Erin Dameron-Hill (11 page)

I took a deep inhale into the mouth so I wouldn’t have to smell anything and looked back to the tossed McDonald’s container. I needed to focus on something, anything, to calm my own beast down. I guess being a supernatural werewolf is a lot like being a dog, always wanting to sniff and then chase the cat. I had once thought being werewolf was a little bit better than being a dog, but now I see we are the same exact creatures especially as my beast prowls under my skin, forcing me to reach for the tossed fries.

I was debating whether I should sniff the garbage and stuff it into my mouth when a bright, yellow bug pulled up in front of me. The headlights shone upon me like I was under a spotlight. The driver’s side door opened and I heard her walk towards me. Her heels clipped lightly on the pavement just as they had on my floor.

The cat ran into the bushes, hiding itself from view when Shirley approached, holding out her hand.

“Hi, Shirley,” I said, grabbing my suitcase and purse. I wasn’t expecting her to be my chauffer for the night and I was instantly put on guard. She could be kidnapping me and taking me to their secret lair where the Hunter would pull my wolf from my body and then skin my poor beast. But as I touched her hand in a shake, I knew she meant me no harm. She wasn’t afraid like most humans are when they’ve been alone in the night, instead, she was confident and solid, more so than she had been earlier in the day.

“Hey, do you need any help with that?” she asked nodding to my small overnight bags.

“No thanks, I can manage.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said,
I can tie my own shoes and everything.

Her preppy little white summer dress bounced with her every step as if she was the Queen of the Daisies. And for some reason, I didn’t like her. She shouldn’t be so perky and happy after all that’s happened. She may not have known the victims but she could at least pretend like they mattered instead of flitting around dancing on sunshine.

But I guess I was being cruel. I had a right to be. I had thought that there wasn’t any more people to lose and I had been wrong. Seeing Clyde’s body for the first time was enough to push me over the edge, losing Billy was enough to don cement blocks while falling off the edge, and now losing Charlie, well, someone should have just shot me before I fell off the edge because I don’t think I can take this.

Three friends in one day. And they were all my friends. They were my wolf-brothers, my family. They were my only family, my only
real
family and they were gone. Yeah, I’m adding Billy to the mix because if his trail had disappeared and I had heard nothing more since then, then he was gone, too. Death seems to drown out any semblance of hope and I was no longer struggling against the current. This was all too much to bear, too much for one person.

I looked back to Shirley and she grinned even deeper, her teeth spilling out like a Cheshire cat gone mad. I wanted to smack her then and there. People were dying, my pack was dying, and she was smiling. She just didn’t seem to give a damn that my world was collapsing.

I heard her heels walk towards me and as I looked at her face, it changed from a perfect smile into something so sympathetic, I wanted to cry.

Her arms wrapped around me and pulled me tightly to her, forcing me to return the hug. And I did. She was soft, so soft, and yet so strong. My head rested against her neck and her pulse beat softly and steadily. I couldn’t help but to feel her pulse because that’s what I always do and hers was strong. She wasn’t afraid, she was perfectly calm. And she was hugging me. If I could have taken out the Beast that was me, I would have cried in her arms.

I stepped out from her hold and continued to stare at the black pavement. Anything was better to look at than her eyes because if I did, I would have fallen apart and I still didn’t want the Hunter nor his assistant to know my weaknesses. No matter how much the pain was crushing me, I couldn’t let them know it hurt.

“You can put those in the trunk,” she said clicking on the black remote to pop the trunk, pulling me from my internal stupor.

I opened the passenger side door and threw the bags into the back seat. I just wanted to be left alone now, alone with my feelings so I could deal with them. My pain shouldn’t be on display for all the world to see. It’s private and I want to keep it that way.

“Well, whatever is easier,” she said with a mild-mannered Flight Attendant voice. “Be sure to buckle your seatbelt,” she continued and turned the key in the ignition.

