by Jenn Burke
“Spill,” she ordered.
I didn’t pretend to not understand her. “They’re shifters.”
Her eyes darted between myself and Hudson. “Meaning...?”
I needed to get Kat a copy of Lexi’s paranormal textbooks. “They can change forms. Shift. Like werewolves.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“No.”
“Werewolves are real?” Her voice hit a high pitch and I was glad she’d closed the door behind her.
“They’re not werewolves. Werewolves don’t exist,” Hudson assured her. “Shifters can shift into anything.”
“Jesus Christ. That does not make it better, Rojas.” She braced both hands on the conference table we were standing around and leaned hard on it. “Werewolves that aren’t werewolves. Jesus Christ.”
“Shifters are magical creatures who have a human form and an animal form their clan—family—chooses to use. Isabel’s family chose to be foxes, but they could have chosen wolves, hawks, bears...whatever animal their ancestors decided suited them best.”
“And then that’s it? They’re locked in?”
“No, I’m pretty sure they could shift into something else too...their chosen animal is, like, their favorite suit.” I grimaced at the description even before Kat shook her head.
“Favorite suit. Good Christ, I should have moved. As soon as I knew about this shit, I should have seen if the RCMP wanted me,” she muttered.
“The fact that they all died of drug overdoses is weird.” Hudson ran down the reasons I’d already listed in my head, which made Kat’s scowl even deeper.
“So you’re saying it should be an impossibility for those five bodies to be in the morgue under those circumstances?”
“Exactly,” I said. “Example—last winter, Evan tried X.”
“Fuck, Wes, don’t tell me that.”
I ignored her. “Thing is, one tab didn’t do anything, so he took another. The double dose hit him hard but his magic swept it out of his system fast. It’d be the same or similar for any paranormal being.” Which is why it took me half a bottle of Jack before I felt anything, in the instances when I wanted to get wasted. Thankfully, they were few and far between these days.
Hudson gripped the back of a chair. “The last shifter she mentioned, Walter Gordon?”
“The guy you were following yesterday.”
“Right. Wes saw him buy four kilos of something, then twenty minutes later, he’s dead.”
Kat’s brows rose. “You figure he sampled the goods?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I told the cops to check his car for the stash, but I don’t know if they did.”
“I’ll follow up, but it doesn’t make sense that he’d take some if he knew it was deadly.”
“Which makes me think that one, it isn’t always deadly, and two, he didn’t know it could be.” He kneaded the back of the chair. “At any rate, it means that the drug is either so deadly it would be killing human drug users across the city...”
“Which isn’t the case, as far as I know,” Kat said.
“Or it was tailored specifically to paranormals.”
“Tailored to do what, though? Get them high?” I looked from Kat to Hudson. “Or kill them?”
Chapter Four
“She was such a good girl.” Juanita’s breath hitched, and she swiped a wadded-up tissue over her nose. “I don’t understand.”
It was later that afternoon. I sat on one of the worn armchairs next to the couch where Juanita was stationed, a box of Kleenex in her lap and her husband on the other side of her, pressed close. Hudson took up one of the other chairs, his large body making it look undersized. I was perched on the edge of my seat, my elbows braced on my knees, as I tried to exude comfort. The tension in Juanita’s and Victor’s shoulders had lessened slightly, but even a god’s compassion could barely touch the grief they were feeling.
“Had she ever done drugs previously?” Hudson asked softly.
Victor shook his head, then paused. “Once. She tried marijuana. I caught the scent of it on her and she complained it did nothing for her, so I didn’t have to worry she’d try it again.”
So drug use wasn’t habitual—as far as her parents knew. But considering they were shifters, it would probably be pretty hard to conceal it from them. “Did she party a lot? Drink?” I asked.
“She liked to hang out with her friends,” Juanita said. “But they’re good kids. I like all of them. She didn’t run with a bad crowd. Except...”
“Her boyfriend?” I guessed.
