by Debra Dunbar
The clerk shook his head. “If he bought ammo here, they were regular bullets. A regular bear killed those five people. Maybe it was rabid, I don’t know, but it wasn’t some magical were-bear that attacks people. Even if it was, I don’t sell those kind of bullets.” He looked around the store then lowered his voice. “I went on a climbing expedition with a couple of guides that I’m pretty sure were wolf shifters. They were good people. I’m not about to go selling the equivalent of murder weapons in my shop. If you’re afraid, then stay home, or get some spray. Otherwise, go elsewhere.”
Now, I believed him. He knew where I could get the tainted bullets, but he wasn’t about to tell me. And I honestly believed that he didn’t carry them. But if he didn’t, someone else had.
Someone. Out of the thousands of outfitters, of convenience stores, of bait shacks that sold bullets, someone supplied the tainted bullets to the hunters and to this Joseph Floyd. And it wouldn’t have been good business to keep that sort of thing too quiet, or their customers wouldn’t be able to find them. As Sheriff Murray had said, there was no law against selling bullets. These people advertised somewhere. I just needed to put on my marketing hat, think like a business owner, and figure out who, and where, they were.
9
I drove as quick as I could back to Karl’s little cabin, breathless with excitement as I headed down the slashed-bark-lined path to the entrance. This felt big. Bears didn’t let just anyone into their homes, and they were crazy possessive when it came to their food. Karl wanted me here, and he wanted to feed me.
He pushed open the heavy wooden door at my knock and motioned me into the tiny cabin.
I gaped in surprise. The dwelling was a single twenty-by-thirty room with a loft over the back third and a stout ladder leading upward. A woodstove doubled, no doubt, as a heat source as well as a method of cooking. There was a small refrigerator in the corner—an old-fashioned ice box with a section for a one-foot cube of ice and the food storage below it. The sink was a wash basin with a drain that led under the floor and outside past the rear of the house. There was no bathroom. There wasn’t even an outhouse that I could see. The cabin was far more primitive than I’d expected, but that wasn’t what had me catching flies with my mouth as I stood with my feet rooted to the hand-hewn oak floors—it was the books.
There had to have been hundreds of them. They were stacked in precarious towers on the floor, filling makeshift shelves that lined the walls, piled under the table and next to the sofa. I even spotted at least a dozen of them up in the loft next to the mattress.
“I thought you said you were a bear on the move, a sort of nomad shifter?” I commented as I walked into the house. “Do you pack the books up and ship them around every time you change dens? Or do you just leave them here?”
He wrinkled his nose and grinned sheepishly. “Leave them. I’ve got just as many in my other dens. Winters are long, and I’m alone a lot. Books make for good company.”
They did indeed. And it blew my mind to think that Karl had just as many books in several other dens. I hated to admit that I’d been stereotyping, or that I was a snob, but I’d never thought of Karl as a reader. I’d just assumed he was one of those jacked-up, good old boys whose idea of reading was a copy of Field and Stream once or twice per year. The guy didn’t have a cell phone, he didn’t have internet or television, heck he didn’t even have electricity or a bathroom. The idea of him sitting by the woodstove on a cold winter’s night and reading…holy cow, the guy had a copy of Great Expectations.
“Sorry. The place is a mess. I tried to clean it up a bit today, but I didn’t really build it to entertain a lady.” He moved a pile of books and ushered me over to the sofa with a hand on my lower back. “There’s nobody I’d rather have in my den, though. Glad you’re here for the night.”
Me too. He pushed me down on the sofa and wiped some spill off the maple-topped end table with his arm, then hustled into the kitchen, banging cabinets and firing up the woodstove.
Wait. How did he start that fire? He didn’t have one of those long grill-starter thingies, nor did I see him pull any matches out of anywhere. I didn’t have time to wonder though, because just as quickly as he’d begun dinner prep, he was pushing a glass of liquid into my hands.
“It’s not fancy whisky, or wine, but it’s not bad.”
