Dead Heat (32 page)

Anna frowned.

“After the Russian single-stage-to-orbit rocket,” said Kage dryly as he emerged from the barn. “I’ve never been dumped so fast with such authority in my life. It was a lesson in humility, especially since my eighty-year-old father had ridden her in the arena a couple of times before…” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of the wolf standing next to Hosteen.

Chelsea regarded him warily and, well versed in dealing with skittish animals, he stopped where he was and crouched down. “Oh, honey,” he crooned. “I’d have known you if you had six legs and scales. But I had no idea what a beautiful wolf you’d be.”

She leapt toward him—and misjudged, knocking him right off his feet. Portabella jumped back and Hosteen yanked at the rope that attached the horse to the tie post. A single jerk and she was loose from the post, her lead held in Hosteen’s hand instead. She took a couple of steps away and then settled, regarding the pile of wolf and man with pricked-ear disdain.

Chelsea backed off and looked distressed. Kage laughed and leaned forward until he could rub her neck. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll get the hang of it.”

Anna thought he hesitated a little as he got to his feet, but if he was hurt he wasn’t showing any other sign. Smart man. If Chelsea thought she’d hurt him, it would unsettle her, and unsettled was a bad thing for a werewolf in her first time out.

“If you get Anna taken care of,” Kage looked at Hosteen, “I’ll introduce Charles to his horse.”

A little snorty after the excitement, Portabella still let Hosteen bridle her with little trouble. She mouthed the bit and then stood, ears up and muscles quivering, while Anna mounted. She didn’t move, but Anna got the feeling it was an effort for her to remain still while the others got on their horses.

Charles’s horse was a rawboned gelding with a long, flexible neck and a Roman nose.

“I didn’t think Arabs ran to convex noses,” Anna said.

“Not a purebred Arab, anyway,” said Kage, seeing where she was looking. “Though I could show you a few pictures … But Figaro is a national show horse that’s half-Arab and half-saddlebred. He turned out all saddlebred in looks and Arab in gait. That’s pretty much the opposite of what we’re trying for when breeding national show horses. He’s a terrific jumper, though, and loves the trail.” He looked at Charles. “He’s for sale, too. He’s big enough to carry you.”

Charles patted the gelding. “We’re shopping for Anna.”

Charles’s gelding was a little smaller than Portabella, Anna found when she started out riding next to her husband.

The big mare had big gaits, too. She quickly outpaced the rest of the horses. Anna was forced to circle her to stay with the others. Like Heylight, the gray gelding from her first day, the mare was very sensitive to cues. Anna finally quit using the bridle for anything except speed control and just shifted her weight from one hip to the other to turn.

“Comfortable?” asked Hosteen, coming up on her left side. He rode a short chestnut gelding with a wide blaze and a friendly demeanor who trotted to keep up with Portabella’s quick walk.

“Very,” she said, straightening her back a little and making sure her heels were down. Portabella slowed.

“Ah,” Hosteen said, effortlessly keeping his horse next to hers, “don’t worry about me, just relax. Charles would never teach anyone the wrong way to ride. You ride better than a lot of the people you’ll see at the show tomorrow. Ready for a trot?”

“Sure,” she said. Were they going to the show tomorrow? She’d have to ask Charles.

“Go ahead and ask her, then,” he said. “We’ll follow. Just keep her on the trail. There’s a fork ahead, take either one you want.”

Portabella’s trot was lilting, but not heavy, so Anna didn’t bang into her back, but she had to really relax to keep her seat. As she did so, the mare’s ears perked up and her gait softened.

“Canter,” called Kage.

And before Anna cued her, Portabella broke into a blistering run, head up and tail flagged. Anna laughed and sat back, slowing her with a light hand on the reins until she was cantering. This was a lot different from riding Jinx. Chelsea ran beside them, stretching out with her tongue lolling in pleasure.

See,
thought Anna,
there are some things that are amazing about being a werewolf.

As soon as Hosteen tried to ride even with them, Portabella put on an extra burst of speed. The trail forked and Anna took the left, which was up a little hillock. At the top of the hill, she asked her to walk. Willingly the mare dropped speed and let the others catch up.

“We’re going to lose our light,” said Kage. “We ought to turn back soon.”