For a moment, I didn’t want to. I wanted to ride in a car without wearing a seatbelt, and hopefully, if I was very lucky, we would be in a car accident and I would fly through the window and never have to feel this despair ever again. But as the thought washed over me, my feelings quickly turned to anger. Who could do this to people I love? Who would do this to anyone? And those questions alone told me to divine something from Charlie’s crime scene. I was going to help my family, not hinder them. I wasn’t going to think of suicide or the loss of them anymore because I needed to look ahead, I needed to focus on something sure and I knew what the surety was: I would find the person(s) responsible and I would kill them.

I firmly clicked my seatbelt into place and knew what sort of hell waited for me as she pressed play on her CD player. Taylor Swift erupted from the speakers and I immediately wanted to kill myself again. I thought I was past that, but the upbeat music just didn’t help my mood.

“So,” I said trying to get her to turn down the music, “how long have you been working with Mr. Black?”

“Damon?”

“Sure, Damon,” I said yelling just a little bit to make myself heard over the obnoxious speakers.

Her fingers reached for the volume and she turned it down to setting one. Thank the good Lord. I didn’t know how much of those poppy tunes I could stand. Besides, I don’t need happy music when two of my friends have died and one had gone missing. It was like a slap in the face.

“We’ve known each other for a year and a half now. BTW…”

“BTW?” I asked.

“Computer lingo for by the way,” she said, cocking her head as if I didn’t know that than I should be mentally handicapped, “Matt said you should eat something. So, what’s open at three in the morning down here?”

“What do you mean, ‘down here’? Where are you based out of?”

“Anywhere and everywhere. We travel the country answering calls of those who need our specialized help.”

“Oh, so how did you get involved?”

“Damon rescued me from a company that had been experimenting on me my entire life.”

“What were they doing to you?”

“Oh, the usual, implanting alien DNA to turn me into a superhuman.”

“What?!” I asked incredulously.

She laughed, “just kidding.”

The cheerleader may have been joking, but the strange thing is, I couldn’t smell a lie nor a joke on her. She was exuding the soft, cottony scent of truth which was actually a little bit disturbing.

“So, where to for food?” she asked and then replied to herself, “I know about that place. Geez, can’t you just shut up for like two seconds?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, sorry. I have this narrator in my head and she’s such a bitch.”

Riight. I’ll just ignore her and look out the window now. I had too much misery on my plate and I didn’t need a side of crazy.

The trees brushed past us creating a dark blur of non-moving life through the clean glass. I rolled down the window, inhaling the cool, humid night air, smelling the stench of rotting garbage, blossoming hibiscus, and Taco Bell’s all night drive through.

“How did you know this place would be open?” I asked.

“I pulled up a list of non-variable,” she paused, “I read the large billboard. You don’t mind tacos, right?”

“They’ll do.”

“Great.”

She pulled up to the speaker and then looked at me, wondering what I would get.

“So, what will it be?” she asked.

“I’ll have six ½ pound combo burritos and a large Mountain Dew Baja blast.”

“Oh you,” she said giggling, “We’ll have two volcano burritos and two waters please,” she then looked over at me, “One for you and one for me. It’s on the house.” Her eyes glazed over for just a moment and I thought I could smell the harsh sting of cold metal when she began again, “She’s not one, okay? So, she doesn’t need that much. Whatever. I know I’m right on this.”

Her talking to herself was a little bit creepy but it was a nice distraction from the depression that I was trying to keep at bay. For a few moments, I hadn’t thought about my friends, and as terrible as that sounds, I appreciated it. Sadness weighs down the soul forcing the heavy burden to crush any sort of happiness that life can give. So for a while, I was relieved. My heart wasn’t as slow and fearful, my mind wasn’t riddled with confusion, instead, I was feeling like a normal person compared with the cocaine-inspired cheerleader (I mean, she had to be on something to act like that).

“I could really use some more food, though,” I said.

“What are you, a bear? One burrito is enough. Especially for a woman your age. You don’t want your slow metabolism to add a few extra pounds.”

Okay, if she was trying to instill anger, congratulations, here’s your solid gold cupid doll.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Eighteen.”

“Really? That young?”

“What are you talking about? I’m getting to be an old woman. You know the Greeks thought that women reached the height of their perfection at eighteen. So, its all downhill after this.”

