Blood, Dirt, and Lies

by Rachel Graves

  “They damn well better listen to me. I have a press conference in ten minutes; I’ll make sure the public knows how important this is.” As she said it her eyes touched mine for a second. Before I got a chance to say anything she turned on her heel and walked out, the lackeys a step behind her. The doors swung shut and we all took a minute to stare at Amadeus.

  “Leslie?” Danny asked.

  “We know each other,” he said.

  “How?” Danny asked the question I’d hoped we could all avoid.

  “Professionally,” Amadeus answered with a slick smile.

  “Do not say another word. I don’t want to know. Just promise me you didn’t use any magic on her,” Lieutenant French ordered.

  “Not a drop. Didn’t need to, we get along.” He picked up his coffee cup from the desk we shared and walked toward the break room. He’d saved me from being dressed down after a long frustrating day. More than that, he’d gotten the mayor to appeal to the city on our behalf. I didn’t care how he knew her; I was grateful.

  I said a quick goodnight to Danny and the lieutenant, then turned toward the break room where I knew Amadeus could hear me. “Leave your coffee cup wherever you want,” I whispered on my way out the door.

  ****

  I drove to Jakob’s deluding myself that the sun hadn’t really set, that it was safe to run, when really it was getting darker all the time, the sky barely glowing with the last vestiges of light. My day had been such a mix of things; good natured ribbing over the dog, and Amadeus saving my butt with the mayor, balanced out having to work on my day off and the tedious debriefing at the end.

  A run could push this over into a good day, could make it a “yeah I had to work but it wasn’t that bad” kind of day, with the story of the dog as a highlight. Unfortunately, wanting a thing doesn’t make it so. Dusk ended quickly and I was still half an hour away when I turned on Lara’s headlights.

  ****

  The house was empty, not waiting for me, not holding Jakob. He’d left a note telling me he’d be back soon. It didn’t say he’d gone out to get something to eat but that’s what it meant. I stalked around the house for a few minutes, frustrated. I’d spent the whole day wasting time when I could have been running. I debated. I paced.

  Jakob couldn’t be gone long and the woods by the house were probably very safe. He’d be back and he could find me if something went wrong. I could take my gun, just in case. I would probably be able to see, there was a full moon out. It might be fun to run in the dark. Jakob could join me after he got home.

  It only took me a few minutes to talk myself into it. Tonight I was running alone, after dark, in defiance of all the good sense in the world. I told myself I’d run today and I was damn well going to run today, regardless of what the FBI did to screw things up.

  I tucked three sports gels in my pocket and left Jakob a note with my route plainly marked. He would be back soon; if I ran two four-mile loops I could stop by the house to check in with him.

  I started out slow, my feet barely making any noise on the soft forest trail. The tall trees crowded around me leaving the light of the full moon in patches. Everything felt right; the night was quiet, the only sounds the squishing of mud beneath my feet and the movement of squirrels as I ran past. The breeze smelled clean. I was running in a place of perfect nirvana where my stride came easy and nothing hurt.

  I took a sports gel at the beginning of mile four, about forty minutes into the run. Five minutes after that I felt the tingle of magic across my skin. Something was dying in the woods. The magic felt pleasant and warm across my skin, calling me from not too far away. Heady with a strong runner’s high I detoured toward it.

  I ran down the path of death for a few minutes before I came into a clearing. When I recognized what was dying and how, my body petrified with fear. It was a bear, a large bear but it looked small compared to the werewolf tearing into it. I’d been attacked by werewolves, tortured by them. Watching the wolf rip into the bear while it roared in pain brought all those memories back.

  I felt the bear finish dying, holding as still as I could, wanting to run but not wanting to be chased. The high the magic brought me didn’t do anything to stop the panic attack. The wolf stopped eating and scented the air, I thought about turning to run and it was on top of me.

  The hard ground bit into my skin as it tackled me. The snout of the thing was inches from my face and it didn’t bite. I didn’t take the time to thank God; instead I reached out to the bear and called it to me. It took all of my strength but I brought it back, animating the dead flesh. My power came smoothly; moving me to a world where the only thing that mattered was my magic.

