by J. C. Diem
Putting Zeus down, I turned in a circle. I couldn’t see anything of interest nearby. “Where did it go?” I asked.
Flynn shrugged in response. “I have no idea.”
Zeus put his nose to the dirt and began to search. Finding a tiny hole in the ground, he sat back on his haunches and looked up at me.
Flynn hunkered down beside him and inspected the opening. He thumped Zeus on the side a few times in gratitude as he took a deep breath. “It went in there, alright, along with at least a dozen other different varieties of snakes.”
There was nothing to see but sparse plants and bare dirt and the outline of the mountain range that extended far beyond our base. If there really was a snake charmer directing the reptiles, they were staying well hidden. Neither of us could follow the snakes below ground and it wouldn’t be wise for just the two of us to investigate further.
“Let’s head back to the others and tell them what we found,” I suggested. Not that we had much to tell them.
This time, Flynn carried Zeus as we sprinted back along our trail. He put him down before we came into sight of the town.
“Did you have any luck?” Mark asked when we reached them.
“We found a hole in the ground that a dozen or so different types of snakes have used as a passageway recently,” Flynn reported.
“You didn’t pick up any other scents?”
We both shook our heads. “Nothing that you wouldn’t expect to find in a desert,” Flynn responded. “If anyone or anything else is involved, we haven’t come across them yet.”
“I knew this was going to be a weird mission,” Kala said.
“Let’s take a look at the previous death site,” Mark suggested. “Maybe we’ll find something there.” It was going to be dark in an hour, but we should have enough time to do some investigating.
We piled back into the SUV and drove to a hair salon. A client had been bitten while her hairdresser was washing another woman’s hair. She’d been sitting beneath a hair dryer and no one had noticed her death throes. The hairdresser had fainted when she’d removed the dryer to see the wide, bulging eyes of her client staring up at her.
The salon was closed, but we weren’t going to let that stop us. We traipsed around to the back alley and Mark pulled a set of lock picks from his pocket. We kept watch while he picked the lock. He cracked the door open and relaxed when an alarm didn’t blare to give us away.
Kala was the last inside and she pulled the door shut behind her. The blinds had been drawn and the room was dark. Mark had warned the sheriff that we’d be in town, but blatantly breaking into buildings would be frowned upon. He flicked on a flashlight rather than turning on the lights and kept the beam angled downward. Sweeping it across the room, he stopped on a hair dryer that had been cordoned off with crime scene tape.
Zeus sneezed at the overpowering odors of hair bleach and dyes. He couldn’t pick up anything strange beneath the barrage of scents that assailed us. Flynn took a deep breath and made a face. “I can smell only one snake and nothing else that seems strange.”
Pained by the stench, Kala pinched her nostrils shut. “This is why I hate getting my hair cut,” she said in a nasally voice. “The smells are enough to make me gag.”
This was the first time I’d stepped into a salon since I’d become a shifter and I had to agree with her. It was nearly unbearable to be standing in the middle of so many overpowering smells.
“Let’s get out of here,” she complained and Mark complied. The lock was a simple one. He turned it back into position before pulling the door shut behind him. No one would even know we’d been there at all.
Circling the block on foot, we picked up the faint smell of snake and nothing else particularly interesting. I didn’t smell any familiar humans. If someone was controlling the reptiles, they hadn’t shown up in person to visit the crime scenes.
“What now?” I asked when we reached the SUV again.
“I doubt we’ll find anything useful,” Mark replied, “but we might as well head to the parking lot where the first victim was found. We shouldn’t draw much attention if we take a look around.”
The parking lot was on the far side of town. The victim worked in a hardware store in the small shopping center. The lot was nearly empty since most people had headed home for the day. As Mark had already guessed, we didn’t find anything useful when we scouted the area. Too much time had passed since his death for us to pick up the scent of the snake that had killed him.
“Well, that was a bust,” Flynn said sourly when we returned to our SUV. He was edgier than usual. Maybe this case was hitting a little too close to home for him. I knew how he felt. Facing a rogue werewolf hadn’t been much fun for Reece and me. Finding out Reece was related to the murderer had been a shock we were all still getting used to.
It was normally our policy to kill shifters who had tasted human flesh. Mark hadn’t had much choice about letting this one go. He’d made an uneasy deal with Nina Carter. She wouldn’t try to kill him if he’d spare her son’s life. He’d agreed, but he was going to keep his eye on West Virginia. If even one more suspicious death occurred in that state, he would destroy Gareth.
Nina Carter wasn’t just Reece and Gareth’s mother. She was also their alpha. She’d assured Mark that she could control her youngest son. She’d used him to lure Reece there so she could convince him to become their next leader. Her plan had worked, but only after she’d introduced him to his true mate, Gloria. My lips thinned into a grim line when I thought about the girl who had stolen my mate away from me.
“Are you alright?” Kala whispered when we climbed into the SUV. I turned to her in surprise, wondering if she’d read my mind. She pointed at my fists that I hadn’t even realized were tightly clenched.
“I was just thinking of how badly I want to punch Gloria in the face,” I whispered back.
