Forbidden (6 page)

I went first. Clay had started preferring that. It was part of the transition to our new positions. When I became Alpha, he would be my bodyguard. It wasn’t the most comfortable shift, for either of us. We’d always been partners, and I’d taken pride in that—my mate was the most powerful werewolf in the country, yet he didn’t feel the need to shove me behind him, where it was safe. He knew that I was safe at his side, able to protect myself—and him, if necessary. But that didn’t work for the Alpha and her beta. When it came to plotting and planning, I had to step forward and he had to step back. When it came to matters of safety, the situation reversed. So when we Changed these days, he’d often “suggest” that I go first. That way, if danger struck while he was mid-Change, I’d be in wolf form, better able to protect myself.

I entered the thicket and Changed. It hurt like hell. That part is always the same. Always will be, sadly.

When I finished, I took a moment to ground myself and rest. Most werewolves do. We have to—the shift to another reality is always jarring. Clay is, of course, the exception. There seems to be no discordance for him. He does need to rest, but he rarely bothers, too eager to get out and run.

That meant that it wouldn’t be long before he was finished, so I had to prepare. While he began his Change, I examined the playing field. Then I made my move. I ran about a dozen strides away, flying through the snow, feeling the exhilarating cold of it chase away the last aches of the Change. Then I stopped short. I tore around in circles, ripping up the snow, rolling in it. Making a mess, basically. Then I hunkered down, muzzle aimed at the tree line just beyond the clearing, where we’d trampled the snow coming in. I checked my trajectory, crouched and sprang, flying clear over the unbroken snow and past the tree line.

I looked back at my handiwork. A straight running path from the thicket where we Changed ending in that ripped-up patch. It could look like a fight, but there were no other scents. I wouldn’t worry him like that. He’d see it and sniff it and think I’d just been goofing around. And then? Well, then I vanished. Just vanished. No sign of where I’d gone. A straight trail to an empty trodden patch, surrounded by unbroken snow.

I chuffed, pleased with myself. Then I crept to the other side of the thicket. As planned, I was downwind of him, where he couldn’t smell me. I settled in to wait, head on my paws, tail curled around me. Inside the thicket, I could hear Clay finishing up. I could see him, too, yellow fur bright through the brush.

He got to his feet and started out the way he’d come in. Then he stopped. I could imagine him there, looking at the track-story I’d left, puzzling it out. I wriggled lower. With my pale fur, I’d blend with the snow. If he couldn’t see me or smell me or hear me…I resisted the urge to give a chuckling growl.

Clay stepped from the thicket, vanishing from view. I waited. His steps were silent in the soft snow and as much as I strained, I couldn’t hear him. Was he just standing there, puzzling? Had I given him enough time to recover from the Change? Was he fair game yet? I lifted my hindquarters, preparing to race up behind him and pounce.

I was just about to launch when a yellow blur tore around the thicket. Coming straight at me. No, that wasn’t—He couldn’t possibly—

I tried to leap out of the way, but it was too late, and he barreled into me, sending me flying. Then, before I could scramble up, he was the one pouncing. He pinned me, teeth gripping the loose ruff around my neck as he held me down, growling and shaking me.

I sighed and let my paws slide out from under me, admitting defeat. He released me and started backing off. I played submissive—head down, ears flat, tail lowered—while I bunched my legs, ready to—

He pounced again, knocking me on my side this time. I was the one getting hold of his ruff, though, grabbing and growling as we tumbled through the woods, mowing down innocent saplings.

I finally escaped, sprang up and started to run. Just then, Morgan stepped out from his Changing place across the clearing. I made the mistake of pausing to glance over and got plowed down by Clay. He hit me in the side and knocked me flying into the snow. Then he turned to Morgan.

Clay lowered his head. Classic stand-off stance, but he wasn’t growling and his ears weren’t back, meaning he was just goofing around. Given Morgan’s experience with real wolves, he should recognize that, but his expression said he wasn’t so sure…and really didn’t think he should take a chance.

Finally, Morgan’s nerve broke and he took a slow step back. Clay charged. He hit him square in the chest, nearly flipping him backward. Morgan went down. Clay zoomed back to me, paws spinning, spitting up snow in his wake. I chuffed and shook my head.

I glanced over at Morgan. He was on his feet, shaking off snow. His gaze was fixed on Clay. Still evaluating his intent. I resisted the urge to intercede. It’s damned near impossible to communicate “he’s kidding” in wolf form. Morgan would figure it out eventually, and he seemed to do just that when Clay let him approach without knocking him flying again.

