Wicked Hour

by Chloe Neill

  He looked up at me, nodded. “Yeah. He moved away when he saw me, but I saw him talking to her, waiting for her, things like that, more often. I think he was interested in her.”

  Having seen the photo of the young and lovely Paisley, I understood why. But Loren was decades older, and she was involved with Traeger. This didn’t sound like mutual interest.

  “She didn’t feel the same,” I offered.

  “Not even close,” he said. “He was older than her grandfather, and we had a thing going on. He wasn’t mean or anything. But he kept hinting around, being wherever she was expected to be.”

  “He was stalking her.” Connor’s voice was cold, the words leaching furious magic into the air.

  “I don’t know if it was like that,” Traeger said. “But he was . . . I’d say she thought he was harassing her.”

  That might explain why Beth and Jae had seemed leery when Loren had approached them.

  “Did she tell anyone?” Connor asked.

  “She wouldn’t even admit it to me. I asked if he was bothering her, and she said no. Said he was just a harmless old guy, kind of funny. Paisley was chill, and she liked everyone. But you could tell—I could tell—he sometimes made her uncomfortable.” He swallowed hard. “And then she was gone.”

  His voice had turned hard, and when he looked up, so had his eyes. “I think Loren killed her.”

  Frowning, Connor leaned forward. “You have evidence of that?”

  “I know what I know,” Traeger said, but shifting his gaze. “No. I don’t have any damn evidence. I have a feeling. I have what I saw—the look on her face.”

  And the fact that Loren was the last person who’d seen her alive. And she’d apparently been angry about whatever they were discussing.

  “How could he have killed her?” Connor asked. “They were walking together along the old main road, right?”

  “Maybe they’d had a fight, and she told him to stay away from her. He got pissed, and he pushed her in front of a car. Or maybe it was an accident; I don’t know. I just know he made her uncomfortable, and then she was gone. She should have talked about it,” he added. “But she wouldn’t.”

  “But you would,” Connor prompted. “You told someone you were angry. That Loren was getting away with something.”

  Traeger’s lips pressed together. “I’m supposed to be loyal.”

  “To the clan,” Connor said. “To the Pack. Not to the people who put them in danger.”

  Traeger’s jaw worked as he considered, as if he were chewing over the words he wasn’t sure he should say. “I told Cash.”

  Connor sat back. A quick glance might have made you think he was just getting comfortable, relaxing. But his hand was fisted on the table, knuckles nearly white, and the look in his eyes was nothing near relaxed.

  He was angry. And working to hold himself in check.

  I understood the feeling.

  “And what did Cash say?” Connor asked.

  “Same as you. He wanted fucking evidence. Wanted proof that Loren did anything other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had nothing. And that was that. No proof of crime, so no punishment.”

  Maybe it wasn’t so surprising that Cash had seemed pretty casual about investigating Loren’s death. Give him a good memorial, a good send-off, but don’t worry overmuch about the details, because whoever killed him did you a favor. Ridded the clan of a problem.

  “And that bothered you.”

  “Fuck yeah, it bothered me.” He slapped the table with the flat of his hand. “It’s fucking wrong. It’s the same shit different day around here. Elders are in charge, and we don’t question them. Elders do wrong and too fucking bad. They get away with it.”

  “Did you tell Georgia?” I asked.

  Traeger’s combative position didn’t change, but his gaze softened. “No. What could she do? Everybody knows Cash calls the shots.”

  “Do they?” Connor’s words were barely a whisper. And I began to feel a little bit sorry for Cash and the rest of the elders.

  “It’s the truth, man.” Traeger looked up, met his gaze. “Maybe you do things differently in Chicago or Aurora or Memphis, but we ain’t in any of those places. We’re here in the sticks where Cash and the others are in charge. Their way or the highway. And where else would we go?”

  Connor didn’t answer, just watched him.

  “Here,” Traeger continued, “playing at being humans while we’re surrounded by wilderness. That’s ironic, don’t you think?”

  “So, what? You thought you’d bring back a little of the wildness?” Connor asked. “Wreak a little havoc?”

  Traeger seemed to go a little paler. “Not me, man. I don’t have anything to do with it.” But he looked away, avoiding eye contact and the truth.

  “You haven’t lied to me yet, Traeger. Don’t start now.”

  Traeger stared hard at the refrigerator as he considered, worked through whatever dilemma he was facing.

  After a good minute of silence, and while Connor watched him, he turned back again.

  “It started with Zane Williams. One of my friends. I was pissed and blowing off steam, told him I thought Loren had been harassing Paisley. I said I’d love to take a few swings at him, but couldn’t. Because he was clan, because he was an elder.” Traeger cleared his throat. “Zane said things needed to change. And I said he was fucking right.” He looked up at Connor. “And he still is.

  “That was a few months ago,” Traeger continued. “And then Paisley died, and Zane said it was too fucking bad the clan hadn’t stopped Loren in the first place.” He swallowed hard again. “And then Loren was dead.”

  Silence fell over the cabin, heavy and full of magic. Traeger’s: nervy and uncertain. Connor’s: barely banked anger.

  “And you think Zane killed him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you help?”