She sniggered in instant amusement. “I’ll hold her for you,” she offered.
Flynn overheard us and grinned while Mark flicked us a suspicious look. “What do we do now?” I queried before he could ask what we were talking about. The other three deaths in Northam had occurred in places we couldn’t easily investigate without being noticed.
Thankfully, he let me off the hook. “Now we return to our base so I can perform some research,” he replied. “I haven’t come across anything like this before and I’m still in the dark.”
Our mission wasn’t exactly getting off to a great start, but he wasn’t going to give up easily. The Paranormal Investigation Agency’s records dated back over four hundred years. If there was anything like this on record, he’d find it.
It was fully dark and we were halfway back to the base when a single headlight appeared ahead. A motorbike zoomed past us and I caught a whiff of werewolf. Zeus growled and turned to stare out the back window.
The motorbike slowed and the rider looked back over his shoulder at us, but he didn’t stop. I kept watch to make sure he wasn’t going to follow us. If we could smell him, then he could smell us. Any shifter would be curious about finding a mixture of three different were-species, a human and a dog in the same car.
Flynn was riding up front again and his gaze remained glued to the rearview mirror.
“Did I miss something?” Mark asked when none of us relaxed our vigilance.
“That was a werewolf on the motorbike,” Flynn responded. “He doesn’t seem to be following us.”
Kala put her hand up. “I get to shoot him if he causes us any trouble.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Mark said. After our encounter with Nina Carter’s pack, he was understandably tense. He had nothing to worry about when it came to me. There was no possibility that I could be enticed away from the squad. They were the only people left who cared about me and my loyalties lay with them. Besides, I didn’t have the same craving to be a leader of a werewolf pack that Reece had.
We entered our compound twenty minutes later and the gate swung shut behind us, c
reating an impenetrable barrier. Unless they found a way to shut the electricity off, no one was going to be able to get inside.
Feeling restless, I stopped in the kitchen long enough to make everyone coffee then carried my mug upstairs. Zeus followed me this time. He showed no signs of his previous fear about climbing the spiral staircase. He flopped down onto the floor of my bedroom as I grabbed my laptop and sat down on the bed.
I left my door ajar so the others wouldn’t think I was hiding myself away. Mark’s footsteps sounded on the stairs a few minutes later. His chair squeaked when he sat down then he rolled closer to the computer table. His fingers tapped on the electronic keyboard as he commenced searching through the archives.
A knock came at my door as I started scrolling through the files that I’d stored on my computer. “Come in,” I said, knowing it was Kala on the other side. Her footsteps had been almost silent, but I recognized them anyway.
Entering my room, she closed the door then strolled over and sat beside me. Cradling her mug in one hand, she moved over until we were sitting close enough to touch and laid her head on my shoulder. “Reece is an idiot for leaving us, but I still miss him,” she said softly.
“I know.” The ache in my heart hadn’t diminished at all yet. I doubted it would go away anytime soon.
“What do you think he’s doing right now?”
“Probably boinking the blond bimbo,” I said bitterly.
Kala giggled and almost spilled her coffee. “I never knew you were so poetic, Lexi.”
“I have untapped depths,” I joked weakly.
Straightening up, she sipped her coffee then slid a glance at me. “Can you still sense him?”
I didn’t want to acknowledge the presence in the back of my head, but I couldn’t deny that it was there. “I can feel him, but he’s too far away for me to sense what he’s thinking.” He’d have to reach out and connect with me to make that possible.
“I guess he hasn’t bonded with Gloria yet,” she said. “Do you think you’ll know when he does?”
“I assume so.” I’d been told the process would be painful for us both. I almost hoped he’d give me some warning before it happened. Then again, did I really want to know the exact moment that he was going to sever himself from me forever?
“You know, it never would have worked between you two,” she said. The mischievous glint in her eye was a direct contrast to her somber tone.
“Because I’m not pure born?” I tried to suppress my bitterness as being inferior and failed miserably.
“Nah. Because your name doesn’t start with a G.”
I was surprised into snorting out a laugh. I hadn’t really thought of it before, but she was right. Nina’s husband had been Garrison and they’d named their sons Garrett and Gareth. Now Reece, or Garrett to be more accurate, had chosen Gloria to be his mate. “I wonder if they’ll still call their son Galen?” I mused.
“They might have a girl.”
“No, it’ll be a boy,” I said with utter certainty.
“How can you possibly know what they’ll have and what they’ll call him?”
“I saw it in the perfect world that the succubus sent him to. Gloria was in it and they had a little boy together.”
She frowned at that. “Even if Reece had met her when they were babies, how could he possibly know what she’d look like when she was an adult?”
I shrugged, too pained by the idea of him being with another girl to dwell on it. “I don’t know. Maybe succubae are psychic and can pluck this kind of information out of thin air. I’m still surprised by how weird monsters can be sometimes.”
“That’s for sure.” She watched me scroll through the files until I found something that looked interesting. “Do you want me to go?”
“No. You can stay if you like.” Some company that could actually talk back to me would be nice. Zeus was a comforting presence, but he wasn’t the best conversationalist.
