It was true; Senn rarely ever left the sanctuary of his three-hundred-year-old home in Gydnia, Poland, any longer. Granted, it was a beautiful old house on the edge of the Baltic Sea that began its life as a humble little village dwelling in 1789 and eventually evolved into the impressive manor house it was today, but the man needed to get out more than he did. Ever since he’d returned from his last hunt in Quebec he seemed to isolate himself a little more every year. Something had happened there that so far he’d been unwilling to talk about. Whether he realized it or not, she was here for him and would do what she could to heal whatever wound had opened in Canada. He was like a father to her, the only one she’d had in five centuries. She’d always have his back.
That was why if she had to be out here kicking ass, he could haul his butt out once in a while too. Once he would have been right next to her, and she missed those days. Truth was she felt alone these days, or was it lonely?
“I get out.” To her ears, his protest sounded like a pretty weak effort.
The wise thing to do would be to let it go. Then again, when had she ever let anything go? That wasn’t her style. “When was the last time, Senn? When have you packed your bag and hunted? I’m traveling all over the world, and I could use some support of the Senn variety.”
The clicking stopped and she could almost see his hands pause as they hovered over the keyboard. His head would be up, and he’d be staring out the big window that looked over the great expanse of grass outside. His beautiful green eyes would be focused on some faraway spot. After a moment of silence, he said, “We are not talking about me right now, Lily. We need to focus on the mission.”
The expected response made her smile, and though she would like to continue screwing with him, he had a point. She didn’t need to stand here on the side of the highway arguing about his growing agoraphobia. It wasn’t going to change today, and he wasn’t going to meet her here in the Pacific Northwest so they could hunt together. She was on her own, and her jabs weren’t going to make any difference.
Besides, the truth was, there appeared to be a werewolf running amok up here in the mountains of eastern Washington, and she was here to stop it. It was what she did. It was what she’d been doing for almost five hundred years. She was good at hunting anything of preternatural ilk: vampires, gargoyles, witches, warlocks, and werewolves. Especially werewolves.
As the old saying went, takes one to know one.
*
Kyle Miller gripped the steering wheel and stared through the fog. This stretch of I-90 was a big pain in the ass, as it were. Though in pea-soup-thick fog it was more than a pain; it was a nightmare. Four hours ago, he’d hit Seattle after driving up from San Luis Obispo. That part of the trip had been awesome. The weather was great, and at the end of the rainbow, Ava had been waiting for him. She’d taken a cross-country flight from New Haven to Seattle, and he’d picked her up at the Seattle / Tacoma airport, known as SeaTac to the locals. Seeing her face as he pulled through the traffic and up to the curb had made his heart pound.
He was always up for a hunt. A hunt with Ava was the best. The powers that be didn’t have to ask him more than once, even though it was about a nineteen-hour drive just to pick her up and then another six hours, give or take, to get where they needed to be. That was okay. He’d have driven across country to New Haven, if need be, just to pick up Ava. Now they were heading from western Washington to the small northeast Washington town of Colville. It would be his first trip here, though not the first time in the area. He had family in Spokane and had been there many times.
This stretch of freeway that went by the rural farming community of Ritzville was flat and, in his opinion, boring even under the best of circumstances. It was no reflection on the area. It could be pretty impressive when the crops were ripe and the wheat fields were swaying in the wind like a massive golden ocean. No, it was more that his tastes ran toward ocean views and warm breezes. He loved the smell of salt water, the sight of sailboats putting out to sea, and the feel of the ocean spray on his face. He felt alive and grounded when his feet were covered in damp sand and the sun was warm on his skin. Up this way, it was flat farmland and four seasons. Nice place to visit but he wouldn’t want to live here.
This afternoon, shrouded in thick fog, the drive across the state was killing him. They’d made it over Snoqualmie Pass in the daylight, and that was good. Gassed up in Ellensburg just to be able to stretch their legs and grab a couple coffees. It was always a stirring sight coming down the final few miles of the Vantage hill and setting eyes on the massive Columbia River. It didn’t fail him today either, except that bit of excitement had been over an hour ago. Now it was just mile after mile of flatlands. The most interesting part was the little signs on the fences describing the type of crop growing in each field. Damn, he was ready to get out of the car, except they still had a couple hours of driving before they hit Colville.
While it was true he might be sick and tired of being cooped up in the car, he wasn’t sick and tired of his present company. He glanced over at Ava and couldn’t keep the smile from his face. She was asleep, her head resting against the folded jacket shoved between the window and the back of the passenger seat. Her flight out of New Haven had been at the inhuman hour of six in the morning, which would have made it three here on the West Coast. Understandably she was exhausted. It didn’t bother him to drive in silence. Time with Ava was good time as far as he was concerned, regardless of whether she was awake or asleep.
A fool he wasn’t, and it hadn’t taken a whole lot of brains cells to figure out he was in love with her. Seriously, though, who wouldn’t fall in love with Ava? She was smart, beautiful, strong, and coolest of all, a witch. If he didn’t know better he might believe she’d used her powers to cast a love spell on him. She didn’t, and his feelings were the good old-fashioned kind that required no assistance whatsoever. As far as he knew, she wasn’t aware of the depth of his feelings, and that was probably just as well, at least for the time being. He wasn’t quite ready to ’fess up to the true nature of them. Not quite yet anyway. It was enough to be Jägers with her and to be sent out on a mission together.