“Are you joking?”

“No…”

“I am 26 and in the car with you. Could you be more rude?”

“Sorry, I tell it like it is.”

“Well, maybe you should keep your mouth shut for the rest of this trip.”

She mumbled slightly to the side but I heard every word she said, “I can kill you fifty-seven different ways…oh, yeah, you’re right, a hundred and two different ways.”

Wow. I’m not sure Matt thought his safety plan out very well. I mean, this girl was obviously some kind of psycho killer freak. That’s probably why the Hunter kept her around. If she was mumbling the truth, then she would be handy if they were ever attacked by something really and truly dangerous, hell, she’d be handy as a weapon, a useful tool for taking down creatures like me.

And just like that, I was in fear for my life. I still believed in my theory that there were poachers in town taking every single werewolf pelt they could get, and now I’m thinking, she’s definitely helping them.

Chapter Seven

We ate in silence. Shirley continued to mumble a few things to herself, but other than that, the car ride was eerily quiet. I was more than a little relieved when I stepped out of her bug onto solid ground. Not only was she nuts, but she was also a dangerous driver. She had nearly hit seven teenage punks and two prostitutes on the way over. And they weren’t just walking across the street, no, they were on the sidewalk. Shirley had swerved several times to hit them and then miss them. Every time she passed by their live bodies she would mumble, “ten points” or “five points” or “if only one was in a wheelchair, that would be like five hundred points and then I would have you beat”. It was all quite creepy really. And honestly, I don’t know if she was joking or not. I think she really wanted to run them over. Had I not been in the vehicle, I think she might have.

So, as my feet approached solid ground, a beautiful feeling of relief poured over me only to be stopped abruptly as Matt and Sheila came outside to greet me. Both of them carried the scent of death and despair that rolled off them like so much vomit and decay.

“Sophie,” Sheila said outstretching her long, slender arms to hold me. She wrapped them around me and I held her back, feeling the soft flower-patterned dress under my palms. I breathed her in and the scent of perfumed fear tickled at the back of my throat. She reeked of violets and violence and the smell was more than just a little bit nauseating. She didn’t smell like a protector anymore, instead, she smelled like prey like a fawn that has been caught hiding underneath a rhododendron bush.

I pulled back so that the fawn didn’t tempt my beast. With so much that had happened, I didn’t want to lose control right now. Besides, what little remained of the taco would hopefully sustain my hunger for a while longer. I really wish I could have ordered more than one. But if I did, Shirley would have discovered my secret and I didn’t want her to know.

“Her bag is in the back,” I heard Shirley say as Matt pulled me into a big man bear hug. His large frame wrapped around my small one and for just a moment, I felt calm, at peace. His power caressed my fear and soothed it away just like eating chocolate could. That’s why he was considered the Father; he was loving, caring, and exuded strength.

“Any other time,” he whispered into my ear, “I would have sent you home, but we need you. And remember, keep this to yourself, I haven’t told the rest of the pack.”

I pulled away from the hug and glanced over his shoulder. Eric and Ernie Kitts stood menacingly behind him like two enormous, unmovable boulders. They were real, biological brothers, born only nine months apart. There were several differences between the two; Eric was tall and blonde while Ernie was short and dark; Eric had more of a brain while Ernie only had a stupid sense of humor; Eric had a multitude of earrings and tattoos while Ernie had none. Other than that, they were exactly alike. They each fancied bright Hawaiian shirts that sported extremely large and flashy hibiscus flowers dotted with occasional pineapples and hula girls. Their hair was short and spiky like most of the young twenty something year old men these days and they were both staring intently at Shirley. They had a weakness for blondes so they just kept watching her. For so-called bodyguards, they were really pathetic. But why should they be elite and highly trained? After all, nothing bad ever happened in this pack. We didn’t have enemies and the rest of the supernatural community kept to itself. The supernatural community was more like a high school; you had the nerds (the fairies), the jocks (the were-animals), the preps (elven folk), and the Goth (vampires). So, we kept to our cliques like good little immature humans.

