by Lori Drake
“It wasn’t a zombie bite,” Chris said, filling the gap in the circle that had been left by Joey’s passage. “But we need to talk about what’s going on. Where are the others?”
“Itsuo is with Jenny,” Lucy said.
“What about Ben?” Joey asked. They all looked between themselves, but no one had an answer. Concern ate at Joey like slow-burning acid. It was not a good night for anyone to be unaccounted for.
“I’ll find him,” Chris said. “Everyone just hang tight for now.”
Joey straightened and offered Colt a hand up, but her eyes were on Chris as she did it. “You shouldn’t go by yourself.”
“I’ll go with him,” Brandon volunteered.
Joey scanned the others. “Take Colt with you,” she said. If one of them ended up possessed, at least two on one seemed like better odds. Besides, Colt could use something to take his mind off his troubles, and if they did find Ben, he could patch Colt’s neck.
The three of them headed for the stairs. Joey turned to the others. “Okay, I know you’re all pretty confused, and I promise I’ve got some answers, but first I need to make a phone call. Where’s the least awful place in the house to make a call?”
The question sparked a lively debate, but eventually Jessica and Lucy deferred to Adam. He was the resident geek, after all.
“Outside is best, but if you don’t want to leave the house, the attic. There’s a spot by a window up there. I take my laptop up there sometimes and tether to my phone if the Wi-Fi is down.”
Lucy elbowed her brother. “So that’s where you disappear to. You’ve been holding out on me.”
Adam gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged.
Attic or outside. Joey gave the dilemma a moment’s debate. On the one hand, it was cold outside and her coat was downstairs. They’d all have to bundle up and trek outside with her, because she didn’t want to leave anyone behind. That would take time, time they might not have before the spirit struck again. On the other hand, attics were pretty much universally small, confined spaces. She really didn’t like small, confined spaces.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…
Swallowing a sigh, Joey nodded. “The attic it is. Lead the way.”
The access door was at the end of the hall. Joey had never noticed the pull-chain hanging from the ceiling before. When you were short, you didn’t always think to look up. Rusty hinges creaked in protest as Adam pulled on the chain, but the door opened and he unfolded the ladder with practiced ease. It spilled out of the rectangular opening like a wooden tongue rolling out of a gaping maw. Nothing but darkness lay beyond.
Joey swallowed and approached the ladder, but Adam scrambled up it ahead of her. The rickety thing creaked and groaned as he ascended, but it held together. When he reached the top, Adam flicked on a light and looked down at them through the hole.
“Come on up.”
Joey stepped forward and scampered up the ladder before she lost her nerve. Adam offered her a hand when she neared the top. She took it, but didn’t look around too closely until she was finished climbing. The creaking of the ladder as someone else ascended behind her wasn’t lost on her. No going back.
The space wasn’t as small as she’d feared, but it was stuffed full of boxes and trunks. Cramped, to say the least. The ceiling was high enough that Joey could stand upright, but the others had to stoop. Once they were all up the ladder, the space felt even tighter.
Joey breathed through her mouth in an effort to keep calm. “Where’s the spot?”
“This way,” Adam said. He led the way through a maze of junk, over to a small window some way from the ladder.
“What is all this stuff? It looks like it hasn’t been touched in years,” Joey said.
Adam and Lucy exchanged a glance and shrugged.
“Don’t look at me. I’ve never been up here,” Jessica said. She ran a fingertip along the top of a box and wrinkled her nose.
Joey snorted. “Please, like you’re in the running for the cover of Good Housekeeping.” She fished her phone out of her pocket. No signal. She moved closer to the window, having to crouch down on account of the sloping roofline overhead. One bar. She lowered herself to sit on the floor and made the call, trying not to focus on how little space there was over her head.
The line rang and rang, then rolled over to voicemail. Cursing, Joey hung up and called again. “Come on, come on… pick up, it’s not that late.”
She had to redial a third time, but this time he answered. “Hello?”
“Oh, thank god. Dean, I need your help.”
