by Tanya Huff
“Uncle Carl . . . ” Stress the relationship. Remind him of where the blood ties lay, of family loyalty. “These are not God’s creatures. You said so yourself.”
Carl looked down at Cloud and shuddered. “They are not God’s creatures.” Then he raised his tormented eyes to Celluci’s face. “But what of him?”
“Condemned by his own actions. Willingly consorting with Satan’s minions.”
“But if he is a police officer, the law. . .”
“Don’t worry, Uncle Carl.” Mark didn’t bother to hide the sudden rush of relief. If the old man was concerned about repercussions, then he’d already decided to take action. It was in the bag. “I can make the whole thing look like an accident. Just be careful when you kill the white wolf—dog, whatever—that you don’t ruin the pelt.”
Just a little too late, he realized he’d said the wrong thing.
The old man shuddered and then straightened, as though he were shouldering a terrible weight. “So much I’m unsure of, but this I know; whatever happens tonight will be for the grace of God. You will not profit from it.” He swung the rifle around until it pointed at Mark. “Put down the gun and get over there with them.”
Mark opened his mouth and closed it, but no sound came out.
“What are you going to do?” Celluci asked, voice and expression carefully neutral.
“I don’t know. But he isn’t going to be a part of it.”
“You can’t do this to me.” Mark found his tongue. “I’m family. Your own flesh and blood.”
“Put down the gun and go over there with them.” Carl knew now where he’d made his mistake, where he’d left the path the Lord had shown him. The burden was his to bear alone, he should never have shared it.
“No.” Mark shot a horrified glance at Henry, whose expression invited him to come as close as he liked. “I can’t. . . I won’t. . . you can’t make me.”
Carl gestured with the rifle. “I can.”
Mark saw the death he’d been holding off approaching as Henry’s smile broadened. “NO!” He swung the shotgun around at the one who drove him to it.
Carl Biehn saw the muzzle come around and prepared to die. He couldn’t, not even to save himself, shoot his only sister’s only son. Into your hands, I commend my spir . . .
Cloud reacted without thinking and flung herself through the air. Her front paws hit the middle of the old man’s chest and the shot sprayed harmlessly over the east wall as the two of them hit the ground together.
Then Henry moved.
One moment, almost ten feet between them. The next, Henry ripped the shotgun out of Mark’s grasp and threw it with such force it broke through the wall of the barn. His fingers closed around the mortal’s throat and tightened, blood welling around his fingertips where his nails pierced the skin.
“No!” Celluci charged forward. “You can’t!”
“I’m not going to,” Henry said quietly. And he backed his burden up; one step, two. The trap snapped closed and Henry released his grip.
The arm that stopped Celluci was an impassable barrier. He couldn’t move it. He couldn’t get around it.
It took a moment for the pain to penetrate through the terror. With both hands at his throat, Mark pulled his eyes from Henry’s face and looked down. Soft leather deck shoes had done little to protect against the steel bite; his blood welled up thick and red. He cried out, a hoarse, strangled sound, and dropped to his knees, pushing at the hinge with nerveless fingers. Then the convulsions started. Three minutes later, he was dead.
Henry dropped his arm.
Mike Celluci looked from the body to Henry and said, through a mouth dry with fear. “You aren’t human, are you?”
“Not exactly, no.” The two men stared at each other.
“Are you going to kill me, too?” Celluci asked at last.
Henry shook his head and smiled. It wasn’t the smile Mark Williams took with him into death. It was the smile of a man who had survived for four hundred and fifty years by knowing when he could turn his back. He did so now, joining Cloud and Stuart beside Storm’s body.
Now what? Celluci wondered. Do I just go away and forget all this happened? Do I deal with the body? What? Technically, he’d just been a witness to a murder. “Hang on, if Storm’s still alive, maybe. . .”
“You’ve seen enough death to recognize it, Detective.”
Fitzroy was right. He had seen enough death to know he saw it sprawled at his feet on the dirt floor; not even the flickering lamplight could hide it. “But why so quickly?”
