by Laken Cane
Rune watched him. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Bill?”
He stood. “I don’t have time for questions right now, Rune. There is too much going on. Another body was discovered, we have those shifters to deal with, I’m trying to settle into this new place, Eugene is—”
“Another nailed body? You just found one.”
He nodded. “Our killer is keeping us busy.”
“And there are no leads?”
He hesitated, and she thought he might have told her something he hadn’t really planned on telling her, but the slow Alan finally made an appearance, tray in hand.
“At last,” Bill said. “Sit it there. Yes, there. Perhaps with practice you’ll learn how to pour a cup of coffee without taking an hour to do it.” He glared at the hapless Alan. “That’s all.”
Alan was a small, blond man with calm eyes and a ready smile. “You’re welcome,” he said to Bill, then left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.
Rune grinned.
Bill sighed. “I need to get back to work, Rune. Take your coffee with you.”
Rune didn’t move. “I want to investigate Megan’s disappearance.”
His ready agreement made her suspicious. “Of course, of course. But the emergencies take precedence.”
“Yeah.” She frowned, then stood up and took her coffee. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, Rune. Thank you.”
But she could see the difference in him, and that difference wasn’t just physical. His withdrawal was obvious. Since the Annex, Bill Rice had closed himself off. At least to her.
She still had Elizabeth. Elizabeth would keep her updated on the serial killer, the memory wiped shifters, and the werefoxes. Rune would also have to go to her for whatever they had on Megan Smith.
And maybe Elizabeth would be more forthcoming about who the hell had taken Fie.
“She’s in a psychiatric hospital,” was all Elizabeth would say. “She’ll be well cared for.”
“What exactly did she do?” Rune asked. “How did she…”
“Try to kill George?”
Rune shrugged. “Yeah.”
Elizabeth hesitated, then took off her reading glasses and sat them carefully on her desk. She arranged them just so. “I’ve never seen anything like it. She leaned over his face, opened her mouth, and began to suck the life from him.”
Rune pressed her fist into her stomach. “Shit.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t know what she is or what all she’s capable of. We know about the necromancy, but this…” She shook her head. “We don’t know.”
“Can you visit her?”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together and picked up her glasses. “No. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an enormous amount of work to do.”
Rune stood. “Elizabeth, can I get the file on Megan Smith?”
“Of course. There isn’t much there, though. I had a look after you brought in the foxes.” She peered into her computer monitor and began typing. “I’ll make it available for you. You’ll need your password.”
“Thanks.”
She left Elizabeth’s office, her mind on the foxes. She’d pay a visit to the Dunbars and then she’d read Megan’s file. She was pretty sure that Louisa’s need for blood had interrupted a lot more information from Megan’s piano teacher, and she meant to get it.
But when she arrived at the hospital, the cops inside Mrs. Dunbar’s room informed her the Dunbars were dead.
Mr. Dunbar had been right.
His wife’s mouth had gotten them killed.
Chapter Eight
The Annex had become fully involved in the investigation of Megan Smith, Elizabeth told Rune. The foxes were being interrogated, and the pikes were next.
“I’m going to talk to the pike alpha,” Rune told her.
“The Annex has investigators, Rune. You don’t—”
“Send them as well, but I’m going to talk to the pikes. And the pike alpha.”
“Sean Colley. Good luck finding him.”
“Yeah.” Rune clicked off and drove to Wormwood. She wanted to do another search for Gunnar anyway.
The pikes spent most of their shifts inside Poison Pond. The water was more of a lake than a pond, but the naming folks must have thought Poison Lake didn’t sound as cool.
The berserker called before she reached the cemetery. “We have a run. Where are you?”
“I got the message. Can you handle it?”
“Why?”
“I’m headed to Wormwood to talk to the pikes.”
She could almost hear him grinding his teeth. “The pike alpha is—”
“A son of a bitch. I know. But I meet a lot of sons of bitches. I can handle him.”
“Be careful and call me if you need me.” He clicked off.
She tossed her cell in the passenger seat. Sometimes Strad was overbearing, overly protective, and a pain in the ass. But most of the time…
She smiled.
When she arrived at Wormwood, Owen was waiting for her. She climbed out of her car, not unhappy with the unexpected company. It wouldn’t be easy to find the pike alpha.
And most likely if the pike didn’t want to be found, he wasn’t going to be found. Maybe she’d get lucky and grab Epik again.
“How did you know I’d be here?” she asked Owen.
“Elizabeth called me. Remember how Eugene offered to protect you against the assassin?” He grinned. “I’m it.”
She walked with him into the graveyard. “Our Eugene is generous.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her sarcasm. “I’m confident the two of us can handle one hired gun.”
“Maybe. But he’s a mean fuck.” She told him what Epik had said about the assassin. “He gives me the creeps.”
“Must be the mask,” Owen said.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice dry. “That must be it.”
He didn’t flirt with her, didn’t send her any smoldering glances from his bottomless eyes. He just walked along beside her, his fingers brushing his holstered weapons.