“Joey?” He sounded half-asleep. She heard sheets rustle on the other end. “It’s two-thirty in the morning.”
“I know, sorry. But it’s important. I need a spiritual consultation. I’ll PayPal you in the morning, if I survive the night.”
“What’s up?” He sounded more awake now.
“I’ve got a vengeful spirit on the loose out here, looking for revenge. What do I do?”
“You’re seeing ghosts?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Sort of. It’s been possessing people. And corpses. Did you know they could possess corpses?” She shot a belated but apologetic glance toward the others, mentally kicking herself for calling their recently deceased packmate a corpse.
“Only really fucking strong ones. Shit.” The telltale rasp of skin against stubble told her he was rubbing his face. “Where are you? I’ll come to you.”
“Seattle.”
“Oh.”
She gave him a moment to process that before asking again, “What do I do?”
“You know who it is?”
“Yeah. Well, sort of.”
“Do you know what they want?”
Joey hesitated. Telling him that the ghost wanted revenge for his own murder didn’t seem like a good idea. “Yes.”
He said something, but the line crackled. Joey shifted closer to the window.
“Shit, you’re breaking up. What was that?”
“I said give it to them,” he said.
“I can’t! He wants to kill people.”
“There’s something else. Even the ones that want to kill people have a reason behind it. Something left unfinished, some regret.”
Joey was pretty sure what this particular spirit had left unfinished: the rest of his life. But she couldn’t tell Dean that her friends had killed him. Not on the phone. “What if that doesn’t work?”
“Do you know where he’s buried?”
“Hold on.” Joey looked over at the others. “Do you know where he’s buried?”
“Yes,” Jessica said, then added after a pause, “Approximately.”
Joey’s eyes narrowed. “Approximately?”
Jessica shrugged. Adam and Lucy studied the floor, guilt written all over their faces.
“I don’t want to know,” Dean muttered in her ear. “Okay, this is a last resort, but what you need to do is find the grave and—“
Silence.
“Dean? Dean!” The phone beeped in her ear, signaling the end of the call. She lowered the phone to redial, but the phone’s display showed no signal again. “Fuck!”
She scrambled as close to the window as she could. “Does this open?”
“The window? No,” Adam said. “My phone’s got signal—here.”
Joey took the phone from him, but hers rang before she could look up Dean’s number and dial it manually. Manually. Like some sort of cavewoman. She dropped her phone in her haste to answer and scrambled to answer before the voicemail kicked in. “Dean! I’m here. What do we do once we find the grave?”
“Dig up the body, douse it with salt and—“ Crackle crackle. “That should take care of it, but—“ Crackle. “And be careful not to—“
“Dean! Dean, you’re breaking up.” Joey glanced around frantically, then made a split-second decision and slammed her elbow against the little window. Glass shattered and went everywhere as cold air rushed in. She ducked under the shards of glass clinging to
the pane, stuck her head out the window, and pressed the phone to her ear once more.
“…I’m pretty sure it’s painful as hell for the spirit, though, so like I said, last resort.”
“Dean, I didn’t get any of that. Start over.” Joey pushed herself out the window a little farther, feet scrambling against the dusty, glass-strewn floor. Head and shoulders out, she took a deep breath of the crisp night air. Her elbow throbbed, but it was kind of nice to be out in the open air again.
He sighed. “Okay, so I was saying that this is a really shitty thing to do to a ghost, but—“
“Right now, I don’t give a flying fuck. Just tell me how to get rid of this son of a bitch before he kills someone else.” Maybe it was because she was hanging out a third-story window, freezing her nipples off, but her impatience was high. Mostly, she wanted to know what to do before the call broke up again.
“Okay, so dig up the body, douse it with salt, and burn it. Then divide the ashes into three parts and bury one, dump one in water, and—“
Joey didn’t hear whatever he said next, because at that moment, someone tried to shove her out the window. She emitted a startled yelp, dropped Adam’s phone, and grabbed for the window frame, but she was already halfway out the window and dangling precariously over the edge. Somewhere along the way, her phone slipped from her grasp and tumbled end over end, bouncing off parts of the house on the way down.
