A Light So Cruel (Pioneer Falls Book 3)

by Heather Davis

  “Please join us.” Mr. Lindstrom’s voice echoed in the cavernous room.

  My gut tightened with fear. I waited a beat, and then started to back up, but someone blocked my way. I turned.

  Ms. Wilson’s distinctive perfume wafted in the air. She chuckled as she motioned toward the auditorium. “Go on in,” she said. “If I’ve learned anything about you these past weeks, it’s that you’re inquisitive. You must be curious about what’s happening here tonight.”

  “I’m not,” I said, trying to push past her.

  She grabbed my wrist. “Don’t be silly. This whole time, you’ve been the conduit. I’m smart enough to know that you drew the ravens. You brought the spirits here. Don’t you want to see this to completion?”

  I shook free. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t go around trapping people in dark buildings and man-handling them,” I said, rubbing at my wrist. She had a surprisingly strong grip.

  “Sorry,” she said, shrugging. “Time to get to the truth.”

  “You’re trespassing! This building is owned by Cooper North.”

  She smiled tightly. “Oh, he’s on our list, as well.”

  “What?” I glanced toward the lobby, trying to figure out how to get away.

  “I wouldn’t try to leave,” Ms. Wilson said, her smile more of a sneer now. “We’ve got something you want.”

  She stalked past me now, her back straight, confident. Shaking my head, I followed her. The lights were still off in the auditorium, but now a single spotlight lit up the small stage in front of the screen. Morgan sat center-stage in a chair. He was gagged and his hands were bound. He spotted me and his face contorted with pain. His eyes communicated that I shouldn’t have come, that I shouldn’t be here.

  “Why are you holding my boyfriend up there?”

  “All part of the show,” Ms. Wilson said.

  Behind us, a door opened and Chris, the bearded ghost hunter, entered carrying a camera and a tripod. He gave me a quick look, maybe surprised to see me—his fan from earlier.

  “Up here, I think, don’t you?” Ms. Wilson said, welcoming Chris to the front row of the audience. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “This ought to be good,” she whispered to him. Chris looked a little unsettled, but went about setting up the tripod and camera.

  “Let him go! You can’t hold people against their will like this,” I said, running toward the stage.

  “Lily, don’t be dramatic.” Ms. Wilson took a seat in the front row. “If you’d like to join me, there’s plenty of room.”

  A curtain at the side of the stage moved. I gasped as I noticed the barrel of a shotgun pointing at Morgan. He wasn’t yelling or saying anything, but he struggled against the bonds.

  Ms. Wilson turned to glare at me. “We know he has something to do with all this wolf business. I spent enough time with him to know he’s not normal.”

  “So you’re threatening him with a gun?”

  “I’m not,” Ms. Wilson said. “But my new friends are. Someone killed Mr. Pinter, my friend and one of their brethren. And blood for blood is how hunters roll.”

  “This is nuts,” I said, confronting Chris. “You’re okay with this?”

  He gave me a sheepish shrug. “I mean, it’s all good TV, right? I think Jill has enough material on this town to power a whole season.”

  “Jill?”

  “Me,” Ms. Wilson said, impatiently. “I do have a first name.”

  While this was going on, Morgan’s gaze moved toward the balcony. As stealthily as I could, I tracked his gaze. What was he trying to show me? Was Skyler hiding up there?

  Mr. Lindstrom stepped out from behind the curtain on the stage, his shotgun trained on Morgan. “He’s not human. I think you know that. Nothing’s been the same since he arrived here.”

  Morgan’s gaze shifted nervously to meet mine. I could see fear in his eyes, but then they closed. My mind filled with a picture of Skyler, hiding in the balcony. Then I caught the slightest whiff of Cooper’s cologne. He’d been through here at some point. He was nearby. And maybe my father, too.

  “I don’t understand any of this. Does this charade have something to do with your live broadcast?” I asked, addressing Chris. “It’s about as fake as Bigfoot.”

  “Hey!” Chris said.

  “Don’t play dumb,” Mr. Lindstrom said. “We have two specimens in wolf form. Now we have one in human form. One of these vermin killed Pinter. In my opinion, we should eliminate all three.”

