by Dani Harper
“What, like a parallel universe or something?”
He laughed. “This isn’t science fiction, honey.”
“Spoken like someone who is just way too used to being a werewolf!” She rubbed her forehead, thinking. “I know that according to Einstein, there are actually four dimensions, not three. Some scientists are now saying there are more, maybe even ten. I suppose there’d be room in one of those for an interdimensional clothes closet for werewolves.”
“You’re going to get along great with my brother. And it’s Changeling, not werewolf.”
“Semantics. So you send your stuff off to this other dimension, and then what?”
“You don’t send them. The clothes automatically go there when you become the wolf. But they don’t come back on their own. That’s where the skill comes in—you have to learn to bring your clothes back with you when you Change.”
“Bet you could lose a lot of clothes practicing. So is it difficult to learn?”
“No.” He ran a gentle hand along the side of her face, trailed fingers down her throat. “It’s not a step-by-step procedure like programming the TiVo—which I still rely on Culley to do, by the way. It’s more a case of getting the right feeling, of pulling your clothes to you with your mind. You get pretty good at it after a while, enough that all the things in your pockets come along too, whatever you had with you, whatever was touching you or your clothing. Books, tools, ID, and so forth.” Connor laughed suddenly.
“What’s funny?”
“Devlin took that to new heights once. Our mother wanted her piano moved upstairs, so Devlin figured if he was holding on to it while he Changed, then he could just run upstairs as a wolf and then Change back. Voilà, the piano would be moved.”
Zoey rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, Connor, there’s no way that would work. It’s not fair for you to try to put stuff like that over on me just because I’m new to all this.”
“Actually, it worked just fine. He Changed and the piano reappeared. But he hadn’t anticipated how much energy it would draw from him. He was so exhausted, he was bedridden for more than a week. According to my folks, Devlin would have been far better off to have stayed in human form and single-handedly carried the piano upstairs.”
She just shook her head, her mind boggling.“I still think you’re pulling my leg. It all sounds like magic.”
“Maybe that’s what magic really is. Using natural principles, even ones we don’t understand, to accomplish things.”
“Now it sounds dangerous,” she snorted.
“Not really. People do it all the time. Do you understand how your truck works? Yet you’re not afraid to drive it. And then there are computers. Most of us haven’t a clue how they work either, but we use them. Or we try to,” he said with a laugh. “The bottom line is, I don’t know how my clothes disappear and reappear, I only know that they do. And lucky thing too, because I’d hate to turn up bare-assed naked in the middle of the woods some night.”
“What if you were holding someone’s hand? Or accidentally brushed against someone when you Changed?”
“First of all, no one ever Changes close enough to a human to hurt or endanger them. It’s a cardinal rule. It’s drilled into all of us as children.”
“But what if another werewolf touched you? Would it hurt them?”
“Remember when you touched me right after I Changed? Multiply that to the power of a hundred or so if you’d touched me while I Changed.” Connor chuckled and lay back with his hands behind his head. “My oldest brother James and I got into a helluva fight when we were kids. We—”
“Wait a minute. James? There’s more of you?”
“I guess I forgot to tell you. There’s six altogether. You’ve already met Culley and Devlin, and you’ll meet Kenzie when she gets back. Carly lives in Wyoming right now.”
She waited a beat, then two, but Connor offered nothing more. The laughter in his eyes had been replaced with a faraway look, however. “Is James still living?” she asked carefully.
“Yes.” He blew out a breath. “And no. James lost his wife some years ago. Grief makes people do things, whatever they have to do I suppose, in order to survive the pain. He turned into a wolf and as far as I know, has never Changed back.”
“As far as you know. You mean, you don’t know where he is?”
Connor shook his head. “Nobody does. He’s been spotted once in a while near here, like he’s checking up on us or something, and then he’s gone again.”
“I’m sorry. That must be pretty rough on you, on the whole family.”
“Yeah. I miss him all the time.”
