by Jenn Burke
“Maybe they’re waiting for us to get out?” I asked quietly.
“Maybe.” Something in Hudson’s tone said he didn’t think that was the case, though. “Look at the truck.”
A lone vehicle was parked in a carport beside the farmhouse, an old blue pickup. Dead leaves clung to its windshield, caught in the wipers, and there seemed to be some sort of film all over it. Dust?
“It’s pollen,” Hudson explained. “Nothing’s touched that vehicle in months.”
A shudder worked its way down my spine and I turned to catch Sam’s gaze. “Recognize anything?”
She shook her head, her red hair bouncing with the too-quick movement. “No. I don’t like this place.”
“Are you sure you don’t recognize—”
“I said no.” She reached out, blindly, and gripped Lexi’s hand. “It shouldn’t look like this,” she said, almost too soft for me to hear.
I shared a look with Hudson.
“You guys wait here. Wes and I will see if we can find anyone to talk to.”
We hopped down from the SUV and started for the house. Every step closer drove home how abandoned the property felt. There was no sound except for the wind in the trees and our feet crunching over the dead leaves. I always thought of farms as places that were alive—never fully quiet, never fully still. But this place was not anything like that.
It felt...dead.
Hudson rapped on the front door, his efficient cop knock. One of his hands went back to his waist, where his duty belt would have held his weapon, then fidgeted and fell back to his side as he realized he wasn’t carrying, and never would again, Canadian gun laws being what they were. “Hello? Anyone home?”
No answer.
“Want me to ghost inside?” I whispered. I wasn’t sure why I was whispering, and I really didn’t want to enter that house by myself, but I had to make the offer.
“Hold on.” Hudson pulled back the screen door, which screeched, and tried the knob of the inner door. It turned and opened. “Hello?”
The only answer was the whistle of the wind.
“Do you have service on your phone?” he asked without looking at me.
I pulled out the device to check. “A couple of bars, that’s it.”
“Be ready to call nine-one-one.”
Well, that made me feel so much better about walking into this house.
I followed hard on Hudson’s heels as he stepped over the threshold. The door closed behind us, shutting out the sound of the wind. Everything was deathly silent. Even the ambient buzz of electricity was absent.
We were standing in a living room that smelled musty and unused. An empty glass on an end table had residue in the bottom, as though it had held liquid at one point that had evaporated. Dust covered everything, enough of it that my nose started to run.
Hudson drew in a breath—and gagged.
“What?” My heart leaped into my throat.
“Rotten food.”
We made our way into the kitchen. A milk pitcher had been knocked over on the table, and the milk had poured out of the bag. At least, I assumed that was what the crusty white film on the table was. An empty bowl on the table had a box of cereal beside it, open, and a second bowl sported a mass that might have been cereal and milk at one point. Now it looked fuzzy and gray-green. A few hardy flies buzzed around and I was suddenly thankful we hadn’t come up here in the middle of the summer. The air smelled slightly sour, but nothing strong enough to make me gag like Hudson had. Like in the living room, everything had a coating of dust to show no one had been here in a very long time.
I reached for the fridge, but Hudson grabbed my hand. “Don’t open it.”
Ah. That’s why he’d gagged. “Got it.”
One of the kitchen chairs was knocked over, a sign that whoever had lived here hadn’t simply walked away calmly and for whatever reason, never returned.
“What do you think happened?”
Hudson’s eyes took in everything, slowly, methodically, looking at the scene like the cop he’d been for nearly forty years. “Nothing good,” he said finally.
We explored the rest of the house, but everything was as untouched as the living room and kitchen. I half expected to find bodies in the bedrooms, but there were none. I thought for sure they’d be in the basement, then, but it was free and clear of remains too.
Somehow, not finding bodies was worse than finding them.
Eventually we returned to the SUV to find Evan, Iskander, Lexi and Sam all waiting next to it. Sam stood in front of Lexi, and Lexi’s arms were wrapped around her. Sam was shaking, and she looked as pale as a ghost, her eyes wide and frightened.