When the Jägers recruited him it was like finding a home at last. Being a necromancer, even in the somewhat enlightened society they now lived in, wasn’t exactly popular. On those rare occasions when people discovered what he could do, ultimately they turned out to be afraid of him or, if he was being honest, more like terrified of him. On some level, they could handle the idea that in their world existed werewolves and vampires, but somebody who could raise the dead creeped them out. More than once he thought about joining the dead he could so easily raise. Being different was okay. Being his kind of different was, at times, a burden.
At least until he met the Jägers. Four years two hundred and thirty-seven days ago, and not once since had he considered bailing on his odd life. For the first time in his thirty-one years he felt useful and, more important, necessary. As he struggled to come to grips with being the guy who reached across the barrier separating the living from the dead, it never occurred to him that there would actually be a place for him in either world. Yet here he was, trained, tough, and, dare he say it, cool. He was a preternatural ninja hunter straight out of an awesome graphic novel. It didn’t get much cooler than that.
He held on to that thought as he worked to stay nonchalant during their drive toward the meeting in Colville. It was hard to do, being this close to Ava. He’d met her on his first field mission and was a goner right then and there. He didn’t even know witches were real until he met her. Then again, most people didn’t realize necromancers really existed either, so he figured that made them about even. She was more than just a witch, though; she was a hereditary witch. At first he didn’t even know what that meant or why it was important. He might have been born a necromancer but he was like most people, oblivious to the reality of the other preternatural beings that walked through the world blending in with the majority who were pla
in old human. He learned that, like him, Ava was born to what she was. It made her one of the strong and powerful ones. It made her extraordinary. She was an awesome partner when it came to fighting the creatures of the night that didn’t want to share the world with humans but rather rule the universe and destroy the humans. It was their job to stop them and to keep the peaceful balance between preternatural and human.
That’s what it appeared they were up against now, something that was trying to upset the balance. He was excited that once again he was paired with Ava. The minute he got the call and found out who he was to pick up at SeaTac, he was off and racing north like he was running from the law.
The excitement he felt wasn’t solely because he was being paired with Ava. It was to be his first werewolf hunt and his first hunt with the legendary Lily Avergne. Everyone in the Jägers knew about Lily, the sixteenth-century Prussian noblewoman attacked by a werewolf on the eve of her spectacular wedding. She was seventeen years old on the night she was attacked, and word had it that in the almost five centuries since, she still didn’t look much older than thirty. Man, he wished he had some of that juju. Or not. It was weird enough to be a guy who could raise the dead. Being a five-hundred-year-old werewolf just might be even weirder. Just the same, he wouldn’t mind staying young and buff for a couple of centuries.
“Where are we?” a sleepy Ava asked. She sat up and ran both hands through her hair. It was a long, tangled auburn mess and absolutely gorgeous. He had the urge to reach over and run his hands through it as well. He kept them firmly on the steering wheel.
“We just passed Sprague Lake.” A few miles east of Ritzville, Sprague Lake popped up seemingly out of nowhere, the long body of water with the unique housing-free shorelines. Every time he drove past the lake he wondered why it was still as nature made it, and someday he was going to take the time to find out. Not this day, however. He was pressing on. The lake was a sign they weren’t too far away from Spokane.
She squinted, cupped her hands around her eyes, and stared out the side window. “How can you tell? The fog is so thick I can’t see much of anything.”
It was true that the fog wasn’t giving up its hold. All around them stretched a blanket of misty white. He recognized the stretch of road even if the lake was hard to make out in the shroud created by the fog. After his time in the Jägers, he looked at everything a little differently and wondered as he continued driving down the freeway if this was fog or something more sinister. He was hoping for the former.
“It’s over to your right,” he told her.
“If you say so.” She dropped her hands and leaned her head against the headrest. “I still can’t make out much in this soup.”
As he passed the rest stop at the top of the hill outside the small town of Sprague, it meant they were less than an hour from Spokane and, he hoped, less than an hour from clear skies. It was going to get dark before they made it to Colville, and he’d prefer to drive that stretch in as much daylight as possible. Without the fog wouldn’t be unwelcome either.
Silence fell again, and as he focused on the freeway stretching out ahead of him in the fog, he thought about what awaited them up north. He glanced over at Ava and asked, “Have you ever worked with her before?” Being one of the newer Jägers recruits, Ava had him by a couple of years so there was a chance she’d been on a team with her. Despite his preoccupation with Ava, the closer they came to their destination, the more curious he got about the renowned Lily. If even a fraction of what he’d heard about her was true, he was in for the hunt of his life, and he couldn’t wait.
Ava glanced over at him and smiled. “Yes, once. We tracked down a wereleopard in West Africa. It was my first experience with a wereleopard and my first time meeting Lily. You’ll like her, Kyle. She’s pretty intense and pretty amazing. I learned a lot from her during that trip.”