I took a sip and caught my breath. Holy cow, Karl had moonshine. And it wasn’t half bad as moonshine went. Alcoholic as all get out, but with apple, cinnamon, and berry notes, and some herbal flavors that gave a refreshing finish to cut the corn-whisky bite.
“Dang, Karl. Are you trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me?”
“Hopin’ I don’t have to get you drunk for that. There’s a still out back and I put down enough hootch to last me through the winter. Books and booze, know it? Now, what are you hungry for, my red-headed wolf? Fish? Fowl? Venison?”
“Romaine salad with goat cheese and croutons, and a light balsamic vinaigrette,” I teased.
He shot me a mock scowl. “Then you best leave now and start driving to town, ’cause I ain’t got no green shit in this den, let alone balsamic crap.”
I laughed. “Seriously. If you’ve got meat, I’m gonna eat. You pick. Whatever sounds good to you is going to sound good to me.”
“Fish then. I never had it until I came up here. Well, I did, but it was the frozen breaded fish sticks or the stuff in the can. Nothing beats fresh caught, but smoked is a close second.”
I blinked in surprise, but didn’t dig into why a bear shifter would have been raised on frozen and canned food. We were all picky when it came to our meals—well, all except for Ahia who seemed to exist on macaroni and cheese. I watched him pull spices and oils from the cabinet, then head out in the back of the den, down to the woods. He vanished into the trees and I got into my duffle, pulling out my laptop and cell phone, then wandering around the room to find a cell signal. Nothing. I felt itchy at the thought of being so disconnected. Yeah, I’d lived in Alaska my whole life. I was used to dead spots and having to wait until I got back into the city for decent internet, but somehow, sitting in this tiny cabin full of books with no electricity or running water, I was two seconds from having to breathe into a paper bag.
This would never work. Karl was totally hot. Sex with him was mind-blowing. I actually liked him, scary though he might be. But the thought of living like this, even for a few weeks or months of the year was terrifying. It would never work between us. Never.
Karl came back through the door with two huge fish in hand.
“I’m not eating that raw,” I told him. “Especially with the guts still in it.”
He laughed. “You could have knocked me over with one finger when you took a bite of that fish the other day. I was sure you’d turn up your nose at it.”
“I didn’t want to be rude.” And I didn’t want to seem like a girly-girl, squeamish wolf in front of him, even though I pretty much was.
He snorted. “Thought you were gonna puke.”
“Thought I was gonna puke too. You crunching down the rest of that fish didn’t help my stomach any, either.”
His shoulders shook. I noticed he sliced through the abdomen of each fish, carefully peeling meat from the bones and insides. “Did it just to freak you out a bit. I gotta admit that I don’t mind eating like that, in fact I kinda enjoy it.” He turned to me, his eyes with those golden sparks that made him seem more “other” than human. “There’s a lot of things I enjoy, Brina. I’m not the type of shifter that civilizes well. Don’t like to be around people most of the time.”
“You’re more animal than human,” I commented. It wasn’t all that unusual. We had a few in our pack whose wolf-selves were more in control than their human half.
He stared at me a moment, the gold rolling over his hazel irises. The hair rose on the back of my neck. “More than animal, Brina. I’ve got bad blood, and it’s better for me to live out here by myself. I like you. I more than like you. I want to make
you mine and never let you go. And I realize that if I want that, I need to get control of my darkness enough to not kill your friends, to know which fork to eat my salad with. As well as actually eat salad.”
Was I weird? That had to have been one of the sweetest, most romantic speeches ever. Karl would eat salad for me. He wouldn’t kill my friends for me.
Wait. What?
“Well, I appreciate you cooking the fish this time.” I watched as he turned his back on me and continued to work, my gaze sliding from his broad shoulders, down his trim waist, to his amazingly tight ass.
“What did you find out from the police?” he asked, reaching for an unlabeled jar of seasoning.
I told him about my conversation with the sheriff, as well as what I’d found out at the morgue. Then I walked over and showed him the video that Brent had texted me of the wolf shifter attack. The links didn’t work since there wasn’t a cell signal or internet probably within miles of this cabin, but thankfully one of the videos had actually saved into my phone’s memory.
