Hunter's Trail (A Scarlett Bernard Novel)

by Melissa F. Olson

  “Shadow,” I said aloud.

  When I turned to look at him, Jesse was watching me closely. “You’re not getting attached, are you?” he asked, not unkindly.

  I shook my head. “I know she’ll have to be put down,” I told him quietly. “She’s too dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  Jesse looked like he wanted to say something, but fell silent instead. After a moment, he said, “Shadow, huh? Well, I guess we have to call her something.”

  I took a sip of my tea. “We should probably work on our plan for tonight.”

  Jesse smiled. “Hang on, I gotta go get something.” He jumped up and left the room, and a second later I heard his footsteps on the staircase in the other room. Max and Shadow changed course to go investigate what he was doing, and I smiled as Shadow easily overtook Max, leaving him looking after her with a confused expression.

  A few minutes later, Jesse and the canines came back down the stairs with a decoupage cardboard box, the kind my mother used to have for storing photos. “Take a look at this,” he said, climbing back onto the table and discarding the lid. “I think I might have some pictures of the spot Sharon Remus was talking about.” He began sifting through the photos.

  “Why?” I asked. “Magical premonition?”

  “That, or because my mom got a new camera a couple of years ago and I wanted to mess around with it.” After sorting through the box for a few minutes, he finally pulled a little wad of photos out of the box. “My mom is a chronic photo developer.” He leaned forward and began laying them out on the table in front of us. “Max is in most of these, but you can get a sense of the background.”

  I leaned forward too, scanning the photos while he spoke. “See, this is the road that leads up to the Observatory—the tunnel’s right over there—and then just down the hill there’s this long clear path that goes to a circular picnic area,” Jesse said. He pointed to the relevant photo, which showed a seated Max panting happily in the middle of a clear-cut, sand-colored trail. The trail was like the landing on a staircase: on the left side, the hill rose steeply enough to create a natural wall, and the right side of the path, the hill dropped off completely. In the distance behind Max, the path seemed to dead-end at a big flat area with blurs scattered around. I squinted. Picnic tables.

  “What’s behind the picnic area?” I asked. “Does the trail go off in another direction?”

  “No, see, that’s why I think this is the spot,” Jesse said excitedly. “That picnic area is a big flat circle, and behind it there’s nothing—the ground drops off to form a cliff. There’s this short winding path that goes for a little ways below it, kind of like a narrow bridle path, but with rocks and brush everywhere. You’d basically have to be a mountain goat to navigate it in the dark.”

  “Or a werewolf,” I concluded.

  “Right. But it’s a fantastic overlook; you can see the whole city from there.” He raised his eyebrows significantly.

  “So you think Remus will hide on the bridle path, for lack of a better term, waiting for someone to come see the pretty view, and then pick them off?” I said skeptically. “How can he be sure anyone will show?”

  Jesse shrugged. “I’ve never been up there at night, but it makes sense. The Observatory’s right there. If the parking lot is full, people have to park all the way down the road, almost to the picnic area.” As he spoke he twisted around to the counter and pulled a pad of paper out of the stack of clutter. He grabbed a pencil too and began sketching as he spoke. “Even if he doesn’t stay in the picnic area, he could creep all the way to the road to attack people and drag them back down the bridle path, one at a time. Nobody would think to look there at nighttime, and if anyone chases him toward the picnic tables, he can disappear.”

  He turned the paper toward me. It was a rough map of the area: a wide path in the foreground leading into a big circle, with the wiggly little bridle path on the other side. I studied it. “I don’t know anything about tactics,” I said slowly, touching the spot on Jesse’s map where the wide path met the road. “But he could hide here, if there are bushes or shadows that can hide him, and then he’s got a perfect trap. Some dumbass brings his girlfriend to the picnic area to see the romantic view, and then Remus attacks, trapping them in the picnic area.” I traced the hypothetical dumbass’s route on the paper while Jesse looked on, nodding approvingly.

