by E. A. Copen
“Yeah, man.” Justice lowered his gaze to the floor. “I mean, she had ‘em. Said she wasn’t taking them no more. Didn’t need ‘em. But when she showed up like that, I tried to get her to take some. Thought it might calm her down. I don’t know, man.”
“Why did you have Tara’s anti-depressants in the first place?”
Justice opened his mouth to answer, but apparently couldn’t think of a convincing lie and shut it again before grinding out the truth. “Coupla months ago, her and David had it out. I let her stay here a few days. It’s leftovers from then. I slept down in the office, just so you know. Nothing happened.”
Nic nodded. I remember that fight, though not what it was about. He didn’t know specifics, other than that Tara had disappeared a few days. David had told everyone she flew south to be with her sister. Didn’t seem upset by it. Maybe he’d believed that. When she returned, everything seemed to go back to normal, so Nic hadn’t thought anything of it. Couples fought. As long as it didn’t disrupt the pack, he didn’t get involved in marital disputes.
“Did she have a gun?”
“What?” Justice’s nose wrinkled. “I mean, not when I was with her. Not that I knew of.”
Nic glanced over at Jackie, who had been favoring her uninjured side since they took off into the night. It had to be aching in this cold, but it wasn’t Justice’s fault she’d been shot. Tara had made the choice to go drinking and brandish a gun in the pack’s house, and she’d pay for it.
He huffed a heavy sigh and stood, offering Justice the mug once he’d emptied it. “Thank you for your hospitality, Justice. I’d appreciate it if you took us back and dropped us off a few doors down from the house.”
Justice took the mug. “Of course, man. Anything.”
As Justice busied himself dumping the mugs in the kitchen sink, Nic studied Jackie’s face. She watched him with intent eyes, hunter’s eyes. Clearly, she’d picked up on something he’d missed. Justice was trouble, but he couldn’t be behind whatever was happening with the pack. For all his skills, magick was not among them. His family line was as clean as the rest of the Barrow’s natives of witch blood. Jackie had said that something was feeding off of David. To Nic, that implied magick was at work somewhere. Justice was in the clear as far as he was concerned, but Jackie didn’t look convinced. Maybe he’d lied about Tara.
I suppose it doesn’t really matter, Nic thought. As soon as David was buried, he’d put Tara on a plane bound for anywhere but there. Somewhere warm, maybe, where she could be healthy and happy. After all, the arctic cold just wasn’t for everyone.
Chapter Twelve
B o awoke long before he opened his eyes. In the cold darkness of the room, it would do little good to look around. Relying on his other wolf senses would tell him far more about the intruder than his eyes.
It made no sound, whatever it was. The door had not squeaked open and the creaky floorboard three paces in had not made its usual groan. It seemed to fade into existence at the foot of the bed like smoke rising from a recently snubbed candle, coalescing into one creature of sentient night. The temperature had dropped suddenly in the room with its coming. Bo’s nose was overwhelmed with the pervasive scent of blood on ice.
He had scented that before outside Anabelle’s room, but only after Jackie pointed it out. The creature stood, stalking him in a curious silence. Perhaps it was confused by the wolf it found instead of a man. All its previous victims had been attacked in their human form.
Bo tried to gauge exactly where the creature was in relation to him in case he needed to react. It was impossible to know without opening his eyes. The minute he did that, he might spook the creature and spark a chase. While the wolf delighted in the idea of hunting down prey, the man had to remind the beast that there were others in the house who were less able to defend themselves. The beast quieted when he brought the omega to mind. She’d been kind to him. Bo didn’t want to watch her die.
But what else was there to do? He couldn’t fight an enemy he couldn’t sense, and he couldn’t do his job if he laid there like a fool.
Bo cracked open one eye.
The creature stood a few feet away in a miasma of what looked like black frost. Blue skin, like on a frozen dead man, marked its flattened face and colored its impish nose. Greasy tendrils of black hair waved in a silent wind. It stood hunched over like a gorilla, sporting long, gangly arms the length of its entire body. From where Bo lay on the bed, he could just barely make out the creature’s elbow joints before the rest of its arms disappeared into darkness. The eyes were the most striking part. Big, wide, inhuman and unblinking, they were cloudy white like a corpse’s after many days of death.
