Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1) (32 page)

I couldn’t establish a new pack with an inferior mate. We could only be as strong as our weakest, and only as fierce and wise as the Alphas. I would have none other than the best wolf for my mate.

“Why didn’t it kill you?” Mark turned to Anderson, his posture stiff.

“No idea,” Anderson replied with a shrug. I sniffed at the air.

I couldn’t smell the lie.

“Maybe she didn’t like the way I tasted,” Anderson added in a ruing tone.

“Or maybe it noticed your pathetic attempt at a flanking ambush, Dupree,” James muttered.

My ears twitched back. I hadn’t noticed.

The two men argued in low tones. I ignored them, drawing close. Snow caked my fur, cloaking me in white. The stench of fresh blood lingered in the air.

“What do we do now?” one of the more timid men asked. “How are we going to explain this?”

“We don’t,” Mark and James said in unison. A laugh burst out of both of them.

Mark crouched next to his mother, reaching out to close her unseeing eyes. “We leave. It’s obvious a wild animal killed her. We get out of here while it’s snowing. That’ll cover our tracks.

“O-okay,” the man replied.

I darted to the parked vehicles. I waited until the humans climbed in their various cars before launching myself over the raised gate of the largest truck. I dropped to my belly, wiggling to the blind spot behind the cab. I laid down, careful to tuck my tail close to me.

While they were my prey, they were my only hope of finding the Inquisition. There, I could hunt all of those who had been involved with Samantha’s death.

I would paint the winter red with their blood. Spring would be a long time coming for mere men.

The cold penetrated my thick coat. I didn’t know how long it took for the convoy of vehicles to reach its destination, a five-story tall apartment complex. The dim glow of a city penetrated the falling snow. I kept still, waiting for the humans to emerge. When they did, I lifted my head enough so I could peer over the edge of the truck, ears pinned back.

“Which outpost is this?” Anderson asked, last to step out of his car.

“Does it matter?” Mark huffed. “Who wants the honors?”

“She was your mother,” James said, disgusted.

“Bite your tongue, James. If you hadn’t botched the job—”

“I never botch a job,” the Brit snarled, baring his teeth.

“Wolves escaped.”

With a growl, James shrugged his shoulders. “Not my problem. I did exactly as I was told. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Bullshit! I wanted that woman alive.”

Woman? Which woman? Did Mark mean me? To him, Allison Ferdinan was dead. What did Markus Dupree want with my Hanover persona?

“Accidents happen.” James’s voice took on a distant quality. One of the men ghosted through the snow, heading towards the complex. “It’s a pity. Ten million gone, just like that. But the twenty million for the confirmed deaths of three rogue witches and five werewolves is sufficient.”

“You bastard,” Mark growled.

“Watch your tongue, fuzzy. You’re no match for a real wolf.”

“Neither are you, you plagued piece of shit.”

“Enough,” Anderson barked. To my surprise, both men flinched and fell silent. “The Archeons aren’t going to be happy with us. Let’s get this over with as soon as possible so I can get out of here.”

I stiffened. The Archeons led the Inquisition, second only to the Shadow Pope. Was one of them—or more?—in the complex? While the complex looked large, I didn’t think it was large enough to warrant such high-ranking members of the Inquisition.

“I wouldn’t count on that, Mr. Anderson,” James muttered.

One by one, the group dispersed until one figure remained. I drew a deep breath. The air stank of werewolf.

James, then.

I rose, shaking the snow from my coat. Leaping down woke sharp aches in my joints. The werewolf had one thing right: I
was
old.

James leaned against Anderson’s car. Watching me with the wary stare of frightened prey, the Brit didn’t move. Baring my fangs in warning, I approached until I was within snapping range.

“Thank you for sparing Elliot. He’s not a bad kid. The past month has been difficult for him.”

Pinning my ears back, I kept my eyes focused on the other werewolf. I couldn’t express myself like a human, not that I wanted to. I cocked my head to the side, careful not to expose my throat.

If he didn’t get the message that he had a single chance to talk fast and make it good, it wasn’t my problem if he ended up mauled.

James held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Someone has been creating new werewolf packs. They’re wild. Uncontrolled. No Alphas. They have no ability to tame their wolves, and no witches to help them. There have been attacks on children and pregnant women. Newlywed couples, too. If they remember the ritual used to change them, there will be a lot of new wolves. We can’t let them live.”

I growled loud enough to be heard over the hiss of the windblown snow.

“Not a good enough reason for you?”

I leveled my best glare on the werewolf.

“Of course not. I should have known, Old One. I should’ve bloody known that wouldn’t be good enough for you. Listen, it’s a necessary evil.”

Considering his words, I cocked my head to the other side in a gesture for him to continue. James fidgeted against Anderson’s car. “Without the Inquisition, who would keep the powers balanced? Who would stop rogue witches from creating covens? Who would stop werewolves from taking over? Who would prevent the creations of wizards or demon summoners? Not all Inquisitors are bad. My pack is all but dead, Old One. They’ve been wiped out by the plague. The Inquisitors are healing the legitimate wolves and pruning packs to prevent it from spreading. I’m not at all upset you killed that witch. She’s incapable of curing our kind.”

I didn’t move. Dr. Engleburg had spoken the truth, then. Samantha had been infected by something similar to
ebola.
When James said nothing, I bobbed my head to acknowledge his words. The werewolf sighed, and the scent of his fear weakened.

“Let me get the blood off of you. Come inside. I’ll have them check for plague and cleanse you of it. I’ll say you’re one of my pack. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you the truth.”

