“Do his parents know about what happened?”
“No. They moved to Montana a few years ago. I’m not going to contact them until I know something. If Stephen wants to call them, he can.”
“I doubt he will,” I said, crossing my arms. “You said you feel like his father. Did you ever have to discipline him?”
“No. Stephen is stubborn when it comes to leaving his comfort zone, but he doesn’t disobey me.” He stared at the house, frustration deepening the crease between his eyebrows. “Until now. I don’t know what happened.”
“Were there reports of any other injuries, or dead animals?” I asked. “Anything to suggest there might have been someone or something else in the woods last night?”
“Another ranger—a human, Emma—found a dog that was in bad shape. But it hadn’t been attacked; it was just a pet that got away from its walker. Poor beast got itself caught on a tree root near a ravine and almost hung itself.”
I stared at him, my stomach dropping. “Please tell me the dog is okay. She found it in time.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up at my concern. “Yes. Emma got her to the hospital. Significant bruising around the neck and some light damage to her throat; a broken bone or two in her leg. Emma had to cut her down quickly and wasn’t able to get in a position to catch her. But she’ll be fine.”
I relaxed against the car. I didn’t own a pet myself—Majesty was not my cat—but I lived in a neighborhood where more people owned a dog than didn’t. I knew how loved they were, how very much a part of the family a pet became.
“So did the coroner send you his initial findings for Oliver Dale?”
“He did. So far, cause of death is blood loss. It’s unclear from what.”
So it could have been Stephen.
We stood there in silence for a few long minutes.
“You know,” I said slowly, “barghests aren’t the only creatures roaming the woods. There are others whose sense of humor can be as deadly as teeth and claws.”
“Such as?”
I shrugged. “Will-o’-the-wisps can affect someone’s logic. They sort of hover in your mind, project emotions or thoughts into your brain. Usually they lead you into a bog, or too close to the water where a kelpie or rusalka is waiting, but… Well, it’s not impossible that one of them might have seen Stephen sniffing the victim to get the barghest’s scent and decided to have some fun.”
Liam stared into the blank space. “So they could have tricked Stephen into eating the body? He could be telling me the truth as he knows it?”
I really wanted it to be true. But I couldn’t lie. “It’s possible.”
“Possible,” Liam echoed. He kicked a piece of loose gravel to skitter across the driveway. “But not likely.”
“Not likely.” I cleared my throat and stepped in front of him. “Still, an investigator must consider all possibilities and avoid jumping to conclusions.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “True.”
“And you know, truth is stranger than fiction.”
“Often.” He smiled and stood from the car as well, dropping his arms to his sides. “And who knows, the final coroner’s report may list cause of death as natural. A heart attack.”
I twisted my mouth into what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Sure.”
“All right, then, Shade Renard. Follow me to the station and we’ll get started.” He paused, then added, “And call me Liam.”
I nodded and opened my door, sliding inside as I watched Liam walk to his official vehicle. It had been a rocky start, but at least he was trying. I climbed into my car and shut the door behind me.
“Stephen did it.”
Peasblossom made her announcement from my dashboard, her wings catching the sunlight and throwing shards of gold over the car’s interior. I sighed and pulled onto the road, allowing Liam to back out and then following him.
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Besides the blood on his mouth?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, besides that.”
Peasblossom kicked her feet where they dangled over the edge of the dash. “He’s lying to his alpha. That’s serious business. What else could be serious enough to make him lie?”
“A valid point. Did you overhear anything useful before I got there?”
“I think I missed an argument. After a really long staring contest, Liam started pacing the room. He told Stephen he didn’t find any evidence of a barghest. Stephen tried to suggest the barghest might have retreated to the astral plane, but Liam shouted at him, said there was no DNA from a barghest at the crime scene, and the wizard didn’t pick up any magical traces either.”
“They have a wizard?”
“Apparently.”
Wizards, in my experience, tended to be too holier than thou for my taste. They held a certain bloodthirsty political drive reminiscent of the days they’d been part of a royal court, often on equal or greater standing with the king or queen. Mother Hazel had no use for them. I made a mental note to look into this wizard.
“So Liam dismissed the barghest as a complete fabrication.”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything else? Anything that might tell us if he’s convinced Stephen did it?”
“No. Stephen wouldn’t talk to him at all, not a word.” Peasblossom’s forehead wrinkled. “Stephen looked like he wanted to say something. I mean, he didn’t seem defiant or smug or anything. He looked upset, like…” She gave up and crossed her arms. “Werewolves are stupid.”
“Interesting.” I tapped my finger on the steering wheel. “So either he did it, and he can’t bring himself to tell Liam, or someone else did it, and for some reason he feels revealing who it was to his alpha would be worse than admitting he did it.”
“Could someone else have done it, but they’re threatening him to keep quiet? Maybe threatening to hurt his pack, or even the alpha himself?”
An image of Liam hovered in my mind’s eye, and my skin buzzed with a sensory memory of his heated aura. “I have a hard time believing Stephen would feel Liam needs protecting.”
“So you think he did it.”
