by C. T. Adams
That raised his head, nearly frantically, which twitched Lucas’s brows. But before he could shout out the “No!” that threatened to burst from his mouth, Adam stopped to really consider the idea. Life here in Minneapolis would go on, and those who were left would probably be glad to have the dissidents… those who supported Josef’s actions yesterday, gone. And those who went would be happy to be rid of him. He hadn’t gone far enough with Cara’s pack that they would know the difference, but how far had he gone with Cara—? “You said she would have a voice in that decision.”
Lucas nodded. “That I did. And those who went down wouldn’t have a very good opinion of you. I guess it depends on how your first meeting with her pack went. If you hit it off, then sending down people who hate you might cause friction. But if those people stay up here, this pack will suffer.” The shrug that followed said everything, and nothing. “Like I said, there are no easy answers. The council’s decision was clear. The Alpha in Minnesota would be the one to make the decision. There hadn’t been a vote on allowing Cara to be involved. There’s no question after this fiasco that you’ll be Minnesota’s Alpha.” The soft chuckle was one of both frustration and comradery. “This is going to be one of those annoying decisions you’re probably going to regret in hindsight no matter what you choose.”
He was spared thinking up a response to that when there was a knock on the door. Bobby had closed it when he and Tony left. Adam turned his eyes to the carved wood. “Yes?”
The door opened smoothly inward and David stuck in his head. Behind him in the hallway, looking both nervous and slightly nauseous was Vanessa Wright, who was always the first to pitch in during any crisis. She was good at it, too, so it was nice she was here.
“Adam? Sorry to interrupt, but I really think you and Chief Santiago need to see this.”
He glanced over at Lucas, who raised his brows. They both stood and followed David out the open door and farther down the hallway toward the receation room. “Nessa was cleaning up the rec room and…” David turned his head backward to look at the pale-skinned beauty, a dairy queen pageant winner in her teens, “How about you tell them how it happened?”
She nodded with tiny movements, and the intense scent of surprise mingled with fear. “Well, the mess wasn’t really too bad down there, and I figured we’d need somewhere for people to gather later because… well, the reception and weight rooms where we normally meet are trashed right now. I was really just straightening it, because a couple of the pinball machines had been shoved around and the couch was against the wrong wall.”
Vanessa paused, because they’d reached the room in question. Adam walked in and discovered that one of the wood paneling sheets had a hole in it about the size of his head, just below the chair rail that separated the paneling from the painted drywall. David moved his hand in a sweeping gesture toward the hole while Vanessa continued.
“I lost my balance when I was moving the couch because it got caught on the rug. When I reached out to steady myself, my hand went right through the wall. Now, I’ve worked at this club since we opened it as headquarters nearly a decade ago, and I never had any idea there was a room behind that wall.” She turned to Adam. “Did you?”
Adam felt himself rear back and he looked to David for confirmation. His brother nodded. “You really need to take a look in there, bro. Josef had apparently gotten himself into some really weird shit.” He held out a flashlight for Adam to take.
Lucas stepped forward with him and they both crouched down in front of the hole. The first thing he noticed was a pale orange light from a computer CPU in standby mode. He turned on the heavy black aluminum flashlight and an involuntary swear burst from his mouth. “Holy shit!”
Chapter 18
“ARE YOU REALLY sure this is a good idea?” Yolanda’s voice was a low hiss from inside the cab. She was alternating looking into the binoculars through the windshield, and watching Cara undress. They’d followed the owl until it disappeared into the shadowed depths of one of the canyons where Cara had raced Will.
“Following it is the only way to find out what’s happening. There’s no road down there. We’d get stuck. But I know that canyon like the back of my hand. I’ll be fine.” She hurriedly removed her bra and panties before carefully folding everything and putting the clothes behind the driver’s seat. “You just concentrate on covering our tracks. Remember, call in the tag on that abandoned car we spotted hidden in the mesquite grove and think of something to buy me a little time.” She thought of herself in wolf form and felt magic start to shift her body. Today it didn’t feel nearly as painful. She was grateful for that. Maybe she still had a little residual magic from Lucas helping her along.
