Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2)

by Nancy Holder

  Maybe they lied to me. If Dom thought I’d be going with them, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  She gulped down glass after glass of water. She was starving, too, but she didn’t want to risk waking up her grandfather and having him ask awkward questions. She went upstairs, pausing by Mordecai’s door. She didn’t hear him snoring. What if he’d done a bed check and found her gone?

  Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she cracked open the door. Although the room was dark, she could see into it. There was his bed.

  With no one in it.

  Her heart sank.

  What if he’s out there looking for me?

  She shut the door and went into her own room. Sweaty from her run — just how far had she traveled? — she decided to take a quick shower. She hastily shampooed her hair and put on an oversized Samohi — Santa Monica High — T-shirt and a pair of sweats. Time to sleep.

  Taking her blanket and pillow, she went down the stairs into the living room. As usual, a fire was blazing away. Her phobia about fire had been so great when she’d arrived that she couldn’t even handle being in the living room — a fact she had kept well hidden from her grandfather. But after struggling with her conscience, she hesitantly threw the business card in the fire to erase possibly incriminating evidence — thereby protecting the pack. Despite the fire, she felt a cold chill. She sacked out on the leather couch and stared at the blaze as she kept replaying the entire weird night.

  I’m going to find that mine, she swore. I’m going to find what’s in it. And I’m not going to get killed by the Hellhound in the process.

  She didn’t realize she’d dozed off until she jerked awake to the sound of the front door opening. Footfalls crossed the room well behind the couch, then went up the stairs. A door opened and closed. Her grandfather.

  I should let him know I’m home, she thought. She lay on the couch for a couple of minutes debating what to do. Maybe he hadn’t realized she’d been gone. But maybe he’d been looking for her. Finally her conscience won out. Nothing in her wanted to, but she knew what it was like to worry. So she went and crept up the stairs, facing the music, and rapped lightly on his door.

  “Grandpa?” she called softly.

  “Katie?” There was a rustling, and then he opened his door. He was wearing pajamas. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Oh.” Holy cow, she wasn’t busted. Now what? “I thought I heard a noise.”

  He frowned, looking concerned. “Like what?”

  Like you? Maybe she’d awakened him when she’d come in, and he’d gone outside to look around. She shrugged. “Um, maybe like a car?”

  He covered a yawn. “I’ll go see.” He took his rifle off the wall and she followed him to the front door. He opened it, peered around, shook his head, and closed the door. Then he went to the back yard. She started to get scared, wondering if there were Fenners out there. What would happen if he spotted one of them?

  “Nope.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “That’s okay, honey,” he said. “I’ve probably slept long enough for one night anyway. Old guys don’t need much sleep. Anything ever bothers you, don’t hesitate to come get me.”

  He went back upstairs, looking expectantly over his shoulder. She followed him, and when he went into his bedroom she tiptoed over to the couch to get her blanket and pillow. In the silence, her hearing went into overdrive. She could hear the creak of her grandfather’s bed as he turned over, and a moment later he was snoring softly. The crackling of the fire was as loud as thunder. And outside she could hear small noises from the engine of his truck as it cooled off.

  He lied to me, she thought. He hadn’t been home, either. She looked up at the second floor of the cabin as if she could see through the floor and ask him why. But apparently werewolves didn’t have X-ray vision.

  Gazing cautiously out the window, she thought she saw something move in the shadows. She locked the door and hurried back upstairs.

  Katelyn was tired when she drove to school the next morning. The crowded hallways seemed even harder to deal with. People had B.O. or were wearing so much perfume that she wanted to gag. The heat was on and it was sweltering. Miserable, she pulled in her shoulders and tried to get through the crowd as fast as possible. She had almost made it to the door of her first class when she collided with Mike Wright.

  “Hey, bitch, watch it,” he said, glaring down at her.

  And without thinking she made a fist and would have punched him in the stomach except that someone jostled her from behind and instead of hitting him, her fist flailed at thin air.