  “You’re going to kill my boyfriend because of your silly theory?” I asked, a trickle of sweat rolling down between my shoulder blades. “Because you think he’s some kind of werewolf? Do you hear how crazy this sounds? Murder?”

  Chris looked uncomfortable but raised his camera, focusing on Morgan. I wasn’t sure he believed any of this was real. Maybe he’d edit out the murder part. But it would be good TV.

  “No one said anything about killing anyone. You get him to transform, then we don’t shoot him,” Bob Murphy said, his booming voice coming from the back of the auditorium. “We ain’t killers!” He sounded as if he believed that claim, but judging by the nasty look on Mr. Lindstrom’s face, I didn’t think he was on board.

  “He’s not going to change into some kind of beast!”

  Morgan struggled to say something through his gag. For that, he earned a kick in the legs from Mr. Lindstrom.

  I screamed, “Don’t hurt him. This is crazy! He didn’t kill Mr. Pinter!”

  Bob Murphy progressed down the aisle cautiously, seeming worried at the violent turn things had taken. He stepped toward my position at the edge of the stage. I didn’t know what I could do to help Morgan, but I didn’t want Lindstrom to hurt him again.

  “Stay back,” said Mr. Lindstrom as he raised the butt of the shotgun toward Morgan’s midsection.

  “They’re denying it, exactly as I said they would. Are you recording all of this?” Ms. Wilson asked Chris.

  “When you say ‘this’—you mean a kidnapped man being threatened?” he said, sounding a bit irritated. “I’m rolling, but this is nothing like the live feed from the garage. This is more like evidence for a lawsuit.”

  I’d made it up onto the apron of the stage, and I got to Morgan, stepping between him and Mr. Lindstrom. Morgan’s hands were bound behind him with a dark cord. At the hollow of his neck rested his lupine stone pendant, the charm that would keep him from any kind of transformation. There wasn’t a chance, even if they elicited extreme emotion from Morgan, that he’d turn.

  “I know you like this guy,” Bob said, climbing the stairs at the side of the stage. “But we have reason to believe he’s one of them.”

  “Reason?” I held my ground, blocking Mr. Lindstrom from swinging at Morgan again.

  “The trouble began when he arrived,” Bob said. “Your father going missing, then the livestock attacks, then the incident at Cooper North’s place.”

  Cooper. My gaze left Morgan and swept over the dark auditorium. Cooper’d been tricked into coming here, too. So where was he?

  “Norths have been in this town as long as Lindstroms and Murphys. But they weren’t in any of the old hunting society pictures I found. They’ve never done anything to protect this town,” Mike Lindstrom said.

  “Hunting innocent wildlife for sport is hardly protecting.”

  “You know what kind of protecting I’m talking about. Protection from the scourge that gripped Pioneer Falls. The Norths have never been part of the solution. Not now, not then. And their kin was spared in the great influenza epidemic,” Lindstrom said, making air quotes at the word influenza.

  A knot formed in my stomach. Of course Ms. Wilson had shared the records or copies of them with her newfound friends.

  “You best stand back,” a voice called from the upper balcony. My first thought was that it was my dad, because it sounded sure, commanding. But it was Cooper.

  Chris swung around with his camera, illuminating the bank of seats and showing Cooper, a rifle o
f his own trained on Mr. Lindstrom.

  “I don’t need to remind you I was a sniper, do I?” Cooper shouted.

  “We’re filming this!” Bob Murphy said, with a guffaw. “You going to shoot an innocent man?”

  “I don’t see one of those in front of me,” Cooper said, bitterness in his tone. “I see two locals kidnapping and torturing a young man from another country. Causing an international incident, if we get the state department and the British consulate involved. I guarantee you, they’ll agree with me.”

  I detected slight movement in the balcony on the other side of Cooper. Maybe Skyler, I thought. I hoped he had the sense to get out of the theater, get to safety. Slink out of Pioneer Falls, even, and never look back.

  Cooper chambered a round. The sound echoed through the auditorium.

  Mr. Lindstrom’s hands shook on the shotgun and he lowered it. “Should’ve known you were no good, just like your father. Always protecting those miserable vermin. Should’ve taken you out that night of the Harvest Festival when we had the chance.”