I guess werewolves were considered jocks because we are extremely athletic. We can bound over twenty miles in half an hour and keep chasing our prey until it finally falls. We have unbelievable stamina, power, strength and grace.

So, why were we dropping like flies? Even with a poacher in town, he shouldn’t have been able to get the drop on more than one of us. Now that I thought about it, no one should be able to have taken down so many in less than 24 hours. No one. We’re too strong, too careful to allow another predator into our territory.

“Do I have to go in there?” I asked noticing the back-up that Matt felt was needed.

“Like I said, I wouldn’t normally ask this of you,” he said with a sigh, “but its getting dangerous around here.”

“Yeah”, I replied with a nod.

“And I don’t mean just around here. I’ve checked with a few other packs around the state. They have dead members as well.”

“They do?”

“Yeah. Something is gunning for us. And I don’t want to stand around and wait for it to happen.”

“I get it.”

“Do you?”

“I do. I’ll try to see if I can pick up on anything. Does Charlie smell the same as Clyde?”

“Exactly the same.”

“But Charlie didn’t bathe as often as Clyde.” Trust me, it was the reason that I never hugged Charlie, my wolf-brother. He always smelled like molding pizza and warm beer. What’s the saying,
you can’t choose your family
. But just because you can’t choose them it doesn’t mean you don’t love them. And I loved Charlie. He may have stunk, but he was a really nice man. He treated everyone equally and always had a stupid joke to tell. The first time I had met him, he said, “Have you heard this one? Two guys walk into a bar, the second one ducked.” I had to laugh because it was the stupidest joke I’ve ever heard. But Charlie could always make you smile.

“I know, Sophie,” continued Matt, “their individual scents are gone. All that remains is death.”

“Just death?”

“Just death.”

“I thought I had smelled more than that at Clyde’s house.”

“What else did you smell?”

“Rosemary and sage. You didn’t smell that?”

He shook his head, “No. You should probably go in and see if you can smell that again. Be sure to tell Mr. Black everything.”

“He’s here?”

“Well, yeah, he is investigating their deaths, Sophie.”

Duh. I should have known he would be here for two reasons, 1) Shirley had picked me up, 2) We had called him in just to discover the culprit(s). Earlier this evening I thought I had been so fast with the packing and now I was just slow.

My stomach lurched like I had swallowed six-day old calamari and I desperately wanted to get out of there. I was nervous to see the Hunter again. It had been easier to talk with him yesterday because I was still in somewhat of a shock that a hunter was in my living room. But that calming shock had worn off and I was faced with two dreadful episodes; talking to the Hunter again and leaning over the corpse of another friend. I don’t know why I could compare the two because you’d think one would be worse than the other, but my beast constantly stirred at the thought of the Hunter and I didn‘t want to arouse it.

I said “hello” to the two brothers as I passed them feeling their eyes roam to my butt and then back to Shirley. They may prefer blondes, but they were perverts all the way. I really hope they weren’t staying the night with Matt and Sheila. If they were acting as bodyguards, then I could expect them to unfortunately. I guess I should have brought more clothes to hide in. They wouldn’t try anything, but I definitely didn’t want their eyes on me all night either.

I pushed a palm leaf out of my way as I approached the screen door that was attached by only one hinge. The door somewhat jammed on itself and I had to thrust the thing to the side. It shuttered on its only hinge as it busted near the wall.

“I did that once before,” I heard Shirley mutter behind me.

I don’t know what that statement meant, and right now, I don’t care. There was something much more devastating beyond this door that was weighing on my mind.

I peeked in through the doorway, staring at the brown carpet that I was sure was covered in stains. The good thing about brown-colored carpet is that it hides all kinds of past sins. I could smell spilt coke, milk, salsa and other weird scents that I couldn’t put my finger on and truthfully, I didn’t want to.

My skin bristled for the slightest of seconds and my beast stirred. Down through the darkly lit hallway I knew what awaited me. And my beast wanted to be near it. I could see it uncurling inside me, stretching, waking up to breathe in the luscious scent of meat.

