Dire Warning WC0.5

by Stephanie Tyler

  Jinx turned to her, chose his words carefully. “You can’t tell Bill about what you saw.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I’m not. You need to trust me—I haven’t steered you wrong so far.”

  “This is huge—it confirms what Bill taped. That’s Paula’s killer!” She was starting to get hysterical and he wanted to show her the full tape but he couldn’t. Not yet.

  “Give me twenty-four hours to show you it wasn’t,” he persisted. “Please. You saw Paula and so did I, but Bill didn’t—you know that’s important.”

  He knew she could take what she’d just seen and make a name for herself in the PNR community, but Jinx didn’t think she’d do that. Not after breaking through with Paula, which had to happen soon or Jinx would kill the ghost.

  Which technically couldn’t happen, but the intent was there.

  Marley still looked half panicked. Jinx took her hand and did the only thing left—a slight threat to keep her from blabbing. “You’re safe, hear? Safe for now only if you don’t say anything.”

  She bit her bottom lip, looked between the broken camera and back up at Jinx. “I guess you wanted to make sure of that.”

  “Yes. It’s my job.” Because really, the bodyguard thing was only half bullshit. The Dires were charged with keeping humans safe any way they could.

  “Was that . . . wolf coming after me?” she asked.

  “Should he?”

  “No. I didn’t do anything to Paula. We were friends but I’ve only been here for a month. I had nothing to do with her death.”

  “But you know something you’re not telling us,” Jinx said, his voice firm. “That’s what Paula keeps coming around to find out. Come clean, Marley, and stop bullshitting me. Cards on the table.”

  She paced in a small circle before looking up at him. “Bill was really upset about Paula’s death,” she started slowly. “I mean, really. For a landlord and boss, it was odd.”

  “You think they were dating?”

  “No, they never had. It was something I’d asked her about but she said that would put her in a really precarious position with work and her apartment.”

  “It sure would,” Jinx muttered.

  “Bill liked her. He was always watching her. She admitted to me last week that she found it creepy. She was looking for a new job.”

  “Did Bill know?”

  “I’m not sure if he found out. But I didn’t tell him.” She paused and then she started. “You really think Bill would have Paula killed and blame it on a wolf?”

  “I pretty much know that’s what happened. I just can’t show you, yet. And I need your help.”

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  “You have to talk to Paula at tomorrow night’s filming,” Jinx said. “Rifter said Bill wants to start filming his own pilot, to show the television shows his vision. According to Rifter, he planted the idea Bill’s taking credit for—his plan is to talk to Paula and get her to talk about the werewolf and how and why he killed her.”

  “Suppose I don’t see her then?”

  Jinx glanced up at the broken window and saw Paula looking back at them. “You will.”

  Rifter refused to let Cyd go alone to Brice and deal with Kyle’s pack. When the Were had gotten both Sam and Kyle’s bodies into the truck, Rifter drove him to the small town and the big house on the hill the alpha owned.

  They were a small pack and had never caused any trouble. But they’d gone from zero to sixty very fast.

  Rifter had called ahead, and Brice had assembled his pack in preparation, so they were all there, standing down as Rifter and Cyd carried in the bodies and lay them on the floor in between them.

  “Cyd would’ve spared Kyle if he could have,” Rifter said after telling them what he knew of the story. “And if Cyd hadn’t killed Kyle, Jinx would have had to. I’d say Kyle and Cyd was far more of a fair fight.”

  He studied the pack surrounding him and Cyd, his stance unworried. Brice, the pack alpha, didn’t appear to doubt Rifter at the moment, but Were politics were funny. While Brice couldn’t go after the Dires, they could order that Cyd be put down for his part in the killing.

  It was why Jinx insisted Cyd tell Brice that he didn’t kill the Were, but Cyd refused.

  “He was protecting his alpha,” Rifter continued. “You have to understand that.”