She heard Yo gasp as the fringes of the magic pressed against her, making her cringe and press herself against the truck door. That was no surprise. Most humans had an instinctive fear of predators, and the Sazi energy that went with it.
Cara shook herself when she reached all fours and she heard Yolanda slide over on the seat until she could see out the driver’s window. She heard a sharp inhaled breath. “Ay Carumba! Sweet Mary, you really are a freaking wolf! That is you, right?”
It occurred to her then that while Yolanda had known about the Sazi in the abstract, today was the first day she’d gotten an actual glimpse into their world. She tried to keep her voice light, but it always came out slightly deeper than her human voice, with a trace of growl. “Yep. I just remembered this is your first time seeing me this way. You okay?”
She nodded, but her eyes showed quite a bit of white. “I… I’ll get used to it. I think. For the record, though—you’re a really pretty wolf. I never thought you’d have the same color hair… that is, the same color fur as your hair.”
Cara jumped into the air slightly as a test, forcing most of her weight down on her forelegs when she landed. Her arm had been feeling a little weak since it fractured, and she wanted to make sure she would be able to handle jumping from rock to rock in the canyon. It held, but twinged a little. Still, it would have to do. She looked up at her friend with warmth and let her tail wag once.
“Thanks. Now remember… stay out of sight and in the truck. If any of those birds spot you, hightail it out of here and call Will on the phone number I gave you. He’ll know what to do.” She raised up her front legs and placed them on the window jamb, causing Yolanda to back up a little nervously. “Do me a favor and put my watch on my front leg. I’ll try to be back here in thirty minutes.”
Yo picked up the watch from the dashboard and reached forward, stopping before she actually touched her. She gave Cara a sideways, suspicious look. “You’re not gonna bite me, are you?”
Cara rolled her eyes and raised her nose to the sky in frustration. “Ay ay ay, stupida! Would you just put the damned watch on? We don’t have all day.” The snarl that followed the words probably didn’t help. She let out a slow breath and looked at her now nearly panicked friend, being careful to flop down her ears and look suitably helpless. “Sorry, Yo. No, I’m not going to bite you. I haven’t yet… even when you stole my date for the prom. If I was going to bite you ever, it would have been then!” She winked and Yolanda finally laughed.
“Okay, okay. I get the point.” She reached forward, no longer afraid, and buckled the watch through the braided leather band, making sure it was fairly tight into the fur so it wouldn’t slip off. “But, for the record, Jose asked me. I didn’t steal him.”
Cara lightly dropped back to the ground. “Of course, it was just sheer coincidence that the door to the AV room locked on you both the same afternoon he left me a note to meet him after school.”
Yolanda met her eyes with a deadpan expression. “Absolute coincidence… that took the better part of a day to set up.” She grinned then and Cara let out a quiet snort that wasn’t quite a bark. “Now, you’d better get your tail in gear, urn, literally. Oh, and I figured out our cover. Remember those goats back near where we found the Chevy? I’ll tell dispatch they got out whil
e we were checking out the car.” The light scent of black pepper drifted to Cara’s nose at the creative lie. “It might take a few minutes to put them all back.”
“Great idea! Maggie and Bob raise goats. She won’t expect us back for awhile.” Cara shook herself once more and scanned the sloping hill, searching for the quickest route. As she started down, she heard Yolanda on the radio.
“T-6, dispatch. Me and the Chief are out on CR four-one-eight, northeast of the Rocking L spread. I need a registration check on a gold Chevy Caprice, plate Thomas-Xray-Robert six, four Beta two.”
A brief rattle of static caught Cara’s ears before the reply. “10-4, T-6. Should I start a second unit rolling to you?”
