by Geonn Cannon
"That many?"
Ari shrugged. "In the Pacific Northwest, it seems reasonable. I've been asking around and it seems like Seattle and the areas around us have a pretty high population. That's just canidae, specifically the ones who change into wolves. There are felidae and other shifters who won't be affected by the wolfsbane."
Dale nodded. "Right. So there are more than a dozen hunters, obviously, but not all of them are involved with distributing the wolfsbane."
"Right. Lorne said he had nothing to do with spreading the drug. But whatever the actual numbers are, they're creating an epidemic. We can't risk having it spread."
"And on that note, AmazonFresh should be delivering some groceries this morning. I'll wait for them before going to the office."
Ari kissed her temple. "Thank you, baby."
"No problem. I once dated a girl with very strict dietary restrictions, so I learned how to deal with the fridge as a potential landmine."
"Don't make me jealous. I'm going to go bug Lorne, see if he can give me some early information. I'll see you at work."
"Be safe."
Ari kissed two fingers and placed them against Dale's lips before she left. She tugged on a knit cap and her gloves as she rode the elevator down, went to her car, and headed out into the crisp morning. The rain had left the city scrubbed clean and brisk but it came at the cost of further sinking the temperature. If Ari had truly intended to spend the morning bugging Detective Lorne she would have turned north out of the garage. Instead she turned south, hating herself for the lie of omission she'd committed with Dale, but she was still unsure how she felt about the current situation. She was waiting until she had a firmer hold on it before she revealed everything. It was one thing to work with the hunters, but her other partner was just as devious and untrustworthy.
The homes along Lake Washington Boulevard had always seemed more like estates to Ari, grand and proud domiciles safely hidden behind wild walls of brightly-colored foliage. She parked in front of a Dutch colonial painted cedar-red so it would more easily blend in with the trees, set back from the road behind a beautifully manicured lawn so the eye would skip right over it. The front porch was mimicked by a balcony on the second floor, and despite the early hour most of the downstairs windows were lit. She pulled into the driveway and reluctantly got out of the car.
The front door was open. She hesitated before knocking and took a moment to look back at the street. The lawn, the trees across the street, the smell of water from the lake; the combination had all once been so familiar because it once made up her entire world. She smoothed down the front of her sweater and faced forward to see movement through the door's fogged glass. The woman confirmed who it was with a glance through the peephole before she opened the door and took a step back. Despite the fact she was twenty years Ari's senior, most strangers could have confused her for an older sister. She was dressed down in a light blue cardigan and a black skirt, her feet bare on the hardwood. Ari knew she had chosen the outfit for its ease of removal; she was the sort of canidae who felt comfortable in human form if she could switch to the wolf with a second of warning.
"You know you don't have to knock, Ariadne. This is your home, too."
"Maybe for a while it was. Not anymore." She wanted to put her hands in her pockets, but she felt that would be too defensive. "Morning, Mom."
"Good morning. I was just making breakfast, if you'd care to join me."
Ari shook her head. "No, thanks. I'm not very hungry." It was a lie, but one she could live with. On the other hand, the warmth washing through the open door was too inviting to ignore. "But I will come inside. It's kind of freezing out here."
"The blessing and curse of living with a lake view. Come in."
She brushed past Gwyneth Willow and entered the house in which she'd grown up. The living room took up the majority of the ground floor, with a kitchen and dining room tucked to one side as an afterthought on the other side of the stairs. The house was cozy and inviting, absolutely nothing like the haunted house she often remembered it as. All of the trauma that occurred within its walls should have darkened the atmosphere and forever tainted its aura, but it was just a home. She felt like a ghost, in the house but unable to touch anything. She finally succumbed to the urge and stuffed her hands into her pockets as her mother shut the door.
