Winter Wolf

by RJ Blain

  “Don’t worry, Detective. Fenerec business.” Alex leaned his leg against me. I put my ears back and bared my teeth.

  “No biting,” Richard ordered, glaring at me.

  I felt something at the command, kin to the surge of power in a thunderstorm. Shaking the sensation off, I growled a little, leaning back against Alex, making him stagger.

  “I’m not the one giving the orders,” the younger of the Murphy brothers protested, raising his hands defensively.

  “Brace yourselves. It’s rather bad. We haven’t touched the bodies, and we didn’t want to cover them in case you needed to see them, Detective.” Richard paused at the threshold to the living room. “Alex, if she doesn’t want to come in, stay with her.”

  “Of course.”

  My relief at his offer didn’t last long. Remaining in the hallway with Alex would only delay the inevitable. I didn’t want to face what waited for us, but unless I ran away again, I’d have to. Despite my fear and anxiety over what I’d witness in the next room, I stepped forward to face my father and the consequences of what I had done to save the woman in my body.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I didn’t make it into the room before the stench of death, blood, and disease overwhelmed my nose. The wolf within tried to filter out the smell, but she also recoiled at the intensity of the odors.

  “I don’t suppose we can take pictures and be done with this, can we?” Amber asked in a weak voice, breathing through her mouth.

  Detective Harding pulled out a slender camera from a pocket. “I’m planning on taking photographs of the scene. Once the dead Fenerec is taken care of and the site cleaned, I can deal with the human bodies in a more traditional fashion.”

  “How long until you can get witches in here to clean up?” Richard asked.

  “Depends on how many witches I’ll need. Won’t know until I see the Fenerec’s body.”

  When Detective Harding lifted his chin and strode forward, I trailed after him. The wolf wasn’t happy about going closer to the source of the smell. I wasn’t happy about going closer either.

  We made it to the end of the hallway when my father and the woman in my body joined us. My father was pinching the bridge of his nose. Without his scowl, he looked tired and worn out.

  “Mr. Desmond?” Amber brushed by me, coming to a halt in front of my father. “This is the detective.”

  “Harding,” the cop supplied, holding out his hand to my father. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  “Detective.” My father stared at Detective Harding’s hand for a long moment before shaking with the Inquisitor. “If it’s all the same to you, we’ll wait here while you take a look at the bodies.”

  The woman in my body stared at me, mouth partially open. While I could still recognize my own face, there were differences—noticeable ones, which alarmed me. My body looked older and the scars on my neck were more faded than I remembered.

  “I won’t be long.” Harding stepped around my father and vanished into the room beyond. The detective’s cursing was punctuated by the snap of a camera.

  We waited in silence.

  When Detective Harding returned, he looked nauseated. “I’ll call for cleanup. It’ll probably be a few hours, considering the state of the Ferenec’s body.”

  “Let’s head outside.” My father marched down the hallway and everyone else followed after him. The woman in my body waited for the others to go first.

  “Thank you,” she whispered before sweeping by me.

  So absorbed with their desire to get away, no one noticed that I didn’t follow. Once they were out of sight, I gathered my courage and stepped into the room.

  A shudder rippled through me. There was something almost merciful about the fact there wasn’t much of left of the Fenerec. Dominic and Patrick’s bodies lay where they had fallen near the couch.

  The feelings of guilt and terror I had expected didn’t come. Alarmed at my lack of emotions, I stepped closer. In death, Dominic wore an expression of annoyance and anger, matching the moment he had struck the woman for her defiance of him. Patrick looked surprised and alarmed.

  “What are you doing?” Richard asked from behind me. “Come on, we’ve things to discuss.”

  I twisted around, pinning my ears back. My wolf’s amusement silenced my urge to growl at the Alpha Fenerec. I turned back to Dominic, sighed, and shuffled to Richard’s side. Without another word, he herded me outside to where the others waited.

  “It seems she wanted to have a look,” Richard said when we were close enough he didn’t have to shout to be heard. “Amber, is there anything you can tell us?”