  Brice scrutinized Cyd, who stood stiffly next to Rifter. The young alpha was trapped in an odd position. Many Weres thought he and his twin had gotten a free pass from the Dires. Many Were alphas thought that any of their kind with moon craze were beyond saving.

  Rifter had never believed that, certainly not about the twins. He and Jinx had hunted them down and brought them in years earlier, both young Weres dazed and unwilling at best. He’d watched Rogue and Jinx and Vice and Stray take turns talking them down after that and finally, after a week, Cain shifted from Were to young man. He didn’t say a word for the next two days, not until Cyd conceded and shifted back as well.

  Now, Cyd stood his ground in front of the alpha. “Sam was on the other side of the field. By the time I heard the attack . . .” He paused. “Sam tried to talk Kyle down. Didn’t want me to hurt him. I can understand that. But he attacked Jinx, who’s one of my alphas. I owed him my loyalty. Kyle put himself in danger of exposing all of our kind by jumping into a house with a human.”

  “And you did the same.”

  Cyd didn’t deny it.

  “The human didn’t see Cyd, only Kyle,” Rifter clarified. Not that it mattered. Rifter would rip Brice’s throat out if he tried to harm Cyd.

  “We need retribution, for Sam. For Kyle and his mate to be,” Brice confirmed.

  “And you’ll have it. But we don’t kill humans,” Rifter reminded him.

  “We also don’t deal in human justice,” another wolf sneered at Rifter. In a matter of seconds, Rifter had that Were pinned to the wall by his neck, the man’s legs dangling helplessly off the floor.

  “Right—I deal in wolf justice,” Rifter growled. “Do you want to see it?”

  The Were shook his head as much as he could, his eyes bulging. When Rifter dropped him and turned to Brice, the alpha of the pack said, “I apologize for his disrespect. We’re all a little shaken that there’s no word from Linus.”

  “I’m sure there will be shortly,” Rifter told him. “For now, hold your pack together and let us deal with the humans.”

  Brice nodded after a long moment and Rifter said a small prayer to the Elders for Linus. Because that sinking, shitty feeling was back with a vengeance, and he knew it wouldn’t leave anytime soon.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The camera crews showed up in the late afternoon as Rifter watched Bill plan his own destruction.

  True to her word, Marley said nothing to Bill, remaining in the kitchen for most of the morning, venturing out in the early afternoon when Bill decided to make his announcement to the crew.

  She’d slept on the downstairs couch in a toss and turn fashion as Jinx watched over her. She hadn’t wanted to go into Paula’s apartment for fear of seeing the ghost, and Jinx said he couldn’t blame her for not being ready yet.

  “Come on, gather round.” Bill motioned for the crew to come closer and Rifter and Jinx waited on the outskirts of the crowd as he made his big announcement. “After careful consideration, I’ve decided to up the ante. I’m going to film the first episode of my own series, and use it in conjunction with the tape of the werewolf to turn this into a major deal. So tonight, we’re filming right here. On the second floor.”

  There was a predictable hush and then Bill continued. “We’re going to talk to Paula tonight. She’ll tell us about what really happened with the wolf.”

  Yeah, the guy was a fucking genius. One who didn’t realize he was about to
totally screw himself over with his borrowed plan.

  He really hoped the human female was up to the job and followed her and Jinx into the kitchen as Bill directed the crew on how to set up.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Marley was telling Jinx.

  “We have to get him to admit it,” Jinx said. “You can do it with Paula’s words the night she was murdered.”

  “I don’t know what she said,” Marley protested weakly.

  “She’ll help you,” Jinx assured her. “You have to trust.”

  Although he could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced, she didn’t argue any further. “I owe this to Paula, right?”

  “Right. She won’t be able to rest if you don’t.”

  “If this doesn’t work, I’m a target for Bill,” she said.

  “We will keep you safe if this plan backfires,” Rifter assured her. “We’ll keep you safe afterwards, no matter what happens.”

  “I can’t pay you.”

