Monster (Blood Trails Book 2)

by Jennifer Blackstream

I didn’t respond right away. Emma’s pulse was visible under the thin skin of her throat, and she was holding the wheel hard enough that she was halfway to fusing it to her palms.

  “How long have you two been dating?”

  “Almost two years.” Emma shook her head. “He didn’t do this. I am one hundred percent positive he didn’t do this. He’s not that kind of man.”

  “Tell me about him,” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to get to know him. Everyone keeps telling me he’s not feral, he’s not bad, he’s not capable of this. Tell me what he is like.”

  Immediately her face softened. “He’s sweet. A gentleman, as corny as that sounds. He has this quiet determination he brings to everything he does. It doesn’t matter if he’s fixing a sink or chasing down one of those idiots who sees the reservation as a keen place for a drug deal; he gives it everything he has. And he’s smart.” She glanced at me, then at the road. “He could be chief someday if he wanted to.”

  “Well, that would be interesting,” I said.

  “What would?”

  “Stephen as police chief.”

  Emma tensed. “Why would that be weird? You don’t think he’d be a good chief?”

  “That’s not it at all,” I assured her. “I’m just saying, it would be strange for Stephen to outrank his alpha.”

  “His alpha?”

  “Never mind. It’s pack politics, and explaining it would add more complication than enlightenment.” I leaned back in my seat, relieved to notice that the discomfort in my legs was easing. “The way Liam talks about him, it seems like Stephen isn’t interested in being more than he is right now. Something about not taking the sergeant’s exam?”

  “It’s not that he doesn’t want to be more,” Emma said. “Stephen understands that rising too fast means you miss things.”

  I tried to move my toes inside my thick winter boots. “Miss things?”

  “Yeah. Stephen does want to advance, but he wants to make sure he understands every level first. As an officer, you interact with people more. You do more grunt work. You deal with the tasks the higher-ups don’t have to do and don’t want to do, and you get familiar not just with the tasks, but with the other people who have to do them. Stephen says he’ll move up when he understands everything he can about the work and the people at this level. And then he’ll do that again when he reaches the next level.”

  “So by the time he’s chief, he’ll understand where everyone is coming from,” I finished. I nodded. “I understand his reasoning.”

  Emma stole a glance at me before returning her attention to the road. “But you think he’s wrong?”

  I shrugged. “Not in theory, no. He’s right—a leader does need to understand where everyone else is coming from, at all levels. The problem is, time changes things. People come and go; society exerts different pressures. Even job descriptions change, and how those jobs are carried out.”

  “He’s not spending decades in every position,” Emma said.

  “No, but there’s another factor. A leader needs to know how to communicate. They need to stay in touch with representatives at every level.” I stretched my legs and rotated my ankles, forcing myself to breathe through the discomfort. “Take Liam, for instance. He started out at a lower level, both in the pack and on the force. So he got to know those people and he knew their jobs. But when he became alpha, and detective sergeant, he didn’t shut everyone out and assume he knew all there was to know about what they did, what they needed, and where they were coming from. He built relationships with people; he communicates with them regularly. That’s how he stays in touch, and he stays current.”

  “There’s a difference between someone telling you what their life is like and living that life yourself,” Emma said, her voice sharper than it had been a moment ago.

  I nodded. “And there’s a difference between theory and practice.”

  “Stephen will make a great chief someday,” Emma said evenly. She lifted her chin. “And probably a great alpha.” She straightened in her seat. “And it won’t be just theory for much longer. He has a plan, everything scheduled out. He’ll take the sergeant’s exam next year, then three years after that, he’ll take the captain’s exam.”

  “Three years?” I echoed. I didn’t know much about ranking among police officers, but that sounded like a very short amount of time.

  “I told you, Stephen is good. He’s strong, and he’s smart, and once he decides to do something, he does it.”