“There has to be a reason she was keen for me to take this case. She offered an unqualified favor for solving it—not an offer she’d extend on a whim.”
Peasblossom crawled over the dash and stood behind the steering wheel. “So you think he did it?”
I scowled and arched my neck to look over her. “I’d say proving a werewolf police officer is guilty of murder would qualify as pretty serious.”
Liam turned down a road lined on either side with thick trees. I followed, glad for the lack of traffic as my mind continued to process my meeting with the suspect.
“Something’s bothering you,” Peasblossom said.
“It’s probably nothing. It’s just the way Liam talked about Stephen, telling me to be ready for a feral wolf. I was expecting an attack. Maybe not a salivating, golden-eyed ball of fur and claws, but something equally terrifying. Stephen was completely calm. I just… I’m surprised his alpha misjudged him by such a large margin.” I bit my lip. “I’ve seen a feral werewolf. I’ve seen people who kill for pleasure, or kill indiscriminately. I’ve seen people who killed by accident. Stephen didn’t have any of those qualities. He looked…frustrated and resigned. And he’s a cop—if he wanted to kill someone, you’d think he’d plan it better. Liam caught him running on the other side of the park. Why leave the body? And there’s a river, why not wash himself off, at least?”
“Well, if he didn’t eat him by accident, like Liam said, and he didn’t plan to kill him, then what’s left? Someone or something made him do it?”
“I don’t know.” I thought back to the werewolf, remembering the roiling energy churning beneath the composed surface. The stiffness in his body as he’d leaned down to let me put the collar on him. That had been, perhaps, one of the greatest shows of control I’d ever seen. It wouldn’t surprise me if Stephen were alpha himself one
day. Kongur. Assuming the Vanguard didn’t take him away…
“It would be nice to prove his innocence instead of his guilt,” I admitted.
Peasblossom sat down, her little face looking sad. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Chapter 4
“The sign says ‘Official Personnel Only.’”
I ignored Peasblossom and followed Liam’s vehicle past the warning sign to the parking lot behind the ranger station. “I can read. But that’s where Liam’s going, so that’s where we’re going. I’m not going to park up front and then wander inside looking for his office.”
“Don’t trust him?”
No, I don’t. “Of course I trust him. He may not have been happy at my involvement in the investigation at first, but he’s come around. I just don’t want to waste time getting separated. This is a murder investigation.”
“Says you. The alpha says that hasn’t been determined yet. If it was a barghest, it’s accidental. Animal attack, not murder.”
I pushed back against my seat and squirmed, trying to scratch an itch by rubbing my back against the seat. “I’m not buying the barghest attack theory. Didn’t you feel the energy in that room?”
Peasblossom shivered. “Of course I did. That was a very distraught werewolf.”
I let out a relieved breath as the itch surrendered to the muted scratching. “But he didn’t shift. Not even a little. He didn’t shift; he didn’t snap at me. That level of discipline doesn’t happen overnight—and it doesn’t snap because he was peckish.” I tucked my car keys into the side pocket of my waist pouch, careful not to store them in the enchanted main compartment. Fool me once.
“So it won’t be a human coroner who makes the call on whether or not this is a homicide,” Peasblossom said. “When the human coroner finishes, they’ll have someone from the Otherworld have a turn.”
“Right. And whoever performs that autopsy will determine if it was a werewolf or a barghest.” I lowered my voice as Liam exited his car. “There must be a reason Mother Hazel based a wager on this case. And I don’t think it was a rogue barghest.”
I got out of my car as Liam approached, watching his face for any sign he’d heard me. He didn’t appear agitated, so I guessed not.
“This way,” he said.
I fell into step behind him. He gripped the knob of a door labeled Official Personnel Only, but froze before pulling it open. My pulse jumped as his nostrils flared. Blue eyes fixated on my neck.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, my voice higher than I’d intended. His energy flared against my aura, and I swayed forward, then immediately scowled and leaned back.
“That smell. It was in Stephen’s house too.” He scented the air. “What is that smell?”
“I do not smell!” Peasblossom leapt out from behind my neck, glaring at Liam.
Now it was Liam’s turn to lean back. “A…pixie?”
I sighed. “Peasblossom, this is Detective Sergeant Liam Osbourne. Liam, this is Peasblossom, my familiar.”
The skin around his eyes tightened. “You have a pixie as a familiar?”
I lifted my chin. “Yes.”
His lips parted, but he closed his mouth without saying anything. He opened the door for me, and a less charitable woman may have observed he fled into the building to escape the pixie. Peasblossom flopped down on my shoulder to continue glaring after him, surreptitiously sniffing her arm.
“There are humans here,” I said under my breath.
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. With one final sniff, she resumed her hiding place under my hair.
Conversation filtered out of the offices we passed, quieting when Liam came within ten feet. He nodded to several people, but didn’t stop to converse with anyone. The authority in his stride seemed to discourage anyone from crossing his path, and it didn’t take long for us to reach our destination. The room we entered was a large rectangle, with beige walls. Three long tables formed lines on either side, with two chairs at each positioned to face a large whiteboard. A small snack area took up half of the back wall, complete with a coffee maker and a small fridge.
