by Lynn Red
Erik was staring at me, obviously not sure what to do if I didn’t come through. Jamie had her normal quizzical, vaguely warm but still perplexing smile on her face. Even Clay wasn’t moving much, just fidgeting with his fingers.
“If there’s going to be a conspiracy, a plan, then you have to have motivations in the first place. Then there’s gotta be a way to complete the plan, and other plans have to be more difficult, or you’d do those, right?”
Duggan’s eyes just about lit up. “Very true. And I assume you’ve found these in that ledger?”
“In a way,” I said. My voice was starting to quaver a little, since I’d probably never spoken publicly as much in my entire life than I was right then.
Erik finished his lap around the table and sat down. I sat too, calming my nerves. He grabbed my hand under the table and squeezed, then put it on top where everyone could see. That one gesture carried so much weight and power that I immediately felt like everything was okay, that I could handle anything in that second.
“Go on,” Duggan said, leaning forward. “I want to believe you, Isabel, I think we all do.”
I nodded and gripped Erik’s hand for an anchor. “Well, the reasons I think we can safely assume Jenga did it are pretty simple. It was a lot of money, and he was making fairly large house payments.”
“I suppose it does take quite a lot of money to run all that cable from town out to his house in the mountains,” Duggan said.
Clay piped up, “Yeah, and he also had all them, you know, generators to keep repaired.”
“Right, but also, he knew he could get away with it,” I said. “He had a ready scapegoat that made it all very easy. Obviously, no one even checked out the story. It was just given – Atlas’s mate drove him crazy, stole a bunch of money and then cut town.”
“But,” Duggan said, “if this is to be believed, it was all taken a week after she left. I suppose it could have been done by proxy or by phone withdrawal, assuming she had the account password, or a friend at the bank.”
“It’s simple,” I said. “Everyone was so upset they never bothered to check the dates. The ledger doesn’t mention anything about weird withdrawals or the money going into new accounts, which if you look here,” I pointed to several marks in the margins, “shows when withdrawals went into new accounts, there had to be special verification given.”
I took a long breath, and stood up, disentangling my hand from Erik’s and taking the ledger around to Duggan, who put on his trifocals and followed my finger.
“I see,” he said. “But still, couldn’t Atlas’s mate have been in control of the whole thing? Perhaps she was pulling the strings from wherever she went?”
“Too complicated, again,” I said. “If there’s an obvious and plain solution, that’s going to be it. At least it’s enough to have Jenga hauled in and questioned, isn’t it? We can’t possibly prove him guilty without letting him speak for himself, but this is enough evidence for probable cause, right?”
Erik whistled. “I do believe I picked a good one,” he said with a grin that got my knees shaking. How he managed that in the middle of my nerves falling out of my brain was something I didn’t have time to think about right that second.
“Any other questions?” He asked, grabbing my hand and pulling. Apparently, he wanted to end this meeting and get back to the marking.
I blushed just a little and giggled at my own naughty thought, though I’m not entirely sure why. After all, he had just ravished me on the desk in my office while the security guy was outside the door.
“I... hate to be the one to, you know, say this,” Clay piped up, “but she hasn’t really addressed the rest of it. Sure, you know, there’s some good reasons for Jenga to have done what she says he did, you know, and it does make a certain amount of sense, but there’s still the issue of, you know, her driving you insane, Erik.”
I knew it was coming, but it still hurt to have it put out there.
“It comes down to trust, I guess,” I said. “If it’s true that purebloods drive shifters, then... I don’t know what to say.”
That was, terribly, true.
“So you admit it might be possible that your theory is hogwash?” Duggan asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
“This is getting a little out of hand,” Jamie said, from out of nowhere. “If she were anyone else – any person at all from Jamesburg, even Leon, you wouldn’t have given what she said a second thought. She’s got evidence, Duggan. If anyone else showed you that ledger, you’d have the Cheetah brigade arrest Jenga so fast you’d think they were, well, cheetahs.”
