Early Grave: Grant Wolves Book 1

by Lori Drake

  The door closed behind him and she swallowed, looking around at the empty apartment before crossing to the door and locking it.

  It was going to be a long day.

  Move things. Make moaning noises. Dean had made it sound so easy.

  While Joey and Ben had breakfast, Chris headed into the living room. As he stood in the center of the room, he turned in a slow circle, contemplating his best avenue for ghostly mischief. He sat on the couch for a while, poking at the remote on the coffee table. Turning on the television was a sure way to get their attention, but his finger kept going right through the power button. When he closed his eyes, he managed to touch the remote, but even though he could feel the texture of the buttons beneath his fingertips the only thing he managed to depress was himself.

  Dean had also said that Chris wasn’t very strong. Being weak wasn’t a problem Chris ever had before. He’d always been stronger, faster, having to hold back to avoid attracting attention. Suspicion. Now he couldn’t even manage to push a button on a remote and the act of trying was, for lack of a better term, exhausting.

  Is that why this is so damn hard? I’m not strong enough?

  Despair welled within him, a twisting, sinking sensation in his gut. He sat there with his head in his hands until the sound of the front door opening and closing caught his attention. Twisting to look behind him, he found Joey standing alone by the table.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me, eh?” he said.

  She didn’t answer, but stood after a moment and gathered up the dishes, taking them into the kitchen.

  Turning back around, Chris cast a frustrated gaze across the room. His eyes caught on the artwork on the wall opposite him and an idea started to take root.

  “Hmm.”

  Joey always noticed if any of the frames were tilted. If he could manage to nudge one even a little bit, that would be something. He closed his eyes and touched the wall, then dragged his fingertips along it, picking up speed. His fingers bumped the first frame. The telltale scrape of wood on drywall sounded.

  His eyes flew open and he stepped back to study his handiwork. The frame was definitely askew. This time he resisted the urge to celebrate prematurely. Instead, he moved on to the next frame. Once more, he closed his eyes and dragged his fingers along the wall. It worked. Momentum seemed to be key; he had to bump the frame with his fingers before he realized he was touching it.

  By the time the water shut off in the kitchen, he had four frames askew.

  “Alright, Joey. Let’s see how this tweaks your OCD.” Smirking, he turned in time to see Joey walk out of the kitchen.

  She had her phone in hand, eyes glued to the tiny screen as she walked toward the couch.

  “Come on,” Chris muttered, drumming his fingers against his thigh. “Look up.”

  Joey sank onto the couch, and Chris ground his spectral teeth as she proceeded to carry on with whatever it was that was so engrossing.

  Minutes passed, marked by the clock on the entertainment center.

  Joey sighed, set her phone aside, and rubbed her face with both hands. Then it happened. As her hands fell away, she looked across the room and frowned.

  “Dammit, Ben,” she said, getting up and walking over to set the artwork straight.

  Chris flung up his hands and blew out a heavy sigh, but it was a fair assumption. No one in the family was off limits when it came to Ben’s practical jokes. He even played them on their mother, but those particular antics were considerably tamer than some of the stunts he’d pulled on his siblings over the years.

  As soon as Joey moved on to the second frame, Chris approached the first. He closed his eyes and swiped his fingers along the wall, knocking the first frame askew again. When he opened his eyes, Joey’s eyes were locked on the frame that had just moved.

  Finally, he had her attention.

  She took the framed print off the wall and inspected the back of it carefully before rehanging it. Then she stepped back and eyed it for a moment, hands on hips, as if daring it to move again. Suddenly playful, Chris waited until she moved on to the next frame before knocking the first askew once more.

  The game of cat and mouse went on for nearly half an hour. Sometimes Chris would wait for her to straighten three before batting one out of alignment again. Others, he had her going back and forth between two pieces of art.

  Eventually, frustration got the better of her. Lips twisted in an aggravated scowl, she took it all down, every single thing hanging on the walls—even the things he hadn’t touched yet. Then she grabbed her phone, thumbs blurring as she tapped out a text. Chris leaned in close to read it.

  gonna kick ur ass, princess

  She still thought it was Ben’s doing.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake!” Chris swung a foot at the sofa, hands balling into fists at his sides. His foot passing right through the sofa was less than satisfying.