  “I can speculate, but I can’t tell you fact,” she replied.

  “I can tell you what happened,” the woman in my body said, her voice soft but confident. “It started a few years ago when I first met Dominic. He liked me and didn’t take my refusal seriously. He didn’t believe I was married, the stupid fool. He wasn’t the type to take no for an answer. A year ago, I ran into him in the city and he invited me to see a movie. He made it seem like it was a group of friends going to see the same film. That wasn’t the case.”

  Huffing her disgust, the woman gestured to the house. “He caught me off guard and I ended up becoming a guest in his basement. By that point, I was already sick and it got worse with each transformation. Six months ago, I joined with my wolf and stayed that way. I don’t remember much more after that until she came.”

  “You mean Nicole,” Richard said.

  “Nicolina,” the woman corrected. “Like me, she was taken by surprise. At first, he had taken her as a charity case because she looked so much like me. But that changed when Dominic realized how sick I was. He wanted to find a way to cure me, but the plague has no cure. He didn’t believe me, so he hired a sorcerer. If he couldn’t cure my body, he meant to give me a new one. Nicolina was perfect for what he needed. He didn’t know how right he was.”

  “He hired several sorcerers.” Amber shook her head. “Nicole killed one in Vegas. I was given orders to take him down, but she ended up being the one to finish him off.”

  “Nicole killed the one in Vegas?” Richard’s tone deepened with annoyance. “You didn’t tell me that, Amber.”

  “You were busy at the time.”

  “Not too busy for something like that!”

  My father cleared his throat. “Enough, both of you. How did Nicole do this?”

  Amber’s cheek twitched and judging from the way her jawline paled, she had clenched her teeth. When she refused to speak, my father growled.

  “It’s not important how she did it,” Richard said. “If Amber says Nicole did it, Nicole did it. The how isn’t important right now. What is important is figuring out how to get them back into their own bodies.”

  “I’m not sure it’s possible,” Amber whispered.

  Richard paled and his scent soured with anxiety. “What? What do you mean, Amber?”

  “Lisa looks fine, but… but Nicole doesn’t. Her aura is a mess. It’s tattered. I don’t know what the sorcerer did to her, but to my sight, it looks like she’s been poked full of holes.” Amber’s voice broke. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

  Lisa? I stared at the woman in my body, then at my father, then back at the woman. If Dominic had chosen me because of my similarity to her, and her name was Lisa, did that mean this Lisa was my twin? I hadn’t believed my initial suspicion—it was too unlikely, too coincidental. But it explained why no one had seen Lisa for so long—she’d been a prisoner under my agent’s house the entire time. Had the fact we were twins saved my life when I otherwise would have died to the sorcerer’s magic?

  I wanted to howl from frustration as I tried to piece together what had happened to us—and why we couldn’t swap back.

  “She did not look that way before?” My father asked with surprise.

  I whipped my head around to face him. What did he mean by that?

  “Of course not! I mean, her aura has always been differe
nt, but she was definitely never full of holes.” The offense in Amber’s voice mollified me a little. “Really, Mr. Desmond. How rude.”

  My father’s eyebrows rose. “Pardon?”

  Lisa cleared her throat. “Please. This is not helping us solve the problem. She’s in my body and I’m in hers. How do we fix it?”

  “Without the sorcerer who did it in the first place, I’m not sure we can. And even if we could, with her aura in that condition, I’m not sure she’d survive it.” Amber bowed her head.

  “What does her aura have to do with anything?” Richard asked in a terse voice.

  “Auras are a reflection of someone’s life, Richard. Whatever the sorcerer did to them almost killed her.” Amber made an angry sound. “I’d kill him myself if he weren’t already dead.”

  Richard crossed his arms over his chest. “So one of those men was a sorcerer?”

  “The one who was shot twice,” Lisa said, gesturing to her chin and shoulder. “His name was Patrick. No loss there. He was a womanizing…”

  “Rapist?” Amber suggested.

  “I’d believe that.”