“What are you saying, Jamie? That I’m xenophobic? That I’m being unfair? I don’t understand this at all. I—”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Duggan sat there for a second, his mouth open and his lips moving but no sound was coming out. “I... I didn’t mean it like that at all, but it’s just a bit much all at once.”
“She’s right,” Erik said. “I had you three come because I thought you two would be the most reasonable. Chet and Danny and all the rest of them, I expect this but...”
“Erik,” Duggan said. “It’s not that we’re completely distrustful of her, it’s just this has been dropped on our laps all of a sudden, and it’s hard to digest.”
“We don’t need to do this,” I said. “It’s understandable that they don’t trust me. What reason would they have?”
“I’m sorry, Isabel,” Duggan began. “I just—”
“Are you willing to take a chance?” I cut him off. “Just go get him. Just send the police out to pick him up. That’s all I’m asking. If it turns out he didn’t do it, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure Erik won’t go bananas, and then I’ll leave. I don’t want to cause any problems, I just love him and I love this town, and I want to help.”
Jamie clicked across the floor, flanking Duggan. “Give her a chance. You hold the vote, Duggan,” she said. “We’ve got the alpha and the three senior council members here. If there’s a unanimous decision, the other six couldn’t override the choice.”
“But if we do that,” Duggan said, clicking his tongue against his teeth, “and we end up wrong? There will be chaos, Jamie. The rest of the council will be in an uproar if we go over their heads.”
“Do you trust me?” Erik asked.
“Erik, I—” Duggan started to respond before he was cut short.
“Answer me. I’m the alpha of this town. You two,” he gestured to Clay and Duggan, “were part of the group that chose me. So do you trust me? Personal things aside, because God knows I’ve got plenty of them. Do you two believe I have this town’s best interest in mind?”
Duggan looked over at Clay. Slowly, he started nodding.
“We... we do, Erik. Yes.”
“Good,” Erik said with a grin. “Then you trust her. She’s my mate, my sworn partner. She’s an extension of me, and me of her.”
Hearing him say that made all my insides tingle. No one had ever said anything remotely like that about me before. Hell, I don’t think anyone had ever had faith in me before just then.
“So,” Erik continued, that gorgeous, triumphant smile crawling across his face and those bright yellow eyes sparkling in the mid-morning sun that came through the windows. “I’m calling a vote. The alpha moves to arrest Jenga on charges of grand theft, conspiracy, and the high-crime of using a lifeless alpha to steal money.”
“Second,” Jamie said immediately.
“Motion has been pronounced and seconded. Two more high council votes will pass it. Clay Tomkins, how do you vote?”
Duggan and Clay exchanged another glance, and then Clay looked in my direction before wiping his moist lips with the back of his hand. “Aye,” he said, and started to nod.
“Good. Duggan?”
Without a second’s hesitation, Duggan looked straight at me. “Aye, I trust the girl.”
Erik smiled and grabbed my hand again. “You three, get the sq
uad mobilized. Jenga won’t put up a fight, but he’ll probably be cranky.”
“What are you doing?” Duggan asked. “Shouldn’t the alpha be present?”
Erik shook his head, and pressed his fingers into his temples, staring right at me. “You’re right. I really don’t want to be... no,” Erik said, stiffening up. “No more complaining. I run this town, right?”
Something that looked like pride, or maybe satisfaction, flashed across Duggan’s face. He opened his mouth to speak, but decided to be satisfied with a smile that said it all. Erik was growing up.
I was trembling as he pulled me to my feet. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got a witchdoctor to question and a zombie to confiscate.”
“Stalwart purpose!” Duggan was almost beaming as he slapped Erik’s shoulder. “I thought you’d gone soft!”
Erik looked over at me with a half-smile that spoke volumes. All I could do was smile back.
I love you, he’d say, if we were alone.
I’d say it too.