“I didn’t like him.”
“I remember you mentioned he might have something to do with her disappearance. Why would you think that?”
“He liked to party,” Juanita said. “That’s what Isa told me. Sometimes she wanted a quiet night in, but he was always dragging her off to another party or getting upset if she didn’t want to go.”
“Upset how? Violently?”
Victor shook his head. “I never scented any wounds. He wasn’t abusing her. I thought he lacked ambition and wasn’t a good fit for Isa, but he wasn’t hurting her physically.”
So the idea that he might be involved with her disappearance was likely a mother’s protective instinct flaring up and not necessarily based in reality.
“What’s Logan’s last name?” Hudson asked.
“Marchand. We never met him—they’d only been dating for a few months.”
Hudson made a note. “Is there anything else you can think of that we should know?”
“You can look in her room, if you want. It’s downstairs,” Victor said. “We made it for her when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to move out right away...rent was too high.” He continued rambling as he stood and led us to Isabel’s basement apartment, giving us information that wasn’t useful to our investigation but which painted a picture of a much-loved daughter who would be missed forever.
He lingered at the doorway for only a moment before returning upstairs, slowly, to comfort his wife, and I turned my attention to the room.
It wasn’t neat and tidy, but then, Isabel had been nineteen and probably didn’t have time for housework. The studio apartment’s tiny kitchenette had a bar fridge, a two-burner electric stove, and a microwave. There was a table with two seats between the bed and the kitchen area, and the double bed was a mess—rumpled comforter, disheveled sheets, a magazine clinging haphazardly to the edge of the bed, ready to tip onto the floor at any moment. A laptop sat on one nightstand and a small flatscreen TV was mounted on the wall facing the bed. Next to the TV a corner desk bore two monitors and a computer suitable for a graphic design student. The walls closest to the desk sported a multitude of letter-sized sheets of paper with various designs that looked similar to those I’d seen on Isabel’s Instagram. Obviously she liked her own work, which made me smile. I wish I’d had a chance to know her.
It wasn’t the nicest apartment I’d ever been in, looks-wise, but intention-wise, it won all the awards. This had been a space Juanita and Victor had created to help their daughter be independent while still being close to home and safety. My heart ached for their loss.
Hudson made his way around the room, looking at the desk and the drawers of the nightstand. I left him to it—there wasn’t enough room for both of us to poke around and he was the one who had the investigative skills. The desktop wasn’t password protected, but a quick search of it showed she used it only for work. The laptop had a password, but Iskander or maybe Evan could probably hack it—he’d shown a talent for the tech stuff. I made a note to ask Juanita and Victor if we could take it with us.
Hudson stopped for a second to inhale deeply, looking for out-of-place scents with his predator-level senses, but after a few moments, he shook his head.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. I think the boyfriend’s going to be our best bet.
”
We headed back upstairs with the laptop, which Juanita confirmed we could borrow, and said our goodbyes. Once we reached Hudson’s car, I started searching online for Logan Marchand. It didn’t take long to find him. Like a lot of young people, his social media was completely open to the public, so I was able to see all of his hedonistic selfies, where he worked, where he went to school, everything. It looked like one of his favorite hangouts was a bar called Alleys, which doubled as a bowling alley, of all things. It would probably be our best bet for catching him for a chat tonight.
I held out the phone for Hud to glance at. “What did investigators do before social media?”
“A lot of walking,” he said with a grin.
Since it was close to dinner and Hudson needed to check in on a paying client, he aimed for home. We stepped into the house to the unexpected aroma of cooking food. Priya was in the kitchen, singing along to music emanating from a Bluetooth speaker as she chopped up vegetables for a salad. Her long ponytail bopped along to the music with every shimmy of her hips. There was something bubbling on the stove, and I thought I heard the spit and hiss of meat in the oven.
“Hey, y’aright,” she said with a smile that slowly faded as she realized neither Hudson nor I seemed very lighthearted at the moment. “Rough day?”
