Sanctuary

by Tanith Frost

  I open the door a crack. Paul stands out in the hall, frowning. He gives me a quick look over. “Rough day?”

  I don’t answer that. He has to have figured out what Daniel and I are up to, and it’s none of his fucking business. “What’s up?”

  “We have a problem.”

  He looks back down the hall, and I open the door wider so I can lean out. Daniel approaches, buttoning his shirt as he comes. I catch a glimpse of his chest, which still bears the faint marks of my fangs. It’s enough to make me want to haul him back to my bed.

  “What’s the problem?” Daniel asks. Paul must have knocked on his door first.

  Paul’s frown deepens. He looks far less blissed-out than he did on the drive back. “A resident of Bloody Bight was attacked and killed. I don’t have all the details yet, but as I hear it, a young man had his throat torn out.”

  Daniel’s eyes lock on me. Not accusing, but the question there is unmistakable. Anger flashes through me, followed by the cold realization that the question isn’t unreasonable.

  He knows I’ve killed before. He knows my feed was inadequate last night. He knows I was pissed.

  I didn’t. I couldn’t have. I’m tired from my hours with Daniel, not from sneaking out early this morning and finishing my meal. I went to bed after Daniel left, and I don’t remember anything after that.

  I run my tongue over my fangs. I couldn’t have blacked out and taken the Jeep back, could I? We don’t sleepwalk. At least, I never have.

  All I can think of is the savage marks I left on the throat of the man I killed months ago, how he looked like he’d been mauled. Daniel saw that, too.

  I swallow hard and try to ignore the doubt that’s filling my throat with high-pitched panic. “What could have done that?”

  “Guess we’ll have to check it out to be sure, but my guess would be a wolf,” Paul says.

  My skin tingles. It’s bad news, but it could be far worse for me.

  Daniel looks away from me. I think for a moment he looks ashamed.

  Good. I mean, I might have had the same thoughts, but that doesn’t make it okay that his suspicions jumped to me.

  “Why would one of ours do that?” Daniel asks. “You just said yesterday that their record was spotless.”

  Paul shakes his head. “I don’t know. They say records are made to be broken, right?”

  “That’s rules,” I say quietly.

  Paul nods slowly. “And we have at least one wolf on our hands who shows very little regard for those.” He looks me over again, and I realize I’m standing in the chilly hallway in just my pyjama pants and the thin white tank top I threw on after Daniel left this morning. I cross my arms over my breasts.

  “We heading out now?” I ask. I’m not going to flee.

  “Soon as the sun sets,” Paul says. “They haven’t moved the body. Guess it’s time for you to meet the humans of Bloody Bight.”

  I leave them to talk things over and close the door behind me. A tremor passes through my body, and I lean back against the solid surface and wait for my thoughts to clear. My panic is fading, but I can’t shake its ghost.

  I didn’t kill anyone. But I can’t say I wouldn’t.

  We pile into our accustomed seats in the Jeep a few hours later and Paul backs out of the garage. As he opens the gate, I scan the twilight-shadowed woods.

  There. I knew they’d be watching. A big wolf stands beside the road, watching us pass, retreating before we get close enough for me to see what its face looks like. I lean over and honk the horn hard.

  The wolf bares its bright white teeth in the shadows, turns its face away from us, and runs into the forest.

  “Can they change at will?” I ask Paul as we drive down the nearly impassable road back to Bloody Bight after sunset. There’s still a faint hint of twilight in the sky, but thin clouds block much of it. “The males, I mean. You said the females can’t.”

  I didn’t see scars, but I’d swear it was Silas in the woods, though he was human yesterday.

  Paul nods. “They seem to fare poorly if they try to spend less than a week in wolf form every month. Most who have human lives outside the sanctuary choose to do it all in one go. They come in, change, do their time roaming our forest with their pack, and then either head home or off to jobs on the mainland that make for a pretty damn good cover story. They work, visit their families, come back here. Big cycle for them, much like the females. Except the males choose when to come.”

  “And the ones who stay here full time?”

