2 Blood Trail

by Tanya Huff

  “You smell like she is.” His brow furrowed. “She doesn’t though.”

  He had to ask. “And what does she smell like?”

  “Herself.”

  This is not the type of conversation to have with a six-year-old, Celluci reminded himself as the path opened out into a small meadow, the pond shimmering blue-green in a hollow at the far end.

  “Oh, boy! Ducks! ”Daniel tore out of his shorts and raced across the field, barking shrilly, tail thrashing from side to side. The half dozen ducks waited until he was almost at the pond before taking wing. He plunged in after them, splashing and barking until they were out of sight behind the trees then sat down in the shallows, had a quick drink, and looked back, panting, to see if his companion had witnessed his routing of the enemy.

  Celluci laughed and scooped up the discarded shorts. “Well done!” he called. He’d felt a superstitious prickling up his spine when the boy had first changed, but it hadn’t been able to maintain itself against the rest of the scene. Crossing the meadow, he decided to leave Henry for the rest of the afternoon and just enjoy himself.

  “Is it deep?” he asked, arriving at the pond.

  “ ’Bout as deep as you near the middle,” Daniel told him after a moment’s study.

  Over six feet was pretty deep for such a little guy. “Can you swim.”

  Daniel licked a drip of water off his nose. “Course I can,” he declared indignantly. “I can dog paddle.”

  “Think we’ll get this done by supper time?” Rose asked, scrubbing a dribble of sweat off her forehead.

  “I didn’t think Uncle Stuart gave us an option,” Peter panted, leaning on the mallet. “He’s sure been growly lately.”

  “In case you’d forgotten, the family’s under attack. He has a good reason.”

  “Sure, but that doesn’t mean he has to growl at me.”

  Rose only shrugged and started stomping the earth tightly around the base of the metal fence post. She hated the amount of clothing she had to wear for this—shoes, jeans, shirt—but fences couldn’t be fixed in a sundress, especially not when every section seemed determined to support at least one raspberry bush.

  “I mean,” Peter clipped an eight-inch length of wire off the bale and began reattaching the lower part of the fence to the post, “everything you do, he snaps at you.”

  Everything you do, you mean. Rose sighed and kept her mouth shut. She’d been feeling so strange herself lately, she certainly wasn’t going to criticize her twin.

  He squinted up at the sun, burning yellow-white in the late afternoon sky, and fought the urge to pant. “What a day to be working outside. I don’t believe how hot it is.”

  “At least you can work without a shirt on.”

  “So could you.”

  “Not right next to the road.”

  “Why not?” He grinned. “There’s never any traffic along here and besides, they’re so little no one’ll be able to see them anyway.”

  “Peter!”

  “Peter!” he echoed, as she took a swing at him. “Okay, if you don’t like that idea, why don’t you trot back to the house and get us some water.”

  Rose snorted. “Right. While you lean on the fence and watch the world go by.”

  “No.” He bent and picked up the brush shears. “While I clear the crap from around the next post.”

  She looked from the post to her brother, then turned and started walking back to the house. “You better have that done . . .” she warned, over her shoulder.

  “Or what?”

  “Or . . . Or I’ll bite your tail off!” She laughed as Peter cowered at their favorite childhood threat, and then she broke into a run, feeling his gaze on her back until she left the field and started down the lane.

  Peter yanked at the waistband of his jeans. They were too tight, too constrictive, too hot. He wanted . . . Actually, he didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

  “This has been one hell of a summer,” he muttered, moving along the fence. He missed his Aunt Sylvia and his Uncle Jason. With the two older wer gone, it seemed like he and Rose had no choice but to become adults in their place.

