I squeeze my thumbs into her throat, shutting off her windpipe as well as her chance to use her magical vocal cords. She struggles under me, but she lacks the strength to get me off her. I evade her as she tries to scratch at my face and use my legs to keep her from buckling under me. I may be slightly smaller than her, but she doesn’t look like she’s ever had to do physical work in her life. Her muscles are non-existent, at least the ones on her body. Her facial muscles are a work of beauty as she makes the strangest grimaces. Maybe she thinks a pantomime performance will help her. Spoiler: it won’t.
Her struggles slowly become less as I squeeze the life out of her. It’s satisfying; I forgot how much I like strangulation. Recently, I’ve favoured my knives for everything, but maybe I should get myself a new garrotte. I listen to her heartbeat, ba-bum, ba-bum, which is getting slower after it had first shot up. Not much longer. She’s at the edge of consciousness now, barely holding on. Her eyelids are drooping, but she’s not stopped trying to defend herself. I have to give her that, she’s persistent. And wants to stay alive, I guess, like all of us.
I breathe a sigh of relief when she finally falls unconscious. That took longer than it usually does, but maybe siren physiology is different. I keep my thumbs on her windpipe. A few minutes and she’ll be dead. I have to decide now whether to kill her or dare keep her alive to question her. She’s too heavy for me to drag her back to Attenburgh, but without anti-siren technology, I have no chance at interrogating her here. She’ll try and get into my mind as soon as she’s awake again. I need her to talk without singing me into submission, but that’s impossible. Death it is.
I ignore the flicker of regret in the muddy depths of my conscience and squeeze off her airways until her heart stops beating. It’s not regret for her death. It’s because I won’t get a chance to find out more about her plans.
A wolf howls in the distance and I sit up straight, extending my senses. It’s definitely a shifter, but I can’t tell whether it’s one of the Hypnotisse’s mutants or one of the good shifters. Well, good is relative.
Now that I’m listening more closely, I can hear several beings move through the brush, approaching this hut. Looks like I might get another fight. I leave the siren on the floor and search her house for weapons. I could shift to confront the wolves, but I still want to investigate this place and two shifts in a row will be exhausting.
She’s got a nice assortment of butcher’s knives in her kitchen; more than a one-person household should have. It suits me well. I take the two sharpest and take position behind the front door. If they enter the building that way, I’ll be hidden from view for a few vital seconds.
The closer they get, the more information my senses can gather. Five wolves, all large and heavy. They make a lot of noise, disturbing the wildlife. Birds warn each other of the intruders, sounding tired and annoyed. My gaze flicks to a clock in the hallway. It’s two in the morning. I should head back soon or I will miss the babies’ breakfast. Which in turn means they’ll be cranky all day; not something I want. One annoyed baby would be enough, but four of them…a nightmare.
When they enter the clearing, I finally get a whiff of their scent. Urgh. I won’t get a fight. The tension seeps from me and I drop my knives as I walk outside to greet Mr Moon.
Chapter Twelve
The Pride leader shifts as soon as I see him. Unlike me, he’s naked. Shifter magic is weird and unpredictable. I wish he’d wear his usual leather coat though. He’s in his mid-fifties and let’s just say that he’s no longer as fit in all parts of his bodies. His chest is toned, pure muscle, but below that…
I look up, focusing on his face instead. He’s not changed at all. Grey streaks run through his curly black hair and an untamed beard covers most of his face. His eyes are like glimmering coals in the dark, full of power and the confidence of an alpha.
The four wolves behind him stay in their animal form. They’re all black, blending well into the darkness. Mr Moon chose well in taking only them along and leaving the white and grey-furred wolves behind. Lennox always says how he wishes he could change his fur colour. His pure white coat is beautiful at day, especially paired with his sparkling blue eyes and the black spot on his forehead, but at night he’s a liability. Easy to spot, easy to give everyone away.
“Miss Feln, I didn’t expect to see you here,” Mr Moon greets me in his deep, pleasant voice. This is what an aged whisky would sound like. “Am I right in thinking that we’re too late?”
