by J. C. Diem
I tried to read during the long drive, but my concentration kept wavering. Thoughts of Reece intruded constantly. None of the books on my ereader could hold my interest for long. Closing the device, I shut my eyes and tried to nap.
Reece’s face immediately appeared in my mind. Instead of banishing the image, I tortured myself by studying him closely. This was the only way I’d ever be able to see him again and I wanted to hold onto him for as long as possible.
Brown eyes that were a few shades lighter than mine stared back at me. His cheekbones were high and his lips were full. His face was underwear model handsome and his body was just as beautiful. He didn’t know it, but I’d gone beyond merely bonding with him when we’d marked each other. I’d pledged myself to him body and soul. Even after he finally bonded with Gloria and severed himself from me forever, I would never be able to move on and find someone else. I would belong to him until death.
I turned my face to the window so the others couldn’t see my tears. Zeus knew I was drowning in sorrow and his chin came to rest on my shoulder. I was suddenly fiercely glad that he’d attached himself to me during our mission to take down a dark coven of witches. He was my guardian as well as my friend. He loved me unconditionally as only a dog could.
As we neared our destination, I forced myself to put Reece out of my mind. I had to be a grownup and face the facts. I was no longer a part of his life and he was no longer a part of mine.
I wasn’t the only one who was suffering. The others were grieving as well. We’d lost our team leader, but we could still function without him. Mark would continue to guide us and I would eventually step into the role that Reece had vacated. As an alpha, it was up to me to shoulder the responsibility that he had so easily walked away from.
₪₪₪
Chapter Eight
Mark had arranged for our base to be fully stocked with food so there was no need for us to stop for supplies along the way. Our compound turned out to be at the base of a worn mountain range. Parched dirt, scrub and cacti stretched as far as the eye could see when we pulled up at the gate. It swung open when Mark triggered a remote device that was kept in the glove box of all of our SUVs.
There were few trees out the front of the compound. Behind the large two story building, I could see thin and barely adequate woods that thickened towards the back of the property. I hoped we wouldn’t have to be here for the next full moon. I doubted the hunting would be very good.
The inevitable black van waited inside the cavernous garage. It was a backup vehicle just in case we needed to split up during our missions. Stiff and sore from being cramped up inside the cargo hold, Zeus opted to stay outside and stretch his legs while the rest of us trooped inside.
Mark would have to scan our prints into the system before we’d be able to access the doors. The Cleanup Crew seemed to have access to all of our bases. They kept our dwellings in order when we weren’t in residence. Mark let us into the corridor that stretched the length of the building and turned left. When he opened the door to the main area, we blinked in surprise.
“Well howdy, pardner,” Flynn drawled. Kala sniggered and I managed a weak smile.
“I’d forgotten about the décor. It’s a little over the top,” Mark said almost apologetically as he headed for the kitchen to make coffee. He left his bags at the base of the spiral staircase on his way past.
Whoever had decorated the place had gone overboard with the country and western theme. Half a dozen pairs of bull horns were mounted on the walls along with a couple of ancient rifles. The couches were covered in black and white cowhide. A matching rug was spread on the living room floor. The coffee table, dining table and chairs were made of dark wood. The furniture was rustic enough to be in danger of giving us splinters.
I kept my smile plastered on while I carried Mark’s bags upstairs for him. I stopped at the first door on the right to deposit his bags inside before continuing on. My smile disappeared as soon as I entered my bedroom. As always, I chose the third door on the right.
Trained to be neat and tidy, I placed my backpack in the closet before unpacking my suitcase. I removed my jacket and hung it up in the closet with my other two leather jackets, but left my holster on. In our line of work, you never knew when a gun would come in handy.
With that task out of the way, I examined my room. As always, the bed was queen sized. It and the dresser were made of the same rustic wood as the furniture downstairs. As per the other compounds I’d been to, thick dark blue carpet covered the entire upper floor.
The décor downstairs might be questionable, but my room was nice enough. At least there weren’t any bull horns hanging on the walls. As usual, I had my own large screen TV and a bathroom to myself. All I needed was a mini-kitchen and it would be like having my own apartment.
Leaving my room, I found Mark in the coms room. He motioned me over and I placed my palm on the computer table to be scanned. “How are you holding up?” he asked me quietly. Kala and Flynn were sitting on the couches downstairs that made a U shape around the coffee table.
“I’m fine,” I lied. In truth, I was holding my emotions tightly in check.
“We’re all here for you if you need someone to talk to.”
His sincere offer almost made my tears return. I nodded without speaking and took the stairs downward. He had to be hurting just as badly as I was. Reece was more than just his agent. He was an adoptive son to Mark as well as a brother to Kala and Flynn.
A mug of coffee was waiting for me on the coffee table, courtesy of Kala. I sat down and ran a hand over the cowhide. It felt strange to be sitting on a couch that had hair on it. I leaned forward to pick up my coffee as Kala changed the channel on the TV in an effort to find something interesting to watch. She made a face when she saw it was a news station.
“Wait,” Flynn said when an image of a snake appeared. “Mark, you might want to see this,” he called out loudly enough for our boss to hear him.
