Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Big Bad Wolf)

by Charlie Adhara

  “You searched their cabin?” Terradas was saying in disbelief.

  “They obviously came here up to no good and now two people are dead. Really, what else can you expect from a human-wolf couple? He’s a traitor to our kind.”

  The three watching couples didn’t like that and there was some muttering and awkward glances at Cooper.

  “That’s not fair.”

  “He’s gone too far.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Didn’t Kyle just save that guy’s mate?” Cooper heard Yvette say loudly.

  Jimmy could tell the group was turning against him once more and his whole body was shaking now, violently. Even Cooper could tell he was losing control of himself. The emotion, stress, anxiety and smell of death in the air, all triggering a self-defensive mechanism in his body that wanted to be more protected, more dangerous now.

  “I’ve seen them both sneaking around when they think no one’s looking. Lying. Up to no good. I felt it was my responsibility. To the De Luca pack. To protect your territory,” Jimmy added desperately, even as his own flesh began to betray him.

  Cooper didn’t like the glint in De Luca’s eyes. The way he seemed to be contemplating how to use Jimmy’s breakdown to his advantage.

  Abruptly, the lights dimmed to dark and then rose back to full brightness.

  “The generators are running down,” Dr. Joyce said, keeping both eyes on Jimmy’s unpredictable twitching and backing slowly away, out of his reach. He gently pulled Lisa with him.

  They weren’t the only ones. Cooper didn’t like the way the wolves were all pulling back, as if they could all sense some imminent explosion. The lights dipped to dim again.

  Park signaled to Paul, still standing eerily still, almost frozen in place. “I think we should get everyone out of this area, now,” he said.

  “Yes, of course,” Paul said quickly. “Um—”

  “Look at him, still giving orders!” Jimmy cried, furious. He turned jerkily on Park, getting in his space. “He doesn’t even belong here!” Jimmy’s clawed hand flung out as he spoke, aiming directly at Cooper’s face, and Park caught it in the air with a slap.

  “Get control of yourself,” Park said with deadly quiet.

  “Let...go...of...me...” Jimmy gasped out.

  What happened next Cooper wasn’t sure he could explain or even understand. Jimmy’s face and body just sort of...rippled. Like something swimming by just under the water’s surface. His shoulder snapped up with the sound of rock on rock.

  Cooper heard Park swear under his breath before he pushed Cooper behind him and away. The back of Cooper’s head hit the tile of the hallway wall, and the surprise of it knocked him out of staring, fascinated, at the way Jimmy’s body was slowly crumpling in on itself.

  “Are you going to do something?” Park demanded, and it took Cooper a moment to realize he was speaking to De Luca and Terradas. What he expected them to do exactly was beyond Cooper’s knowledge, but it didn’t look like that mattered anyway. The answer was no. They quite clearly planned to stand there and do nothing. Same as everyone else.

  “Jimmy!” Lisa cried from beside Joyce, but made no move toward him.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Promise me you’ll stay out of the way,” Park said to Cooper, pulling his own shirt off, toeing off his shoes and ripping down his pants, causing the button to fly off and parts of the seams to tear loudly.

  Behind him, Jimmy was nearly “done.” Cooper glanced at him and then quickly looked away, swallowing a frightened sound. He wasn’t proud of it, but Jimmy’s shift was nothing near as clean as he’d seen of Park, or even Park’s sister before. The sight frightened him. Filled him with a deep animal sense of dread and wrong and no, that’s not supposed to be.

  “Promise,” Park repeated.

  “Yes,” Cooper said, throat dry. “But—”

  Park clicked his tongue, looking fondly exasperated. It was his utterly blasé attitude that was keeping Cooper, if not calm, at least too bewildered to be alarmed.

  With a last shake, Jimmy finally stood on all fours, fur the color of wet sand, and snarled and jerked toward Park, who turned and...

  Fell on him. Suddenly there were two wolves lying on the ground. The speed with which Park had shifted—particularly after watching Jimmy’s body resist the same changes—was alarming. And not just to an outsider like Cooper.