Zoey slipped her hand into Connor’s. “Finish the story you started. About when you and James were kids.”
“It’s not a very long story. We were fighting again, something we did a lot because he was a year older and figured he should get to tell me what to do. We were pretty much the same size, but I was losing as usual. Finally, when he was holding me down and punching me, I Changed. James got a shock much bigger than you did, enough to throw him clear across the room and stun him. He wasn’t injured but he had a headache for a week.”
“So Changelings fight dirty, do they?”
He laughed a little then. “I’ve heard it said that if something’s important enough to fight about, then there’s nothing unfair about using whatever you have to in order to win.”
“I’ll just remember that.”
Connor leaned over and lightly swatted her butt. “Lucky for you, I have a code of honor. Let’s get going. I’ve got animals to feed, and I’d like to get it done before it rains. Then maybe we can find something to eat for ourselves. I’m starving.”
She pulled her clothes on and headed into the bathroom to adjust her makeup, brush her hair. When she emerged, Connor was sitting motionless on the edge of the bed, staring at the cell phone in his hand.
“Is it the clinic? Do you have a call to go to?”
He turned to her and she was shocked to see his eyes filled with fury and grief. “No. It was Jessie, calling from the farm. Seems Bernie’s been there ahead of us.” He took a deep breath as if it were difficult to push out the words. “Jim Neely’s dead.”
The laneway was jammed with vehicles. Three police cruisers, an ambulance, a fire truck, the coroner’s van, the pickups of several curious neighbors and a Fish and Wildlife jeep. Connor parked his truck along the road. When he got out, however, he leaned back against the vehicle for support, blinking as if trying to clear his vision.
“Are you all right? What is it?” asked Zoey, taking his hand.
“Death. Good Christ, it’s everywhere. I can feel it, smell it, taste it.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “They’re all dead, Jim and all the animals too. Everything. Every damn living thing that was here.” He shook himself and straightened, but it was as if he was lifting an incredible weight on his shoulders. His eyes hardened until he looked at her. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I don’t want you to have to see this. Or feel it either. Your psychic senses are already showing you this shit, aren’t they?”
There was no denying that she’d felt the discordant energies coming from the farm long before the truck stopped. Now she was picking up flashes of images in her mind of what had happened here, things that turned her insides to water. But she wasn’t about to give in. Not this time. “I can see it, yes. But I’m staying.”
“The Pack is here. Let me call Culley or Devlin to take you home. They’ll stay with you, watch over you until I can get back.”
She shook her head, resolute. “You said we’re a team, remember? Wherever you’re going, I’m going too, so get used to it, Connor Macleod.”
He was quiet for a moment, then nodded and took her hand. Together, they walked up the long, long drive beneath the somber sky.
Sergeant Fitzpatrick met them near the house. Other officers were keeping the little knot of neighbors back. “I’m sorry, Connor.”
“Not as sorry as I am.” Jessie app
eared at the vet’s elbow, with Bill behind her. “Devlin figured out there was a danger, and I brought the Pack on the double.” Her face looked stricken. “We weren’t in time.”
“Bernie’s going to pay, Jess.” Connor’s voice was steel. Zoey shivered at the force of the emotions radiating from him. The hot fury had returned to balance the icy current of grief deep within. Even more intense was the guilt that ripped at him—guilt for having drawn such danger to the old man. Jessie had said that even a Changeling would have had little chance against what Bernard Gervais had become. A human would have no chance at all. And Neely had been very much human. Of course Connor would blame himself for his death. But she couldn’t tell him it wasn’t his fault, not yet. His heart wouldn’t be able to hear it.
“Bernie’s going to die,” said Jess. “And it still won’t be enough to balance this.”
Fitz put his hands up. “Stop right there. Do not say things like that,” he ordered. “Not now, not here, do you understand?”
“You’re addressing the Pack leader,” reminded Bill, and although his voice was quiet, Zoey could see the tensing of his muscles. Jessie herself looked irritated.
