Sacrificed in Shadow (16 page)

She saw the moment that the acceptance flashed over Lincoln’s face. His shoulders sagged, and he jammed his hat on his head again. “Fine. Explore all avenues.”

“I’d like to see the files on the case,” she said. “I want to know what else our coroner’s been fabricating.”

“You can’t.” His neck was tense. “We’ve got increased security at the station since the original copies of the case’s files were stolen.”

That was right. The files
had
been stolen by Seth and Abel. Which meant that Elise didn’t need to enter the station to study them—she needed to apologize to Rylie and ask nicely.

“Call in sick to work,” Elise said. “I’ll talk to you when I know what’s going on.”

A frown crossed his features. “What…?”

Elise brushed a kiss over his lips. He stiffened, but she dropped back before he could stop her. “I’ll call you,” she said, and she walked into the forest.

WHEN ELISE ARRIVED,
the werewolf sanctuary looked like a ghost town. The street was empty and the windows were shuttered. She lingered in the shadow of the trees, waiting for the wind to blow a denser cluster of clouds over the sun. Her shorts and t-shirt were no protection from the sun’s unfriendly light, such as it was—between the density of the surrounding forest and the cliffs framing the valley, the sanctuary was cast in twilight. The sun would probably only touch the buildings for a few hours a day, even when it was cloudless.

From her protected vantage point, she studied the empty buildings. Construction materials had been abandoned in the front yard of the nearest cottage. A truck was parked at the end of the street, idling but driverless. The spotlights were turned off for the day.

There were more cottages than she had initially noticed—a good dozen already built, and a dozen more in progress. They stood on the bank of a small lake, which was fed into by a towering waterfall that dissolved into an icy mist before reaching its surface. Everything in the valley was green, moist, and mossy.

It was a hidden, gloomy utopia in one of the Appalachian’s most remote regions, safe enough to protect an entire pack of werewolves.

Werewolves that were obviously giving Elise a
wide berth.

She felt them in the trees, on the cliffs, behind the waterfall. They were everywhere, yet nowhere in sight. But she could taste their flowing blood on the back of her tongue, sense their earthy energies. They weren’t afraid yet. Only cautious.

The sky darkened. With a whispered hush, the rain picked up, driving cold and hard on the sanctuary.

Elise stepped out of her cover.

“You were right, Rylie,” she called. It was so quiet, aside from the rumbling of the waterfall, that she barely had to raise her voice. “You’re being set up.”

The wolves seemed to materialize from nowhere. They appeared among the trees, one by one: sleek, pale ghosts that stared at her with golden eyes. They flitted through the mist. They glided down the hill, stepping onto the road.

Werewolves were only supposed to be able to change twice a month: on the full moon and the new moon, beginning around midnight and ending at sunrise. Yet here they were, in daylight between moons, all four-legged and furred. Either Elise’s information was hopelessly wrong, or this pack was special. Dangerous.

They were led by one wolf that was bigger than the rest, with glossy black fur and canines the length of Elise’s fingers. She was at eye-level with his shoulder. His hide rippled as he walked, as if he had fewer bones and more muscle than he should have. He looked more like he belonged with prehistoric megafauna than a pack of graceful wolves—a monstrous remnant of eras long since passed. This, Elise knew, was Abel: the scarred man, and Rylie’s fellow Alpha.

Rylie herself stepped from behind Abel in human form, shockingly mundane, and childlike in stature among the wolves. Abel bristled, silently threatening Elise.
Just try to attack her
, he seemed to say.
Try it
.

Elise’s throat ached with the memory of Rylie’s jaws, and she rubbed the punctures on her neck. Even if she hadn’t been there for benevolent reasons, she wouldn’t have rushed into another fight against a werewolf.

“Where are Seth and Nashriel?” Elise asked.

Rylie looked embarrassed. “The non-wolf members of our pack are hidden. Everyone else wanted to greet you like this once they heard that you had called me for a meeting.” She gave a helpless shrug. “Just in case.”

The innocence, the unassuming girl-child attitude—that was an act. Elise could see right through it now. Rylie might pretend that she hadn’t prepared her pack for bloodshed, but she was ready to murder to defend her people.