  Mike didn’t see it; he just walked on, muttering about stupid blind bimbos. Adrenaline coursed through her and she glared at him with hatred.

  In all the turmoil, she had forgotten that it was a minimum day. Which meant no lunch period to get through, though at the end of it, Trick was standing beside her locker. An ambush.

  Nervously she walked up to him and he said, “I was texting Sam last night, then chatting with her.”

  “How is she?”

  Sam’s party had been the site of their one and only date, the night that Katelyn had been attacked and bitten. Sam had moved to Little Rock soon after as her parents had split up and her mom had a new job. Before leaving, she’d given Katelyn some news clippings and a pen-and-ink drawing of a heart-shaped boulder and a waterfall that her mom had found when sorting out some old boxes. The image had struck a chord, but Katelyn couldn’t place why.

  “She’s glad she moved.” He smiled sourly. “I told her about Mr. Henderson and we got to talking about everything that’s been going on. Her mom overheard the doctor talking on his phone when they brought Becky’s body in.” Becky had been the second girl to have been mauled to death out in the forest. Katelyn shivered. But Trick was continuing. “Apparently, the police said they had evidence that showed she’d been sneaking into the Inner Wolf Center. And that her body had been moved after she was killed.”

  “Sam told me the same thing,” Katelyn said. Sam’s mother had worked as a nurse at the local clinic.

  “I think she told Beau, too, as he’s been emailing her. Told her his grandmother saw something in her window and then had a stroke.”

  Katelyn frowned. She didn’t know Beau had told anyone else.

  “So now Mr. Henderson’s missing. Though I guess Cordelia’s family has accounted for her?” Trick looked at her, and she felt her face prickle. Did he know?

  “She’s not home,” she said cautiously, “but no one has told me where she went. Some kind of family stuff, I think. Her family have talked to the school, apparently.”

  He shrugged as if that was a good enough reply. Trick really hadn’t liked Cordelia.

  “I’m not going to sit around and let more people die,” he announced.

  “What are you going to do?” She tried to sound casual, but she was afraid for him. He needed to stay well away from the secrets of Wolf Springs.

  “Well, Sam got me thinking, and maybe there’s something odd out at that Inner Wolf Center. I’m going to go check it out.”

  “What, just walk in and say hi?” A light, panicky sensation threw her off balance, and Katelyn nearly dropped one of her books. She and Cordelia had had a run-in with two slightly drunk executives who had been taking a seminar there. Jack Bronson, the man in charge, had arrived and booted their butts on the spot. But Katelyn still didn’t trust him.

  “Maybe, but we can sneak in around the back — there’s a way through the old buildings,” he said. “Anyway, I can’t think of anything else to do. And I really liked Mr. Henderson.” He paused, and then he said, “Do you want to come with?”

  What she wanted was for him to walk away. But she knew Trick well enough to know that he wouldn’t. And if he found out something that could help her, it would be good.

  “What the heck,” she said, and he smiled at her. He hadn’t done that much lately. It was nice.

  They too
k his Mustang. Soon they were speeding along a one-lane, back-country road. She rested her head against the back of her seat, remembering half days at Samohi when she and Kimi would pile into Kimi’s convertible and drive to the beach. There was no beach in Wolf Springs.

  Wolf Springs was situated in a valley, surrounded by heavily forested hills. As they crested the rise, she saw a battered old sign that said WOLF SPRINGS CLUB. She and Cordelia had read about the old hot springs resort. A man claiming to be the descendant of the Spaniard who’d first discovered the mine had died of a heart attack on the grounds. In his last, agonizing moments, he’d claimed he’d been attacked by the Hellhound.

  The car drove into deep shadow, and then Trick whistled in appreciation, prompting Katelyn to peer up through the windshield. Above them, sharp silhouettes of steep Victorian gables, cupolas, and arches frowned down at them. As she moved her head, the sun glinted off squares of leaded glass windowpanes, disappearing where the glass had been blown out. It was a craggy ruin, unwelcoming, and Katelyn felt the hair on the back of her neck rise up, like the hackles of a wolf.

