Everyone present felt the evil vibes of the bearers of the unique scent Michael had pinpointed by the street. Rena and Devlin faced the trees, on edge and on guard. Devlin’s expression had morphed into a rare seriousness.
Michael pointed toward the building in the distance that housed English lit classes, its upper floors rising over the treetops. “Is Cade there?”
“He’s with Dylan,” Devlin replied. “They started toward the old library, tracking the wolf that got away.”
“Then they’re looking in the wrong direction.” Michael glanced east. “Because whatever they’re looking for might have found us first.”
Kaitlin was the first to spin around, following the odor that had gotten stronger in the past few seconds. Michael supposed her racing pulse was an indicator of Kaitlin realizing she hadn’t yet passed the strength, speed and agility tests necessary for getting a Were through trying times like these. Anxiety was visible on her pretty face.
Again, his heart went out to her.
Like a wave siphoned from a dark ocean, the stench of malicious malignancy rolled toward where they stood, getting stronger with each beat of Michael’s heart. Any Were worth his salt could have perceived that it wasn’t vampires causing this particular wave, but entities whose blood ran as hot as his pack’s did.
This trouble came from werewolves like the one he had encountered in the old library, whose disappearing humanity had been replaced with insanity. These Weres were unwashed, unkempt followers of the master criminal that had made them into what they now were. Beasts.
The air was charged. The situation was deadly. For whatever reason, Chavez had chosen to infiltrate a college town and had brought along friends crazier than he was, who had no doubt been created by a few savage bites. Chavez chose men who were bad to begin with and made them worse with an infusion of a tainted wolf virus that had been diluted over and over again until hardly resembling the original thing.
Hopefully, Chavez hadn’t brought along too many.
If Dylan, Tory and Adam Scott hadn’t arrived tonight, Michael dreaded the thought of what might have happened when Chavez loosed his henchmen. Michael went so far as to consider Dylan’s showing up nothing less than divine intervention.
Time was up for thanking his lucky stars, however.
“Ready?” he asked his two pack-mates. He had to protect all of his pack, to the best of his ability, and leaving Kaitlin somewhere on her own was not going to happen. She’d have to come along.
He heard the sound of someone running. Dylan appeared wearing a grim expression. “That big wolf of yours.”
Michael stared, trying to make sense of what Dylan was saying.
Rena stepped forward. “Cade?”
“I think they have him,” Dylan said, relaying a message that struck terror in them all.
*
Shivering, Kaitlin took an involuntary step back, rocked by Dylan’s dreadful announcement. Cade had protected her. He was a good guy, strong and intuitive. How was it possible he’d been captured?
“Are you sure?” Michael demanded.
“He went into the old library and didn’t come out. I tracked him there and lost his scent. I came to tell you.” Dylan paused, then turned on his heels as if he’d seen something beyond the trees. “Damn it, it’s impossible for this town to be infested so quickly, and a damn good thing there’s no full moon tonight.”
Michael’s pack-mates were already running toward the old library, driven by their love for Cade. Michael, with his hand on hers, followed. Dylan sprinted ahead.
Kaitlin knew enough about rescues to understand that there had to be a plan, and that there wasn’t one in this instance. This didn’t look good or feel good, but she was now invested in the welfare of this pack enough to take Cade’s abduction as personally as the rest of them did.
Anger made a comeback. As they ran, her lungs felt near to bursting. She heard every footfall, experienced each movement of her muscles as if her body worked independently from her mind. Running felt good to her, even though it had been stimulated by the wrong reasons. Somehow they would find Cade and set him free. She’d never had real friends in Clement, or anyone concerned about her well-being until lately. Cade was part of that new existence.
Michael was silent beside her, his face a mask of anger and resentment over what was happening in his town.
“If you let go of me, you can get there faster,” she shouted.
If he transformed now, Michael would become an even bigger force to be reckoned with. She pulled her hand from his and said, “Go!”
He didn’t look at her.
“Go, Michael,” she repeated. “I’ll be all right. I swear I won’t take any chances.”
No one else was paying attention to their struggle to remain connected physically, and the extent of needs that required them to touch. But she saw that Michael realized the truth of the freedom she had just offered him. Since the rogue werewolves couldn’t morph without the help of a full moon, Michael might hold the advantage when dealing with them.
“Your connection to Cade is older and takes precedence,” she said.
With a long look at her and a silent message that said Stay close, stay safe, or nothing will be worth this, Michael began to tear off his clothes.
It was when he had shifted that Kaitlin’s steps faltered. The ground that had moved and rocked earlier that night was tripping her up. She stumbled, cussed and grabbed for the gnarly bark of a tree, which didn’t save her from a fall because her fingers seemed to go right through the trunk, as if she had imagined it.
The darkness surrounding her lightened to a dull gray. She caught the wink of stars overhead as Michael’s moon broke free of the clouds, not quite full. Not yet.
It was in that instant, between one breath and the next, and as her heart continued to pound, that she felt Kaitlin Davies’s outer semblance begin to dissolve.
Chapter 15
Red-orange flames of anger and anxiousness burned in Michael’s gut. He had never felt stronger, and at the same time less like himself.