  “Sorcerers typically are,” my father rumbled. “That’s how they get the most power from someone, and that’s why the Inquisition hunts them down. Normally, however, they do not stay on the loose this long.”

  Detective Harding shrugged. “You know as well as I do that we send people after them whenever we identify them, Mr. Desmond. The smart ones elude us. It happens sometimes. I don’t like it, but it happens.”

  “She’s human,” my sister hissed through clenched teeth. “What’s going to happen to her now?”

  An awkward silence fell over the group. I chafed under my inability to communicate with them.

  “Use your nose, Lisa,” Richard suggested.

  “My nose?” Lisa blinked a few times, but obeyed, her nostrils flaring. “I smell Fenerec, the disease, and blood.”

  “Do you smell a human here?” Richard pointed at Detective Harding. “Even he stinks of witch.”

  “I don’t,” my twin replied in a puzzled voice. “But she’s stuck in my body. Wouldn’t she smell like a Fenerec because of that?”

  “If that were the case, you would smell like a human, Lisa. You smell like a Fenerec.” Richard ran a hand through his hair. “Desmond has the strongest scent. No surprise there. Amber and Detective Harding smell like witches. You, Miss Desmond, smell like a Fenerec—one who recently transformed back to a human. Nicole didn’t smell like a Fenerec before. Her scent was different. My nose doesn’t lie. You’re still a Fenerec, even though you’re not in your body.”

  “He’s right,” Amber said, squinting a little as she stared at my twin. “You’re a Fenerec; there’s no doubt about it.”

  “But what about her?” Lisa asked, pointing at me. “She’s a dog now!”

  The wolf within was so offended that she took over long enough to voice a very menacing growl. I relinquished control and savored the wildness she radiated as she put our ears back, bared our fangs, and raised our hackles. Our muscles tensed as she considered the best way to reprimand the Fenerec for the insult.

  The rap of knuckles on the top of my head broke the wolf’s hold on me. I twisted around, snapping my teeth. Richard tugged at one of my ears. “Behave.”

  I bristled at the command in his tone.

  “If she’s a dog, you’re an ill-bred mutt,” Amber spat.

  “Amber!” Richard boomed.

  “Enough, Enough. Stop antagonizing them, Lisa. She’s not a dog. She is a rather large and angry wolf,” my father said, stepping towards me. I hunkered down, backing away at his approach. “Stop that. I’m not going to hurt you, foolish girl. Someone has to teach you how to change back.”

  “Mr. Desmond, with all due respect, that’s not your job.” Amber trembled, but she met my father’s gaze with a lifted chin.

  “And it’s yours?” he challenged.

  “It’s like watching a group of high schoolers on TV,” Alex muttered. “Now is not the time or the place for a territory dispute. Amber claimed status as her witch, making it her responsibility. What claim do you declare you have over her?”

  Richard opened his mouth, and Alex stomped his heel down on his brother’s foot. “Not you,” he said.

  Richard’s teeth clacked together. Both Lisa and my father glowered but said nothing. I cocked my head to the side, first at Alex before turning my attention to Amber.

  “I’m not trying anything until she has time to rest and recover. Unless you’re trying to kill her,” Amber said, sniffling.

  My father frowned. “How long?”

  “However long it takes and not a moment sooner. Once she’s ready, I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Amber can take care of Nicole,” Richard announced. “And as Amber is under my hire, it’s my responsibility to ensure nothing awry happens to either one of them in the interim.”

  “It’s not a contest, damn it!” Alex looked like he wanted to stomp on his brother’s foot again. “Have none of you thought to ask her what she wants?”

  I wasn’t the only one to blink at Alex. What did I want?

  “Perhaps we should discuss this elsewhere,” my father suggested, making a sweeping motion at Dominic’s house. “This doesn’t seem like the most conducive place for such a talk.”

  “That’s my cue to get my end of things handled,” Detective Harding announced, pulling a phone out of his pocket. “Considering what I’ve heard, I’m going to suggest to my superiors that this incident be filed as a homicide/suicide.”

  “You’re not going to hunt the killer?” Alex asked in surprise.