The sergeant glanced around, then lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. “Look, Lowen’s here and he says Jim Neely died from an animal attack, just like Al Menzie. But I’ve got officers all over the place here, human officers. You can’t walk around mentioning Bernie’s name in connection with Neely’s death unless you want even more werewolf rumors flying around this town.
“I’ve got guys asking questions already because we’ve found dead animals piled in the bushes, stacked in the barn. Deliberately thrown in the pond. What wolf does that? On top of that, there’s almost no blood left in or around the human body.” He yanked off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, then jammed the hat back on. “And you sure as hell cannot be talking about someone having to pay. This is a small town and, believe me, someone will hear it and that someone will remember you said it. And in the human world, a court will treat those words as an uttered threat if Bernie winds up dead or missing. So I’ve got plenty of reasons for telling you—even you, Jessie—to keep a lid on it.”
No one spoke for a long tense moment. Then Jessie put a hand on his arm. “Of course, Sergeant. Emotions are running high right now. Thank you for reminding us that we cannot let our guard down,” she said graciously. “We rely on you to keep the peace between our two worlds, and our trust is well-founded.”
Two worlds. Human and Changeling. Until very recently, Zoey had known of only one. Funny how fast things could change. . . .
“I’ve got the Pack divided into groups, searching for Bernie,” Jessie said to Connor. “Right now we’re going to join them, but we’ll be back later to help you bury your animals. Take care of Zoey.”
“Thanks, Jess. I will.”
Bill put a huge tattooed arm around Connor’s shoulders. “Jim Neely was a good man, but no one knew it till you came along. You made his last years some of the best, mate.”
Connor couldn’t say anything to that, only nodded.
Zoey watched Bill and Jessie walk away. “How many Pack members are out there?” She squeezed Connor’s hand, seeking to distract him from his sadness.
He blinked like a man waking up. “Twenty now. Jessie and Bill will make twenty out there.”
“They’ll have to work fast,” said Fitzpatrick. “I can’t keep the Fish and Game guys busy forever. Luckily their helicopter is over in the next district doing a moose count today, but they booked it for daybreak tomorrow if the rain holds off. I figure we have till then to find Bernie, before it’s too dangerous for us to be in wolfen form out there.” He nodded toward the open land. “They’ll be shooting every wolf they spot, just to be sure.”
“Can’t we stop them?” asked Zoey.
Connor shook his head. “They have no choice, not with two men dead. It’s a matter of public safety now. Not only will it be hell on the wolf population, but it’s going to make it difficult to be a Changeling in this region for a long time to come. Maybe years.”
“Right now, we’ve got other things to take care of. Did Neely have any family?” asked Fitzpatrick.
“No, there was no one. He’s—he was—a widower, no children. No siblings living,” said Connor. “We were his family, these last few years. Do you need me to identify him?”
“No, that’s not necessary. He’d been in enough scrapes back in his drinking days that we can officially identify him with fingerprints.”
“I’d like to see him just the same.”
The sergeant nodded. “You’ll get a chance to do that after he’s been taken to the morgue.”
“I’m his friend. I’ll do it now,” said Connor.
“Procedure—“ Fitz began, then stopped. “Hang procedure. Over here.” He led the way around the side of the house.
The group passed the blueberry bushes. RCMP officers with latex gloves were pulling the limp bodies of dead dogs from the patch and laying them out on the grass, where two Fish and Wildlife officers were examining them.
Connor looked over at Zoey. “You okay?”
She nodded and ran a nervous hand through her hair, wondering if any of them would ever be all right again. “I’ve already seen this.” And she had. But despite the ugly previews her psychic abilities gave her, the real thing was always worse.
A pair of officers was standing with Dr. Lowen Miller beside a bed of purple monkshood. Through her research of werewolves, Zoey had learned that these flowers were also known as wolfsbane because they were supposed to repel shapeshifters. It certainly hadn’t worked here. Most of the flowers had been crushed and in the center of the plants was a glaring yellow tarp. It seemed far too bright for the tragedy it covered.