  In response, Cooper sent a bullet in the wing curtains, sending up a cloud of dust. As I ducked instinctively, I caught a glimpse of dark hair, a small figure, exiting the balcony. Skyler. Cooper had created a diversion to aid the kid’s escape.

  “Weapon down. Hands up!” Cooper yelled.

  I crawled behind Morgan and started working on untying the cords of his bound hands. Then I removed his gag. Mr. Lindstrom lay his shotgun on the ground, and then put his hands up in the air. Bob Murphy did the same. Chris pointed his camera up into the balcony, illuminating Cooper amid the rows of seats.

  “You may be freeing him now, but we’re going to get him one of these nights,” Mike Lindstrom spat. “You can’t protect him, and neither can Maggie.”

  I held back a growl. I didn’t like Maggie’s name being mentioned.

  Meanwhile, Ms. Wilson edged toward the exit. “Let’s get back to the live feed,” she said to Chris in what she must’ve thought was a quiet voice, but it carried in the theater.

  Morgan stood up in the chair, rubbing at his wrists, which were red and raw. “I was fine,” he whispered. “A setup. But not what they thought.”

  “Huh?” I pulled him over to the wings. Meanwhile, Bob and Lindstrom looked at each other, unsure of what to do next. Meanwhile, Chris was still taping.

  “I let them catch me. Lindstrom’s been trailing me for the last week. I knew he was suspicious. We found the chain locking the door cut. Cooper and I thought that maybe if they had me, they’d put more resources here—”

  “Leaving the garage, with Nathaniel and Jonah trapped there, with a skeleton crew,” I muttered, finishing the thought.

  Morgan nodded. “Cooper and Skyler were up there the whole time. I knew you didn’t have any reason to ask me to meet at the theater, love.”

  I nodded. “So what is happening at the garage?”

  Before Morgan could answer me, a scream pierced the darkness. Ms. Wilson had a tablet out and was looking at something. I guessed it was the live feed and something must’ve happened to the wolves.

  Morgan and I dashed down the steps of the little stage and came over to where Wilson stood, pale, her hand on her chest. Beside her, Chris looked confused as he stared at the small screen.

  “What’s happening? Is someone hurt?” I asked.

  “It’s a ghost.” Chris’s tone was high-pitched, disbelieving even as he said, “Holy crap. A real freaking ghost.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The live feed on the tablet’s screen featured dark things floating in the air above the caged wolves. The lights had been turned off in Ms. Wilson’s garage, but an infrared camera caught objects hurtling through the air. Dark things, big projectiles. I didn’t know if it was a poltergeist or not, but it was both beautiful and horrifying.

  The wolves snapped and howled at the swooping and whirling shapes, which began to look suspiciously like ravens in flight. Were the birds coming to the defense of the wolves, true to their ancient relationship?

  Beside me, Ms. Wilson shuddered. “Pure evil. I told you not to doubt me, Chris.”

  “It’s evil that you created!” My hands balled into fists. “You were so desperate to see some paranormal stuff, you didn’t care about what you awakened or who you endangered.”

  “I didn’t do anything. Well, except for writing ‘Scram’ and doing the other stuff at the house,” she admitted. “I wanted to bring Chris here to film his show and I needed something solid.”

  “I thought you cared about truth. What kind of a person are you?”

  “I’m a person who wants a book deal,” she sneered. “There’s enough here for a series! I could do one volume alone about the werewolves in this town and the hunters who’re trying to prevent another string of attacks! I was there that night. Not prepared to shoot anything, but along for the ride.” She paused, pointing a finger at me. “I saw that wolf transform into Mr. Gray, Lily. I know werewolves are real.”

  Morgan’s hand slid to my arm. “We should go,” he whispered. He glanced up at the balcony, sending some kind of signal to Cooper.

  But my mind was swirling, my anger collecting like the ravens whooshing over the crated wolves. “Is all of that stuff you teach us at school just crap? Are you even a real teacher?”

  Ms. Wilson’s eyes narrowed. “Lily…”

  Morgan climbed back up on the stage and started binding Bob’s and Mike’s hands with the cord. Cooper lowered his gun and vanished through the balcony’s exit doors, heading down.