  Joey stuffed the phone in her pocket and stalked down the hallway, disappearing into her bedroom.

  The rest of the day didn’t go much better. By evening, he’d added shorting out light bulbs to his extremely short roster of tricks but all Joey did was call the building manager to complain about power surges.

  Chris’s patience was running thin, so he decided to phone a friend. So to speak. It took him a few tries to track Dean down. He’d only met him the once. It seemed that familiarity was important when it came to zeroing in on someone, but when it worked, it worked.

  In the blink of an eye, he was somewhere else: an unfamiliar restaurant. A diner, actually, styled in the fashion of the 1950s and dripping with Americana. There was even a counter with round, padded stools bolted to the checkerboard floor. His quarry sat on one of those stools, chatting amiably with the woman sitting next to him. Chris observed them for a moment before drifting closer.

  Leaning down, he offered, “She’s sooo not into you.”

  Dean’s smile faltered, but other than that he ignored the peanut gallery.

  Knowing that Dean wasn’t about to talk to him until the buxom blonde went away, Chris sighed and lingered until he could plop down on the newly vacated stool.

  “Sorry man, everyone strikes out sometimes.”

  “Go away,” Dean muttered under his breath, his full attention returning to his patty melt.

  “No can do. I need your help.”

  After a quiet pause, Dean asked, “How could you tell? About the girl.”

  “Man, you’re good at that. I can barely see your lips moving. If this whole medium thing doesn’t work out, consider ventriloquism.”

  Dean pushed his half empty plate away and lifted a hand to signal a waitress. “Check, please.”

  “You’re not going to finish that? Damn, I really miss food.” Sighing, Chris raked his fingers through his hair. “Anyway, I could tell by her body language. You leaned in and she leaned away. Gotta pay attention to these things. If you want, I could be your wingman.”

  Dean blew out a breath. “What do you want?”

  “I need you to help me figure out how to, uh, how’d you put it? Get my spook on.” He made air quotes with his insubstantial fingers out of habit.

  For all that he claimed not to be able to see Chris, Dean turned his head in response and looked at the empty space to his right, brows drawing together in confusion. “Er, come again?”

  Naturally, the waitress took that most inopportune moment to appear with the check. She left the padded folio standing on the counter, giving Dean the eye and an uncertain smile. “No rush, hon.”

  Dean’s attention snapped back to the front. He murmured a quiet thank you while reaching for his wallet.

  “I’ve been trying to show Joey that I’m still here, like you told me to,” Chris explained, watching while Dean slipped some cash into the folio without bothering to check the ticket. “It’s not working. I mean, sometimes I can get things to move but it’s tough. I feel like I’m missing something.”

  Standing, Dean collected his jacket, frowning. “I�
�m not sure how to help with that,” he said, once more careful to keep his voice low and lips barely moving as he started for the exit.

  Chris followed him. “Do you know someone that could? Because I’m getting a bit desperate.”

  Dean didn’t answer until they were both outside. Chris had darted out quickly behind him, just barely managing to avoid the swinging door. He wasn’t sure what it would have been like for the door to swing shut through him, but he didn’t want to find out either.

  “What have you tried so far?” Dean asked, shrugging on his jacket as he walked down the sidewalk.

  “Most of the time when I try to touch something, my hand goes right through it. I have better luck if I close my eyes, but even then… it’s easier to nudge things than to pick them up. I haven’t managed to do that yet.”

  “A good nudge will go a long way. Especially if it’s a hard one. Picking things up may be beyond you. Have you tried haunting something?”

  “Haunting?”

  “Inhabiting something. Like ghosts do in the movies. I don’t know how it works, I’ve just seen them do it. Once they’re in there, they can make it levitate, do all sorts of crazy things.”

  Chris’s brow furrowed in thought. “No, I haven’t tried that yet. I did discover that I can short out light bulbs by passing my hand through them. Does that count?”