“If you intended to kill the Hypnotisse, then yes, you’re too late. Sorry.”
He sighs and suddenly looks a lot older. Maybe I was wrong when I estimated him to be in his fifties. It’s always hard to tell with shifters; we live longer than humans, in theory, but that rarely happens because we usually die of unnatural circumstances long before we reach old age.
“I guess I should be glad she’s gone, but I wish I’d been the one to do the deed. I hope you made her suffer?”
I open the door wider in an invitation for them to come in. “See for yourself. It was quicker than I would have wished, but I didn’t want to give her the chance to enchant me.”
“You confronted her without anti-siren tech?” he asks incredulously. “That was foolish.”
“I never knew she was here,” I defend myself. “I came across her by accident. I would have been a lot better prepared had I planned this.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he mutters as he walks past me into the hut. He heads straight to the living room, clearly guided by his wolf nose.
I join him and watch as he kneels by her side, examining her. “I had so many questions,” he sighs, sounding a little annoyed. “Now it’s too late.”
One of his wolves joins us, a female. The light catches on something around her neck. I suck in a sharp breath when I realise it’s a collar.
“Anti-siren,” Mr Moon explains, following my gaze. “Ana has been kind enough to wear it, even though she was part of the Pack and has been forced to wear a collar in the past.”
The wolf growls softly at the mention of the Pack and I empathise with her. I couldn’t wear a collar again, not ever. I admire her for her strength of mind.
“I would have kept her alive if I’d had that at my disposal,” I explain, “but as I said, I didn’t even know she was in the area. If you’d got here a few minutes-“
I stare down at her lifeless body. She’s still warm and except for her head wound, she’s unharmed. Maybe a few bruises from the fall, but nothing that won’t heal.
“I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but we could try and resuscitate her,” I say slowly, feeling like I’m making a fool of myself with that proposal. I kill people, I don’t bring them back to life.
“Isn’t she braindead after strangulation?” he asks.
"Mhmm. You could be right. I'm good at killing people but I've never tried unkilling someone. On television, they'd do CPR."
Mr Moon smiles indulgently. I don't want to call it patronising because I don't want to start a fight with him. He turns to the door and shouts, "Jack!"
A black wolf with a grey patch on his chest prowls into the room and cocks his head at his alpha.
"We have need of your skills. Shift."
His transformation looks and sounds more painful than what I'm used to. By the time he's a fully-formed man, his forehead is covered in sweat and his eyes are lined with red. I've seen him before. He did some kind of magic where he used my memories to discover that the wolves had been with the Hypnotisse. Without his skills, we wouldn't have known who sent them. I'm not sure what he's going to do now, though. It's not like I ever let her speak, so there are no memories to look at.
"Yes, boss?" Jack asks. His grey-white goatee reminds me of the patch on his wolf-chest.
"You remember Kimdentown?"
Jack sighs. "Hard to forget. Please don't make me do that again."
“Please. Don’t make me order you. We need the information and she’s still warm. It s
houldn’t be too late.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?” I interrupt.
Mr Moon turns to me. “Jack can’t just see the echoes of the living. He can also look at the memories of the recently deceased.”
“It’s an imprecise science,” Jack says, clearly not happy about it. “And it’s extremely uncomfortable for me. When I enter the echo, I have to stay in it until the end. I have to experience the person’s death. Was this one quick?”
I wish I could tell him it was, but I don’t want to lie to the wolf and leave him unprepared. “Half a minute until she fell unconscious, then maybe two minutes until her heart stopped beating. She struggled quite a bit. Oh, and she hit her head when I toppled her.”
Jack groans. “Great. Just what I needed.”
“We can try and pull you out early,” Mr Moon offers. It’s clear to see that he cares about his Pride members, but he’s also eager to get results. If Jack said no, I’m sure Mr Moon would order him to do it anyway. Lennox has told me about a wolf alpha’s power over his pack. A strong alpha – and I’m sure Mr Moon is extremely strong – is able to force his wolves to do what he wants.
