blood 03 - blood chosen (20 page)

Cynthia gave him a sharp look. “I doubt that.”

He didn't look at her. “It's a recent development.” The Weres all looked at each other.

After a few moment's Cynthia said, “Gawd, I can cut the testosterone with a knife!”

Jason laughed and Manny kept looking at Truman, who stared back. “Maybe your policeman friend is so newly turned he doesn't understand what staring at another Were means.”

“I know,” Truman said.

Manny came forward, his hands curling into fists.

“Oh for shit's sake,” Cynthia muttered.

They ignored her.

“Do you want to offer something further, Red?”

“If you want to see who's the bigger dog, that works.”

“Stop,” Marcus said in a low voice and both Were turned to him, their eyes reflective in the gloom.

But it was Jason who said, “It was just getting interesting.”

Marcus frowned. “We don’t encourage violence for its own sake but rather, for a purpose.”

“Could've fooled me,” Cynthia commented.

Marcus' frown turned into a scowl. He moved that gaze to Truman. “You might wish to see this.”

Karl felt his heart rate pick up. He was too new to have anyone take notice of him. Well... until he wouldn't back down from another Alpha. As a point of fact, Truman hadn't been much for that even before becoming a werewolf. Imagine that.

“Alright,” Truman said and gave a look to Manny; Alpha to keep an eye on. He walked into the fancy-pants parlor and took stock of his surroundings.
The Singers looked to have robbed a few banks along the way
, he thought. Every surface gleamed in the old place, highly polished floors met with huge baseboards of Douglas fir, which were at the feet of plaster walls that ran to twelve foot ceilings. Truman's eyes roamed the newly repaired scars like a broken spider web that ran all over those walls. Then he saw replacement glass in panes yet to be glazed and knew that something violent had occurred here.

Marcus swung his arm out to precede him, his dark eyes and elegant manner contradicted what Truman had already figured out about these people.

Dangerous: The Singers looked human but Truman knew that was camouflage.

He moved ahead of the male leader of Region One. The fine hairs of his neck rose and Truman turned.

Manny and Jason had moved into the room. Truman felt crowded.

“Give the good officer some space,” Marcus said, moving to a large flat screen television that hung on the wall and with a smooth hand he grabbed the remote and turned it on in one motion.

Truman ignored the Were at his back, he figured he was safe enough for the moment. He spread his legs, folded his arms across his now firm and muscular chest and waited for the next revelation.

He wasn't disappointed.

A pansy newscaster checked the knot of his tie nervously, tightening it like a noose before he said in an ominous voice that was just shy of yelling, “Breaking news!”

Truman watched his bright eyes and a grim slash of lips outline who the man hunt was after.

Of course, it was Detective Karl Truman. Fuck a duck.

The newscaster shuffled papers self-importantly and seemed to look through the TV and directly at Truman.

“Detective Karl Truman of the Homer Alaska Police Department, has been missing forty-eight hours. He was last seen in the Gig Harbor area of Washington State.”

A shitty picture of Truman flashed across the screen.
God, do I look that old?
Truman wondered. Then his mind answered for him,
not anymore.

“Truman was on an interstate search for the missing twenty-one year old Cynthia Adams, who is the lone survivor of a triple murder in Homer from two years ago. Jason and Julia Caldwell along with Kevin Lancaster, also of Homer, are now presumed dead. We turn our attention to lead forensic specialist from the HPD who was on-scene for the aftermath.”

Truman's eyes followed the camera as it made a sickening lurch to a wooded area that rose from the charcoal-colored beach and Truman felt his gorge rise. It was the crime scene that started this whole mess, the place where he couldn't find those kids. It had led him here. The question was: were they better off? Were any of them? A squirrely looking guy in a lab coat stood there with another newscaster and Truman squinted out of habit, then realized his vision was the best of his life. No need to squint.

He knew that doctor,
George Alexander
. And he knew too much. Alexander had evidence that would blow the whole Were pack out into the open. But right now, it wasn't about that. They were on Karl's tail. That could be a nightmare.