It didn’t move when Bo opened both his eyes and shifted his snout against his paws. The expression on the creature’s face—if, indeed, the blank stare could be called an expression—was one of wonder, not malice.
Bo pulled back his lips and let out a low growl.
The creature tilted its head to the side and peeled dry lips away from pointed teeth to mouth a single word: “Kaaktuḳ.” It took a shuffling step forward.
Bo jumped up on all fours and let out an even louder growl, lowering his head and pulling his ears back.
The creature didn’t heed his warning.
A fight it is, then. Bo sprung forward, leaping through the air. Somehow, the beast moved out of the way and he slammed into the wall. The impact against the wall jarred his skull and back, sending a wave of nauseating pain through him. Bones popped and creaked, but he didn’t think anything had broken.
“Kaaktuḳ,” the creature said again, this time with more force. It crept forward.
Bo tried to get up, but the impact had left him dizzy and disoriented. He needed a few minutes to pull himself back together and get his bearings. He had a hell of a lot less time than that to deal with whatever this thing was. Unless he wanted to wind up like Anabelle and David, he needed to act and fast, but there wasn’t much he could do, not alone.
Bo threw his head back, pointed his snout to the ceiling and let out the highest, loudest howl he could manage. The sound shook the fixtures on the wall and vibrated his bones.
The creature halted its advance and threw hands over its ears, grimacing and grinding elongated, yellow teeth.
The door to Bo’s room slammed open. Mandy stood in the doorway, unarmed. Open. Vulnerable. Blood drained from her face when she beheld the monstrous creature threatening Bo.
Bo tried to bark at her, to warn her, tell her to go back and get someone else. Anyone but her. Didn’t she know an omega was precious? Dammit, where was that alpha of hers? Shouldn’t he have responded by now?
Slowly, the creature turned toward the door, the miasma of frost spinning around its body intensifying into a local snow storm that left fat, white flakes on the floor. When it took a step, a layer of frost appeared on the carpet only to be quickly covered in snow.
“Kaaktuḳ.”
Mandy took a step back.
The creature advanced. “Kaaktuḳ.”
Dammit, girl. Run! But she couldn’t hear his thoughts any more than he could hear hers. There was no choice left.
Bo pulled himself forward, shaking the dizziness off his body like water. His front legs were weak and wobbly. Age. Had he been in his prime, he would have reached the creature in time. He might still if he pushed harder than he ever had before.
Icy fingers as long as yardsticks reached for Mandy.
With a mighty growl, Bo used all of his strength to heave himself forward, jaws aimed for the creature’s ankles.
Mandy screamed.
Chapter Thirteen
J ackie knew something was wrong when they reached the end of the street and Justice put the vehicle in park. It was the old man, Bo. She couldn’t explain how she knew, only that she did.
She let out a loud whine and pawed at the door, cursing her decision to maintain jaws and claws in unfamiliar company. Nic had been smart enough to change back. She should have done the
same, but she didn’t want to show weakness to Justice, not until she ruled him out as a suspect. Now her paws were a liability, slowing down her response to what she believed was a serious situation.
“What’s gotten into her?” Justice asked, glancing into his rearview mirror.
Nic unbuckled his seatbelt. “I don’t know, but it must be important.”
He opened his door and moved to get out.
Jackie couldn’t wait for him to come around and let her out. She had to check on Bo now. Justice let out a yelp as she fought her way between the front seats and climbed over Nic to jump into a shallow snow drift. The cold tickled her nose and made her lungs seize in protest, but she didn’t let it stop her. Her muscles tensed, and she sprang into a desperate run for the house at the end of the block. Nic called after her, but her panting drowned out his voice.
The house was in turmoil when she arrived. The din of voices shouting at once perked her ears. None of the voices belonged to Bo. Aspen threw open the front door as she rushed up the stairs and slid onto the porch. He stepped aside to let her run through.
