Bitten

by Kelley Armstrong

  The Donut Hole was a typical, one-on-every-corner coffee shop, down to the cracked red vinyl booth seats and the lingering smell of burnt chicory. The smoking section was inescapable--even if you managed to find a booth without an ashtray, the smoke from nearby booths found you within seconds, ignoring the upward path to the undersized ventilation system. The staff were all middle-aged women who'd raised a family, decided to spend their empty-nest years earning some cash, and discovered this was the only job for which the world considered them qualified. At this time of day, most of the patrons were working people, grabbing a last cup of coffee before heading home or lingering here to avoid going home sooner than necessary.

  While I picked a booth, Clay went to the counter and returned with two coffees and two slices of homemade apple pie. I pushed the food aside and spread the Bear Valley Post across the Formica tabletop. The incident at the rave party had made the front page. Of course, the paper didn't call it a rave, since most of their readership--and probably most of their staff--wouldn't have a clue about what a rave was. Instead, they described it as a large private party rife with "illicit activity," which made it sound a whole lot more fun than the real thing. Although the paper didn't say so explicitly, it implied that the majority of partygoers had come from outside Bear Valley. Naturally.

  The details of the "incident" were sparse, due to a combination of mitigating factors, namely that most of the witnesses had been drunk or stoned and the perpetrator was a dead dog, making him doubly difficult to interview. What facts there were could be reduced to this: a large canine had slaughtered two people at a party before being killed by police. Not exactly a story to fill the front page, so the reporter had bulked it up with enough speculation to earn him a job with the tabloids. It was assumed the dead canine was a dog and everyone seemed content with that explanation, meaning the authorities had no intention of calling in wildlife experts or sending the remains off to an expensive city laboratory. What was left of Brandon had already been disposed of, read: incinerated at the local humane society. They'd even forgone rabies testing, probably deciding that anyone who'd been at the rave deserved a round of rabies shots. Further, the reporter assumed the dead dog was involved with the killing of the young woman the previous week, although police hadn't ruled out the possibility of more wild dogs roaming the forests, especially since those teenage boys had spotted at least two canines the night before. Finally, despite all the speculation, there was no mention of anyone spotting a blond man or woman who'd seemed unusually involved in the incident. As I'd hoped, Clay and I had been just two more bystanders lost amidst the chaos.

  "Waste of time," Clay grumbled. He'd been scanning the article upside down as I'd read it. "There's nothing there."

  "Good. That's what we hoped for, so it was hardly a waste of time making sure."

  He snorted and jabbed his fork into his untouched pie, sending up an explosion of crust, then shoved it away without taking a bite.

  "You're sure whoever you smelled on--on--" I inhaled against the surge of pain--"on Logan was someone you didn't recognize."

  "Yeah." Clay's eyes clouded, then sparked with anger. "A mutt. A fucking mutt. Two in Bear Valley. Of all the--"

  "We can't think about that now. Forget how and why. Focus on who."

  "I didn't recognize the scent. Neither did anyone else. Meaning it's a mutt we haven't run into often enough to recognize the scent."

  "Or he's new. Like Brandon."

  Clay frowned. "Two new mutts? One's odd enough, but--"

  "Skip it. You didn't recognize him. Let's leave it at that for now. See if you can hear anyone talking about last night."

  Clay grumbled. Ignoring him, I leaned back in my seat to listen to the conversations around us while I pretended to sip my coffee. The experience was a depressing one, not because no one was discussing the "incident," but because what most of them were discussing didn't exactly provide an uplifting glimpse into ordinary human life. Complaints of unfair bosses, backstabbing coworkers, ungrateful kids, meddling neighbors, boring jobs and even more boring marriages ricocheted from every corner of the room. No one was happy. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Maybe the impersonal relationships formed in coffee shops were perfect for venting the trivial frustrations of life that city folks would take to a therapist--and spend a lot more than a buck for coffee to unload.