Trusting James had resulted in a close brush with death. But he had saved Emily and Alex when he’d been ordered to kill them all. If he did speak the truth, I needed to know.

The plague was an unkind death.

I could grudgingly understand how a wolf would view murder as a kindness. In the wild, a sick wolf didn’t last long. Humans prolonged life until living became torture, and death became a true mercy.

Letting my breath out in a sigh, I gave in to his request. I nodded. James pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, going to work at brushing away frozen snow and blood away. Him tugging at my fur earned him a single bite.

I didn’t break through his skin.

~*~

I couldn’t force myself to trust James, but if he did betray me, I would take him down with me. Learning what was within the Inquisitor outpost was worth the risk. At least, I hoped the answers I would get were worth them. If plague was tearing through the werewolf packs, and witches could cure it, the secret was worth dying for.

No, it was worth living for.

It might give me a way to stop the Inquisition without any more direct confrontation. Neither my wolf or I was upset over the Wicked Witch of the West’s death. The woman’s victims, like Caroline, couldn’t care about her demise. Mark hadn’t seemed particularly upset, either.

The foyer of the apartment complex was manned by a security guard. I stood under the blasting heaters in the doorway until the snow and blood caked in my fur melted.

“Don’t you dare,” James said.

I dared. The splatters on the white paint of the entry would stain, I hoped. Maybe they’d remember werewolves were dangerous.

Maybe it’d serve as a reminder of what would come for those who preyed on innocents under my watch and protection. I doubted it.

James sighed. “Did you really have to?”

Instead of answering, I waited for the Brit to lead the way. The guard rose as we approached. “No one said anything about bringing a dog,” the man said, reaching for the baton at his side.

I bared my teeth, eying the human. With his stick, he might crack a few ribs before I ended his life.

“She’s with me,” James replied.

“I wasn’t told to let a dog in here,” the guard snapped.

I breathed deep and savored the fear in the air. Stepping forward, I lowered my head and bared my teeth at my prey.

“Don’t,” James said, nudging my side with his knee. “She’s with me, John. Unless you want to duel her, that is? I won’t stop you, though I’d think you a bloody fool if you tried it.”

The guard stepped back, his hand dropping away from the baton. “Fine. She’s your responsibility. Leash and collar her, and if I so much as hear a single complaint, I’m putting a bullet in her head.”

“You collar her, then.” James headed towards an elevator on the other side of the foyer. I snarled at the guard.

“A single complaint. . .”

“Your aim better be good, then.”

I put my ears back, snapping at James’s ankles as I followed him to the elevator. He jackhammered at the button until the door dinged and opened. Hopping inside, I sat down. James edged his way around me.

“A wolf killed his brother. Lots of folks here are in that situation. He probably will shoot you if you make a fuss.”

I considered that. Both sides had their share of losses. A huff was the best he was getting out of me. If the way he was talking to me was any indicator, James had no idea I was the same person he’d almost killed at the funeral. I wasn’t the only old wolf wandering the world, after all.

I’d savor the look on his face when he realized he had missed his mark. When the time came, I wouldn’t miss mine.

Turning my attention to the elevator’s panel, I watched James punch a button. There were four basement levels, and he took us all the way down. The elevators opened to a hall that reminded me a lot of the Mayo Clinic. The stench of disinfectant burned my nose. I sneezed several times, shaking my head to clear it of the fumes.

“This way,” James said, making a sweeping gesture with one hand. I growled, but followed him. The hall ended at a junction where a white-coated man stood talking to a woman behind the desk of a nurse’s station.

What sort of outpost had a full
hospital
in its basement? I’d expected emergency medical kits, but nothing to the scale of what was hidden within the basement of the apartment complex.

The doctor turned to James, his eyes narrowing. “James.”

“Doc, I need a test on the bitch here.”

The doctor’s attention shifted to me. “Odd coloring. All right. Let me go fetch a kit. Take her to the lab. I’ll meet you there.”

“This won’t take long,” James said. The Brit followed the doctor halfway down the hall before opening a door leading into a glass-paned room. The lab proved to be an operating room attached to a complete testing facility. I recognized the MRI machine with a wince.

If I had been capable of whistling, I would have. The place gleamed as if everything was new. That was one thing that hadn’t changed about the Inquisition, and something I could almost respect. They didn’t let their loyal Inquisitors die needlessly. They had, in the past, relied on outside clinics run by the Inquisition to care for injured members, or hospitals who received significant donations to keep quiet about treating strange patients with stranger injuries.

The doctor swept in after us, carrying a small white box. “Up on the table,” the human ordered. Within moments, he had a syringe out, the metal of its needle shining in the overhead lighting. “Shall we get this over with? It’ll take about ten minutes to check it under the scope.”

I twisted around, chomping down on an itchy patch of skin on my hind leg. Growling my complaint, I jumped up on the operating table. With a practiced thrust, the doctor jabbed my shoulder with the needle.

I bit my paw instead of his face. He scurried to the lab, returning several minutes later with a Petri dish and a handheld microscope. “This should do it. Sit tight, James. I’ll do you next in case you need cleansed
again.
I swear, you’re a plague magnet.”

James shrugged, leaning against the door frame. Unfocused eyes stared at nothing.

The itch strengthened, focused on my paws. I imitated a statue and tried to ignore the irritation. It didn’t work. Neither did gnawing on my paws, but I did it anyway.

The doctor leaned over a microscope. “Hey, James? You might want to come have a look at this.”

“What’s going on?” James crossed the room. I hopped down and followed. Instead of letting James look through the microscope, the doctor lifted the device and carried it back into the lab. The human gestured to one of the blackened monitors.