  “This is real. We’ve got to get over there.” Chris gaped at the live feed, only halfway listening to me and Ms. Wilson. “Probably the most authentic activity we’ve ever captured.”

  “You can never write about this town,” I told her, stepping closer. “It’ll be dangerous beyond belief. If you can’t keep that promise, I’m sure we can convince you.”

  Ms. Wilson blanched. She took a step back. “Lily, your eyes.”

  I leaned closer. A growl gathered in my throat. “You’d risk the safety of the town, of my family to expose us. For what? A little notoriety? Some fame?” I was so angry, I almost didn’t care if Ms. Wilson realized I was a wolf. I wanted her to feel the fear, to scare her.

  Chris, still mesmerized by the live feed, was babbling about needing to get back to location one, the garage. By now, Cooper had joined Morgan, ensuring the hunters were tied securely.

  “What do we do with these guys now?” he asked, marching them down the stairs while Morgan gathered up their guns.

  “Maybe leave them out in the woods to spend the night? There’s no telling what will happen to them,” Morgan suggested. “With their ridiculous ideas, I’m sure they’ll think any wolf they run across might bite or scratch them and trigger their own metamorphosis. Maybe even an enchanted squirrel. How terrifying!”

  I caught Morgan’s glance, and his meaning. We were back to pretending these people were out of their minds. I took a deep breath, subduing the change I’d felt building in me, along with my anger. “I don’t know how much you had to drink that night Mr. Gray died, but you didn’t see what you thought you saw. And if you try to tell anyone about anything strange happening in town ever again, those imaginary creatures will probably hurt you.”

  Bob Murphy looked contrite. “Don’t tell your father about this. I don’t know why I went along with Lindstrom here. I wanted to know who burned down my shop. I thought it could’ve been Morgan, and maybe he returned to the scene of the crime to save me, look like a real hero in front of you. Win us all over.”

  I had to admit, that did sound like a good plan, but it wasn’t what happened.

  Cooper snorted. “It wasn’t him. He has a solid alibi. Everyone knows that.”

  “What about Pinter’s murder?” Lindstrom asked.

  “No clue, but I think the more you poked into the hunter history, the more upset you made folks. History’s not a weapon to use against future generations,” Cooper said. “Ar
en’t we all our own men? And women?”

  Bob and Lindstrom muttered their thoughts on that. Meanwhile, Cooper walked over and muscled the camera from Chris. “I’ll be taking this,” he said.

  “Hey!”

  “You’ll get it back. I just want a copy of the part where these clowns tied up Morgan and had a gun on him,” Cooper said. “Could be useful.” Chris backed away and he and Ms. Wilson took off running toward the lobby of the theater.

  We could’ve chased them, but instead we helped Cooper load Bob and Mike into the back of his work truck. I didn’t want to know where he was taking those jerks, but I did hope they’d run into a wolf out there in the night. A hungry one.

  ***

  “You sure you’re all right?” I asked Morgan as we peeled away from the theater. The truck sloshed through the puddles on Main Street as we sped back to Ms. Wilson’s house. I wanted to beat her and Chris there. And I figured Dad was on the scene already, hopefully trying to spring the wolves out of the crates. Reverend Sutton was probably trying to stop him.

  “Aside from my wrists aching a bit, I’m unhurt,” Morgan said, reaching out to brace himself against a wild turn I forced the truck into. “I have to say, for a moment I thought Cooper might kill those idiots.”

  “I knew he wouldn’t shoot them,” I said. “He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “Perhaps it would’ve been better if he had,” Morgan said, pulling down his sleeves to cover his wrists. “At least Cooper has the camera. The footage of them holding me at gunpoint is good leverage if they try anything.” Morgan paused, seeming to catch the worry surfacing in my eyes. “We won’t let them win. I know how much this town means to you and your family.”

  I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. I didn’t want to think about us being forced out. Beginning again in a new town under a new name. As flawed as Pioneer Falls was, it was home. Though I was new to being a werewolf, I could understand why Dad had been drawn to this place, to a home his father had once loved.