She tucked the computer under her arm. She pulled the cord on her way back out, turning off the light, and locked the door as she went, tucking the key into the pocket of her slacks. The dining room table made the perfect place to set up the laptop, so she plugged the charger into the outlet under the window and booted it up, sliding into a chair as she did so. A muffled sob escaped when she saw the familiar background picture. He had his arm around her and they were smiling, dressed to the nines in all their wedding glory.
Too bad his image had been a lie.
Chapter Nineteen
Shaking her head, Carissa redirected her focus to the different files on his desktop screen. Under a line of war-laden RPG games sat a tidy little folder labeled Documents. With a quick swipe and tap of her finger, she opened it and received the first of her husband’s surprises. She’d known about Ryan’s interest in the occult, but this took that to a whole other level. This stuff was straight out of the books she liked to read—file upon file of mythical fairy tale creatures—werewolves, vampires, fairies, elves, and more. So much more. She’d had no idea his obsession ran that deep.
Some folders, like WEREWOLVES and VAMPIRES were all capitalized, whereas others, like kraken, and boogeyman, were lower case. Her eyes passed over thirty different files before she found what she hadn’t realized she was looking for. At the very bottom of the page, Carissa discovered a compressed file entitled Work. She clicked on it, but instead of opening, a box popped up requesting a password.
Standing up from her chair, Carissa glared down at the laptop and swore. How am I supposed to figure that out? Think, she told herself, tapping her temple with an impatient finger. Ryan kept lists for everything under the sun, and passwords wouldn’t be any different. She only needed to find the notebook he used. Determined to uncover something, she went back out to the shed and poked around in the desk. She found what she was looking for in the bottom right drawer – a small notebook containing a collection of password hints.
Tucking it under her arm, Carissa took the book to the kitchen with her, grabbed a Coke, and returned to her seat at the table. With curious eyes, she perused the notebook until she found the most likely of Ryan’s list:
Laptop Hints:
· A special date
· Favorite meal
· Furry friend
· Night C
· Promise
Carissa typed in their wedding date, first.
Incorrect Password—Try again.
The second option also should have been easy. Ryan’s favorite food had been beer and pizza. She typed it in multiple ways, but had no luck.
Incorrect Password—Try again.
Cursing under her breath, she turned her attention to the last three hints. Furry Friend, and Night C were unknown, but the simplest idea for Promise was the word oath. Unconvinced anything would happen, Carissa tried it.
Access Granted.
The folder opened with a musical tinkling of bells from the laptop’s speakers. There were three other folders inside. The first one was marked work and the others were Furry Friend and Night C. Carissa clicked on the last two, but they were password protected as well, so she turned her attention back to the first, which opened on the first click. The farther she scrolled, the farther her jaw dropped, until it all but rested on the table before her. She’d finally found at least one of the subjects of Ryan’s late-night texts, and the revelations made her blood run cold.
One of his last major assignments had been the little girl missing person’s case back in 2012—a little over two years prior to his death. Carissa remembered that Ryan covered that case day and night, hardly sleeping during the week spent searching for the child. When the authorities finally found her, it seemed his workload suddenly became larger, leaving him with almost no time at home for months. He was told to cover the ongoing investigation behind the disappearance. That’s when the texts began.
To Carissa’s questing mind, Ryan seemed more like a detective than a journalist, and as her eyes drifted through the file, the stranger things became. None of the different documents in the file carried the local news tag. Council J was typed on the header on each page, instead. She didn’t know what that meant, but that was the least of her worries. She scrolled through a few more pages before finding an inserted picture of the newspaper article the day after the child was found. Her gaze was immediately drawn to the full-color photo above the text. A familiar face with Caribbean eyes stared back at her.
Aden.
Either he’d lied to her about how long he’d lived in Jaune, or—well, there was no other explanation, really. Unless he’s an alien, and he was just visiting from his mother ship. Carissa shook her head. She was letting her imagination run the show instead of looking for facts. Studying the picture closely, she realized he looked exactly the same as he did now—right down to the length of his hair and the paling tan of his skin—and the little girl was hugging his neck as if he was the safest man in the world. Carissa snorted.
“Safe, my ass,” she muttered.
While it was true he’d helped bring the child to safety—the article credited the little girl’s unharmed return solely to the unknown man in the picture—Carissa could see a simmering volcano of power just below the surface, waiting to blow Aden’s calm demeanor all to Hell. Pushing the laptop away with a loud sigh, she sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, tapping her fingers against her skin. Liars had no place in her life, and yet…something about him called to her. They weren’t in a serious relationship – or any kind of relationship, really – but even she could admit there was definite potential. Especially after that kiss. If she didn’t watch herself, Aden was exactly the type of man who could lay claim to her heart.