-9-
“He lives out here?” I said in shock as I threw my leg off of Erik’s bike. The damn thing was so big it hurt a little when I sat on it for very long. “Isn’t this some kind of malarial swamp or something? Ugh.”
I dodged a toad with a last-second hop. When I looked back at the croaker, he just stared at me. I wondered if maybe it was a Jamesburg citizen I avoided smashing, and giggled softly.
“Jenga’s a different breed,” Erik said, a note of disgust in his voice as he swept aside a drapery of Spanish moss. “But he’s not the only one out here. There’s a clutch of were-toads, and Crazy Mary’s house is somewhere around here, in the trees.”
“Wait,” I said with a grin. “Were-toads? You’re serious aren’t you?”
A half-smile and a semi-cocked eyebrow told me that yes, he absolutely was. Two years in the place, and some things still managed to surprise me. I shook my head and stepped over the stump of a tree so old it couldn’t even really be called wood anymore.
“What are you going to do? I mean, he’s got that zombie – er – alpha, or whatever you want to call it. Are you sure he’s not gonna try something stupid?” My foot sunk just a little into a sucking, smelly hole, which luckily was lined with enough moss to keep whatever horror there was under our feet from staining my shoe.
Erik cracked his knuckles. “I doubt he’ll do anything crazy.”
“Oh my God,” I groaned. Honestly, the super-macho thing drove me kinda nuts but it was so achingly ‘Erik’ that I couldn’t help but like it sometimes.
Despite my best intention to keep him from acting like Rambo, I felt a little twinge in the lower part of my stomach. I looked over at him, at his hard-clenched jaws and the slope of his huge shoulders where they joined his tree-trunk neck. The tattooed leaf poking out of his shirt twitched every time Erik tightened and relaxed his jaw, just like the mangroves or banyan trees or whatever they were rustling in the gentle swamp-air breeze.
Something wooden creaked out past the wall of green in front of us, and then slapped against something else.
Erik’s hand shot out and pressed against my chest in a silent warning. He turned to me with a finger on his lips and then looked backward, to where the panther police, one of whom was scratching his neck, along with Jamie and Duggan, were standing.
“Are you sure about this?” I whispered. “What if he’s got the place booby trapped?”
An awful, almost ghostly squeak started up then, and I felt my heart pound in my chest. The pulse in my temples was going right along with it, almost making my vision throb.
“It’s not... he’s turning his generator,” Erik hissed. “If he’s really gone broke, then his generator won’t run without cranking, so he’s probably got some kind of, uh, helper out there doing it for him.”
Looking down, he checked his watch. “It’s just about time for Price is Right. I can’t imagine he’d miss that.”
I started to giggle, but Erik shushed me with a hand around my mouth and a very stern shaking of his head. “Won’t be booby-trapped,” he said. “But we don’t want to startle him. I’m not in any danger – not really – but the last thing I want is to have my new jacket covered in zombie goo. So keep quiet.”
Nodding, I looked back at the green wall, trying to make out something behind it, but seeing only vaguely human outlines.
“That one’s big,” I said softly, looking at Erik who was focused on the figures.
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t want to come up against this.”
“What is it?”
“You can see that form through the trees, right? The big one? Going back and forth?” He turned to me, gritting his teeth.
I nodded, wondering what on earth could be bothering him this much when four seconds before he’d been oozing machismo. “Yeah but... you weren’t worried before.”
“I guess in the back of my mind I kinda didn’t believe all the stuff about Atlas, even with Leon showing off his finger. But...”
“That’s him?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Gotta be. There’s no one that big in Jamesburg. He’s the strongest bear we’ve ever had in town, but... I can only hope that being dead has been a serious detriment to his punching arm.”
A crunching sound made Erik go stiff again. He put his finger back to his lips and crouched, a wolf getting ready to pounce. The figure past the forest wall went still too, and there was an almost palpable tension emanating off Erik.