Clay nudged my flank.

I gave him a look to say, “If I stand, are you going to let me
stay
standing?”

He exhaled, breath streaming, and backed up. I slowly rose, flicking my tail and my ears. Then I charged. He feinted out of the way. I nearly plowed into a tree. When I turned around, I swore he was laughing. Morgan, too.

I swished my tail and snorted, then pulled myself up and growled to say playtime was over. Clay rolled his eyes to say I was only ending it because I was losing. Then he set out, racing through the snow. I loped up beside him, Morgan falling in behind.

We only ran long enough to take off the edge that play-fighting hadn’t dulled. Then we slowed, fanning out, sniffing the air and pausing for a closer sniff at large evergreens. We’d been out there for maybe an hour when I caught a scent. I motioned to Clay and he lifted his muzzle, then shook his head. The scent was too faint for him.

I followed the smell to a spruce. Branches fanned the ground. Carefully, I pawed one aside. The smell stayed faint, almost hidden by the astringent odor of the needles. I pushed my head into the dark cavity under the branches. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I saw white bone. A skeletal arm encased in a ragged sleeve.

The skeleton’s hand was missing. As I pushed farther under the tree, I could see other parts were missing too, including the skull. Did scavengers often make off with skulls? I couldn’t recall encountering that—like the hands, there wasn’t much “meat” there.

I eased back for a more critical look at the body. It’d been reduced to clothing-covered bones. The clothes were ripped—too badly for a struggle, suggesting predation. It looked like male clothing. The body seemed small, too. Not child-small, but not adult-sized either. On both counts, though, I was just guessing. So I backed up and let Clay in for a look.

He spent a few minutes examining the remains. Then he came out. In wolf-form, he couldn’t tell me what he thought, obviously, just gestured that he was done and we could move on.

We did that, making a mental note of our surroundings, then heading out in search of other bodies. Yet if there were more, it quickly became apparent that they were either a lot further in or too old for me to smell.

I stopped to tell the guys we should head back. When I looked around, though, I only saw Clay’s golden fur. I threw back my head and howled. After a moment, a distant yip from Morgan replied.

Clay chuffed and shook his head. I howled again. Morgan yipped back. Damn it, when I called, he was supposed to come. Having to go after him was really not going to impress Clay.

I didn’t glance over to see Clay’s expression. I didn’t dare. Just gave one last howl, edged with anger, then set off after Morgan. 

We found Morgan at the foot of a steep hillside. He was standing by a clump of bushes, staring up at a pie pan hanging from a branch. The pan twisted in the breeze, glinting in the moonlight. Great. How the hell was I supposed to convince Clay that Morgan could be Pack material if he was distracted by every shiny object he saw?

He didn’t even seem to notice us until I let out a chuff, and he glanced over, casually, as if he’d heard us all along, but had really been more interested in the pie plate. I sighed.

He nosed around the bushes for a moment, then looked over, head tilted as if to say, “Well, are you coming?”

To do what? Join his rapt contemplation of baking tins? I grunted. He yipped, then dove through the bushes…and disappeared into the hillside.

Oh.

Clay bounded over, stuck his head through the bushes, then pushed in until the tip of his tail vanished. I followed.

It seemed that the bushes blocked the entrance to a cave. The pie plate must have been someone’s way of marking it. When I got inside, I smacked muzzle-first into Clay’s rear end. He chuffed an apology, nails clicking on stone as he stepped further into the inky blackness.

It was nearly complete darkness, only slivers of moonlight managing to get past the entrance. I backed out and held down one of the biggest bushes under my paw. When I did, moonlight flooded into the cave. Inside, Morgan dipped his muzzle as if in thanks. When he started nosing the floor, exploring, Clay let out a low growl.

Morgan looked up, confused. Clay head-butted him toward me. More confusion. I released the bushes a little, then stepped on them again and jerked my head toward him. It took a moment, but he figured out what I meant. He sighed, came to the mouth and took over the job of holding down the branches while I went into the cave for a look.

I suppose I should feel bad about that. After all, he
did
discover it. And I suppose it’s a testament to how long I’ve been a werewolf that I didn’t feel very guilty at all. It was simple hierarchy. He’d get his look around…after we got ours.