The town that we’d come to investigate appeared on the screen and Mark hurried downstairs to join us. “Turn it up,” he instructed then took a seat beside Flynn. Kala obeyed and the volume rose.
“This is reportedly the sixth death by snake bite in Northam during the past four weeks,” the perky brunette reporter was saying. “The police believe the snakes were stolen from a local reptile park. All of the reptiles that were taken were highly venomous and should be considered extremely dangerous. If you see a snake, please contact the number below immediately. Do not attempt to catch these reptiles yourself.”
“Ya think?” Kala said sarcastically at the solemn advice that had just been handed out. “This is rattlesnake country. The Sheriff’s office will be inundated with phone calls from panicked civilians.”
As if it had read her mind, Mark’s phone rang and he fished it out of his jacket. He checked the number and didn’t seem surprised to see who was calling him. “This is Agent Steel.”
“Mark, it’s me,” a male voice said quietly. He was clearly trying not to be overheard by the people who surrounded him. From the background chatter, he worked in a police station somewhere in Texas. Mark had contacts all over the country, most of whom worked in the larger police departments. “There’s been another snakebite victim in Northam,” his contact continued. “I thought I’d better bring it to your attention.”
“I just saw it reported on the news,” Mark replied. “We arrived at our base in Texas not long ago and we’ve already begun to investigate the deaths.”
“I was hoping you’d be able to look into it,” the guy said in relief. “If anyone can figure out who the perpetrator is, it’s the Track and Kill Squad. Your team is legendary.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Mark replied to the praise dryly. “But we’ll do our best.”
They hung up and Mark headed upstairs again. Curious about the case we were about to embark on, I followed him to the coms room. He took a seat and started typing on the nearly invisible keyboard that was embedded in th
e computer table. Accessing the local sheriff’s office, he hacked into the new file. Copying it to the PIA database, he brought up the new information on one of the monitors.
“What type of snake was it this time?” Flynn asked as he ascended the stairs. This mission was of particular interest to him considering his background.
“A local one,” Mark answered after skimming through the notes. “It was apparently a rattlesnake.”
“Isn’t the Sheriff suspicious that the bites are all in exactly the same place?” Flynn said as he took a seat beside me. He shook his head incredulously. “I’ve never heard of a rattler going for the neck before.”
“The Sheriff and his people are suspicious,” Mark confirmed as he read the latest report. “They can’t think of a reasonable explanation for any of the attacks.”
“Maybe we’re hunting an insane snake charmer after all,” Kala called from her seat on the couch. Our hearing was exceptional and she didn’t need to be sitting in the coms room to follow our conversation. She’d raised her voice for Mark’s benefit.
“You’d better watch out, Flynn,” I joked. “They might steal you away and add you to their collection as well.”
Mark sent me a look that I couldn’t quite interpret. Maybe he was thinking about the creature that Flynn transformed into with each full moon. We’d all seen him in action and he was an impressive sight. He could tear his enemies apart with his bare hands, squeeze them to death with his elongated body or use his fangs to render them dead. His venom was both toxic and acidic. He became a very formidable foe when he was in his were-form.
We spent a couple of hours reading through the police reports and found nothing to tie the victims together. They lived in various suburbs of Northam, had different jobs, friends and family members. They appeared to be just random attacks.
“We need to visit the latest crime scene,” Mark decided when he was finished reading. I read at a much slower pace than him, but I trusted I wasn’t missing any vital information when he closed the computer down.
“Can we eat first?” Kala called out.
Mark checked his watch to see it was close to dinner time. “Of course. Who wants to do the cooking this time?” he asked.
It went without saying that Kala was permanently exempt from cooking duties. She’d once turned a perfectly good turkey into an inedible horror. Zeus had slunk off to hide so he didn’t have to eat it. In retrospect, I wished I’d joined him. I doubted I’d ever be able to expunge the awful taste of charred turkey coated in garlic and butter from my memory.
“It must be my turn to cook by now,” I said. I’d fallen far behind on kitchen duties.
I fed Zeus before I started cooking my favorite meal of spaghetti bolognaise so he wouldn’t bother us when we sat down to eat. It was good to be doing something, even if it was a task as simple as preparing a meal.
When the food was ready, we took our usual places at the table. My gaze strayed to the empty chair that sat across from me and I squelched down my emotions before they could rise. I wasn’t going to cry in front of the others again. They didn’t need to see me constantly pining like a lovesick schoolgirl. I was a werewolf, not a werefox. I wasn’t going to waste away because I’d lost my mate even if I did feel like I was dying on the inside.
We didn’t linger over our meals and headed straight to the SUV. The traffic was almost non-existent during the forty-five minute drive. Northam had a population of around fifty thousand people. It wasn’t exactly a sprawling metropolis, but it was strange that no one had witnessed any of the deaths. Most of the bodies had been found hours after the victims had expired. Only one had been discovered nearly straight away.
The latest person to die had been a priest. I was immediately reminded of Thomas, the PIA’s founder. His journal entries were always interesting and insightful. I’d learned a lot after reading through the modernized copies of his missions.
