Zeus's Pack 9: Rave (6 page)

Tony knew better. From the looks of the back door, things were about to get harder. He hadn’t a clue where to look or who could have possibly broken into this place. Was the suspect kidnapped, killed, or had he been the one to do the damage? Tony wasn’t sure, but he knew he would be back here.

“Let’s get moving.” He tossed the mail aside and headed for the door. Tony caught movement from the corner of his eye and had his Glock pulled and pointing in under a second.

“Tony?” Dorm said his name questioningly as he stood frozen in the living room. “There’s nothing there, man.”

Tony blinked, seeing shadows all around the house. There wasn’t a light on, but he knew he saw something. He didn’t spook easily. He glanced around the thin shadows again, pools of light softening the edges of darkness from the streetlights outside. He shoved his gun back into the holster and grunted as he headed toward the door.

“You all right?” Dorm asked as they walked to the car. “I’ve never seen you this jumpy before.”

That was because Tony had never tried to shoot a damn shadow before. What the hell was going on around here? Things weren’t adding up, and he didn’t like it. Tony drove to Pride Pack Valley, arriving after midnight. There was a small motel on the outskirts of town where he and Dorm checked in. They got separate rooms and Tony gladly went to his. His eyes burned he was so damn tired.

Sliding his gun under his pillow, Tony lay down and closed his eyes. He had thought about calling Rave to come to his room, but it was late and all Tony wanted right now was some sleep.

Tony’s eyes flew open, his hand sliding under his pillow. He grabbed his gun and eased it from its hiding place. He glanced at the clock to see it was after three. The room was bathed in darkness, the curtains drawn tight.

“I hear you are looking for me.”

A wave so subtle, so caressing wrapped around Tony’s mind. The ripples were soft, comforting, like being held in his mother’s arms. He lay there feeling as though he really didn’t want to work this case and needed to just close it. There was no such thing as mind controllers, no such thing as
styre mentes.

Tony fought against the invasion in his mind, knowing that what he was thinking was wrong. He knew what the person in his motel room was doing, but Tony felt powerless to stop it. The need to walk away was strong, and the pain in his head was getting worse, as if the shadow in his room knew Tony was fighting him.

Tony rolled from the bed, aiming his gun at the darkness. He let his eyes adjust to his surroundings, but as he darted them around, he didn’t see anyone.

But he could feel them. He could feel a presence somewhere in the room, watching him, mocking him.

As Tony glanced around the motel room, his fingers began to tremble uncontrollably, his wrist bending awkwardly as the gun slowly began to turn. Tony gritted his teeth as he tried to release his gun, to drop it, but no matter how hard he tried to open his hand, he couldn’t.

It was as if an unseen force was helping him, guiding his hand and applying so much pressure that he could feel his temples throb with exertion.

His arm rose slowly, and the muzzle of the gun pressed hard into Tony’s temple, reminding him of the power behind the steel. He fought to breathe, fought to get the damn thing away from his head.

He was sweating profusely as he glanced around the room, praying his finger didn’t pull the trigger.

A hand curled around Tony’s neck and Tony realized in horror that it was his
own
damn hand.

But he could feel that someone was standing behind him and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. He was so fucking helpless and powerless to stop the person. His fingers dug into his windpipe, making it almost impossible for Tony to breathe as the pressure mounted. He stood there strangling himself with a gun to his head.

This was not one of his better nights.

“I could kill you right now or make you shoot your brains out, and no one would truly know what happened in here,” the man said from a darkened corner. Tony could hear the note of amusement as his finger slid next to the trigger, taunting him, making Tony believe that he was going to shoot himself. He became light-headed, white dots bursting all around him from the lack of oxygen as his fingers maintained their tight grip on his neck.

“Go back to where you came from, or the next time I won’t stop you.” A few seconds later the door flew open, the night air spilling in.

Tony caught a glimpse of the man’s face as the cheap, yellow lighting from outside splashed into his room and framed the man in a soft halo.

Aba.

The deep angles of his face were half masked from the shadows as his eyes glanced back at Tony. They were soulless eyes, eyes that said Aba would do exactly as he promised if Tony didn’t back off.