They had reunited a few weeks before Christmas. Ari came to her with information gained from Detective Lorne that she thought her mother's cronies needed to know, and she'd delighted in sharing it. He had revealed the truth about the peace ceremony Gwyneth and her British friends had tried using to prevent the wolf manoth from beginning. The wolves wanted to recreate the marriage of a human to a canidae to reseal the peace. The human they'd chosen was Dale, but the canidae wasn't Ari.
The plan had fallen apart, largely due to Ari and Dale's refusal to play their roles. Gwyneth had tried to lay the blame for the coming war at Ari's feet, but Lorne revealed the hunters had never intended to let the accord to take place. They were only playing along to get a large number of canidae in one room so they could take out as many as possible in one fell swoop. Since discovering the truth, she'd used it as a stick to prod her mother whenever she was acting too haughty.
So far they'd only had three awkward conversations, none of which Ari had told Dale about simply because she hated the idea she was relying on her mother for any kind of support. All the rent checks she'd just barely made, the business she had helped build with the help of her mentor Glory, the nights when she carefully only ate half her dinner so she would have lunch the next day, and she had never once asked her mother for help. It was a source of pride for her that she never once came crawling back for a handout. But despite every stride she'd taken to be independent, here she was in her mother's living room relying on her for help. She was ashamed of herself for it.
"I take it something happened last night," Gwyneth said as she pushed up the sleeves of her sweater and crossed her arms. "Last night was the first night of wolf manoth. I was up the entire evening waiting for someone to come knocking." She passed Ari on her way into the kitchen. "I hope you don't mind if I eat in front of you. I'm famished."
Ari followed her mother through the house. "Someone attacked and killed a guy up in Queen Anne. The wolfsbane made him lethargic, and I tracked him down in a nearby park. I wanted to bring him in, but Detective Lorne..."
"He shot him. You can't be surprised, Ariadne. This is what you get for working with a hunter."
Ari stifled her anger. "I'm doing what is necessary. Lorne made the mistake, and I'm just going along with it for the benefit of everyone."
Gwyneth said, "How did the man who died benefit?"
"He..." She forced herself to rein in her anger. "I'm going to get information from Lorne about his family on the pretense of checking them out to see if they're also wolves. In reality I'm going to warn them. I'm going to find out how he was exposed to the wolfsbane and make sure those close to him are safe. That's how I'm helping, Mom. I figure it's better than arranging some cockamamie ceremony that the hunters use to slaughter all of us."
Her mother glared at her. Ari raised her eyebrows, inviting a defense, but she knew it was pointless to defend herself and continued preparing her breakfast.
"Lorne is a hunter. He's going to kill wolves no matter what I do. If I'm standing next to him, maybe I can save one or two."
"What about the ones you can't save? What about the ones you have to watch die?"
"I guess I'll have to learn to live with that."
Gwyneth calmly took her plate to the dining room table and sat facing the window. Her position forced Ari to move so she wouldn't be talking to the back of her mother's head.
"And what if he discovers the truth about you, Ariadne? What if one night he calls you to some dark alley and shoots you the moment you arrive? Will I just have to learn to live with that? Will Dale?"
Ari swallowed the lump in her throat. "That won't happen."
"Benjamin Moss and I worked with hunters to coordinate the ceremony we hoped would prevent this atrocity from starting. The entire time we were meeting up, arranging candidates, compromising, plotting... we were careful and we took precautions but they still outmaneuvered us. They were lying in wait to massacre us as you seem to delight in reminding me. Canidae have a dual nature, but so do hunters. They are serial killers who must put on a good face for society while plotting their next murder in secret. Beware of them, Ariadne. Do not let your guard down, even for a moment."
"I'll keep that in mind. But someone has to do this, Mom. We have to know what they're up to. I happened to be on the right side of a stupid misunderstanding, so I'm elected whether I want to be or not. We can't pass up the opportunity just because it's dangerous. If I wasn't your daughter you would be cheering about this turn of events."
"So I'm supposed to just forget you're my daughter? That's not as easy as you might think."