  I couldn’t hear the night around me or smell the blood; I could only feel the dead bear. I commanded it to attack the wolf. The undead thing I’d brought back roared and launched itself at the wolf.

  Its claws sank into the flesh of the wolf’s back and the blood came pouring down but the wolf didn’t release me. It kept me pinned to the ground while the two of them clawed at each other, back to belly in a gruesome dance. I waited for a chance of escape and began to panic that there might not be one. The wolf threw the bear off. The beast shook itself and charged forward again, catching the chest of the werewolf and ripping.

  My world began to dim and I realized I hadn’t eaten enough to sustain this much magic. Eight miles was nothing compared to calling back a zombie. The night became darker; shadows grew as I fought to stay alert. For an instant, I thought I saw a man shape but then it was only a blur.

  Something pulled the bear and the wolf off me. I scrambled on my back away from the scene, unsure if I should get up and run. I let the bear go, conserving my strength for whatever was next. The werewolf was fighting with someone, someone strong enough that it was losing.

  It was terrifying to watch but as the wolf scratched and bit him the wounds simply closed. I thought vampire and sent what little power I had left out. I felt the bear, now truly dead, and other deaths in the forest, a deer, some small animals, but the two men in front of me were both alive. Whatever was fighting off the werewolf and healing so fast it didn’t bleed wasn’t a vampire.

  The wolf let out a long howl and abandoned the fight. The man walked over to me speaking in gentle tones.

  “Relax, you’re going to be all right. I’m a—”

  “Lucas?” I interrupted him, recognizing him. The fight had been werewolf against werewolf then, one shifted, one still in human form. That explained the healing.

  “Mallory?” He shook his head at me. “Come on, we need to get you clean.”

  He pulled me up from the ground with one hand. I tried to stand but the world spun around me.

  “You need to eat. That bear trick took a lot.”

  “I have, hold on.” I pulled out the two packets of sports gel and sucked them down in rapid succession. Each packet gave me a hundred calories; the coffee flavored one came with extra caffeine. Handy, since I was starting to feel fatigued.

  “Where’s your car?” he asked.

  “I ran from home.”

  “No one lives out here.” He gave me the look we all used for victims who weren’t thinking straight. I hated it.

  “I live out here.” Okay that was a lie but I would live out here when I moved in with Jakob. I stopped overthinking and got to the important part, woozy. “The house is four miles that way.” I pointed in the direction I had come but realized I was lost. I’d followed the bear’s death off the path and every tree in the woods seemed the same. “Or maybe that way.” Which way was north? The house was east of here, if I could figure out north.

  “Uh-huh. My car is definitely that way. Why don’t we get out to the road and you can try to give me directions from there?”

  I nodded, too tired to correct his use of the word “try.” Fatigue grabbed onto me as we walked to the car in silence. He opened the door for me and I got in without saying thank you. My back screamed in protest when I sat down. Whatever wounds I’d received
from the fall didn’t want to be touched.

  “Why didn’t it kill me?” I asked.

  “It was thinking of sex not food; you’re ovulating.”

  “What?” I didn’t bother to keep the outrage out of my voice.

  “You smell like sex.” He dismissed this intimate knowledge of my cycle with a shrug.

  “When you get out to 413 take a left,” I directed. Anger was creeping into me around the exhaustion. Too much magic in one day had me ready to collapse. “What were you doing out there?”

  “I’m stronger than most of them. For the first few nights I can hold off the change and make sure nothing gets out of hand.”

  “I meant out here, why out here?” As fascinated as I was by werewolf politics, he hadn’t answered my question.

  “We’re an hour away from the city, with caves to hide in and lots of deer. It’s the perfect hunting ground for the full moon.”

  There was something alarming about what he’d said. I fought through the tiredness to remember it. “It’s too close to the house. If Mark finds out, he’ll kill you all.”

  “Who’s Mark?”

  “Agent Zollern, the one who only eats werewolf blood?”