“He,” Stuart snarled, “was only human.” The last word sounded like a curse.
“Jesus H. Christ, what happened?”
Celluci whirled around, hands curling into fists, even though—or perhaps because—he recognized the voice. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re stone blind in the dark!”
Vicki ignored him.
Colin pushed past her, into the barn, desperate to get to his brother.
Barry moved to follow. One step, two, and the floor shifted under his foot. He felt the impact of steel teeth slamming into a leather police boot all the way up his leg. “Colin!”
Colin stopped and half turned back toward his partner, caught in the beam of the flashlight Vicki had pulled from her purse, his face twisted with the need to be in two places at once.
Vicki couldn’t make him choose. “Go,” she commanded. “I’ll take care of Barry.”
He went.
Dropping carefully to one knee, Vicki trained the light on Barry’s foot. The muscles of his leg trembled where they rested against her shoulder. Tucking the flashlight securely under her chin, she studied the construction of the steel jaws. “Can you tell if it’s gone through the boot?”
She heard him swallow. “I don’t know.”
“Okay. I don’t think it has, but I’ll have to get it off to be sure.” Her fingers had barely touched the metal before Celluci slapped them aside.
“Poisoned,” he said before she could protest, and slipped a rusty iron bar in at the hinge. “Hold his leg steady.”
Both sole and reinforced toe had taken a beating but had held. Barry sagged against Vicki’s arm, relief finally allowing a reaction. I could have died, he thought and swallowed hard. The heat had little to do with the sweat that plastered his shirt to his back. I could have died. His foot hurt. It didn’t seem to matter. I could have died. He took a deep breath. But I didn’t.
“Are you all right?” Vicki asked, playing the circular definition of her vision over his face.
He nodded, straightened, and took a step. Then another slightly less shaky one back to her side. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Vicki smiled at him and swept the flashlight beam over the interior of the barn. There was a body on the floor. Carl Biehn sat on a barrel of some kind looking stunned. Everyone else—Colin, Cloud, Henry, Stuart—was with Storm.”
“Is Storm . . ?”
“He’s alive,” Celluci told her. “Apparently Williams caught him in another one of those traps. Which are buried all over this place so walk only where I tell you.”
“Williams?”
“Is dead.” Celluci jerked his head in the direction of Carl Biehn and said to Barry, “Get over there. Watch him.”
Barry nodded, thankful for some direction, and limped across the barn.
All the long way here in the back of the police car, Vicki had thought only about arriving in time to make a difference. Now she was here, it was over, and the flashlight showed her only broken scenes suspended in darkness. “Mike, what happened?”
For a second, he weighed the alternatives, then he quickly laid out the facts, attempting to keep them uncolored by emotions he himself wasn’t certain of. He watched her face carefully when he told her what Henry had done but she let nothing show he could use.
“And Peter? I mean, Storm?” she asked when he finished.
“I don’t know.”
Sixteen
Vicki launched her
self toward the blur of light, the dim figures moving through it taking on solid form as she came closer. If Storm died, she didn’t think she’d be able to forgive herself. If only she hadn’t been so stupidly wrong about Carl Biehn, so sure he couldn’t be the killer. She felt Celluci take her arm and allowed herself to be guided the last few feet, flashlight hanging forgotten in her hand.
Cloud had her front paws up on the table and was desperately licking her brother’s face, her tongue alternately smoothing and spiking the fur on his muzzle. Stuart’s arms were around Storm’s shoulders, supporting his weight. Colin stroked trembling fingers down the russet back, whimpering low in his throat.
Henry. . . Vicki squinted at Henry, bent over one of Storm’s back legs. As she watched, he straightened and spat.
“The poison’s spread through his system. I’d kill him if I tried to take it all.”
Colin began to make a noise, low in his throat, not quite a howl, not quite a moan.
“Get him to Dr. Dixon.” Cloud ignored her. The rest turned to stare.