  He takes his eyes off the road to glance over at me. Daniel leans forward to listen.

  “Joseph and Silas and the others who stay here can change at will. Spend a day or two as wolves, shift back, change again as the mood strikes them. Long as they’ve got time to get out of their clothes first, they can do what they want.”

  Daniel settles back in his seat, and I chew my thumbnail as I look out the side window.

  Of course it’s not going to be that easy. It’s not like we can just track which males are wolves now and deduce who it might have been last night. If the males are shifting back and forth, it makes it a lot simpler for them to cover their tracks.

  Not the females, though. We’ll have to see if they’re still in wolf form or if they’ve changed back. The former won’t incriminate them, but the latter will clear them. I don’t know many humans who are capable of mauling a person and tearing his throat out.

  I close my eyes and force myself to relax. We still haven’t seen the body, still can’t be certain a wolf did it. There may be no other wolves left in Newfoundland, but there are coyotes and dogs. Maybe cougars, for all I know.

  It doesn’t have to have been the wolves.

  We bypass the road that leads to Delvin’s house and take the one that winds along the curve of the river. A store, a school, and a medical clinic face the river, forming a main street of sorts, while the houses rise up the hill behind them. We pass a stone jetty where several boats are moored. I doubt there’s a major road coming in here. Those boats must be how the town gets its supplies.

  It doesn’t take long to drive through the village. On the other side, grassy meadows stretch out. A few ponies graze in one, a dairy cow in another. Beyond them, lights shine from the windows of a big white saltbox-style house.

  We pull into the long driveway and drive past the turn-off to the house, continuing toward the forest. A small crowd of people stands in one of the back fields, which they’ve lit with lanterns and the headlights of a little Volkswagen that looks like it’s seen better days.

  “Wait,” I say as Paul parks the Jeep next to the car and opens his door to climb out. “How do we act around them? They think we’re alive, right?”

  Paul scratches the back of his neck. “Sort of. We’ve never confirmed otherwise, and try to avoid them, but… well, as I said, they tend to be sensitive around here. I asked the mayor to clear most of them out before we came down, to keep the crime scene quiet. He should at least have the hysterical parents gone. Those who are still here shouldn’t cause trouble, even if they catch on. Just treat them with a measure of respect. We don’t need trouble.”

  I’d have missed Daniel’s eyeroll if I hadn’t turned around to see what he thought of that. As far as I know, he’s never held a position where he had to deal with the living outside of our stock. He has no interest in them, or in protecting them for any reason other than keeping the supernatural world secret—a fact which he made abundantly clear back when I was struggling with my own connection to them.

  I don’t know how I feel about it anymore. I haven’t interacted with them on any deep level since I died. Stock, yes. Baristas or diner waitresses when I stopped for coffee, sure. Shallow interactions.

  Or the occasional guy I beat up in an alley, but I try not to think about that.

  Everyone turns to face us as we close the Jeep doors behind us. I’m on high alert in spite of Paul’s reassurances. We’re faster than them, and stronger, but vampires d
on’t historically have a good relationship with the living. No matter that our stock willingly feed us now, that we try not to kill anyone. We are other, we are strange, and they’re right to fear us. We’re fortunate that our secrecy has kept them from hunting us for so long.

  Silas wasn’t wrong about our vulnerability when we sleep. These people could be a threat, and not only if they have loose lips. I try to relax my posture and look friendly. Better to let them think of us as the mysterious, romantic vampires of recent legend, if they do figure us out.

  I don’t know whether I look pleasant, but I have to be doing a better job of it than Daniel. He’s managed blank indifference, which is probably impressive given what I suspect is going through his head right now.

  Paul stops at the edge of the group, which parts to reveal a lump in the grass that’s covered by a patchwork quilt. There are eight people here, probably more than Paul wanted or expected.

  An old man with terrible teeth and a mop of silver hair holds a hand out to Paul. His handshake is overly enthusiastic, pumping Paul’s hand up and down until the vampire withdraws with an uncomfortable frown. I shove my hands in my pockets, and Daniel crosses his arms.

