I nodded. “Okay,” I motioned to him. “Show me.” I thought it was interesting that Simon hadn’t mentioned that Travis was capable of it, but I’d take that up with the alpha later.
Travis stepped back and flicked his hand. Large claws formed over his hand, with a fine layer of fur. His fingers rounded as if they were trying to form into paws.
My jaw dropped at how easy it seemed. “Wow.”
“It gets better.” He chuckled. With a shake of his head, his face changed to that of what people typically see in werewolf movies. A strange half human, half wolf face, with a stretched out muzzle and teeth everywhere.
I frowned. “Open your mouth?”
“What are you, a dentist?” He snarled through the muzzle, his voice deeper than it had been.
I shook my head. “No, but I need to see inside your mouth. I can’t really share why.”
He opened his mouth as much as his muzzled face would allow him. Sure enough, a mix of human and wolf teeth lined the jaw. “Why, Grandmother, what big teeth you have.”
“The better to eat you with my dear.” He muttered back.
He shook his head again, and he appeared to be completely human. The ease of transformation was startling. “Does Simon know you have that ability?”
“No. It’s not one that I’ve shared. I don’t want Simon looking over his back constantly thinking that I’m after the alpha spot.”
That was news to me. “Are you not?”
“No. Simon is one of my best friends. I’d rather not have to take his life. If he dies because of his own stupidity, then that’s another story. I would step up as alpha, but I would never kill him for the spot.” He shook his head. “You may not like me, Agent Collins, but I would never betray Simon or my pack.”
“When I fought with your pack last year against Mina, your pack was in the midst of being torn apart. Simon said that those events furthered the conflict. Is it possible someone on the other side also has this ability?”
He thought for a moment. “I haven’t seen anyone, nor sensed anyone, who is as powerful as I am.” He sounded smug, but I let it go since he was being so helpful. “But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be one of the new members. Like the wolf I smelt at the last crime scene.”
When he had run off naked. “Thank you.” I bowed my head. “You’ve given me enough information. I’ll contact the other side of the pack and see what I can learn from them.”
“Be careful, Collins. They are ruthless and they know you and Simon were together. I’d hate for them to try and use you against him.”
I snorted. “I’ve handled hostile werewolves before.”
“I just try and scare you. I wouldn’t actually hurt you, or Simon would punish me. But they don’t listen to Simon.”
For a split second, I wondered what one did to punish a werewolf, but I wasn’t going to ask. “Greg sent your pack after me in a free hunt once. I think I can hold my own, but thank you for the concern.”
I thought he was going to offer to go with me when he opened his mouth and then thought better of it. He shook his head and walked back towards the crime scene. I stood in front of the burnt warehouse for a moment longer, wondering how I had gotten to this point in my life.
CHAPTER SIX
Simon had given me the contact to the part of the pack that split off, and I sat in my living room debating on calling him. I hadn’t slept much in the last three days, but I needed to make headway on the case before taking the time to sleep. Osiris nudged me and I scratched his head before dialing the number.
He answered on the first ring. “Luke speaking.”
“My name is Abigail Collins; I’m an agent with—“
“Yes, I know who you are. I’ve been wondering when you’d be calling, Agent Collins. I assume you want to meet to ask me questions about the murders?”
Well, that wasn’t something I was used to. “We can meet or we can talk over the phone. Your choice. I just have some questions in regards to what abilities might be floating around your part of the pack.”
“Go on then.”
“Does anyone on that side have the ability to shift half way?” I wasn’t sure if I was using the correct term or not.
He was silent for a moment. “No, not that I’m aware of. It’s not a common ability.”
“So I hear,” I muttered. “I need to know if you knew the victims in any way, other than being pack.” I listed off the names that I had.
“Just pack, they are lower on the totem pole, so there’s no reason that my part of the pack would target them if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I hadn’t really been counting this as a pack squabble anymore. “Thank you for the information. That’s all the questions I have right now.”
“Agent Collins, if you’re determined to get to the bottom of this, look outside the pack.” He hung up before I could follow up on the statement. I looked at the cat and sighed. “I’m so glad you’re just a cat, and I don’t have to deal with the attitude and vague comments.”
He meowed and ran off. I rolled my eyes. “Of course, you are a cat, which comes with an attitude by default.” I stood and stretched. Midmorning, and I needed to get some more sleep. What the hell was I doing staying up for more than twenty-four hours? I headed towards my bedroom and paused as something touched my magic. I closed my eyes, trying to decide if it was threatening magic. Nothing else came of it, and I climbed the stairs.
Abigail…
I swore I heard my mother’s voice as I got to the top of the stairs. I shook my head. “I need a few hours of sleep. That’s all.” I muttered.
Stay here…
I pressed my lips together as the words sounded as I stopped at my old room. They were the same words my mother had whispered to me the night she was killed. When she had trapped me in a circle to save my life. To keep me away from whoever killed her.
Mommy will be right back…
But she never returned. It wasn’t until Levi came with another witch to pull the circle down that I left the room. I’d run right past him and down the stairs. Down to the basement and my mother’s body before someone caught me.