He passed Rena and Devlin in his race to the library, seeing only Dylan ahead. Dylan’s vibe was also red-hot, his wolf churning up energy on a nuclear level. None of the Landau clan Michael knew of could shift at will. He wondered what Dylan would think of his ability to do so.
He and Dylan approached the steps to the old library building together. Dylan didn’t comment about Michael’s new shape, knowing better than to divert energy from the search for Cade. It was also likely that Dylan had seen this kind of special ability before.
There were no signs of students or staff near the doors. After the fake alarm Kaitlin had set off earlier, most of the people had finished up and moved on. One or two were left, and Michael’s impression was of aged humans closing up shop.
He and the Weres had to be wary of being seen. Those two people in the building had no idea what kind of evil their library might house beneath its brick walls, if Cade had been taken there. And that seemed likely.
The foreign wolf’s odorous trail was easy to follow. Dylan responded to Michael’s soft growl with a nod of his fair-haired head. The scent was so strongly wrong here, it seemed the damn wolves had left a trail of breadcrumbs behind.
Might be a trap.
“Correct,” Dylan agreed, hearing Michael’s wariness. “This is much too easy. Any creature with a sense of smell would be able to follow this trail.”
Michael watched Dylan check to make sure the hallway beyond the doors was clear, hoping the two people in the building were out of sight.
“Stairs leading down,” Dylan said. “Just inside this hallway. Chavez is never this easy to track, so the ease of this discovery has to be a trick. We’re being manipulated, Michael, and they’re using Cade as bait.”
Michael anticipated what Dylan would say next, allowing him to say it.
“If we bust down those doors leading to their den, they might be waiting. We don’t have any idea how many ther
e will be.”
Dylan sniffed the stale air in the corridor before continuing. “I’m guessing more than one Were, and that their ringmaster won’t be in residence. Chavez’s MO is to let his wolves do the dirty work for him.”
Killing Clement’s pack was the dirty work Dylan was alluding to. Yet with his own pack and the Weres Dylan had brought with him, there was a good chance of stopping this criminal before it was too late.
Nevertheless, Michael’s senses were sending up red alerts. His senses detected vampires. The odor of rotting flesh overrode the harsh wolf scent pervading the hallway. He knew for a fact that the two opposing kinds of creatures would never have joined forces. The world of Otherness didn’t work that way. So, why were both scents leading them deeper into this library, each of those odors as strong as the other?
Has to be that these rogues have taken over the old location of a nest, he said silently to Dylan.
“Or obliterated that nest,” Dylan said as Rena and Devlin arrived.
Rena wrinkled her nose. “The place reeks.”
“Why are the doors still open?” Devlin asked. “Shouldn’t this building have closed up some time ago?”
“Yes,” Adam Scott replied, striding in on long, muscular, jean-clad legs. “It should have been closed up tight, which doesn’t bode well for any humans left inside.”
Michael was glad to be in wolf form so he didn’t have to elaborate on the sickening ideas taking shape in his mind about what would soon happen to any unsuspecting humans there were. Rena’s expression registered her disgust over the same idea.
He looked past Rena for Kaitlin and didn’t see her. He didn’t sense her closeness when she had promised to keep up.
“We can’t just waltz in there,” Devlin said.
“And we can’t leave Cade,” Rena countered.
Dylan nodded. “We can’t all go in there. Some of us have to remain here in case more beasts decide to cruise by.” He looked to Michael. “Do you agree, Alpha?”
Michael growled and tossed his head toward the doorway behind them, ready to get on with this and get Cade back.
“Which of us has to remain?” Rena asked Michael. “Please say that isn’t going to be me. Cade is my friend.”
Of course, Rena already knew that staying put was the case, and she also knew why. He had asked her to take over Kaitlin’s care if anything should happen to him, and there was a decent chance something would. Though Rena hadn’t agreed to this scenario, she wouldn’t cross the wishes of an Alpha who was supposed to take care of them all, but who suddenly harbored doubts about his ability to do that.
Rena’s face colored. “Shit. Kaitlin must be outside.”
Kaitlin wasn’t outside, though. She wasn’t even nearby. Growling his displeasure, Michael gathered himself to go and find her.
Dylan stopped him, speaking softly to keep the echo in the empty corridor to a minimum. “You’re needed here, Michael. Let’s break down some doors. Tory is outside. She’ll watch Kaitlin.”
Michael growled again and showed his teeth, seeing no need to shift back and speak for himself. After seeing his canines, the pack would get the picture that he was torn between wanting to find Kaitlin and needing to rescue Cade, and that one of those two victims was a hell of a lot weaker than the other.
“Michael?” Dylan said. “This is your ball game. Your call.”
Swallowing needs that had curdled in his throat, Michael turned from the doorway. They had to save Cade, and his heart hurt over having to make that choice. He was counting on Dylan being right about Tory watching over Kaitlin.
They headed for the stairs leading to the basement in single file, with Michael in front, silent on his lethally clawed paws.
*
Kaitlin could no longer feel her body. She was as light as the air she breathed. Walking was impossible when standing required effort to keep rooted to the ground. Eventually she got to her feet and teetered, unable to regain any real sensation in her legs.