“The guy shifted too fast. It’s not normal,” he commented.
“No, it’s not. That’s what Brent said happened when the hunters shot him and Leon up in Kenai. Plus, the film’s been edited, so parts are taken out. It’s made to look like a shifter ran in, changed forms, then attacked. They would have had to shoot the wolf with the tainted bullet after he got there so that they could get the shift on film, otherwise everyone watching the video would just think a rabid wolf attacked them.”
Karl frowned down at the screen. “Doesn’t make sense. Why would the shifter run in on a group of humans like that? Gotta say, if some stranger came bursting into my campsite out of nowhere, I’d probably shoot him too.”
Good grief. “Remind me not to surprise you while you’re out camping then.”
“I’d know your scent. You’re not a stranger.”
“Even upwind?”
“It’s not just your scent, Brina. I’d know you. I can feel you near.”
Okay, that was just weird. But I didn’t have time to get into that. “You’re right about the shifter in this video. What if there was an emergency and he was trying to warn them? What if the hunters or another rogue were after him and he was trying to tell the humans to get away?”
He squinted at the phone. “The humans don’t look freaked out until the guy shifts from what I can see. If some guy came running into my camp hollering that a bear was after him, I’d be grabbing my gun. Actually, if some guy came running into my camp, I’d be grabbing my gun.”
We’d already established that. “I need a bigger screen. If the video quality is good enough, I could see the shifter’s expression and maybe get a better idea of what’s going on behind the scenes. While you’re cooking, I’ll see what the video looks like on your…”
Oh yeah. The guy didn’t have a cell phone, or indoor plumbing. I doubted he had a computer.
“Seriously? Ain’t even got electricity, Brina,” he huffed.
Yep. I should have known.
“I don’t think there’s going to be the panic you’re imagining. Lots of humans are going to think those videos are fake,” Karl added.
“And lots will think they are real.” I thought about the guy in the outfitter shop. He’d been reluctant to believe the tales of attacking shifters. He’d refused to sell the tainted bullets or even point me to where I could get them, but that didn’t mean others wouldn’t. “Even Alaskan natives are going to start shooting first and asking questions later. They’ll assume that every one of us they see is a potential killer. They know us, Karl. They’re our friends and neighbors. They know who we are, but with five people dead and these attacks, they’ll fear for their safety. And all the tourists… What’s next, registration? If this keeps going on, we’ll be considered a danger to all humans. If the angels don’t intervene, human government will. We’ve always had more freedoms in Alaska than in the other states, partly because the angels haven’t really bothered with us up here and the humans trust us. But now we’ll be tagged and restricted. Us as well as all the packs in the lower forty-eight, and even in the rest of the world…we’ll find ourselves declared dangerous.”
He reached out and smoothed my hair, his other hand taking the phone from me and putting it on the counter facedown. “That’s a long way off. Three or four rogues isn’t going to turn the world against us.”
I stared down at the phone. He was wrong. I, of all people, understood how things can catch fire in an internet age. “It won’t take three or four rogues. All it will take is one rogue, and one clever marketing campaign.”
Karl continued to cook dinner while I went outside and wandered his property, looking for a decent cell signal so I could do some research. There had to be noise on the internet, either on the comment section of these videos or in hunter and hiker forums about the attacks. And that was where I was sure I’d find some endorsement or referral to whoever was selling the bullets.
I glanced back at the flickering firelight shining through the cabin windows and felt guilty. Karl was making me dinner. He was happy to see me and was looking forward to some romantic time together, but here I was, type A, second to the Alpha, obsessing over all this. I couldn’t help it. If I could just get a name and number, or at the very least an e-mail address or website, I could go back in and stick all this into a corner of my mind to deal with tomorrow.
I finally got a weak signal by standing on the hood of my Jeep and reaching my arms up as far as they could go, which made typing difficult. Still I managed, searching hunter and hiker forums and chat groups, looking for any reference to specialized bullets, or shifters, or werewolves. Nothing. Then I got an idea.