“Very.” I climbed onto one of the stools on the opposite side of the island from her. “But this is a nice surprise.”
“You don’t have to cook for us,” Hudson said. “You should be out exploring.”
“Oh, I did. While you were out. When I got back, you weren’t here, so I thought cooking dinner might be a nice gesture, yeah? You like bangers and mash with baked beans?”
“Love it.” Hudson pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “I’ve got some work to finish up. Give me a shout when dinner’s ready.”
Before he could escape, I grabbed his shirt and tilted my head up for a real kiss. His eyes darted to Priya, but I tugged insistently, and he smirked before lowering his lips to mine. It wasn’t a long kiss, nor a particularly deep one, but it was one we both needed. A reminder that whatever road we were on, we were on it together.
“You’re real sweet together.” Priya opened the oven door to check on what I assumed were the sausages.
“Thanks.”
“I’ll admit, when Uncle Hudson said you were together, I thought it was pants. Rubbish,” she clarified at my blank look. “You’re a bit young for him, yeah?”
I bit back a smile. I looked like I was in my early twenties, compared to Hudson’s late fifties, but I was actually fifty years older than him. And Hudson’s aging stopped when he became a vampire before his fortieth birthday. So yeah, at this point, age truly was nothing more than a number for us. It had no meaning.
“I suppose you get that a lot,” she said ruefully, closing the oven door and leaning back against the counter. “Sorry. But he seems crazy about you, so it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, does it?”
“Bingo.” I gave her a smile to show I held no hard feelings. “So how was sightseeing?”
“All right.” She shrugged. “I liked seeing all the things, but it was a little lonely. Oi, I’m not saying that to make you feel guilty or anything,” she rushed on. “I know I plopped down on you, didn’t I? Can’t expect you to drop everything to take care of me.” She rolled her eyes. “And everything I’m saying digs me in deeper. Ignore me.”
“Hudson and I have to go to a bar tonight for work. Want to come?” I found myself saying.
Before I could withdraw the impulsive invitation, Priya lit up. “That’d be brilliant. Cheers!”
“Great.” I hoped she couldn’t see the lack of enthusiasm in my smile. It’d be fine.
How much trouble could we encounter in a bowling alley bar?
* * *
From the outside, Alleys lived up to its name. It looked like an old bowling alley, with slate gray metal siding and a deep profile—presumably to accommodate the lanes inside. The sign above the door featured the bar’s name and a pair of bowling pins flying away from a ball strike. There was something about the ball...but before I could figure it out, Hudson opened the door for Priya. I followed her in and swung my gaze around the place.
Unlike most bars or pubs, the lighting in here was good. It had to be, I supposed, because of the lanes. You couldn’t bowl unless you could see the pins. There were six lanes—two occupied—and a desk where you could rent shoes. The rest of the interior was taken up by the tables, chairs and a stage, of all things—not to mention a giant metal and lacquer bar. Behind it, the bartender wiped down a glass while watching us, a deep scowl on his face.
Priya headed for the shoe rental desk, and I went to follow her, but Hudson clasped a hand on my shoulder to hold me still. “We fucked up,” he whispered in my ear.
“Huh?”
“This is a shifter bar.”
God. Of course. That was what was up with the ball on the sign—it sported a subtle shifter mark. Juanita and Victor had never met Logan, but it would make sense that Isabel would date another shifter. And that said shifter would hang out with other shifters.
My heart jolted as Priya spoke with the person at the shoe rental desk. “Should we—”
“If I turn tail, someone’s going to follow me outside and try to show me who’s dominant.” Hudson’s low voice held the barest hint of a growl, and I knew he was battling his predatory nature. “I don’t want to end up fighting them with Priya as witness.”
“Okay.” I sucked in a breath. The men and women at one of the two occupied lanes were watching us intently, but the people at the other lane were oblivious. Clearly Alleys had a mixed clientele...even if the humans present didn’t know it. “So we stay and keep our heads down?”
