by J. Stone
“It’s worth a try. Which bench was he seated on when last you saw him?”
Wynonna looked around for it and then pointed. “There.”
He stood up. “Then, let’s go see if you can pick up a scent.”
Both she and the librarian walked over to the bench, which was unoccupied. Given the late hour, that was not surprising, and she was thankful for it, because she must’ve looked rather peculiar crouching down and sniffing the wooden slats that made up the seat.
“Anything?” Spencer asked from behind her.
“I smell a lot,” she replied, smacking her lips in an attempt to get rid of the sudden bad taste in her mouth. “Most of it isn’t something I want to smell.”
“Can you focus on Rohan’s individual scent? Do you remember what he smelled like?”
“Well, it’s not like I sniffed his ass or anything. I’m not a damn dog.”
For whatever reason, this made Spencer start to chuckle.
“What?” she asked, turning around.
“Just a humorous mental image is all,” he replied, waving his hand dismissively.
“Shut up,” she told him, trying to hide the smile his laugh had given her.
“Of course,” Spencer replied, stifling his laugh and covering it up with one hand. “As you were.”
Rolling her eyes, Wynonna returned to the bench and tried sniffing for Rohan’s scent once again. Given the plethora of smells wafting into her nose, improved by the lycanthrope she’d inherited from Corrigan, she could clearly tell that numerous individuals had used the bench since her last visit with Rohan. She wasn’t getting anywhere. She needed a starting point.
Trying to think back on the night they’d shared in the Blue Brick Tavern, Wynonna closed her eyes and focused on his smell that evening. They’d been close that night, and she’d certainly got a whiff of his natural smell. That wasn’t the first thing she recalled though. It was his taste. That salty, somewhat dirty taste he had on his lips. She remembered the taste of the cigarettes he smoked rolling off his tongue, and that’s what triggered it. Wynonna isolated the smell to go along with that ashy taste.
She then backed up, opening her eyes. Not only did she have the smell, Rohan had actually left a couple of cigarettes behind when they met in the park. She found one that he’d snuffed out against the wood, and she lifted it up to her nose.
“Got it!” she declared, standing up, dropping the cigarette butt back to the ground, and wiping her hand off.
“Great,” Spencer told her. “Think you can follow it to wherever he is?”
Wynonna nodded. “I can at least follow it a ways. Let’s see where it takes us.”
Letting the scent of Rohan’s cigarette waft into her nostrils, she followed the trail, almost as though she could see it. This path took her out from the park and back toward Lover’s Alley. From there, the smoke trail led her up to where Wynonna had paid the painter to leave her first message for Rohan. She got a heavy puff of the smoke-filled scent there, as if the vespari had lingered there and possibly even touched the wall.
That was not the end of the trail though, and Wynonna only paused there at that wall for but a moment. She kept moving down the nearly abandoned street with Spencer following close behind. Coming to an intersection of roads, Wynonna found the smoky scent to deviate from the path that had so far just been straight. It turned, leading her down another street, one she hadn’t been on before. This street looked more run down than some she’d been to in Alexandria, and Spencer chimed in as if to answer the questions forming in her head.
“Briar Street,” he said. “Not a great place to be even during the light of day.”
“What’s so bad about it?” she asked, examining the partially deconstructed buildings and abandoned stores.
“A lot of crimes happen here for whatever reason. Most decent folks have long since moved elsewhere.”
“So, in other words, a great place for an oath breaking vespari to hide out?”
He shrugged, continuing to sweep his eyes from one side of the street to the other, searching for any who might wish to do them harm. “I suppose.”
“Well, I can’t imagine too many people would be eager to get in a fight with a vespari.”
“You, perhaps, but as I recall, you did disarm Rohan and take the medallion that indicated what he was. He may not be as safe as you’d like to think.”
“Mm,” she muttered, not eager to think on such thoughts.
They moved on in silence for a few minutes, and as they walked down Briar Street, Wynonna felt eyes on her. Someone was out there in the dark, watching them. Instinctively, she brushed aside the duster and gripped the handle of her revolver, preparing herself for anything that might wish to hurt or steal from her or Spencer.
After a few more minutes, however, Wynonna felt the scent of Rohan’s tobacco grow stronger. More consolidated. It led her up to a clearly abandoned house, where the door had long since fallen off its hinges, backward into the building, where it leaned against some rubble and time-ravaged furniture. All the windows’ shutters that still remained were closed, but somewhere along the way, someone or something had knocked all the glass from the panes. The paint on the wood peeled back in disparate, striped chunks, and the slate roof tiles only remained in random splotches, most having slipped and fallen off, shattering on the cobbled road.
“Really?” Spencer asked in a troubled tone, looking at the building with her. “The scent led you here?”
Wynonna nodded, still examining the building. “This is it,” she said. Not wishing to linger outside any longer than she had to, she moved forward and told him, “Come on.”
***
Wynonna ignored his troubled grumbling, as she stepped onto the slanted door, bracing herself against the doorframe and stumbled her way in. The fallen door wobbled a bit and creaked from her weight, but she made it through unscathed all the same. Not bothering to wait for Spencer or help him through, Wynonna continued forward into this wrecked home in search of Rohan.