  He suddenly wanted to howl but worked off some of his frustrations in hacking at the brush instead. Maybe he should get a life outside the pack, like Colin had. He tossed that idea almost the instant he had it. Colin didn’t have a twin and Peter couldn’t imagine living without Rose beside him. They almost hadn’t made it through grade eleven when class schedules kept them apart for most of the day. The guidance counselor had no idea how close she’d come to being bitten when she refused to change things. She’d said it was time they broke free of an unhealthy emotional dependency. Peter beheaded a few daisies, working the shears like two-handed scissors. That’s all she knew. Maybe if humans developed a little emotional dependency the world wouldn’t be so fucked up.

  The sound of an approaching car brought him over to the fence where he could get a look at the driver. The black and gold jeep slowed as it drew even with him, stopped a few feet down the road, then backed up spraying gravel. It was the same jeep that had been parked at the end of the lane Sunday morning when he’d gone to the mailbox to fetch Shadow. Hackles rising, he put down the shears and jumped the fence. Time to find out why this guy was hanging around.

  Mark Williams couldn’t believe his luck. Not only was there a solitary werewolf right up by the road where he could get to it, but it was one of the recheads. One of the young redheads. And in his experience, teenage anythings could be easily manipulated into impulsive, reckless behavior.

  Even in jeans and running shoes, the creature had a certain wolflike grace, and as Mark watched it jump the fence and start toward the car he became convinced that this was the other version of the animal he’d seen by the mailbox yesterday. The set of its head, the expression of wary curiosity, was, given the variation in form, identical.

  He rolled down the window, having already determined how to take advantage of this chance meeting. He’d always believed he did his best work off the cuff.

  “You one of the Heerkens?”

  “Yeah. What of it?”

  “You may have noticed me around a bit lately.”

  “Yeah.”

  Mark recognized the stance. The creature wanted to be a hero. Well, keep your pants on, you’ll get your chance. “I’ve, uh, had my eye on your little problem.”

  “What problem’s that?”

  He pointed his finger and said, “Bang. Hear you lost two members of your family this month. I have, uh . . .” The sudden noise startled him, especially when he realized what it was. The creature was growling, the sound beginning deep in its throat and emerging clearly as threat. Mark pulled his arm into the car and kept one finger on the window control. No point taking unnecessary chances. “I have information that might help you catch the person responsible. Are you interested?”

  Russet brows drew down. “Why tell me?”

  Mark smiled, being careful not to show his teeth. “Do you see anyone else to tell? I thought you might want to do something about it.”

  The growling faded and stopped. “But . . .”

  “Never mind.” Mark shrugged. Careful now, it’s almost hooked. . . . “If you’d rather sit safely at home while other people save your family. . . .” He started to raise the window.

  “No! Wait! Tell me.”

  Got him. “My uncle, Carl Biehn . . .”

  “The grasseater?”

  The disgust in the interruption couldn’t be missed. Mark hid a grin. He’d been about to say his uncle had seen something through his binoculars while bird-watching but hurriedly rewrote the script to take advantage of the prejudice of a predator for a vegetarian. Even if it did throw his uncle to the wolves. So to speak. “Yeah. The grasseater. He’s the one. But no one’ll believe you if you just tell them, so meet me in his old barn tonight after dark and I’ll give you the proof.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Suit yourself. But just in case you de
cide your family’s worth a bit of your time, I’ll be in the barn at sunset. I suppose you can tell your . . . people anyway.” He sighed deeply, shaking his head. “But you know that without proof they won’t believe you—A grasseater? Ha!—not any more than you believe me and if you don’t come, you’ll have missed your only chance. Not something I’d like to have on my conscience.”

  Mark raised the window and drove away before the creature had a chance to sort out the convolutions of that last sentence and ask more questions. A number of things could go wrong with the plan, but he was pretty sure he’d read the beast correctly and the risk fell within acceptable limits.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror to see the creature still standing by the side of the road. Pretty soon it would convince itself that, regardless of the stranger’s motives, it couldn’t hurt to check out the proof. In the way of the young, it wouldn’t bother telling anyone else, not until it was sure.

  “Come on, save the world. Be a hero. Impress the girls.” Mark patted the bundle of leg-hold traps on the seat beside him. “Make me rich.”