Elise didn’t need to grandstand. Given darkness and a reason, she could swallow every last one of them before they could inflict a single bite. But in the day, still unhealed from their last confrontation, she was in no place to fight them.

She decided to ignore the other wolves as they circled around her, addressing Rylie directly. “The cadavers were wounded after they were killed. The bite marks were inflicted by pit bull jaws, not wolf jaws. And someone’s fabricating the murder scenes.”

A growl rose from Abel as he lowered his head beside Rylie. She turned her cheek into his, rubbing her face against his fur. “Who?” Rylie asked, fingers tangled in his neck ruff.

Elise wasn’t about to tell the angry werewolf pack that someone in the sheriff’s department was probably involved. If there was no human blood on their paws, then she didn’t want to change that—yet. “I don’t know who’s behind it. Do you have any enemies that might be out to get you?”

“Maybe. The OPA doesn’t like us. Neither does the Union.”

“The Union doesn’t like anyone,” Elise said.

That earned a smile from Rylie.

“The Union” was short for “Union of Kopides and Aspides.” They were an organization that was attempting to unite all witches and demon hunters, like Elise and Seth, under a single banner. Whether or not the kopides and aspides wanted anything to do with the Union didn’t really matter. Their recruiting techniques were as graceful as a bull with a chainsaw strapped to his forehead.

Since the Office of Preternatural Affairs had taken over, the Union had become the public, militarized face of anti-preternatural efforts. But they had been assholes for years before the OPA ever appeared.

Knowing that Rylie had dealt with them was no surprise to Elise. It did, however, endear the girl to her somewhat.

“Let’s talk privately,” Elise said.

A ripple of displeasure spread through the wolves, like the rolling of thunder. They had only known Elise so far as an encroaching demon—something that had violated Nashriel’s mind, and tried to rip out the Alpha’s tongue.

But Elise kept her gaze steady on Rylie’s. She wasn’t offering to deal with the entire pack. Only the girl that had seen the garden in the darkest parts of Elise’s mind.

“Okay,” Rylie said.

Abel growled louder than ever. She buried her face in his neck fur, murmured in one of his massive ears, rubbed her hand over his jaw.

Elise didn’t expect Abel to back down gracefully. She had seen men like him before. The fact that he had stolen files from the sheriff’s office without telling Rylie spoke volumes about his personality, and there was no way he would allow her to speak without his presence.

Yet he stepped away, and the other wolves followed.

The pack melted into the trees. The rain fell harder, washing away their paw prints as soon as they were made, though the energy lingered long after the last tail had disappeared into the forest’s gloom. Elise rubbed her aching throat. It was still throbbing.

Rylie watched her pack leave. There was no sign of the shy girl in her face anymore. Only fierce pride, and a longing to be with them.

“I don’t like being wet,” the Alpha said. “Let’s go inside.”

There was coffee
brewing in Rylie’s cottage. The sounds of percolation blended with the pattering of rain on the windows, but the smell was unmistakable.

“Want a drink?” Rylie asked. Elise nodded.

She prowled around the cottage’s sitting room as Rylie went to grab mugs. The layout was much like a one bedroom apartment: a living room, dining room, and kitchenette in one area, and a bedroom in the back. It was modest, but furnished like a page from a Martha Stewart catalog. Country living.

The windows were large—almost as big as doors—and might provide swift escape in the event of attack. At least, they would have if they could open. Elise moved close to inspect the windows, which were triple-paned and sealed tight. The frames were painted metal. Probably steel laced with silver.

Elise had a feeling that if she tore the walls apart, she wouldn’t find wooden studs inside. They, too, would be silver and steel. Judging by the noise her sandaled feet made on the floor, it was much the same underneath.

The cottage was a nicely-decorated prison for werewolves. Martha Stewart wouldn’t have approved.

“All the stuff you left behind is on the bedroom dresser,” Rylie said, bumping a cabinet shut with her hip. “Help yourself.”

Elise pushed the door open. The bedroom was obviously Rylie’s Space, from the sketches hung on the walls to the guitar propped in the corner. There was no sign that she was living with anyone else. Surprising—Elise would have expected the Alphas to cohabitate.