“I’d like to see what she does in the arena,” Charles said. Maybe there was something to what Hosteen had said, because Charles looked better. He had expressions that Anna could read again, which was an improvement.

“A challenge,” said Hosteen, laughing. “You always were up for a challenge. Okay, fair enough.”

They walked back to the barn. Anna ended up beside Hosteen again.

“I just remembered,” Anna said. “It’s not important to help us find the fae anymore, but I’d like to know, I guess. Do you know a werewolf named Archibald Vaughn who was here back in the seventies?”

“Archie?” asked Hosteen, startled.

“He’s dead,” said Charles, riding up beside them. “Killed by a fae … at least thirty years ago, now. Why do you ask?”

“Killed by a fae?” she asked. “Are you sure?”

Charles just looked at her, but Hosteen said, “I found the body. Yes. I’m sure. It was in the fall, 1979.”

The hair on the back of Anna’s head stood up. “Did he ever tell you that he saved a little boy from a fae creature? June of the year before. We’re pretty sure it’s the same one who built the fetch that tried to make Chelsea attack the kids.”

“Not that I heard,” Hosteen said. “After his mate died, he went to live with his family for a few years. We hoped it would help, but then I found out he’d stayed in his wolf shape the whole time. So I picked him up and brought him back to the pack and made him change to human. He never did go back to being his old self. When I felt him die, I was sure he’d found a way to kill himself. I thought it was suicide by fae.”

“I think,” Anna said, “that maybe it was revenge because he stopped this fae from stealing his grandchild. Or great-grandchild. Great-something-grandchild, anyway. It’s an awfully big coincidence otherwise.”

“Maybe he went looking for the fae,” offered Charles thoughtfully. “And both of you are right.”

“Any way you look at it,” said Anna. “The fae we’re chasing is powerful enough to kill a werewolf.”

“Tore him to pieces with magic,” said Hosteen thoughtfully.

“Makes you wonder,” Charles said slowly, “that such a fae let a handful of federal agents and police officers escort him off to jail.”

“Do you think they have the wrong fae?” Anna asked.

He didn’t quite answer. “I think … I think, Hosteen, that we need to borrow your wolves. This is not a fae that is going to let Amethyst, the little girl we rescued, stay rescued. We probably should send wolves out to protect Dr. Vaughn, too. And we’ll keep a weather eye on Chelsea and the kids.”

“Who is Dr. Vaughn?” Hosteen asked.

“The little boy that your wolf rescued back in 1978.”

“How many do you need?”

“All of them. On our victims, and on the FBI agent and the Cantrip agents who found his latest victim with us. At least two werewolves at all times. And they’ll have to stay out of sight,” he said. “I know that’ll put a strain on the pack. You can tell them that the Marrok will make sure they don’t suffer financially and that I don’t think it will last long.”

“Maybe they do have the right fae,” said Hosteen. “With them, it’s sometimes hard to predict why they do things.”

Charles’s horse snorted and Charles tilted his head sideways, closing his eyes, and murmured, “Can’t you feel it in the air? There’s a storm coming.” When he opened his eyes, they were yellow. He straightened and, though Anna couldn’t see that he moved again, his horse broke into a gentle canter.

They put the other horses away before taking Portabella into the same smaller arena that Anna had ridden in the day before. The mare didn’t look any different than she had before Anna had gotten on her outside. Or if she did, she looked even calmer, because she’d still been a little huffy about Chelsea when Anna had hopped on.

Charles lengthened the stirrups a lot, checked the cinch, and then swung up on the mare. Her head went up, her eyes rolled until Anna could see the whites that were normally hidden, she shifted her weight to her haunches, and she danced uneasily from foot to foot.

Charles just sat there, his body loose and easy; the only motion he made was the motion generated by the horse’s movement. She shuffled a few steps forward, two backward, a hop sideways. He made no move to correct her, just stayed balanced and light on her back.

They fit each other,
Anna thought: big dark man, big dark horse, both elegant and strong. The idea made her lips quirk up, even with the worry that the janitor wasn’t the fae they were really looking for.

“You coming to the show tomorrow?” Kage asked. “Michael’s riding in the lead-line and Mackie’s taking the little gray you rode yesterday in the English walk/trot class.”

“I’ll ask Charles,” she said, watching as the mare, left mostly to her own devices, finally stopped moving except for the unhappy swish of her tail. “I think we’re going to try to get in to see the guy the FBI has locked up if we can. But I’d love to come see the kids ride.” And to make sure that they were safe.