  “What? No. Of course I didn’t help.”

  “There were four creatures at the Stone farm, Traeger. Four of them. That means Zane isn’t working alone.”

  “I’m not one of them,” Traeger said, bitterness in his voice. “I mean, I’m one of his friends, but not his only friend. I wasn’t included in the plan.”

  “Who was?” Connor asked.

  Traeger swallowed hard, as if working past the guilt of betraying his friends. “He was closest to John, Beyo, Marcus. He’s supposedly got some human friends in town who sell to him when he wants to get high, but I don’t know their names.”

  “And he didn’t give you any details about how they were doing it? What they were changing into?”

  “Not really. He’s been cagey about it.”

  “You were friends enough that you think he might have killed Loren because Loren hurt your girlfriend,” I said. “But he didn’t invite you to play with him? He didn’t tell you how he was going to do it?”

  “Because of Georgia,” Alexei said quietly, and Traeger nodded.

  Connor sat back, watched Traeger. “They weren’t sure if you were trustworthy.”

  “Yeah,” Traeger said bitterly, a flush rising on his cheeks.

  “Then give us your best guess,” I said.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t even seen the creatures. Just heard about them.” He seemed shamed by that, too. That he hadn’t been included even that much, and even though he’d helped spark their behavior. “Zane told me he figured out a way to get even with Loren, to scare him into telling the truth. Something that would make them strong.”

  “Magic?” I asked.

  “He didn’t say. I assumed so, because you could tell their magic was . . . different . . . when they came back.”

  “Did any of them know how to do magic?” I asked.

  “Do magic?” Traeger asked, and his face seemed earnestly blank. “Like spells and stuff? No. We aren�
�t sorcerers.” He shifted his gaze to Connor, as if looking for help in explaining what shifters are to a noob.

  “It’s rare,” Connor said. “But there are shifters who can work spells. Not very well.”

  “No shit?” Traeger looked genuinely surprised. “Huh. I don’t think Zane knew anything about that. He just said something about how they’d be able to reach their full potential. At first, I thought he was full of shit, that maybe he’d found some kind of energy drink. But then Beth was attacked, and Loren was dead, and the Stone farm, and then the shutters. And I haven’t seen them in a few days.”

  “Why did they attack Beth?” Connor asked.

  Traeger rubbed his arm. “They were coming out of the woods and thought she saw them. They were going to knock her unconscious, hope someone would just think she tripped or something, and wouldn’t believe her if she remembered anything.”

  “She didn’t get a good look,” Connor said. “So they hit her for no reason.”

  Traeger just lifted a shoulder.

  “Do you know why they attacked the Stone farm?” I asked.

  Traeger shook his head. “Probably because the humans were always crossing into our territory. Cash didn’t care ’cause Carlie’s practically family, but Zane didn’t like that they hadn’t been punished.”

  “And they tried to remove the shutters because I’d changed a human without permission—a human under the protection of the clan—and I hadn’t been immediately punished.”

  He dropped his gaze again. “That would be my guess, yeah.”

  So they were playing vigilante—meting out justice to trespassers who they felt hadn’t gotten what they’d deserved.

  “Where do we find them?” Connor asked.

  “Zane lives with his mom and sister. Jude and Evelyn. They’re in one of the houses at the edge of the resort, close to the road. Beyo, Marcus, and John share a cabin. Other side of the road from Zane’s. You can’t miss it—there’s a couch on the front porch. I went by—none of them are there.”

  “Do you know where else they’d be?”

  “I think they have another place—some kind of clubhouse.”

  “At the resort?” Alexei asked, pushing off the wall and moving closer as he prepared for action.

  “No, in the woods somewhere. They were always muddy when they came back.”

  Connor pushed back his chair and stood. “Go to Georgia’s and stay there. Don’t leave until we come back, and don’t try to find them.”

  Traeger lifted his brows. “Why?”

  “Because you have knowledge,” Connor said. “Which you just passed on to outsiders. And Zane and his friends seem to like executing their own judgments.”

  Traeger’s face went pale.

  “You did the right thing,” Connor said, replacing his chair. “It may not feel like that right now, but you did the right thing—telling us. You might have saved a life tonight. That’s what you should think about.”

  EIGHTEEN

  We watched Traeger walk back to Georgia’s, made sure he went inside and the door was closed behind him.

  “So,” Connor said as he worked on a bottle of water that had been squeezed into the fridge between the bottles of blood, “Traeger planted this seed about Loren harassing Paisley, and the clan won’t do anything about it. Zane decides he’ll do something about it, rounds up three friends. But instead of confronting Cash and the others, or contacting the Pack for help, they make themselves ‘stronger’ with some secret magic and start playing vigilante.”

  “And not very well,” Alexei said darkly. He stood beside Connor at the island, chewing the heads off gummi bears before eating their bodies a handful at a time. “Ironic since you let Cash claim Obsideo.”

  Connor gave him a look. “I didn’t let Cash claim anything. I made him show his cards, because he was going to do it even if he put Elisa through the clan’s ‘process’ first.”

  Alexei chewed, considered. “Probably. Miranda’s idea?”