  “Chilly fingers there!” the man says. “Shoulda worn gloves, friend.” He turns to us. “I’m Allan, Allan Stokes. Mayor of Bloody Bight, real estate agent, home inspector, treasurer.”

  Paul introduces us while I try to comprehend the magnitude of the conflicts of interest in that sentence.

  Stokes nods to all of us. “’Preciate you coming down,” he says, apparently unable to afford extra syllables at a time like this. His accent is thick enough that I have to concentrate on his words and work them out in my mind before I understand him. “Guess we’ll need to figure out what’s happened. Doc says the body’s been here since this morning at least, but no one saw what happened. Sure looks like a wolf or a dog to us, but I guess you’re the experts, right?”

  His smarmy, obsequious tone is somehow greasy. I feel like I need a shower, and I haven’t even touched the body yet.

  Daniel steps toward the shrouded form on the grass and gives the people a moment to look away before pulling the quilt back. None of them retreat, but a thin, middle-aged woman with wild, curly blonde hair has her eyes on us rather than the body. Total hippie type. She wears a long skirt, Birkenstocks with wool socks, and a heavy cardigan that I assume is made from hand-spun wool from sheep she raised herself. A blue gem cut into a teardrop shape hangs around her neck on a thin chain.

  The others are harder to peg, as they’re all dressed like anyone I’d have expected to find in a small town like this. Jeans, sweatshirts, a few ball caps. One man, maybe in his thirties, seems to have been called out of bed to be here when we arrived. He’s wearing plaid pyjamas and work boots.

  “Aviva, what do you think?” Daniel asks.

  I crouch beside the body and he stands, guarding me. A few of the people step back. Even if they don’t know what we are, my former trainer is imposing. And if these are the special sort of people Paul described, it might not matter how good Daniel is at masking his true nature.

  God, the victim’s young. Maybe sixteen, and quite possibly one of those vibrant voices we heard goofing around last night. Brown hair down to the collar of his t-shirt, above which lies the gaping wound that no doubt killed him. His throat has been torn out from jaw to clavicle in what looks like several chunks. The wound is ragged. This was a bite, not a cut, I’m sure of it.

  That doesn’t answer what did it, though.

  “Any of you a doctor?” I ask, since Paul seems content to let me and Daniel handle this.

  The people look around the circle. “Doctor Miller went home to bed,” offers the guy in the pyjamas. “Early clinic hours tomorrow. He said it had to have been a big animal, though. He wanted to take the body in, but we thought we should call you.”

  “Thanks.”

  The hippie woman steps forward. “I’m a healer,” she says. Her voice is high and husky at the same time.

  Daniel places a hand over his mouth. I assume it’s to cover a smirk.

  “Do you treat injuries like this?” I ask. “Does it look like something you’ve seen before?”

  “No,” she admits. “But if there’s anything I can do to help, I’m at your service.”

  She smells of cinnamon and herbs. It’s not unpleasant, and it masks some of her natural aroma. That would be a turn-off if I were feeding on her, but for tonight it’s good. It allows me to ignore the blood pulsing in her birdlike throat. “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Susannah Fletcher.” She only has a hint of the local accent. Must be one of those wandering outsiders Paul mentioned who come in here by chance and stay by choice. I’m guessing she’s into cleansing rituals and crystals, maybe oils.

  I’m not about to judge. Maybe that shit works. I’ve seen stranger things in these lands, and the place does have a bit of a mystical feel to it.

  “I’ll let you know, Susannah. Thanks.”

  She gives me a tight smile and searches my eyes with her own. She nods, as though to herself, and steps back. Whatever she saw, she doesn’t seem displeased about it.

  Daniel is watching me, waiting. I know what he wants. When he let me and Trixie help investigate killings in St. John’s, my gift revealed itself. When I was around dead bodies, when I opened myself to understanding them as people and grieved their loss, I saw shadows—imprints left behind when they died. Not ghosts, but afterimages. I felt emotions from the crime scenes, and I heard things. Not much, but enough to let me identify a killer when everyone else refused to suspect her.