  “That’s how I see it too,” Jesse confirmed. “But we’ve got two advantages. One is the bargest, obviously. But the other advantage is that, from what I understand, there’s no reason for Henry to know anything about a null.”

  I tilted my head, considering. He was right—the whole reason Henry had become a nova was because he’d been abandoned. He could theoretically connect me to suddenly feeling human again outside of Will’s house, but he’d have no idea that I would force a change if he were in wolf form. There was no reason for him to know anything about the Old World. “Or about the bargest, for that matter. You’re thinking we should trip the trap.”

  Jesse stood and held out his hand with a flourish. “Scarlett,” he said dramatically, “I have a romantic view you should see.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Dumbass.”

  His smile faded. “We could use some backup with this, though. Is there anyone you think would help?”

  I leaned back on my hands, considering. The vampires wouldn’t get involved without Dashiell’s permission and a damn good reason why they should care, and I wasn’t sure I could provide either in time. The werewolves were out, obviously, because they’d be spending the full moon in the national park behind Will’s. That left one avenue. I got out my phone.

  “This is Kirsten,” the witch said on the first ring. “What’s up, Scarlett?”

  “Hey,” I began. “I’m looking for some help here.” I explained the plan to her: that we take the bargest and bring it to where we thought the nova wolf would be attacking that night. “Can you and some of your witches help us out?” I asked hopefully. “Maybe just help us look for the nova wolf in the park, be on hand in case there’s trouble?”

  There was a long silence on the line. “Kirsten?” I asked uncertainly.

  “I’m here.” She sighed. “It’s a good plan, Scarlett—bold, but good—but I don’t think I can help you.”

  “What?” I said, surprised. Of the three Old World leaders, Kirsten is the only one I would peg as a team player. “Why not?”

  “The Luparii,” she explained. “Witches have heard half a millenium’s worth of stories about Luparii boogeymen. I doubt you could find a single one of them willing to mess with their property.”

  I remembered what she’d said at the meeting, that the Luparii were like an ex-con relative you avoided. “What about you?” I asked. “You’re not afraid, right?”

  “It’s not that,” she said reluctantly. “I’d be willing to go up against them on my own, but everything I do can reflect back on the witches. If they find out a witch in LA crossed them, it’s not just me they’ll come after. It’s all of us.”

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?” I asked in a small voice. My plan had seemed solid only a few minutes ago, but now the thought of pissing off the Luparii was starting to scare me too.

  “Perhaps . . . ,” Kirsten said thoughtfully. “You think the nova wolf is going to camp out in a specific part of the park?”

  “Yeah.” I explained the path leading into the picnic area.

  “Okay. That could work,” she said to herself. To me, Kirsten began, “There is a minor hex we use sometimes for big gatherings, or if we’re working a spell that has to be done in an area accessed by the public. The younger witches call it the Humans-Go-Home. It makes anyone with no ties to magic have a sudden, overwhelming desire to return home.”

  “So it’s not just a clever name,” I said, straight-faced. Beside me, Jesse snickered.

  “No.” Kirsten went on, “I can wait at the road, and once you and Detective Cruz are in the clearing, I can cast a Humans-Go-Home on the mouth o
f the pathway. It won’t affect the werewolf, but anyone else should stay away from that spot.”

  “That’d be great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. It was a good idea, but I’d been hoping for . . . I don’t know, a promise to storm the park in droves or something.

  “Just remember, Scarlett, that when you get close to the spell it’ll dissolve again, so you can’t leave that area once you’re in,” she cautioned.

  “Pee before we leave the house. Got it.”

  I hung up and explained the idea to Jesse, who was a fan. Before either of us could even get off the table, though, my phone began playing “Werewolves of London.” I frowned. I had spoken to Will less than two hours ago. Picking up the phone again, I said, “Hey, Will.”

  “Scarlett,” he said in a tight voice. I could hear noise from the bar behind him. “Describe the Luparii scout to me again.” It was not a request.

  “Uh . . .” I glanced at Jesse, then held my phone away from my face and put it on speaker. “She’s maybe six feet tall, dark-blonde hair, slim.”