  “Probably,” Connor said, then glanced at me. “Anything from Theo?”

  I belatedly realized I hadn’t checked my screen all night. I pulled it out, found a bevy of messages.

  “Theo hasn’t yet been able to reach the Order about the magic,” I reported as I scanned them, “but no one in the OMB or its database has any information about the creatures. And it doesn’t match the description of the Beast, which is more of a bear, not a prancing wolf.”

  “So the Beast may still exist,” Alexei said as I gave Theo an update, cramming a lot of magical extortion and shifter dramatics into a few words. “It just isn’t here.”

  “Someone has to know what these things are,” Connor said. “If this quartet of idiots didn’t make this magic, someone who knows about magic must have. I don’t know much about spells, either, but don’t you have to know what you’re aiming for when you write the spell in the first place?”

  “Like a recipe,” I said. “You want bread, you need a recipe for bread.”

  “Exactly,” Connor said. “Let’s go talk to Jude and Evelyn.” He glanced at Alexei. “You want John, Beyo, and Marcus?”

  Alexei’s smile was sly. “Three to one sounds like very fun odds.”

  “Why do you eat the gummi bears’ heads first?” I asked as we headed outside again.

  “So they go down easier.”

  Shifter logic.

  * * *

  * * *

  Zane’s house was a slightly larger version of the cabin, and the similarities in style and decor were beginning to creep me out. I understood the group wanting to live together in the resort; vampires lived in houses, after all. And maybe they’d all liked the style enough not to change it, or just weren’t that interested in the aesthetics. But it was unsettling to walk in and out of same-but-slightly-different buildings. Like each was a broken reflection of the last.

  Jude was a woman with tan skin and a hard-bitten look. Her hair was a cap of pale blond, her makeup strong, and her clothes decorated with rhinestones and embroidery. Evelyn was probably in her mid-twenties, with a swing of straight blond hair, simple clothes, and delicate makeup. She’d distanced herself from her mother’s style, intentionally or not.

  “We’re looking for Zane,” Connor said. “Have you seen him?”

  “Not in a couple of days,” Jude said. Her voice had the thick and grainy tone of a lifelong smoker.

  “Would you normally see him every day?” Connor asked.

  “He usually drops by, sure. But could a few days pass before we see him? Yeah. He’s got his own life.”

  “We understood he lived here with you,” I said.

  “He does,” Jude said, and didn’t elaborate. So I guessed that was all we were going to get about her son’s sleeping habits.

  She sat on the couch, leaned forward. “What’s it like to be a vampire?”

  “Mostly dark.”

  “What about to live in one of those vampire houses?”

  “Mom,” Evelyn intoned. “I’m sure you aren’t supposed to ask about that.”

  “I don’t see why not. She’s a vampire. She doesn’t hide it or anything. Made a new one last night, didn’t she?”

  “We need to talk to Zane,” Connor said, trying to move us back toward the point, which had begun to fade into the distance.

  The seriousness in his tone seemed to have her—finally—realizing this wasn’t just a mild social call. “Why?”

  “We think he might have helpful information about the trouble the clan’s been experiencing lately.”

  Jude snorted. “He’d have information about how to be a pain in my ass. Takes money out of my purse ’cause he’s on some new tear. Some new fixation. Pawned some of my good china just to get a little extra cash. He’ll grow out of it,” she said, and sounded convinced, “but he’s in that stage.”

  She rolled
her eyes dramatically, and didn’t seem to realize that telling us her son was a troublemaker was only going to make us look harder at him. Or maybe that was what she wanted: for someone to handle her son.

  “We understand he’s friends with John and Beyo and Marcus.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “What about Traeger?” Connor asked.

  She laughed bitterly. “Yeah, when he’s not running around doing something for Georgia. She keeps him busy.” She sounded disapproving. “Kids need time to be themselves.”

  “Hmmm” was all Connor said.

  “I think I left my screen in the car,” Evelyn said, rising from her stool at the kitchen counter. “I’m going to go get it.” She flicked her gaze toward the door, signaling that we should follow her.

  “Thanks for your time,” Connor said, rising. “If you see Zane, we’d like to talk to him.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  We followed Evelyn outside and around the house to the family firepit a few yards from the lakeshore.

  “I love my mother,” she said quietly, arms crossed and gaze on the water. “But mothering was not exactly her strong suit.”

  “Sounds like Zane causes you both some grief,” Connor said.

  “Rules don’t apply to Zane,” she said. “Or at least that’s his position. He comes and goes as he pleases, takes what he wants.” She shook her head, looked back at us. “I work in town, and I’ve got my own place. I drop by to check on her.”

  “You’re doing her a favor by not causing her problems,” Connor said.

  She shrugged. “You’re here because of Loren, aren’t you? Because of last night?”

  “Why do you say that?” Connor asked.

  “Because if you told me my brother was involved, that he hurt someone, I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, I wouldn’t call him violent. At least not before. But he does what he wants, and he always has.”

  “Traeger says he might have been angry at Loren.”

  “Who isn’t he angry at?” Evelyn said. “According to Zane, he’s the smartest guy in the room at all times. And my mother’s ‘boys will be boys’ attitude doesn’t help.”