She began to relax.
But then…
“I want you,” he said.
She groaned. “Dammit, Owen.”
“I’m not addicted to your blood. I’m not out to kill you. I don’t need you to take a bite out of me.” He stared straight ahead, which made it easier for her to shoot startled little looks at him. “I don’t want anything from you.”
He hesitated, but when she said nothing, he continued. “You’re hot, you’re a freak, and I dig you. That’s all.”
She cleared her throat and stepped with extra care around tombstones and logs and bits of Other litter. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I said what I needed to, and we don’t have to talk about it.”
He wanted her to know he had no ulterior motives, that he expected nothing from her, and that he was into her. She got it.
No matter how much the berserker called to her, no matter how tightly he held her heart, he wasn’t the only man who tempted her.
Oh, no.
There was Owen Five.
And she wasn’t sure they both wouldn’t crush her, in the end.
“I couldn’t find anything on Owen Five. It’s like he never existed. Whoever he is, he’s not who you think. Don’t trust him.”
Sam Cruikshank’s words echoed in her mind, and she stared harder at Owen. “Who are you?”
He grinned and brushed a long, floppy lock of hair out of his face. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you my story.”
She started to tell him she knew he hadn’t taken Cruikshank to the hospital, that Sam had hidden from him and called to warn her. But she didn’t.
Because part of her didn’t trust Owen Five with that information.
She trusted him to have her back, but she didn’t trust his secrets. She didn’t trust that he wouldn’t shut Cruikshank up for good.
She was the one who’d end Cruikshank if it came to that. Not Owen.
>
They were quiet the rest of the way to the lake. She stared into the murky but tranquil depths of the water, wondering what dark secrets the lake bottom held.
“The pond feels sly to me,” she said, more to herself than Owen. “Almost alive.”
“Like it’ll grab you and drag you under if you get too close,” Owen agreed.
“Wormwood is full of mystery. I don’t think anyone has ever tried exploring Poison Pond.”
“If they did,” he replied, his voice grim, “I doubt the ones who call Poison Pond home let the explorers escape.”
“Sometimes you have to leave things alone.” She looked at him.
He smiled. “Sometimes you do.”
“I’m going in.”
“Don’t linger. Not sure I could come in after you.”
“You keep my assassin at bay. I’ll handle the pond scum.”
“You got it. And be careful. I heard the pike alpha is a—”
“Real son of a bitch. I know.”
“Can you can breathe under there?”
She shrugged. “I’ll know in a minute.”
“If you—”
“Owen,” she said, gently. “I’ll be fine.”
People worried about her. She understood that. But their worry sometimes made her doubt herself, and that wasn’t good.
She was going into that lake. Not just to question the pike about Megan Smith, but to find out what the hell was going on with Epik. She wasn’t one to let Others do as they would to each other. The humans believed that was a good idea. She didn’t.
She stripped to her underwear, ignoring Owen’s stare. “Don’t let anything happen to my blades and guns.”
Then she took a deep breath and waded into Poison Pond.
Chapter Nine
Rice hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said there was too much going on. But right then, Rune had to focus on the pike alpha and shove the rest away. Lack of concentration could get a person killed.
Or worse, captured.
She got a sudden, intense longing for the berserker.
Shit.
As she walked deeper into the cold, murky water, she thought she saw a glimmer of a face in the black depths. She had no doubt there were many faces down there.
She didn’t want hers to be covered by the menacing wetness, but she had to keep going. The water lapped at her thighs, then her stomach, and finally, her chest.
She stopped walking for a long minute to adjust to the crushing weight of the strange water. The pressure was like a giant hand squeezing her chest, constricting her lungs.
“Shit,” she muttered. She couldn’t draw a deep breath, couldn’t force her lungs to expand, couldn’t possibly take one more step into the smothering wet hell surrounding her.
“Rune?” Owen called. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Shit,” she said again, and took another step.
Then there was nothing—no rocky bottom on which her feet could gain purchase, no sweet air, no sounds other than the roaring in her ears from either her panic or the water attacking her eardrums.
And just that quickly, she was inside the pikes’ world.
Invisible hands pulled her greedily down, down into the shadowy depths of the lake, and suddenly the roaring silence was replaced by whispery voices. She could see nothing—blind and panicked, she struggled against her watery prison. She opened her mouth to scream, then choked as the vile liquid ran eagerly into her throat.
She pushed with her legs, trying to find the surface, but her head hit a hard, unforgiving ceiling and she was trapped.
Drowning.
And she was sure she heard mocking laughter.
It was that sound that freed her from her terror.
Inborn rage and pride and plain common sense came to her rescue, and she forced herself quiet.
Calm.
And in that calm she found Z’s face. Just for an instant, but it was there, smiling at her, believing in her. With her.
He was always with her.
“God, Z,” she whispered.
But then he was gone, and she was alone in a pond she couldn’t escape. Not yet. She had things to do there.