His attention was jerked back to the boob tube when Alexander began speaking, “Detective Truman was lead investigator on this triple homicide...”

No shit Sherlock,
Truman thought.

“Is there any chance that one of the three, whose bodies were never recovered, has survived and that even now there is hope that Truman has located one of the missing teens?”

Alexander's hands went into the pockets of his white lab coat as the breeze from the nearby ocean lifted the hair off his forehead. The gray skies of Homer were the backdrop for his perfectly framed somber expression and Truman had an unexpected sharp pang of homesickness. “They would be young adults now...”Alexander corrected, “and there was... too much blood for anyone to have survived.”His eyes were distractingly real in that moment.

Liters of blood
, was what he didn't say, Truman knew.

The microphone was suddenly crammed underneath Alexander's nose a little deeper. “What do you speculate has happened to the lead investigator in this case, Karl Truman? What about the fourth victim? Cynthia Adams survived this tragedy and has since left the state.”

Truman saw Alexander's face shut down and knew, with a deep an abiding certainty, that he'd had a special little chat with
somebody
. Or several somebodys because he answered, “I can't comment on the ongoing investigation. I can only comment that there are three people who died here over two years ago and one who survived and that the lead investigator is now missing. You may extrapolate anything you wish from those facts. But they remain only that- facts.”

“Is there anything of merit, anything unusual that you've found in a forensic capacity that might shed light on why the investigation would be ongoing for over two years, or why... it happened?”

Alexander actually smiled, his jimmies not even vaguely rustled, Karl noted. “I am not a profiler. I am a small town forensic specialist. I do not speculate; I am a scientist.”Then his eyes seemed to bore through the television again. At Karl. “I can't comment on evidence. But I will say that this was the most unusual case I've worked on. And if there is any way that Detective Truman can hear me now, then I beg for him to reach out and make contact with me.”

“Why?”The newscaster was clearly ready to have a convulsion but maintained his decorum by a thread. “Is this a hidden message for Detective Truman? Does he, or something he was investigating, pose a threat to public safety?”

Alexander ignored him and looked at the screen, his pale green eyes caught like a net, a trick of pale sunlight capturing them as they seemed to blaze out of his face. “It's not what we think, Detective Truman. If you're out there, please, contact me, day or night.”

The camera stayed on George Alexander for another heartbeat then they panned away, striking the crime scene, and the image of brown splatter on the driftwood didn't go away even when Truman closed his eyes.

Tie man adjusted his wardrobe again and said, “You heard it here on Channel Thirteen News, and across our affiliates; Detective Karl Truman is to be reached at any cost.”The newscaster pressed his earbud deeper into the hole of his ear and put a finger up as America waited with bated breath. Or at least the rest of America. Truman could have waited forever and been happier than a pig in shit.

“This just in; the FBI has just put out a one hundred thousand dollar reward for information leading to the whereabouts of the missing Detective from the small fishing town of Homer, Alaska. Call the following toll free number with tips, sightings, and....”

The newscaster and his smiling sidekick began to thank each other and move on to the next tidbit but the TV went dark before he even turned.

Marcus gave him serious eyes. “What did you discover in Homer, Detective Truman?”

Truman looked from one to the other who had crowded into the small parlor. Empty eyes met his.

He sighed. “Some of the Homer Were were sloppy in Cynthia Adams' residence.” He shrugged and noticed again that there was no shoulder twinge. He ignored that bit of weirdness and went on, “They left behind trace evidence. Evidence of what they were.”

“They'll kill whoever knows,” Manny stated.

“Did ya hear the death doc, there, chippie?” Karl asked, pegging his tough cop eyes at Manny. Those had survived his transition. There was more to a man than what he looked like. What he was, who he was... had survived. It showed in his eyes. And to the observant, he wore his humanity as he always had- for everyone to see. Truman thought of himself as a simple man, with simple needs and thoughts.

“You are out of your league here, Red,” Manny said with absolute conviction. But Truman didn't believe in certainty anymore. He'd never been a big fan before the change anyway.

