by E. A. Copen
Chapter Fifteen
Twilight breathed its last breath before they lit the pyre and conducted funerary rites for Elias Garcia. Chanter didn't do the honors, despite being the clear spiritual leader. It would have spoken volumes about his stance on Elias' position in the pack. By abstaining, he could still maintain that he was neither upset nor relieved by Elias' passing. Before things got under way, he did go out and inspect all of Sal's preparations, pointing out some things about the big circle that had been drawn in the sand and rearranging some small things. Still, it was Sal and Valentino that hauled Elias' body onto the pyre. When it came time to light it, Chanter struck up the fire on a torch but passed it on to Sal who then gave it to Valentino.
There were no eulogies or forced remembrances, no kind words for the departed. No one cried. Valentino simply thrust the flame into the pyre and stood by, watching it eat away the dead flesh.
Before that moment, I wouldn't have guessed Sal had such an amazing singing voice, but he did. It wasn't anything that would have gone along well with musical accompaniment but alone it was something to listen to. I couldn't understand the words but the cadence of it reminded me more of a lullaby than a prayer, though I was sure it was more the later than the former. If there hadn't been a body burning not fifteen feet away, I could have curled up and gone to sleep to the sound of it and the crackling of the fire. Valentino brought some mundane things, papers mostly, that didn't look like anything special to me but Sal treated them with the highest respect when he lowered them into the pyre. Once the last bit of fuel had been placed in with the body, Valentino stepped outside the circle and started stripping off his clothes.
Then, slowly, he changed.
It was not an easy process to watch, the shifting of a man into a wolf. The desert echoed his cries of pain and frustration as the change droned on, taking a good ten or fifteen minutes, much longer than I imagined it should take. Hunter sat silent and still in my lap, eyes glued forward. I wondered if it was always this way for them to change.
Most modern television shows dramatized it fairly well. Features shifted and changed, sometimes one or two things at a time and sometimes a whole set of things. The hair grew out and thickened to fur. The fingernails changed into claws. What no program has ever gotten right is the sound. I’ll never forget the sounds of the Change. They were the stuff of nightmares. All of those cracking bones, breaking and healing almost instantaneously at awkward angles, the cries of anguish and pain, the choking, spitting and rasping...
And then there was the blood. When they changed, they grew out of their human bodies. Parts fell off. Skin tore and things poked through. Teeth fell out pushed by fresh, new fangs. None of that could happen without making a bloody mess.
Hunter whimpered loudly as he watched. Chanter, who was sitting away from the circle with us, reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. The two exchanged no words, but I watched Hunter’s shoulders relax.
When it was done, Valentino the man was no more. In his wake stood a large black wolf covered in leftover gore. He shook some of it free from his fur and, like a cat having fresh delivered her kittens, went about eating the mess the birth had left behind. On a cloudy night, when the moon was hidden from view, the only visible part of him would have been his eyes, which still retained their distinctive brown. He threw his head back and howled. The rest of the pack, still in human form, answered him. For the first time all night, the singing stopped and the circle broke up, Valentino's pack mates wandering off toward him in various stages of undress. I could almost feel how big Hunter's eyes got when Nina pulled off her skin tight top and I raised a hand to cover his eyes. Chanter grabbed my hand and stopped me.
I looked over with a scowl. “He's eleven.”
“The link between nudity and sexuality is a modern invention. If there are no mysteries, there are no secrets, no shame when the time comes for him to Change. Our exterior bodies are borrowed treasures. You wouldn't hide away a beautiful bowl you borrowed from a friend would you?”
“I wouldn't advertise it either,” I grumbled.
“It amuses me that, of all the things you've seen here tonight, a little nudity is what you've decided to object to,” Chanter said with a chuckle. “Trust me when I say that an eleven-year-old boy is no stranger to gawking at attractive, naked women, not in the age of cell phones and internet. That said, it's best to gawk discreetly, Hunter.”
“I wasn't,” Hunter protested. “I mean, it's not like I couldn't notice. Stop laughing at me!”
Sal was the last to change and, when he did so, it was without the showmanship that accompanied some of the younger werewolves. One minute he was a man. The next, he was a big, gray wolf. He didn't go to Valentino as the others did but simply turned and trotted off into the desert and sat down to wait. Valentino threw back his head and let out another long, low howl and then trotted off into the desert, past Sal. The rest of the pack followed.
Hunter wriggled free of my arms and ran off a few yards to watch the wolves stalk into the desert. He watched them go long after their forms had faded into the long shadows.
I turned to Chanter. “You're not going with them?”
“For two reasons,” said the old Indian as he stood and cracked his back. “The first is obvious. There's a big fire burning a short distance from my house. It would be foolish to leave it unattended. Second, this hunt is being led in memory of Elias. Valentino may object but it wouldn't be proper for me to involve myself with this since he wasn't part of the pack.”
“The rest of them have no issues with it,” I mumbled. It didn't seem to me that it was a big deal whether he participated. Valentino probably would have appreciated the gesture of acceptance after the fact. Chanter struck me as the stubborn type that would rather follow tradition than make such a gesture.
