by Tim Waggoner
“Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.”
Garth left the kitchen without looking at Melody again. After a moment, Dean returned.
“The sheriff’s on his way.” Dean turned to Melody. “Which means you need to scoot on out of here.”
Melody started to protest, but Sam interrupted her.
“We’re not going to take you in for interfering with an investigation, but that doesn’t mean the sheriff won’t. Plus, as the editor of the local paper, you need to maintain a good relationship with him, right? Imagine how tight-lipped he’d become if you pissed him off by being here when you shouldn’t.”
She considered this for a moment. “Okay, but tell me this much, at least. Was Amos killed the same way as Clay Fuller? Is his heart missing?”
“At this juncture, we can neither confirm nor deny anything,” Dean said. “But yeah, that’s what we think.”
Sam shot Dean a look, but Dean ignored him.
Melody departed then, and Sam and Dean went to the living room and watched through the window to make sure she actually got in her Jeep and drove off. She did, and the brothers stepped outside to look for Garth.
Sam was glad Melody was gone. There was no place for a civilian on a case like this. It was too dangerous, and not only might she get herself killed, they’d be distracted by trying to ensure her safety, which might get them killed.
“She’s going to be trouble,” Dean said.
Sam hoped Melody would stay out of the way until the case was concluded, but he doubted she would. She was inquisitive and persistent. Excellent traits for a reporter, but ones that could become major pains in the ass for the Winchesters.
Sam decided to worry about her later. Right now they had work to do.
They found Garth at the northern side of the house, crouching in front of the broken basement window and sniffing the ground. Even in the dim light of dusk, Sam could see a trail of blood leading from the window across the yard and into the woods.
“This is all Amos’s blood,” Garth said. “There were three lycanthropes, and while they all entered through the bedroom window, they exited here. Two males, one female. Family by their scent. Mother and sons would be my guess.”
Garth stood. He had smears of blood on a couple of fingers, and he raised those fingers to his mouth, almost as if he intended to lick them clean. He seemed to realize what he was about to do, and he stepped several feet away from the blood trail, knelt, and wiped his fingers clean on the grass. Then he stood once more and faced Sam and Dean.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I haven’t been around a scene this… extreme since before I became a lycanthrope. It’s more of a struggle to control myself than I expected. But don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”
Garth didn’t sound as confident as his words suggested, but Sam decided not to make an issue of it. Dean also made no comment, but Sam knew his brother was thinking the same thing he was. If Garth couldn’t control himself and wolfed out, would they be forced to put him down? If it became necessary, could they kill their old friend? Sam thrust these thoughts away. When you were a hunter, sometimes it was best to live in the moment and deal with the future when it came.
It was almost full dark now, and the wind had kicked up, rustling dry leaves and causing bare branches to scrape together.
“I’m going to follow the lycanthropes’ trail and see where it leads,” Garth said.
“We’ll come with you,” Dean offered, but Garth shook his head.
“Nothing personal, but you guys would only slow me down. Plus, I can move silently, but to someone with enhanced hearing—such as lycanthropes—you’d sound like a couple of extremely large and clumsy elephants crashing through the woods.”
“Nothing personal, he says,” Dean muttered.
“Be careful,” Sam told Garth. “And if you find the werewolves, don’t engage them on your own. We know there’s at least three, but there might be more if they belong to a pack.”
Garth nodded. “‘A wise wolf knows when to growl and when to remain silent.’ You two head down the road a couple miles and park on the shoulder. I’ll meet you there when I’m done.”
Before either Sam or Dean could say anything more, Garth assumed his werewolf form, transforming so swiftly that there seemed to be no transition between the two. One moment he was human Garth, and he was werewolf Garth the next. Sam thought that Garth had been holding back the change so long, that once he finally gave in to it, it happened immediately.
Garth gave them a last look with eyes that were now feral yellow, before loping toward the trees, moving with a quiet grace that his gawky form didn’t seem capable of. He entered the woods, making no sound despite the dry autumn leaves on the ground. Sam and Dean watched him run until he was lost to the night shadows gathering among the trees.
“I’m getting sick of his Way of the Fang crap,” Dean said. “It’s really annoying.”
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Sam said. “Maybe you could do your own version and call it The Way of the Hunter.”
Dean opened his mouth, and Sam expected he was going to say it was a stupid idea, but then he paused and grew thoughtful.
“The Way of the Hunter,” he mused. “That does have a nice ring to it.”
THIRTEEN
Melody drove away from Amos’s property. Night had arrived, or close enough to it, and she had her headlights on. She was leaving with mixed feelings. She now knew that Amos had been killed, but the agents had hustled her out of there before she could learn much more.
She called the sheriff. She’d promised she’d fill him in after her trip to Amos’s place, and she knew if she wanted to count on his future cooperation, she needed to make good on that promise.
Alan answered right away. He barked an irritated hello, and Melody said hi in her sweetest voice.
“What is it?” the sheriff said. “I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”
She could hear the sound of a car engine and guessed he was driving. “On your way to Amos Boyd’s place, I assume.”
“Not at the moment.”
She frowned. “Why? You told the agent that you were on your way.”