She swam, hands cutting through the dark water, and she let the water become a refuge.
The deeper she went, the clearer she could see. Vague shapes became fish and snakes and shifters. One of them, a smallish pike with vivid green markings, brushed her arm playfully before darting away.
Inside Poison Pond was a whole new world, one she’d only marginally been aware existed.
She caught sight of an iridescent light moving ahead of her and followed it, going deeper and deeper, until she was blocked from going farther by a rock wall.
But the swimmer ahead of her had disappeared into that wall. She swam the rock slowly, sliding along until her fingers found a crevice through which she was sure the being had exited.
Slight as she was, the crack in the wall was too skinny for her to fit through. But she had to get through—there was light coming from the other side, and she had no doubt that’s where she needed to be.
Dammit.
She pushed herself along, hoping…
And yes. There it was. The fissure widened, and she slipped through it easily.
The water on that side of the crevice had a different feel to it. It caressed her skin with a languid, silky touch and tasted something like green tea.
She pressed her lips together quickly.
The farther she swam, the lighter the water became. And finally, she saw a hint of daylight.
She broke the surface, her relief tinged with disappointment that she hadn’t found the pike alpha. The Annex would send crews, though, and they would—
“What the fuck?”
She was no longer in Poison Pond. She had no idea where she was, but hoped it was some part of Wormwood. She waded to the grassy bank and climbed out of the water, shivering as gooseflesh erupted on her wet skin.
Behind her was the small pool of water from which she’d escaped, and surrounding her were hills, grassy and large.
She started climbing the hill directly in front of her. The top of the hill would at least give her a high vantage point and maybe help her figure out where she was.
She jogged up the hill, taking a couple of minutes to reach the top. And when she looked down, there was Owen, a tiny man guarding the lake into which she’d gone earlier.
She raised a hand and started to yell at him, but a whisper of sound at her back caused her to whirl around, her fangs dropping as she turned.
Epik stood behind her, half crouching. “Come with me.”
She hesitated. “Where?”
But he wasn’t saying. He turned and loped away, his naked, dirty body torn and battered.
Unable not to, she followed him, releasing her claws as she ran. It would be autumn soon, and she couldn’t help glancing at all the green that would, in a few short weeks, change colors and die.
She was never ready for winter, but winter would come anyway, with its freezing, relentless beauty and its dark despair.
Epik’s ribs were even more prominent than they’d been the last time she’d seen him. His shoulder blades parenthesized his long, knobby spine, which was almost visible through the paper-thinness of his lightly veined, greenish skin.
After about ten minutes he stopped and pointed to a line of caves above them and to the right. “Up there.”
She frowned. “What’s up there, Epik?”
“Go on,” he said. “Go.” He twisted his fingers together, his eyes too wide. “Please go on, now.”
The boy was in bad shape, and she wasn’t going to argue with him. Obviously he wanted her to see something. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll stay behind you.”
Something up there was scaring the fuck out of him. She nodded. “I won’t let anything happen to you, kid. Let’s go.”
She walked up the hill and toward the caves, slowly, so her speed wouldn’t tax t
he already exhausted boy. Once, he took her elbow, yanking it gently like a kid pulling at his mother’s skirt for attention.
“What is it?” she asked him.
He pointed to the cave directly to their left. Its large entrance gaped with sinister blackness.
For a long moment, they both stood staring at it. “There’s something terrible in there,” she said.
He nodded.
“Your alpha?”
Again, he nodded, then reached out to give her an encouraging shove. “We have to go in.”
“I get that. I’m nearly certain we shouldn’t, though.”
“If you don’t,” he said, “I’ll die.”
Fucking alpha. “He sent you after me?”
He didn’t reply, just stared at her. Waiting.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
He followed her to the cave, his fingers light upon her back. His breathing picked up, and when she glanced at him, he looked almost…eager.
The voices were there, preaching caution. But as usual, caution wasn’t enough.
“Good,” Epik whispered, and then he shoved her. Hard.
Caught off guard, she stumbled into a hidden chasm and began to plummet down a seemingly bottomless shaft.
Chapter Ten
She crashed to the ground, finally. The impact scrambled her thoughts and shattered her body, which began to knit immediately.
Still, the shock left her breathless and blind and unable, at first, to move. Pain was blessedly dulled by overwhelming numbness, but unfortunately the numbness began to ebb with alarming quickness.
She ran her fingers over her face, realizing only then that she wasn’t blind. She simply hadn’t opened her eyes.
They bulged from their sockets and pulsated like angry hearts, but at last, she opened them.
Her small world spun, and with a suddenness that left her stunned, pain roared over her.
She turned weakly to the side and heaved up the little she had in her stomach, groaning as an excruciating headache added its screams to the other pains begging for attention.
She remembered banging off the sides of the crevice, but the actual impact with the bottom was already forgotten. Maybe she’d passed out by the time she hit—she just couldn’t remember.