He snorted at my observation and stood. “The rest of them are not the alpha,” he said and then went back toward the house. “Come, Hunter. I could use an assistant getting the house cleaned back up.” Hunter rose and went with him without question.
I stayed outside, watching Elias' body burn and letting my mind drift back to Donald and Teagan Summers, wondering how they'd died. I thought of the tongue in my shoebox and almost threw up all over again. The message was clear, even without the note. I was on the right track and someone knew it, someone I hadn't even realized was listening in on our conversation. But which track was the right one? I had two leads so far: the car and the club, neither of which I'd had the time to follow up on.
So far as I could tell, the Summer's house had been empty of all but Donald and me. He had checked up and down the walk to verify I was alone and there were no cars in the driveway, no sounds or signs that anyone but Donald was home. If there had been someone else there, listening to our conversation, they must have been using some kind of magick, powerful magick that I hadn't sensed. That last thought was what scared me the most. I should have sensed a spell if it were at work inside. Maybe I'm not the most powerful energy worker in BSI or the most talented but I pride myself in being able to sense energy while it's at work, especially when I was looking for it. All I had sensed in Donald's house was the faint buzz of his wards. I wouldn't have been able to cross them without some serious back up. That meant that whatever had heard us and killed the Summers was bigger, badder and scarier than me. Exponentially so.
I shivered, despite the heat coming off the fire and wished for the safety the circle around it provided. Magick circles aren't any more impenetrable than a concrete wall most of the time but they did make for a nice barrier between me and scary fae killing bad guys. I didn't expect there to be any out here, outside the reservation, but if it was in the Summers house, it could be anywhere and do anything. There wouldn't be anything I could do to stop it.
A grouping of cacti off to my right shifted, and I got to my feet, reaching for the trusty nine millimeter I hadn't brought with me. Sal had insisted I wouldn't need it, that Chanter's place was the safest patch of Texas
there was. Now, I wasn't sure. The cacti wriggled again and the form of a skinny, half-starved looking werewolf pushed through, rubbing his back against the spines as if he had an itch.
Werewolves didn’t look like normal wolves. They were bigger, for one, and their limbs were just a little off, too long or jointed ever so slightly in the wrong place. But they were similar enough looking that the untrained eye wouldn't see the difference, especially in the dark or at a distance. I knew better. What I didn't know was which one of the wolves this was, stalking up to me, and whether I could trust him.
He came up with his head down, meandering slowly. I could see he had something small and red in his mouth but, whatever it was, it wasn't moving. The werewolf stopped a few feet from me, stretched and spat out a red, foam ball covered in doggie drool and then proceeded to stare up at me expectantly, panting and grinning. When I didn't immediately grab the ball, he bowed his head and used his nose to push it closer to me.
“Which one are you?” I asked, not expecting an answer. Werewolves, like wolves, can't talk in their animal form. That doesn't mean they can't communicate, though. He sat there and used his hind leg to scratch an itch. I sighed. What was there to do but throw the ball for him?
“I guess we all have our ways of dealing with awkward situations,” I said and picked up the ball. It was covered in dirt and slime but I cleaned it off with my shirt before tossing it back into the dark as far away from the cacti and the fire as I could manage. I had enough time to turn around and take a step back toward the house before he was behind me again, ball between us, panting. “Seriously? Shouldn't you be off hunting cute, furry creatures with the rest of them? You're a big, scary werewolf, not a Labrador retriever.” He whined at me and pawed at the ball. “Fine,” I said rolling my eyes. “But when I figure out which one you are, you're never going to live this down.”
I tossed the ball out into the night for the skinny werewolf for a while. In the course of our game, I somehow forgot to be scared of whatever was lurking in the shadows. I forgot about the murder scene that had been a home only hours ago and the corpses waiting for an autopsy because I had to go and poke my nose where it didn't belong. By the time the other wolves came trotting back several hours into the night, I was in a pretty cheery mood considering.
I threw the ball one more time, but he didn't go after it. Instead, he stared toward the road leading up to the house, lowered his head, took up an aggressive stance and growled. A few seconds later, I heard a car door shut and a few unfamiliar voices buzzing along with the distinctive sound of a police radio.
I forgot all about the ball and the werewolves and wandered toward the front of the house to find Tindall arguing with Chanter while Quincy hung back and leaned on his door. A second car had pulled in and parked in front of Tindall's Cadillac and I immediately knew something was wrong when I recognized it as the Jag that had pulled out of Sal's driveway the day before. Sal's ex-wife was standing in front of it with her arms crossed, barely out of Chanter's reach. She was leaning on the arm of a man with a very confident vibe about him. Her boyfriend, Andre LeDuc, probably. He was wearing an unbuttoned, black leather jacket with no shirt underneath, a tight pair of blue jeans and cowboy boots. His tight, white smile cut through the night.
“Please,” he was saying in an accent that sounded French but definitely wasn't. “We know he's here.”
“I've no idea where he is,” Chanter spat back. “And if I did, I wouldn't tell you.”
The man's smile widened when Chanter growled at him. “Go ahead. Change. Rip me apart. Tell the world what monsters you people are.”