Pulling up outside a small stone church, Mark glanced over his shoulder to see me grimacing in pain. We were too close to the hallowed ground for my comfort. Thanks to the vampirism in my system, being near anything holy was becoming harder to bear.
“Why don’t you and Zeus see if you can pick up any strange scents around the perimeter of the church grounds?” he suggested.
Kala was confused until Flynn told her what the problem was. He’d figured it out during our mission to find and destroy the rogue wolf. “The taint has spread enough for it to be painful for Lexi to go near holy things,” he explained.
“Oh.” Kala gave me a sympathetic smile. “It must really suck to have a vampire for a Mom.” Thinking about what she’d just said, she grinned. “I mean that literally because she, you know, sucks blood.”
“Ha ha,” I said sourly as I opened the door and climbed out. “You missed your calling. You should be in stand-up comedy.” She smirked in response then flounced off after Flynn.
A lone deputy was standing guard at the front door of the church. He shifted apprehensively and reached for the cell phone that was clipped to his belt when he realized he was about to receive some unexpected visitors.
Mark waited for me to let Zeus out before he locked the SUV then hurried after his agents. I’d returned to my human form, yet I still felt like an outcast. Why did I have to be so different from everyone else? So far, I hadn’t found an answer to that question. Not even Mark could offer me a reason for my continued strangeness.
₪₪₪
Chapter Nine
Texas was much warmer than Colorado, but I chose my red leather jacket to cover my weapon this time. Even if guns weren’t an unusual sight in this state, I didn’t want to be noticed any more than I could help. Wearing the red jacket probably wouldn’t help me to stay under the radar, but it was too late to change it now.
It was hard to blend in with a huge Rottweiler trotting along at my side. He received wary stares from other pedestrians as we traversed the area around the church. They had no way of knowing I’d be able to stop him from attacking them with a mental command. All they saw was a big dog that wasn’t on a leash.
We kept our distance from the church, but stayed close enough to pick up a myriad of scents. Ignoring most of the odors, I picked up on one that I hadn’t smelled before. It reminded me of Flynn during the full moon and I figured it belonged to a snake. Zeus confirmed that my guess was accurate. He’d encountered snakes before and relayed their various scents to me. This one was different from the others and we both added it to our mental collection.
Rounding the property, we came to a stop at a bench across the road. Zeus sat beside me when I plonked down on the seat. He was glad to rest his leg while we waited. Mark had talked his way past the deputy, but the man had called his boss to let him know the feds had turned up. The sheriff finally arrived and parked in the tiny lot. He climbed out of his cruiser and glanced around without seeing us.
Nearing sixty, he didn’t look in the best of health. His skin was gray and black bags hung beneath his eyes. The recent strange deaths in his town were weighing on his mind. Hitching his pants up, he ambled towards the church. His deputy had already gone inside, presumably to keep an eye on my colleagues.
After fifteen minutes, they all emerged from the building. The sheriff shook hands with Mark then headed for his car. The deputy took up his post near the door again.
Zeus and I crossed the road to join the team. “What did you say to the Sheriff?” I asked.
“A variation of the truth,” Mark replied. “I told him we were passing through the area and that we were curious about the spate of deaths by snakebites in his town. I told him we’d be staying in the area for a few days and to call me if he thought we could offer him any help.”
Kala snorted out a laugh. “His expression was priceless. I could practically hear what he was thinking.”
A hint of a grin appeared on Flynn’s lips. “What do you think he was thinking?”
She stuck her thumbs through her belt and eyed us contemptuously. “
You greenhorns know nothin’ about nothin’. Why don’t you amble on back to the big city where you belong?” She spoke in an exaggerated southern drawl that had Flynn doubling over in laughter. Mark and I shared a grin at her antics.
“Did you find anything useful inside?” I asked when their laughter petered out.
“We picked up the scent of a rattlesnake,” Flynn replied. “You?”
I hadn’t known what type of snake it was, but now I could put a name to it. “Zeus and I smelled it, too. It was headed that way.” I pointed towards the western side of town and the desolate landscape that lay beyond.
“Do you want us to try to follow it?” he asked Mark.
Our boss debated for a moment then nodded. “You’ll be able to move a lot faster without me. I’ll wait for you here.”
I exchanged glances with Kala and Flynn. We still didn’t really know what we were dealing with yet and we didn’t want to leave Mark alone. “I’ll stay with him,” Kala offered grudgingly. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to miss out on the action. The only form of activity they’d had during the past four weeks had been searching for me.
Flynn took the lead since his sense of taste was even better than my sense of smell. Zeus tagged along with us. He could run much faster than Mark and for a far longer time even while he was recovering from an injury. We stayed at a fast jog until we were out of sight of town, then I scooped Zeus into my arms and we sped up. His tongue lolled and he grinned happily as the wind flashed past us. It wasn’t quite as much fun as riding in a car with his head sticking out the window, but it was close.
I caught flashes of the snake’s trail while running beside Flynn. He came to a stop when we’d been running for nearly half an hour. The scent had just petered out and the wind had blown away the minimal tracks that it had left on the dry, hard ground.