“Read to me?” she requested then propped a pillow behind her back and settled against the wall.
“If you want.” I’d never read out loud to someone else before, but I was willing to try it. Depression settled over me as I realized I would never have any children to read to one day. I would spend my life alone and lonely even though I was surrounded by my team.
₪₪₪
Chapter Ten
Most of my personal research efforts had been spent learning as much as I could about vampires. As a change of pace, I chose a file about a dragon because it seemed to vaguely touch on our current mission. Dragons were kind of reptilian after all.
Once again, the file had been taken from Thomas’ journal and had been updated to modern English. He and Harold had heard about a flying serpent-like creature that had decimated a coastal town. Four hundred years ago, they had to rely on horses for transportation. It had taken them several weeks to traverse to the village. When they arrived, they found burned buildings and complete devastation.
With no survivors left to question, they continued on to the neighboring village a few hours away. It was dark by the time the pair reached the hamlet. Bonfires had been lit at both ends of the only street. Oil lamps were hanging the entire length of the cobbled road. Windows were shuttered and doors were no doubt locked tightly. Only one person was on the street and they quickly darted into a house and slammed the door shut. Clearly, the townsfolk were living in fear of an attack.
Thomas pounded on the door to the only inn until it was opened a crack by a terrified man. “What do you want?” the innkeeper asked in a voice that trembled in fear.
“We wish to hire a room for the night.”
The innkeeper studied them both carefully before grudgingly letting them in. “Hamish! See to their horses!” His shout was directed at a boy in his early teens. The lad’s eyes rolled in terror, but he unbarred a side door and scurried outside. “It isn’t wise to leave horses out where they can be seen,” the innkeeper explained.
“Because of the dragon?” Harold asked a little too loudly.
The few patrons who were seated at the rickety tables turned to look at them suspiciously. Thomas and his companion were well accustomed to receiving such looks. They’d now spent several years hunting monsters that most people didn’t truly believe existed.
“We saw the burned buildings in the next village,” Thomas explained. “We heard a winged beast was terrorizing the area and we’ve come to investigate.”
“Are you daft?” the innkeeper asked, appalled by that news. “Why would you want to investigate a monster?”
“He means we’re here to kill it,” Harold said bluntly.
There was silence for a moment or two then the patrons and innkeeper burst into laughter. “They mean to kill it!” someone crowed and thumped his fist on the rickety table as he descended into gales of mirth.
“Why don’t you just walk out to the bonfire and light yourselves on fire?” a toothless old hag asked. “It would be a quicker and far less painful way to die.”
“Has anyone here seen the beast?” Thomas asked. As a priest, he’d learned patience and tolerance long ago. It was easy for him to ignore their derision. Harold wasn’t as quick to forgive and he glowered at the townsfolk.
“Aye,” a gravelly voice said and the laughter abruptly died. A lone man was seated at the bar. His grey hair hung almost to his waist and his clothes were ragged and unwashed. He turned to reveal an aged and weathered face. His eyes were blue, but the left one was turning milky. The right one was still clear enough. “I saw it myself,” he said. “It flew in from the east just as the sun was setting. It snatched a man off the street right in front of me and bit him in two. It gobbled him down and spat out his boots then breathed fire on half of the buildings in town.” He took a gulp of ale from his tankard before continuing in a hushed tone. “I still dream of the screams that came from the poor souls who were trapped inside.”
Several of the patrons shuddered at the vivid description of the attack. They huddled
together for comfort as he continued his story. “It picked us off one by one. It didn’t stop burning down the buildings until the whole town was destroyed and everyone was dead.” Thomas had no doubt that he was telling the truth. His face was far too haunted for him to be lying.
“Not everyone,” Harold pointed out pragmatically. “You’re still alive.”
“That’s because I was smart enough to hide from the beast in the well,” the old man said. Downing the rest of his ale, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “If you saw this monster for yourselves, you’d think twice about trying to hunt it.” His tone turned even more ominous as he gave them that warning.
Thomas and Harold shared a look at his terrified expression. “Can you describe it to us?” Thomas asked.
“It’s the size of a house,” the old man croaked in a fear filled voice. “It has scales all over its body and claws as long as my arm. It was as black as the night and breathed fire that can burn any substance.” He shivered so hard that he almost fell off his stool. “You’d have to be insane to hunt it.”
“Has it attacked anywhere else yet?” Harold asked.
The innkeeper fielded that question. “Not that we’ve heard of.”
“I wonder why it attacked now and why just that village?” Thomas said and saw the old man flinch. Nodding to Harold that he wanted to have a quiet word with the man, he ambled over and took the spare seat beside the sole survivor of the town that had been razed to the ground. “I have a feeling you know more than you’re telling, my good man,” he said in a low voice as Harold spoke to the innkeeper about getting them a room.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old man replied. His eyes slid away as he spoke. It was a sure sign that he wasn’t being truthful.
“I am a priest, and I know very well when someone is lying to me. I also know when they’re trying to drown their guilt in ale.”
