Nightshade (17 tales of Urban Fantasy, Magic, Mayhem, Demons, Fae, Witches, Ghosts, and more)

by Annie Bellet

  Mrs. Dobbs spared an exasperated glance at the room where her kids were holed up waiting, but she hesitated before a door with a chalkboard hung on a suction cup. The sign read Xander’s Room.

  She flattened her palm on the wood, exhaled slowly and pushed it open.

  Mrs. Dobbs craned her neck. “Do you mind if I check on the kids while you look around?”

  “Not at all.” In fact, I would much prefer it. “We’ll be waiting when you get back.”

  Alone in the room, Shaw and I strolled the perimeter without touching anything. A glass of milk sitting on the cluttered nightstand drew my eye. I walked over and touched the side. “It’s still cold.”

  Xander had been gone far too long for the drink to have been his.

  “One of the other kids must have brought their snack in here.” He pinched a crust smudged with peanut butter between his fingers and lifted it. “Nothing looks out of place. Scent anything unusual?”

  I filled my lungs with the scents of childhood—crayons, sweaty sneakers, spoiled milk. “No.”

  He placed the crust on the nightstand. “Anything else you want to ask Mrs. Dodd?”

  “Actually, yeah.” I brushed past him. “There is.”

  We met the frazzled mother of four in the hall. She spotted us and shut the door to the room her kids were in with enough force the family photos shook on the walls. She jumped at the sound as if it startled her. Her hand rose to her throat, and she sagged against the doorframe with a hiccupped sob.

  “I usually have better control.” She sniffled. “I just can’t restrain my wolf today.”

  “Understandable,” I said, sticking close to Shaw. “I have two more questions, then we’ll get out of your hair.” Mrs. Dodd’s shoulders tensed. “Where is Jim? The conclave said to expect him here.”

  “He went out driving.” Her gaze slid to the floor. “He got tired of waiting.”

  Ignoring the subtle dig at our perceived ineptitude, I forged ahead. “Is your father or his pack helping with the search?”

  “No.” She wiped her cheeks dry. “He has no interest in the boys.”

  “Isn’t that unusual?” I wondered aloud. “I thought wargs revered their women and protected their children.”

  “Full-blooded children, yes.” Her eyes turned fierce. “Women who marry outside the pack, no.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?” she challenged. “Father won’t acknowledge the boys’ existence until they hit puberty and only then if they can shift.”

  “I’m a half-blood, and my father has never sent me as much as a birthday card. I get it.”

  Pity filled her gaze, and I bit back a curse.

  I had exposed my oldest, deepest wound, and as any mother would, she smelled it bleeding.

  “I think we have all we need for now.” I turned on my heel. “We’ll be in touch.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Shaw and I sat in his truck at the curb and stared at the Dodd house in silence.

  “You okay?” Shaw gave my thigh a squeeze. “You did good in there.”

  “Thanks.” I covered his hand with mine. “But we both know I screwed up.”

  Getting personal with suspects and victims was as big of a mistake as making assumptions about who was which. Sometimes it was hard pinpointing where the blame stopped and absolution started.

  I lifted a file off the seat between us and flipped it open to the page on Xander.

  “The boy is seven.” I studied his bright-eyed picture. “How far could he have gotten?”

  “On his own?” Shaw considered it. “Not too far.”

  “So either he had help, or he’s damn good at hiding when he doesn’t want to be found.”

  Shaw grunted a non-answer. Help in this case meant the boy had been taken. Not good.

  “We need to organize a formal search party.” I made a few calls and got that ball rolling while thumbing through the other papers. When I hit a printout of the area, I felt sucker-punched. “Un-freaking-believable. You see this? That blob is the Brum farm.”

  A frown marred his brow. “Have you been out there yet?”

  “First thing this morning. Brum claimed he was too busy to babysit me and stopped me at the gate. Trust me when I tell you that cockatrices reek. I took a statement—through the fence—picked up the scent and started tracking it. I was halfway back to Wink when you found me.” I tapped the blotchy map. “I don’t like this. We’re missing something.”