“Find anything?” Iskander asked.
Hudson shook his head. “Nothing. No one’s been here for months.”
“The electricity’s off, food’s spoiled, dust over everything,” I added. “It’s creepy.”
“It’s not supposed to be like this.” Sam was clutching at Lexi’s arms, and I knew from the grimace Lexi was making, she’d have bruises later. But she didn’t tell Sam to let go.
I bent down in front of her. “What’s it supposed to be like?”
She stared at the house. “The yard is messy. It’s never messy. S-she always keeps the flower beds neat and weeded.” When she looked at me, tears threatened to spill over. “I—I don’t—”
“Who’s she, Sam?”
Sam shook her head.
“C’mon, Sam. You can do it. Who’s she?”
Sam burst out of Lexi’s arms and knocked me over. Sprawled on my back, I watched Sam race past the carport, heading for the greenhouses. She cleared the carport as the first shot rang out. It kicked up dirt at Sam’s feet, but she darted sideways. Before I could make a sound, Hudson streaked across the yard to Sam, covered her body with his, and dove to the ground. Shots hit the dirt all around them, and Hudson rolled sideways, trying to get Sam and himself out of the line of fire.
I didn’t even think—I stepped into the otherplane and raced for the trees where the shots had come from. In the otherplane, I could run almost as fast as a vampire, since there was no resistance to my form. A spiky silhouette kept pace beside me—Evan, not Hudson. I could tell because his shadow-form was smaller. He pulled ahead as we reached the trees, and seconds later I heard the sound of fists meeting flesh. I reentered the living plane to see Evan fully vamped out...fighting another vampire.
I didn’t recognize her, but then, I could count the number of vampires I knew on one hand and have fingers left over. She had to be more than a hundred years old, since it was still daylight. A rifle lay discarded at her feet and she ignored it as she swiped clawed fingers at Evan’s torso. He danced back, but a claw caught his jean jacket and sliced through the fabric like it was tissue.
She darted forward, striking out faster than I could see. Evan grunted as her hits connected. Yeah, no—not happening while I was here. I reached for my magic and let it suffuse my body. My skin glowed, and I knew my eyes were too—harsh and cold blue. The sudden flare of light among the shadows caught the vampire’s attention, and Evan got in a good punch to her face. She stumbled backwards, then raced off through the trees. I slipped into the otherplane again and tried to follow her, but she easily outpaced me. Then I caught the sound of an engine revving hard and I knew she was gone.
I made my way back to where I’d left Evan. He was sitting up, panting, the vampire’s abandoned rifle in one hand. I dropped to my knees beside him and nudged his other hand away from his chest. There was a slash across his pecs, through his clothes, but it was already stitching itself shut.
“Okay?”
“Winded,” he said. “But okay otherwise.”
“Good. We’d best get back to the others before they panic.”
I helped him to his feet and we trudged through the woods, which was much slowe
r in the living plane than it had been in the otherplane. Eventually we reached the side yard, and as soon as we came into view, Hudson, Lexi and Iskander were all right there.
Evan assured them we were okay and handed off the rifle to Hudson. “Recognize that scent?”
Hudson took a whiff. His eyes widened slightly, then what I thought of as his Asshole Cop expression slammed down. “No,” he said, handing it back. “Who was it?”
I narrowed my eyes. Had I seen Hudson shutter his expression, or was my imagination running away with me?
Evan described the vampire, and I turned away from the group to find Sam. She was leaning against the post of the carport, staring at the greenhouses. From this vantage point, I could see that they weren’t made of glass, but some sort of plastic sheeting stretched over a metal frame. It looked like the plastic had been shredded in places, waving in the wind like a hand raised in greeting.
Without warning, Sam started walking toward them.
“Sam, wait!” I trotted after her when it was clear she wasn’t going to stop.
