2 Blood Trail

by Tanya Huff

  It didn’t matter how long it took, the human would wait for him. He was sure of that. His ears flattened and his eyes gleamed. The human would get more than he bargained for.

  “No luck?”

  “No.” Vicki rubbed her eyes and sighed. “And I’ve about had it for tonight. I don’t think I can face those lists again without at least twelve hours sleep.”

  “No reason why you should,” Bertie told her, clearing away the sandwich plates. “And it’s not like it’s an emergency or anything. Surely those people can keep their dogs tied up for a few days.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it never is.” A facetious explanation, but she didn’t have a better one. Even if she’d been able to discuss it, Vicki doubted she could do justice to the territorial imperatives of the wer—not when it involved such incredibly stupid actions as presenting oneself as a target. She checked her watch and dug another two pain killers out of her purse, swallowing them dry. At eleven, Colin would be off shift. In an hour or so she’d head over to the police department and catch a ride back to the farm with him. In the meantime. . . .

  “If you can put up with me for a little while longer, I think I’d better get started on the non-Canadian teams.”

  Bertie looked dubious. “I don’t mind. If you think you’re up to it. . . .”

  “I have to be.” Vicki dragged herself up out of the depths of the armchair, which seemed to be dragging back. “The people I talked to tonight will probably mention the call.” She raised her voice so she could hear herself over the percussion group that had set up inside her skull. “I have to move quickly before our marksman spooks and goes to ground.” She gave her head a quick shake, trying to settle things back where they belonged. The percussion group added a brass section, her knees buckled, and she clutched desperately at the nearest bookcase for support, knocking three books off the shelf and onto the floor.

  With the bookcase still supporting most of her weight, she bent to pick them up and froze.

  “Are you all right?” Bertie’s worried question seemed to come from very far away.

  “Yeah. Fine.” She straightened slowly, holding the third book which had fallen faceup at her feet. MacBeth.

  This morning Carl Biehn had been wringing his hands, trying to scrub off a bit of dirt. Like Lady MacBeth, she thought, hefting the book, and wondered what had happened to make the old man so anxious. But Lady MacBeth’s scrubbing had been motivated by guilt not anxiety. What was Carl Biehn feeling guilty about?

  Something his slimy nephew had done? Possibly, but Vicki doubted it. She’d bet on Carl Biehn being the type of man who took full responsibility for his actions and expected everyone else to do the same. If he felt guilty, he’d done something.

  Vicki still couldn’t believe he was a murderer. And she knew that her belief had nothing to do with it.

  Most murders are committed by someone the victim knows.

  Strongly held religious beliefs had justified arbitrary bloodbaths throughout history.

  It wouldn’t hurt to check him out. Just to make sure.

  He hadn’t been on any of the Canadian teams but Biehn was a European name and although he didn’t have an accent, that didn’t mean much.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Bertie asked as Vicki turned to face her. “You’re looking, well, kind of peculiar.”

  Vicki placed the copy of MacBeth back on the shelf. “I need to look at the European shooting teams. Germans, Dutch . . .”

  “I think you’d be better off sitting down with a cold compress. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  There was no reason why it couldn’t.

  “No.” Vicki stopped herself before she shook her head, the vision of the old man’s hands washing themselves over and over caught in her mind. “I don’t think it can.”

  Storm tested the wind as he crouched at the edge of the woods, watching the old Biehn barn. The man from the black and gold jeep was alone in the building. The grasseater remained in the house.

  The most direct route was straight across the field but even with the masking darkness, Storm had no intention of being that exposed. Not far to the south an old fence bottom ran from the woods to the road, passing only twenty meters from the barn on its way, the scraggly line of trees and bushes breaking the night into irregular patterns. Secure in the knowledge that even another wer would have difficulty spotting him, Storm moved quickly along its corridor of shifting shadows.

  Although he longed to give chase, he ignored the panicked flight of a flushed cottontail. Tonight he hunted larger game.

