by Amy Green
“Goddamn cop,” the man said, his voice low and rough, like a man unaccustomed to talking. “I got no use for him.”
“I’m a goddamn cop,” Nadine said, still holding in place, her hands up. “He called me sheriff. I know you heard it.”
“You’re not useless,” the Silverman said with a brief flash of yellowed old teeth. “The wolf will come back for you.”
Devon. He was going to shoot Devon. “You got silver bullets in that thing?” she asked.
The flash of yellowed teeth again. “Why don’t you whistle for your dog and find out?”
“He’s not a dog.”
“No, he’s an abomination. Unnatural, just like the others. I’ll finish him off, and then I’ll hunt the next one, and the next. You can’t stop me.”
She had to play for time, just a few minutes. “That’s what you think you’re going to do? Kill every werewolf, one by one? It isn’t possible. There are too many.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the Silverman said. “I’ve been killing those things for forty years, and I’ll kill them until I lay down and die. I figure when that day comes, I’ll take at least one of them with me.”
“Listen,” Nadine said, trying for reason. “You’ve just killed a man, a cop. You’re in trouble. There’s no way you can get out of this now. If you come with me, and we talk, then I might be able to help you.”
“Help me?” The Silverman laughed. “I don’t think so, werewolf slut.”
She ignored the insult—in five years as sheriff, she’d heard worse—and kept talking. “You’re going to need a lawyer, maybe a doctor. I’m going to tell you your rights right now.” It was a crazy ploy, to give him a Miranda warning in the middle of the woods when he had a gun on her, but she caught the flicker of outrage in his eyes. “You have the right to remain silent—”
“Shut up,” the man said.
“Tell you what,” came a voice from the trees. Devon, emerging from the shadows, his gaze hard on his enemy. “Shoot me and I’ll call your bluff on those bullets, you old piece of shit.”
It took a split second. The Silverman pivoted and his rifle went off. Devon staggered back.
And Nadine reached down, grabbed her gun from the grass, aimed it at the old man, and quickly pulled the trigger.
16
The bullet hurt—a lot—but Devon instantly knew he’d been shot with a normal bullet, not a silver one. The impact made him stumble backward, nearly lose his balance. Blood spattered up from the wound, just under his collarbone, and splashed into his beard as his head jerked back.
It burned, and the pain seared through him, but he kept his footing as a second shot went off. The Silverman’s rifle dropped as his hand went flying, splattering its own quota of blood. She’d managed to shoot him through the hand.
Devon leapt forward and landed on the old man, twisting him to his stomach on the ground, as Nadine joined him, her handcuffs in her hand. “You have the right to remain silent,” she said again, and this time she got all the way through the warning as Devon held the old man down—he was slick as an otter and freakishly strong—and she cuffed his wrists behind his back. When that was done, she patted the Silverman down, coming out with a handgun tucked into the back of his waistband and an old piece of rawhide in a pocket of his army pants.
Her gaze flew up to Devon, alive with fear. “Are you hurt? Was it—”
“I’ll be all right.” He touched the wound beneath his collarbone experimentally. There was only a little blood seeping from it, and the skin was trying to knit. “It wasn’t silver. Keep your eyes on him.” He nodded to the Silverman. “I don’t trust him, even handcuffed.”
Nadine stood, picked up her gun again. “Shit,” she said to no one in particular. “Shit, shit, shit.” Devon stood and watched her as she calculated the situation. The dead deputy, the crazy old man in handcuffs with a shot hand, the werewolf. She gathered herself and said, “Did you call for help?”
“It’s on its way,” Devon said, taking her cell phone from his pocket and giving it back to her. “I didn’t give my name. I just said that I was hiking and I heard shots and screams.”
She nodded and took the phone back. Again he waited—he was out of his depth here, where the human police force was about to take over. All he knew was that his wolf longed to go to the old man on the ground, turn him over, and rip his throat out. Since he couldn’t do that, he’d follow her lead.
“We have to bandage him, then get back into cell range,” Nadine said. “That means… That means leaving Tate.” She swallowed; it went against her morals to leave her friend and coworker dead on the forest floor, but she had no choice. She had to bring in her prisoner, get in touch with the office in Pierce Point, send the coroner’s crew out to collect Tate properly. Even Devon could see that.
So he walked over to the Silverman and jerked on his arm. “Get up, old man. We’re walking.”
The Silverman spat. “Fuck you, you animal.”
It wasn’t easy, being close to the man while his wolf senses were at work. He could smell too much: hate, fear, madness, both of their blood, and that terrible rotten smell he’d detected back at the mine, like the Silverman was rotting from the inside out. And all of that was aside from the rank smell of the old man’s body, the clothes that he’d last washed God knew when.
“You should’ve loaded with silver,” Devon said, rotating his shoulder as he kicked the old man into motion. “This burns, but I didn’t even fall down.”
“You like that leg?” the man shot back. “That’s my gift to you, you monster. My mark. Enjoy it before I end your unnatural life.”
