While she organized that and helped Jim and Mike to complete the task of processing Rosemary’s remains, Eli began organizing the rest of his men and planning a systematic search of anyplace that Bill Evans was known to frequent in either of his forms. Greg and Will had already been to the man’s home and searched the immediate vicinity, but since the Evanses had lived on a quiet street with plenty of other houses around, they hadn’t expected the search to yield anything beyond what it did. Which was nothing.
Josie was just prepping her only set of tranquilizer darts with three-milliliter doses of the high-potency sux when the clinic’s back door flew open and Rick Cobb crashed inside.
“Pace!” he shouted, sharp and breathless. “Where the hell are you?”
Eli broke away from his deputies and took a step forward. “Where the hell am I? Where the hell have you been? Did you get my message?”
“Message? Unlike our local police force, every single member of which appears to be sitting in the back of a vet’s office at the moment, I haven’t had the time to catch up with my phone tree. I need you or at least one of your men to come with me. Now.”
Eli’s entire frame went taut. “Why? What happened?”
The Alpha’s expression hardened. “There’s been an attack. One of my men has been injured.”
Josie felt the attention in the room suddenly shift to the Lupine. It was as if he’d turned into a giant magnet and they were all obedient pieces of metal. She might not be a mind-reader, but she could make a damn good guess as to what each of them was thinking, too. It started with a Bill and ended with an Evans.
“Where?” Eli demanded, but he didn’t wait for an answer before he gestured to his men and grabbed the air gun Josie had dug out of the storage room just a few minutes earlier. She had leapt into motion as well and was grabbing up her darts and heading for the door.
“He’s at Dr. Shad’s office right now getting emergency treatment,” Rick answered, “but he was attacked out near your place. By that little stream that runs along the back of your property.”
Eli stopped and turned to stare at the Lupine in confusion. “What the hell was he doing out there?”
“I didn’t ask. I was too busy trying to keep him from bleeding to death to worry about that.”
Josie stepped forward. “Has he shifted recently? Is he in human form?”
“Of course Jackson is human, otherwise Dr. Shad wouldn’t be treating him. He doesn’t treat shifters in animal form. The anatomy is too different.”
Rick looked surprised and annoyed by the question, but Josie didn’t care how stupid he thought it was.
“Good. You need to make sure your Jackson stays that way while we go try to find Bill, or there’s a good chance he’ll end up like Rosemary. Or worse, like Bill himself.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” the Alpha demanded in a rough bark. “What do Bill and Rosemary have to do with this? They’ve been here for a week now, and even if they’ve left, unless their condition greatly improved without you telling me, neither one of them had a reason to shoot Jackson, let alone the ability to hold a gun. That’s a lot easier to do with opposable thumbs, from what I hear.”
Now it was Josie’s turn to look confused and Eli along with her. “Shot? You mean it wasn’t a wolf attack? Bill wasn’t the one who attacked your friend?”
“What the—? Of course not! Are you kidding me? Bill is locked up in here, isn’t he? Trapped in wolf form. Or am I missing something significant here?”
“I think we all are,” Eli said with a sigh. “And I think that right now, you ought to sit down while I get you caught upon our side.”
He summarized for the other man what had occurred between Rosemary and Bill last night, as well as what they had learned about Bill’s condition. Rick’s expression shifted farther toward confusion with every word until that became too mild a word for it. By the time Eli finished, the Lupine appeared absolutely dumbstruck.
“I had no idea,” he muttered, finally sinking onto the seat Eli had suggested he take several minutes ago. “People are talking about why the whole sheriff’s department appears to be parked behind the vet clinic this morning, but no one thought it could be anything serious. Since when does serious shit happen in Stone Creek, for the moon’s sake?” He looked at Josie. “Rosie is really dead?”
She nodded, feeling a renewed wave of grief at seeing him react to the loss. “I’m afraid so.”
“And now you know why we jumped to the conclusion that Bill had to be responsible for the attack on Jackson,” Eli said, “so now why don’t you explain what you’ve been talking about when you say Jackson’s been attacked or shot or whatever.”
“No whatever,” Rick said. “He’s definitely been shot. Dr. Shad confirmed it just before he started digging the bullet out of his shoulder. His guess is a .50-caliber hunting rifle, but he’ll know for sure when he gets a look at it. I came here looking for you so you could help me track down the fucking bastard who did it. Do you think it could be the same one who shot Rosemary?”
“The same ammunition is too big a coincidence to overlook, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That’s one of the most popular ammo choices for deer rifles, after all. And shooting a human-looking Lupine is a bit different from shooting what looked clearly like a wolf.” He shook his head. “It’s too early to make the call. Especially when you add in the fact that the attack happened on my property, near where I was attacked by someone with the intent to possibly inject me with the same virus that made Rosemary and Bill sick.”
“Which still doesn’t make sense to me,” Josie grumbled as she struggled to put together puzzle pieces that didn’t seem to want to fit. “If this virus is Lupine-specific, it would be worse than useless to attack you with it, since it wouldn’t infect you and the idiot who tried it risked being caught. In fact, he almost was.”