Alan was silent for several seconds before speaking again. “When did this happen?”
Melody had hoped to leverage her knowledge of Amos’s death to get Alan to give her an exclusive interview. She’d hint—not threaten—to tell the larger media outlets about Amos’s murder if he didn’t. But the conversation had taken an unexpected turn, and she was confused.
“One of them called you, not more than ten minutes ago.”
“I received no such call.”
Was Alan lying to her? Or had the agent lied?
“Like I told you before, I followed those two FBI agents after they left my office. Three agents, if you count their true-crime writer friend. Anyway, they went to Amos’s house, and I sneaked inside while they were checking the place out. One of them called you, or at least pretended to. They asked me to leave after that, and I did.”
“Why were they there?” Alan asked. “Did something happen to Amos?”
She told him, and when she was finished, he asked, “So you didn’t actually see the body yourself?”
“No. They discouraged me from doing so. But I’m sure it was there.” But now that she thought of it, was she really sure? Maybe they’d lied about Amos’s body too. The true-crime writer had insisted he could smell the blood from the basement, but she hadn’t been able to smell anything.
“Okay. Don’t publish anything about this yet, not until I have a chance to check on it, all right?”
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious about this. I’m not sure what those agents are up to—or if they’re even who they say they are—and I don’t want them to know that we’re on to them. Not until the time is right.”
Melody felt a surge of excitement. It looked like her big story was getting bigger all the time. “I’ll hold the story back—on one cond
ition.”
Alan sighed. “Yes, you can have an exclusive interview with me when it’s all over.”
She grinned. “Then it’s a deal.”
She ended the call and slipped her phone back into her pocket. She had no idea what was going on in her little town, but whatever it was, it would make one hell of a story. When she got home, she planned to start typing up some notes, maybe even take a stab at a first draft. Just because she’d promised not to publish the story didn’t mean she couldn’t start working on it.
She continued heading toward town, mentally composing her lead paragraph as she drove.
* * *
After his conversation with Melody, Alan clenched his hand and shattered the phone into shards of plastic, glass, and broken electronics. He tossed the pieces to the floor of the sheriff’s cruiser and held out his hand. The palm and fingers had been cut but he barely noticed the pain. He held his hand out of the open window, and when he brought it back in seconds later, the wounds had healed.
“What’s wrong?”
Stuart Crowder sat in the cruiser’s front passenger seat, while his brother Spencer sat in the back. The twins were identical. Same tall lean frame, same unruly brown hair, same squarish face that didn’t quite match the body. They both cocked their heads slightly to the left when asking a question, both tapped their feet on the floor when bored or impatient. They tended to dress alike too. Flannel shirts, jeans, sneakers, and today a pair of light jackets. He couldn’t tell them apart by sight alone, and although she’d never admit it, neither could Sylvia. Morgan said she could, and Alan believed her, although he had no idea how she did it. But unlike a human parent, Alan didn’t have to rely on sight to identify his children. Each of them, even the twins, had a unique scent, different from any other werewolf in the world. He could recognize one of his kids blindfolded, in the dark, from a mile away.
“It seems that someone has killed Amos Boyd.”
As soon as he spoke those words, the boys’ scents changed. They were suddenly afraid.
“I can smell that you’ve both recently showered, and you used a lot of body wash. Maybe an entire bottle apiece. You weren’t by any chance trying to scrub away a scent, were you? Like the smell of Amos’s blood?”
His voice held a warning tone that said, Don’t you dare lie to me, boys.
From the back seat, Spencer said, “We did it. Stuart and me.”
Alan scented the air. Spencer was telling the truth, but not the whole truth. He looked over at Stuart.
“Just the two of you? No one else?”
Stuart and Spencer exchanged glances, then they looked at Alan, and at the same time said, “Mom was there too.”
Anger flooded him, and with it came the change. Fangs and claws sprouted, and his eyes blazed yellow.
“Why the hell did you do such a thing?” he demanded in a thick, animalistic voice.
“Mom asked us to,” Stuart said.
“She told us it had to be done,” Spencer added.
“She said Amos has already drawn too much attention to himself by telling his story to the media.”
“She said we should’ve killed him when he first saw us, and that we had to fix our mistake.”
“We had to shut him up permanently.”
Together, they finished. “For the good of the pack.”
Alan wanted to slam on the cruiser’s brakes and teach his sons a painful lesson about giving in to their animal instincts. But he knew it hadn’t been their fault. Sylvia was the lead female in their pack, and the boys could not disobey her. Not that they’d wanted to. Stuart and Spencer were closer to the wild side of their werewolf nature than anyone else in the family. They lived for the Hunt, and for the killing that followed. Sylvia said it was a phase, but Alan wasn’t so sure. They were twenty-three. If they hadn’t learned to live in harmony with their animal selves by now, when would they?
“Don’t be mad,” Spencer said. “We eliminated a threat, didn’t we?” He sounded defensive.
Alan felt a growl beginning deep in his chest, and he knew that if he didn’t get control of himself now, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. With an effort of will, he forced his anger down and concentrated on assuming his human form. It wasn’t easy.
“What you did is make a problem a hell of a lot worse than it needed to be.”