“Negative, dispatch. No need. Oh, and we’re gonna be a little late getting to base.” Cara snorted at the faked sound of embarrassment that flowed easily through her friend’s voice. “It seems a herd of goats found their way out of the gate while we were trying to get a plate number.”
Just before she reached the bottom of the canyon, she heard Maggie’s amused voice. “Copy that, T-6. Y’all have fun. Try grabbing a back leg on the kids, and watch out for those billies. They’re ornery when you get ’em riled. Oh, and you might be able to lure them with a big live oak branch. They love those. But I’ll pass the word along.”
The sounds from above faded away as she reached the edge of the canyon fifteen minutes later. She paused to listen and catch the scents on the wind as they flowed through the cool shadows. They’d watched for long enough through the binocs that she was certain the owl hadn’t flown out the other end. So, it was still in here somewhere. She just had to make sure that she found it before it found her.
She picked her way among the rocks with care, avoiding patches of loose rock in favor of the bases of massive junipers and boulders. It was during one of her frequent pauses to listen that she finally heard the sounds of feeding—the thick, wet tearing sound like good silk ripping, along with the scent of blood. She eased forward, keeping her body in shadows and the wind in her face. Rounding the last corner finally gave her a view of the owl along with five others! Three were smaller than the one with missing feathers and the other who’d attacked them yesterday. Unfortunately, none of them were talking so she couldn’t determine gender or nationality. The turpentine scent of the juniper branches she was peering through contributed to her nausea as she watched the feeding frenzy.
¡Madre de Dios! The viciousness the birds exhibited was both fascinating and terrifying. She watched as the owls tore at the quickly disappearing hog, the big male’s snout now gone so the teeth were exposed in a grisly smile. They screeched and pecked at one another, flapping to keep balance as they fought over each scrap. In the background, she could see an older model gray van, similar to the one they’d found earlier. But I didn’t think there was a road into this canyon. That deserved more checking, but cautiously. There were far too many of them for her to handle.
Cara eased backward, planning her route behind a series of boulders so she could see better. She crouched, wiggled her hindquarters, and then leaped lightly to her first hiding spot. She stopped as soon as she landed, watching to make sure none of the birds noticed. But then the stinging bite of Sazi magic and a dusty scent from above her froze her in place.
The sizzling sound that followed pounded her heart. It was an all-too-familiar noise in this area, and it wasn’t a good one. The hissing, nearly whispered words that followed didn’t ease her mind any. “¡Hola, leetle wolf! You startled me, sometheeng that does not too often happen.”
Definitely male. Spanish is his first language, with a South American flair. The greeting was amused and quiet, as though he had no intention of raising an alarm. Yes, a mild citrus scent joined the dusty one. She looked up to find a dark brown rattlesnake resting on top of the boulder in the cool shadows. But this was no ordinary rattler. Its length was easily ten feet and his chest, where it rose up from the rock in a characteristic S, was as big around as a cantaloupe.
There was intelligence in the slitted yellow eyes. He had the advantage and he knew it. She could only move backward or forward. There was no side movement available between the cliff face and the boulder. But moving forward would put her in view of the birds, and backward would put her on uneven footing in a slippery pile of caleche. It was why she’d jumped here to begin with. She remembered that a snake could only strike about a third to half its body length, but that was on level ground. Here, he could simply jump down on her and had Sazi speed to boot.
Reason with him? Put on a good show? It was a tough decision to make in only a few seconds. She decided on a combination of them. She kept her own voice to a whisper, but let calm and authority flow through it. “Who are you and what are y’all doing in my territory?”
The sizzling sound stopped as he relaxed the long string of rattles in his tail and he lowered his head so it hugged the lichen-covered boulder before easing into the harsh heat. He flicked out his tongue and regarded her for a moment from less than a yard away before opening his mouth, flashing his fangs in the sunlight. She struggled not to back up. “That is none of your beesness, leetle wolf. You’d do well not to ask too many questions.”
