by John Conroe
“Deer have been very scarce this season,” Leclair said, getting her immediate attention. “And we found that moose carcass last month. Remember, Scott?”
The other guide broke off his not-so-subtle perusal of her figure and frowned at his companion. “I forgot about that. Young moose. Mostly just a skeleton. Coywolves had been at it,” Olson said.
“Had a broke neck,” Shorty interjected in his gravely voice. He’d pulled back a bit when the two younger guides had descended upon Lisa. Now he moved forward, watching her as he spoke. “We thought maybe a bigger bull did it banging antlers. It’s rutting season.”
Buck suddenly broke off his conversation with the IFW warden and joined the conversation. “You had a moose kill? How come no one mentioned that?”
The three guides exchanged a glance, then shrugged. “It was unusual but not creepy unusual. Animals die—it’s nature,” Pete LeClair said.
“So there you have it,” Rob Sounder said. “A bear that could kill a young moose happened on poor Morris.”
“Is that why you asked? You thinking about bears?” Buck asked Lisa.
“No. If this were grizzly country I’d think that a possibility, but the only bears around here are black bears, which I don’t think are usually moose killers. But newly turned weres often make kills that kind of stand out,” she said.
“What does a New York city werewolf expert know about Maine bears?” the game warden asked, his tone confrontational.
She sighed. “I happen to live in the city now, Warden Sounder, but I grew up in Vermont. My uncle’s a state trooper and my dad was military. Both hunted everything that you do up here. I know about local animals. Maybe we could go look at this kill site and then I’ll tell you what I think.”
“Getting late. Only a couple hours of daylight left,” Shorty said.
“Then let’s get to it. Do you have hunters out on watch?” she asked as the thought suddenly occurred to her.
“No. They’re spooked by Morris’s death. Been hanging here, playing cards, watching movies, drinking,” Shorty answered.
“Well, let’s get going. How far is it?” she asked.
“About three miles,” Buck said, turning and walking toward the Quonset hut. Lisa followed, and the other men trailed along behind her. She knew that if she spun around fast, she’d catch them checking out her butt. Men.
Warden Sounder, wearing a frown, turned toward his vehicle and the attached trailer as Lisa walked up even with him. Suddenly, Brady caught her scent and came up to all four feet, barking like she was the devil’s daughter. The young warden was caught by surprise, snapping around toward his dog, but Lisa spoke before he could do or say anything. “Hush it,” she snapped at the Shepard, her tone low and stern.
The big dog stopped barking instantly, tilting his head at her, and began whining uncertainly.
“I’m no threat to him,” she said to the dog, her voice rising up to its normal range.
The dog whined once more and lay back down next to his master in an alert but oddly submissive posture.
“Whoa, Sounder, she schooled your dog,” Olson said, laughing. The canine handler was looking at his dog in open shock, then up at the young woman who hardly weighed much more than the big Shepherd.
“Brady, come here,” he finally said, moving away toward his own vehicle. Glancing around, Lisa saw that Olson was grinning delightedly, LeClair looked surprised, and Shorty Kane wore a thoughtful expression.
Turning back forward, she saw Buck Thompson watching her as well, but as soon as she started moving, he went on ahead.
On the backside of the metal hut, a John Deere Gator and two ATVs were parked haphazardly. The four-wheelers consisted of a smaller Honda Fourtrax and a big blue Polaris Sportsman with a dedicated second rider seat. Buck started toward the Gator, then suddenly stopped and looked back at Lisa. She waved him on. “I’ll ride on the back of the Polaris.”
Pete LeClair shot a grin at his fellow guide and headed toward the Polaris, pulling a key from his jacket pocket as he went. Olson’s expression turned sour as he headed toward the Honda.
They climbed onto their rides and started motors. Lisa was very glad for the touring seat on the Polaris, as it would give her plenty of space between herself and her driver. Seconds after starting their engines, another motor revved up and the game warden came around the hut on his own ATV, his canine running alongside.
Less then ten minutes later, they were stopping at a junction where another, much smaller, foot trail headed off at an angle.
The motors shut off and shotguns came off of carry racks, at least for the three guides and the deputy. Actions cycled, chambering rounds. The warden was just armed with his sidearm. Lisa stepped away from the men and listened to the woods around them. The men had become tense as soon as they stopped and now they turned and looked at the slender, unarmed young woman who appeared more relaxed then any of them. Her head swiveled around to the east and both Shorty and Buck noticed that Brady’s head had turned in the same direction at the exact same time. Like they were both hearing something the others couldn’t. The two guides were ogling her form, and the game warden was just watching his dog.
After a second, Lisa turned back to the men, noticing their attention. A moment later, the big dog’s head turned back as well.
“Okay, down this trail, right? Can you let me go first?” Lisa asked, moving forward even as she spoke.