I thought for a moment that Chanter might do it but Tindall stepped between them and scowled at the other man. “Get back in the car, Andre.”
“We have every right to be here. That thing could have killed Zoe. As it is, she's already suffered unnecessary emotional trauma because of your incompetence.”
Now, it looked like Tindall and Chanter might team up to take care of this Andre fellow. While I thought he deserved it for being stupid enough to challenge both Tindall and an alpha werewolf in one breath, I didn't want to do the paperwork. “What's going on here?” Everyone but Chanter, who obviously knew I'd been standing there, turned with an air of surprise. Everyone except for Andre. He still looked as if he were about to burst into laughter over a joke he hadn't told yet.
Tindall sighed and walked toward me with his hands on his hips. “Black, maybe this is something better saved for when we get back to the station to book our suspect, huh?”
“Book your suspect,” I repeated without understanding. How could he have a suspect? The Summers were barely cold. It would have to be something really damning to bring him all the way out here in the dead of night for an arrest. “What do you mean?”
“I just came from picking up the pieces at the Summers,” he said slowly. “And I mean pieces. Black, the only time I've ever seen that much of a mess, it was a werewolf. Whatever it was... ate pieces of them.”
“That doesn't mean it was a werewolf,” I protested. “And it definitely doesn't narrow your list down enough to make an arrest, Tindall.”
“There's more. We questioned the neighbors. They say they saw Saloso Silvermoon leaving the Summers' place around the time of the murder. Inside, we found prints all over the place, hair samples. I bet they'll match, too.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Judah,” said Tindall with a sigh. “The guy's got a history. He killed two people fifteen years ago in Montana.”
“Self-defense,” Chanter said in a low, animalistic tone.
“He's a killer,” chimed the woman hanging on Andre's arm. “A violent killer. You don't know him like I do. If you did, you wouldn't be so casual. He enjoys hurting people. Why do you think I left him?”
“That's not the story I heard,” I lied. Sal hadn't exactly talked about that with me but if I let her have the upper hand or even think she had it, she was going to push me as far as she could.
“Look, let's not get into the he said she said,” Tindall said. “I have enough evidence that I don't want him running around a free werewolf until this gets cleared up. If he's innocent, then that'll come to light soon enough. Right now, I’ve got a scared community. I need to make the arrest, Judah, before word gets out and an angry mob bears down on the place.”
Flashes of memory hit me hard. Angry faces with shotguns. Fists pounding at my door, shattering my windows. Me in a sobbing, pregnant pile in the middle of my living room while Alex unbolted the door to go outside and reason with them. My younger, more innocent voice screaming, “Don’t go! Don’t you know I need you?” I’d known it then and I knew it now. There’s no reasoning with a mob of angry, confused and scared people. Only blood will sate fear.
Zoe stepped away from LeDuc to plead with Chanter, genuine fear in her eyes. “Chanter, where is he?”
“Get out of here before I do what I should have done all those months ago, whore.”
“It's all right.” Chanter and I both turned to see Sal standing in the doorway. I hadn't heard the screen door open but he must have opened it. He was back in his human form, wearing his jeans, though he'd neglected a shirt and shoes. The expression on his face was cold as ice. It wasn't until he stepped out of the doorway that I noticed he had two werewolves flanking him, both crouched with their teeth showing and ears back. “I wasn't anywhere near town this afternoon, detective, though I doubt you care if it's a case of my word against a fae.”
Tindall put his hands in his pockets. He looked relaxed but I knew better. He was sweating. “Can't argue with the evidence, Sal. Don't suppose you have an alibi?”
“I was home by myself working on my deck. No one came or went. No one saw me. So, I guess not.”
“I saw you,” said Hunter quietly from behind Sal. “He never left.”
“Hunter,” I hissed. “Get back inside!”
“But-”
“Listen to your mother, child,” Chanter said in a voice
that was both somehow firm and gentle at the same time. “This is not your fight.” Hunter sulked off and everyone pretended not to notice that he had said anything at all. Hunter's testimony wasn't going to hold up against a couple of fae who had no reason to lie. Any good lawyer would argue that he was repeating what he thought everyone else wanted to hear. And if I had to parade Hunter in front of a jury, the truth about what he was might come out. We needed to avoid that at all costs.
“I'm... uh... going to have to cuff you. You have plans on resisting arrest?” Tindall glanced down at the wolf on either side of Sal.
Sal patted each one on the head. “It's all right, Daphne, Shauna.” Then, he came forward and presented his wrists.
Quincy swaggered up with silver cuffs that he tightened around Sal's wrists but never once tried to look him in the face. Sal was amazingly amicable to the idea of being put into cuffs. All the werewolves I'd ever seen get arrested had to be tranquilized first. Sal even bent his head down so that Quincy could fit his neck with the silver collar, though he winced with the silver made contact with his skin. When they tightened that around him, there was a growl next to me and I looked down to see the werewolf I'd been playing ball with.
“Relax, Ed,” Sal said and glared straight at his ex-wife, Zoe. “I'm sure we'll get this all sorted out soon.”