“Did you...?” his father started to ask.
“We found him this way,” Rafe said.
“Cause of death?” Rafe’s father asked.
Cameron said, “Looks like his spine has been severed. The poor bastard didn’t have a chance of surviving that.”
Rafe didn’t have to glance over his shoulder to know that Cara would be watching. She might have had foreknowledge of this death, but she could not have had a hand in it. The time lapse between hearing the gunshot tonight and finding Cara with Jonas had been no longer than a minute at most. He had accompanied her here himself. So who else had been out there?
Going into full cop mode, Rafe reasoned that only two things he knew of could have severed this man’s spine.
“Has to be either a strong werewolf’s claws or a chain saw,” he said. “What about Jonas?”
“Never,” his father replied. “Jonas would not harm a human like this, and we all know it.”
“I meant, has there been word from him yet about this?” Rafe clarified.
His father shook his head.
“So, who did it?” Rafe’s mother asked. “Jonas isn’t the only Lycan in the world with a gift enabling him to change tonight and do this kind of damage to an intruder wishing us harm.”
“After handing your houseguest over to us, Jonas was long gone,” Cameron said. “While Rafe went east, I followed Jonas to the west. It was on our return that I met up again with Rafe and we found this guy.”
“There might have been two hunters, and Jonas went after the other guy, leaving this one to us,” Rafe added.
“You found him here, where he lies?” his mother asked.
“Yes, but my guess would be he was dumped here,” Rafe said.
“I agree,” Cameron chimed in.
“Well, if this guy was a wolf hunter, it would seem that someone did us a favor, though it was a particularly grisly one,” Rafe’s mother remarked.
“And it would also suggest that he didn’t know anything about Weres,” Rafe said. “Unless, of course, this guy and his friend had gotten wind of Jonas prowling the park all wolfed up. But how would any human know about that when very few Weres do?”
“Jonas often prowls that park,” Cameron reminded them. “Maybe one of these guys saw him and hatched a plan.”
“Or else someone besides a nasty vampire or two knew about Cara’s arrival,” Rafe’s father suggested.
All eyes turned to the alpha.
“No one else could know about Cara,” Rafe countered. “Hell, only a select few know about us.”
“So why would a wolf hunter be in this park tonight or be dumped at the foot of our wall?” Rafe’s mother asked. “Maybe we’re wrong about this guy being a hunter. Perhaps he was just an idiot with bad intentions, shooting at the wrong person out there who then retaliated.”
“A person with the ability to sever his spine?” Rafe said.
“It seems that we have more investigating to do,” Rafe’s father concluded. “And we just happen to be good at that.”
Cameron nodded. “I’ll call it in and let the PD try to reason this one out. Determining the cause of his injuries will keep everyone busy. But finding him so close to the wall means we will be involved.”
Rafe’s father nodded. “We’ll have to be doubly on guard with so many others snooping around.”
His comment had mainly been meant for Cara. Had she heard it?
Rafe still felt her attention on him and didn’t mention anything about the possibility that Cara’s howl had covered up a Banshee’s warning to the others. Especially after seeing her in full wolf form, everyone knew what Cara was capable of. He didn’t need to fill in the details. His take was still that she had shape-shifted in the park so as not to scare either him or Cameron by presenting a part of herself she preferred to keep hidden.
Death has come, she had said.
“You wouldn’t have liked it,” she messaged to him now after gaining access to thoughts he hadn’t protected from her. “You wouldn’t have understood what the spirit inside me does.”
Rafe didn’t want to ask the next question, but he did anyway.
“Did you have anything to do with this guy’s death?”
Her reply was immediate. “It’s a hellish injury inflicted by a monster. But I also smell wolf around it. The Banshee can’t kill. She merely predicts death and calls death to its mark.”
“Merely?” he messaged back.
The lips he had kissed would have uttered those words of explanation aloud if Cara had been there beside him. Cara’s hidden entity was a death caller, so Cara also had a kind of forced relationship with death. It was no surprise how well this would go down with a species like vampires.
What it also could imply, however, was that through the spirit she carried around, Cara might be able to predict the time and place of the death of everyone standing here. This realization should have turned him away. The barest hint of the idea should have made him rethink his connection to her.
As if that was actually possible.
“Rafe.”
His mother brought him out of thought.
“Is it too late to say I’m sorry?” she asked.
* * *
Cara didn’t require the help of Weres in law enforcement to find the answers about the body at foot of their wall. She could get those details if she was allowed more time in the park. But in order to get that time, she needed Rafe’s understanding. She’d have to explain more to him about herself, and that would be more discomforting than a few broken bones.
The injury had become little more than a nagging ache that any wolf could have handled. By tomorrow, she’d regain some use of her hand. Dana would see to bandaging the injury soon. Rafe’s mother would also come looking for Cara about her missed meal, avoiding any inquiry about the body at the wall in favor of treating a guest with kindness and respect.