“No, I doubt that’ll work. It might make things worse.” Jack sighs again. “I better do this now before her echo fades. I’ll try and dive as deep as I can, but I can’t promise anything. This is only the second time I’m doing this on a corpse.”
He sits by the Hypnotisse’s side and crosses his legs, making himself comfortable. Laying a hand on her bloody forehead, he closes his eyes and relaxes. His entire body seems to lose all tension. I almost envy him. I’ve not been able to relax in…forever?
“Have you had a chance to look around yet?” Mr Moon asks me quietly, almost a whisper.
I shake my head. “You arrived before I could.” I nod towards Jack. “Will this take long?”
“No idea. In Kimdentown, he was out for half an hour. I say we use the time to check if we can find out more about why the Hypnotisse was here. She’s been travelling across the country using very strange routes that don’t make sense. We lost track of her a few days ago until a local shifter contacted me to report a mysterious woman living on her own in the woods. We didn’t even know it was her until we came across some dead mutant wolves. Your doing, I suppose?”
“Yeah, they got in my way. They’re the reason I knew about the Hypnotisse; I’d never have searched for her otherwise. I didn’t want her anywhere near my family though.”
“Ah yes, Lennox told me. Congratulations.”
I cringe. Are we about to descend into small talk about my babies? Better not. “Let’s search this place. I’ll take this room, you the bedroom?”
Mr Moon shrugs. “Alright. Holler if you find something.”
* * *
The search is a total flop. All I find is a purse containing a lot of money, a tiny mirror and a bright red lipstick. I give it a sniff, just in case it’s laced with poison, but no such luck. This handbag could belong to anyone. I'm not sure what the purse of an evil siren should look like, but not as mundane as this. I do a quick sweep of the tiny kitchen but no luck there either. The knives I pocketed earlier were her most useful possessions. Unless she's got poison in her washing up liquid, there's nothing to be found here.
Before I can examine the bathroom - which is really only a wooden tub and a toilet over a hole in the ground since there's no running water in this cabin - Mr Moon returns from the bedroom, waving a single envelope.
"Hidden under one of the floorboards," he grins. "Just like in the books."
I didn't take him for much of a reader, but then, I don't know much about this man.
He holds out the envelope and I snatch it from his hand. A single sheet of paper is inside, slightly crinkled as if it got wet once and then dried again.
"Beloved daughter," I read, then look at Mr Moon with raised eyebrows. "What the fuck?"
"Read on," he encourages me with a smirk.
Beloved daughter.
I hope you're well. I have followed your progress from afar and am so very proud of you.
I'm afraid to tell you that our experiment has escaped and has taken my baby with her. Your father has followed them to Attenburgh and I'm preparing to join him there tomorrow by train. This unfortunate event may accelerate our plans, so this could be your chance to return to us. Your father doesn't know I'm writing to you, but I'm sure he'll reconsider your exile now that the nest is empty again, so to speak. Your skills will come in handy in the days to come and he will surely see that. He can be a stubborn man, but I believe I will be able to persuade him that your presence will bring more good than harm. Grass has grown over the events of the past and once we're finally in power, no one will care about what happened.
Please, join us in Attenburgh as soon as you can get there.
Your ever-loving mother
I want to puke by the time I've finished reading. Our experiment. That's me. This letter has been written by Gill Delaney, I have no doubt about it. Which means the Hypnotisse is the Delaneys' daughter.
"Did you know?" I ask Mr Moon.
"Know what?"
"That she's Lord Delaney's daughter."
"I'd heard rumours, but all I knew for sure is that she comes from a powerful siren family. It could have been any of the big ones. Why is that so important?"
He doesn't know. "Because Delaney kidnapped me and held me prisoner for months. Because he experimented on my sister. I killed his wife today. Now he's next on my list."