“Yeah. I don’t think they’ll do anything overt with humans present. I’ll stick with Priya, you do the questioning. No one is going to want to talk to me.”
I huffed. “Not all vampires are assholes.”
Hudson chuckled. “Oh, yes, we are.”
We joined Priya at the shoe rental desk, requisitioned the appropriate sizes, and booked a lane. By her thin-pressed lips and the dark looks she kept shooting in Hudson’s direction, the clerk wasn’t thrilled to be serving a vampire, but as Hudson predicted, she wasn’t going to make a fuss about it where humans could witness it.
It was kind of weird, this unspoken rule about keeping the paranormal secret. Everyone followed it, even though there was no paranormal police force to keep us all in line. As a community, it was instinct, I guessed—instinct to keep us safe from the humans who outnumbered us exponentially. If humans as a whole ever clued in to the existence of the paranormal, I had no doubt fear would overrule curiosity, and paranormals would be hunted to extinction.
I subdued a shiver at the thought.
We got set up at the lane. Everything was computerized, which made me realize how long it had been since I’d last been bowling. In fact... I chuckled and bumped shoulders with Hudson. “The last time I went bowling was with you. In nine—uh, oh-nine.”
Priya laughed. “What were you, like, ten?”
“I’m older than I look,” I assured her.
“I remember,” Hudson said softly, catching my gaze.
It had been in our early days of dating. Two buddies out enjoying a friendly bowling game. We hadn’t been intimate yet, so it wasn’t truly a façade—but the possibility of sexual attraction had been lurking at the edges of our relationship from the moment Hudson followed me home from the grocery store where we’d met. I hadn’t thought of that date in years, but the memory swamped me now. How much laughter we’d shared, the friendly bets we’d had going, the fact that I ended up winning the games because, hello, I’d been bowling for longer than Hud had been alive at that point. And underneath it all, that spark I hadn’t felt in decades—desire, attraction, need and want—waiti
ng for a few more gentle overtures from Hudson to burst into a roaring flame.
I leaned close and whispered in his ear, “I love you.”
He shot me a smile, his eyes flashing yellow for an instant, then got up to retrieve a ball to start the game.
Hudson won the first game and I bowed out of the second so I wouldn’t hold them up when I went to talk to the bartender. He was serving a pint to one of the shifters from the first lane as I approached but he kept his dark, scowling eyes on me rather than his customer. I stepped up to the bar and the customer growled—a low noise that rumbled through me. In response, I let out a little of my magic, enough to make my eyes glow. Enough that both the bartender and customer would get the idea that while I looked like any other human, they shouldn’t mess with me. The growl cut off instantly. The customer grabbed his beer and departed without another word—or sound, as it were.
“Help you?” the bartender asked warily.
Ordering wine probably wouldn’t win me any favors here, so I surveyed what they had on tap and ordered three pints of a wheat beer.
“Sure.” The bartender grabbed the first glass and started pouring. He had tawny skin, with long, straight black hair pulled back into a low ponytail and a neat full beard sprinkled liberally with white. His gaze kept darting over to me, and I could practically hear the gears turning in his brain as he tried to figure out who I was. What I was.
“If I said I was Wes Cooper, would that help?”
The glass slipped out of his hand and plummeted to the floor.
“I guess not,” I muttered.
“Shit.” He scrambled to clean up the mess. The half-full glass had landed on the no-slip mat, so it hadn’t broken, but there was beer everywhere. “I thought you were a myth.”
I hadn’t wanted to become an overnight paranormal celebrity, but when Hudson, Lexi, Evan, Iskander and other friends had summoned me back from the beyond last winter, it had sent a bit of a ripple through the paranormal community. Witches had felt it, as had the vampires, and shifters, apparently. My name and what I was had passed from mouth to ear via whispers, and that’s when strangers started showing up on my doorstep looking for help.