“People have died. That makes it my business. But this doesn’t have to involve you, amigo. The birds are the only ones I’m interested in—unless you helped, that is.” The unspoken threat hung in the air between them for a long moment.
A light series of short hisses gave the impression of laughter. “Oh, I helped, leetle wolf. I definitely helped. I didn’t eat the humans as they deed, but they didn’t go far after a taste of my venom, muchacha.”
Had they looked for snakebites among the other wounds on the bodies? She smiled, taunting. “You’re bluffing. I don’t think they’d let you play. I’ll bet they didn’t even offer to share that hog down there with you—and it pisses you off.” She would have remembered this scent and it definitely wasn’t present in the hospital. Sazi snakes and birds sometimes worked together, but the prejudice was always there, hiding just under the surface. Maybe she could encourage that rift.
A burst of fiery peppers in her nose told her she’d been right. The rattling started again and he hissed. “Enough of theesss! Tell me where the girl isss.” His S’s were becoming more pronounced the angrier he got.
That drew her up short. Is that why he was talking to her… they were still hunting for Ziri? Another flash of worry burst through her, but she stopped it quickly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The snake eased forward, his tongue flicking repeatedly. “You’re lying to me, muchacha. But perhaps you’d be weelling to trade. Geeve me the girl—”
Cara put more weight on her back leg in response to the snake’s movement. While she certainly wouldn’t reveal Ziri’s location for any reason, there might be some value in stringing him along. He paused long enough that she was forced to ask. “And you’ll give me what in return?”
The snake’s eyelids blinked upward and he opened his mouth, revealing the pinkish white maw that was nearly the size of her whole head. He breathed out a slow hiss, filling her nose with the scent of dead, decaying rat and rabbit. “I’ll geeve you your life, leetle wolf. Otherwise, I weell call my friendsss over to play.” He paused and hiss-laughed again. “You wouldn’t eenjoy that. But I would.”
She bared her teeth and tensed. It was time to end this. She was definitely outnumbered. “Go to hell.”
“You firssst.” He reared back suddenly and she moved, narrowly avoiding the strike as she leaped backward. She turned and bounced her front legs off the cliff face and ran… harder and faster than she ever had in her life. She had to get back to the truck to call Will. She couldn’t afford to fail.
Cara didn’t have to wonder if the snake was following because she could feel his hot breath on her heels and stinging magic try to hold her in place. She had to pick up her feet quickly to avoid his fangs and prayed that he couldn’t jump into a strike while slithering. Fas
ter and harder she pounded over the rocks, not caring about the branches that slapped her face, and the cactus that embedded in her paws. Nothing she tried seemed to be an obstacle for the snake. He flowed over the tallest boulders and skirted the trickiest corners. And with each movement, she had to fight against the web of magic he threw forward like a net, trying to slow her enough to grab her with his teeth. She was weakening and there was still the hill to climb. But when she spotted the truck, she realized Yolanda was standing outside next to it, scanning the valley with the binoculars. Damn it ! She didn’t dare scream a warning, since only silence had allowed her to get this far without alerting the birds. Thankfully, the snake didn’t want their help, or she’d already be caught.
On her first leap up the hillside, she felt the rocks under her give way. She scrambled for purchase and felt a moment of panic before her claws dug in. Adrenaline flooded her body and she felt a sudden burst of reserve strength, like a second wind, that pushed her forward even faster. She climbed hard, doing her best to push as many rocks as she could down behind her to slow the snake. When she heard a sharp swear in Spanish, she knew she’d hit him with at least one.
Finally, she saw Yolanda’s gaze turn toward them and her friend froze, watching as the massive rattlesnake followed her up the hill. She had to lead the snake away from her friend, but there was no time to shift direction because the snake could see the truck as easily as she could. He might decide a hostage would be a good bargaining chip. Instead, she called on everything in her, forcing her muscles into a blur of movement until she pulled away from the rattler.