I opened the door with shaky hands, unsure why I was hearing the voices. Being exhausted was probably to blame, but the quality of the voice reminded me of when I had done the trace spell with Merick. I opened the door and only found Osiris sitting where the circle would have been.
I let out a sigh and shook my head. “Alright, let’s take a nap. The case can wait.”
I would be useless on such little sleep. Osiris ran out of the old room and to the room I’d taken over. I followed him. I unholstered my gun and put it in the nightstand drawer, and laid down. I’d worry about changing my clothes and a shower when I woke up. For now, though, I let sleep drag me under, while Osiris curled up by my side and purred.
Abigail…
Abigail…
Oh, Abigail…
The voice turned from my mother’s to Ira’s. I looked around the dark room in an attempt to find where it was coming from. I tried to move and my feet refused to listen to me. I looked down to see myself trapped in a red circle, the language of the Cult scrolled around it. I took a deep breath.
“I’m getting tired of you guys doing this in my dreams! You need something from me, send Merick to talk to me.” I yelled into the darkness. “Stop trying to use my fears against me.”
Nothing came from the darkness. Black cracks developed in the red circle, and it shattered around me. My limbs felt lighter as I took a step forward.
Elizabeth Collins…
The voice wasn’t one that I knew, and nothing else showed up in the emptiness.
You’ve been accused of black magic.
I shook my head. My mother would never have tried to mess with black magic. She was pure through and through, my father… he had his own dark streak, like summoning a demon, but my mother…
The dream shattered as my phone rang. I glanced at the time. Five P.M. I’d gotten e
nough sleep to get me through a few more hours of work. The dream stuck with me as I swiped up my phone. “Agent Collins speaking.”
“Morning, sleeping beauty.” Simon’s voice came across the receiver. “Travis said you needed to speak to me about the most recent deaths.”
I blinked a few times and tried to clear my mind. “How did you know I was sleeping?”
“I’ve called you three times before you answered. I assumed either you were in trouble or sleeping. Since you answered, I assumed you were sleeping.”
I rubbed my eyes trying to get the sleep out of them. “Yeah, I’ve been going on very few hours of sleep for the last three nights. The heads we found, Travis identified them for me. And your pack rival said that all the victims have been low on the totem pole, but I don’t think he knew about the newest ones because I was told they’re from out of town.”
“They were, they were on the hunt for something or other and dropped some pups off with us. Pups they found on their hunt. I need you to come talk to these guys, what they are saying isn’t making sense to me, but maybe you can make sense of it.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Can you bring them to town?”
“Pups, Abby, if I bring them in town and you trigger something they could be shot.”
I tried not to curse. “Okay, good point, I can be up there in a couple hours.” I couldn’t keep the sigh out of my voice.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’ve just been dreaming about my mother lately, and I woke up still feeling just as tired as I went to bed.”
“Witches and dreams, there’s something there isn’t there?” He muttered. “Some sign?”
“I’m hoping it’s just my mind going crazy and trying to deal with things. I’ll see you in a couple hours. I need to eat and check my e-mails to make sure I didn’t miss anything while I was sleeping.”
“Like what?”
“Like how that pelt was removed from Maddy.” I shot back. I should have apologized for being snappy, but I just didn’t have it in me. “Look, take notes on what the pups are saying, and when I get there, I’ll go through it and talk to them and see if it has to do with the case.”
“Will do.” He hung up without another word. I got up and jumped in the shower first before I considered anything else.
I shoved spoonfuls of cereal into my mouth as I went through the e-mails on my computer. Mostly junk mail and site updates on the PIB location. The south building was supposed to be back up to operational in the next month. I wasn’t sure if I was moving back to it or not. Boss Man had yet to tell any of us what was going on in that aspect. At the bottom of my e-mail, I found what I was looking for. An e-mail from the lab and another one on Maddy’s true ID.
I opened the one on Maddy first. The system was finally able to pull an ID on her, she was a pack member of California, of a pack that had been disbanded for violent behavior. The members had been redistributed to other packs on the West Coast, and Maddy had been reported missing. She hadn’t lied when she said her name was Maddy, it just wasn’t short for anything. Maddy Clark had been missing for over a year. Had no one contacted any other pack about where she might have been? Seems to me that should have been the first step. At least we had an ID on her now, and I needed to talk to her current alpha. Crap. I wasn’t flying out to California to talk to him. I made note of her pack master and the phone number that someone had hunted down for him.
I took a moment to pour more cereal and opened the e-mail on the pelt. The information was limited and listed straight down.
Wolf fur
Human and lycan blood
Female blood
And done with a knife while the creature was alive.
Well shit. There was no mention of toxins in the blood, but werewolves, like witches, had a higher metabolism that would have digested the drug quicker. It might have been out of the system by the time the blood was left on the pelt. I wouldn’t know until I got traces back from the other pelts. I closed my computer and grabbed my bag to head out. My phone rang the moment I put my hand on the door to leave.