She was scared, and alone. She had promised Michael to keep up and was paying for that breach of promise. Detouring off course hadn’t been her plan. It had been automatic, as if she’d been lured away from the pack by a power outside herself that was too compelling to resist.
That wayward power didn’t seem to be wolfish, or fanged. Werewolves were muscular and heavier than she felt at the moment. Without a full moon overhead, the things she was feeling couldn’t be blamed on that. She felt odd, and as though the slightest breeze might blow her away.
The taste in her mouth was no longer connected to Michael’s breath, and more like licking starlight. Her insides had cooled. Some new thing was vying for space in an already overcrowded body.
Her vision sharpened. The grass she stood on was bright green, when at this time of night that grass should have been as colorless as everything else cloaked by darkness. Shadows glittered beside her, revealing their secrets and letting her know that no vampires hovered.
Crazed werewolves had apparently gone elsewhere, too. For that, she was truly lucky…if anyone could have called a person who was now half wolf and possibly also partially something else beyond that, lucky.
So, what other thing would show up to complete the assault on her humanity? Besides werewolf and vampire species, what else was there? She hated to think there could be anything more.
Do I feel like a wolf, at all?
Maybe she was beginning to. She had growled when Michael rolled her in the grass. The scope of her senses was widening. Those things left little doubt that when Michael had given her his blood, he had also transferred some of his specialized wolf particles.
As for this new thing inside her…
Would that negate her place in the pack if and when it showed up? What the hell else was left for her to be? Another kind of animal?
Her vision, so clear at the moment, showed several footprints lingering in the grass. The trail Michael and the rest of the Weres had taken lit up with a phosphorescent glow in the infrared spectrum. Birds in the branches watched her. Bugs flitted soundlessly through the leaves.
None of that erased the drive to follow Michael. Tasting starlight couldn’t overpower the strength of her need for him. She had to man up and face this next challenge. She had to confront the future while accepting that life was leading her on a new path, wherever that path led.
Ignoring the other tug on her attention, and on legs that felt as though they belonged to someone else, she started after the Weres, hoping it wasn’t too late.
*
The stairs led to a lower floor of offices, continuing to a subterranean level filled with machines and air-conditioning units. Some of those machines were on, and the noise was deafening to Michael’s sensitive wolf ears.
The floor was damp. Like most old building basements in Florida, where sweltering weather often caused a buildup of moisture between walls and in enclosed spaces, this basement was particularly rank with mold and mildew. This kind of pollution was likely part of the reason for needing a new library on the other side of the university’s campus. If mold seeped into the ventilation system, those spores would affect the longevity of books and the health of the people reading them.
The Weres couldn’t cover their noses. Scent was what had led them here and what would hopefully allow them to perceive an attack before one actually happened.
Other Weres had been here, all right. Several of them. Buried deep in this maze of machines was Cade’s familiar scent, as well. They were close to where the big wolf was being held. Michael’s fur ruffled with tension.
There wasn’t enough room for the pack to travel through the rows of machines shoulder to shoulder, which would have been the optimal formation for confronting an attack. But if Michael’s instincts were correct, two or three of Chavez’s wolves were all that called this place their temporary home. He sensed no big attack about to happen. Nothing jumped out of corners with knives or razor-sharp teeth.
Put more at ease by what his nerv
es were telling him, Michael rushed ahead with a harrowing howl that seemed to echo for miles. The battle calls of his pack added to the eeriness.
The room they were seeking sat at the end of a long tunnel of overhead pipes. The stench of that doorless room’s inhabitants added to the foulness of the rest of the place, causing an instantaneous gag reflex. Adam Scott shoved past Michael with his weapon drawn and aimed. The Miami cop stopped just across the threshold, and lowered his gun.
Cade was there, and standing. Slightly bloodied and covered in filth, the Were Michael had long called his friend turned to face them with a wicked smile on his face. At his feet lay two of the Weres that had helped to capture him. Both of them were dead.
Michael downshifted back to his human shape with a sound of crackling bones and grinding body gears. As he stood upright on two legs, Rena broke the silence. “We should have known you could handle this, Cade.”
Cade’s smile showed a chipped front tooth. “Piece of cake.”
Dylan asked the next question, backtracking to the door to peer into the gloom beyond. “Is this all of them?”
“Here, yes,” Cade replied. “Their chatter told me they aren’t alone in Clement, and that there are at least four more.”
Rena asked with relief in her tone, “Only two of them took you?”
“Sorry to be a disappointment on that score,” Cade said.
“Why did they take you?” Michael asked. “You don’t fit their profile. They like bad guys.”
“I hate to say this,” Dylan remarked thoughtfully. “Can we entertain the possibility that these Weres went out on their own, without Chavez’s blessing? Or that Cade might have been a decoy for some other action?”
Michael spun in place, understanding what Dylan had been getting at and not liking it one bit. He was out the door before anyone had time to question why, running on human feet, scaling the steps when he reached them in leaps and bounds while sending silent messages to Kaitlin that he hoped she could hear. Watch out for Weres you haven’t already met. Bad news is on the prowl.
Half Wolf Page 14