To her surprise, the gruff doctor walked to Connor at once and put a hand on his shoulder, patting him like a child. Lowen guided him over to the flower bed and dismissed the officers.
“But sir—” began one.
The doctor glared. “Take a hike, son.”
The officers left.
Lowen knelt at one end of the tarp, holding a corner, watching for Connor’s nod that he was ready. The tarp was peeled back. Zoey didn’t look at what lay beneath it. What she did see was Connor’s face, stricken suddenly as if by a physical blow. Then his eyes closed in pain and grief.
“Goddammit, Jim,” he said quietly to the dead man. “This shouldn’t have happened to you.”
Lowen straightened the tarp and stood up. “I have some tests to do, but I think he had a heart attack. He may have been gone before the first blow landed, Connor.”
Zoey stared at the tarp and nodded. She could see it in her head, just as the doctor described. “He saw the wolf, and he died. He didn’t even have time to be scared. The wolf was surprised and—and disappointed.” Suddenly she was aware of both Connor and Lowen staring at her. Unbidden, she heard words from her past, the names that had both labeled and dismissed her. The Weird Kid. Creepy Girl. Freakazoid. Felt the sting of them again, even as she shoved them back into whatever mental closet they’d fallen out of.
She turned and walked off, heading for the front of the house, wanting to get away from the death and destruction. But there was no escape. Many of the vehicles had gone, most of the people associated with them as well, giving her a clear view of the entire farmyard. Hapless creatures large and small lay scattered as far as the eye could see. From here, she could identify the largest shapes by their color—the great shaggy heap that was certainly the Highland bull, the dappled gray hide of one of the horses, a pair of big pink sows. Her heart bled at the immense sadness of the scene, but she knew it must be worse for Connor.
“Thanks for that.” His voice behind her made her jump. Before she could recover, his powerful arms simply slid around her and gathered her back against him.
“Thanks for what?”
“It helps, knowing that Jim didn’t feel what that bastard did to him, that he was already gone. Bernie�
�s still responsible but at least Jim didn’t suffer.”
Connor took a great shuddering breath and Zoey squirmed, wanting to hold him but his grip was so tight that she couldn’t turn around. She had to settle for nuzzling and kissing the arm closest to her, placing her hands over his.
“I wish I’d been able to do more, see more,” she said, her voice tight with tears. “I wish I’d seen this in advance so we could have stopped it.”
He turned her around then, cupped her face in his huge hands. “Don’t do that to yourself. It’s bad enough that I feel that way, don’t you go there too.”
“I’m already there, dammit!” She burst into hot, angry tears then. “I’ve been there for years now. Always too late, too damn late to do any good at all. You and Jessie keep saying this ability is a gift, but I don’t see it that way. It’s a horrible thing to have, and I wish it didn’t exist. All it does is leave me standing over the dead. Helpless.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The coroner’s van pulled away with its sad burden, followed by the RCMP cruisers. Connor watched them go without seeing them, without seeing anything. He felt like he was underwater. Everything was distorted through a watery lens and he was moving in slow motion, pushing against the current along the bottom of a cold river.
Every living thing on the farm had been chased down and slaughtered, from the herd of cattle in the pasture to the smaller animals that ranged free around the yard. Blood seemed to be everywhere, soaking into the hard clay, splattering the fence rails and feeders, even splashed against the walls of the white barn like garish paint. Still, he’d made a thorough check of every animal, from the biggest draft horse to the smallest cat. He’d known they were dead before he touched them. But he’d needed to touch them. And each one reinforced both his anger and his decision. White hot fury hardened his resolve to diamond.
Bernard Gervais had run rampant long enough. He had to be stopped, permanently. For Jim Neely and for Al Menzie, for every victim known and unknown. For those intended to become victims, like Zoey. And for all the helpless and innocent creatures.