  Gasps echoed around the hall, and he could hear a few people in the back asking, “What happened? Where’d Andrew go?”

  Then Jimmy bucked up and Park, still tangled weirdly in his underwear, socks and one pant leg, wasn’t able to keep him from pulling out of his grasp. Jimmy slammed backward into the tiled wall, leaving a large crack and some shattered porcelain behind.

  Park clawed off his own remaining clothes, shredding them—besides the socks, which he didn’t appear to notice—just as Jimmy snarled and leapt for him again.

  “No!” Lisa called out, and Park turned to the side and knocked Jimmy back down like he was bumping a ball. He then clamped his mouth around Jimmy’s neck and flung him to his back, two paws resting over his torso, larger body pinning him. Jimmy stayed down, panting on his side.

  Just like that it was over. People began muttering excitedly again, passing the results down the hall. Terradas’s aloof expression had shattered. He looked shocked. De Luca, furious.

  “Who—What—” he choked on his frustration. If he’d been hoping for a hothead like Jimmy to show the retreat guests Park wasn’t all that special after all while maintaining his own supposed neutrality at the top, he’d sorely miscalculated.

  Park released Jimmy—who remained breathing heavily on the ground—and stood up. Or at least stood to all fours. He eyed De Luca for a long, tense moment and the room fell quiet once more, someone in the back shushing the others.

  Cooper held his breath, wondering what he would do if this, too, turned into a fight, but after a few seconds they both looked away. If there was some signal that brought the staring to an end, Cooper missed it. Didn’t know what to look for. All he knew was suddenly Park bounced on his front paws. He’d have looked a bit like a dog that wanted to play except for the loud clack that sounded, not when he hit the floor but when he was at the peak of the movement.

  Park did the bounce again, and this time when he rose, he kept rising into himself. Or rather into his skin. Standing behind him, it looked almost like shedding a fur coat that never quite hit the floor. Cooper swayed toward him, absurdly relieved, but didn’t move from his place against the wall.

  “Paul,” Park said, his voice a little looser sounding than usual with less enunciation. “Would you find Mutya and ask if she wouldn’t mind assisting us?” He nodded toward the steam room. A stark reminder of why they were all crammed into this space to begin with.

  “Of—of course,” Paul stammered.

  “Just a minute,” De Luca said, finding his voice at last. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you have no authority here.” He turned to the lingering Paul. “Now, I know we can’t reach the police in this storm, but I think the possibility we discussed yesterday—”

  “No,” Park said. “No one is taking over this territory today. Not until we determine who killed these two men and why.”

  “Are you implying I had something to do with this?” De Luca asked, ice-cold.

  “I’m saying I’d hate to see anyone turn this tragedy into an opportunity.”

  “How noble, if terribly misguided,” De Luca said tightly before turning again to Paul. “Accept my offer now or the De Luca pack will not provide the retreat protection when the humans investigate this crime.”

  “But I will,” Park said. Cooper inhaled softly.

  “You,” De Luca snapped. “What possible protection can you and your human mate offer them?”

  “The protection of my name: Oliver Park.”


  De Luca paled, swaying on his heels, and the watching crowd who had been pressing forward, squeezed up against each other for a better view, now tripped over themselves to fall back and get farther away. Even Terradas retreated a step before stopping.

  “The Shepherd,” De Luca breathed. “I didn’t know.”

  “But now you do,” Park said simply. “So any retaliation taken against anyone here for accepting my protection will be considered an attack on myself. Is that clear?” He looked extremely intimidating for a man standing totally naked except for one sock.

  De Luca seemed to be struggling to say something. Terradas put a hand on his arm and said, “I’m sure I can speak for the entire De Luca pack in saying no one wishes any ill on any Park and most certainly not yourself.”

  “I’m sure,” Park said dryly. “Now, unless anyone else has something to add, can I please go put some clothes on?”

  * * *

  “My best guess is sudden cardiac arrest.” Mutya straightened from examining Nielsen’s body, prone on one of the massage tables. “Of course, my patients are usually alive, so I’m not willing to testify to that.”