We’d been standing in the mouth of the cave. It was narrow, which is why we’d smacked into each other. Now Clay squeezed to the side to let me through first. Again, hierarchy, not chivalry. That feels a little strange sometimes—taking precedence over my mate, my partner—but it’s starting to feel less weird as I manage to disentangle the Alpha-elect part of my life from the rest. We’re fine as long as the unbalance in power doesn’t extend beyond this, and I can be damned sure Clay’s never going to allow that.

I walked into a second, bigger chamber. It stank of wood smoke, as if someone had used it for a bonfire. Everything was dark for a moment, as Clay came through the mouth and blocked the moonlight. Then he stepped aside and I looked around.

There was a moment where I thought I’d found some ancient cave painted by Neolithic man. In my defense, it was only a brief moment. I may not have Clay’s background, but I know we’re a long way from anyplace with Neolithic cave paintings. When my eyes adjusted, I could see these weren’t even mock paintings. They were symbols, sketched with what looked like chalk and soot.

They weren’t the same symbols I’d seen on the trees, but some looked similar. As I stepped forward for a better look, Clay nudged my flank and whined. Telling me to stop. I looked over at him. He bent his muzzle to the cave floor and nosed what looked like a white, tubular rock. Then he jerked his head toward the rest of the floor.

We were on the edge of a ritual circle, adorned with more symbols. In the center, ashes and burned wood explained the smell. There were dark splotches just to my left. I carefully picked my way over to them. Dark red. I lowered my nose and inhaled. It was hard to get past the smell of smoke that permeated the cave, but eventually I detected blood. Animal or human, I couldn’t tell—they were too old—but it was definitely blood.

Clay nosed the white rock again, then gestured to a pile of them in the middle of the circle. I walked in, being careful not to step on the markings or the dried blood. When I reached the pile, I could see they weren’t stones at all. They were finger bones.

Was this where those missing hands ended up? If so, they hadn’t been scavenged. These bones were bright white and smelled faintly of sodium hypochlorite. Boiled clean and bleached.

I needed a better look at this. Which required fingers, a camera and a penlight. Time to Change back. I communicated that to Clay, then had him hold down the bushes while I let Morgan take a look around before we started the long run back to our clothing.

•

I took pictures while Clay examined the symbols. Morgan hung back and watched.

“I’m not recognizing anything,” Clay said. “The symbols look like a mix of a few things. That could suggest a supernatural ritual, not a human one.”

I nodded. “The bones and blood point to necromancy. The symbols look more witch or sorcerer. I’ll send the photos to Jaime and Paige.”

I was snapping a picture when my cell phone beeped, telling me I had a message. It was a text from Chief Dales asking us to stop by the station. She’d sent it at nine. I checked my watch. It was just past ten.

I told Clay and Morgan, then said, “We’ll swing out that way and pop in, but I’m guessing she’ll be gone for the
night.”

“Are we reporting this?” Morgan waved at the cave.

I shook my head. “Not this and not the other body. I’d like to report the body, at least, but finding two in one day is a little much. We’ll have to hope they conduct a thorough search of their own and find it.” I looked at the cave. “And hope they don’t find
this
until we figure out what the hell it means.”

•

So what
did
that cave mean? I could be optimistic and say it had nothing to do with the dead bodies. Sure, it was a little coincidental finding corpses missing hands, then hands missing a corpse. Maybe someone had found hands carried off by animals and decided to boil them for ritualistic parts rather than turn them over to the police. You know, you’re out, walking your dog through the woods, he brings back human hands and you think, “Huh, I could use those.” Perfectly plausible.

Actually, if the dog-walker was a necromancer, it
was
possible. They needed human remains for rituals, and they didn’t require fresh ones, so they got creative. Jeremy’s longtime girlfriend, Jaime Vegas, was a necromancer, so I knew a little more about it than I did other supernatural types. She did use “bits-and-bobs” from dead bodies, most of them ancient, but she’d never just claim random body parts found lying about. And she didn’t use blood. Dried flesh and old bones signified death, which was the domain of the necromancer. Blood signifies life.

It seemed more likely to be spell-casters. Witch, sorcerer or maybe one of the rarer and weaker magical races. Ninety-nine percent of magic has nothing to do with ritual sacrifice. But there is that one percent. The darkest spells, shunned by most practitioners. The highest level of magic, requiring the highest level of sacrifice—a human life. But I wasn’t sure the blood was human. It could be animal sacrifice…paired with human remains from someone conveniently killed under completely separate circumstances.

Yes, any explanation other than a ritual murder was a stretch. A big one. No matter how rare it was in the supernatural world, I had to entertain the very strong possibility that’s exactly what this was.