  “We’re ten minutes away from the farm.” Shaw put the truck in gear. “Let’s pay Brum a visit.”

  ***

  The Brum farm occupied a scenic hilltop modified to contain Mr. Brum’s fire-breathing poultry. The end result was a maximum security prison scaled down to chicken-size, complete with its first jail break.

  A scrawny older man doing a passable scarecrow impersonation met us at the fence surrounding the property.

  He chomped down on a piece of wheat. “Found Ringo?”

  “I’m still looking for him.”

  He pursed his lips. “Who’s that?”

  I nodded to Shaw. “This is my partner, Marshal Shaw.”

  “Good,” he groused around the straw clamped between his teeth. “Shoulda sent a man out the first time.”

  A low rumble carried through Shaw’s chest, but Brum didn’t notice.

  I elbowed Shaw and said, “We’d like to see the coop where the cockatrice was kept.”

  Brum tipped back his wide-brimmed hat then met Shaw’s gaze. “Will it help?”

  “Yes,” he growled. “Otherwise Marshal Thackeray wouldn’t have wasted breath suggesting it.”

  If Brum understood he was being chastised for his sexist bullcrap, he gave no indication. Then again, what had I expected from someone so narrow-minded in the first place?

  The farmer opened the gate and trudged to the rear of the property where a metal box sat jacked up on cement blocks. A thick hinge allowed the rear panel to open for feeding the cockatrice and cleaning its cage, but the warped hunk of steel hung askew as if someone had twisted the back off and tossed it aside.

  Tempted as I was to pull my collar up to cover my nose, I sucked it up and breathed in the rank fumes of drying dragon-bird poop ripe with ammonia. I glowered at Brum through watery eyes. “You didn’t mention the cage was damaged when I was out here earlier.”

  The old man rolled his shoulders. “You didn’t ask.”

  This time the snarl was mine, and Shaw sank his elbow in my side.

  “I asked to see where the bird was kept,” I countered. “You denied me access to your property.”

  “Didn’t figure you could handle it.” He filled his lungs to prove a point, and his chest expanded. “You look green around the gills, Marshal. What’s wrong? Farm life don’t agree with you?”

  Squawking broke out two coops down, and Brum lumbered in that direction, giving us a minute alone to inspect the damage without his ever-so-helpful presence interrupting us. Shaw squatted next to the ruined door and traced five deep furrows with his fingertips before shaking his head on a sigh.

  “See those?” I nodded toward a set of wolflike paw prints leading away from the mangled coop.

  Shaw stood and dusted off his hands. “Let’s see where they go.”

  We followed them to the rear of the property and found a stack of detritus leaned against an otherwise clean fence line. I walked until my toes clanked against the metal and scoped out the other side.

  “He used all this junk to block a hole.” I nudged the nearest board with my shoe. “There’s dirt pushed up on the other side. Whatever we’re dealing with dug a hole under the fence to get in here to the chickens.”

  Brownish-red tracks pressed into the dirt led away from the scene of the crime. Bloody feathers stuck to some of the imprints.

  “I’m no expert—” having never seen a warg in the fur, “—but it seems our cases intersect.”

  “There was no full moon last night.” Shaw gusted out a tired breath. “If a
warg did this, it complicates things.”

  “It’s true then?” Dread twirled through my gut like water down a drain. “That only alphas can control their shifts?”

  “It’s true.” His head fell back on his neck, and he stared up at the sky.

  I patted his shoulder. “A few scratch marks and a hole doesn’t mean a warg is the perpetrator.”

  “No,” he said at last, “but I would feel better having that option eliminated under the circumstances.”

  “We need to call in an expert.” One with a better nose than mine. “Which means we have to pay the Mayhugh alpha a visit.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Decatur Mayhugh greeted us at his front door. Burly arms crossed over his broad chest. Tangled blond hair swept his shoulders. Piercing azure eyes measured me. He didn’t look old enough to be a grandfather.

