Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella

by Cecilia Dominic

  “Then you’ve had time to learn to pace yourself better.”

  “The nightmares, my boy. The nightmares.”

  At least yours aren’t ambushing you in the bathroom. I took the key that kept missing the lock from his unsteady grip and let us in. In spite of our long association, this was the first time I’d seen Laird Hall. The castle had been built back in the Victorian era once history had afforded enough distance from the Battle of Culloden for the families who’d been on the wrong side of the war to come out of hiding and reestablish themselves. However, the family constructed it on the original site of their medieval fortress, and some of the old stone had been incorporated into the new castle. It gave the place a patchwork old and new atmosphere, and David had continued the tradition, sometimes to a ludicrous degree, as I saw in the den, where a suit of armor stood by a large flat-screen television.

  “Is it standing guard?” I asked, pointing to the armor.

  “Old Gareth there provided a great reception boost when we were still dependent on aerials. Drink?” He held up a crystal decanter and a glass.

  “No thanks. One of us needs to have his wits about him.”

  “We both do.” He poured a glass of water from another fancy-looking pitcher and sat in a large leather armchair. I took the one beside it, opened the bag with the sandwiches, and passed him his dinner. The combination of the savory gravy-meat aroma with the old castle smells brought to mind the feasts that must have occurred here and in the original Laird Hall. I felt like I straddled several points in history and blinked to clear the dizziness and bring myself back to the present and the warm, heavy sandwich in its paper in my hands. We ate in silence for a few minutes.

  “Do you have the letter?” David asked.

  “No, it’s at home in my safe, but I wish I’d brought it back to you.” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice but must have failed.

  “Nightmares get you too?”

  “No, worse. I must be going nuts because things got strange after you left. It’s just not possible for what happened to be real.”

  He barked a laugh. “Right, because it makes perfect sense that we should turn into large predators at the full moon.”

  “Touché, but I don’t appreciate it invading my home.”

  “What’s haunting you?”

  “Not sure yet.” I didn’t want to tell him who it was. If he felt that badly about having failed my father, then who knew what he’d do if he knew the ghost was hanging around? Especially considering David’s drunken state, although he seemed to be returning to lucidity quickly.

  He nodded. “It’ll let you know somehow what it wants. Damn ghosts are nothing if not persistent.”

  “Very true. By the way, just how closely involved were you in my life? I remember you being there, but it’s all foggy.”

  He snorted. “That’s because you couldn’t bother to sit still long enough to see what was right in front of you, and I couldn’t get too close.”

  My male suspicion kicked in immediately. “Did you and my mother…?”

  He almost choked on a bite of roast beef and coughed until he cleared it. “No, Mary was a beautiful girl, but she wasn’t for me. Plus, she never stopped mourning your father. The day the telegram came was the day the lass started to die.”

  The look in her eyes, reinforced by the bathroom vision, came back to me. Or maybe it had never left, and I knew he spoke the truth. She’d never been the same, and when she’d gotten cancer at age forty-three, she hadn’t fought it, just slipped away.

  “I can’t imagine my father would have wanted that for her.”

  “Nor do I, but that was her decision. I did my best to watch over the two of you and convince her to take care of herself, but I had to do it without putting the two of you in more danger. I’d gone to the Continent for a couple of years, and that’s when she got sick. By the time I returned, it was too late.”

  “For what?”

  “I could have convinced her to seek treatment, such as it was back then, if I had been able to talk to her about it sooner. Of course she never mentioned it when I called. When I returned and saw how sick she was, the disease had already spread to her bones.”

  I nodded. “And she died soon after.”

  “Leaving you without both parents. It was another way I failed your Da.”

  The way he looked at the swords hanging on the wall concerned me. “You’re particularly morose tonight. What does all of this have to do with the letter? What kind of danger were you afraid of putting us in, besides getting shot at with silver arrows?”

  He balled up the sandwich wrapper and threw it into the bag. “There’s something I need to show you, but it will have to wait for another time. I need to look for it in my archives, and I had to build up some liquid courage to go into the dungeon.” He shook his head. “Talk about ghosts.”

  I checked my watch. It was getting late, and I needed to call Selene to confirm our date the next night and Jade to set up a meeting. Plus, David blinked sleepily at the candles in their sconces. Perhaps he had managed to pickle himself into oblivion and now, with a full stomach on top of it, found sleep difficult to fight.

  “I’ll leave you, then.”

  “Aye, and be careful of what lurks in the forest.”

  14

  Once I returned to my house, I left Selene a voicemail confirming I’d pick her up the next day at six o’clock and the address, which Laura had sent me. I wondered what Selene’s plans for the evening could be, but it was none of my business unless she was hanging out with the scar-faced assailant, in which case she wouldn’t invite me along, anyway.

  My next call was to the number Jade had given me on the third page of the itinerary printout. She picked up on the second ring, and it sounded like she was in a club somewhere.

  “Oh, right, I remember you!” she shouted over the music, and I had to hold the telephone away from my ear.