The party near the wall began to disperse. Cara supposed all of them realized she was there, observing them from her perch on a shadowed section of that wall, though they let that slide.
Only the strongest and smartest Weres had successful and long-lived wolf packs. The silver-haired alpha of this pack took the wall as if it was a minor hurdle. Dana followed him. Cameron headed off across the park, speaking on a cell phone. When the other three were gone, Rafe said, “You can come out now.”
Cara walked toward him along the top of the wall with the agility of a cat rather than a wolf.
“Do you know who did this?” he asked, looking up at her.
“No.”
“But you knew it would happen?”
“Yes.”
She gave Rafe time to absorb her answer. He then said, “Are there going to be any more surprises before the next sunrise?”
An expression of wary relief crossed Rafe’s handsome features when she didn’t answer.
“I’m going to be called in to investigate this body,” he said. “Other cops will arrive in force any minute now. Can you hear the sirens? If any part of this was the work of a Were, the humans on the force can’t be allowed to figure that out. If this guy was a human on a bender with a gun, they’ll have to hunt for the missing weapon, as well as the blood an injury like this should normally have left behind.”
He hesitated before continuing. “Did vampires have anything to do with the lack of blood at the scene, Cara? Did they get to this guy after he was injured? If he was dumped here, who brought him? All those questions need to be answered to start the ball rolling.”
“Vampires got to him,” she said. “I can smell their presence as well.”
Rafe didn’t like that news. “Damn it. Monsters and wolves and vampires, all at once, would muddy things up. This was an act of brutality against a human, and we don’t condone such things.”
“What do you do when the h
unters come?”
“In the past, we turned them in.”
“And when they talked about the existence of werewolves?”
“They were declared certifiably insane.”
Cara supposed that might be true. “We can find the weapon this human used if we look.”
Rafe shook his head. “What you need to do is get out of sight before everyone arrives.”
The wail of the sirens he had mentioned became louder, and was in some ways similar to the Banshee’s cry. Cara decided to share that thought.
“Sirens also mean that someone has died, or could be about to die, right? In that case, death is only a possibility. I don’t have the option of offering a way out for the victims my spirit attaches to. When the Banshee cries, death answers.”
She took a breath and continued. “Only one dark spirit has ever dared to try to change that outcome, and that spirit was doomed to reside within the living body of my relatives. After my mother’s turn at playing host, she passed that spirit along to me.”
“I’d like to know more about that, and about what you feel,” Rafe said earnestly. “I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like.” He swore under his breath and waved a hand at the park. “There are deaths all over a city like Miami. Can you see all of them, or only a few?”
Because he honestly wanted to know the answer to that question, Cara obliged. “Through the spirit, I can see the deaths of those closest to me.”
Rafe looked at the body on the ground. “Then this guy got close? He could have been the shooter?”
“Yes. But...”
Rafe’s gaze came back to her. “But?”
“He wasn’t the one who got closest to me out there.”
He stared at her as if not knowing what to make of that. He didn’t know about the demon or the other presence she had sensed on the sidelines. Perhaps that mysterious second person had been the killer Rafe’s pack would seek. She could help Rafe in one small way if she broke the rules that had been imposed on her, and on her family before that. She could give him a heads-up and face the consequences if there were to be any.
“You won’t find the next body for a while,” she said. “But there will be one.”
* * *
The fact that there was to be another death and he now knew about it made Rafe’s head swim. His next question was a no-brainer. “Who, Cara? Who is going to die?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s not information meant for me. Telling is cheating, don’t you see?”
He didn’t actually see that at all, but there was no time to delve deeper into spirits and curses. The sirens had ceased. Officers parked along the boulevard would now have entered the park. The ground shook slightly with the effort the officers were making to get to the scene.
“Go, Cara,” Rafe directed. “Go now.”
He was happy to see that she heeded his request so he could face the oncoming investigators. These were guys he knew. Guys he worked with. Besides himself and Cameron, there were three more Weres disguised as human cops and detectives in this area, and Rafe hoped at least one of them would be on duty and know whose wall this was.
Still, he also figured that Cara wouldn’t go far. Not only that, but she was withholding information that was pertinent to this case. Any cop worth his salt could have picked up on that.
“I’ll see you later,” he said aloud with a glance at the house. “Count on it.”
Chapter 17
It wasn’t Dana waiting for her this time. The silver-haired alpha stood on the porch.
“Tell me about what happened,” Dylan Landau said calmly. “Dana said someone called to you from out there tonight. Who was it? What was it about?”
Did she owe this alpha the truth in payment for the help the Landaus had given her family in the past?
“Demon,” she said.
Creases appeared on Dylan Landau’s forehead. He hadn’t really been expecting that kind of a reply. His tone changed to one of concern. “Can you explain?”
Dana interrupted, emerging from the open doorway. “About that injured hand?”