  “Not really. But it’s a good trick. You should try it on other electrical things. I’ve seen spirits turn radios on and off, change the channel, project a particular song. One of them even figured out how to speak through one.”

  “Really? Wow, it’d be great if I could do that. Then I wouldn’t have to bother you to talk to Joey.”

  Dean grunted, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “A guy can dream,” he muttered.

  Chris couldn’t help but grin. “Nice talking to you too. Thanks, Dean.”

  He was gone before Dean could reply, the foggy world around him dissolving as he shifted from one location to another, zeroing in on Joey once more.

  It was time to up the ante. No more Mister Nice Ghost.

  Joey got nothing from Sam but radio silence for the rest of the day. When she called, he didn’t answer. When she texted, he said he’d be in touch. Always the same. If she’d had any confidence in his ability to do so, she would have wondered if he’d set up an auto-reply.

  Inaction chafed; sitting around the house was getting her nowhere. Plus, between Ben’s pranks and the electrical problems she began to feel like the universe was telling her not to stay at home. Light bulbs continued to burn out at an alarming rate, and though logic told her it couldn’t be the case, it felt like the phenomenon followed her from room to room.

  The next morning, with Sam still incommunicado, she put her own plans in motion. First, she called Vanessa Newman-Vasquez, a friend from San Diego’s other pack, and set up a brunch date. They met at a little French bistro on the west side of town. The restaurant sat a couple of blocks from the bay, and from its rooftop patio one could sit and watch the boat traffic in the harbor.

  Joey’s family—Jon, specifically—owned a boat that was moored not far from there. While she waited for her fashionably late friend, Joey scanned the coastline trying to see if she could make out the little yacht. She’d concluded that its sloop was too far south to see from the rooftop moments before Vanessa appeared.

  “Sorry I’m late, I had a hell of a time getting Javi down for his nap,” she said, sinking into a chair across the table with an apologetic smile.

  Joey smiled back. “It’s okay, I’m glad you could make it on such short notice. I hope you didn’t have trouble finding a sitter.” Being kept waiting usually annoyed her, but she found it hard to hold it against her friend when little Javier—the youngest wolf in San Diego, and the first born in over a decade—was involved.

  “He’s with his Tia but he didn’t want Mommy to leave. Honestly, it’s good to get out. I feel like I haven’t seen an adult in weeks.”

  Laughing, Joey shook her head. “Paulo doesn’t count?”

  “Hardly.” Vanessa snorted, her lips quirked in amusement as she pushed her long blonde hair behind a coppery shoulder bisected only by the spaghetti strap of her pale blue sundress. “So, what’s up?”

  “Does something have to be up?”

  “Don’t be coy. We haven’t had brunch in months. I doubt this is purely a social call, with what’s been going on.”

  Joey winced, besieged by sudden guilt. “Sorry, you know how I get around competition time.”

  “Of course I know, that’s not what I meant. The whole family has been on edge since Chris was killed. Then you call me out of the blue, being all cagey and wanting to have brunch.”

  “Cagey? I wasn’t cagey…” Joey chuckled and shook her head, but didn’t put too much effort behind the denial. “Do you know of any toxins strong enough to overcome our regenerative abilities and incapacitate us in seconds?”

  Vanessa looked up from perusing the menu and stared at Joey, unblinking for several long seconds. “I’m not going to say it’s impossible but… no.” She paused, as if hesitating to ask the follow up question. “Is that what happened to Chris?”

  “Not sure yet. All we know is it wasn’t silver.”

  Vanessa’s brows shot up and she pushed the menu away. “Tell me everything.”

  There wasn’t much to tell, but Joey described everything she could remember about the wound. Its size, shape, location, discoloration and the strange spidery veins that seemed to spread from it. Vanessa took it all in with clinical interest, asking a few clarifying questions along the way and waving off a server impatiently when he stopped in to see if they were ready to order. Joey hadn’t just invited Vanessa to brunch because they were friends; she’d asked her to brunch because Vanessa was a doctor and the closest thing to an expert in lycanthrope biology that Joey knew how to get ahold of.