  But that was when I still felt connected to life. When I still thought I clung to a scrap of my soul. Something in me shattered when I fed and killed, and since that day I’ve felt like nothing besides a vampire. I don’t know whether my gift is still operational, or whether I’ve lost the key to it.

  There’s only one way to find out, but I can’t relax and let my mind wander with all of these people around.

  “Could I have a little space?” I ask. “I’d like to examine the body more fully, and I think it would be respectful if we had a little privacy.”

  Bullshit, of course. His shirt and pants are filthy up the back and bloody down the front, but there are no obvious wounds aside from the one at his throat. Whoever or whatever killed him came on a mission and left the body alone once it was accomplished. I just want these people to back off.

  Paul seems to wake from whatever thoughts he was lost in while the mayor was chattering at him. “Let’s give them room to look things over,” he says. “Mayor, what were you saying about that little place up in the woods? I might just be in the market for a vacation spot one of these days.”

  The mayor motions for the people to follow him, and they move about halfway down the field.

  “That’s about all the space you’re going to get,” Daniel says. “Should I go, too?”

  “Please. Maybe see whether you can get in on that real estate action.”

  He sighs and walks off in the opposite direction from the rest of them, stopping to stand guard at the far end of the field.

  It’s just me and this kid, and we’re as close to alone as we’re going to get. A quick once-over doesn’t tell me much except that he looks like a pretty typical teenager in his cheap jeans, band t-shirt, and black sneakers. I reach out hesitantly and brush his hair back from his forehead. He doesn’t look frightened like the vampire victims always seemed to when we arrived at crime scenes. Their horror clung to them like a shroud. This one doesn’t look peaceful, exactly, but he looks…

  Well, dead. He looks dead.

  Obviously.

  I close my eyes, squeezing tight. I need to focus. So far, I’m not getting anything. I try to remember what I thought about the other victims before the shadows came, and come up blank. Well, not entirely. I know I thought about their lives, what kind of people they were. But the significance of that escapes me now, as does the sense of conn
ection.

  “Fuck it,” I mutter.

  The grass crunches nearby. I glance up to find Susannah approaching slowly and respectfully. Daniel comes closer, and I hold up a hand to keep him back as I rise. I can handle her.

  “If I may,” she says softly, and reaches behind her delicate neck to unclasp her necklace. She holds it out to me. “You’re intuitive, aren’t you?”

  “I used to be.”

  She nods. “Take this. It’s labradorite.”

  I raise an eyebrow, questioning, as I take the pendant in my hand. The blue stone looks almost black when I hold it in my shadow.

  “It opens you,” she says. “To magic. To whatever it is you’re working on over here.”

  “Thanks. How did you know what I was doing?”

  She smiles. “You’re not examining him in any physical way, but I sort of got the idea you were doing another kind of investigation. It’s the kind of thing I’ve always been open to.” She looks up at the clear sky and the mountains to the west. “I had to come here to feel like that wasn’t weird.”

  I follow her gaze, relaxing my focus. There really is something different here. Not something you’d notice if you were distracted by conversation. A low vibration. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it’s there.

  Susannah is looking at me when I turn back to her. She smiles. “Yes. That. See if the necklace helps you access it.”

  I doubt it will, but I smile back at her. “I appreciate that.”

  It figures that I’ve found a living woman who accepts my gift, when few vampires would. Too bad she might be too late to help me.

  “You’re… not human, are you?” she asks.

  I freeze in the midst of crouching next to the body, then lower myself slowly. “What do you think?”

  Her smile tightens. “There are stories about the caretakers at the sanctuary. The less perceptive among us assume you’re just reclusive people.” She doesn’t offer Allan Stokes’ name, but judging by his easy manner with Paul, I’m guessing he’s one of them. “Other stories peg you as fae. I thought that might be right when I saw you and him.” She nods respectfully toward Daniel. “Your features are as beautiful as theirs are supposed to be. But that’s wrong. You have…” She trails off and closes her eyes, holding a trembling hand toward me with fingers outstretched. “Your energy is dark. It’s not like anything I’ve felt. Ever.”