I expected to arrive at the police station and find it shuttered. Or, at the very least, nearly dark, with only the night officer on duty. Instead, all the windows were ablaze and I could hear voices from a hundred feet away. It seemed every set of footprints on the street led straight to the station doors. The only cars in sight—three of them—were parked out front.

“Party at the cop shop?” Morgan said.

“Something’s going on. I just hope Chief Dales’ message didn’t mean ‘get your asses over here fast because we have a situation.’”

“No reason it would involve us,” Clay said.

“I hope not.”

I decided to send Morgan back to the motel. I wasn’t sure how far news of his escapade had traveled, but given my experience with small towns, the answer was “far.” Best to leave him out of this.

Clay and I stepped inside to find three people hanging out in the small foyer. Just standing there. They moved aside for us, but didn’t say a word. I kicked the snow off my boots and opened the interior door.

Officer Jaggerman was manning the front desk. Three more people stood in front of it, all leaning in, holding Jaggerman’s attention. A couple in their late thirties hung back, casting anxious glances at us. Another in their forties sat to the side. I could hear Chief Dales’ voice coming through her closed office door. Talking to Kent, it sounded like. Or hiding in there with him. I wasn’t sure I blamed her.

Two of the people in front of Jaggerman seemed to be a couple. Maybe my age. Latino, like the younger couple to the side. With them was a man of about thirty-five, balding and beefy, a worn Westwood Werewolves team jacket straining over his broad chest.

“I demand to see that body,” the woman was saying, loud enough to make my ears ring.

“It won’t help, Mrs. Rivera,” Jaggerman said. “You won’t be able to tell if it’s—”

“Are you telling me I won’t recognize my own son?”

“The body is in…” Jaggerman swallowed, “poor condition.”

The guy in the football jacket laid his hand on Mrs. Rivera’s arm. “If it is Ricky, you’ll know as soon as they do, Maria. Some of the other team parents”—he gestured at the sitting couple—“have volunteered to take turns staying here all night until Jess has an answer.”

As if on cue, Chief Dales’ door opened. She walked out, papers in hand.

“No one needs to stay,” she said. “I just got Doc’s preliminary report. As we thought, the body is that of a man in his early twenties, too old to be Ricky. Even more conclusively, there were several tattoos. That means it definitely isn’t your son.”

Chief Dales walked over and offered a few quieter words of sympathy. I could tell she was struggling. I recognized that look—I can feel deeply for people, but I have trouble expressing it, especially to those I don’t know well. Dales’ sentiment did seem genuine, though.

Mrs. Rivera didn’t appreciate the effort. She muttered something under her breath, then stalked out, leaving her husband and the guy in the team jacket hurrying after her. None of them paid any attention to us. Nor did Chief Dales as she walked to the front desk, pages in hand.

“Doc confirmed it looks like homicide,” she said to Jaggerman. “I’ve compiled a list of persons of interest. All our local recluses.”

“You want me to take a run at them tonight?”

“Your shift ended two hours ago, Phil. I told you to go home then, and after that visit, I bet you’re wishing you listened.”

He chuckled. “No kidding.” He glanced at us. He’d looked over earlier, but been caught up with the Riveras. “Uh, Jess, we have—”

“I’ll leave these addresses here,” she said. “Take Wes in the morning and see who you can round up for questioning.”

I approached the desk as she set the pages on it. “You texted me?”

She glanced over sharply, as if startled. A little
too
startled. As if she’d only been pretending she hadn’t noticed us.

“Oh,” she said. “You didn’t need to stop in.”

“The message said—”

“I just wanted to know if you’re spending the night in Westwood.”

“We are. No luck getting our tires fixed with all the storm calls. The mechanic is coming by in the morning.”

“Good. You’re staying at the Red Cedar, I’m guessing?” She struggled for a tired smile. “Only place in town.”

“It is.”

She nodded. “I may have more questions in the morning. If I don’t stop by before you leave, give me a ring.”

“All right.”

I started to turn away.

“Grab yourselves a coffee before you head out,” she called. “It’s a cold night.” Then, to Jaggerman, “Phil? Got a few things for you to sign.”

They disappeared into her office as I was pouring a coffee. She shut the door behind them. I sidled back to the front desk and glanced down at the pages she’d left out. Clay came up beside me.

“A list of the local loners?” I said. “Otherwise known as
a list of potential mutts or supernaturals involved in nefarious business.”

“Handy.”

“No kidding.”

I took out my phone. He stood guard as I snapped photos of the pages.