  When she finished pumping Joey for information, Vanessa sat back in her chair with a thoughtful cast to her cerulean eyes. Joey let her think, looking into her empty coffee cup and wishing Vanessa hadn’t been so hasty about waving off the server.

  “A stab wound to the gut can be surprisingly incapacitating. It’s not like it is on television,” Vanessa said after a few moments. “Shrugging off stab wounds and bullets, that’s action hero and hardcore soldier stuff. Even a wolf has trouble powering through something like that. Regeneration isn’t instant, and we still feel pain. So… it’s not completely surprising to me that there were no signs of a struggle if he was caught by surprise.”

  “What about the rest? Whatever it was that stopped him from regenerating?”

  “The only thing I can think of is Wolfsbane.”

  Joey scoffed. “That doesn’t have any effect on us, everyone knows that.”

  “Not the plant, but… nearly as mythical. It was rumored to have been developed in World War I. The Germans were cooking up some nasty shit back then. Shit that could kill wolf and human alike, at least that’s what the stories say. But those were gases, and this is clearly something else. I’m not a biochemist, but it’s hard to imagine a poison that would act quickly enough to overcome wolf regeneration. A compound that slows or halts regeneration, on the other hand…”

  “That’d only have to work long enough for someone to bleed out,” Joey murmured, frowning thoughtfully.

  “Exactly. We can take a hell of a beating, but if the bleeding isn’t stopped, we’re as vulnerable to acidosis and coagulopathy as anyone else. But that’s just part of the problem. If someone is brewing anti-regeneration drugs they’re not doing it in their basement. Can you see the concern on my face?”

  “Yeah,” Joey said. “They’d need a lab, and those cost money. So whoever is behind it has deep pockets, and it’s probably not a one man operation.”

  Vanessa nodded gravely. “Exactly. Do you have any hints about motive yet?”

  “None. Chris didn’t have any enemies, he wasn’t getting threatening letters or anything like that,
but at the same time… it couldn’t have been random. Whoever did it knew he was a wolf, and acted accordingly. The only thing that makes sense is that he was killed for being a wolf.”

  “I pray to God that’s not true,” Vanessa said. “Because the only thing scarier than knowing a compound like that exists is knowing it’s in the hands of someone that just wants to kill wolves.”

  Vanessa’s words stuck with Joey long after they parted ways. Driving home in silence didn’t help; the car radio had gone on the fritz on the way to the restaurant, switching channels randomly and sometimes putting forth nothing but static. Left alone with her thoughts, Joey went over and over the facts as she knew them and plotted her next move as she drove.

  Once home, she settled on the couch in her bare-walled living room with his laptop to do some sleuthing. Thankfully, his passwords were saved in his browser. She started with his email, which was largely full of spam, newsletters, and unread notifications. Dozens and dozens of notifications. As she scrolled through them, one caught her eye. She’d dismissed it as spam at first glance, but something made her go back to it and open it. It was a banking alert, but not from the credit union she and Chris used. The subject line read: “Your transaction receipt.” It had come in the day after Chris died.

  The message appeared to document an in-branch withdrawal. It was well crafted and didn’t bear any of the telltale markers of a scam, but Joey smirked as she read the amount of the withdrawal aloud.

  “Eleven grand. Yeah, right.” The floor lamp’s incandescent bulb flickered and went out with a soft pop. She glanced at it with a frown, then back to the laptop screen.

  Her finger hovered over the delete key, but she paused and opened a new browser window to check and see if Chris had credentials saved for that bank. Just in case. Money was a great motive for murder, after all, and certainly more palatable than a crime against the species. When the site loaded, the username and password fields remained blank so she deleted the message and moved on, pulling up Chris’s actual bank records to scour them for his last few transactions.

  There wasn’t much. His last purchase had been at Santiago’s, which she’d expected given that his body had been found a few blocks away. Prior to that, he’d picked up a tab at a restaurant not far from the studio. That also made sense, since he’d told her he had a date. From the looks of the bill, he’d only paid for one meal. Maybe the date hadn’t gone well. That’d explain why he showed up at Santiago’s on his own afterward.