“We can’t move him, Vicki,” Henry told her softly. “He’s trembling on the edge right now. It would be so easy to tip him over.”
“If only we could get him to change,” Stuart rested his cheek on the top of Storm’s head, the anger in his voice only emphasizing the pain in his expression.
Vicki remembered what the doctor had said about the change somehow neutralizing infection. She supposed poison could be considered a type of infection. “He can’t change because he isn’t conscious?”
Stuart nodded, tears marking the russet fur with a darker pattern.
“Then what about forcing an unconscious change?”
“You don’t know anything about us, human.”
“I know as much as I need to.” Vicki’s heart began to pound as she gathered up everything Dr. Dixon had told her, added it to her own observations, and knew she had something that might work. “If he won’t change on his own, maybe he’ll change for Rose. Twins are linked. Dr. Dixon said it, Nadine said it, hell, you can see it. And Rose and Peter are. . .” She couldn’t think of a way to phrase it, not with Rose—Cloud—right there. Oh, hell, no way around it. “As Rose goes into heat, she’s pulling Peter with her. Their reactions are linked more now than they ever have been. If Rose, not Cloud, would, uh, well, maybe it would pull Storm over into Peter.”
Stuart raised his head. “Do you realize what might happen? How strong a bond this is with our kind?”
Vicki sighed. “Look, even if it works, he’s too sick to do anything and besides. . .” She reached out and stroked one finger down the limp length of Storm’s front leg. Incest or death, what a choice. “. . . isn’t it better than the alternative?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” Rose didn’t wait for Stuart to reply. She threw herself down beside her twin, gathering him as close as she could, rubbing her face over his.
Stuart released Storm and straightened, one hand resting lightly on his nephew’s shoulder. “Call him,” he said, his voice resigned, his expression watchful. He would not allow this to go any further than it had to. “Bring him back to us, Rose.” But try not to lose yourself. The last thing they needed now was Rose going into heat without Nadine around to protect her. Breeding reaction had destroyed packs in the past.
“Peter?”
The fine hair along her spine rising, Vicki could feel the power in a name. This is who you are, it said. Come back to us.
“Peter, oh, please. Please, Peter don’t leave me!”
For agonizing moments it looked as though nothing was happening. Rose continued to call, the grief, the pain, the longing, the love enough to raise the dead. Surely it must have some effect on one not yet gone.
“He moved,” Henry said suddenly. “I saw his nostrils twitch.”
“He’s got the scent,” Stuart said, and he and Colin both shifted uncomfortably.
Then it happened. Slowly enough this time that Vicki always after swore she’d seen the exact moment of change.
Peter tossed his head and moaned, his skin gray and clammy, left foot horribly cut by the steel jaws of the trap.
Rose pressed kisses on his lips, his throat, his eyes, until her uncle moved her bodily off the table and shook her, hard. She burst into tears and buried her face on Peter’s chest, both hands tightly wrapped around one of his.
“His heartbeat is stronger.” Henry listened to it struggling, forcing the sluggish blood to flow. “His life has a better hold. I think it’s safe to move him now.”
“In a minute.” Vicki took a deep breath. It felt like the first in some time and even the dusty, kerosene scented air of the barn smelled sweet. Jesus Christ, how the hell are we going to explain this to the police? “Here’s what we’re going to do. . . .”
“Excuse me.”
She started and for a moment didn’t recognize the old man who crept forward into the lamplight, Barry Wu trailing behind like an anxious shadow.
Carl Biehn reached out a trembling hand and lightly brushed the silver spray of Rose’s hair. She rubbed her nose on the back of her wrist and looked up, eyes narrowing when she saw who it was.
“I know it won’t be enough,” he said, speaking only to her, the words rough-edged with pain, “but I realize now I was wrong. In spite of all I’d done to you and yours, even in the midst of your grief, you saved my life at the risk of your own. That is the way of the Lord.” He had to pause to clear his throat. “I wanted to thank you, and say I’m sorry even though I know I have no right to your forgiveness.”