Inside, she smelled blood. It was old blood, hers, somewhere on the floor from when she’d been shot. The individual scents of the members of Nic’s pack were also present, along with Tara’s fear sweat. Heavier on the air, the fading scent of their dinner earlier. Beneath all of that lurked a foul smell, like turned meat wrapped in pond scum. Frosted, rotten meat dragged through stagnant, muddy water. Jackie hacked at the scent of it, but didn’t slow her advance.
Jackie raced up the stairs, nearly bowling over Bryce as he came down. The big man only barely managed to move aside enough for her to pass. If he hadn’t moved, she still wouldn’t have stopped. She would have leapt over him.
She rounded the landing and slowed when she realized the greasy magic smell was coming from Bo’s room, turning and darting the other way. Sounds of a struggle drifted through the open door, growling and snarling followed by a loud thump. Jackie lowered her head and charged through the door at full speed, nearly tripping over the omega in the process.
The girl was backed against the wall, legs in front of the door, her arms wrapped tightly around her as she stared, wide-eyed, at the two beasts doing battle in the room. Bo, still a wolf, leapt from the floor, sinking his jaws into the unnaturally long arm of a monster unlike any Jackie had seen before. It looked like a frozen corpse, if said corpse had its limbs stretched to unnatural lengths. There was no time to stand and take in the horror before her.
The monster howled and grabbed at Bo with its other hand, ripping him away along with a large chunk of flesh from its right arm. The creature threw Bo hard against the wall where he fell and lay still. Flashing, ice-blue eyes settled on Jackie and the monster showed a mouthful of serrated teeth.
Jackie charged, claws skittering across the wood floor. The beast swung its long, ape-like arms and tried to grab her, but she slid to the side at the last moment, forcing the creature to turn fast if it wanted to keep her in its sights. As she suspected, its movements were sluggish thanks to those extra long appendages and huge rabbit-like feet. It had only completed half the turn before she turned and charged at it from the side. Her head impacted the side of the monster’s knee with a loud snap. She narrowly avoided the monster’s razor-sharp claws as it stumbled, swinging at her. Instead of hitting her, the claws gored a deep gash into the floor.
Have to watch out for those claws, Jackie thought springing off the wall to come around for another pass. One good slice will be enough to really tear me open.
The monster spun on her, swinging its right arm wide with even greater reach than Jackie expected. Shit! She was too close and moving too fast to simply stop. Even if she applied the brakes now, she’d never stop in time to avoid getting sliced into.
Something whizzed in front of Jackie’s snout, close enough that she could feel the air from it, though all she saw was a blur of white.
The monster let out a loud scream of pain as Jackie slid to a stop, a white-handled spear of some sort protruding from the meat of the monster’s thigh. The creature snarled and jerked the spear free. Black blood spilled out onto the floor, steaming when it met the polished wood. Before either Jackie or the monster could do anything else, Nic charged into the room brandishing a strange-looking sword. With a shout, he swung it at the monster, catching its right arm and slicing through bone. The creature shrieked and stumbled back toward the window. A single panicked leap sent it crashing through the double-paned glass, tumbling two stories to the snowy ground beneath.
Jackie rushed to the window, carefully stepping over broken glass and steaming drops of blood as they ate away at the wood to peer down. A trail of black blood led off around the house toward the back. She could follow it, track the creature to its lair. And then what? I still don’t know how to kill it, nor do I know my way back should something happen.
She eyed Bo, who was just starting to come around, shaking his head. He’d hit his head hard enough that his body forced him to Change back to his human form while he was unconscious. That meant he was seriously hurt. His injuries would need seen to.
Behind her, Nic had set aside the sword to check on Mandy. Other members of the pack had begun to filter into the small room. They were too busy regrouping, trying to figure out what had happened, to be of any help.
With a huff, Jackie moved away from the window and ran past the crowd gathering near the door, ducking between legs and around feet to get through the doorway. Down the stairs and to the back door she went, until she found it firmly closed. She pawed at it and whined loudly. Dammit, why couldn’t she have maintained an opposable thumb during the Change somehow? Damn those doors. If it weren’t so cold, maybe she’d have suggested they install doggie doors. Though sliding through one of them would have been a tight fit, at least it’d be possible.