Mr Moon stares at me with wide eyes. “Lennox never told me who it was. I suppose he never had the opportunity to. Shortly after they found you, he called me to deal with a shifter issue, but that was all he said; he was clearly in a hurry. I’ve not spoken to him since. I simply assumed that he would have contacted me if you had…well, if you weren’t alright.”
I sigh. “I guess none of us ever suspected that the woman you were hunting was the daughter of my torturer. Not that it would have made a big difference. But now it does. Lord Delaney’s daughter and wife are both dead. He’s not going to be happy. It might cause him to make mistakes.”
He gives me a wolfish grin that makes the cat in me uncomfortable. “Let’s hope so. We may have lost the Hypnotisse, but we will stand ready to assist if you need us. Her parents needed her for their plans, which means they likely involve wolves. She was the expert on controlling and experimenting on us.”
“Moon!” Jack shouts from the living room and without hesitation, both of us run there.
The shifter is still on the floor next to the corpse, but while he looked very much alive before, he’s now just as pale as her. He doesn’t look strong enough to stand. Fuck. I had no idea this would affect him this much. I almost feel a little guilty. If I hadn’t killed her, it would have been easier for Mr Moon and his Pride to get information from her.
“What did you see?” the alpha demands, but his eyes soften a little when he takes in Jack’s appearance. “Do you want some water?”
Jack shakes his head. “I think it would come straight back up again. I just need a moment to rest before we move on.”
“Of course.”
“You might not say that once I’ve told you what I’ve seen.” He visibly shudders. “Kat only killed a few of her mutants. There are many more, fifty at least, all of them converging on Attenburgh. She’s been busy creating them. I’ve not seen many details but I think she spliced bear DNA and mixed it with ours. Some of the mutants barely look like wolves anymore and they’re strong. We need to be careful.”
“Fifty?” Mr Moon runs his fingers through his shaggy beard. “I’ll alert the others. We need the whole Pride for this.”
“I saw flashes of a call she had with her mother. Some posh woman. I didn’t hear the whole conversation but enough to know what they’re planning.”
“What?” I ask sharply.
“They’re planning to rule the entire country.”
Chapter Thirteen
Lady Lara isn’
t happy about being woken at four in the morning, but as soon as she realises it’s me, she opens the door and beckons me inside. This is her private apartment, one I’ve only ever been in once to assess the security. Ryker, Lennox and Gryphon follow me without a word. I’ve barely had a chance to tell them the basics after I returned to the house. It was more important to speak to the mayor.
She pulls her fluffy blue robe tighter around her body and beckons us to take a seat. Her living room is a lot more inviting than her office, but it still doesn’t quite feel lived-in and like a home.
“When’s the congress?” I ask without preamble.
She looks at me strangely. “How do you know about that?”
“When?”
“Two days from now. It’s top-secret, how did you find out? I was only planning to tell you on the day so you could be my bodyguard. We’ve all been instructed to keep the information to ourselves. If someone asks, we’re to say that it’s a trade conference.”
“What is it really?” Ryker asks, barely suppressing a yawn.
“A meeting of all the major towns’ leaders and the government, including the Prime Minister. There’s not been a gathering as big as this in, let’s see, a decade at least. I’ve never even met the PM and now they’re all coming to Attenburgh.”
“Why here?” I question.
“It’s not the capital or one of the biggest cities, so it’s fairly inconspicuous. Low crime, not many media outlets who could report on it, enough good hotels for everyone to stay. Plus we’ve got a venue big enough for everyone. It was only decided two weeks ago that it would take place here. It’s been a bit of a shock, to be honest. Usually, we’re pretty much ignored by the government and left to do our own thing, as long as we pay our taxes, so this is unexpected.”
“Do the people on the council know?” I ask.
“No. I’m the only one invited. If there are decisions taken that affect Attenburgh, I’ll have to tell them that the congress took place, but they won’t have any say in it.” She rolls her eyes. “They won’t be happy. They already think that I’ve got too much power. Not that I do have more than the previous mayors, but those were open to bribes and easier to manipulate. I’m my own woman.”
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