“Agent Collins speaking.”
“Abigail,” Levi’s voice was a relief. “Are you safe?”
Well wasn’t that a way to start a conversation. “I was going to ask you the same thing. I have an associate of Ira’s claiming that they had you, but Ira told me that was a lie after he killed my uncle.” I wasn’t sure if Levi knew that was a lie or not. I should have sounded more upset about it, but I was out of emotional give a fuck at this point.
“I’m fine. You stopped and took the Hummer, why?”
Damnit, I forgot he had cameras in the house. “Because my car was stolen, it hasn’t been recovered yet, so I needed a car. I’m working on a PIB case that includes the wolf pack.” I wasn’t going to mention what I found in Mario’s room in case he was in on it. I didn’t want to deal with more lies at this point.
“Your uncle told me that Ira contacted you after the attempt to kill him.”
Oh good, so he did know that was a lie. “Yeah, glad to see that Oliver still has my phone bugged. I’d gone to his house in hopes that he could track my car.”
“When Ira was there. You were lucky that Ira didn’t go after you right then. Do not pursue this and stay in country. Do you understand me?”
I wanted to say something about him treating me like a child, but now wasn’t the time to argue. “Can you tell me where you are at least?”
“Rome.”
I paused at that “Rome?”
“Mario has contacts here, and they had reports of Ira and his experiments here as well. We came to investigate. What we found…I wish you were here to help me compare what you found in the U.S., but I can’t bring you in on this without bringing more attention to you and putting you closer to Ira than I want.” He actually sounded worried. There was a pitch in his voice I didn’t hear often, and he was normally the perfect example of calm and collected.
“When I finish the wolf pack case maybe I can come out. I can’t work a case officially as a PIB out of the U.S., but I can still help.”
He hesitated for a moment. “No. I can’t hold Ira accountable if he kills you out of my territory. You’re safer there. He’ll be more hesitant to attack.”
I wasn’t sure how much I believed that, but I’d let it go for a moment. “I’ll stay here then. I’m just…I’m worried about you.”
“I’m safe.” He promised. “Smart move not believing Tomes.”
“I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to go after you anyway,” I promised. “I have to go. I need to interview some pups, and I have a few phone calls I need to make.”
“Of course. Good luck with your case.” He disconnected and I took a deep breath. Part of me wanted to rush to Rome to help him out, the other part of me wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. Why was he so scared of Ira? He said that Ira had connections to the king, the same maker, but I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
I jumped into the Hummer and headed to the pack grounds.
I pulled the Hummer into the paved parking lot and jumped out. To my surprise, I didn’t hear anyone howling or growling as I walked down the pathway. I stopped outside the cabin and closed my eyes. Nothing upset my magic, and the land opened wide to welcome me. I made a promise to myself to come up the next full moon to recharge. It was much more preferred than going to the coven land.
Simon walked out of the cabin. “Are you thinking about turning around?”
“No, I’m relaxing and taking in the magic. Levi called me on my way out the door.”
“And?”
“Apparently he’s in Rome, he and my uncle have both cautioned me to stay in the States and not go after him.”
“What do you make of that?” He asked and started back towards the cabin.
I snorted. “That he’s in some deep crap that he doesn’t want me involved in.” I shrugged and followed him. “It doesn’t matter. I have no way of knowing where in Rome they are or what I’d
be walking into. The last thing I’d want to do is find myself in the middle of a vampire political struggle.”
“That’s what he’s trying to avoid, I bet.”
“Maybe.” I forced out. I looked up at the group of half-naked men and woman clustered in the living room. Five total and they just stared at me.
“That’s a lot of pups.” I crossed my arms. “And they just dropped them off for you to deal with?”
“We aren’t children.” One snapped, and I wanted to disagree, but I kept my cool. I hated dealing with pups, most of them were in denial or thought they were invincible. I wasn’t sure which way this group leaned.
I held my hands up. “You know, my experience with pups is pretty limited, but there’s a reason you can’t leave the property for six months.”
One man jumped over the couch and took two steps towards me. Simon stepped in front of me, and the pup stopped. “Do not let your emotions get the best of you. It is not Agent Collins’ fault that you were changed and then abandoned.”
Abandoned. That could damage anyone’s mindset no matter what the circumstances. “Simon said that you guys might have something to share with me.”
The male nodded. “Yes, please sit down.” He motioned to an empty chair in front of the television. The news was on mute, and I turned the chair so that my back was towards the television. I didn’t need to get distracted by silent pictures. Nor did I want to see if anything about the wolves made it on there. “So please, tell me.” I pulled out a notebook and pen from my bag. I wasn’t sure if Simon had actually listened to me and taken notes or not, but I wanted my own notes and to hear their story again.
All five of them started talking at once, and I shook my head. “Seriously guys, one at a time.”
They all shut up and stared at me for a moment. Finally, the other male spoke. “We woke up outside the protest lines last full moon, changed, no longer human.”
Aw fuck. Just what we needed. “Which city?”
To Skin a Wolf Page 9