And if those FBI agents really are hunters, you just confirmed for them that there are werewolves in the area.
He was the ultimate leader of his pack. Sylvia should’ve consulted him before taking such a drastic step. And once she had taken that step, she should never have concealed it from him. He wanted to call her and demand to know what she’d been thinking. But he’d destroyed his phone, and while he could borrow one of the boys’, it would be better for him to cool down before confronting her. Arguments between werewolves could rapidly descend into fighting, and he wanted to avoid that. On the other hand, as pack leader, it was important that he maintain discipline. The longer he allowed Sylvia to believe she’d gotten away with this, the weaker his position in the pack became. And that was something he simply could not allow. Sylvia’s actions were tantamount to challenging him for leadership of the pack. And werewolves didn’t let a challenge go unanswered.
He was about to turn the cruiser around and head home to have it out with his wife, when Stuart said, “I think I smell something.”
“Me, too,” Spencer said.
Alan eased his foot off the gas and allowed the cruiser to slow. Once they’d gotten the jakkals’ scent at the grocery, they’d been driving around town with the windows open, hoping to encounter it again. With any luck, it would lead them to the carrion-eaters’ den. They were on the eastern side of Bridge Valley now, near Happyland, an amusement park that had closed in the late eighties and never reopened. Bridge Valley had started going downhill then, and now it was a shell of its former self, plagued with poverty and drug abuse—a perfect hunting ground for their pack. But Alan had to admit that he missed Happyland. He’d been a kid when it closed, and he’d spent many joyous hours there, pretending that he was no different than all the other children around him. A human child.
But Happyland had died and he’d grown up. He challenged his father for leadership of the pack and killed him. Alan’s mother had in turn challenged him, and he’d been forced to kill her too. His brother and sister had both decided against challenging him, but rather than remain under his leadership, they’d left town to form their own packs. A sad situation, overall, but it was the way of his people. One day Stuart or Spencer—or perhaps both of them—would challenge him. If he was strong enough, he’d be victorious and remain leader. If not, he’d join his parents in death.
Alan inhaled deeply, and recognized the scent from the grocery. It was both like and unlike that of a werewolf, but with an unpleasant taint of rot that turned his stomach. It made sense that jakkals would choose to lair in Happyland. It was old and abandoned, in its own way a graveyard, and it was enclosed within high metal fencing. The park was large enough to provide plenty of room for a pack to remain hidden.
The thought that the filthy carrion-eaters had taken up residence in a place Alan had loved as a child filled him with rage. If he couldn’t vent his anger on Sylvia yet, the jakkals would do quite nicely as substitutes.
Happyland was two miles ahead of them. The sun had been slowly setting while they’d been searching for the jakkals. Now nighttime had fallen, and the full moon hung near the horizon. Perfect.
Alan parked by the main gate. It was rusty, but still sturdy enough, and it was locked with an equally rusty chain and padlock. In Happyland’s prime, the park’s name had been spelled out in an arch of neon letters that lit up the night. The sign had long since fallen down, and the only illumination came from the cruiser’s headlights. But Alan’s night vision was excellent, and he could make out the shadowy forms of buildings and rides inside the park.
The stench of jakkal was stronger here, so much so that Alan had to
breathe through his mouth. Spencer made a gagging sound.
“This is worse than getting squirted in the face by a dozen skunks!” he said.
“Two dozen!” Stuart said.
“Looks like we found the place.” Alan turned off the engine. “Let’s go.”
He got out, and the boys waited for their father to start walking toward the fence, then fell in behind him. As it should be, Alan thought. He stopped when he reached the gate. He could easily break the chain and open it, but he wanted to make as little noise as possible to avoid warning the jakkals. Instead, he climbed over the gate and dropped down silently on the other side. A moment later, Stuart and Spencer landed just as silently next to him.
The three stood and assumed their werewolf forms. Stuart and Spencer’s breathing became faster then, and Alan could smell the excitement coming off them. The boys had gotten the scent of prey. Alan gave them both a warning growl, the werewolf equivalent of a command to heel. The twins bristled, but they didn’t move until Alan started walking, and they matched his pace as they followed.
They picked up the jakkals’ trail almost immediately: a single line of scent that led toward the middle of Happyland. It appeared the carrion-eaters were careful not to wander throughout the park. A sensible precaution, but one that meant Alan and his sons had a single clear trail to follow. Alan found himself feeling a bit disappointed. The jakkals were making this too easy.
As the werewolves made their way through Happyland, they passed rides Alan remembered from his youth. The moonlight draped the machines in glowing blue-white, giving them an otherworldly aspect. They looked much smaller than he remembered, shabbier too, as if Happyland had always been a cheap, rickety small-town amusement park, despite his happy memories. Many of the buildings’ roofs had collapsed over the years, and most of their paint had faded or flaked away entirely. The asphalt paths were shot through with cracks, and debris—chunks of concrete, broken lengths of wood, fallen signs—littered the place. They could hear animals close by. Rats, raccoons, and birds mostly, but there were a few groundhogs and opossum as well. When Alan and his sons drew near them, the animals grew silent, sensing the presence of predators in their midst.