  As I listened, an old anger and resentment started to surface. Why did people always complain about jobs and spouses and children and extended family? Didn't they realize how lucky they were to have these things? Even as a child, I'd hated hearing kids complain about their parents and siblings. I wanted to shout at them: if you don't like your family, give it to me--I'll take it and I'll never whine about an early bedtime or an annoying little sister. Growing up, I'd been surrounded by images of family. All children are. It seems to be the focus of every book, every television show, every movie, every damned commercial. Mother, father, brother, sister, grandparents, pets, and home. Words so familiar to every two-year-old that any other sort of life would be unthinkable. Unthinkable and wrong, just wrong. When I grew out of the self-pity stage, I realized that missing these things in my childhood didn't mean I had to miss them forever. I could give myself a family when I grew up. It didn't even have to be the traditional husband, three kids, a dog, and a cute little bungalow. Any variation would do. As an adult, I could provide myself with everything life had cheated me of. Then, on the very cusp of adulthood, I became a werewolf.

  My plans for the future vanished in that moment. I could make a life for myself in the human world, but it would never be what I had imagined. No husband. Living with someone was risky enough, sharing my life with someone was impossible--there was too much of it that could never be shared. No children. There was no record of a female werewolf giving birth, but even if I was willing to take the risk, I could never subject a child to the possibility of life as a werewolf. No husband, no children, and without either, no hope for a family or a home. All of that stripped away, as far beyond my reach as they'd been when I was a child.

  Clay was watching me, eyes troubled. "You okay?"

  He reached out for me, not with a sympathetic hand or a pat on the knee or anything so obvious. Instead, he slid his leg forward, touching mine, and continued to study my face. I turned to look at him. As I met his eyes, I wanted to shout at him, say that I was not okay, that I'd never be okay, that he had made sure I would never be okay again. He'd stolen all my dreams and hopes of a family in one act of unforgivable selfishness. I yanked my leg from his and looked away.

  "Elena?" he said, leaning over the table. "Are you okay?"

  "No. I'm not okay."

  I stopped myself. What good would it do to say more? We were here to hunt Logan's killer, not to hash out our personal problems. It wasn't the time. Part of me knew it would never be the time. If we talked about it, we might work it out. That was a risk I wasn't willing to take. I never wanted to forget and I never wanted to forgive. I wouldn't let myself.

  Mending fences with Clay would mean surrender. It would mean he'd won, that biting me had been worth the trouble. He'd have his mate, the life partner of his choice, the realization of his own domestic dreams. Well, I had my own dreams, and Clay had no role in them. Werewolf or not, I couldn't bear to give them up, especially now when I'd finally caught a glimpse of the possibilities in my life with Philip. I had a good, decent man, someone who saw and encouraged my potential for goodness and normalcy, things Clay never saw, didn't care about, and certainly never encouraged. Maybe marriage, kids, and a house in the suburbs weren't in our future but, as I said, any variation would do. With Philip, I could envision a satisfying variation, with a partner, a home, and an extended family. My brass ring had come into sight. All I had to do was muddle through this mess with the Pack, get back to Toronto, and wait for the chance to grab it.

  "No," I repeated. "I'm not okay. Logan's dead and his killer is out there and I'm stuck sitting in some stupid coffee shop with--"
I bit back the rest. "We're supposed to be listening for rumors, remember? Be quiet and listen."

  I forced my attention back to the conversations around us. People were still bitching about their lives, but I ignored that and concentrated on listening for what I wanted to hear. Adding to the general despair, customers here and there discussed the events of last night in the weary "what is the world coming to" tone that people have probably used since early man saw his neighbors starting to walk upright. While most people were just rehashing the newspaper article, a few were giving birth to rumors that would be buzzing about town by nightfall. A woman in the back corner said that she'd heard the dog wasn't a wild dog at all, but an escaped guard dog owned by some relative of the mayor, the police force having been bribed or threatened by the mayor into circulating the wild dog story. Some people even thought the dog hadn't been involved at all, that the drug-crazed partygoers had killed the two people themselves in some kind of mass hysteria, then the cops shot an innocent dog outside. People can be damned creative sometimes. One thing was for sure, no one was talking about impossibly big wolves or demanding an inquest to know why the beast had acted as it had. Everyone assumed that it was perfectly natural for a dog to go berserk and slaughter people in a crowded warehouse. As I'd been eavesdropping, Clay had been pretending to read the paper. I say pretending because he didn't give a shit about current affairs in Bear Valley or anyplace else in the world. Like me, he'd been listening for rumors, though he'd never admit it.