  “This is the back way in,” Trick said. He waggled his brows at Katelyn. “We can just . . . help ourselves.”

  “See, this is why you get in trouble with the law,” she said with asperity.

  “You can stay in the truck,” he offered.

  She was tempted. The place looked very scary.

  “Are you going to take your gun?” she asked him.

  “Am I Southern?” he replied. “It’s under your seat. Where it always is,” he added.

  She made a point of raising her feet off the ground.

  “I thought your pappy drilled that nonsense out of you,” he drawled.

  “He taught me how to shoot, not how to like guns.”

  They got out and he retrieved the weapon. As he emptied out his backpack, she put a hand on his wrist. He looked down at it, and then at her.

  “Let’s think this through. You got in trouble for breaking into people’s houses.”

  “Allegedly.”

  “And now we are sneaking onto private property with a gun?”

  “It’s okay.” He put the gun in his backpack and slipped his hands through the straps.

  It was cold in the darkness; among the ferns and tall, brown grass, Trick pointed out a staircase of tumbled-down stone, and said, “I’ll go first.”

  At the top of the stairs, a chain link fence sagged with NO TRESPASSING signs. Weeds had grown among the diamonds. Katelyn found herself listening for the telltale hum of electricity, in case the fence was armed. As far as she could tell, the coast was clear.

  “This is the original resort,” Trick said. “I remember some grumbling when Jack Bronson came in to build the center, cuz he didn’t tear down any of the old buildings — I guess the town had expected him to. Said they were a hazard. Sam got all conspiracy theory on me on the phone last night. Said maybe there was something in them Bronson didn’t want anyone to see.”

  As he spoke, Katelyn’s vision sharpened. She covered her surprise with a little cough. Then she did a careful sweep for video cameras or guards while Trick worked on a stretched-out section of fencing, trying to make it big enough for them.

  Just as they stepped through, the sound of drums filled the air, followed by howls, and she reflexively grabbed Trick’s hand as his arm came around her, shielding her. Then they both exhaled, letting out some tension as the Inner Wolf executives did the same.

  “Dang,” Trick said without letting go of her, and she nodded.

  Together they stomped through waist-high vegetation. They came to a three-story brick building — the tallest of the ruined structures — and Katelyn held back deliberately as they moved the rotted wood door, which had fallen off its hinges. Trick reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight.

  They crept into a hallway littered with trash, old bottles, and remnants of upholstered furniture. Trick shined his flashlight on an old oil painting of beautiful grounds landscaped with bushes and statues: in the center, in front of a brick building — maybe this very one — was a beautiful fountain featuring a ring of statues of wolves with their heads thrown back. On the top of the fountain, a single wolf poised as if to attack.

  They left the corridor to find themselves in the entrance to the building, a cavernous space with a vaulted ceiling and a grand staircase that led to the next two levels, fanning off into balconies on each of the two floors. Katelyn could almost see ladies in fine velvet gowns and men in top hats and Victorian suits strolling along the balustrades.

  They tiptoed up the marble stairs, Trick angling the light so they could see where they were going. He reached behind himself and took her hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and she left her hand in his.

  “I wonder how many people have died here,” Trick said quietly. “I mean, I don’t believe in ghosts, but this place feels . . . busy.”

  She felt it, too. Like things sliding past them, around them — shadows, whispers. Then she remembered the name of the man who had suffered his fatal heart attack — Barry Cazman. She’d read about him during their research on the mine. He had died on the grounds in 1937.

  And he had a drawing in his pocket, she remembered. Could it be the drawing that Sam had given her? Sam’s mother had found it with other old papers in their attic. There was a piece of weathered paper with the sketch of a waterfall and a heart-shaped boulder in it. Cazman described it as a map, and said it showed the entrance to the Madre Vena silver mine.

  Her mouth dropped open as she made a connection: Which is exactly what’s in one of the paintings that got taken from our cabin.