"Tell me about it. I've been trying to forget since I was a teenager." Gwyneth flinched at that and Ari felt a twinge of regret. She softened her voice. "I should go. I'll call you when I have the name of last night's victim in case he was someone you might know."
Gwyneth nodded but didn't meet her gaze. "Thank you. You said the killing occurred in Queen Anne?"
"Yeah. Close to Kinnear Park. The wolf's victim was named Marcus Kurtz."
"Doesn't ring a bell. Still, it's a rather pricy neighborhood."
Ari scoffed and turned to leave. "Yeah. Looks like you're not the only rich wolf in town."
"Be careful, Ariadne. It's easy enough to fall into the habits of those you chose to work with even without the genetic disposition you have."
"I'm not a hunter."
"You're at least part hunter. The man who sired you, regardless of whether it was my choice or not, was a hunter. He passed the trait to you whether you like it or not. His DNA tried to prevent you from achieving your true destiny as a canidae. Perhaps all this time you've spent with Mr. Lorne and his ilk is changing you in ways you don't notice. In ways you can't notice until it's too late."
Ari faced her again. "I may be part hunter, but I'm also part you. And I've overcome that part of my genetics just fine so far. I think I'll be okay."
"I hope so. Give my love to Ms. Frye if you would."
Ari ignored the last comment as she left her mother's house again, once more hoping it was the last time but knowing fate had ways of making people end up right where they didn't want to be.
#
The grocery delivery arrived a half hour after Ari left, and Dale took the time to examine each item before she put it in the fridge. They were being extremely careful about what they ate, cautious to the point of obsession so Ari didn't have a second exposure to wolfsbane. Lorne had bragged about the fact they had hunters placed throughout Seattle's food service industry, from chefs to waiters to convenience store clerks, so the idea of eating something that wasn't snugly stored inside a securely sealed wrapper was out of the question. They were eating at home a lot more often, and despite the inconvenience, she had to admit she had lost a few pounds now that fast food was off the menu.
She sent Ari a text so she'd know there was safe food at the apartment and headed to the office. She walked since it was less than a mile to the office, and she spent the walk listening to voice mail from the business line. Two potential clients wanted to set up an appointment, and she saved them for later when she could take down the contact information for Ari. No matter how busy she was with the hunters, she still had to make a living. They'd taken a break for the holidays, but the time had come to start meeting clients again. She just hoped Ari wouldn't stretch herself too thin and make a fatal error.
She stopped at the corner store to get a cup of tea, feeling like she was betraying Ari as she bought a cup that was completely mixed and prepared by someone she didn't know. She didn't have a vulnerability to wolfsbane, as humans were almost completely unaffected by exposure to it. She might get a strange aftertaste, or a few hours later she might have a mildly upset stomach, but it was nothing she could use to taste-test Ari's food for her. She was extremely careful about brushing her teeth and rinsing with mouthwash before kissing Ari so nothing passed between them.
She felt so helpless in the face of the citywide poisoning that threatened Ari's safety. And, to be perfectly honest, it threatened her safety as well. If Ari ate something tainted with wolfsbane, the wolf would come out like never before. It wouldn't be Ari, and it wouldn't be the playful beast that woke her up with kisses. It would be like those stories about the family dog that suddenly and inexplicably turned on its owners with teeth flashing and claws out. Ari told her flat-out that if she was ever exposed to wolfsbane that Dale had to stop her "by any means necessary" before she attacked.
Dale didn't know if she could do that, even in self-defense, but she also didn't know what the alternative was. Either she had to live with the fact she'd killed Ari, or she forced Ari to live with the knowledge she was responsible for the death of her partner. No matter how she looked at it, there was no winning. So to save them from that particular Sophie's choice they paid a staggering fee for AmazonFresh, they examined all the packaging before it was put away since they had no idea of knowing if the delivery driver was associated with the hunters, and they cooked everything right up to the point of burning it just to be certain any contaminants were rendered inert.
