I waved Olaf over to a corner out of their hearing. “I want you and Yoofi to watch over them. The son and warden shouldn’t be a problem, but keep a close eye on Grimes.” Olaf’s dull gaze shifted past me to where the mayor continued to sob. “Restrain him if you have to, but no excessive force.”
Olaf gave a nod and returned to his position behind Grimes.
I called Yoofi inside and gave him the same instructions. I picked up the mayor’s sat phone from the table and programmed the number into my phone. Then I called it so his phone would grab my number.
“This is our communication system until ours is back up,” I said, handing Yoofi the mayor’s phone.
I expected Grimes to react, but he remained with his head on the table, defeated.
I jerked my head for Rusty to follow me from the office. Outside, I called Takara from the back, and the three of us boarded the van. Rusty took the wheel. As the engine started, the wipers beat to life, shoving away the snow that had accumulated on the windshield. More snow sliced past the van’s head beams. I decided to keep the machine gun in the cargo hold for the short ride and took a position beside the window with my MP88.
The mayor’s house was only a mile from the downtown. It was a cabin, like most of the housing around Old Harbor, the rooftop piled with snow. A window in the front room glowed with warm light. As we pulled up, I listened for the kenneled dogs Takara had mentioned, but they were quiet.
“Takara and I are going in,” I said. “Rusty, you’ll be on outside security.”
“Sure thing, boss, but how am I supposed to alert you?”
“Shout,” Takara said.
“Yeah, shout,” I agreed.
We stepped out of the van. “Knock on the front door like you did last time,” I whispered to Takara. “I’ll enter through the back in case Austin’s returned.” She nodded and we split.
I chose the lee side of the house, where there wasn’t as much snow. Ducking beneath the windows, I made my way toward the back. The fenced-in area with the kennels was just coming into view when I heard Takara knock. I took a position beside the back door, ready to pounce if Austin tried to slip out. But no one had emerged by the time the front door opened, Takara and Mrs. Grimes exchanged greetings, and the door closed again.
I wasn’t picking up a fresh scent on Austin either.
I cocked an ear toward the kennels. Still quiet. I hesitated when I realized it was too quiet. I couldn’t even hear breathing. I stepped toward the fencing until I could make out several of the dogs inside their shelters. They were lying on their sides as if sleeping, but I could see their mangled necks. Hackles stiffening, I raised my muzzle but I was upwind from them.
“Wolfe,” a familiar voice called.
Dammit. My rifle was loaded with conventional ammo. I began swapping it for a silver mag when the enormous figure of Aranck rounded the fencing. He strode toward me on all fours, unafraid.
“What have you done with my daughter?” he demanded.
In the trees beyond the kennel, the gold eyes of the pack glowed in and out of view. I could barely make out the wolves’ bodies in the driving snow. I was wondering how they’d found me when I remembered the binding power of our agreement. Aranck had a lock on me. But he was risking a lot bringing his pack to Old Harbor—a risk he’d tried to mitigate by killing the sleeping dogs. Still, the pack’s presence in town told me how badly they wanted Nadie back.
“I haven’t done anything with her,” I said. “She—”
“Liar,” Aranck growled. “She broke her connection to us, which could only have happened if she’d found a mate—and the mate accepted her.” Though the barrels of my weapon were pointed at him, he rose onto his hind legs as he arrived in front of me, exposing his muscled belly.
“I hunted with her,” I snarled, removing my helmet. “I offered her the heart as a courtesy. I didn’t know what it meant.”
“How dare you, whelp!”
Before I could react, rock-hard knuckles cracked across my jaw and knocked me into a backward stumble. My healing quickly absorbed the pain that flared through my mouth.
In its place grew a lupine rage.
With a savage roar, I threw my weapon aside and launched myself at Aranck. I ducked beneath his next blow and plowed into his chest. The force sent him back with a grunt. Locking my hands behind his thick waist, I continued to drive with my legs. With a jump and hard thrust, I pile-drove him against the ground, head first. The other wolves barked excitedly.