The room’s three occupants stopped what they were doing when we entered. My attention immediately gravitated to a ranger leaning between the two chairs at the table against the far wall closest to the whiteboard, his large hand resting on a map. His buzz cut looked soft and fuzzy, and for one weird moment, I wanted to pet him. The hard expression in his dark brown eyes suggested that would not go over well. A beard and mustache covered the lower half of his face, thick enough that I couldn’t see his jaw, but not long enough to worry about having someone use it as a handhold in a fight. His gaze flicked from me to Liam.
“Shade Renard, meet the Wild Animal Task Force. Everyone, this is Ms. Shade Renard. Mother Renard. She’ll be assisting with the investigation.” He gestured to the ranger first. “This is Detective Blake Giles.”
Blake nodded at me, but didn’t seem terribly happy with my presence. I told myself that was just him being a stern second-in-command and I shouldn’t take it personally.
“This is Vincent Aegis,” Liam continued. “He’s our forensic lab technician.”
He gestured to a middle-aged man sitting catty-corner behind Blake. He wore a grey cotton shirt under an open dusty-blue dress shirt and khaki pants. His wild brown hair flared about his head as if he ran his hands through it a lot—or perhaps had stuck his finger in an electric socket. At Liam’s use of the title “Mother,” he startled and put down the small athame he’d been holding.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding up a hand. “You’re a witch?”
I arched an eyebrow. “I am.”
“She is not here to replace you, Vincent,” Liam assured him. “Ms. Renard’s mentor, Mother Hazel, was kind enough to hire her to help us.”
His tone made it clear how much help he thought I’d be. I didn’t rise to the bait, choosing instead to fix Vincent with a warm smile. “You’re the wizard,” I guessed, gesturing at the wooden staff propped against the table next to him.
“I am.” He paused. “Mother Hazel. I know that name, don’t I?”
“Everyone else does,” I agreed with a sigh.
He toyed with the athame. “And she sent you here to work this case?”
“Yes. I hope I can be of help.”
Vincent didn’t respond. Blake stared at me harder now, as if contemplating physically ejecting me from the room. I met his gaze and held it.
“I’m a half-ghoul.”
I blinked, startled by the feminine voice, and swiveled my head to face the speaker. She stood apart from the other occupants, closer to the window. Her voice was soft, her declaration a gentle announcement, as if she felt obligated to warn me of her nature. For my part, I did my best not to stare. I’d never met a half-ghoul before.
The ghouls I had encountered—usually when I came to exorcise them from a graveyard—were skeletal, rotting creatures, with pallid faces and eyes bulging from dilapidated sockets. This woman was beautiful, with delicate features and straight dark blonde hair that fell around her face to brush her shoulders. She wore a pink shirt and blue jeans with a battered pair of tennis shoes. White gloves encased her hands.
“It’s nice to meet you…?”
“Kylie. Kylie Rose.”
“Kylie is an autopsy technician,” Liam explained. “She’ll examine the body when Dr. Dannon is through.”
“I take it Dr. Dannon is human?”
“Yes. I wanted to choose an Other coroner for the task force, but Dr. Dannon served with Doctors Without Borders, and he has a great deal of experience with animal attack victims. There was no argument I could make for not letting him handle this autopsy.”
Liam’s voice was so conversational, so easygoing, that I almost didn’t notice the anticipatory tension to his stance. He hadn’t told me I’d be meeting a half-ghoul, probably because he wanted to see me make a fool out of myself. Half-ghouls were rare enough that there were those who denied thei
r existence. And no one I’d ever met interacted with them by choice.
Unfortunately for Liam, I’d spent far too many years with Mother Hazel to be scared off by a half-ghoul.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Kylie.” I circled the tables to offer her my hand.
She hesitated a second, then took it. “Nice to meet you.”
I nodded, then turned to Vincent and Blake. “It’s lovely to meet you as well, Vincent, Blake. I look forward to working with all of you.”
Vincent rose as if suddenly remembering his manners. His abrupt movement shoved his chair back into his staff and there was a mad moment of scrambling as he caught it just in time to keep the heavy wood from slamming into the floor. “A pleasure, Ms. Renard,” he said, his voice pleasant, if breathless. He offered his hand.
“Please, call me Shade,” I said, accepting the handshake.
I’d already taken another step to offer my hand to Blake when I noticed the German shepherd lying on the floor, its black muzzle cradled on beige paws. It rolled brown eyes up at me, and I started to smile, my lips parting to greet the pretty canine.
Something stopped me before I could use the honeyed voice people reserved for pets and small children. The intelligence in the German shepherd’s gaze wasn’t unusual; most dogs had a very human gaze. But the casualness of its posture didn’t match the energy I sensed vibrating under the surface. I frowned, leaned closer. Without thinking, I raised a hand. Revelare, I thought, pushing outward with my magic.
Silver energy flowed forward, brushing against the dog. Its collar tugged at my spell, bursting to life with purple brilliance. I blinked. An illusion spell. I looked back at Liam, a question on my lips. Then it hit me, and I realized what the collar was. I stared at the wolf. “You’re a werewolf.”
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