  In all the chaos after the bite, she had never put the two — the paper and the painting — together. Had someone broken into their cabin specifically to get that painting? What about the other painting? Maybe they’d stolen a few other things — the silver — to cover their tracks. She’d put the clippings in her dresser drawer and hadn’t thought to look for them when Justin had driven her home; she’d had a lot of other things on her mind.

  “You okay?” Trick asked her. “You’re trembling.”

  She shook herself. “Yeah, sorry,” she said. It wasn’t something she could share with him. Or anyone. For sure she wasn’t telling Justin. It was a bad feeling to know how utterly alone in this she really was.

  They reached the top floor, which was completely dark. Trick’s flashlight revealed mounds of rubbish piled like haystacks. She heard squeaking. Rats. Her lips began to curl and she could feel a low rumbling starting in her chest. Horrified that she was reacting like a wolf and not a girl, she pressed her hand against her mouth.

  Trick stopped, flashlight swinging back and forth. “Did you hear something?” he whispered.

  She could feel panic rising in her but she forced it down. “My stomach growled. I missed lunch,” she said.

  “We’ll get something after this,” Trick said. “I’m hungry, too.”

  Mincing along, the two of them moved onto one of the balconies; then, drawn by watery light ahead of them, they walked toward a wall of leaded glass windows so dirty the sun could barely penetrate them.

  When they reached the glass, Trick rubbed one of the panes with a wadded up paper napkin from his backpack. Layers of grime smeared away to reveal a blurry oval. Trick peered through it first, then grunted and gestured to Katelyn.

  There was the old fountain, encircled by bits and pieces of wolf statues, topped by the headless statue of the alpha. Beyond, there was another chain link fence; and beyond that, they were staring at an amphitheater filled with bare-chested men whose faces and chests were smeared with crimson. Many of them were pounding wildly on drums. As if by a prearranged signal, they all threw back their heads and howled.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “That can’t be blood. That has to be red paint, or body makeup.”

  “Yeah,” he replied, sounding unconvinced.

  “That’s it! Let out your inner wolf!” sai
d an amplified voice.

  Katelyn recognized it from their confrontation outside the Wolf Springs tavern. Jack Bronson himself was standing on the stage in a polo shirt and Dockers, wearing a headset.

  “Be free! Feel the power of the wolf surging through you!”

  “Bozo,” Katelyn muttered.

  Trick jerked his head toward her. “Did you hear that? Was that you again?”

  She cocked her head, unsure what he was referring to.

  “I heard a real growl,” he said. “Like an animal.” He took her hand again, clenching it hard. “Kat, there’s something in here with us.”

  Katelyn’s heart began to pound as Trick stood statue-still. She hadn’t heard anything.

  Oh no, what if it was me? What if she had growled again and hadn’t even realized? But what if it wasn’t me?

  Her heart pounded even harder and her hearing went crazy. She could hear Trick’s breathing, fast, frightened; his heartbeat, strong and muffled. The idiots outside the window, as they howled for all they were worth, then stopped.

  And in the silence she heard something else.

  Click. Click. Click.

  8

  Dread caught Katelyn. It was the sound from her nightmares, claws clicking on the ground as a creature walked through the darkness.

  Trick was still clenching her hand and she yanked on it as she ran-walked back across the room. Then she couldn’t contain her instinct to flee any longer.

  “Run!” she whispered.

  She didn’t need to tell Trick twice. He was right beside her as they raced across the debris in their path. They made it to the stairs and the beam from his flashlight bounced and skittered across the marble. Katelyn wanted to tell him to turn it off, but realized that her werewolf senses were allowing her to see in the dark — he didn’t have that advantage.

  Trick gripped the handrail tight as they descended in a blur. Katelyn had always been sure-footed, an essential skill for a gymnast and a dancer, and as the old marble was slippery and covered with layers of dust, her shoes slipped against the stone, but she was able to adjust her weight to keep herself from sliding.