The snow that flew around us turned red as we rolled back and forth trading blows and slashes. I was in full wolf mode, reacting to his attack, but I felt the lupine in me fighting for something else—proof I was worthy of his daughter.
That extra motivation put us at a dead heat.
What the hell are you doing? I demanded of myself, even as I tore at Aranck’s shoulder with my teeth. This has nothing to do with the mission. But it was like telling a missile in flight to back off. I was going too fast, too hard. As much as I tried, I couldn’t regain control.
I fended off Aranck’s lunge at my throat and hammered him beneath the ear. With an angry roar, he flipped me. We launched into another series of rolls, blood trailing from our closing wounds.
A shot cracked, searing the air with the bite of silver.
Aranck and I stopped mid-roll and looked over. Expecting to find Takara, I was surprised to see Rusty standing at the corner of the house, M4 at his shoulder. He’d fired a warning shot, but now he leveled the barrel at Aranck. He looked from the Alpha to the ring of wolves and back.
“Should I plug him, boss?” he asked in a trembling voice.
Aranck growled and tried to lunge toward Rusty, but I grabbed the wolf’s legs and pinned him. We had both moved at preternatural speeds, making Rusty’s reaction—shuffling backwards—appear delayed. The sudden end to the fighting coupled with the threat to my teammate restored me. I panted as I continued to hold Aranck, who had exhausted himself as well.
“Keep your aim on him but hold fire unless he attacks,” I told Rusty.
“You’re too merciful,” Aranck snarled. “Nadie and her offspring would never survive with you leading them.”
Defiance surged fresh inside me, but I forced it back down. “I’ve made no commitment to your daughter, but that’s the least of our problems right now. She’s been taken.”
Aranck twisted so he was facing me. “Taken?”
“By the thing we’re hunting. The Wendigo.”
He stiffened at mention of the name. “How did this happen, Wolfe?”
“A group of hunters wounded Nadie. I carried her to a teammate to be treated. The Wendigo attacked them. It took Nadie and a teammate named Sarah.” I opened my mind to the collective so Aranck and the others could see the truth of what I was saying. Mournful howls rose from the pack.
Aranck bared his bloody teeth. “Then she is gone.”
“No, she’s in the Wendigo’s lair, with Sarah. We’re trying to learn its location. We think it’s at one of the sacred Cree sites in the region. Are there any nearby you know about?”
But Aranck was shaking his head, the fight from earlier seeming to have drained from his heaving muscles. “No, Wolfe. You are not understanding. When a shifter crosses the plane from this world, that shifter can never come back. Nadie has returned to the One Who Sits Above. She is gone.”
A desperate anger burned in my chest. “How do you know?”
“Because it is the way of the world.” Aranck stood and shook the snow from his body. His fur was bloodied, but his wounds had healed. Head hung, he plodded from me toward his pack.
His posture resonated with the widening hole in me where the connection with Nadie had once lived. But while the wolf in me grieved, I was struck by the sudden fear that Sarah might not be able to return either.
“What about my teammate?” I called after him.
“I care not for humans,” he rumbled. “They’re the reason the Cannibal is here.”
> I watched his massive silhouette merge into the others. The pack disappeared into the snow and trees.
“You all right, boss?” Rusty asked, snow crunching under his boots as he hurried toward me.
I straightened and turned toward him. “Already healed.” Before I could thank him, my sat phone rang. It was the database tech from Centurion.
“Megha,” I said. “What’d you find?”
“A lot of mentions of sacred Cree sites in the region, but no locations. And I’m afraid I’ve exhausted all of my resources. Most of that information is oral. You’ll need to consult a Cree.”
“We might have the next best thing,” I said, glancing toward the house. “Thanks for all of your help.”
“Anytime. It’s been an honor.”
As we disconnected, I locked her number away in my mind. Having a resource on the inside could come in handy down the line. I didn’t trust Centurion to always come through for us, and it still bothered me that Sarah had kept me in the dark about the skunk database.