“Help!”
Footsteps rushed toward her. Glass bit into her palm, but she held on. It became difficult on account of the blood making her hand—not to mention the window frame—slippery as hell. The more she tightened her grip, the more damage the glass did to her hand. She heard footsteps rushing toward her, felt hands gripping her legs to pull her back. A ghostly laugh echoed through the room as the walls closed around her again. Her chest constricted. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest. She scrambled into a crouch and cast a frantic glance around the room. The light had gone out, and now the towering boxes loomed in the darkness.
“Are you okay?” Lucy asked.
Joey swallowed the “no” that wanted to escape. “I dropped my phone. Let’s get out of here.”
She scrambled for the exit like the hounds of hell were on her tail. The others followed close behind her. Despite her terror, instinct brought her feet to a halt at the top of the ladder, and she ushered the three other wolves down ahead of her. Lucy and Jessica went down right away, but Adam balked at the last moment.
“My phone!”
“Just leave it!” Joey called after him, but he was already halfway across the attic.
Joey waited for him to return, dripping blood on the dusty floor from the stinging cuts across her palm. She glanced down the ladder to where Jessica and Lucy stood, worried faces turned up as they waited for her and Adam to come down.
Then, right before her eyes, the ladder folded itself up and the attic door slammed shut, plunging the space into darkness.
14
Chris found Ben with Jenny and Itsuo downstairs, in Kate’s room. Stepping inside, surrounded by the evidence of a life cut short, he couldn’t help the twinge of guilt that tugged at his heartstrings. He could only imagine what it must be like for Colt. If he’d known their quest would bring them here, he would’ve suggested Colt stay upstairs with the others.
As they entered, Itsuo stood from the chair beside the bed. “Christopher-san.”
“Um, hey… what’s the occasion?” Ben asked, looking up from Jenny’s stomach. “And what the hell happened to his neck?”
Chris grimaced, glancing at Colt. “Long story, but you should probably take a look at him when you’re done. How’s she doing?”
“She’s healing. Otherwise, no change.”
Chris moved forward for a closer look. Jenny’s bandage was pulled back, long row of stitches on display. To Chris’s inexpert eye, it looked better than the last time he’d seen it. “Can she be moved yet?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it, but maybe. Probably,” Ben said. “Why?”
“We figured out what’s going on and we need to get everyone together to talk about it.”
“She’s unconscious. She’s not going to have much to contribute.”
“I realize that, but we don’t want to leave anyone alone.”
“So, have everyone come down here?” Ben suggested, then went back to smearing ointment on Jenny’s wound.
Chris glanced at Colt again. The injured wolf stood beside him with eyes downcast, a distinctly uncomfortable look about him. Chris walked over to Ben, leaning in to speak quietly to him. “This is Kate’s room.”
“Oh,” Ben said. Then, after a pause, “Ohhhhh. Well, we can use the blanket as a stretcher, but she can’t sit up. Will the couch work?”
“Yeah, actually, that’d be better than just about anywhere else. No doors, you know?”
“You know who attacked Jenny?” Itsuo asked. He hadn’t resumed his seat.
“It’s more than just Jenny now,” Chris said. “Kate was also attacked, and she… didn’t make it.”
Itsuo frowned. He lowered his eyes and bowed his head. “Benjamin told me of this.”
“Ahh, okay. Well, yes, I’m pretty sure I know who is responsible for both attacks. We’ll talk about it when we get everyone together, okay? In the meantime, I don’t want anyone left alone—or in pairs. Groups of three, at a minimum.”
Itsuo looked up. His dark eyes studied Chris for a long, uncomfortable moment before he nodded, lips quirked in the barest hint of a smile. There was approval in his eyes as he said, “Yes, Christopher-san.”
They seemed to have some time to kill, so Chris leaned against the wall and asked, “Were you responsible for Eric’s impressive shiner?”
“Eric is responsible for the consequences of his actions,” Itsuo replied.