Something Tony didn’t plan on doing.

His fingers eased from his gun, and Tony’s arm fell limp at his side from his neck. He fell to the floor, gasping for air. Wheezing for air was more like it. The skin on his neck burned from where his fingernails had dug into flesh, and his throat felt raw, his breathing ragged. Tony was on all fours, forcing air into his lungs as the door snicked closed. Tears streamed down his face from the pure pressure that had been exerted, his head feeling as though it were going to explode.

What the hell was he dealing with? The file had said that Aba had committed multiple murders, but they all looked like suicides. Tony hadn’t really put too much stock into those reports, but he was quickly changing his mind.

His hand came up, rubbing at his neck as Tony pushed back onto his knees, gun still in hand. He glanced at the door, but it was closed and the feeling of someone watching him in the darkness was gone.

Tony sat on his ass, his back against the bed as he wondered how he was going to capture someone who could make him want to just walk away and forget about this case.

Good thing he was a stubborn ass bastard who never gave up.

Tony stared down at his Glock. It used to be a solid, comforting weight in his hand, but now he only saw it as a tool for Aba to use against him. He finally pushed to his feet, swaying a little.

He sat down on the side of his bed, staring down at the gun he had fired very few times over the years, and wondered if the next bullet fired would be into his own head.

The thought was sobering, but Tony was not going to run away and allow Aba to go unpunished. If Tony scared that easily, he wouldn’t have advanced as far as he did in his career.

No, for better or dead, Tony was in this until the job was done.

Awake now, Tony grabbed the file he had on the
styre mente
and began to pore over the notes again. He grabbed the small notepad and pen from the side table with the motel monogram and began to make notes of his own. It was after six when he finished memorizing everything in the file. He yawned, his stomach rumbling at the same time, letting Tony know it was time for some breakfast. He tucked the motel notepad inside his jacket and stood, grabbing the file to store in the trunk of the car.

Dorm knocked on his door after seven. Tony was showered and ready to go.

Dorm’s eyes widened as he stepped into Tony’s room. “What happened to your neck?”

Tony had seen the bruising in the mirror after his shower. The fingerprints were clear and an ugly deep purple. There was no denying he had been strangled. “I choked myself.” He told the bizarre truth, hoping Dorm would let it go.

Dorm’s brows furrowed as he stood in Tony’s motel room, staring from his neck to his eyes. “Why would you do that?”

So much for hoping.

Tony slid his jacket on, shrugging it over his shoulders, knowing there was no way he could hide the bruising. “I had a visitor last night. Aba warned me away from the case, strangled the crap out of me with my own hands to show his power.”

“Are you kidding?” Dorm gaped at Tony with a glint of anger in his eyes. His lip snarled back as he looked at Tony and then glanced back at the motel door, as if Aba were still standing there. “And you didn’t shoot him?”

There was no way Tony was telling Dorm that he almost shot himself in the head with his own damn gun. That was something a man never shared. Talk about kicking someone’s pride in the gonads.

“I was too busy trying to breathe. It’s kind of hard to shoot when you’re about to pass out from blood loss to your brain.” And it was.

“You have a point.” Dorm didn’t look too happy, as if the thought of someone choking him left a bad taste in his mouth. Tony knew how he felt.

“Let’s get some breakfast, and we can start questioning people.”

Tony tucked the file under his arm, closing the door behind him.

They drove through Pride Pack Valley, heading toward Theo’s. Tony knew from the last time he was here that Theo’s served breakfast.

He slammed the brakes just a block from Theo’s when he caught a glimpse of a body in an alley, and the perp standing right next to it.

Tony jumped from the car, pulling his gun as he raised it and ran for the mouth of the alleyway. “Freeze.”

The man looked at him, his eyes narrowed and his canines exposed. Was he a shifter? He didn’t look like any shifter Tony had ever seen. He wanted to look down at the body on the ground, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off of the man standing there staring at him as if Tony was meddling.

Dorm was out of the car, gun raised and coming up behind Tony when Tony gaped at the suspect flying away. Flying? He was really flying? He glanced around to see if Aba was anywhere near. Maybe this was another mind trick. It had to be.