  I didn’t answer right away. Part of being a witch meant learning about people. It was a large part of the reason I wasn’t more advanced in my spellwork. Mother Hazel had made me spend most of my time either studying books, or out in the world studying and helping people. One of the first things I’d learned as someone who was called in when things went wrong is that people are often very poor judges of their own ability. The fact that Stephen seemed to be planning big things without currently doing anything to attempt big things made me believe he was such a person.

  Emma turned into the driveway of the station, and I turned to watch the play of the parking lights over her face. This wasn’t the time to point out her boyfriend’s cognitive flaws, so I tried a different tactic. “If this were your investigation, how would you handle it?”

  “I would talk to everyone who was at the park.” Emma shot me a look. “And I mean everyone. I would find out if anyone there had a connection to Oliver Dale. I’d consider church attendance, gyms, even high school. I would keep looking until I found a connection.”

  It was a wonderfully generic piece of advice. Hiding a sigh of disappointment behind a groan of pain, I moved my legs again, ready to disembark. I pointed to my car, and Emma pulled in next to it. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll ruminate on what you said.” I opened my car door.

  “Shade?”

  I stopped with one foot on the driveway. “Yeah?”

  “Liam and Blake lied about where Stephen is when I asked them, so they obviously think he did something wrong. I don’t know if there’s some sort of pack politics getting in the way that I’m not privy to, but I’m telling you, Stephen didn’t do this. No one will come to me for this case because I’m human, but that’s part of the problem. Oliver was shot. You need to consider looking outside the Otherworld for this one.”

  “We are,” I promised. “In fact, two-thirds of our suspects are human.”

  Emma didn’t seem comforted, but she didn’t say anything when I closed the door. Peasblossom waited for the headlights to disappear before poking her head out of my sleeve.

  “I’m hungry. Give me another honey packet.”

  “You’re not having any more honey until you have dinner.” I opened my car door and slid behind the wheel. For a while I sat there, staring into the woods. “I wish I’d gotten a look at that crime scene.”

  Peasblossom fluttered her wings, lifting herself to the dashboard, then perched with her legs dangling over the clock. “Think you’ll find something the wizard and the ghoul didn’t?”

  “The woman with ghoul fever,” I corrected her automatically. I looked at Peasblossom. “Have you ever met someone with ghoul fever?”

  “Gods, no. Disturbing, that’s what that is. You’re aware you get ghoul fever from consuming human flesh?”

  “Yes.” I shivered a little at that and closed my car door. “I do not understand how she can bear to work around dead bodies. You’d think she’d be tempted to have a snack.”

  “Sort of like werewolves working with dead bodies?”

  I ignored her pointed tone. “Yes, but werewolves don’t usually get to a dead body until it’s cold, and meat is less appetizing to a shifter after decay sets in. Ghouls, on the other hand, love a decomposing meal.”

  “I’m not eating dinner,” Peasblossom grumbled. “You’ve turned my stomach. It’s honey or nothing.”

  “You’re not getting any honey.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “I need to talk to Vincent again. Without the werewolves hangi
ng around. I got the impression he knew there was no barghest and was putting off having to tell Liam.”

  “You don’t have his phone number. Do we need to go inside and ask?”

  I glanced at the door to the ranger station, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. “Sergeant Osbourne isn’t feeling cooperative right now.” I eased into reverse and angled out of the parking spot. “I’ll find the number myself. Who knows, maybe he’s in the phone book.”

  Peasblossom snorted. “A wizard in the phone book? Not bloody likely.” She paused. “You could call Andy…”

  I stared down the dark road that wound past the ranger’s station without seeing anything. “He hasn’t answered any of my phone calls or returned any of my messages. I don’t see the point in calling again.”

  “Fine. How about Bryan?”

  “He’s on vacation. Florida with his mom and brothers.”

  Her pink wings buzzed angrily, catching the light from the digital clock and splintering it into a thousand shards of blue-green light. “Okay then, let’s hear your idea!”

