by Massey,M. D.
I need to figure this out before I lose her for good. Better that I live a full, long life and rejoin her in the afterlife, than for me to have her spirit with me for a few months or years, only for her to fade away and become lost to oblivion.
Shit. It’s like I’m killing her all over again. What am I going to do?
-McC
Austin, Texas—Present Day
Sonny walked us back to his boss’ den, which was a room in the back of their clubhouse with a small bar, pool table, large poker table and chairs, and a whole mess of pin-up posters featuring women who sported a lot of ink and not a lot else. It smelled of stale cigar smoke, weed, spilled liquor, and testosterone. And sex, which to be honest was kind of gross.
There were dartboards on the walls, which were dotted with a variety of knives and other sharp toys. Along one wall an impromptu shooting range had been set up, complete with a mannequin that had been shot more times than Bonnie and Clyde’s ’34 Ford. The brick wall behind it was peppered with fractures and bullet holes. I figured they’d just brick it over when it completely started to crumble.
I gave the place a once over and whistled. “My compliments to your decorator.”
Sonny chuckled. “You get enough wolves together in one place, and eventually you’re going to end up with something that looks like this joint.”
Belladonna blew a short puff of air from her nose. “Mid-century chauvinist—how charming. I thought you had more class than this, Colin.”
That remark surprised me, coming from Bells. I’d known her for a long time, and she’d always presented herself as a brassy, sexually liberated woman who took what she wanted and to hell with what anyone thought. In fact, I more or less thought of her as one of the guys; that is, when she wasn’t coming on to me. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense—because if anyone was going to have feminist values, it was Belladonna Becerra.
“Don’t assume I was talking about the posters, Bells.” I winked at Sonny behind his back and nodded while pointing at a nearby poster. He nodded back to me in shared solidarity over the universal male appreciation of the female form.
Belladonna wasn’t having it, and shook her head as we made our way through the room. “I saw that, Colin,” she stated with just the slightest bit of displeasure in her voice. “Stop being a pig, it doesn’t suit you. And besides, what would Jesse think?”
Belladonna always knew how to get me to behave. All she had to do was pull the Jesse card and I’d check myself in short order. “Sorry, Bells, I guess I just kind of think of you as one of the guys.”
Sonny’s eyes grew big as saucers, and he looked at me and shook his head ruefully. Belladonna glanced back and gave me a look that could curdle milk.
“Men,” she huffed, crossing her arms and giving me the evil eye.
Sonny led us to the table in back, and gestured that we should take a seat. I had the presence of mind to wait for Belladonna to sit first, but I also had the common sense to resist pulling a chair out for her. I didn’t remember it ever being this hard with Jesse; we just fit like a lock and key.
I got comfortable while Bells pointedly ignored my presence. Sonny patted me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear before walking away. “Samson likes you, so this should go well so long as you’re respectful and listen to what he has to say. But as for the girl, well—you touch that hot stove enough, and eventually you’ll learn how to stop when you’re ahead.”
Sonny nodded to Samson, who sat at the card table across from us, sipping a glass of whiskey and staring at nothing in particular. The table was lit by an overhead bulb, but he leaned back in his chair, just out of the circle of light made by the lampshade. Despite the shadows, I could make him out as he quietly sipped his liquor and stared off into a far corner of the room.
The Pack alpha was nothing much to look at; he was neither large, nor muscular, nor physically imposing in any way. I guessed his height at about five-foot-ten, his weight at about one hundred and seventy-five pounds, and noted that he was lean and wiry like a rodeo cowboy. He sported the thick, unruly facial hair that seemed to be popular with a lot of the Pack, but his head was clean shaven. He had tattoos on his long, chiseled forearms, and wore his colors on a leather vest, bare-chested, like he was daring you to say something about it. Yet he had a presence that was both intimidating and strangely comforting all at once, kind of like Chuck Norris. One look at the guy and you didn’t know whether you wanted to fight him, run from him, or be his best friend.