Chris rubbed his eyes. That fifteen-minute nap he’d gotten earlier hadn’t gotten him very far. “There seem to be a lot of chickens coming home to roost tonight.”
“Indeed,” Itsuo said. “Christopher-san, may I tell you a story?”
Chris glanced at the bed. Ben was still at work. “Sure, we seem to have some time.”
Itsuo nodded and began, speaking quietly, as was his way. “There once was a wise, generous man. He led his people with compassion and care, and they followed him out of love and respect. One day, a young man joined his company. He was an unruly fellow, coarse and violent-tempered. But the man saw something in him and took him in. He sought to teach him where others had failed and made him like a son, for he had no children of his own.
“Time passed, and eventually the man and his wife were blessed with a child. The brash young man they had taken in grew jealous. He saw the child as a threat, to both his standing as the good man’s right hand as well as the favored son. Fate stepped in, and the man and his wife died tragically, leaving their child an orphan and their people without leadership. The young man stepped into the void, but he was not the man his predecessor was. His shortsightedness and brutality tore the group apart, leaving it a mere fragment of what it once was. But the legend of the good man lived on, passed down in whispers, for they dare not speak his name aloud.”
Chris studied the bedspread in silence while Itsuo told his story. He was pretty sure he knew who it was about. “That’s a sad story.” He lifted his eyes to look at Itsuo.
“I did not say it was a happy story. But the ending is not yet written. The good man’s child, he escaped the usurper’s wrath and was raised in a far-off land, in a loving home. Now that he is grown, he may seek to claim his birthright, but the child—the man—should be wary. The usurper has killed others who rose to challenge him.”
Chris frowned and glanced around the room. Brandon and Colt’s eyes were studiously on the floor. Ben caught Chris’s gaze and lifted a brow.
“Are you telling me that Eric has killed alphas that issued a challenge?” Chris asked. Such a thing was unheard of. Completely out of line. Just thinking about it made his blood boil.
Lycanthropes were rare. Challenges between alphas were not. To kill another alpha in a challenge… it was beyond inappropriate.
Itsuo spread his hands. “It would be dishonorable to say such a thing about one’s Alpha.”
Chris had seen enough since arriving to know that Itsuo considered Eric his Alpha in name only. He snorted softly and folded his arms. “Thanks for the warning.”
Itsuo nodded.
“You sure know a lot, for someone only recently come to the area,” Chris said.
Itsuo shrugged. “I did not say I had never been in the area before. I was a member of your father’s pack long before you were born.”
“Really?” Chris tilted his head. Everything that he knew about his birth parents had come from Adelaide and Reginald. He’d never had another perspective, not before tonight. “How long?”
Itsuo was quiet for a moment. “About fifty years.”
“How’d you meet him?” The question came from Brandon, who tried to make it sound casual, but there was an unmistakable spark of interest in his eyes.
“That is another story for another time.” Itsuo punctuated the statement by tucking his hands up his sleeves, withdrawing once more into his enigmatic shell.
“No time like the present,” Chris said, curious himself. “Please, Itsuo? I’d like to hear it.”
The older wolf’s expression softened. “Very well, Christopher-san. Eric was far from the first lone wolf your father took in. He had a soft spot for hard cases, and I was one of them.” His eyes grew distant with remembrance. “We met in Portland during the Second World War. I had been evading the authorities for some time, avoiding forced relocation. My wolf spirit feared being caged more than anything, and those camps… there would be nowhere to run free. Do you know what becomes of a man who denies his wolf too long?”
Chris swallowed, nodding. “He goes mad.” He knew the history. Dozens of Japanese, German, and Italian American wolves had cracked in the internment camps. They’d gone in whole, but emerged broken. Some never made it out at all.
“Indeed,” Itsuo said. “No one knew, at the time, that the situation would drag on for years. But madness was a risk I was not willing to take. Henry-san, he not only helped me evade capture, he moved his entire pack east, outside of the exclusion zone. We rode out the rest of the war in a remote part of the state, and I remained by your father’s side until he passed.” A shadow crossed Itsuo’s features as a fond memory turned stale.