  Rose got back to the fence with the jug of water just as the dust trail behind the car began to settle. She’d seen Peter talking to someone but hadn’t been able to either see or smell who it was.

  “Hey!” she called. “You standing in the road for a reason?”

  Peter started.

  “Peter? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He shook himself and came back over the fence. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  Rose frowned. That was a blatant lie. About to call him on it, she remembered the advice Aunt Nadine had given her when she’d mentioned Peter’s recent moodiness. “Let him have a little space, Rose. It’s hard for boys around this age. ” They’d never had secrets from each other before, but perhaps Aunt Nadine was right.

  “Here.” She held out the jug. “Maybe this will make you feel better.”

  “Maybe.” But he doubted it. Then their fingers touched and he felt the light caress sizzle up his arm and resonate though his entire body. The world went away as he drank in her scent, musky and warm and so very, very close. He swayed. He felt the jug pulled from his lax grip and then the freezing cold splash of water over his head and torso.

  Rose tried not to laugh. He looked furious but that she could deal with. “I thought you were going to faint,” she offered, backing up a step.

  “If we could change,” Peter growled, tossing his head and spraying water from his hair, “I’d chase you into the next county and when I caught you I’d . . .”

  “You’d what?” she taunted, dancing out of his reach, suddenly conscious of a strange sense of power. If only she weren’t wearing so many clothes.

  “I’d . . .” A rivulet of water worked its way past the waistband of his jeans. “I’d . . . Damn it, Rose, that’s cold! I’d bite your tail off, that’s what I’d do!”

  She laughed then, it was impossible not to, and the moment passed.

  “Come on.” She picked up the mallet and headed toward the fence. “Let’s get this done before Uncle Stuart bites both our tails off.”

  Peter grabbed the bale of wire and followed. “But I’m all wet,” he muttered, rubbing at the moisture beading the hair on his chest.

  “Quit complaining. Mere moments ago, you were too hot.”

  She lifted the mallet over her head and the smell of her sweat washed down over him. Peter felt his ears begin to burn and all at once, he came to a decision. He would go to Carl Biehn’s barn tonight.

  He toyed with the idea of telling his Uncle Stuart and then discarded it. One of two things would happen, either he’d dismiss the information about the grasseater out of hand and want to know what this human was up to, or he’d believe the information and want to receive the proof himself. Either way, he, Peter, would be out of the action. That wasn’t going to happen.

  He’d tell Uncle Stuart when he had the proof. Present it to him as a fait accompli. That would show the older wer he was someone to be reckoned with. Not a child any longer. Peter’s head filled with visions of challenging the alpha male and winning. Of running the pack. Of winning the right to mate.

  His nostrils flared. If he came back with the information that saved the family, it couldn’t help but impress Rose.

  “You the young woman who’s waiting to see me?”

  Vicki came awake with a start and glanced down at her watch. It was 6:10. “Damn!” she muttered, shoving her glasses back up her nose. Her mouth tasted like the inside of a sewer.

  “Here, maybe this’ll help.”

  Vicki stared down at the cup of tea that had suddenly appeared in her hand and thought, Why not?

  A moment later she had her answer.

  Because I hate tea. Why did I do that?

  She very carefully set the cup down and forced her scattered wits to regroup. This is the clubroom at the Grove Road Sportman’s Club. So this little old lady in blue jeans must be . . .

  “Bertie Reid?”

  “In the flesh. Such as remains of it.” The older woman smiled, showing a mouthful of teeth too regular to be real. “And you must be Vicki Nelson, Private Investigator.” The smile broadened, the face around it compressing into an even tighter network of fine lines. “I hear you need my help.”

  “Yeah.” Vicki stretched, apologized, and watched as Bertie settled carefully into one of the gold velour chairs, teacup balanced precisely on one knee. “Barry Wu tells me that if anyone in this city can help, it’s you.”