I was leaning toward fighting him, at the moment. Just being around him was stirring something within me that I didn’t want to let out, and I gripped the edge of the table in order to suppress the urge to jump across it at him.
He set his drink on the table, rocking forward so his face was clearly visible in the light. His ice blue eyes fixed me in place, shining with gold flecks as his rough baritone voice cut through the low thrum of Southern rock that drifted through the walls from next door.
“I can help you calm that beast inside. But you’d have to submit, and I don’t think you’re ready for that yet. Damned shame, because I can see how it’s eating at you, day by day. You’re gonna lose that battle, eventually, if you don’t learn how to control it.”
His voice cut through the rage building inside of me, and calmed me instantly. I shook my head and took a deep breath, relaxing as the Pack magic he exerted washed over me.
“Couldn’t do that without having the Pack close by,” he explained. “Figured it was better than having you wig out on me. Not that I wouldn’t like to see how that turned out, but I have my Pack to consider. ’Sides, I need your cooperation if we’re going to sort out this mess we’re in.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, still not sure whether I liked being subdued by Pack magic. At that moment, Sonny, Sledge, and a few other ’thropes burst into the room. Two of them had guns in hand, and Sledge carried a hammer that would have given Mjolnir a run for its money.
“You alright boss?” he asked with concern in his voice.
Samson raised a hand dismissively. “Appreciate the concern, boys, but it’s alright. Just had a little disagreement between my beast and his. Nothing to be alarmed about.”
Sledge fixed us with a look that said he didn’t like it, and to watch it or he’d be back. “We’ll be outside if you need us,” he said as they left and closed the door.
Belladonna leaned on the table with both elbows and made eye contact with Samson, sparing me a glance that said I still wasn’t out of the doghouse. Of course, I never knew there was a doghouse to begin with, but that didn’t matter because I obviously didn’t get a say.
“If you two are done,” she stated coolly, “we have serious matters to discuss.”
Samson laughed to himself and took a pull from his glass. He looked at me with sympathy. “What’d you do to piss her off? Never mind, none of my business.”
He emptied his glass and addressed us both in turn. “Look, I know why you’re here, and I know that the Circle and Maeve both probably think the Pack has been killing elves on fae land. But I’m here to tell you that it wasn’t a wolf who killed those elves. It might look that way, but that’s just because someone wants a war between the Pack and the Fae Court.”
Belladonna’s eyes were slits as she spoke. “I was told by the Circle that the bites, marks, and wounds on those fae were conclusively made by a lycanthrope. I can’t see any reason why my superiors would lie to me about such things. Our theory is that you have a rogue wolf in your Pack, or that there’s an independent player, a lone wolf who is operating independent of your authority.”
Samson stroked his beard and pursed his lips in thought. “Well, I have to admit that your theory sounds perfectly reasonable—except that’s not the case. Pack bonds allow me to know what my Pack members are up to whenever they’re in a heightened emotional state. Fear, shame, rage, love—these are all emotions that we feel through the Pack bonds.”
“Must be a bitch to keep a
nything secret,” I quipped.
He smirked. “You don’t know the half of it. We don’t have a lot of females in the Pack, which is just the way it shakes out. No one ever wants to turn a female, because the process is, well, violent. But when we have females around and two Pack members are involved, everyone knows it. It’s why a lot of our Pack members end up mating with mundanes.”
Belladonna leaned away from the table and shook her head slightly. “I’m just not buying it. I saw the bodies, and there are few creatures that would’ve savaged a body like that. It was a classic ’thrope attack, in each and every case.”
The alpha drummed his fingers on the table, then stood up suddenly. “Follow me. I’m going to show you something that few people know about, but if it helps convince you that we’re not involved with those killings, I’ll just have to take the risk that word doesn’t get out.”
I pushed away from the table and rose to follow him. “Why all the secrecy?”