Karl shook his head. “No, I don't think I am. But one thing I do know, I need to get a hold of Alexander.”

“No, don't... we break all ties from our lives before... before you were turned. You are dead to that now,” Slash explained, the scar on his face a flash of puckered pink skin like a lightning strike of flesh. Truman's eyes looked at his packmate. Truman liked the guy, he did things right. He'd answer him before the other Were.

“If he says, on a national broadcast, that it is not what I think, it's a warning. That means those hairs were left on purpose, or we're dealing with something different.”

“I've got an idea,” Julia said from the corner of the room.

Truman picked up that two of the Combatant were stationed on that bitch... what was her name? Oh yeah,
Jacqueline
. Good to keep her scheming ass in sight.

All eyes turned to Julia. “I think that if there are Singers, if there are Were and vampires,” Truman watched Julia and was struck again by how she seemed to be the sun in the room, and the others were just planets that spun around her orbit. “Then there are other things. Maybe that is what Detective Truman should consider.”

“What are you saying, Jules?” Jason asked; for once, without his usual shitty demeanor. Truman couldn't believe these two were married. They fought like dogs and cats but Truman watched the kid's eyes follow her with an intensity that bordered on zealotry.

“I think you're going to call this guy and it's going to be bad news.” Julia looked directly at him.

“I
know
it's going to be bad news,” Karl said.

“Better to know than not,” Cynthia said, her head a valley between the male hills that were Jason and Emmanuel.

Karl paced back and forth and stopped at her voice. “You're right.”

He looked at Marcus. His hand went to the palm of his chin. He wondered. “Why did you bring this to my attention?”

Marcus sighed but answered, “This will come to our doorstep Were, it is inevitable. We must protect the Rare One at all costs. For the Singers, Were and Vampire.”

Julia looked around the room, the quiet interrupted only by the ticking clock. “And whatever else is out there,” she said.

Karl noticed no one told her she was wrong. And the calculating Jacqueline, standing in the corner of the room, just kept that infernal smile plastered to her face.

It never reached her eyes.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Delilah

“So what? Vamps are just cool now...?” Scott asked. “Correct me if I'm wrong... father. But, didn't we just have a vampire barbeque out in the back yard?”

“We did,” Michael enthused, dragging a lollipop in an out of his mouth, a red stain like blood appearing and disappearing as he worked the red orb over.

Julia sighed, but she held Scott's hand, and just that small gesture made her calmer, less agitated. She tried not to stare at the newest part of the triangle that they would become, but it was almost impossible.

Delilah was reclining on a fainting couch in the parlor as if in repose. However, she was alert, her eyes moving endlessly over the people who packed the small room, made even tinier by their clustered presence.

“Do not disparage me, your own kin know why I've come,” she said, partially answering both brothers. Julia didn't know how she did it, that bored tone. She wished she was as adept at emulating boredom.

Jacqueline nodded. “Is it not interesting....”

“No,” Adi replied.

“Nothing you say is interesting, it's all lame as hell,” Michael finished.

Jacqueline looked at them like they were bugs to be squished.

“Enough.” Marcus looked at his two children. “Jacqueline will pay for her crime against Julia.”

“The attempted murder,” Truman corrected and Julia gave him a look. He narrowed his eyes on Marcus. “Where I come from, poisoning someone is immediate grounds for jail time.” It seemed like trouble followed the Caldwell girl wherever she went.

Marcus looked at Truman, then at Jacqueline. “It is more complicated than that, Wolf.”

“Seems simple to me,” Truman commented and Julia gave a small smile. He didn't look like Truman anymore, but he sounded so much like him it made Julia's heart ache for Alaska- her past. Karl Truman, the hard-nosed cop from Homer, had survived the change with who he was- intact. It could be done. If you kept sight of who you were.

“Jacqueline is of royal blood,” Marcus began to explain.

“And a bunch of other crap too,” Adi said and Slash hid a smile with his hand.

Truman crossed his arms. “Have you talked to the girls? The Were and... Cynthia Adams?”