The backdoor opened and Takara appeared. I’d glimpsed her in an upstairs window right after Rusty had fired his shot. She had taken an overwatch position, her barrel trained on Aranck’s head. The Alpha was lucky to be alive.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, just a visit from Aranck and his pack. They were looking for Nadie. When I told him about the Wendigo, Aranck said she was gone for good—something about shifter’s leaving our plane.”
“And Sarah?”
“I doubt the same rules apply to humans, given that the remains of the Wendigo’s other victims turned up. We still have a good shot of recovering her.”
“Mrs. Grimes is waiting. I told her my assistant would be joining me.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Your assistant?”
Takara turned to Rusty. “Remain on outside watch.”
“Yes, Mein Fuhrer,” he muttered.
“Thanks, Rusty,” I said as he trudged off.
I used a handful of snow to scrub the blood off my face before securing the helmet back over my head. Retrieving my MP88, I followed Takara inside. The warm cabin held the homey scent of smoke baked into wood. Takara led me to the living room, where I got my first view of Mrs. Grimes. The middle-aged woman was sitting in a recliner in layers of robes and thick socks. Medical glasses hid her eyes while an oxygen line ran from a cannula in her nostrils to a small tank she wore over a shoulder. I saw what Takara meant about her Cree features. Her skin was the color of leather, her jaw strong and square.
“Mrs. Grimes,” Takara said. “This is Jason.”
“Was that you shooting out back?” she asked.
I shook her outstretched hand with a thumb and two fingers. “Yeah, thought I heard a wolf prowling.”
“Surprised the dogs aren’t going crazy.” She cocked her head as if listening for them.
“As I was saying, Mrs. Grimes,” Takara spoke up, “I just had a few follow-up questions.” She had altered her voice to sound like a young academic, and it was entirely convincing.
“I can’t believe you’re still out here in this weather.” Mrs. Grimes oriented herself to Takara. “Forecast says it’s going to drop another foot.”
“What do you know about the Cree’s sacred sites?”
“Which ones?” Mrs. Grimes asked. “There are dozens around Old Harbor alone.”
Dozens? There wasn’t time to search that many. I thought about the direction the Wendigo had fled after taking off with Ms. Welch as well as with Sarah and Nadie.
“How about north of the Platt River?” I asked.
“That’s where most of them are,” Mrs. Grimes said. “The mountains and caves made good sites for ceremonies and vision quests. Many of them are still marked with old cairns and petroglyphs.”
“Do you have a map of their locations?” Takara asked.
“I did.” Mrs. Grimes’s face seemed to darken. “It was in a notebook I’d spent years putting together.”
“What happened to it?” I asked.
“Went missing.”
I remembered what Sean had said about an argument between his mother and older brother regarding the whereabouts of the book. I wanted to probe further, but I could feel her shutting down. And she was our last source of reliable info. “During your research, did you come across a being called a Wendigo?” I asked.
That seemed to bring her back. “I’d heard about the legend, but none of the Cree would talk about it. It wasn’t until I visited a reservation near Ennadai—that’s way out on the edge of the province—that I met an old man who wouldn’t stop talking about it. He lived in a beat-up Airstream at the end of a dirt road. The locals considered him a kook, but he was also rumored to be the oldest living Cree. So old that no one else on the reservation really knew him—he’d outlived everyone. He told me he practiced religious medicine at one time but was infected by White Man’s poison until he couldn’t practice anymore.”
“White Man’s poison?” I asked.
“Alcohol. Claimed it killed his connection to the spirit realm and made his hands shake. By the time I visited, his whole body was shaking. After answering some questions about the healing ceremonies he used to perform, he started talking about the Wendigo. Asked if I wanted to learn the ceremony to call it up. He had such a crazy look in his eyes, I almost told him no, but I was curious.”
She paused to cough into a handkerchief and fix her nasal cannula.