  "Can we go now?" he asked finally.

  I sipped my cold coffee. The mug was still three-quarters full. Clay hadn't even started his. Neither of us touched our pie. For once, hunger was a distant concern.

  "I suppose," I said, glancing out the window. "It's far from dark, but we probably won't find the trail for a while. Should we start at the parking lot?"

  I couldn't bring myself to say "the parking lot where we found Logan," but Clay knew which one I meant. He nodded, got up, and ushered me out the door without another word.

  As we approached the grocery store, I stopped before rounding the corner so I wouldn't see the spot where we'd found Logan. My heart was tripping so fast I had to concentrate to breathe.

  "I can do it," Clay said, putting his hand against my back. "Stay here. I'll pick up the trail and see which way it leads."

  I moved away from his hand. "You can't. The scent was faint last night. It'll be worse now. You need my nose."

  "I can try."

  "No."

  I stepped around the corner, hesitated, almost stopping, then propelled myself forward. When I saw the spot where the Explorer had been parked, I jerked my gaze away, but it was too late. My mind was already replaying the scene from the night before, me rushing forward, Clay calling my name and running after me. He'd realized what had happened before I had. That's why he'd been trying to stop me. I understood that now--not that his motive mattered at this moment. It was just a meaningless distraction that ran through my brain, preventing me from thinking of what had happened here last night.

  During the day, the parking lot looked like a different place. People bustled from car to store and back again. Like the coffee shop, the lot was filled with working people, most in jeans, a few in suits, toting single grocery bags with tonight's dinner or extra milk or bread grabbed on the way home. No one paid attention to us as we crossed the lot to the back fence. The spot where we'd parked last night was empty, being too far from the store to get used on any but the busiest shopping days.

  I stood on the right side, where the passenger door of the Explorer had been. Closing my eyes, I inhaled. The scent of Logan filled my head. My knees buckled. Clay grabbed my elbow. I steadied myself, then sniffed again, trying to block Logan's scent. It didn't work. His lingering odor shoved aside all less familiar scents. With my eyes closed, I could imagine him standing in front of me, close enough to touch. I opened my eyes. The bright light of day chased the fantasy back to the shadows of my brain.

  "I'm--" I started. "I'm having some trouble."

  "It's here," Clay said. "Faint, but I'm picking up something. Hold on a sec and I'll see if I can grab it."

  He paced to the left, shook his head, then came back and started again in another direction. On his second round of the compass points, he turned to me.

  "Got it," he said. "Entrance trail is east, but the mutt exited here."

  There was nothing in a scent that could tell even the best tracker whether someone was coming or going. Clay knew the difference because the approaching trail would also carry traces of Logan's smell, though he didn't mention this.

  "Come over here and try," he said.

  Once I got away from the parking spot, I relaxed. Clay stood near a minivan. I walked to him and sniffed the air. Yes, the scent was there. An unfamiliar werewolf. The trail led across the parking lot, away from the grocery store and toward Jack's Hunting and Hardware. From there, it ran along the sidewalk heading west, then circled back toward the main street, where we followed it to the downtown core. If that sounds quick and easy, it wasn't. A straight walk from point A to point B would have taken fifteen minutes. We spent over an hour, constantly missing the trail, looping back, finding where the mutt had turned a corner, and starting again. Once or twice I lost the scent completely. Trailing as humans made it even more difficult, not only because I couldn't smell as well, but because I couldn't exactly put my nose to the ground and sniff the mutt out. Well, I could, but such actions are frowned upon in polite society and often lead to a complimentary ride to the nearest psychiatric ward. Even the sight of someone on a street corner twitching her nose or pacing in a circle raised eyebrows. So I had to be discreet. Even if I could convince Clay to wait until nightfall, we couldn't change into wolves. After everything that had happened in Bear Valley, that wouldn't be a challenge, it'd be suicide.