The interior looked much the same as the exterior. The paint on the walls peeled off, the ceiling had fallen through in places, and even the floor was less than reliable. Several of the planks of wood had cracked, revealing a drop that, if her foot were to slip into, could result in some nasty injuries. With this in mind, she watched her footing, as she moved further into the house.
The previous occupants had left some of the furniture behind as they abandoned this place, but what remained was of little value. Broken bookshelves, hobbled tables, and chairs Wynonna would sooner use as kindling than sitting. The smell was the worst of it though. A musty mildew odor permeated every inch of the place, and she actually clutched onto Rohan’s smoke smell, as it was the more pleasant of the two.
Behind her, Spencer tumbled through the doorway, making a bit of a ruckus, but when she looked back, he seemed unharmed. Saying nothing, she simply gestured for him to get up and follow her. Ignoring his grumbling once again, she turned down a hallway, where the smoky smell of Rohan led her.
This area matched the rest of the house, but the floor was essentially gone, exposing only the slab beneath the floorboards. Grabbing hold of a lamp mounted on the wall, Wynonna lowered herself down, but before her foot reached the slab, the lamp came unhinged. Without any leverage, she fell the rest of the way down, landing hard on her side with chunks of wood and nails jamming into her hip and arm.
“Are you okay?” Spencer asked, rushing forward to the edge of the floor.
Groaning and shifting upright, she said, “Yeah. Fine.”
Wynonna then leaned her head and lifted her arm, so she could check it for damage. A few chunks of wood had stuck to her duster’s sleeve, but nothing looked to have penetrated it. She brushed her arm off and stood up, examining her hip in the same manner. Here, she wasn’t as lucky. Pushing aside the duster and pressing flat the blue fabric of her dress, she saw that one of the nails she’d landed on had pierced through her skin, just above her jeans.
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“Ow,” Spencer said, seeing this and wincing at it.
Wynonna just grimaced at it and grabbed the head, starting to pry it from her skin. Gritting her teeth and groaning through it, she pulled the nail out, causing a little trickle of blood to drip down and seep into her dress and jeans. Remembering the effect the nagas granted her, she wondered about the acidic nature it was supposed to have, but nothing special happened. Perhaps it had already faded. Ignoring this, she tossed the bloodied nail aside, leaned back, and took a couple deep breaths.
“Good thing you regenerate, huh?” Spencer offered.
She glared at him but nodded, pushing herself off the wall. “Come on.”
Wynonna moved forward to the room at the end of the hall, where she stepped back up to the floorboards. Behind her, Spencer dropped down in a safer manner than her and arrived behind her, as she just stood in the doorway, staring in horror at what she found. How her improved sense of smell hadn’t picked up on it earlier, she didn’t know, but now that she was standing in that room, all she could smell was the metallic scent of blood.
Looking at the far side of the room, Wynonna saw Rohan’s body in a pool of his own blood. His face was gaunt and pale, and a trickle of blood rolled down his forehead, where a bullet hole had pierced his skull. In his chest and gut were several other holes, and his shirt and jeans were stained by dark red, dried blood.
“What is it?” Spencer asked from behind her. “Why did you stop?”
He arrived behind her, as she moved forward, and by the gasp he made, the librarian had his answer. Wynonna just stood there, staring at a man she hardly even knew. Regardless, she felt as though she’d been gut punched, and it hurt far more than that nail that had pierced through her skin.
With a creaking of the floorboards, Spencer climbed up to join Wynonna in that room. “What do you think happened?” he asked.
“You know exactly what happened,” she said. “It was him. The corrupt vespari. He found out I spared Rohan and came to do it himself.”
“This is a dangerous place,” Spencer said, fidgeting his hands at his stomach. “You don’t know it was a vespari.”
“You know it was him,” Wynonna replied with a scowl. “Whichever of those elder bastards that’s responsible for everything else. He came here and fired five shots into his chest.” She walked up next to Rohan’s body. “And then he put one more in his head.”
Spencer didn’t reply, just standing back and continuing to fidget nervously, clearly unsettled by the body. It was the implications that concerned Wynonna. The corrupt elder had already tried to kill her once. Now that he knew she lied about Rohan, he would certainly try to get rid of her as well.
Looking to the wall behind Rohan, Wynonna saw that one of the bullets had passed clear through him. Pulling her knife from her belt, she stuck the tip to the bottom of where the bullet lodged into the wood. Prying it out, she grabbed what remained of the bullet, and though it wasn’t in pristine state, she could see it was indeed a vespari’s bullet.
Thinking it might come in useful at some point, she dropped it in her pocket and switched her focus to the man himself. Examining Rohan a little closer, Wynonna thought she saw an object in his shirt pocket. Leaning forward, she saw that she was right.
“There’s something in his pocket,” she informed the librarian.
“What is it?” Spencer asked, not moving from that spot.
Kneeling down, she slipped her fingers into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper, partially covered in Rohan’s dried blood. Wynonna unfolded it and read the words written there to herself. The message was simple but clear, and it validated her worst fears.