Buck glanced at Shorty and then waved her onward. She slipped past them with nimble steps that took her quickly into the woods. Suddenly, the group of armed men found themselves having to hustle to catch up. Despite their longer strides, she moved with a fluid grace that was deceptively fast.
Lisa ignored the others behind her, all of her exceptional senses trained on the woods around her. She could smell the blood ahead and the taint of something else, a scent that was very familiar to her. A male werewolf had marked trees somewhere up ahead, the urine smell strong.
She came upon the stand and took in the scene quickly, the clotted blood sprayed over half the clearing, the air almost overpowering with the scent of torn bowel, rank urine, and rotting blood. After a moment, she moved off to the right side of the clearing just as the men came up behind her.
“He stalked in here and waited, staying downwind,” she said, studying the brushy area behind the stand.
“How did you know to go there?” Warden Sounder asked, suspicious.
“Just told you. I know predators. The wind comes from the west and northwest. Mammalian predators almost always stalk into the wind. Ground is too hard for tracks, but I see little wisps of brown fur on that pinecone. You might want to collect that,” she suggested to Sergeant Thompson. “Just so, you know… when you turn that over to a lab and it won’t classify as a known species, it’ll automatically get bumped up to the feds and they will classify it as werewolf. Then you’ll have either FBI or DOAA or both.”
“DOAA?” Buck asked.
“Directorate of Anomalous Activity… federal monster hunters,” she answered.
“How can you be certain it’s a werewolf?” Warden Sounder asked, a little exasperated. His dog, Brady, sat next to him, nose sniffing and ears listening nervously.
Because I can smell it, she thought.
“Because it stalked this man, tore him apart with excessive force, and didn’t eat him. Because I can see indents in the ground where it dug its claws in to leap, and the pattern is canine—four claws, symmetrical structure. Yet the spread of the claws is bigger than your hand, so not a regular wolf. Much bigger then any wild wolf,” she said. “And over there, in that big spray of blood, you can see where four big paws blocked the spray. Look at the distance between all four paws. What’s that—seven feet from front to back, three, maybe three-and-a-half side-to-side straddle?”
“Ah, your narrative is off,” Buck Thompson said.
She frowned at him. He spoke before she could dispute him. “Autopsy indicates the heart is missing. So it may have
, in fact, eaten part of him,” he said.
Oh no, she thought.
“What?” Shorty asked, alarmed at the look on her face.
“That’s bad. Killing a human is very bad. Eating one is an abomination. Immediate death sentence. Who was the victim?” she asked.
“Wait—death sentence? What are you talking about?” Buck asked, not liking talk of executions.
“Weres and vampires have always been among us. They police themselves, always have. Mainly it was to avoid detection. But now the cat is out of the bag and their leadership is worried about incidents. That’s to be avoided at all costs. The history of predators who prey on humans has not been very kind to those predators. That’s why there are so many fewer lions, tigers, bears, and wolves than there used to be. The only ones to get away without extermination have been either humans themselves, domestic dogs, or supernaturals who have, until recently, managed to stay hidden. Stirring up base fears will only lead to witch hunts,” she said, mentally cringing as she said the last two words.
“You’re saying that other werewolves will kill this one for hunting and eating a human?” Shorty asked.
“Pretty much. A newly turned were might kill a human in a fit of rage or loss of control. That’s bad. But it looks to me like this one stalked the hunter and then ate his heart. That’s a dominance thing. That’s rogue. Who was this hunter?” she asked again.
“Morris Alcombe the Fourth,” Buck said. “His family used to own the paper mill in town. After his father died two years ago, Morris sold the mill to a big paper company that promptly shut it down.”
“And destroyed the local economy in the process. Morris wasn’t a popular guy, was he?” Lisa asked.
“The current story is that he was mauled to death by a bear. The locals want to give the bear a medal,” Buck said.
“How does a girl… er… woman who lives in New York City know so much about werewolves and their laws?” Sounder asked.
“Where do you think weres live, Warden? Out here in the great wilderness?” she asked, speaking again before he could answer. “Granted, it’s a great place for them to run, but werewolves spend at least eighty-five percent or more of their lives as humans. That means jobs, houses, schools, and society. Werewolves organize in packs. A single werewolf could possibly stand it up here, but they’re generally extremely social, maybe more so than regular humans. So packs need economies that work. The biggest pack in North America lives in New York City.”
“You’re saying they live in cities for jobs?” Sounder asked.
“Is that so hard to imagine? They’re doctors, lawyers, teachers, construction workers, business owners, store clerks,” she said.
“And just what job do you have that you know so much about them?” Sounder asked.
She’d known that question would be coming. After running a half-dozen lies, partial lies, and fabrications through her head on the drive up, she’d decided on the simple truth.
“I work for the Demidova Corporation,” she said.
They all looked at her: the three guides, the warden, and the sheriff’s deputy, who paused in the act of tweezering the pinecone into an evidence bag.