Men just didn’t fucking fly away from a crime scene.

“Get the sheriff on the phone,” Tony said to Dorm as he carefully walked down the alleyway, his eyes scanning for any other
flying
men. When he saw that the alley was clear, Tony checked on the victim.

He gasped when he saw black ooze coming out of the man’s neck wound. Just what in the fuck was going on around here? Tony had a feeling he had stepped into some shit in this town. There was more than just a mind controller running around, and he was going to get to the bottom of things.

He jumped back when the downed man’s eyes popped open, and then he scurried to his feet, running from the alley with a damn knife still embedded in the side of his neck.
Ah hell.
He was going to lose his mind by the time he wrapped his case up. He could just feel it.

“The sheriff is on his way.” Dorm walked down the alley, his gun out and at his side as he glanced around. Tony was still kneeling on one knee, feeling slightly disoriented.

“What’s going on?” Dorm asked as he glanced around. “Why did you jump from the car and tell me to call the sheriff?”

Dorm hadn’t seen the men in the alleyway. He had been behind Tony.
Shit.
Now he was going to have to tell the sheriff what he really saw, or tell them it was a false alarm. Maybe he needed to go talk to the alpha of the grey wolf pack that lived here. Things were just getting too damn strange for words.

Sirens blared as the sheriff approached, the front of the car coming into view as the sound of heavy footfall came toward them.

Tony stood, dusting his hand onto his jeans as he holstered his gun.

Dorm put his away as well.

Sheriff Jesse DeKalb came into view, his gun out and his eyes searching. “What’s going on, Agent Monroe?”

He wished he knew.

“False alarm.” It gutted him to say those words when they weren’t true. And he knew Jesse was a shifter, which meant he could probably smell the lie. Grey wolves had a very keen sense of smell.

“False?” Jesse glanced at him with questioning eyes and then looked over to where Dorm was standing. Understanding dawned in his eyes as he nodded. Jesse knew Dorm was human. He would be able to scent it, which meant no talking about strange paranormal shit in front of the human who had no knowledge that shifters existed.

“What do you think you saw?”

Tony knew Jesse couldn’t just walk away. He had to play the part in front of Agent Dorm. But Tony also knew he would be explaining himself later to the sheriff when Dorm wasn’t around.

“I thought I saw a body, but I must have been seeing things.”

Damn if he didn’t feel lame saying that. Tony never imagined things.

He even knew that there had been somebody in Logan and Cal’s house when he and Dorm were there last night. He’d bet his bottom dollar on it.

Jesse looked around, giving Tony a few subtle glances along the way. “Nothing here,” he called over to Deputy Hanes. “False alarm.”

Tony wanted to get out of there. He hated feeling like an idiot, especially when he wasn’t. One way or the other, Tony was going to find out what in the hell was going on in Pride Pack Valley.

Logan walked into Theo’s Bar and Grill. There was a horseshoe-shaped bar in the center of the room, booths off to the left, tables and chairs scattered around on the dark wooden floor. He spotted a pool table behind the row of booths and flat-screen televisions spaced out in various places. Most bars were dimly lit, a place of refuge for those seeking solace, but Theo’s was moderately lit, not brightly, but enough to see the people around him.

Wine glasses hung over the bar, bottles of liquor lined the shelves, and bowls scattered from one end of the bar top to the other with nuts, pretzels, and napkins stacks on the side. But Logan could smell the salty scent of bacon on the air, home fries and pancakes as well.

Damn if it didn’t make his stomach growl, but he’d never really been a breakfast person.

Logan walked to the bar, taking a seat on one of the stools. Rave was with him, talking with a few people who had stopped him by the door. Logan glanced around, spotting a bartender busy on the right side of the bar. He glanced back to make sure Rave wasn’t watching him and then concentrated on the bartender, mentally pushing the thought of coming over to Logan and serving him into the guy’s head.

He wasn’t out to hurt the man, but Logan was curious as hell to see if he could do it. It just didn’t seem real that he could actually control minds. Logan was floored by the idea, and who wouldn’t want to test their boundaries if they knew they could control minds?