  Jesse added, “Hey, it’s Cruz. Her name is Petra Corbett. She was wearing a black pantsuit when we saw her.”

  Will sighed heavily into the phone. “I was afraid you would say that.”

  Jesse and I exchanged a glance. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because she’s standing on the sidewalk in front of my bar.”

  Chapter 44

  “Of course she is,” I said harshly. I really wanted to kick something. It couldn’t just be okay for ten minutes, could it? “How the fuck did she get out of that bathroom?” And had she brought more than one black pantsuit, or was she wearing the one with the urine stains? Okay, that part maybe wasn’t relevant.

  Jesse shrugged and said, “She might have access to magic you don’t know about, or she’s got a handler or partner in LA. Or maybe she had scissors in the bathroom. It doesn’t really matter at this point.”

  “I agree,” Will said darkly. He sounded like he was barely controlling his temper.

  “What is she doing?” I asked.

  “Nothing. She’s leaning against what I assume is her car, glaring at the door to Hair of the Dog. She knows I can’t attack her in the middle of Pico Boulevard.”

  “She’s going to follow you,” Jesse said quietly, and I finally caught on. We’d taken the bargest away from Corbett, so she was simply going straight for Will. Either she’d try to kill him, or follow him to the pack.

  “Why?” I asked. “What’s she going to do against a whole pack of werewolves with no bargest?”

  “She’s still a witch, Scarlett. We have no idea what she’s capable of on her own,” Will said grimly. “And if she has access to a gun and a lot of silver bullets . . .”

  “I thought these douchebags were all about the hunt,” I complained. “That’s gotta be cheating.” I looked at Jesse. “Can you arrest her for loitering or something?”

  Jesse considered it for a second and shook his head. “We’d have to leave her at a police station, and like Will said, we have no idea what she can do as a witch. She could hurt a lot of cops.”

  There was silence for a few minutes.

  “We could just, like . . . kidnap her,” I volunteered. “Jesse and I could come down and bring her into the bar. You could leave her in the back room or something.”

  “Because tying her up and leaving her worked so well last time,” Jesse interjected. “We can’t stay with her, Scarlett, we have to go after the nova.”

  “And we can’t kill her either,” Will sighed. “The Luparii in France would have kittens.”

  I wished I were in the driver’s seat so I could pound my head against the steering wheel. “Well, shit. I have one other idea, but I have to check on a few things. Will, we need to call you back.” I hung up the phone before either he or Jesse could respond.

  Jesse looked at me, a little incredulous. “Tell me you have a plan,” he stated.

  “You know . . . I think I might. I don’t like it, but it might be our best option.”

  On the surface it was simple enough: we needed to kill the nova wolf first, then go to Will’s to deal with the pack. But we’d need a lot of outside help, and Jesse would have to make a few more moral compromises. I wasn’t sure how he’d respond to that.

  To my surprise, though, Jesse got on board almost immediately. “With one condition,” he intoned. “When this is over, we’ll finish that conversation I started.”

  The conversation about getting the hell out of LA and starting over somewhere else. I took a deep breath and nodded. “We’ll finish it,” I promised, meeting his eyes.

  It took almost two more hours for us to get everything ready, which included updating Will and Kirsten and Jesse talking to Noah about what we needed. The last thing Jesse did before we left was check his gun, making sure the silver bullets were still loaded. Then he looked at me. “You ready?” he asked me, snapping it into his holster.

  I shrugged. “As I’ll ever be.”

  Impulsively, he stepped forward and wrapped me in his arms for a hug. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, breathing in his familiar scent. “No,” I corrected. “I’m doing the best thing. Doesn’t make it right. Now let’s go before I come to my senses.”