But that didn't mean she didn't cheat from time to time. She sipped the illicit tea, her guilt rendering it bland as she unlocked the office and turned on the overhead lights. The air was polar, and she shivered as she turned on the thermostat, held her hand over the vent, and began to reluctantly peel off her winter wear. She turned on the desktop and sat down, placing her phone next to the keyboard to replay the voicemails. First, however, she logged on to see what she could find about other canidae murders linked to wolf manoth.
Despite Ari's assurances to the contrary, and the revelation that the hunters had never planned to honor the ceremony in the first place, Dale still felt guilty about the attacks that were killing Ari's people. A small, irrational part of her brain insisted it was all happening because she'd been too stubborn to go along with Gwyneth Willow's plan. There was no way marrying Milo Duncan could have worked but she couldn't fight the feeling she could have done something to prevent the hunters from coming out in force. She found a story about a hunting lodge in Idaho that had turned into a blood bath just minutes after the clock struck midnight, a man in Oregon who had been thrown off a balcony after he tried to attack a woman at a New Years' party, at least six cases in Vancouver, et cetera, and so on.
In every case, they were ordinary people who had simply "gone berserk" and started attacking without provocation. In some cases their victims fought back and the canidae was dispatched before anyone else died. Dale found herself calling those the "best worst case scenarios," but no matter how many people were attacked, in every case the assault ended when the canidae was killed. Instead of finding the "wolves" in human form and killing them in cold blood, wolfsbane forced the canidae to not only reveal themselves, it forced them to become murderers so the killing was justified. The hunters were sacrificing innocent human lives to protect themselves from looking like serial killers. The very idea made her sick to her stomach.
She got up and went into Ari's office to the map of the area she had on the wall. It was large enough to show a portion of Canada and the majority of Idaho and Oregon, and she marked the locations of the new kills. She remembered the death Ari had witnessed and added a mark for it on the smaller city map. There could be dozens more, other deaths that weren't being reported or had just fallen under the radar. She knew by the end of the month the map would have more red than any other color, and she whispered a quiet prayer that Ari wouldn't end up as one of the pins on her own map.
Chapter Three
No matter how many times Ari's work took her there, she still wasn't used to visiting the police station. For
a decent part of her life she'd lived on the streets. A uniform and a badge meant getting picked up and taken "downtown." Even now a few of the cops she'd met in the course of her work knew she was a private investigator and gave her a wide berth. She used to know the gatekeeper at this precinct, but he'd retired and been replaced with a guy who had a very strict sense of who belonged and who didn't. The new guy told her he'd call up to see if Detective Lorne was free to talk to her and pointed to a row of uncomfortable plastic chairs where she could wait.
After five minutes she was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, watching everyone around her to calculate a moment when she could sneak upstairs without being seen. She was about to make a run for it when two detectives entered and Ari forced herself to abort her plan. She settled back into the seat and sighed heavily when the female detective slowed to stare at her.
"Ari? Ari Willow."
It took her a moment to recognize the familiar face without the benefit of a uniform and due to the fact her black hair was cut in a flattering pixie style. Once all the contradictory evidence was excluded she realized the woman was Diana Rios.
"Diana. Wow..."
She knew Diana from the old, old days, before Dale when the agency was still called Willow Investigative Services. They dated until Ari took advantage of spending the night in Diana's apartment to get her hands on classified police files. The violation of trust ended their romantic relationship, but Diana still worked the late shift and occasionally encountered Ari post-transformation. Due to their past she usually didn't arrest her, but Ari knew she was worried about her eccentric ex-girlfriend who frequently turned up barefoot in the park wearing Goodwill rejects.
It had been nearly two years since they'd seen each other, and Ari was ashamed she hadn't been concerned about her old friend. Apparently the absence was due to a well-deserved promotion, and ascending to detective was a very good look for her. Her shorter hair was now accented by a few strands of gray that looked good enough that she knew most people would assume it was dyed to look fashionable. She wore a dark blue suit over a lilac blouse, her badge hooked on the hip of her trousers opposite her holster.