  The pack lived in a massive complex on the edge of Wink’s town limits. Most of it was untamed wilderness, but portions were developed into amenities such as the townhouses we passed on the way to the main ranch-style house. The idea being families could live together and satisfy their need for pack closeness without being crammed on top of one another. All told, the Mayhugh pack owned about a hundred acres of forest for their wolves to roam locally in addition to other secluded conclave-approved locales meant for extended vacations should one of them feel the urge to act more wolf than man for a few weeks.

  The alpha’s warm voice boomed. “Leave us.”

  The two grayish wolves who had been acting as our escorts loped back in the direction of the main road.

  Mayhugh scratched his stubble. “What brings marshals to my door?”

  “Xander Dobbs is missing,” I said without inflection.

  Gold blazed in the alpha’s eyes. “My daughter made her choice. She left pack land to marry that half-blood accountant.” He spat on the worn planks under his bare feet. “This is not pack business.”

  Shaw placed a hand on my shoulder. Only then did I realize I had stepped forward.

  Mayhugh chuckled at my anger, at our little dominance scuffle. His nostrils flared as he inhaled my scent. His eyes narrowed to slits, and he leaned closer to sniff me. Power flooded my palm. Hunger snarled in my gut. Magic tingled in my fingers, eager for release. I’m so hungry. Green light splashed over his toes. He took a measured step back. He wasn’t laughing anymore.

  “You’re Macsen Sullivan’s pup.”

  Shaw dug his fingers into my trapezius muscle. The weight of his touch, of his serious copper eyes when I glanced back at him, anchored me. I shook the sparks from my fingertips. My gut rumbled in protest, but after a few minutes I could breathe again. No one had died. I was making progress.

  “That’s what they tell me.” No use ignoring it with a nose like his.

  “He used to run with us on the full moons.” His gaze went distant as memories clouded his eyes. “For the sake of your father, I’ll hear what else you have to say. You wouldn’t be here if Xander was your only concern. You understand better than most the stigma of being born a half-blood.” He let an alpha’s power roll through his voice. “Don’t waste my time, pup. What brings you on my property?”

  “Are you acquainted with Albert Brum?”

  “He breeds chickens and other edible oddities. We’ve purchased stock from him before.” He shrugged at my raised eyebrows. “Wargs require substantial amounts of protein in their diet to keep their inner wolf sated. We eat a lot of eggs…and chickens.” He frowned. “What does Brum have to do with Xander?”

  “A large predator dug under Brum’s fence and ripped open a cage where he kept his prize cockatrice.” I studied Mayhugh’s reaction. “I was working the Brum case this morning when my partner was given the Dobbs case.” Mayhugh gave nothing away. “The proximity of the cases interests me is all.”

  “Are you implying that an alpha warg caused the damage?” His lip curled. “Or that I did?”

  “Neither.” I didn’t flinch. “I’m asking for your opinion.”

  Mayhugh grunted. “Did you scent warg at the farm?”

  “Have you ever been around a cockatrice?” I challenged. “They smell like Satan’s anus.”

  Beside me Shaw rubbed a hand down his face.

  The alpha considered me through eyes gleaming with mischief. “Are you asking me to pay a visit to the farm?”

  “Yes.” I smiled. “Yes, I am.”

  ***

  Mayhugh drove himself out to Brum’s farm in a red pickup twice the length of Shaw’s, which made me wonder what the heck Mayhugh was hauling around that required that kind of towing power. Two of his wolves rode in the bed of his truck. Security for the alpha, I guess.

  As long as we kept to the fae side of town, no one would give them a second glance.

  With two guys in tow—the wolves were asked to stay with the vehicles—the farmer was even more gracious than on our last visit. While Brum praised his clutch of Crèvecœur chicks to a polite and attentive Mayhugh, Shaw and I scanned the feather-strewn yard for more signs of the intruder.

  Two wooden coops were piled near a burn barrel, smashed to bits. I headed that direction while Mayhugh inspected the metal box Shaw and I had examined earlier.

  The foulness of cockatrice filled the yard, but the regular coops were at the far end, and the walk gave me distance enough to scent blood I assumed belonged to some poor fowl, meaning our trespasser had succeeded in his plan to dine on chicken. So had the cockatrice evaded him? Or had its stink warned him off?