I caught up to her as she stepped into one of the ruined structures. Inside, the destruction was even more evident. Tables that had once held containers of dirt lay on their sides, the dirt spread across the floor. There were clumps here and there, as though a plant had been ripped out of the soil and left in the open air to die and rot into nothingness. The flapping of the ripped plastic was loud in here, louder than I expected it to be, but it couldn’t cover Sam’s panted breaths.
“They wrecked it,” she whispered. “They threw everything on the floor. They were shouting, I could hear them, but...but I was hiding and scared.”
“Hiding was a good idea, sweetie,” I said softly. “Do you know who did this?”
“Bad men. Horrible, horrible, bad men. They were—” Suddenly she spun on her heels and darted back outside.
I followed, staying in the living plane, as Sam went straight for the barn. She stumbled over the threshold and slammed to her knees, but I don’t think she noticed. She was too busy staring at—
Oh, shit. At the mounds of disturbed dirt in the middle of the barn floor.
My breath caught in my throat.
Sam sobbed, her sides heaving. Her fingers dug into the packed earth and suddenly she was back on her feet, flinging soil at me. “I didn’t want to remember!” she screamed at me. “Now I remember and it’s your fault! Yours! I left here because I didn’t want to know!”
She flew at me and I grabbed her wrists, but she still tried to claw at my face. Hudson burst into the barn a second later and pulled her back, as gently as he could. One minute she was screaming at me, and the next it was like someone had cut her puppet strings. She sagged in Hudson’s grasp as tears overtook her once more.
“I—I’m so sorry,” I said, breathless.
“I buried them,” Sam said. “I couldn’t—couldn’t leave them. I was hiding in the barn when the bad men came, and I heard shouting. I peeked out the door and I saw—saw—” She gulped. “They tore up the greenhouses. Then they brought everyone into the field beside and made them kneel and—”
“Shh, honey.” Lexi knelt beside Hudson and rubbed Sam’s back.
“I ran. Up into the hayloft. The bad men left—they never checked for anyone else. I stayed there all night, because I was—I was so scared. But in the morning, they were—were all lying there and I couldn’t—couldn’t—so I dragged them in here. And I dug. It was sheltered. I couldn’t leave them out there. I couldn’t.”
I glanced at the doorway, where Evan and Iskander were hovering. Evan had his face buried in Iskander’s shoulder, and Iskander looked at Sam with horror in his expression—an expression that reflected what the rest of us were feeling.
“You did your best,” Lexi said, stroking Sam’s hair.
“I hid!”
“If you didn’t hide, you would have been killed too,” Hudson pointed out.
“At least then I wouldn’t be alone.”
“You’re not alone now. I promise.” He hugged her to his chest. “Honey, I hate to ask, but do you remember anything about the bad men?”
She shook her head. “They were loud and they had guns and knives.”
“What about their car?”
“I couldn’t see it from in here.”
“Were they human or paranormal?”
“I thought—I thought I smelled vampire after. Not that I knew what the scent was at the time, but I—with you—now I know.”
“Vampires killing a shifter clan, and we get ambushed by a vampire as soon as we show up here? That’s not a coincidence,” Iskander said.
“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “Sam, what did your family grow in the greenhouses?”
“Mostly herbs. All kinds of them. But Grandpa set aside one of the greenhouses a few months before...before. I wasn’t allowed inside of it. But I caught a scent that shouldn’t have been there once.”
“What’s that?”
“Aconite.”
“Wolfsbane,” Lexi supplied. “It’s poisonous to shifters.”
A clan of shifters growing wolfsbane? Granted, I knew nothing about growing anything, but that seemed fishy. And beyond dangerous. “Why would your grandpa decide to grow that?”
She shrugged. “I heard Daddy and Grandpa arguing one night about it. Daddy said we didn’t need the money that badly, and Grandpa said he had no choice—he was doing what he had to do to save the clan.”
“Did any of the bad men stand out?” Hudson asked.