  Downtown Bear Valley closed at five, allowing employees to make it home for dinner and ignoring the fact that the average person worked until five and needed to shop afterward. This oversight may have explained the vacancy rate that had spread through the core like a cancer, affecting one shop, then its neighbors, and their neighbors, until the block looked like a massive advertisement for Bear Valley Realty. By the time we got back downtown, it was past seven and even the most dedicated shelf stockers had left for the evening. The streets were bare. The town seemed to have shut down for a collective dinner hour. I was able to be less cautious with my sniffing and we covered the next half mile in twenty minutes. The trail stopped at a Burger King that had been ostracized from its fast-food buddies on the other side of town. Here the mutt had presumably stopped to refuel. After another twenty minutes of circling and retracing my steps, I picked up the trail again. Ten minutes later we were standing in the parking lot of the Big Bear Motor Lodge.

  "Well, this was a no-brainer," I muttered as we looked out over the collection of pickup trucks and ten-year-old sedans. "Two hotels in town. He's staying at one. Duh."

  "Hey, you're the one who insisted we start from the grocery store."

  "I didn't hear you suggesting anything else."

  "It's called survival, darling. I know when to keep my mouth shut."

  "Since when have--" I stopped, noticing a woman standing in her hotel room doorway, making no effort to hide her eavesdropping. It's always nice to know you can provide entertainment when the afternoon soaps are over.

  I walked behind a pickup truck and squinted up at the two-story building. "How many rooms by your count?"

  "Thirty-eight," Clay said without missing a beat. "Nineteen each up and down. A main-floor entry for the bottom. A lobby entrance and emergency exit for the second floor."

  "If it were me, I'd take a room on the first floor," I said. "Direct room access. Easier to come and go at all hours."

  "But the second floor has balconies, darling. And a hell of a view."

  I looked across the road into a vacant lot filled with overgrown weeds, crumbling concrete blocks, and enough litter to kee
p a Scout troop busy for an entire Earth Day.

  "First floor," I said. "I'll start. Go hide somewhere."

  "Uh-uh. We've played this game before. I hide. You never seek. I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but I'm beginning to sense a pattern."

  "Go."

  Clay grinned, grabbed me around the waist, and kissed me, then ducked out of the way before I could retaliate. While it was nice to see his mood had improved, it would be even nicer if it didn't take the prospect of murder and mayhem to improve it. Over the past couple hours of tracking, the old resentment that had resurfaced in the coffee shop had faded into my subconscious, where it would wait, like a wound that never healed over, only needing a bump or prod to reignite the pain. We had work to do and I had to deal with Clay to do it. For Logan's sake, I couldn't afford to be distracted by my own problems. If I dwelled on my anger with Clay every second I was forced to spend in his company, I'd have turned into a bitter, waspish harpy long ago. Of course, some might argue that I'd crossed that threshold years ago, but that wasn't the point.

  While Clay went off to find a suitable waiting place, I scanned the area for props. Near a corrosion-encrusted Chevy Impala I spotted a sheet of paper. It was a receipt for a new car stereo, which I hoped hadn't gone into the Impala, or the owner had spent more money on the sound system than on the car. I brushed a wet leaf from the corner of the sheet, flattened it, then folded it in half and headed for the sidewalk connecting the doors of the main-floor rooms. Starting by the emergency exit, I walked slowly down the sidewalk, pretending to study the sheet of paper and allowing for generous sniffing pauses in front of each door. The eavesdropping woman had gone back into her room. Two people came out of a room near the end, but they ignored the young woman having such difficulty finding the room number written on her scrap of paper. People make special allowances for the mental capacity of blonds.