  “Can we meet tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Can’t. Campbell pushed the trip up so the whole happy fucking family can be together.” Her level of sarcasm indicated she was either pissed drunk or pissed angry, maybe both. “Meet me out tonight.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  She rattled off the name of a bar in Inverness, which was about forty kilometers away. I told her I’d be there as soon as I could.

  “Don’t rush, love,” she said. “I’m supposed to be out recruiting other young lovelies like myself for Bartholomew’s harem so we can pretend he’s the big bad wolf and let him chase us all over the islands. Might as well let me find a few stupid ones so I can say I’ve done my job.” She rang off and left me looking at my phone with a mix of disgust and confusion.

  “What does a seventy-something-year-old who looks like a thirty-year-old wear for clubbing?” I asked myself and looked in my closet. The weather forecast said the temperature would drop, so I chose a green shirt, khaki pants, and white sweater I hoped wouldn’t get spilled on. Not that it mattered overmuch—I’d learned long ago not to become too attached to clothing. Nothing ruined garments like changing into a wolf without getting undressed first, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped.

  The bar Jade had specified was near the others in Inverness’s city center. I lucked out and found street parking not too far away in an alley. I walked a block and found the place called Raven’s on a narrow street that had been closed to automobile traffic. It sat at the bottom of a tan stone building, and blue light spilled through its windows and onto the cobblestone sidewalk. Again, the juxtaposition of old and new disoriented me, but a tug on my sweater brought me back to the present. I looked down to see Alexander, the little clairvoyant from the school, grinning up at me.

  “Mister Gabriel?” he asked.

  “Hello, Alexander,” I said. “Where are your parents?”

  “Da and his girlfriend are over there.” He gestured over his shoulder, where a man and a woman stood with tolerant but uncomfortable expressions on their thin faces. She had a t
akeaway bag in her right hand from one of the restaurants I’d passed. I raised my hand, and they reluctantly waved back.

  “What is it?” I asked as I walked toward them to introduce myself, but Alexander held me back with another tug to my sweater.

  “They know who you are from the Council,” he said. “Father recognizes you from the pub. I have a message.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t go into the blue place. It’s not safe for you.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I didn’t ask who she was. You said not to strain myself, but she had fishes in her hair.”

  Reine. “Thanks, Alexander. You have a good evening.”

  He looked up at me with those serious brown eyes. “You’re going in there, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t feel like getting into a conversation about the trustworthiness of the Fey. If the pub wasn’t safe for me, I needed to find out why since it could potentially impact Council dealings. If everything did turn out fine, it would be one more reason not to trust the white-blonde fairy the next time she appeared.

  “It’s complicated,” I told the boy.

  The “bullshit” look he gave me seemed out of place on his small face. “That’s what grown-ups say when they don’t want to explain something. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He turned and walked back to the adults. His father waved, and I recognized him as one of the other lycanthropes I occasionally encountered at Marley’s. I made a mental note to talk to him chap-to-chap one night about his strategy of “toughening Alexander up” by sending him to the Council School. Meanwhile, I had a mysterious woman to meet.

  “Identification?” the brawny lad at the door asked me, so I showed him my ID – which the council had updated with a realistic birthdate every ten years or so – and he let me in. I found Jade at a table in the back with a couple of other young women.

  “Oh, is he the kind of man you get to be with in your club?” asked one of them. She batted her eyelashes at me.

  “I’m not with her organization,” I said. “I prefer to think for myself.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.” They stood. “Maybe catch you next time, Jade.”

  She watched them leave, her expression exasperated. “Thanks. Now I’m going to have to stay out all night to catch more.”

  I sat beside her. “Or you could just quit the cult. You seem to have a pretty good idea what it’s all about without having bought into the brainwashing. Except for the affair you’re having with Bartholomew.”

  “Oh, but it’s not just an affair. You see, he loves me. He’s going to leave Cora for me.” She didn’t sound like a lovestruck young woman but rather like someone who was enacting a battle strategy.

  Even so, I figured I’d put my two cents in. I’d heard similar words from other women, and it never worked out for them. I told her as much and finished with, “And they usually find happiness with someone else soon after.” I couldn’t help but think of Joanie and Leo.

  “Like you?” she asked. “You’re like Bartholomew. You’ve got power.”

  I stopped myself from recoiling at the comparison. “I wouldn’t say I’ve got his kind of power. I don’t use women like he does. You must have some doubts about him if you invited me out tonight.”

  She stirred the dark red concoction in her glass with a cocktail straw and took a sip. “You need a drink,” she said and signaled to the waiter. He leaned over, and she whispered in his ear.

  “Table service? What is this place?”

  She looked around with a proprietary expression, a female predator in her hunting grounds. “It’s a little classier than most of the pubs here, and the patrons often have more money. Bartholomew likes that.”

  I recognized her for what she was—a beta but also a hunter. “He’s recruiting humans? That’s in violation of Council policies.”

  “It only goes against policy if he’s luring them in to change them. He keeps them on the edge of the organization in perpetual ‘development classes’ while draining away their money and resources.”

  “That’s illegal in their world and in ours.”

  She sipped her drink. “They’re looking for something more than ordinary life. Is it really illegal if we’re giving it to them, even if it’s only in a peripheral sense?”

