to you. I wouldn’t dream of saying anything disparaging about your community. I certainly don’t know enough to judge, now do I?”
Bad Moon Rising (Cole and Dana) Page 4