  “I don’t need your money.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Same reason you are. Closure.” Rifter smiled around the human word.

  The plan was set. The cameras were being prepped. Marley was nervous, although she and Jinx had discussed their roles extensively.

  If the plan didn’t work, Rifter would need to take care of Bill himself, and that would go against everything the Elders wanted for the Dires.

  Marley wrung her hands for the millionth time as she tried to pull herself together.

  For the love of everything good and holy, you’re not Lady Macbeth.

  She’d already weighed her options until her head hurt. She couldn’t go to the police with the theory she and Jinx and Rifter had. She knew that. Telling them that a ghost was trying to help her would sound crazy.

  Heck, it was crazy, but for the first time in her life, she didn’t care. Not when Bill was starting up with his ridiculous I-see-dead-people thing and there was no one there.

  Now, he pointed at the corner. “It’s Paula. She’s obviously unable to rest until she tells us who her killer is.”

  Maybe I’m losing it. Or maybe I’ve never had it to begin with, Marley thought. Could she have imagined that entire incident in the dorm room? Or the time she saw her cousin standing at the foot of her bed the night he passed away—the exact moment he’d died, she’d later learned.

  You have what it takes, you know you do. And Jinx did as well. She hadn’t imagined Paula the other night. Now she just needed the ghost to come back and Marley would help Paula tell her story.

  “Paula, can you tell us the name of your killer?” Bill asked. As the cameras moved closer to pan in on him, she felt a shiver crawl up her back. A gentle touch on her neck and she automatically looked for Rifter. But he wasn’t standing close to her at all.

  The touch again and she turned all the way around and saw her.

  Paula.

  And if Marley was seeing Paula standing in the middle of the room, that meant Bill couldn’t be. Same as last night.

  “She has revealed the name of her killer to me,” Bill announced theatrically. “The werewolf she took the video of was who killed her.”

  In front of her, Paula shook her head no. And right then and there, Marley realized her anger had overridden her fear.

  Bill was posturing like hell, claiming that Paula said she was killed by a werewolf.

  Jinx tried to catch Marley’s eye. She had her back to Bill’s and was staring at Paula, who was in the center of the room.

  When Bill couldn’t get Marley’s attention, he turned to her and saw her trancelike state.

  “Marley, who do you see?” Bill asked her in an overly dramatic voice.

  She turned to him but pointed directly across from him. “Paula. Bill, Paula’s here. She says she’s got something to tell me.”

  Bill’s face went predictably whiter than any ghost mist Jinx had ever seen portrayed in bad B movies. Marley shook visibly but Paula smiled at her and Jinx knew it would work.

  Bill was acutely aware of the cameras rolling and he tried to pull himself together. “Tell Paula we’re actively hunting down the werewolf who killed her.”

  “He’s lying,” Paula said. The first words she’d ever spoken.

  “She says you’re lying,” Marley repeated.

  “Bill killed me. He lured me outside to the bar, told me we’d discuss things over a drink. And that’s where he killed me,” Paula continued.

  “You killed her,” Marley said, then spoke all of Paula’s words and everything went so still. The only sounds were the night ones that accompanied the woods and the camera’s whir. “She says you were trying to blackmail her. That you told her you loved her.”

  “Marley, why are you doing this?” Bill demanded. “Are you trying to gain your own fifteen minutes of fame at my expense? You’ve never been able to see ghosts on your own—I know you’re making this up.”

  Jinx had to give the guy credit for rallying, but Paula struck out to hit a soda can balanced on a piece of camera equipment. It went flying, straight at Bill.

  This ghost had anger issues for sure. Bill was a dead man.

  “Paula did that,” Marley said, continuing to translate the dead woman’s words for Bill and the cameras. “She’s pissed. She won’t leave until you admit what you’ve done.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Bill protested, spinning around to look for a friendly face and failing miserably. “Can’t you all see she’s lying? Stop taping!”