After five minutes more (Anna checked her watch), Charles still having done nothing but sit there, the mare lowered her head and began to chew her bit. Immediately, Charles slipped off. He patted her neck and led her out of the gate. “If you want to put her on your list of possibles,” he told Anna, “that would be okay.”

And she knew for sure that he really liked her. Anna liked her a lot, too. “Okay,” she said. She looked at Kage. “She’s on our list of possibles, but not on the price list you gave us. Do you have a price for her?”

“Ten thousand,” said Hosteen.

Kage snorted. “Not anywhere near that, Hosteen. Five thousand for a pretty horse, well broke for trail. Twenty-five hundred for the well broke plus twenty-five hundred for the pretty. But don’t make up your mind yet, there’s some nice horses you haven’t seen.”

And as Kage and Hosteen left to put the mare away, Anna heard Hosteen chortle, “Did you hear him? She’s a challenge. He wants her. He’d have paid ten thousand for her.”

“We don’t overcharge for our horses, old man,” said Kage. “That’s a good way to get a bad reputation. And I suspect that Charles knows just exactly how much that horse should cost.” He paused. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I could have just told Dad what you tried to do; then you’d be in real trouble.”

Hosteen made a reply, but Anna couldn’t hear what he said. His voice sounded happy.

“I like them,” Anna said, very softly.

Charles’s lips quirked. “Hosteen was watching Kage when he gave us that price, did you see?”

“He was right, though,” Anna observed. “You’d have paid ten thousand for her because she’s a challenge.”

He smiled, eyes soft. “I already have a challenge,” he told her in a gravelly voice.

She shook her head with mock sadness. “I’m not a challenge, Charles. I’m just another woman panting after you like that teacher with the hungry eyes at the day care.”

He laughed out loud. “Sure you are,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Sure you are.”

Well, she knew it was true, even if he didn’t believe her. His arm pulled her a little off balance, and paradoxically it steadied her at the same time. That was what Charles did to her heart, too. He knocked it off balance into what felt like the right position, a safe place that was still exciting, exhilarating, and terrifying.

What if I lost him?

Anna called Leslie in the morning.

“No, I can’t get you in to see Sean McDermit,” she said in a distracted voice. “His lawyer is a shark, and he’s not saying anything. Apparently all we have on him is that the bodies were found in his house, a house that he’s never lived in. And that he’s a fae. Which makes this all the more politically hot, given the current tension with the fae.”

“We’re not sure you have the right person,” Anna said.

There was silence on the other line.

“I found Archie Vaughn,” Anna told her. “He was killed a year and a half after he stopped that kidnapping. Torn to pieces by a fae. Why would someone who could tear apart a werewolf let human police officers pick him up without a fight?”

“I’ll take your concerns to our fae expert,” she said. “I hate to say it, but I’m suspicious about how easy this was, too. So I’ve got people doing background checks on anyone who was ever employed by or used the day care and everyone
they
knew.” She paused. “We’re also searching records of missing children, trying to identify the bodies. Some of that is on computer, some of it on microfiche, and still more of it is in paper files scattered all over the city. We’ve got a pair of poor flunkies wading through microfiche of hundred-year-old newspapers, too. It doesn’t help that it’s not just Scottsdale, it’s Phoenix and all the rest of the suburbs, too. We’ll be decades identifying the bodies in that attic.”

Anna made a sympathetic noise.

“Anyway,” Leslie continued, sounding more grounded and less frantic, “you’ll be as happy as I am that it looks like that poor baby we rescued yesterday wasn’t raped. She’s still traumatized, scared of the dark, terrified of dolls—and who could blame her—and she cries every time her parents aren’t in the room with her.”

“What did he do?” she asked.

“Dressed her like a doll, sang to her, hurt her. She said his touch hurt like a bee sting all over her body. Made her so she couldn’t move. She wasn’t asleep, she just couldn’t move.”

“Terrifying,” Anna said.

“Yes,” agreed Leslie, sounding tired.

“Since you have your manpower focused on research, you’ll be happy to know that we have werewolves guarding Amethyst’s parents, Dr. Vaughn, and his partner and his mother. Also, you and Leeds and Marsden. You won’t know they are there.”