  Neither the East nor West Germans had ever had a Carl Biehn on their shooting teams. Vicki sighed as she flipped through the binder looking for the lists from the Netherlands. When she closed her eyes, all she could see were little black marks on sheets of white.

  The way people move around these days, Biehn could come from anywhere. Maybe I should do this alphabetically. Alphabetically . . . She stared blankly down at the page, not seeing it, and her heart began to beat unnaturally loud.

  Rows of flowers stretched before her and a man’s voice said, “Everything from A to Zee. ”

  Zee. Canadians pronounced the last letter of the alphabet as Zed. Americans said Zee.

  She reached for the binder that held the information on the U. S. Olympic teams, already certain of what she’d find.

  Henry stood in the shadows of the lower hall and listened to Celluci patiently explain to Daniel that it was now too dark to play catch with the frisbee. He hadn’t thought the mortal the type who cared for children but then, he hadn’t thought much about this mortal at all. Obviously, he would have to rectify that.

  The man was close to Vicki, a good friend, a colleague, a lover. If only through Vicki, they would continue to come into contact. Their relationship must therefore be defined, for the safety of them both.

  Like most of his kind, Henry preferred to keep his dealings with the mortal world to a minimum and those dealings under his control. Mike Celluci was not the sort of man he would normally associate with. He was too . . .

  Henry frowned. Too honest? Too strong? Was this where a prince had fallen then, avoiding the honest and the strong for the weak and the rogue? In his life, he had commanded the loyalty of men like this one. He was not now less than he had been. He stepped out into the light.

  Mike Celluci didn’t hear Henry’s approach, but he felt something at his back and turned. For a moment, he didn’t recognize the man who stood just inside the kitchen door. Power and presence acquired over centuries hit him with almost physical force and when the hazel eyes met his and he saw they considered him worthy, he had to fight the totally irrational urge to drop to one knee.

  What the hell is going on here? He shook his head to clear it, recognized Henry Fitzroy, and to cover his confusion, snarled, “I want to talk to you.”

  The phone rang, freezing them where they stood.

  A moment later Nadine came into the kitchen, glanced from one to the other and sighed. “It’s Vicki. She sounds a little strange. She wants to talk to . . .”

  Celluci didn’t wait to hear a name, but even as he stomped into the office and snatched up the receiver, he had to acknowledge that Henry Fitzroy had allowed him to take the call; that without Fitzroy’s implicit permission, he wouldn’t have been able to move. If that man’s nothing but a romance writer, I’m a . . . He couldn’t think of a sufficiently strong comparison. “What?”

  “Where’s Henry?”

  “Why?” He knew better than to take his anger out on Vicki. He did it anyway. “Want to make kissy-face over the phone?”

  “Fuck off, Celluci.” Exhaustion colored the words. “Carl Biehn was a member of the American shooting team in the 1960 summer Olympics in Rome.”

  Anger no longer had a place in the conversation, so he ignored it. “You’ve found your marksman, then.”

  “Looks that way.” She didn’t sound happy about
it.

  “Vicki, this information has to go to the police.”

  “Just put Henry on. I don’t even know why I’m talking to you.”

  “If you don’t report this, I will.”

  “No. You won’t.”

  He’d been about to say that their friendship, that the wer, couldn’t come before the law but the cold finality in her voice stopped him. For a moment, he felt afraid. Then he just felt tired. “Look, Vicki, I’ll come and get you. We won’t do anything until we talk.”

  A sudden burst of noise from the kitchen drowned out her reply and, tucking the phone under one arm, he moved to the door to close it. Then he stopped. And he listened.

  And he knew.

  Good cops don’t ever laugh at intuition, too often a life hangs in the balance.

  “The situation’s changed.” He cut Vicki off, not hearing what she said. “You’ll have to make it back here on your own. Peter’s missing.”