It was just as he suspected. They weren’t like other people, not a single one of them. If they were, the Jägers wouldn’t need them and surely wouldn’t scour the globe recruiting them for their unique talents. Not only did they all possess something that set them apart from the rest of the world, but also they saw things that defied rational explanation. Without already possessing their very special traits, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of the beings they searched for. Someone who had been at this as long as Lily had to be incredible to watch. He was pretty excited to get a shot at working with and learning from the best. “That’s what I thought. Pretty good-looking too, or that’s what I hear.” Now why on earth would he say that? Jesus. Nothing like sounding like a male chauvinist.
Ava was shaking her head, a small smile on her face. “She is beautiful, no question there. Don’t get any ideas. From what I hear, you’re not her type.”
He could feel the rush of blood to his cheeks and hoped she didn’t notice. His coolness factor would be trashed if she caught him blushing. “That’s not what I meant.”
If Ava knew what was in his heart, she’d realize how true that statement was. He was fascinated by everything he’d heard about Lily, but it was Ava that made his blood run hot.
“Of course not.” She put a hand on his arm and gave it a pat. Her hand was warm where it met bare skin, and he hoped she didn’t move it away. Ever.
“No, really.” He turned and flashed her a smile. “I’m not into older women.”
He caught the sparkle in her eyes as her fingers squeezed his arm gently. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”
He and his big mouth. Some day he was going to learn to think before he spoke, or not. Probably not. “Oh, God, no. Please don’t. I don’t want her thinking I’m a jerk the first time she meets me. It usually takes people a couple of meetings before they get there.”
This time Ava laughed so hard it brought tears to her eyes. She let go of his arm and wiped tears from her cheeks. “Anybody ever tell you that you’re easy?”
Lord help him, but even when she was laughing at him, he loved it. “Only you and, by the way, that was mean.”
“Yeah, it was but oh so much fun.” She was still smiling, her green eyes glittering.
His heart felt so much lighter now. “You know I’m pretty handsome. She might just fall for me.” He was into her game now.
“Oh sweetie, you are so naïve. Like I said, you’re not her type.”
“She doesn’t like tall, dark, and handsomely buff.”
“In her friends, sure.”
The tone in her voice finally caught his attention, though it took a beat before he started to catch a clue. Then he felt a little stupid. “Oh,” he said. “I hadn’t heard that.”
Ava put her hand back on his arm. “She’d go for me before you, but I don’t think I’m her type either.”
You’re my type is what he thought. What he said was, “Seriously, though, what’s she like?”
Ava turned her green eyes on him and looked thoughtful. “She’s amazing. She’s tiny, and yet I’ve never met anyone so powerful. She’s strong and quick, and sees everything in a glance. I can only hope that someday I might be even a fraction as good as she is.”
“We won’t have as much time to hone our skills.”
“True, but we can learn a lot from her in the time we do have.”
“In a couple more hours, we’re going to get our chance to start learning.” He really hoped the hunt wasn’t too quick. He wanted to spend as much time with Ava as possible. He did realize, of course, his unspoken wish was a double-edged sword. The longer the hunt went on, the longer the werewolf had to kill. That sort of went against the Jägers code.
He cut a glance over to Ava. He was just going to have to make the most of the trip. Do his job, learn from the rock star Lily, and impress the hell out of Ava. Yeah, that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Chapter Two
Sheriff Jayne Quarles stared down at what was once a human being and shuddered. What in the hell was going on in her town? When she’d come back home and taken over the Colville Sheri
ff’s Department, she’d been under the apparently mistaken impression that things would be different. Back in the day, life had been pretty quiet around here. That was part of the reason she’d left in the first place and a whole lot of the reason she came back.
Well, that and the fact that being interested in other women didn’t exactly set her up for happily ever after in these parts. Not that people were cruel to her. On the contrary, most were good folks who treated her pretty well. She’d been happy enough growing up around here. Plenty of friends and lots of activities to interest her. No, the real problem had been that the dating pool was awfully small. When she left high school she decided to go away to college and swim in a bigger pond.
Of course it seemed that those best-laid plans always came with a hitch. The University of Washington had been a great fit for her, and she’d found a good career with the U.S. Marshals Service. In short, she’d embraced that bigger pond and for quite a while had a grand time. A broken heart followed by her brother losing his battle with cancer brought her back home. She left the marshals service, sold her condo, and returned to Colville.
So here she was, ten years later, standing here staring down at yet another dead body and wondering why she ever left Seattle. If she’d wanted to investigate homicide after homicide, she could have stayed there. It wasn’t supposed to be like this here.
“Sheriff?” Deputy Sam Azzalino was looking a little green.
She brought her attention back to the body, or what was left of the body. “Yeah.”
“What’s going around here, Sheriff?”
Now that was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? The people who contacted her yesterday had their theory and based on that were sending in a team of hunters. Though she was aware of the Jägers, she’d never had to work with them and didn’t want to now. They were an open secret in law-enforcement circles, but she’d managed to avoid their actual presence in any of her investigations. Something odd was happening here, and one didn’t have to be a genius to figure that one out. Odd didn’t require the services of an organization that operated on the fringes of the rational world.
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