“What do you do for them?” Olson asked.
“I fix problems, and you gentlemen, have a serious problem. This isn’t a mauling—this is a murder. Somebody killed Mr. Alcombe with calculated intent and ate his heart.”
Chapter 3
They got back to the hunting camp just after dark. The men had become noticeably anxious as the sun went down, but Lisa stayed calm. Brady, the police dog, took his cue from her rather than his warden partner.
“Do you have any open rooms in the lodge I can rent?” Lisa asked Shorty.
“What?” both he and Buck asked at almost the same time.
“I need a place to stay and I didn’t see any motels on the way in or out of town. Plus, this is close to the murder scene. You serve meals too, right?”
“Well, ah,” Shorty began, looking to the deputy, who simply shrugged. “Yeah, got rooms. Cabins are all booked. We do breakfast and dinner and offer a bag lunch.”
“Works for me,” she said, heading for her Jeep. Buck followed.
“You can’t go running around the crime scene unescorted and unarmed like you did tonight,” he said.
She had followed the werewolf’s trail out of the deer stand and then disappeared into the thick Maine woods for a solid fifteen minutes, which had left all the men sullen and anxious.
Opening the back of the Jeep, she pulled a duffle bag and a short nylon case from inside. “First, Sergeant Thompson, I’m far safer out there than any of you. I know all about werewolves… you don’t. I went into the wind. The dog, Brady, would have alerted if anything had been out there. Second, who says I’m unarmed?” she asked, hefting the gun case. “Speaking of which, you packing silver ammo in that Sig Sauer and your Mossberg 930?” she asked before he could answer her first question.
“Yes,” he answered, frowning.
“What about Shorty and the others?”
“Shorty makes his own silver buckshot,” he admitted, a bit grudgingly.
“Does he? Resourceful,” she said. “So if there’s nothing else, I’m going to check out my room and get ready for dinner.”
“What kind of plan do you have for tomorrow?” he asked.
“Two parts. I’d like to follow the werewolf’s trail a bit tomorrow morning, and then I think we need to look at your incident reports for the last few months, particularly at the times of the full moon. See if anything pops out.”
“Tonight is the last night of the full moon, or does it have to be the night of absolute full?” he asked.
“New weres have to change at full moon. Primarily the fullest night, but usually the night before that and the night after as well. But Sergeant, weres don’t need a full moon to transform. Once they’ve had their first one, they can do it at will. Also, they are a lot stronger and faster than normal humans, even in normal form.”
“That’s just great. How much stronger?” he asked.
“Regular handcuffs aren’t much use. Lock one in the back of a patrol car and you’ll be needing at least one new rear door.”
“Bellini never mentioned that,” he said.
“That’s because regular cops don’t arrest weres. Or if they do, the weres know not to resist.”
“You can’t tell me that none of them resist?” he asked.
“Not if they want to keep living. Their Pack will ensure that. But sometimes one will slip a cog or their mental train never went all the way around the track to begin with. Those become rogues. They’re a danger to everybody and everything. Those get put down… fast.”
“Who puts them down?” he asked, frowning. “You?”
“Anyone who can. I haven’t. Put down a lot of other stuff, but not a were.”
“And Demidova Corp has a lot of interaction with werewolves? Enough that you’re an expert?” he asked.
She shouldered her bag, carrying the short case in her other hand. “As I said, werewolves need jobs. Demidova has great jobs.”
“So you work with werewolves and vampires?” he asked, tone slightly incredulous. “Anything else? Zombies maybe?”
“Hmm, you’d be amazed at the folks I work with,” she said with a smile. “Have a good night, Sergeant. Go home to your wife and daughter.”
“How’d you know I have a wife and daughter?” he asked, suspicious, like maybe she had psychic powers or something.
“I saw a picture on the corner of your desk. It’s visible from the front door, you know,” she said.
“Oh, right. Well, good night. I’ll be around by eight,” he said, unlocking his truck.
Lisa headed to the lodge. The main door opened into a hallway with a large coat, boot, and gear room immediately off the left, racks hung with enough smelly camouflage for a small army. Across the hall, two pairs of washers and dryers occupied the room on the right. The rest of the short hallway led into
a main room, floored with wide pine planks and walled with tongue and groove knotty pine. It took up the whole back of the building. A big stone fireplace, large enough to roast a small pig, crackled with flame on the left end of the room, beat-up couches and chairs arranged around it. An old rear projector, large-screen television and satellite receiver occupied the back corner nearest the fireplace, with additional seating in front of it. It appeared that NFL football was currently playing. Two men lay back in La-Z-Boy recliners, watching the game.
A short bar occupied much of the back wall, complete with two beer taps and a rack of liquor bottles. A staircase, with railings made of bent and finished twigs and branches, climbed the rest of the back wall, rising from the middle of the room to the upper right corner, where a balcony started to encircle the end of the room.