He raised a hand dismissively. “You’ll see. This way.”
We followed him out a side door, down a hallway and into a kitchen area. In the kitchen, he pulled a trap door open and flipped a light switch nearby. A light came on below, illuminating a set of wooden stairs leading into a basement.
Samson gestured for us to enter. “After you.”
Belladonna hesitated to enter, and I didn’t blame her. Creepy basements topped my list of least favorite places to go in an enemy stronghold.
I looked at Samson and raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
He rubbed his forehead. “If I had wanted you two dead, I’d have had the Pack kill you before you ever got near me. But fine, I’ll lead the way if it makes you feel any better.” The wolf descended the stairs, and I followed him down with Belladonna on my heels.
The basement area looked to be used for food preparation as well as storage. Cases of beer and liquor lined the walls, stacked in neat rows, and the concrete floor was polished and spotless. A drain sat just a few feet from a stainless steel table that held a huge butcher block—and a collection of knives and other cutlery that would impress Dexter.
I pointed at the table and floor drain. “You’re not doing much for my confidence here, you know.”
He sighed. “We’re lycanthropes—we eat a lot of pork and beef. I have to buy it in bulk straight from the ranchers who raise them, else we’d go broke in no time. There’s only so much meth you can run without getting caught, you know.”
I tilted my head and shrugged slightly. “At least you’re honest.”
Samson walked over to a large stainless steel door and pulled it open. Inside was a walk-in cooler with sides of beef and pork hanging from steel butcher’s hooks, just as he’d said. The fog cleared from the room, revealing three frozen, headless, and very dead werewolves. All three bodies were propped against the back wall in a neat furry row.
15
Journal Entry—9 Months, 9 Days A.J.
I met Belladonna at the coffee shop today, and it turns out that she’s been doing more digging in the Circle archives. She says we need to find a way to communicate with Jesse so we can find out what she wants or needs, and convince her to move on. I told her that I’ve been talking to Jesse nonstop, and that nothing I say seems to make the slightest difference; I still feel her presence at my house, just like before.
Belladonna said that from what she’s read in the archives, if we don’t figure out a way to clearly communicate with Jesse, then we might never be able to help her leave this plane of existence. She’ll be trapped here until she fades away into nothing. I can’t accept that, but neither I nor Belladonna know how to speak with the dead.
But, I know someone who does. And even though I swore I’d never have anything to do with him again, it looks like I’m going to need Finn’s help to fix this mess.
My only worry is that I’ll go apeshit on him and kill him before he can help us speak to Jesse’s ghost.
-McC
Austin, Texas—Present Day
Belladonna was the first to comment. “Holy shit, what happened to them?”
Samson tongued a molar and tsked. “Far as we can tell, they were paralyzed by a magical spell of some sort and decapitated. None of the bodies show any sign of a major struggle, and we all know that werewolves don’t go down easy. The only problem with that theory is, none of them smell like magic.”
That was interesting, but not unusual. Most magical spells left a sort of scent or imprint on the recipient. And if you were familiar with a particular magic user’s signature, you could easily identify them by detecting that scent or imprint. Which was why a lot of magic users who plied their trade on the wrong side of the law learned how to remove traces of their magic from their victims.
“Do you mind if I examine them?” I asked.
Samson nodded. “Help yourself, just be respectful. Once we fully recover the bodies, we’ll need to give them a proper burial.”
For weres and other supernatural creatures, that often meant a funeral pyre. It was common knowledge that curses could be worked by gathering hair or other DNA from the victim. Superstition and myth said that one could be cursed that way, even in the afterlife. Also, many creatures were concerned about being brought back from the dead by a necromancer. But in modern times, it was suspected that the government was experimenting on supernatural creatures in an attempt to control or weaponize them. None of the powers that be among the supernatural species were interested in contributing to that cause, so most had taken to burning their dead.