He turned away then, and Vicki met his eyes.
They were red rimmed with weeping but surprisingly clear. Although pain had become a part of them, no doubt lingered. This was a man who had made his peace with himself. Vicki heard the voice of memory say, “He’s a decent human being and they’re rare.” She nodded, once. He echoed it and moved past, bowed but somehow still possessing a quiet dignity.
“Okay people, we’re going to keep this as uncomplicated as possible.” She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes and shoved at her glasses. “This is what happened. The police already know someone has been taking potshots at the Heerkens dogs—and the Heerkens—and that I’m looking into it. Obviously Peter found something out. . .”
“He spoke with Mark Williams this afternoon,” Celluci told her, wondering how far he was going to let this vaguely surreal explanation go on.
“Great. Suspicious, he headed over here. Meanwhile, I found out the same information, called, discovered that Peter was missing, pulled Colin off shift, and started out here. Meanwhile, you,” she pointed at Celluci, “and you,” the finger moved to Stuart, “raced to the rescue. We stick to the truth as far as we can. Now then, Henry, you weren’t here.”
Henry nodded. Staying clear of police investigations had always been one of his tenets of survival.
“Colin, you and Barry, get Peter into the back of your car. Rose, stay with him. Don’t let him change again. And Rose, you weren’t here either. The boys picked you up on their way back into town as you were running along the road, trying to get here, furious that Stuart and Celluci wouldn’t take you with them. Got that?”
Rose sniffed again and nodded, letting go of her twin only long enough to pull on the T-shirt Stuart stripped off and gave her. It fell to mid-thigh and would do as clothing until they reached the doctor’s where the entire family kept something to wear.
Gently Colin lifted his brother and, with Peter’s head lolling in the hollow of his throat, made for the door, Rose close at his side, her hands chasing each other up and down her twin’s body.
“Wait by the car,” Vicki called, sending Barry after them. “There’re a few more things you’ll have to know.”
“Like what you’re planning to do about the corpse,” Celluci snapped, running both hands up through his hair, his patience nearly at an end. “I don’t know if you’ve taken a good look at it, but someone obviously helped it achieve its current condition, which is going to be just a
little hard to explain. Or were you just going to bury it in the woods and conveniently forget about it? And what about Mr. Biehn? Where does he fit into this fairy tale you’re wea . . ?”
The gunshot, even strangely muffled as it was, jerked Celluci around. Stuart growled and fought to get himself free of the confining sweatpants. Even Henry whirled to face the sound, and from outside the barn came questioning exclamations and running footsteps.
Vicki only closed her eyes and tried not to listen, tried to think of flowers spread across an August morning like a fallen rainbow.
“He went into the corner, put the rifle muzzle in his mouth and pulled the trigger with his toe.”
She felt Celluci’s hands on her shoulders and opened her eyes.
“You knew he was going to do that, didn’t you?”
She shrugged as well as she was able considering his grip. “I suspected.”
“No, you knew!” He started to shake her. “Why the hell didn’t you stop him?”
She brought her arms up between his and broke his hold. They stood glaring at each other for a moment and when she thought he’d actually hear her, she said, “He couldn’t live with what he’d done, Mike. Who was I to say he had to?” Sliding her glasses up her nose, she looked past him and drew a long shuddering breath. “We’re not done yet. Is there a can of kerosene around for that lamp?”
“Here, by the table.” Stuart bent to lift the five gallon can.
“No, don’t touch it.”
Celluci knew at that moment what she was going to do and knew this was his last chance to stop her, to bring this entire night back under the cover of the law. He strongly suspected that if he tried, both Henry and Stuart would align themselves firmly on her side. Trouble was, if it came to choosing sides. . . .
Vicki dug a pair of leather driving gloves out of the bottom of her purse and as though she was reading his mind asked him, as she pulled them on. “Did you want to add something, Celluci?”