No one here had been fooled by her sudden appearance. Dana wasn’t going to be left out of these discussions.
“There hasn’t been a demon sighting near here, as far as I know,” Dylan said.
“Demons are everywhere and rarely show themselves unless they want something,” Cara explained. “This one looked like a human and smelled like cooked flesh.”
Her description was graphic enough to cause a temporary silence on the porch before Dana said, “Actually, we have seen them.”
The alpha looked to his wife.
“In those older times, when Rosalind called them out of hiding,” Dana said.
“Why would it call you, Cara? How did it know you’re here?” Dylan asked.
“It’s possible that rumors spread after tonight’s vampire event at the beach,” Cara replied. “This demon could have sensed my vibration the way Weres sense disturbances in the areas they frequent. It was waiting for me out there.”
“It knew your name?” That question was from Dana.
Cara shook her head. “It called to a dark spirit, and I showed up. That spirit is chained to my soul. Where it goes, I go.”
She doubted whether either of these Weres could comprehend the complexity of spirits and vibrations. For them, even vampires were a nuisance of the past. Banshees and demons would be on another level.
“So this demon knows about what’s hidden inside you?” Dana asked.
“Everything composed of darkness knows that about me,” Cara replied.
Dana said, “Could the demon have killed the human in the park?”
“The demon that called to me was killed by a bullet that might have been meant for me. Maybe I was your hunter’s target, and he missed.”
“In which case the demon couldn’t have killed the man we found,” Dylan surmised.
“Unless there were two hunters out there tonight, as Cameron and Jonas thought, and only one of them got away,” Dana said.
Dylan looked at Cara. “Perhaps the best thing to do, for your safety, would be to take you home. Then again, if there are demons around, it’s possible that only you could recognize their presence from far enough away that we could do something about it. If you stay here, you can help.”
Dylan Landau had given her an out by suggesting she could go home. All she had to do was say the word and that big black car would pull up, ready to whisk her away. Hadn’t that been her wish from the start? However, there were now reasons to stay. The past had to be put in order.
And then there was Rafe.
“Do you want to go home, Cara?” Dana asked.
“No. But it has been long day. I’d like to rest.”
“One more thing,” Dylan said before she reached the door.
Cara easily anticipated what he would say next.
“It would be wise not to let Rafe be the deciding factor in what direction your next few days take,” Dylan said. “I think you know why.”
She repeated the word she had thought to herself earlier. “I’ve never had a friend. Rafe is the first.”
That wasn’t actually a lie. But already, Rafe was so much more than that.
Tired, hungry, Cara followed Dana upstairs to her room. Dana had a tray that contained an assortment of food and a mug of aromatic, rapidly cooling liquid for her to drink.
For all of that, Cara felt grateful.
Real fatigue didn’t set in until she had been left alone in the room her mother had used so long ago. Though Dana also had brought up a bag of medical supplies and quickly bandaged her hand before leaving, intuition told Cara she wasn’t going to be alone for long.
She could almost imagine what Rafe’s upbringing must have been like in a mostly normal Were family that was s
o different from hers. Was she wrong to envy Rafe for that?
It was after midnight and the room was warm in spite of the open window. A soft breeze did nothing to alleviate the stifling weight of Miami’s humidity. Cara sat on the sill with the mug of tepid tea. At home, she and her father would have been hunting until dawn if a demon had dared to set foot on Kirk-Killion land. They’d be scouting for more of them until the sun came up.
Here, Rafe and other city law-enforcement officers would take care of the surface mess associated with the body they had found. Even after sunup, however, they’d be in the dark in the search for an intruder able to sever a human spine.
As part of both investigating teams, Rafe would have a long night ahead. Like Rafe, she wasn’t used to resting until a task was done. But she had to leave this to others for now. In a city as large as Miami, there could be hundreds of demons. Each shadowy street might hide a nest of hungry vampires.
Cara studied the area from her perch at the window. There were lights on the other side of the wall, and more raised voices. Those disturbances alone would keep lurking demons and human hunters away. Light had always been the bane of monsters while being a relief to everyone else. Instead of having her father watch over things, the Landau pack would take on that task.
With new memories of her own, she turned to stare at the room where ghosts of the past still lingered, hoping for once that thoughts of Rafe Landau might chase those ghosts away.
* * *
All of the big boys in law enforcement were there eyeing each other as forensics techs surveyed the scene. There was plenty of muttering among them. Four Weres, two in uniform and the others in jeans, studied the scene with blank cop faces, though their thoughts came to Rafe like shouts.
“Looks like we have a new problem.”
“We’ll need to gather the packs and get to the source of this mess.”
“Has to have been a wolf. Who else could manage something like this?”
“These forensics bastards will have a field day and get nowhere.”
“We’ll have to make sure they get nowhere.”
“We have to beat them to the place where this guy was killed and see for ourselves what turns up.”
The Black Wolf Page 12