  Cooper stood across from her, observing her examination. It was just the two of them in the room. Most of the guests were gathering in the lobby—gossiping, no doubt—while the staff fetched the stragglers and Paul broke the news of Nielsen’s death to Vanessa.

  Park—temporarily covered in a fluffy white robe Joyce had grabbed for him from the dressing room—had accompanied Lisa back to her cabin to collect the stolen weapon and retrieve some non-shredded clothes from his own suitcase. Jimmy, still in fur, had trotted beside them, head down and tail between his legs. Cooper had been nervous about the idea of them walking together, but Park insisted it was a nonissue.

  “We fought, I won, it’s over,” he’d said.

  “Rationally, maybe. But Jimmy didn’t exactly strike me as a peacekeeper.”

  “He has a hard time controlling his shift. But trust me, he’s defeated. He’s not in the headspace to instigate anything. Especially not with me. It’s more important that you and Mutya figure out what happened to Nielsen.”

  And so Cooper held a flashlight in the dim natural light from the window—generators fully off now—while Mutya examined the body. He hadn’t even had to reveal that he and Park were Trust agents to get her to help. He’d just asked and she’d agreed. Cooper wanted to believe it was because she, too, was determined to figure out what was going on and not that she was terrified of the Shepherd, but who knew? From what he could tell, none of the guests were daring to question Park’s—and by association, Cooper’s—decisions. Apparently giving his protection to the retreat had made Park a sort of impromptu, temporary sheriff, allowed to run a criminal investigation even without a badge.

  “What about the head wound?” Cooper asked.

  “Too shallow and not enough blood. Normally a head wound would bleed a lot. I’d say his heart had stopped before he even hit the stone.”

  “So he had a heart attack?”

  “Sudden cardiac arrest,” Mutya repeated. “Slight difference. Heart attack, there’s a blockage. Here I’d say he experienced some arrhythmia, which led to lack of oxygen, which led to dizziness, and bam. But this is ninety percent guesswork. I can’t say for sure without opening him up.” She looked at him sharply. “And I’m absolutely not doing that.”

  “No, no,” Cooper agreed. “Are you saying it was natural causes then?”

  “If he had some underlying condition, maybe, but I doubt it. Not with this.” She pulled Nielsen’s shirt aside and pointed with a gloved hand. Cooper stepped closer. There was a small, slightly bloody dot over his heart. “I’d say someone injected him with something. And not at all neatly or in a place you would try to inject them if you were actually trying to help.”

  “Could they have used an autoinjector?”

  “Sure, why not? That’d be easier, especially if it happened during a struggle. But again, I’m not a medical examiner. There is one other thing I think you should see, though.” She held up Nielsen’s pointer finger and pulled down the pad to reveal just below the nail. “Scar tissue. Old, and not related to COD, but weird, right?”

  “Some kind of torture?”

  “It certainly would have felt tortuous. They’re on all his fingers, left and right. Except his thumbs.” She gave him a significant look.

  “What?” Cooper asked. “What does that mean?”

  Mutya smiled faintly. The first genuine friendliness she’d shown since agreeing to help. “We don’t have thumbs. Not in fur, I mean. So no thumb claws in skin, either.”

  “So... Nielsen really was a wolf?” Cooper asked, shocked.

  “Definitely not,” Mutya said. “Besides, a true wolf wouldn’t have scars. Ours are our nails, not some kind of morally ambiguous science experiment shooting out of our skin.”

  “What are you saying,” Cooper said, feeling a little ill. “That he tried to...make his own?”

  “Maybe. Though that’s a tricky thing to do to yourself. These are all exactly uniform and perfectly healed. Surgical. Done by someone with experience stitching. Even if it clearly didn’t work.”

  “God,” Cooper whispered, his hand over his mouth. “But why?”

  Mutya shrugged and began to respond when she was interrupted.

  “Oh,” a woman’s voice said from across the room, and they both turned quickly to catch Reggie standing in the doorway, staring at Nielsen. Her eyes were red but dry and her voice shook as she spoke. “I—Sorry to interrupt, but I was—I’m looking for the Shepherd. Please.”