  “He knocked me unconscious using chloroform,” Paula said. “He said he would give me the tape of Kyle and I together. When I realized he’d watched us, I got so mad—I lunged for him, fought him but he restrained me and shoved the cloth in my face. He had this planned. His big moment.”

  Paula sank to her knees in front of Bill the same time he did. He reached out his hands like he was begging Marley to stop, but his hands ended up brushing right through the hole in Paula’s chest in some kind of bizarre recreation of the murder.

  “You loved her, but she told you she was going to marry Kyle. Why couldn’t you accept that?” Marley asked.

  “Because the bitch was seeing one of them,” Bill seethed. “Some dirty wolf—and she wasn’t even going to tell me about it. I gave her a job and a place to stay and she showed me no loyalty. She was quitting.”

  “And so you killed me,” Paula said, her voice even. “You killed me.”

  Bill fell forward then, clutching his heart, his face twisted in a grimace of death. He was gone before he hit the floor, but the cameramen wouldn’t know that, raced to him while another called 911.

  Suddenly, Marley stepped back and Jinx noted that a second ghost appeared. “Kyle’s here,” Jinx told Rifter quietly as Marley tried to help Bill, no doubt because she wanted him brought to justice. Jinx had seen the anger in her eyes, but he quickly forgot about that as he watched the scene unfold in front of him.

  “What’s happening?” Rifter asked.

  “It’s Kyle and Paula—they’re together. They’re going up together.” Indeed, the couple embraced and then walked away until he couldn’t see them anymore.

  “I thought Weres went to a different place?” Rifter asked.

  “Me too.”

  It fascinated Jinx to watch them rise together, wolf and human, twined together. Happy.

  Death and love. Two things the Dires were expected to live without, and Jinx hated it so much that it could still make his throat tight to think about it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “This is why you don’t fuck with the dead,” Jinx said as they watched from the woods as the paramedics tried and failed to revive Bill, and Rifter agreed heartily. His ability to dreamwalk was bad enough with the living. He was a dreamcatcher of sorts, dealt
with all their dreams—and their nightmares.

  The nightmares of others were preferable to his own. Most of the time, he wouldn’t let himself go there.

  “We were never here,” Rifter told Marley minutes earlier, left Cain to represent the security team. None of them were even on film, at Bill’s insistence, and the indoor security cameras had been erased.

  Now, they waited until the police cruisers were down the block and the ambulance took off with lights flashing but no sirens, indicating Bill’s death.

  Stray had Cyd slip the new tape into Bill’s safe, where Marley had found it to hand over to the police. He’d spliced in the Vice footage with the Paula and Kyle footage, clumsily but not so much so that they wouldn’t believe Bill was trying to dupe people.

  “They took the new tape as evidence. They want me to go downtown to make a formal statement, but if there’s enough on tape, I won’t have to testify,” Marley told them when they returned. They’d watched her dismiss the crew, telling them she just had to get her things from upstairs.

  In reality, Cain was already up there, gathering her suitcase.

  Marley continued, “Cain gave them the contact information, but they didn’t seem interested in you guys.”

  And that was the best news of all. Probably thought supernatural bodyguards were a joke, which was exactly the way Rifter wanted it.

  “Where are you going to stay?” Jinx asked Marley.

  “Cain says he’s got a place I can crash for a few days, until the police clear me,” she said. “After that . . .”

  “You should continue doing this,” Jinx told her. “I have some contacts further upstate I can set you up with. They’re legit—not in it for TV shows or fame, but you’ll get paid. And you won’t be alone.”

  Marley considered it for half a second before saying, “I’d like that. Thanks.”

  “Cain, get her to the apartment safely,” Rifter said as the young wolf came up next to them, Marley’s bags in hand. It was a building the Dires owned, so there were many Weres and a couple of shifters who lived there, with a select few humans and a single vamp named Jez who’d been living there when the Dires bought the building thirty years earlier.