His muscles were all rock hard, taut and ready to explode. I saw him clench his fist, then relax it. The only time I ever saw him fight before, it was like this: he got as tight as a coiled up spring and then just exploded. Only this time, there wasn’t anywhere, or anyone, to explode at. Not yet anyway.
The figure took two halting, semi-shuffling steps toward our position.
“He heard us, or senses us, or maybe Jenga’s got motion detectors out here or—”
“I thought you said he wouldn’t have any booby traps,” I offered with a little smirk.
Erik raised his eyebrows and stifled a grin. “Somehow he knows we’re here and I don’t think this is going to end easy. I wanted to be done with fighting a long time ago, but I guess sometimes you don’t get exactly what you want.”
At that, he reached out, grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked me to him, kissing me hard and deep and sweet. I stared into his eyes and realized that there was something else there that he wasn’t admitting – pleasure at what he was about to do. Fighting was in his nature, and keeping those instincts quiet for so long had started to wear him down. No matter what he said or did, underneath it all, the spirit of a wolf burned hot behind Erik’s eyes.
When he watched my face, gaze smoldering, hands hot on my skin, and his taste lingering on my lips, I realized exactly why I fell in love with him in the first place.
“What was that for?” I asked, through a soft, surprised gasp. “Not that I’m complaining, but...”
“In case something happens. I don’t think it will, but you never know. Strong old bears are strong old bears. And I’m sure he’s got a little bit of his instinctual fight left in him, even if his fingers are falling off.”
I squeezed his hand.
The figure ambled closer.
“Hnnng?”
“What is it? Atlas?” a voice I didn’t recognize shouted from the distance, near where I assumed the witchdoctor’s house was. The voice was jangly and rambling. The words came out in a pattern as stumbling as the figure’s footsteps. “Atlas? Is something the matter? Is someone here?”
“Woods.” The word came in a sudden boom of sound. “Someone. Woods.”
“Well take care of it! We’ve got to get to the bank quickly if what that awful old Mary said about telling Leon is true. Someone will expect this! We’ve got to go soon, so take care of whatever it is.”
Atlas. I looked over at Erik, whose taut muscles had him trembling. All the cords on his neck stood out in ridge
s.
“Stay back,” he said, cracking his knuckles again. “I don’t want you hurt if it comes to a fight.”
Almost before he finished speaking, something burst through the woods and slammed into Erik’s side. He let out a terrible grunt and crashed into a bank of leaves, then bounced off a tree trunk and went to his knees, spraying a cascade of stagnant swamp water all around.
Atlas took a deep breath, and groaned. Every muscle in the ancient and apparently half-reconstructed body visibly flexed under his skin. The bones creaked as he watched Erik hold his ribs and stand back up.
A thin tendril of blood ran from Erik’s nose. He wiped it with a quick pass of his hand, and smiled a grin so eager it was a little shocking.
“I’ve wanted something like this for a long, long time,” Erik growled. He ran his tongue around his parted teeth as his shoulders tensed.
In the brief burst of excitement, I’d not noticed that the crooked witchdoctor had wandered up to the edge of the swampy area. I could make out his form on the other side of the tree-line. What struck my memory was his hunched, crooked shoulder. I remembered seeing him once and thinking how painful it must be.
“Atlas! Come back here! Where’ve you gone off to?” Jenga’s rambly, stumbling voice that rattled through the forest. “If they’re that far away you don’t need to chase them. Oh, goodness, he’s probably out after a squirrel again,” Jenga said with a sigh.
The two combatants stood, staring each other down, although one of Atlas’s eyes seemed to like to wander. That’s when I noticed his legs – they were very obviously not his own. The fur on them was a different color completely from the light dusting of hair that covered the bear’s stomach and chest.
“I’ve got your zombie, Jenga!” Erik shouted. “We know what you were planning. Come down here and do something about him before you get yourself in real trouble.”
In the exact same moment, the rickety old witchdoctor pushed through the undergrowth, and Atlas lowered his shoulder and charged straight at Erik.