With another gusty sigh, she reached out and snapped the computer shut. She’d come back to it in the morning. Fresh eyes and a new perspective were what this situation called for. Still, her mind drifted back to their kiss, to the way his lips felt against hers. Her heart wanted to take the leap – do something spontaneous. She snorted. The alien notion was still viable, whether he was a magnificent hunk of man-flesh or not. Recalling the complete lack of change between the time of the photo and now, she couldn’t help but think her unorthodox idea just might be right. Maybe he was an immortal alien.
Either way, as she tucked herself into bed later that night, the same question plagued her as the night she saw his eyes flash – the same one that further ignited her curiosity when they kissed, his eyes glowing brightly as they gazed at each other:
What was Aden?
Although she’d stayed up well past one a.m., Carissa awoke at nine the next morning. The mindless shower happened out of habit, as well as dressing in a comfortable t-shirt and jeans, as opposed to staying in her pajamas. She didn’t pay much attention to what she put on, but since she planned to stay home all day, it really didn’t matter, anyway.
Over spoonfuls of oatmeal and sips of orange juice, she glowered at the tabletop in her kitchen. The laptop was a black mark, glaring malevolently at her from the wooden surface. With the morning light, Carissa had no desire to face what lurked inside, even though she knew it was necessary. Still acting out of habit, she finished eating and cleaned her breakfast dishes. Minutes dragged on as she moved as slowly as possible, endeavoring to put off the inevitable—her curiosity wouldn’t allow her not to look. Grumbling under her breath, she returned to the table and pulled the offending machine toward her. She opened the computer and simply stared at the screen.
Carissa sat, unmoving, for close to twenty minutes before finally reopening the files from the night before. She didn’t want to think Aden was a liar, but the evidence sat huge in front of her face. You don’t want to think he’s an alien, either, she scoffed, but you do.
“Shut up,” she muttered to the annoying little voice in her head. “Whether he is or isn’t the hottest alien to ever step foot out of a spacecraft is irrelevant right now.”
Carissa narrowed her eyes as s
he forced herself to slowly reread the newspaper article. There was no mention of the rescuer’s name, or any clue about where he lived. She read the article three more times, finding it odd that no one thought to do an interview with the little girl’s rescuer. They must have needed to know exactly where he found her. Either way, she had to admit the whole situation was odd. The logical side of her brain was quick to point out that there was a loophole for truth: Since there was no interview, she couldn’t be sure, but it was entirely possible that wasn’t even Aden. Sure he and the man in the article looked exactly alike, but stranger things had happened. Maybe it was a case of right time, right place, and a very lucky break that had nothing to do with her neighbor. People, and probably aliens, weren’t actually immortal.
Yeah right, the little voice said, and Carissa rolled her eyes. Jumping to conclusions wasn’t getting her anywhere.
Not the least bit mollified, but too confused to concentrate on it anymore, Carissa closed that document and backed out to look at the other two folders in the work file. She opened the password box for Furry Friends and thought for a moment. Ryan had a long list of creatures on the main page, and some of them definitely had fur. Any normal person would have chosen the name of a treasured family pet, but Carissa doubted his childhood dog, Lucky, would be the correct password. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try it. She typed in Lucky, unsurprised when the same error message popped up on screen.
Her frustration mounting, Carissa began working down the list in her memory—from Bigfoot, to the Momo, to the legendary Wampus Cat—but none of them worked. Pushing back from the table, she sighed. She never would have believed something like this could be so difficult. She thought she knew almost everything about her husband, but it was looking like she didn’t know anything. What in the world am I missing? He was a man—he couldn’t be that complex! Seething, she closed out of the compressed folders and returned to the main documents page. She must have missed something—especially since none of the ones she tried were human enough to be considered friends.
Lunchtime rolled around, forcing her to take a small break to make food, but by the time she sat back down, her brain was no closer to making sense of things. Curiosity growing around bites of her grilled cheese sandwich, she opened folders at random. Ryan had mountains of information on folklore like the Kraken, mythical gods, sprites, mermaids, and other oddities. She was caught up for a while, completely forgetting her objective as she made it down the alphabetical list to the WEREWOLVES folder. The writing contained inside was much more extensive than in the other folders she read through. Ryan had compiled the information in such a way that it resembled entries from something like the Encyclopedia Britannica. He wrote as if the ferocious beasts were factual, not merely dark legends from around the world.
Entranced, Carissa kept her nose inches from the screen. Fascination lit her eyes as she scanned the text her husband had compiled:
Of the lore, little fact is known. A once proud pack, now scattered to the four winds, werewolves are no longer the fierce protectors of legend. Precious few descendants even know the truth: There are two factions of werewolves.
According to legend, when Lilith was exiled from the Garden of Eden, she took a demon as her lover. Their offspring was Legion, and It held a ferocity in Its soul unmatched by any devil-spawn before or since. With an unholy taste for mortal blood, It and Its brethren took orders from their fallen mother to drain dry the blood and heart of every human surrounded by God’s love.