  “You’re taking me to his house?” Lucas asked. He sounded a little upset; I tried not to smile.

  “No, it’s Jakob’s house, well it’s our house, or it will be.” I was too sleepy to bother with the conversation anymore. Lucas would have to figure it out on his own. I closed my eyes only to have him shake me awake.

  “Talk to me, Mallory, don’t fall asleep.”

  I let my head rest on the side of the seat. I was tired but it really seemed to matter to him that I talk. My eyes fell on a football helmet shaped air freshener.

  “I’m a huge Saints fan.” I reached my hand toward the dangling gold and black, but fell back into my seat before I made it.

  “You know what my deepest fear is?” he asked.

  “Are we that close?” Of course, he knew all about my fertility so maybe we were.

  “We’re both Saints fans, right?” He looked over at me worriedly. “My biggest fear is making someone like me. You’re covered in blood, Mallory. It’s a blood borne disease. You have to stay awake so you can get clean.”

  I nodded sleepily. “You missed the driveway.” He turned the car too fast. We skidded sending wood chips flying. He pulled up to the house and shut off the car.

  “If I let you go in alone do you promise me you’ll shower? I mean it, seriously scrub everything off under hot water?” He looked worried.

  “Sure,” I promised knowing full well I was going to fall asleep the minute I hit the bed, assuming I made it that far. The couch was pretty comfortable and the living room was much closer.

  “Bullshit.” He opened his door then came over to open mine. He offered me a hand but when I took it he picked me up entirely. “Where’s the key?”

  “Shorts pocket,” I muttered. My hand went to it but I couldn’t make my fingers work. He grabbed the key for me. He opened the first door and left the key behind. “You shouldn’t leave that in the door.”

  “I’ll take it with me when I head home. You can have it back on Monday.” He struggled to open the inner door finally putting me down. I slumped against him. “Which way to the bathroom?”

  “Down the hall, past the kitchen, down a little more on the left.” The world was hazy but I was fairly sure that was where I had left it.

  I slept for a bit and the next time I heard him speak he said, “This is a bedroom not a bathroom.” I only pointed to the door on the other side of the room.

  I came around leaning against the shower door. There was water running on the other side.

  “Do you like this outfit?” he asked. I shrugged. Such a strange question. It wasn’t my favorite or anything. He tore my sports bra off and then did the same thing to my shorts. I was grateful when he pulled my sneakers off instead of destroying them. I realized I was naked in front of a man I didn’t know and tried to cover myself. “Don’t bother, you’re not my type,” he said gruffly and pushed me into the cold shower.

  The blood came off me in tiny pink rivers while Lucas scrubbed furiously. When he got to my back I gasped with the pain even though I was half asleep.

  “Where did you get these? Did it scratch you?” I didn’t answer—it seemed like too much effort. “Mallory!” His voice was filled with fear.

  “Rocks,” I mumbled. “It threw me on the ground; there were rocks, this tree branch…”

  He scrubbed even harder, like I hadn’t told him anything. Next time I wasn’t going to bother. I fell asleep again, waking up when he roughly toweled me off. For a second I was back at some community pool I begged my mother to take me to when I was a kid. She hadn’t wanted to go. In exactly one hour she’d yanked me from the water and dried me harshly for the drive home. The towel had stung on my water-softened skin in exactly the same way. I pulled myself back to reality.

  “You wore pants in the shower?” His jeans were soaking wet but his t-shirt was missing.

  “We’re not close, remember?”

  “Right.” I nodded. He wrapped me up in the towel and picked me up again. I was so used to Jakob’s pale skin that Lucas’ chest with its thick curling hair was fascinating. “You’re leaving wet spots on the carpet.”

  He pulled back the covers and put me down, still wrapped in the wet towel. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, you’re just going to have to live with it.”

  The room changed, there was a presence. In my sleepy state it took me a minute to recognize it was Jakob appearing as a mist. He came together in a few seconds, naked and blond, his eyes unnaturally bright.