Eli shrugged. “Maybe Steve can tell us more once he gets here. In the meantime, I do think it’s worth it if Rick and I go see if we can track down who took the shot at Jackson. Do you want to wait here for Steve, or go consult with Dr. Shad about whether or not Jackson got hit with a needle?”
Josie felt her eyebrows fly toward her hairline. “Truthfully? Neither. I’m pretty sure Jackson would have mentioned if someone had stuck a damn big hypodermic in him somewhere, and Steve won’t be here for another couple of hours. Can I help you and Rick?”
“Not a chance in hell, darlin’,” Eli said firmly, his jaw clenching.
She sighed, unsurprised by that answer. “I’m going to go crazy if I have to stay here while you and Rick go off and play the Great White Hunters. At least I’m as immune to the damn virus as you are. Are you sure Rick should be going with you? Why not take a deputy instead?”
“He might not be immune, but he’s an Other and a Lupine and one of the better trackers in the area. Frankly, I need him along.”
“And I intend to go along,” Rick agreed. “This is happening to my pack. I’m not going to stand aside and let someone else take care of my responsibilities, no matter what I might catch along the way.”
“Fine,” she growled, the frustration of impending inactivity weighing heavily on her. “I’ll stay here and keep the bloody home fires burning.”
Rick snorted, but Eli just yanked her to him and kissed her, hard.
“I’ll call the minute we find out something important. I promise. I’m not cutting you out, just trying to have each of us stick with what we’re best at.”
“Diplomat.” She shoved him out the door before her impatience got the better of her. “Go. Hopefully your friend Steve will break some aviation laws about speed and helicopters, and I won’t be sitting around like a useless idiot for long.”
They left without another word, which was far too eagerly for Josie. She took to pacing around the room until the deputies scattered like sparrows from a house cat. Ben had more fortitude. He outlasted them by a good thirty seconds.
“Would you stop that?” he f
inally demanded, slamming the phone down in its cradle. “You’re reminding me of the way the wolves would never keep still. If you’re going to rip my liver out, I’d rather you just have done with it now and save me the sense of anticipation.”
She glared at him. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Whatever. Since you’re in such a cheery mood, I’ll leave you here to wait for the paint to peel,” he griped. “I’m going to go pick up a box of stuff the Near Shore Wildlife Center is going to let us use. I’ll be back before I know it.”
She ignored him. Other than flicking an obscene gesture at his back as he limped out to his car.
Of course, she instantly felt guilty and childish. None of what was going on was Ben’s fault. In fact, none of it had all that much to do with him, but it had turned her life completely upside down, and she was taking out her unhappiness on whoever happened to get in her way at any given time. That was unfair.
And really not as satisfying as she had hoped.
With any luck, Eli and Rick would be able to actually find out something useful. She crossed her fingers and turned to start another lap.
The tracks at the site of Jackson’s shooting turned out to be even easier to follow than the ones by the stream had been. This time, Eli located a single set of tracks by searching for and finding another carefully constructed hunter’s blind.
“Okay, forget what I said back at the clinic,” he told Rick. “It’s definitely the same shooter. It’s the exact same MO—treat it like a deer hunt, only shoot at the Lupine, not the mule deer. This guy’s a real bastard.”
“No argument.”
He didn’t have to point out the tracks leading away from the blind to Rick; the Lupine’s eyesight was as keen as his, and his nose arguably better. Certainly the other shifter was more attuned to following a particular scent like a pointy-eared bloodhound. They moved swiftly and silently through the woods, occasionally side by side along the path of the shooter’s footprints, and occasionally with Rick roaming outward to follow the airborne scent that drifted slightly downwind from the actual path.
They hiked a good forty minutes in the wake of those footprints, and Eli could see the Lupine’s tension wind higher and higher as the strength of the scent trail increased. Finally the footprints veered toward the stream and halted. If Rick had possessed whiskers at that moment, they would have been quivering.
“New scents,” he murmured almost soundlessly. “Two—no, three more. Not far now.”
Eli nodded. He’d caught a whiff of something new as well, the smell of more men, something distinctive and out of place in the dense heart of the forest. A quick series of hand signals passed between them. In perfect accord, they went in low, though not as low as they might have otherwise. They had acknowledged the risk of approaching this particular individual in animal form—specifically for Rick—and decided to remain human; but human didn’t have to mean conspicuous. As they neared a thinning of the vegetation, another signal had them splitting apart, one heading north, the other west, coming up on a small clearing from two sides.
From two sides of the bare spot near the stream came loud, hissing curses.
“Fuckers couldn’t have left more than an hour ago,” Rick swore, kicking the toe of his scuffed boot through the ashes of a dampened campfire. Near the bottom, he could feel that the coals were still warm.
“If that,” Eli agreed, noting the matted areas of pine needles where two small tents had pressed down. “They sure didn’t stay long after they found out Jackson had gotten away without being infected.”
