Unbound (2 page)

The wolf whined, slicking back his ears and wagging his tail feebly.

Michelle tipped half the eggs onto one plate, and the rest onto another, and then got the oatmeal out of the microwave. “All right, buddy. Here you go. Eat up.”

Ranger tucked into the eggs first, scarfing them down even though they were still hot and nearly burnt his tongue, and then he started licking up the oatmeal, which had a generous dash of milk with it.

After Michelle had eaten, she put down a bowl of water for him, then went through to the living room and returned with a red nylon collar with a big silver buckle and a nickel tag.

“Look,” she said. “Isn’t it nice? The tag has your name on it, see, and then my home number on the back. This way, if someone new to town calls Animal Control on you and you get picked up, they can just call me and I’ll come spring you. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

Ranger obligingly looked at the tag. His name had been engraved on the front in big, easy-to-read capital letters. RANGER. He wondered how long ago she’d had this done for him, and had it all waiting and ready for the next time he visited her. Maybe months.

Michelle fumbled a little getting the tag on the collar with just one hand, swearing softly to herself, and it took her a long time to do up the buckle properly. The collar slipped off and fell on the floor with a
thunk
three times before she managed. Ranger stayed completely still, hardly breathing, until she sat back on her heels with a quiet exclamation of delight.

Then he promptly scratched at his neck, setting the tag jingling.

“Stop that,” she snapped. “It doesn’t even itch. You’re pretending.” He wondered how she knew, until she said: “I tried it on, just to be sure.”

Of course she did. He put his foot down and regarded her, carefully.

“Silly old wolf,” she said, affectionately, ruffling the fur between his ears. He licked her hand and arm, making her smile.

Ranger spent the morning drowsing on her couch while Michelle sat beside him, working with her laptop balanced somewhat precariously across her knees. She gave him lunchmeat at midday, then sent him on his way. The wolf made his way across town to the house where Granny Florence used to live.

It was a small two-story clapboard house with a somewhat rickety porch, painted white and trimmed in a dark, forest green. There was a climbing weed growing up the south side that would have nice purple flowers come spring. Out front was a garden of wildflowers, most of them withered away for the winter, though there were still crocus and marigold bravely showing their faces, and the witch hazel tree was in flower.

Ranger wandered through the front garden, peeing on bushes and trees and the peeling picket fence, and wiping his face against the edges of the house, laying down layer upon layer of his scent to reclaim the territory as
his
. He stepped up onto the porch and peed on the old wooden bench – gray with age – that stood next to the door, then he padded around the back of the house and marked the edges of the garden where it met the forest, wiping his paw pads across the grass just to be certain.

Then he settled down underneath the changing leaves and ripening berries of the chokeberry bush round the side of the house to wait for the arrival of Detective Bower. He wanted to see this man and his son with his own eyes.

The wolf woke at the sound of a car door closing and lifted his head to peer through the overgrown grass of the garden at the black sedan parked on the side of the street. A man had just got out. The man was of an average height, with dark hair and pale eyes. He looked youngish, maybe in his late-thirties but not yet his forties, lean, dressed casually. When the wind shifted just a bit, it brought with it the smell of sweat and ink and brass and gunpowder.

Detective Bower.

A boy got out of the front passenger seat. He might’ve been sixteen or seventeen years old, and he was coltish-looking, all arms and legs. When the boy turned his head, the wolf saw the wild light in his eyes, reflected autumn colors ancient as the lump of polished amber with the fossilized dragonfly inside that Ranger knew was sitting inside high on the bookshelf in Granny Florence’s living room. The boy brought with him the pungent smell of spray-on deodorant, and the sharp scent of medication, and the smoky odors of car exhaust and air pollution and sickness.

And beneath that, he carried with him the spicy smell of pine resin and the earthy scent of the forest after rain and the tang of warm blood and game animal. And beneath that, the electricity of old magic. All this the wolf scented as he lay under the chokeberry, catching little whiffs and holding them in his nose to savor them and consider them, rolling them up his nasal passages as he considered their meaning.

Sacheverell. That was the boy’s name.

Ranger crawled out from under the bush as the Bowers wandered up the street to knock on Aunt Abby’s front door, the green door with the rose bushes on either side. Detective Bower knocked, and a moment later Elijah – Eli – opened the door, smiling brightly.

“Hi,” he said, his gaze flicking from Detective Bower to Sacheverell where it lingered for a moment, over Sacheverell’s shoulder at Ranger, who sat down on the curb to watch. “You’re the detective, right? Mom’s at work right now, but I can get you the key to your house. Did you want to come in and have some coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Detective Bower said. “Maybe another time. You must be Elijah?”

“Yeah,” Eli said, a little breathlessly, before looking at Sacheverell again. “You’re Detective Bower’s son? Mom told me the detective had a son.”

Sacheverell nodded, looking a little surprised. “Uh – yes. That’s me. Detective’s kid. I’m Sachie.”