  Storm crept across the open twenty meters from the fence bottom to the barn crouched so low the fur on his stomach brushed the ground. When he reached the stone foundation of the barn wall, he froze.

  The boards were old and warped and most had a line of light running between them. He changed—to get his muzzle out of the way, not because one form had better vision than the other—and placed one eye up against a crack.

  A kerosene lantern burned on one end of a long table, illuminating the profile of the man from the jeep as he stood, back to the door, fiddling with something Peter couldn’t see. A shotgun leaned against the table edge, in easy reach.

  Under the man-scent, the smell of the lantern, and the lingering odor of the animals the barn had once held there was a strong scent of oiled steel, more than the gun alone could possibly account for. Peter frowned, changed, and padded silently around to the big front doors. One stood slightly ajar, wide enough for him to slip through in either form but angled so that he couldn’t charge straight into the barn and attack the man at the table. His lips curled his teeth and his throat vibrated with an unvoiced growl. The human underestimated him; a wer that didn’t want to be heard, wasn’t. He could get in, turn, and attack before the human could reach the gun, let alone aim and fire it.

  He moved forward. The scent of oiled steel grew stronger. The dirt floor shifted under his front paw and he froze. Then he saw the traps. Three of them, set in the opening angle of the door, in hollows dug out of the floor then covered with something too light to set them off or hinder their movement when the jaws snapped shut. He couldn’t be sure, but it smelled like the moss stuff Aunt Nadine put in the garden.

  He could jump them easily, but the floor beyond had been disturbed as well and he couldn’t tell for certain where safe footing began. Nor could he change and spring the traps without becoming a target for the shotgun.

  Nose to the walls, he circled the building. Every possible entry had the same scent.

  Every possible entry but one.

  High on the east wall, almost hidden behind the branches of a young horse-chestnut tree was a small square opening used, back when the barn had held cattle, for passing hay bales into the loft. As a rule, the wer didn’t climb trees, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t and callused fingers and toes found grips that mere human hands and feet might not have been able to use.

  Moving carefully along a dangerously narrow limb, Peter checked out the hole, found no traps, and slipped silently through, congratulating himself on outwitting his enemy.

  The old loft smelled only of stale hay and dust. Crouched low, Peter padded along a huge square cut beam until he could see down into the barn. He was almost directly over the table which contained, besides the lantern, a brown paper package, a notebook, and a heavy canvas apron.

  The man from the jeep checked his watch and stood, head cocked, listening.

  The whole setup was a trap and a trap set specifically for fur-form.

  There could no longer be any question about it, this was the man who was killing his family. A man who knew them well enough to judge correctly what form he’d wear tonight.

  Peter grinned and his eyes gleamed in the lantern light. He’d never felt so alive. His entire body thrummed. He had no intention of disappointing the human; he wanted fur-form, he’d get it. Tooth and claw would take him down. Moving to the edge of the beam, he changed and launched himself snarling through the air, landing with all four feet on the back of the human below.

  Together, they crashed to the ground.

  For one brief instant, Mark Williams had been pleased to see the shape that dropped out of the loft. He’d called the creature’s reactions correctly right down the line. Except he hadn’t thought about the loft or realized exactly what he’d be facing.

  More terrified than he’d ever been in his life, he fought like a man possessed. He’d once seen a German shepherd kill a gopher by grabbing the back of its neck and crushing the spine. That wasn’t going to happen to him. He felt claws tear through his thin shirt and into his skin, hot breath on his ear, and managed to twist around and shove one forearm between the beast’s open jaws while his other hand groped frantically around on the floor for the fallen gun.

  Storm tossed back his head, releasing the arm, and dove forward for the suddenly exposed throat.

  Mark saw death approaching. Then he saw it pause.

  Shit, man. I can’t just rip out some guy’s throat! What am I doing? Abruptly, the blood lust was gone.

  With his legs up under the belly of the beast, Mark heaved.