  “Peasblossom, I’m not trying to shoot down your ideas. They’re good ideas. I just…” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “I don’t want it to be Stephen,” I admitted. “He seems like a good guy.”

  “Unlike the victim.” Peasblossom paced back and forth. “If he was the bastard everyone says he was, then I see no reason it couldn’t have been any number of people. Maybe we should look for someone even worse than him.”

  “Don’t swear.” I tapped a finger on my waist pouch, thinking. “From what everyone’s said, it would be hard to find someone worse. The man intended to kill a dog, for crying out loud.”

  “We can’t prove that for sure.”

  “That red welt on his palm is rather damning. It matched the mark on Rosie’s hand, the one she says she got when she tried to catch Gypsy’s leash.”

  Peasblossom threw up her hands. “So he was a bastard. Lots of suspects, then, and plenty who aren’t Stephen.”

  “Don’t—”

  Someone knocked on my window. I jumped, jerking my foot down on the gas and shooting us into the road. Heart in my throat, I slammed on the brakes, swiveling my head from side to side and expecting to see a car bearing down on me, a collision only seconds away. The dark road remained clear, and I struggled to regain my breath as I checked the rearview mirror and slowly backed into the driveway again.

  Kylie stood there watching me, her features calm for someone who’d narrowly avoided being roadkill. My car’s taillights cast a reddish glow over her smooth, pale features, giving her an unsettling appearance. Her eyes followed mine as I backed up to put her even with my driver’s-side window, and for a second, her eyes changed. Empty white orbs flickered before returning to normal. Any doubts I’d had about what she was vanished.

  I forced myself to roll the window down and greet her like a sane human being. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

  “It’s my fault for startling you.” Her voice was soft, something about her inflection too flat.

  I waited for her to say more. When she didn’t, I cleared my throat again, the sound too loud in the sudden silence. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “My car is in the shop. I got a ride here, but Sergeant Osbourne says he’ll be working late. He suggested you might give me a ride home, since I’m on your way.”

  I made a mental note to have a word with Liam about offering me up as a taxi. “Of course.”

  Peasblossom had hid in my shirt as soon as she’d realized who Kylie was, and now she jabbed a finger into my spine. I held my smile in place and pressed against the seat to warn her that another jab would mean being squished. A frantic pat said she got the message.

  Kylie got in the car and settled in with her hands on her lap. “Thank you.”

  “What’s your address?” I asked.

  She gave it to me, and I put it in my GPS. With an angry pixie grinding her heels into my spine, I pulled onto the road. It took a mere twenty seconds for me to realize that I’d always underestimated how many muscles there were in my legs, and how many of them were required for something as simple as shifting my foot from one pedal to the other.

  “Are you all right?” Kylie asked, polite but curious.

  I winced. “I’m fine. Pushed myself a little too hard, that’s all.”

  Kylie glanced down. “A bath with Epsom salts would help. If you have a Jacuzzi, that would be even better.”

  “I’ll definitely try it, thanks.”

  I smiled at her and the glow of the dashboard lights caught her white gloves. Again it struck me as odd.

  “They’re to prevent contamination.”

  I blinked. “I’m sorry?”

  “My gloves.”

  I blushed and hoped the darkness of the car’s interior would hide it. “They’re lovely. They seem too nice to wear at a crime scene?”

  “I didn’t mean preventing contamination of a crime scene.”

  Oh. I swallowed hard. Contamination—as in ghoul fever.

  Peasblossom chose that moment to pop up from the neck of my shirt. “You catch ghoul fever from eating dead bodies,” she said. “Not from being touched by a ghoul.”

  “Half-ghoul,” Kylie said. “And that’s true—most cases of ghoul fever are passed through cannibalism. But there have been a few instances when a scratch from a half-ghoul sufficed to pass it along.”

  “Not likely, though,” Peasblossom insisted.

  Kylie looked down at her lap. “Likely enough,” she whispered.