“He claimed the Wendigo was misunderstood,” she continued, “that it was nothing to fear. To call one involved eating human flesh, sure, but only because humans were the highest form of life. It was the ultimate offering. As such, it would bring god-like powers to anyone ready to ‘ascend,’ as he put it. That’s not what the legends say, though,” Mrs. Grimes said in a lowered voice. “The legends say the Wendigo will turn the person into a raving cannibal. I didn’t challenge him,” she continued. “Just wrote down the steps as the old man described them. It was all myth anyway. When he finished, he laughed and told me to share it widely. By then I was convinced he was a kook, but I kept the info anyway.”
“Did he say how to stop a Wendigo?” Takara asked.
“Not that I can remember,” Mrs. Grimes answered. “Just how to call it up.”
I thought about that. Had the Shaking Man wanted to inflict the curse of the Wendigo on the people he blamed for making him sick? To have Mrs. Grimes be the carrier? “Is there a way to reach this guy?” I asked.
“He didn’t have a phone or anything back then. And given it was twenty years ago, I doubt he’s even alive.”
I nodded to myself. “Do you still have the info you took down?”
“It was in the same notebook as the maps.”
“Did the book have a name?” I asked.
“I labeled it ‘Cree Beliefs.’”
I stood. “Is there a restroom I can use?”
“Go to the kitchen and take a left. First door on the right.”
I signaled for Takara to keep her talking as I made my way toward the back of the house. But instead of going to the bathroom, I continued down the hallway. I had picked up Austin’s stale scent upon entering the house, and it wasn’t hard to find his bedroom. It held a bed with a pine-wood frame, a dresser, and a scattering of clothes. I removed my helmet and sniffed. Amid the tapestry of smells, I honed in on a particular scent—a combination of paper and pen ink—and followed it to his closet.
In the wall above some shelving was a vent with a protruding corner. I worked my talons around the seam and pulled. The vent removed easily. I reached into the large duct and pulled out a pile of girlie magazines. Underneath them was a thick notebook. I turned it right side up and read the title.
Cree Beliefs.
I flipped through the pages of handwritten notes and pictures, but this wasn’t the place to go through it. Stashing the notebook in my pack, I stopped off at the bathroom to flush the toilet before returning to the living room. Mrs. Grimes turned her h
ead toward my heavy footfalls.
“When did your book go missing?” I asked.
“About six months back. I wanted to show it to someone, but it was gone.”
Enough time for Austin to learn the ceremony, I thought.
“It could be really helpful for my research,” Takara said. “Any idea who might have taken it?”
“Austin used to show it to his friends. He was proud of being part Cree. Believed all the myths, even though I told him they were stories and superstitions. He probably lost it somewhere.”
“When was Austin last here?” I asked.
“This afternoon. He cleaned out half the fridge, then said he had to go somewhere. I tried to tell him about the storm, but he wouldn’t listen.” She gave a resigned sigh. “’Course he doesn’t listen about the bear either. Claims that’s not what’s killing people.”
Takara and I exchanged a glance.
“Did he say what was killing people?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He doesn’t say much these days.”
“Did he at least mention where he was going?” I pressed.
Mrs. Grimes started to shake her head again, then stopped. “You’re not researchers, are you?” The muscles around her square jaw stiffened. “You’re those investigators my husband told me not to talk to.”
Before Takara could answer, I said, “Yes, we are.”
I expected her to scream at us to leave, but she laced her fingers across her small paunch and said, “Fine. What do you really want to know?”
“We agree with your son that something other than a bear is killing people,” I said. “He might be in danger. We need to find him. Did he ever visit any of the sacred sites north of the Platt River?”
“There was one place he liked to go. Locals call it Cavern Lake. You’ll find it on a survey map. The Cree used it for warrior ceremonies, something that fascinated Austin. He’ll often camp there when he goes on his overnight hunts.”
I nodded at Takara. That was it.
“Now please get out,” Mrs. Grimes said.
21
“Dammit,” I growled.
“What?” Takara asked from the passenger seat.
Blue Howl (Blue Wolf Book 3) Page 17