God saw this, and in the midst of his garden, he found the answer to this plight. He called forth the wolves and gave them a choice: remain as they were, innocent animals in His kingdom, or take up His sword as guardians of the human race—the one outside of His perfect garden. His creatures took but moments to decide, offering Him their bodies to do with as He wished. And with a pat of His hand, they were changed forever.
Blessed with human intelligence, the newest God-Warriors drew teeth instead of swords, taking on the human form as their permanent disguise, but shifting to wolf to protect true mortals from the bloodthirsty Lilith-spawn. As charged protectors, God’s werewolves were gifted with extraordinary strength, a life span of a thousand years or more, a larger than average animal presence, and command of magicks unknown. Their inherent goodness and command of God’s laws made them the perfect hybrid warriors—until the middle of the fourteenth century, when a power-hungry sorcerer thought himself a god in his own right.
The man, possessed of unnatural magickal abilities, took it upon himself to create a new species of werewolf in his image. This new breed was strong and fast, but smaller in animal form than the blessed God-Warriors, and full of cunning and rage. The sorcerer’s jealousy overwhelming, he sought to destroy his creations, but failed when they turned on him.
For centuries afterward, the sorcerer’s spawn hunted the God-Warriors, until all that were left were a few sparse, secretive packs hidden away in the bayous of Texas and Louisiana, waiting to once again take up their cause.
By the time she finished reading, Carissa couldn’t raise her jaw from the tabletop. Ryan wasn’t that delusional, was he? She scrubbed her hands over her cheeks and tried to process this new information. Reaching out to exit the document, a sudden idea dawned so bright it astounded her. Is the answer that simple?
Excited now, Carissa returned to the Furry Friend file, and typed in werewolves. It opened with the same tinkling bell sound as the Work folder. What she discovered inside shocked her to her core. There were pictures, videos, witness accounts, and numerous typed pages of information stating who, what, when, where, and how the creatures survived over the centuries. More important, however, was the section she almost missed. By six o’clock, her eyes burned from staring at the screen all day. Her legs ached, her butt was numb, and if her wrist rubbed against the edge of the laptop one more time, she was certain she would scream.
At six-thirty, she decided it would be the perfect time to shut down the computer for the night, but as she reached out to close the screen, a name caught her eye. Garrett Devereux. Gasping, a trembling hand pressed to her pounding heart, Carissa blinked rapidly as she stared at the words beside his name. Crimson Bayou Pack Master. A cold chill skittered along her spine. Unless she was mistaken, this was the same man Ryan tried to persuade her to talk to when she wanted to save their marriage, but she didn’t understand why—or how Ryan even came to know about werewolves in the first place. She tried to think about it logically, but her mind was having none of it.
A determined frown creasing her features, Carissa saved a few of the images – partially shifted werewolves – to the hard drive and brought up the internet homepage. The pictures seemed a bit too fanciful to be true. Logic dictated she do her research before accepting, and since she could do an image search as well as the next person, Carissa figured it would go a long way toward learning the truth. The more she searched, however, the more agitated she became. What worried her the most was that none of the images appeared anywhere online, meaning her last hope of them being from some kind of supernatural movie was dashed like waves of the ocean against the shore. That left only two conclusions, both of which made her skin crawl as she looked through her window at the lowering sun.
First, and surprisingly the less worrisome discovery, was that she now knew Ryan was not delusional. She could fault him for many things, but he wasn’t nearly as crazy as she’d believed, and that brought at least a small modicum of comfort. Unfortunately, that left her other conclusion—her other terrifying conclusion. Carissa bit her lip as she once again looked at the computer screen. Crimson Bayou was what the locals called the bayou that surrounded Jaune, and Garret was the pack master for that clan. That, coupled with her husband’s proven sanity, meant only one thing:
Werewolves were real, and they were right in her backyard.
Chapter Twenty
Carissa slammed her hands against the steering wheel, a frustrated frown twisting her lips. Throwing caution to the wind, s
he’d hopped into her Durango and headed out of town without so much as a travel bag to her name. Her heart pounded in worry and fear. Werewolves. How are they even possible? And what else? Is the postman a tabby cat on Wednesday nights? Is that why the dogs always bark and try to chase him? Hysterical laughter bubbled in her throat, breaking free on a frantic sob. Her life was so off track, she’d clearly taken a wrong turn somewhere, and now there was no turning back.
Yeah, right around the time you met Ryan.
Cursing, Carissa pulled into the Mini-Mart parking lot on the outskirts of town. It was closed for the night, and the roads were silent. She parked close to the building, and turned off her lights, just in case. Damn it. She was in it now, whatever it was. Slumping in her seat, she scrubbed her hands over her face. She’d never be able to look at her neighbors again. What if they turn furry every night? She was no expert, but if wild wolves weren’t tamable, she doubted werewolves were.
She snorted, feeling another burst of hysterics coming on—she might as well have been thinking about picking up one at the local pet store.
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