“And they didn’t even bother to pack out their trash.” Rick sneered and picked up an empty beer can, one of many, crushing it in his fist. “Filthy humans.”
“I’m hardly going to side with them on this one, although I hope you won’t use that term around my human.”
Rick snorted. “As if I hadn’t seen that coming. You two circle around each other like cats in heat.”
“Thanks for that descriptor.” Eli glanced around the remains of the camp and spotted a piece of paper several inches away from the fire ring, partially singed but with some print still visible. He scooped it up and looked more closely. “This looks like some kind of newsletter. Part of the masthead is right here. You recognize this?”
The Lupine took the paper and studied it for a few seconds, his eyes narrowing. “Hell, yeah, I recognize it, and you should, too, buddy. We saw enough of this trash floating around Stone Creek last summer. I’m guessing most of it ended up lining birdcages and litter boxes.” He looked at Eli and saw the connection hadn’t yet been made. “See the letter T right here? Or part of it anyway. That’s how they print it—so it’s looks like a swastika. This is The Loyalist, instruction manual and Holy Bible to all your finest members of the Nation of Aryan Humans. Human power skinheads.”
Rick spat the words, which Eli realized was about what they deserved.
Human power had become the rallying cry of those skinhead groups who had so zealously embraced the addition of anti-Other sentiments to their menu of violent hatred. Not content with shouting about white power and Zionist conspiracies and lone wolf actions for the “liberation” of the white race, these groups had decided that their requirements for continued life weren’t narrow enough—you couldn’t just be Protestant and white, you had to be 100 percent human, too. No Others or changelings or Other hybrids need apply.
As if any would want to.
As soon as Rick named the group, Eli remembered them and the “newsletter” they had forced on anyone who walked by their protests in the middle of Stone Creek. They had showered the townsfolk with hate speech and obscenities and then decried the lack of welcome they received from a populace they had alienated to the tune of almost 70 percent.
No one could call them the brightest group in the world, either.
Still, they had gotten mixed up in a very complicated plot, which meant that someone connected to them at the very least had to have a brain.
“Nation of Aryan Humans,” Eli mused. “Who would have thought they had this in them?”
“Not me.” Rick shook his head. “I’d have credited them with the smarts—just barely—for an Oklahoma City–type bombing. Maybe. But if the virus thing you and Josie mentioned is really the case, that seems way beyond the capabilities of the idiots I saw at last year’s riots. Those punks were all propaganda and sucker punches, not genetic engineering and genocide.”
“Remember, though, we likely only saw the rank-and-file working bodies of the organization last year. Who knows who they might have heading it up? Have you heard any names?”
The Lupine paused to think. “You know, I don’t think I have, and that makes me curious. Usually that kind of bastard likes getting his name out there. Likes to be ‘respected’ by fools who think like he does. I wonder why the head of the NAH would want to keep quiet about having all that power?”
“I don’t know, but I think it bears looking into. They’re headquartered out here somewhere, aren’t they?”
“They started up in Idaho, I think, but it’s getting crowded for racist shitheads out there these days. I think I heard they relocated to either here or Washington. I can ask around. A few of the boys took last year’s brouhaha pretty seriously. I think one of them may have kept tabs on the group.”
Eli reached for his cell phone. “Find out for me, will you? I’m going to let Josie know what we found.”
Rick smirked even as he dug his own cell from his pocket. “Aren’t you a good boy, keeping your promises like that?”
Eli snarled and punched in the clinic’s number. “Fuck you, Fang,” he snapped and turned away to wait for the sound of her voice.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Steve turned out to be nothing like Josie expected. First, although she had known he was in the military, obviously, she hadn’t known that he would actually turn out to be Colonel Dr. Stephen James Boyle of the United States Air Force. Especially when she realized he was, at best, a year or th
ree older than her own thirty-two.
She also hadn’t expected to like him, but it was hard not to when he sat with her at an exam table in the back of her clinic, drinking an enormous insulated glass of—she didn’t believe him at first and made him let her taste it to be sure—chocolate-malt-flavored Ovaltine and answering her questions with an unanticipated level of candor.
“Officially, this intel is too classified for me to know about, so you, clearly, don’t even exist,” he told her with a grimace. “Unofficially, now that patient zero is dead and patient one is MIA, standing back and doing nothing is not an option. And since I haven’t received an official order to keep my big nose out of it, my CYA factor could be worse. The shit’s already hit the fan. What we’re looking at now are the cast-off patterns, and this one is a doozy.”
Josie thought about the more than three dozen evidence bags full of Rosemary that currently rested in her morgue cooler. She couldn’t have agreed more.
“They must have known that what they were playing with was taking an incredible risk. What were they thinking? Or were they thinking at all?” she wondered.
“Oh, they were thinking. Just about all the wrong things. They were looking for a weapon, of course. Something that could be used against enemy soldiers who are otherwise invulnerable to most of the currently available biological weaponry.”
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