She swallowed and nodded. “One...he stood off to the side and—and told people what to do. My mom...she was kneeling down in front of him, crying, begging, and he...he...” She hugged her chest. “He hit her. She fell down.”
“Was he tall, short?”
“Tall. Big, almost fat. He—he looked like a pirate.”
Hudson grew very still. “How so?”
“He had long hair in a ponytail, and an eyepatch.” She let out a little whimper. “Can we go now? Please?”
When Hudson didn’t say anything, I jumped in. “Yeah. Yeah, of course, Sam.”
“Sam is okay, but my real name is Jessamyn MacDougall. My...my twin was Jesse, so I went by Sam.”
I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. “Okay, Sam. Let’s go home.”
She looked over her shoulder at the dirt floor. “I don’t have a home anymore.”
I swore silently, then and there, that I’d find her another home. If I couldn’t do that, what kind of god was I?
Chapter Eleven
By the time we got home, Iskander was a bundle of nerves. I wasn’t used to this jittery, fidgety version—normally he was calm and collected, the peacemaker. He was the guy who saw the big picture, who wanted everyone in our little family to be happy and satisfied, but right now, I worried that if I spoke to him, he’d snap at me.
Literally.
Sam was quiet, looking out the window all the way, but when Hudson pulled to a stop in the driveway, she was quick to hop out of the SUV. “C’mon,” she said to Iskander. “Let’s run.”
Before I could caution her that we had pain-in-the-ass neighbors, she stripped and shifted.
Iskander got caught up in his seat belt in his rush to follow her. He didn’t spare a backward glance at Evan or any of us. It was almost like he’d forgotten we were there. The night before, he’d transformed out of sight of us, but tonight he simply threw off his clothes and...we got an eyeful of Isk, and his transformation.
Unlike the horror movies—An American Werewolf in London came to mind, with its gory, awful special effects—the metamorphosis from man to wolf didn’t seem painful. Sam had already explained that as a bitten shifter, Isk would only ever be able to turn into the form Sam had been in when she bit him. Iskander hadn’t said one way or the other if that was something that bothered him—
I think the whole situation was distressing enough without getting down to that sort of detail.
Magic swirled around Iskander. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. Where Sam’s transformation had been swift, almost too fast to follow, Isk’s was slower. It made sense—he was new at it, and I knew better than most how much effort was needed to master a new set of magical skills. Iskander’s body...well, it shifted. It didn’t shrink—not really—and it didn’t break apart and reform—again, not really. It was like he sidestepped from one form to the other, flowing like syrup. Slowly, but inexorably. In moments, Iskander-as-wolf stood in front of us—larger than Sam, but with similar russet-and-cream coloring. The biggest difference was the darker gray fur he sported on his legs and through the ruff on his neck.
“Wow,” I managed.
Iskander let out a chuff and darted off after Sam. A moment later a howl reverberated through the quiet night, which made me wince. Maybe the neighbors wouldn’t notice? I hoped they’d both have the sense to stay within the confines of our fenced yard. Evan came around the SUV, looking off in the direction the wolves had gone. He looked...lost.
I bumped his arm with my shoulder. “You okay?”
He gave me a smile, but it died quickly. “Sure.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m okay.”
Lexi came up behind us and wrapped her arms around Evan’s waist, snuggling up to his back. “Feeling left out?”
Evan grunted—a bad habit he’d picked up from Hudson.
“It’s all new,” she said. “He needs to adjust.”
Another grunt.
“He still needs you.”
Evan squirmed out of Lexi’s grasp. “I’m going to head to my room.”
“Remember what Dr. Kozlow said. Don’t—”
“Bottle shit up, I know.” Evan waved a hand and retreated into the house, leaving Hudson, Lexi and me at a loss.
I’d known since the winter that Iskander had feelings for Evan—but until now, I wasn’t sure if they were returned. My heart ached, because what if Evan had figured himself out in time for Iskander to race down another path Evan couldn’t follow?