  When I glanced back to Lucas I could see he was looking lower, and enjoying the view. Jakob crossed the room with supernatural speed, pulling Lucas away from the bed with hate in his eyes. Too late I realized how it looked: me naked in bed, another man next to the bed, him calling me sweetheart. Jakob grabbed Lucas and threw him against the wall.

  “Jakob don’t! It’s not what you think!” Fear made me alert. Jakob hesitated and let Lucas slide to the floor.

  “She’s right, cupcake. I like boys.” Lucas reached up and kissed him on the lips. Jakob broke the kiss and brought his fist squarely into the other man’s face. It shattered beneath his hand, blood coating the wall. Lucas fell a few feet away from him, closer to the door. The bone in his face began to knit itself together, the muscle and skin crawling back to where it belonged. It was mesmerizing and gruesome to watch. In seconds, he was perfectly healed. He rubbed his jaw with one hand.

  “I’ll let you know if I decide the kiss was worth it,” he said to Jakob. He was halfway out the door when he glanced back at me. “See you on Monday, Mors.”

  I heard the front door shut and the exhaustion came back.

  “Mallory?” Jakob looked at me his face confused.

  “There was a werewolf and a bear.” I struggled with the explanation. My eyes had filled with sand again; my eyelids weighed at least a thousand pounds. “I’m fine. Can we talk about it later?”

  “Of course.” He curled into bed next to me, taking off my towel. I pressed my body up against him and surrendered to sleep.

  My dreams were fragmented chaos, running through the woods with a werewolf chasing me, then falling, coming down only to find the wolf was on top of me and somehow I was looking up at him again. The wolf changed, his fur bleeding away to dark black, turning him into a different wolf, the one who tortured me in a dark tunnel one long summer night.

  I made the mistake of thinking of it and I was back in that close room, handcuffs on my wrists, his hands on my thighs. This time I was naked, and while my body spared me the indignities of his touch by passing out when it happened, this time I was awake. My heart raced with terror as the snout came closer to me. Jaws danced in front of my face and I knew he was about to tear into my lips.

  The scene shifted abruptly, trading darkness for light, bright sunlight dancing off water. I was b
ack at Jakob’s mill. The ancient stone building and wooden wheel were next to me, the babbling stream in front of me. It was a place that hadn’t existed for over five hundred years, the last place he was human and my favorite place to dream about.

  I didn’t look for him, I just wished myself into the cold swirling water. In dreams, a thought is enough to carry you and the next second there I was, buoyed up by the icy current. I don’t know how anything could live in water that cold but I wasn’t willing to leave. As long as I was freezing I couldn’t be trapped in a hot room with a werewolf.

  “Your lips are turning blue.” Jakob was sitting on the rocks near the bank. He was tan and human, the way he looked in dreams.

  “I’m trying to get clean.”

  “Because of what happened tonight?”

  “Because of what happened last summer.” He looked at me perplexed. “With the werewolves.”

  “Ah,” he said. When I looked back up he was holding a fluffy white robe. It looked out of place in the medieval forest. “Come out, there are no wolves here, ever.”

  Saying the words was enough to make it happen. I found myself wrapped in the plush robe, the sun warming me gently. I thought myself a blanket and lay down, spreading my hair out to dry.

  “Thanks for rescuing me.”

  “I wasn’t sure why your heart was racing. I must admit, I didn’t expect to find you where I did.”

  “The werewolf tonight must have made me remember the other one.” I wasn’t willing to think about it anymore.

  “The one by the side of our bed?”

  “What? No, the other one.”

  “My dear, there was only one wolf in the house.” His tone was so very gentle, almost like I was crazy. Which made sense, he didn’t know what had happened, so I sounded pretty crazy.

  “Come here and hold me.” He was lying on the blanket next to me, his arms wrapped around me. Sometimes I loved the way dreams worked. “I went for a run in the woods. I felt something dying and followed the feeling to find a werewolf killing a bear. The wolf came after me. That’s the wolf that brought back last summer, not Lucas. I work with Lucas, he doesn’t bother me. Well, he can’t gently towel someone off to save his life, but he doesn’t bother me.”