  She looked pleased. “He said that? What a sweetie. Nice boy, Barry, bound to be in the medals at the next Olympics.”

  “So everyone says.”

  “No, everyone says he’ll take the gold. I don’t. I don’t want to jinx the boy before he gets there, neither do I want him to feel badly if he comes home with the silver. Second best in the entire world is nothing to feel badly about and all those armchair athletes who sneer at second deserve a good swift kick in the butt.” She took a deep breath and a long draught of tea. “Now then, what did you want to know?”

  “Is there anyone around London, not just at this club, who can shoot with anything approaching Barry Wu’s accuracy?”

  “No. Was there anything else?”

  Vicki blinked. “No?” she repeated.

  “Not that I know of. Oh, there’re a couple of kids who might be decent if they practiced and one or two old-timers who occasionally show a flash of what they once had but people with Barry’s ability and the discipline necessary to develop it are rare.” She grinned and saluted with the cup. “That’s why they only give out one gold.”

  “Shit!”

  The old woman studied Vicki’s face for a moment, then put down the teacup and settled back in the chair, crossing one denim clad leg over the other, the lime green laces in her hightops the brightest spot of color in the room. “How much do you know about competition shooting?”

  “Not much,” Vicki admitted.

  “Then tell me why you’re asking that question, and I’ll tell you if you’re asking the right one.”

  Vicki took off her glasses and scrubbed at her face with her hands. It didn’t make things any clearer. In fact, she realized as the movement pulled at the bruise on her temple, it was a pretty stupid thing to do. She shoved her glasses back on and scrambled in her bag for the bottle of pills they’d given her at the hospital. There was a time I could make love to a vampire, walk away from major car accident, rush a client to the hospital, stay up until dawn, and spend the day arguing ethics with Celluci, no problem. I must be getting old. She took the pill dry. The only alternative was another mouthful of tea and she didn’t think she was up to that.

  “Cracked my head,” she explained as she tossed the small plastic bottle back in her bag.

  “In the line of duty?” Bertie asked, looking intrigued.

  “Sort of.” Vicki sighed. Somehow in the last couple of minutes, she’d come to the conclusion that Bertie was right. Without knowing more about competition shoot
ing, she couldn’t know if she was asking the right questions. Her voice low to prevent the only other occupant of the clubroom from overhearing, she presented an edited version of the events that had brought her to London.

  Bertie whistled softly at the description of the shots that killed “two of the family dogs,” then she said, “Let me be sure I’ve got this straight, five hundred yards on a moving target at night from twenty feet up in a pine tree?”

  “As much as five, maybe as little as three.”

  “As little as three?” Bertie snorted. “And both dogs were killed with a single, identical head shot? Come on.” Setting the teacup aside, she heaved herself out of the chair, pale blue eyes gleaming behind the split glass of her bifocals.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My place. One shot like that might have been a fluke, luck, nothing more. But two, two means a trained talent and you don’t acquire skill like that overnight. Like I said before, there’s damned few people in the world who can do that kind of shooting and this marksman of yours didn’t spring full grown from the head of Zeus. I think I can help you find him, but we’ve got to go to my place to do it. That’s where all my reference material is. This lot wouldn’t know a book if it bit them on the butt.” She waved a hand around the clubroom. The fortyish man sitting at one of the tables stroking the cat looked startled and waved back. “Gun magazines, that’s all they ever read. I keep telling them they need a library. Probably leave them mine when I die and it’ll spend ten or twenty years sitting around getting outdated then they’ll throw it out. Did you drive?”

  “No . . .”

  “No? I thought every PI owned a sexy red convertible. Never mind. We’ll take my car. I live pretty close.” A sudden flurry of shots caught her attention and she strode over to the window. “Ha! I told him not to buy a Winchester if he wants to compete this fall. He’ll be months getting used to that offset scope. Fool should’ve listened. Robert!”

  The man at the table looked even more startled at being directly addressed. “Yes?”