As promised, everything Elise had stripped off at Abel’s order was piled on Rylie’s dresser, including Lincoln’s sweater. She tucked the knives inside the belt of her shorts, hung the necklaces around her neck, and tossed the sweater into the trash. “How many witches are with your pack?” Elise asked, returning to the living room.

Rylie was pouring coffee at the counter. “None right now. Why?”

“The brass pentagrams.” Elise pointed to the apexes of each window. “Your house is spelled and warded.”

“We worked with a coven to create protections against remote viewing. Like I said, the OPA’s not a fan of us. We aren’t registered, and we’re not going to register.”

“Why?”

The Alpha carried the coffee mugs to the couch and sat down. “Are
you
registered?”

“They wouldn’t have a category for me,” Elise said. She took one of the coffee cups, but didn’t sit. “If the OPA wanted to fuck with you, they wouldn’t need to blame murders on your pack. Same with the Union. They’d raid your sanctuary, arrest half of you, and shoot the rest on sight.”

Rylie’s pale cheeks said that she already knew that. She turned the mug in her hands, staring into its brown depths. “I know for a fact that the wards the witches installed do work. We haven’t seen the OPA anywhere near the sanctuary. And, trust me, they’re looking for us.”

“Must be powerful wards.”

“Yeah.”

“In that case, is there anyone with a grudge that might want to draw the OPA to your pack?” Elise asked.

“There was someone else. A werewolf named Cain.” She traced a finger around the rim of her mug. “Seth and Abel’s half-brother. Different father. He wasn’t a Wilder.”

Seth, Abel, and Cain. All three of the sons of Adam.

It doesn’t mean anything
, Elise told herself. Their mother had clearly possessed no real understanding of who Adam had been, or what he stood for. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. But Elise’s nerves were on edge.

She set down the coffee mug and took a seat across from Rylie.

Elise was so wired that she almost exploded into an incorporeal mess when something heavy jumped onto her legs. She jerked back against the couch, lifting her hands to stare at the black
thing
in her lap. It weighed at least twenty pounds and looked like a dust bunny on steroids.

“What the hell?” Elise asked.

The dust bunny’s head swiveled, focusing luminous eyes on Elise. It was a cat. Probably. It looked like it had smashed face-first into a wall and knocked itself silly, turning its mouth into a permanent frown and making its eyes bulge in two separate directions.

“That’s Sir Lumpy,” Rylie said. “He’s my…uh, my friend’s cat.”

“Lumpy” seemed like the best possible descriptor for him. He kneaded his paws into Elise’s shirt, plucking threads up with his claws, rumbling like an earthquake.

Elise hesitated, then rubbed his head. He purred louder.

Rylie smiled. “That’s a really big compliment. He doesn’t like much of anyone.”

“That’s…nice,” Elise said.

The cat started drooling as he continued to knead.

“Like I was saying about Cain, he tried to kill us and didn’t succeed.” Rylie sipped her coffee, hiding a smile behind the mug. “Obviously. But this kind of subtlety was more his style. He played with us before attacking. He liked to send messages.”

“Has he returned as a zombie?” Elise wasn’t joking. She had seen zombies, slaughtered them with her swords, watched them destroy half of her city.

Apparently, Rylie had seen zombies, too. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“How did Cain die?” She had stopped petting Sir Lumpy, and he protested by jamming his head into her hand, smearing saliva all over her fingers. She grimaced, but obediently scratched between his ears.

“Head crushed by a boulder.”

“He won’t be coming back from that. The head needs to be mostly intact to resurrect a corpse. They might be able to reanimate whatever else remained, but it wouldn’t be Cain.”

Relief rippled through Rylie, easing the tension in her muscles one by one, making her shoulders droop, her fingers loosen on the mug. She had genuinely believed that Cain might have risen from the dead to blame murders on them.

Elise had been hunting demons since she was a small child. She had been on the run, nomadic and mercenary, since she was sixteen years old. She would be thirty-one in December, and she thought she had probably seen it all.

Apparently, Rylie had, too. Yet she didn’t show it the way Elise did. She didn’t have the scars, the hostility, the inability to trust. She had stared into the faces of the gods and walked away with gold eyes and a shy smile. And she had a pack, a family.

Elise wasn’t sure if she admired the kid or hated her.