I closed my eyes and focused on my hearing. I had to shut down the olfactory nerves just enough so that I could focus on the task at hand. The smell of death was just too intoxicating. So I tried to ignore the scent and focus on the sounds of life around me. There were more cockroaches here than at Clyde’s. The crickets weren’t chirping, instead, the only sounds being made by animals were my family members outside and the Hunter’s beating heart inside. Nature is not quiet. She never sleeps, she never takes a break, and she never becomes silent like a frightened hen.

I heard a soft pitter-patter beat beneath a hollow box and realized it was Shirley’s heart. It didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard before. It sounded distant, faint, and uncomfortable. There really was something unique about her. When I get the chance, I will ask if she was kidding about that alien comment.

But later, for now, the silence was a little bit more than overwhelming. There are clichés for moments like this; the calm before the storm, the silence before the attack. I made that last one up because it had been so quiet when I had first been attacked. I haven’t appreciated silence since. Nor do I appreciate it now.

“I know,” she said in a tangible whisper, “it’s quiet. I think he is still here.”

“He?” I whispered back, my heart beginning to dance a little bit faster, “how do you know it’s a ‘he’?”

“Because he’s watching us.”

“From where?” I asked not wanting to know the answer. The beast that was me began to growl. It wanted out to defend us, to protect us because the insane cheerleader was right; the killer was still here. I could feel those eyes searching me, anticipating my movements, waiting for me to stir. It is an otherworldly feeling knowing that someone is boring their eyes into you, watching you, breathing you in and that you are helpless against it. Because what can you do, other than feel icky? It’s not like you can gouge out their eyes; all you can do is hope that the moment passes quickly.

“We need to communicate via telepathy,” she said as if telepathy was akin to using a cell phone.

“I can’t do that.”

“That’s too bad because he can hear us. If we go after him…”

“How do you know where he is?”

“I can hear him breathing. Can’t you?”

I pricked my ears to hear the faintest of sounds but the cockroaches were encouraged by their own fear so their tiny little legs dug deeper into the crowd creating a barrage of scraping explosions in my head.

“There’s too much interference,” I said, and then I realized I shouldn’t have been able to hear anything out of the ordinary, “not that I could anyway.”

I could feel Shirley roll her eyes, “I heard you growl. I know what you are. But I won’t tell anyone. Besides, shouldn’t we be focusing on the sound?”

“How can you hear him breathing and I can’t?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you another day,” she paused, “do you think that’s wise?”

“What?”

“Sorry, wasn’t talking to you. Fine, I’ll do it. I’m going to chase him off.”

“What?!”

“He’s only here to watch us, he doesn’t want to get caught,” she paused and then I felt her body relax behind me, “Ah, you hear that, he’s not breathing anymore. He’s already left.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Just trust me on this one.”

“Shirley, what are you?”

“I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine,” she paused again and then rolled her eyes, “of course I’m not going to tell her. Sheese,” she looked back at me as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, “I said that out loud didn’t I?”

“Yep. But don’t worry, I don’t need to know.”

Although I would really like to open that Pandora’s box and see what’s inside. Shirley was definitely something different and special. As I mentioned before, there are millions of spiritual creatures wondering the earth and not everyone knows them all.

“So, is he gone?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. He’s probably looking up his next victim.”

“You say that like it doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m just stating facts. There’s a serial killer here; he’s going to keep on killing. Wake up and smell the corpses, Sophie.”

“What?”

“It’s just a phrase. It means get with the program.”

“These are my friends you’re talking about. They’re more than just stats.”

“Of course they are, to you. But to me, they’re just more victims. I can be cold. You can’t because you’re too close. Honestly, I don’t even know why you’re here.”

I nodded, “I don‘t either.”

Sometimes Shirley is cute, but other times, she’s just rude.

I continued down the hallway and tried to focus my mind on feelings and visions. Instead, all that ran through my head was that the killer had been here. He had been watching us, studying us, hoping that he could find a weakness and exploit it. I had several weaknesses that he could exploit and I didn’t want him to discover any of them.