  The sky was already beginning to darken when we left Jesse’s parents’ house at 4:30 with Shadow in tow. I don’t know if she was just picking up on the tension in the air, or if she could actually sense the full moon, but she seemed to know something was happening—she was even more alert than before, her head up and her feet stepping lightly as her head swung from side to side looking for new dangers. By 4:45, Jesse was piloting my van up the winding road at Griffith Park. We only had fifteen minutes before the sun went down, which was when we figured Henry Remus would change and get in position. The moon was supposed to rise at 5:52 exactly, at which point any werewolves who hadn’t already changed would be forced into it by magic.

  We were counting on the fact that Henry Remus didn’t know who we were or what I could do. If we were wrong about that, and he had had the foresight to, say, plant a gun somewhere in the park, we were screwed.

  As soon as we passed the park gate, I closed my eyes and focused hard on my radius. Finding the edges of it was getting easier and easier; whatever had thrown off my inner equilibrium seemed to be finally wearing off now, and my senses were attuned. I could feel the bargest six feet behind me, curled politely on the floor of the van, waiting for orders. But there was nothing else Old World in my range, even when I extended it.

  “Anything?” Jesse said quietly, trying not to startle me.

  Shaking my head, I opened my eyes. “No, but he could be anywhere in the park at this point. If, you know, we’re even right about this being the right place.”

  “We’re right,” Jesse said firmly. I couldn’t tell if he really believed it or was just trying to reassure me, but I was grateful either way. “Do you want to drive around the park awhile, see if you can feel him?”

  I considered the idea. “Nah,” I said finally. “There are a ton of places to park here, and they’re going to change any minute. When they do, they won’t need to stick to the trails. Better to wait for him to come to us.” If that’s even what he’ll do, I added in my head.

  Jesse nodded. “I’ll head toward the Observatory.”

  I didn’t respond. Doubts about this plan were eroding whatever half-assed, caffeine-fueled confidence I’d had in it. We thought we could predict what Henry Remus would do, but that was based on . . . what? A place that his mother thought he may have remembered from his childhood? It was so tenuous. The guy could still be in any park in the city; hell, any open area, really.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I read the new text with a grateful sigh. “They’re all set up at Will’s,” I said to Jesse. “She took the bait.”

  His shoulders relaxed a little. “Good,” he said. “Then it’s just the nova left.”

  Whe
n we reached Observatory Drive, I caught a quick, dim glimpse of the wide path Jesse had shown me in the photographs, before he drove right on past like we were going straight to the Observatory. There was a long line of cars parked on the side of the road already, and I spotted Kirsten’s vehicle among them. I gave it a little wave, just in case she was still inside.

  Jesse pulled the van over to park behind a big gray SUV with stickers of a little stick family decorating the back window. It was almost five. “Should we head for the scenic overlook,” I asked, “or wait a bit first?”

  “Let’s go to the outlook,” Jesse answered. “I’ll take Shadow.” We were counting on the bargest to be able to move swiftly where I couldn’t, and to catch the nova wolf if it somehow managed to evade my radius.

  He got out of the van, and a moment later the back door opened so Shadow could hop out. I turned in my seat to see her stretching her long limbs in the dying daylight. She yawned, displaying those terrifying fangs again.

  “And here we go,” I whispered.

  Chapter 45

  Jesse felt like they were so far out on a limb, he could no longer even see the tree trunk.

  He bent his left arm so Scarlett could take it, and with the bargest’s leash in his right hand, they started down the wide path toward the picnic area. The park was almost completely dark now, and although Jesse could make out a dim buzz of light and sound up the road next to the Observatory, the path itself was deserted. They were deep in the park now, well above the city, and soon the quiet began to unnerve him. With each step on the path, Jesse was half expecting the nova wolf to leap out of the shadowed hillside on his left, straight onto his shoulders, breaking his neck. Suddenly, Scarlett’s plan was feeling more and more idiotic. What the hell was he doing out here? He had no idea what the bargest would do even if it did scent a werewolf. For all he knew, the stupid thing wouldn’t move until he gave it a command in French. He glanced at Scarlett, who looked just as nervous. She gave him an encouraging nod, and they kept going. “Don’t turn around,” she whispered, “but I just saw Kirsten heading toward the path, so we shouldn’t be getting any humans this way.”