  “What do they think they’re signing up for?”

  “Worship in an ancient Celtic rite.”

  The server brought me a cocktail before I could order.

  “What is it?” I asked, but the whiskey, bitters, and orange smells told me. “An old-fashioned?”

  “Like you,” she said. “A hero at heart. They just don’t make guys like you anymore.” She stirred her drink again.

  Meanwhile, the one she’d ordered for me had more of a kick than I expected, and I put it down after two small sips. “That’s enough for me. I need to drive back to Lycan Village.”

  “Stay for a bit.” She put her hand on my arm and looked up at me with her big, brown eyes. “I have some friends coming to meet me here.”

  “What kind of friends? Other Purists?”

  She shook her head. “No, you’ll see. Oh, there they are now.” She waved one skinny arm to signal a tall couple dressed in leather and denim. The woman’s long blonde hair flowed out from beneath a leather top hat, and the guy had a lush blond beard. At first glance, they seemed annoyed to see me, and then they smiled, showing their teeth.

  They’re lycanthropes.

  With the odds now three to one that I would get out of here unscathed, my mind reviewed the exit strategies it had formulated upon walking into the place.

  “Alice and Rob,” Jade introduced them. “This is Gabriel. He’s the Council Investigator.”

  They nodded. “We’ve been wanting to meet you,” Alice said and sat in the chair Rob held out for her. “We’re very interested in the work the Institute is doing.”

  “And how would you know about that?” I asked.

  “Well, there was the article in the paper,” Rob told me, taking the other empty chair and sitting too close for comfort but far enough for politeness. “But you know it’s hard to keep a secret among our kind for long. We’ll sniff it out, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  What had Garou said? Alice and Robert MacLemore, the leaders of the Young Bloods, liked to hide in plain sight, and here they were with a representative of a rival organization. “Speaking of keeping secrets,” I said, “you know you’re risking exposing all of us with your social media presence. I should shut your page down.”

  Alice laughed, but her smile didn’t rise above her beautifully high cheekbones. “As if you could. We’d only pop up elsewhere, and we don’t recognize the authority of the Council. We’re humans with a health problem we’d like access to curing, not werewolves.”

  “And where will I find you two nights from now when the moon is full and singing in your blood?”

  She gazed at me for so long with her big blue eyes that Rob tensed. “At home, tranquilized with anxiety medication and antipsychotic drugs that will leave me hung over for two days and make it harder for me to work on Monday. It’s hell, Investigator. I’ve already lost two jobs due to weekday absences.” Her eyes sparkled, but it wasn’t with moonlight. I wondered if they might be crocodile tears, but her distress seemed genuine enough. “The moon won’t cooperate with her timing, so we need your help.”

  I glanced at Jade, who turned her glass between her palms. “Strange company you’re keeping considering who you work for.”

  She lifted her thin shoulders. “I work for myself, not Bartholomew Campbell and his group of crazies. There’s a reason I’m the worst recruiter beyond the fact that most of us can’t be found in the cities anymore because it’s too difficult to be what we are in an urban environment.”

  “So why do you work for him?”

  She looked at me like I was dense. “So someone can watch what he’s doing. Luckily he’s gotten so inflated with his alpha wolf thing that he wouldn’t even consider I’d
betray him, not his cute little secretary.”

  Her statement didn’t ring true. Spies didn’t necessarily sleep with the object of their observation. It occurred to me she was either unsure of what she was doing or, more likely, wasn’t being honest with me.

  “Inflated, perhaps even tumescent,” Rob interjected.

  I snorted, but Jade didn’t find it funny.

  “Just because I’m willing to use unorthodox methods to stay close to the leadership doesn’t mean you have any space to judge.”

  “Your methods aren’t unorthodox,” Rob said and put an arm around Alice’s shoulders. “They’re the oldest methods in the world: to get to the king, you get to the queen or get in his bed, sometimes both.”

  “I doubt Cora is into that,” Alice said. “Leave Jade alone, Rob. She’s the one who got the letter off from their headquarters claiming responsibility for the murder.”

  I took another swig of my drink. Some of the ice had melted, making it less strong. “And I can guess where the other one came from and just how not responsible you are.”

  “We needed to get your attention and that of the Council,” Alice told me. “But we’re not murderers.” The waiter put a pink drink in a martini glass in front of her, and she sipped at the edge.

  “You have it,” I said. The girl just got more stunningly beautiful the more I talked to her, and… Oh no. I looked at my drink. What had they mixed in there? A glance around the bar revealed several of the young people looked my way, and now I was aware of it, I felt their gazes land on me too frequently. Jade watched me intently as Alice and Rob bantered. At some point, Alice’s hand found its way onto my knee.

  “I should be going,” I said and tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t work, and I flopped back into the chair.

  “You shouldn’t be driving.” Alice threw some money on the table. “We’ll take you home. Jade, will that cover it?”

  “Yep, we should be all set.” Her small mouth curled into a feral smile like a wolf about to snag a rabbit.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just need some water.” But when I blinked, the pub tilted, and my stomach churned. I kept myself from throwing up through sheer will and throat muscles of steel.