Wynonna,
I could smell him on you.
You should have done as you were told.
You’re next.
Azus
“What is it?” Spencer repeated.
Rather than answer him, Wynonna just stood up and handed him the note. After he’d finished it and looked up at her, she asked, “Still don’t think it was him?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, as she snatched the note back and brushed past Spencer, hitting him in the shoulder and knocking him aside.
“What about him?” the librarian asked, rubbing at his shoulder.
Wynonna stopped and looked back. “What would you have me do?”
“He deserves a burial or… a funeral pyre at the least.”
She shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
“We can’t just leave him.”
“Until we deal with this Azus, we can’t do anything for him.”
“You don’t think that’s a little… cold?”
“It’s necessary,” she answered.
Spencer didn’t reply, and she didn’t move.
After a pause, she added, “When it’s over, we’ll come back for him. We have to concern ourselves with Azus for now.”
The librarian looked up at her and nodded. “Okay. You’re right, but what’s next? We haven’t learned anything new about who Azus really is.”
Wynonna folded her arms over her chest. “We need a way that will identify which one Azus is. We know someone supposedly killed Azus all those years ago. Maybe history isn’t what we think it is. You think you could find something in your records?”
He nodded. “I suppose it’s a place to start. What about you?”
“We also know that one of the elders killed Rohan. I think I might have an idea about how to expose who it was.”
“What’s that?”
“Mm,” she muttered. “I can’t imagine that you’re going to like it, so why don’t we wait until I know more.”
“Fair enough,” he replied with a nod.
“Once I know something, I’ll come back to you at the tower.”
“Alright. Just be careful.”
Wynonna found something about that amusing and chuckled despite the gravity of the situation. “Yeah,” she muttered. “That sounds like me.”
***
Wynonna returned to the hotel, looking for both PJ and a good night’s sleep, but he wasn’t in the room they’d shared. Not eager to sleep without him by her side and warding off the effects of Petronila’s nightmares, she decided to go in search of him despite the exhaustion creeping over her. She could only think of one place the young man might have gone - back to his little corner in those alleys. She couldn’t imagine why he would go there, when he could’ve stayed there in that warm, comfortable hotel room, but it was the only thing that came to mind.
By the time Wynonna found the alley where she’d woken up with PJ, the sun was nearly ready to rise, but the city still remained largely asleep. With a yawn, she made her way down the alley and spotted PJ under the tattered blankets of what he considered his bed. As she approached, he sleepily opened his eyes and, when he saw that it was her, smiled. Shifting to the side, he raised up the blanket for her to lie down beside him.
With another yawn, Wynonna took him up on his offer. She removed her gun belt and hat, tossing them into the corner of the alley and then laid down beside him, putting her back to him. PJ threw the covers over her and wrapped his arm over her body, snuggling up against her.
***
Just the same as every other night she’d spent with PJ, Petronila was kept at bay. There were no nightmares to plague her, but Wynonna wasn’t able to sleep for long. Alexandria awoke after a time, and not even in that out of the way alley was she able to escape the loud sounds the bustling city had to offer.
When she woke, Wynonna found PJ still lying behind her, but he had clearly woken before her. He’d raised himself up, resting his head on his arm, and when he saw that’d she’d awoke as well, he stroked several strands of hair that had fallen on her face, brushing them behind her ear.
“Morning,” he told her.
Wynonna twisted around under those covers to face him and tucked her head against his chest. “Five more minutes,” she said, using him to shield her eyes from the light peering into the
alley.
He chuckled and continued brushing her hair back.
“Why did you come back here?” Wynonna asked, not moving from her safe harbor against him.
“Just not a big fan of places like those,” he told her.
She scrunched up even closer to him. “Why not? It’s so swanky.”
“Reminds me of some things I’d prefer to leave in the past,” PJ said.
“Fair enough,” she told him, mumbling her words into his chest.
“How’d your search for answers go?”
Wynonna slid back a little. “Good… and not so good, I guess.”
“What does that mean? Did you find the answer you needed?”
She nodded her head on their little pillow formed from a deflated grain sack stuffed with who knows what. “They said he murdered someone, but I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“There was no evidence. Plus, I think the real killer may have benefitted from the murder, and, to hide it, he framed Cory.”
“Alright. So, how do you prove it?”
Wynonna slid back a little more, so she could see into PJ’s eyes. “That’s what I wanted to see you about.”
“Oh?”
“So, I don’t know much about your… occultist stuff… but I was wondering if you might be able to help with something.”
He narrowed her eyes and stopped stroking her hair. “What?” It was a harsher tone than she was used to hearing from him.
“You mentioned that with the round I trapped the soul eater in, you could do whatever she could do. Is that true?”
He nodded, still eyeing her suspiciously.
Wynonna reached into her pocket and pulled out the silver round, which contained Petronila’s essence. “The soul eater I trapped here… she used a spell that drained my master of every monster he’d ever killed. He described being transported to a dream world, where he could see them all, trapped in cages.” She paused, unsure how to continue.