Bryce showed up moments later and pulled the door open for her. “Nic said—”
She didn’t wait to hear it and dashed out the door into the snow. Bryce called after her, but she didn’t dare turn around. The injured beast’s blood would only be fresh a little while, and they didn’t yet know if the thing could grow back a severed limb. She had to track it now.
She found the blood trail near a wood pile beside the house and followed it out toward the gravel road. It stopped there only to pick up a few feet down the road. The bleeding had slowed. Dammit, she was going to lose it. Jackie trailed the monster a few hundred feet more before the blood spatter ended abruptly. She lifted her nose and sniffed the air, picking up the faint smell of vehicle exhaust. A vehicle had come through there recently, but she couldn’t tell more than that based on smell alone. Since the exhaust smell began the same place as the blood trail ended, though, it seemed likely that someone had driven by and picked up the monster. Who would do such a thing?
She shook her head and turned around, headed back for the house. She’d found something out from trailing the thing, at least. The monster wasn’t working alone. It had an ally, an ally who could drive.
Chapter Fourteen
W hen Jackie returned to Bo’s room, a stocky, dark-haired woman with a square jaw knelt between Jackie and the door, doing something to Bo’s arm. The scent of blood was heavy on the air, some of it the monster’s, but some of it also Bo’s. She turned her head and found some of it pooled near the door, a trail leading back to where Bo sat. Mandy kept her hand firmly on Bo’s shoulder.
Bo reached up to grab Mandy’s hand while the other woman worked. He squeezed it tight, setting his jaw firmly. A comforting gesture? For some girl he’d only just met? Jackie had never known anyone to mean enough to Bo to offer comfort, not even her. The old man’s heart was made of ice and steel. Yet here he was, clearly trying to comfort the upset omega.
Nic stooped by the arm he’d chopped off, examining it. Jackie chose to go to Nic. She might be able to learn something about the creature from the arm. Had the monster been a werewolf like the rest of them, the severed body part would hav
e reverted to its human form shortly after being removed. No such luck with whatever this creature was. Steam rolled off the arm. Blue skin sagged and dripped, the whole thing melting as if it were made of ice suddenly exposed to the warm room.
“Find anything?” Nic didn’t take his eyes from the melting arm.
Jackie shook her head. She’d tell him more after she Changed back. For now, it was easier—and safer—to stay a wolf. If that thing came back, she needed to be prepared.
Nic’s eyes settled on Bo. “What happened here? How’d that thing get in?”
“How should I know?” Bo pulled his arm away from the woman. He stood on shaky legs, grabbed a pair of jeans from his open suitcase and pulled them on with jerky motions. A new white bandage on his right arm hid his injury from view, but Jackie could still smell it. Bo shrugged on an over shirt he didn’t bother to button. “Thing was here when I woke up. We’d better get to tracking it while the trail’s still fresh.”
“You can’t. It’s thirty below out there. Jackie and I might have frozen to death ourselves if someone hadn’t happened on us.” Nic put a hand on Bo’s shoulder.
A mistake, especially with Bo as angry as he was. Jackie could see it in the way he carried himself, those punchy, decisive movements.
Bo whirled around. His fist connected with Nic’s jaw with enough force to lay him out at Mandy’s feet. It didn’t knock him out, but it must’ve come close. Nic only barely sat up, the look on his face dazed.
“You should’ve been here to protect them, not me,” Bo spat. “An alpha is supposed to protect his pack. These people deserve better than you.”
He stormed out of the room, pushing past Aspen and Vince, who had gathered just outside the room.
Jackie sighed and turned around. I’d better stop him before he gets himself killed, she thought and pushed between Vince and Aspen.
She followed his scent down the stairs, through the kitchen, and to the back door. The main door was open, and the screen door left unlatched, letting in bitter cold air. Jackie was able to push it open with her shoulder.