And I struck gold. Werewolf had yielded nothing, and neither had shifter, but grizzly attack had. Suddenly there was a whole list of threads with both hunters and hikers concerned over being mauled by giant, aggressive, rabid grizzlies in Alaska that didn’t go down with even a round of .50 caliber bullets. There was an underground hysteria, and it seemed to have one source—a guy with the screen name of StraitShooter. And he was claiming to be with a hunting supply company outside of Juneau named Hit-The-Mark.
I did a quick search of the company, figuring I could always ask one of the Swift River Pack about it. Their main business interest was hosting tours and they knew all the outfitters and supply companies in the state. The website for Hit-The-Mark Outfitters was bare-bones. The internet marketing specialist in me itched to give them a redesign, but many of these smaller, mom-and-pop companies were content to merely have their contact information and location on the internet. This place didn’t even have a physical address or a phone number, just an e-mail address and a vague mission statement about providing for every hunter and hiker’s needs. It was so vague that it made me wonder what they were really selling.
I eyed the cabin and wondered if I had time to do more. As much as I wanted to e-mail Hit-The-Mark, I didn’t want to tip my hand. Clearly their clientele already knew what they were selling, and they most likely wouldn’t respond if they thought I was just some idiot who’d stumbled across their site in a blind search.
I was running out of time. And battery. While I still had enough juice to do it I sent Hit-The-Mark an e-mail, hoping I worded everything right, then I tracked down StraightShooter, grabbed his ISP and tagged a few of his posting trails as my phone was screaming low battery. Just before it died, I sent the lot to Brent with a quick e-mail, knowing he’d put a pack resource on it—someone with electricity and a decent internet connection, probably Elle or Allison, or maybe Zeph. That done, I hopped off the Jeep and headed to the cabin.
I was the worst date ever, I thought, watching Karl as he cooked, breathing in the intoxicating aroma of frying fish. “I’m so sorry. I know it was horribly rude of me to run off and do work-stuff with you in here making me dinner.”
He shot me a smile. “You’ve got responsibilities. You’re assertive and smart and driven. Don’t think I’d like you as much i
f you just sat on my sofa for the last hour and stared at me.”
“I promise, I’m done. And I really am because my phone is dead and even if I charge it off my car I have to stand on the roof and do some contorted pose just to get one bar of signal.”
“Good.” He flipped the fish. “Now you’re all mine.”
I shivered with anticipation. All his until some ungodly hour of the morning when I had to head back to Ketchikan and catch a plane. And then what? Get the bullet to Ahia. Track down this Hit-The-Mark place. Adjust my ad spend for the week and tweak some graphics for an upcoming sale. Then, in a few weeks, hopefully see Karl again at the barbeque.
I had a lot to do, but somehow the thought of seeing Karl was the highlight. Maybe I needed to take a vacation from work and the pack and see what his life was like out here. Could I do it? Could I hang in the woods for a week with no electricity, no internet, no plumbing? Just the two of us hiking, hunting, running on four legs? In the evening we’d take turns cooking, if I could figure out how to work the woodstove, read, then have sex. Actually we’d probably have sex several times during the course of the day if I had my way. It sounded ideal, but in reality would I be ready to crawl out of my skin within forty-eight hours?
I’d have to give it a try if we had any chance of making this work, just as he’d have to try the not-killing-my-friends and eating salad thing. Putting thoughts of Karl with his barely restrained violence aside, I turned my attention to the amazing spread he was putting on the table. “You do realize this is my personal fantasy to have a sexy guy fix me dinner while I finish up work.”
“Ain’t gonna be all that fancy, but think you’ll like it.” He shot me a quick glance then went back to the stove. “So what work do you do? Wolves work outside the pack, right?”
Oh my God. The fish looked amazing. And so did the veggies. Veggies! He’d actually dug up some veggies for me in spite of his obvious dislike of green things.