Eli stuck his hand out, grinning, and they shook. “Awesome,” he said, like meeting a detective’s son was the best thing that happened to him all month. “Want to hang out sometime?”

“Um…” Sacheverell didn’t seem to know what to say. Detective Bower nudged him. “Sure.”

“Great.” Eli smiled widely. “My friends and I meet every Friday after school for movie night and pizza. You can come, if you like. It’s at mine this week.”

“Okay,” Sachie said.

“How about that key?” Detective Bower said, then.

“Key,” Eli repeated, a little blankly. “Oh, yeah, the key! Right! I’ll be right back!”

He ducked into the house, and reappeared moments later, panting and grinning and brandishing a key on a chain, at the end of which was a blue flower pressed between two pieces of clear plastic.

“Here you go, Detective,” he said.

“Thanks. Tell your mother I said ‘hi,’” Detective Bower said. “We better go unpack now, though.”

“All right. See you at school, Sachie!” Eli called, as Sacheverell and the detective turned to walk back to Granny Florence’s house.

“How does he know I’m not going to a different school than he is? Or being home schooled?” Sacheverell asked.

“Sachie, your old middle school had more people in it than this entire town does – there’s only
one
high school here. I spoke to Eli’s mother about the fact you would be coming, and that you would be enrolling at Tamarack High School,” the detective explained.

“Ah.”

Ranger lay down in the grass across the street from them and watched them start to pull bags out of the back seat of the car until the moment when Sacheverell had gone inside, when the detective looked over and nodded at the wolf solemnly. Ranger got to his feet and decided that as he had the measure of the detective and his son, he ought to do something more productive with the rest of his afternoon than watching a pair of humans move into a house.

He wandered downtown, to the little bakery, where he jumped into the dumpster and nosed around until he found some slightly stale cupcakes with brightly colored icing, which he devoured with relish. Then he headed to the police station. The young man on reception this afternoon, Sheriff Hostler’s son Lincoln, glanced up from the homework assignment he was working on briefly, then nodded towards the back.

“Dad’s in his office,” he said to the wolf. “Head on through. He wants your help on this case. He’s got most of the deputies keeping an eye out for you to send you his way, if they see you.”

Ranger twitched his tail a couple of times before padding on past the reception desk and down the hallway, through the room where Deputy Hunter was doing paperwork.

“Hey Ranger,” Hunter said. “Been expecting you.”

Ranger scratched on the Sheriff’s door. A moment later, the door opened and the Sheriff let him inside.

“Take a seat,” the Sheriff said. “There’s a lot to tell you.”

Ranger hopped up onto the chair in front of Sheriff Hostler’s desk and waited while the Sheriff picked up a manila folder and spread its contents over his work surface.

“Have a look.”

The wolf leant forward to peer at the crime scene photos. He only looked at the grisly remains of Jacob O’Reilly for a moment, because he’d been there, and seen what there was to see and what there was to smell. He was more interested in the pictures of Samantha Ellis and Skye Lamour.

Samantha Ellis had been a widow in her seventies who lived out on Park Road, across from the playground. She grew daffodils and poppies in her front yard, in between the rosemary and the sage. She had been found murdered in her own garden, her lower jaw ripped out and discovered three doors down, all her teeth missing.

Skye Lamour had been in her early twenties, just home from college and working at the local coffee shop while she tried to decide what to do with her life. She was found on a jogging trail behind the town, jaw gone, teeth missing, her eyes and tongue picked out by crows.

Ranger looked at the Sheriff.

“No connection between the three victims that we can see,” the man said, running his hand over the short bristles of his dark hair. “Different ages, different sexes. They didn’t know each other, except very peripherally, perhaps. Hell, they didn’t share blood types, or even horoscope signs. Only thing is, they were all human.”

But Ranger knew that already.

He didn’t know
who
it was killing people, but he was fairly certain he knew
why
, now.

According to the ME’s report, Jacob O’Reilly had been killed almost exactly seven days after Skye Lamour, who, in turn, had been killed seven days after Samantha Ellis.

Three and seven.

Six more people would die over the next six weeks, if the wolf’s numerology was correct.

The moon was rising as the wolf cast about the jogging trail at the edge of town, searching for scents. Skye Lamour was ten days dead, and there had been light rain five days ago, so he didn’t expect to find much. He located the place where they found her body, still cordoned off with strips of police tape, and slipped beneath the tape to sniff about the forest floor.

He smelt earth and the sweet decay of leaves, and sometime recently a weasel had skipped across this patch of ground. He could smell tree sap from a hundred meters up the valley where a bear had raked its claws across the bark of a birch tree. He could hear an owl hooting somewhere above him, and the rustle of leaves and branches in a gentle breeze.

And –
there
. The stink of rot and death. Faint now, an old smell that had been left days and days ago. It was the same smell that the wolf had caught at the scene of Jacob O’Reilly’s murder, incongruous because the body had been so fresh that it shouldn’t have smelt so
rotten
.