  Completely disoriented, Storm hit the ground with a heavy thud and scrambled to regain his feet. The floor moved under his left rear paw. Steel jaws closed.

  The snap, the yelp of pain and fear combined, brought Mark slowly to his knees. He smiled as he saw the russet wolf struggling against the trap, twisting and snarling in a panicked effort to get free. His smile broadened as the struggles grew weaker and creature finally lay panting on the floor.

  No! Please, no! He couldn’t change. Not while his foot remained held in the trap. It hurts. Oh, God, it hurts. He could smell his own blood, his own terror. I can’t breathe! It hurts.

  Dimly, Storm knew the trap was the lesser danger. That the human approaching, teeth showing, was far, far more deadly. He whined and his front paws scrabbled against the ground but he couldn’t seem to rise. His head suddenly become too heavy to lift.

  “Got you now, you son of a bitch.” The poison had been guaranteed. Mark was pleased to see he’d got his money’s worth. Wincing, he reached over his shoulder and his hand came away red. Staying carefully out of range, just in case, he spat on the floor by the creature’s face. “I hope it hurts like hell.”

  Maybe . . . if I howl . . . they’ll hear me. . . .

  Then the convulsions started and it was too late.

  Fifteen

  “. . . I don’t know! He’s been acting so strangely lately!”

  Stuart and Nadine exchanged glances over Rose’s head. Nadine opened her mouth to speak but her mate’s expression caused her to close it again. Now was not the time for explanations.

  “Rose.” Celluci came out of the office and walked quickly across the kitchen, until he could gaze directly into the girl’s face. “This is important. Besides the family, Vicki, Mr. Fitzroy, and myself, who did Peter talk with today?”

  He knows something, Henry thought. I should never have let him take that call.

  Rose frowned. “Well, he talked to the mechanic at the garage, Dr. Dixon, Dr. Levin—the one who took over from Dr. Dixon, she was at his house for a while—um, Mrs. Von Thorne, next door to Dr. Dixon, and somebody driving by up on the road, but I didn’t see who.”

  “Did you see the car?”

  “Yeah. It was black, mostly, with gold trim and fake gold spokes on the wheels.” Her nose wrinkled. “A real poser’s car.” Then her expression changed again as she read Celluci’s reaction. “That’s the one you were waiting for, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?” She stepped toward him, teeth bared. �
�Where’s Peter? What’s happened to my brother?”

  “I think,” Stuart said flatly, coming around from behind his niece, “you’d better tell us what you know.”

  Only Henry had some idea of the conflict Celluci was going through and he had no sympathy for it. The question of law versus justice could have only one answer. He watched the muscles on Celluci’s back tense and heard his heartbeat quicken.

  Everything in Celluci’s training said he leave them with an ambiguous answer and take care of this himself. If werewolves expected to be treated like the rest of society, within the law, then they couldn’t act outside the law. And if the only way he could do his duty was to fight his way out of this house. . . . his hands curled into fists.

  A low growl began to build in Stuart’s throat.

  And Rose’s.

  And Nadine’s.

  Henry stepped forward. He’d had enough.

  Then Daniel began to whimper. He threw himself on his mother’s legs and buried his face in her skirt. “Peter’s gonna get killed!” The fabric did little to muffle the howl of a six-year-old child who only understood one small part of what was going on.

  Celluci looked down at Daniel, who seemed to have an uncanny knack for bringing the focus back to the important matters, then over at Rose. “Can’t you let me take care of this?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head, panic beginning to build. “You don’t understand.”

  “You can’t understand,” Nadine added, clutching at Daniel so tightly he squirmed in her grasp.

  Celluci saw the pain in the older woman’s eyes, pain that cut and twisted and would continue far longer than anyone should be forced to endure. His decision might possibly keep that pain from Rose.

  “Carl Biehn was an Olympic marksman. His nephew, Mark Williams, drives a black and gold jeep.”