  “Mr. Murphy, I’ve been a cop for a long time. Someone with Mr. Calveno’s wealth would have bought himself out of any crime we could have stuck to him. At best, if someone had found a Fenerec in his basement, he’d be charged with unlawful handling of an exotic animal. That’s it. We know better, but the law wasn’t written for Fenerec or Inquisitors. It was written for Normals.” Detective Harding shook his head. “I’ve see abuse victims before. It’s very obvious someone struck you across the face several times, Miss Desmond. I view it this way: whoever shot those two men spared them from a far less merciful death at the hands of your pack.”

  My father’s expression turned stony, but he said nothing. Lisa pursed her lips and likewise remained silent.

  With a low, dry chuckle, Richard flicked one of my ears. “Suicide by angry Fenerec, then?”

  “There are few dumber things I can think of than raising a hand to a Fenerec female,” Harding said. “If she doesn’t rip your face off, one of her pack will. If one of you did happen to pull the trigger, it might be wise to ensure the gun is properly melted down so it doesn’t resurface. It wouldn’t do the Inquisition—or you—any good if a Normal poked around and happened to discover the murder weapon. I have power to twist some things, but those bullets will remain as evidence. The ‘murder weapon’ will be registered and put in storage, where it is lost in some clerical error. It happens sometimes.”

  “Thanks, Detective,” Alex said. “We’ll make sure the weapon disappears permanently.”

  “Once you find it, of course,” Harding said, arching an eyebrow.

  “Of course,” Alex said.

  “Get out of here. This is a crime scene, and I won’t have any of you making more of a mess of it than you already have,” Harding ordered, pointing at the gate. “If you do happen to find the weapon… I don’t want to know about it.”

  I stared at Harding in amazement, and it wasn’t until Richard shoved me with his knee that I realized the others were waiting for me. Huffing, I followed the others to the street.

  “Let’s go to my place. I’ll take the Desmonds. I don’t think Nicole will fit in my car,” Amber said.

  “It’ll be a tight fit in mine, but we’ll manage. I’ll need directions,” Richard replied.

  After arrangements were made, Richard took me to his car, bowing to me after he opened the back
door. “Ladies first.”

  I managed to scramble inside without shredding the leather upholstery.

  ~~*~~

  By the time we reached Amber’s condo, I shook with exhaustion. I only made it several feet into the sitting room before flopping over with no intention of moving. Richard stared down at me, nudging me with his sock-covered toe.

  “You’re going to be in the way if you stay there,” he said.

  “So step over her,” Amber said from where she sat on her couch. “I took the liberty of ordering pizza. I’m in no condition to cook right now.”

  “Why do you have a cooler in your refrigerator anyway?” Lisa asked from the kitchen.

  “They’re samples of the plague and various cold viruses. I recommend leaving them alone.”

  “You have the plague in your fridge?” my twin asked incredulously.

  “I certainly can’t keep them on the counter. Where else would I put them?”

  “Why do you have plague samples?” my father asked.

  With a sigh, Amber lurched upright and gathered things from her coffee table, ferrying them to one of the adjacent rooms. “We were doing tests trying to work out a cure for the plague. Can’t work on a cure without samples of the plague, now can we?”

  My father went into the kitchen and pulled out the cooler, carrying it back to the couch to set it on the coffee table. Dish by dish, he emptied the cooler, reading the labels. “I see. Did you make any progress, then?”

  “Some. Unfortunately, our efforts were cut short.”

  “So they were. I was hoping for something more concrete. With the full moon on the rise, a lot of Fenerec will die if something isn’t done soon.” My father held up one of the dishes, frowning at it. “It seems switching bodies bought my daughter some time at least.”

  “Alex is looking better too,” Amber pointed out. “Why?”

  The younger Murphy brother pointed at me. “You’d have to ask her.”

  “Which we can’t do until she’s able to return to human form.” Amber crossed her arms over her chest. “I was serious. You can’t try to force her until she has a chance to rest and heal. You’ll kill her.”