I walked into the cooler and used my second sight to examine the corpses. Just as Samson had claimed, they were devoid of all traces of magic, save for the remnants of their own innate werewolf magic. Seeing nothing of interest, I used my mundane vision to examine them for less obvious wounds, the kind that might have been missed by someone not familiar with investigative techniques.
Being druid-trained, I’d been taught by Finnegas how to identify signs of poisoning, trauma, magic, and other common causes of death among both supernatural and mundane creatures. But these ’thropes showed no signs of struggle, and they bore no hidden wounds that might have contributed to their demise. They didn’t smell of poison, either, although I assumed that Samson would have mentioned it if they had. The cause of death was obvious, but how the killer or killers managed to behead three full-grown and transformed werewolves without a scuffle pointed to only one possibility: magic. Powerful magic.
Belladonna had joined me inside the cooler and examined one of the other weres. “Whoever did this was a first-rate magic user. Weres are naturally resistant to magic, and tend to shake off most paralysis spells pretty quickly.”
“Even for a strong magic user, if would’ve taken a lot of juice to hold one of these ’thropes while their accomplice dealt the finishing blow. And look at these cuts—there are no jagged edges. Whoever finished these ’thropes off must’ve been using a +5 vorpal sword to make cuts this clean.”
Bells punched my shoulder, a little harder than what might be considered playful. “You are such a nerd.”
I raised my hand. “Guilty, as charged.”
I walked out of the cooler and found Samson sitting on the steel table. “You think the fae did this?”
He sniffed and made an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “My instincts tell me that’s what happened, that these wolves were taken out by a fae hit squad as payback for losing their own. But my gut tells me that this was only made to look like it was done by fae.”
Belladonna strode out of the cooler, shutting the door behind her. “You think it’s all a set up.”
The alpha clucked his tongue. “Don’t you?”
Belladonna crossed her arms and barked a short laugh. “I don’t like it, if that’s what you’re asking. But I’m still not convinced that this isn’t a turf war between you and Maeve.”
I sighed. “C’mon, Bells, seriously? What benefit would that be for the Pack? Maeve’s power base and interests are in keeping t
he fae hidden from humans, and exerting power and influence behind the scenes. They get their jollies from swapping human babies with doppelgängers, taking humans Underhill to be used as slaves, and using sexual magic to seduce and then slowly kill human men and women. Samson and his Pack make their money in vice, plain and simple. Neither side has anything the other wants.”
She ran her fingers through her long, thick hair and hissed. “But it doesn’t make any sense. Who’d want to pit Maeve against the wolves?”
Samson stood up. “I know my opinion means shit here, because I obviously have a vested interest in clearing the Pack’s rep. But if you ask me, a tussle between the fae and the Pack would be the perfect distraction, to keep the Circle and everyone else occupied while something big was going down.”
“It’s a possibility,” I said. “Who else knows about—” I nodded toward the cooler “—them?”
“Outside of this room? Just Sledge and two other enforcers. And they know how to keep their muzzles shut. If word of this got out, the Pack would demand that we go to war with the fae. So we’re keeping it under wraps, just until we figure out who murdered our Pack members. But I already have ’thropes asking questions about the missing wolves, and starting to get suspicious.”
Belladonna’s eyes narrowed as she addressed the alpha. “I’ll keep this quiet as long as I can. Just know that the Circle is going to keep investigating the Pack for these murders. And if I can’t bring them a suspect within a day or two, my superiors are likely to assume that you’re protecting the guilty party.”
Samson laughed without smiling. “If I can’t figure out who’s behind this in a day or so, word is going to get out. And if that happens, we’re going to have an all-out war on our hands. The Circle will be the least of the Pack’s problems.”
I extended my hand to the alpha. “Thanks for your time and cooperation, Samson. I give you my word that I’ll let you know what I find out. I doubt Maeve’s behind any of this, and if that’s the case she’s aware that it’s not the wolves killing her people.”