  Peasblossom paused, and I felt a pulse of regret down our empathic link. I wanted to tell her it was okay, she hadn’t meant to upset Kylie, but saying that would only drag out the awkward moment.

  “Sergeant Osbourne mentioned before that your mentor is Mother Hazel,” Kylie said, breaking the silence.

  “Yes.” I nodded. “You’ve met her?”

  “I’ve heard of her.”

  “Most people have. I hope knowing I was her apprentice doesn’t make you think poorly of me.”

  I’d meant it as a joke, but Kylie didn’t so much crack a smile.

  “It speaks very highly of you that a witch as powerful as Mother Hazel considered you worth training.”

  Peasblossom sat on my shoulder, and I took advantage of her new position to lean back more fully against my seat. “It does, I suppose. It has its downside, though.”

  “You mean her disapproval of your desire to be a private investigator?”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, glancing at her before returning my attention to the road.

  “Sergeant Osbourne told me about the deal she offered you.”

  “Did he?”

  My irritation must have showed in my voice. Kylie watched me, and her white gloves made a soft rustling sound as she folded her hands.

  “That upsets you. That he told me?”

  And everyone else, I thought bitterly. “It’s not that he told you; it’s the reason he told you. Liam told me to my face that he believes the deal between me and my mentor predisposes me to rush for a conviction. I find it insulting that he thinks so little of my professionalism. My sense of common decency.”

  Kylie shrugged one shoulder. “It is up to you to prove yourself. You have no reputation yet as a detective. And outside your village, your reputation as a witch is limited to being Mother Hazel’s apprentice. But all that will come in time. Good or bad.”

  I frowned. I couldn’t quite tell if she’d meant that to be encouraging or not. Her voice was only a note above a monotone, which made it hard to gauge. Especially when I couldn’t see her face.

  “How well do you know Stephen?” I asked. As long as I had her attention, I might as well see what information she could offer. And she didn’t seem inclined to sugarcoat anything.

  “Well enough. I’ve worked with him for seven years.”

  “And what is your impression of him?”

  “Efficient, but personable. Good with vic
tims’ families; a strong, analytical mind. He’ll make a good father someday.”

  It was the perfect opening. “Do you think he’ll start a family with Emma?”

  “Possibly. They seem to get along well.”

  She didn’t sound surprised by the question. “So you know about their relationship?”

  Kylie shrugged again. “It is difficult to keep such things secret when one works with werewolves, so they didn’t put much effort into hiding it. The evidence was there for those who looked for it.”

  “And did anyone look for it?”

  “No.” She paused. “Well, perhaps Sergeant Osbourne. But he is alpha, so it is his business to know what is going on with members of his pack—especially when there is the risk of a human finding out more than they are meant to.”

  I hadn’t considered that. “Was he worried that Stephen might tell Emma about the werewolves on the force?”

  “Probably not. Stephen knows better than to discuss such matters without his alpha’s permission.”

  I’d only met Stephen briefly, but I had to agree. His self-control was impressive. “Stephen told Liam that he found the body when the victim was already dead. He said he shifted to better get the scent of the perpetrator, then lost control and ate part of the body.”

  Kylie didn’t react, remaining still in her seat. “I know.”

  “Do you believe him?” I asked.

  She was silent for a minute, staring out the windshield at the road with the same empty gaze. The silence dragged on long enough that I thought she wouldn’t answer. It was on the tip of my tongue to apologize, to tell her I wasn’t asking her to speak against her coworker, when she spoke.

  “The werewolves and I share a responsibility. We all have hungers we must control, and jobs that test those hungers every day. Stephen is too experienced to make such an elementary mistake.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Even if I were to agree that it’s possible he lost control, it doesn’t match with the rest of the story.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She looked at me, and it took a concerted effort not to flinch. In that moment, I became a model driver—eyes on the road, full attention on keeping my hands at nine and three.