  Cooper glanced at Mutya, whose expression had turned professionally blank once more. “He’s not back yet. What do you need him for?”

  She gathered herself together and stood a little straighter, lifting her chin. “I’d like to make a confession. I did it. I killed those men. I killed them all.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Explain it to me again,” Cooper said.

  He and Reggie were seated in plastic chairs in the large, group exercise room. In here, just yesterday, Cooper had realized he wanted to get married. That felt like years ago now.

  Mutya stood to the side, observing on her own insistence. “I wouldn’t want my human mate alone with a confessed killer,” she’d said obstinately. “I won’t interrupt, but I’m not just going to turn my back and walk away, either.”

  Behind them, rain whipped against the window so fiercely you could only catch glimpses of the waterfall. “You killed Lee Llcaj. Sliced him with your claws because after you hooked up, he found out you were wolf and you panicked. Then you poisoned Nielsen and Beck...because they were onto you?”

  “That’s right,” Reggie said confidently.

  “And what about Kreuger?”

  “Him, too,” she said.

  “I mean, did you poison him? Or did you cut him?”

  Reggie glanced at Mutya nervously. “I, um—poisoned him.”

  “With what?”

  “I stole some pills.”

  “How could you be sure they’d all drink the dosed coffee?”

  “I watched. Made sure,” she said.

  Cooper leaned back in his chair and exchanged a look with Mutya, who looked vaguely impressed by the trap.

  “This stuff doesn’t matter. I did it,” Reggie said harshly. “Are you going to turn me over to the cops? The BSI? Or will the Shepherd deal with me himself?”

  “Who are you trying to protect, Reggie?” Cooper asked.

  “No one!” Her voice was angry with an underlying edge of panic. “I did it. You don’t think I can? Llcaj treated me like shit. You think I don’t know he just used me to spy on the Claymonts for Montclaire? Kreuger was a creep and a loser. Always hanging around the spa, making jokes about whether I give ‘happy endings’ and then totally freaking out when I hooked u
p with Lee. Beck was a bully who would have done anything to take this place away just because he could. And Nielsen? So desperately bitter he wasn’t a wolf that he was going to fuck over his only family? As if we have it easy. As if my life’s been so great, being thrown out and living on the edge of society, lying to survive. Nielsen’s own sister couldn’t look him in the eye. Do you think I even hesitated over wiping out one of these pieces of shit? Or do you think I don’t have the means?” She flexed her hand, extending her claws and then retracting them.

  “They all sound like assholes,” Cooper said, taking the blunt approach. “I bet a lot of people thought so.”

  She shook her head, staring down at her lap. “No, I—” She bit her lip. “But it was me who did something about it.”

  “Beck and Nielsen were killed by injection, not dosed drinks. And as shitty as they sound, I’m having a hard time believing you went on a killing spree because of that alone.”

  Reggie’s shoulders slumped. “Please, you can’t let the Shepherd shut the retreat down. It saves people. It saved me.”

  “Why would he want to shut this place down?” Cooper asked, but Reggie didn’t respond.

  He studied her indecisive twitching and considered the facts. Vanessa Claymont nee Nielsen. Runs away at sixteen. Joins a rebel pack. Tries to escape a few times and gets her fangs pulled. Finally gets out and studies under Joyce to become a counselor specializing in trauma recovery. Legally changes her name so no one can track her down. When her father dies, she gives it all up to return to the place she’d run from all those years ago. She hires staff members who only stick around a few months at a time. They don’t work under their legal names, either.

  “Were you in a rebel pack, too?” Cooper asked, gently.

  Reggie covered her face with her hands and then dragged her thumbs under her eyes, wiping at the beginnings of tears and smearing the liner there. “Yeah. Yes, I was. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t... You don’t understand. I had nowhere to go. No money. No pack. But Vanessa had helped a friend of mine last year. It was the first time I thought maybe things could be different for me, too. She helped me leave. Gave me this job. A home. A chance to get on my feet. I was safe here. She’s helped so many of us. I don’t know where I’d be without her.”