  I joined the others and inserted myself into Brum’s line of sight. “What destroyed those coops?”

  “Whatever ate the chickens inside ’em, I s’pose,” he said. “It’s your job to figure it out, ain’t it?”

  “I would ask why you didn’t mention this earlier, but let me guess…” I sighed. “I didn’t ask.”

  The farmer making irritated magic spark in my palm bared yellowed teeth set in a crooked grin.

  His reticence made me wonder what type of fae he was, but it was rude to ask without a reason.

  “You were right to fetch me.” Mayhugh straightened from where he had been examining the cockatrice enclosure. “A warg made these marks.”

  “Has anyone requested permission to cross your territory in the past few days?” Considering the damage was the fault of another alpha, I had to assume that played a part. “Has anyone issued a challenge recently?”

  “No to both.” His upper lip quivered. “We have a rogue on our hands, probably a young alpha looking to establish territory.”

  Shaw and I exchanged a look. I asked the question on both our minds. “Wargs first shift at puberty?”

  “If you’re asking if Xander did this…” Mayhugh dipped his chin, “…it’s not possible.”

  He didn’t sound wholly convinced. Or maybe that was wistfulness in his voice.

  After thanking Brum for his time, again, we reconvened at our vehicles.

  Shaw opened the door for me before turning to Mayhugh. “Where does this leave you?”

  “I’ll have my beta organize a hunting party. Rogues are too dangerous to leave unsupervised so close to town.”

  I climbed in the truck but kept the door open. “I don’t suppose you could ask them to keep an eye out for signs of Xander?”

  Mayhugh worked his jaw. “If I made an exception for myself, I would have to offer the same courtesy to every member of my pack with half-blood relatives.”

  Pack reform didn’t seem to be high on his to-do list, so I let it slide.

  I flung out one last hope. “Keep us in the loop?”

  “I trust you’ll do the same.” He emphasized, “The rogue is pack business.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” Shaw assured him.

  I shut the door and sank into the comfy leather seats with one less thing to worry about. The rogue was Mayhugh’s headache now.

  CHAPTER SIX

  With our leads exhausted, all we had left to do was meet the volunteers at the marshal’s office who had
rallied to help us comb the area for signs of Xander. We split them into groups of six and handed each team captain a map with their section of the search grid highlighted.

  Shaw and I joined a smaller team comprised of mostly off-duty marshals working nearest the Brum farm in the hopes we might flush out the rogue and circumvent a territorial dispute without endangering any civilians.

  Shaw hadn’t said anything to me, but I knew how his mind worked. He was sweating the outcome of this case the same as me.

  A rogue warg plus a missing half-blood boy equaled one hell of an explosive situation once you factored in Xander’s blood ties to the local alpha.

  A young rogue might be fooled by the boy’s scent. He might believe he could use Xander as leverage, hoping to force Mayhugh to meet his demands, whatever they were. A piece of land to call home? An in with an established pack? A mate to cinch his ties to the local alpha or hunting rights if he wanted to cement his lone-wolf status? Who knew? We would all find out what he wanted soon enough.

  One thing was for certain. When Mayhugh refused to play ball, when he declined to sacrifice his pureblood pack mates for his mixed-blood grandson, things would get ugly fast, and Xander would be caught in the crosshairs. Unless Shaw and I reached him first.

  I checked my cell for the tenth time since this sweep began. Three missed calls from Mrs. Dobbs. None from Jim. Where was he anyway? For a guy searching for his kid, he sure made himself difficult to find. Wherever he was, I hoped he was having better luck than we were.

  Despite our best efforts, we didn’t locate Xander that night.

  We combed the woods with flashlights until dawn rendered them useless and then sent the first shift of mostly nocturnal volunteers home. They planned to tag the diurnal crowd once they hit the parking lot at the marshal’s office. We thanked them for their efforts and stayed behind to wait on the next group to arrive so we could assign them new sections of grid.

  That was how we ended up standing shoulder-to-shoulder, eyes dry and itchy, when we heard the first howl.