“You call the sheriff a slut again, and I’ll end your unnatural life,” Devon said. “Promise or no promise, law or no law.”
Nadine had gathered her pack from beside Tate and took the Silverman’s other elbow, turning him around so she could bandage his handcuffed hand with supplies from her pack. “You have no ID,” she said, winding gauze around the Silverman’s hand. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me your name?”
“My name is vengeance,” the old man said. “It is righteousness. It is the war of the just.”
“Okay,” Nadine said. “Got it.”
“The hunter of evil souls,” the man continued. “Cleanser of the earth. You all should be thanking me for eradicating the things you call shifters. I’ve saved you all from the rule of the hell-beasts. I’ve saved your children from being murdered by their insatiable appetites—”
“Okay,” Nadine said, louder this time. “No name. I got that, loud and clear.” She cut Devon a glance past the old man’s head. “We’ll photograph and print him at the station. Maybe his prints are in the database.”
“I will not submit to your evil machines!” the Silverman shouted.
“I hope you like a concrete cell, old man,” Devon goaded him. Nadine was finished with the bandage, so he pushed the Silverman into a walk. “That’s where you’re going for the rest of your life. Which, by the looks of you, isn’t a fuck of a long time.”
“Be quiet, both of you,” Nadine said. “Don’t forget, old man—whoever you are—you’re under oath. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“I answer to no one but my maker,” the Silverman said.
“If you want to go meet him, just let me know,” Devon growled. Nadine glared at him, and he was quiet.
Fifteen minutes down the mountain, her cell phone finally had a signal. She set the Silverman down to sit on a fallen tree, with Devon watching over him, and made the calls she needed. The office, dispatch, the coroner’s. An air ambulance was already on its way for Tate, even though there was nothing the medics could to for him, since it was the fastest way to reach the scene. Nadine gave the GPS coordinates of the body, which she’d recorded before they left the site. Police were already headed up the service roads and would go on foot from there.
When she was finished, she took Devon aside, out of earshot of the Silverman. �
��We’re going to keep walking,” she said. “We’ll meet with the police coming the other way.”
“Fine,” he said.
She pulled him deeper into the trees—the flat, angry gaze from the old man creeped her out—and undid the buttons of his Henley, pulling it aside to look at his wound. It had stopped bleeding but it was still open and angry red. “This hasn’t healed over,” she said, worried.
“It burns more than anything,” Devon said, obviously reluctant to admit he felt anything at all. “I think the bullet is working its way out, though I can’t be sure. I’ve never been shot with a normal bullet before.”
Nadine frowned, tracing her fingers over his skin. It was warm and taut, and she could see the beginnings of dark hair on his chest. Devon Donovan was a full-grown wolf, not one of those waxed model types. It gave her an involuntary shiver, remembering what he’d looked like with his shirt off. “Would my first aid kit do any good?”
He seemed amused. “No, ma’am. It’s taken care of.”
“Thank you for what you did back there,” she said. “You interrupted at just the right time. And thank you for making the phone call, and helping with him.”
He still seemed amused, and she realized it was because she was still touching him. “You think I would just walk off and leave you alone?”
She shook her head, reluctantly withdrawing her hand. “No. But you have to go now.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Devon, if it comes out that I took an unqualified civilian, a shifter, with me to make an arrest, I’d lose my job. But worse than that, it could affect the Silverman’s case.”
He had gone stiff and still. “You mean they could let him go?”
“It’s unlikely, considering he clearly killed Tate and his bizarre mental state. But if we want this to be a slam dunk, there can be no mistakes, nothing unusual. It has to be straight by the book.” She raised her gaze to his handsome face, making the implication clear. You are not by the book. You are not by anyone’s book.
He took a deep breath that expanded his chest, then let it out again. “I’m going into the woods,” he finally agreed, “but I won’t go far.”
“As long as you aren’t seen.”
The amusement again. “I can stay unseen by humans, trust me. Humans can’t see a damn thing.”
She nodded. “Meet me later. At my place. I’ll have to go to the station, give statements. I’ll probably be home late.” She pulled her keys from her pocket and handed him the keys to her apartment, detaching them from the ring. “Just don’t—”
“Let anyone see me,” he said dryly. “I know.”
It was shitty. She knew it was shitty. He was her friend, her partner, and more, the man she wanted desperately—really desperately—to go to bed with. But this was murder—Kyle Bryant’s murder, and Scott Kraemer’s murder, and now Tate Henderson’s murder. If she played this wrong, the killer of three men that she knew of would walk free.
Still, this was Devon. “It’s just for a little while,” she said to him, fretting.
He put his hand on her cheek and bent. He kissed her once, quick and fierce, and then he was gone again without another word.
17
“Why?” she asked the Silverman when they were alone again, and she was walking him on the path that would take him to the service road. “Why kill shifters for all these years?”
The old man didn’t answer.
“The werewolf is gone,” she said. Maybe she could earn his trust in the short time they had before the cavalry arrived. “You’ve had them all stirred up. He’s been looking for you for weeks.” If she could play to his ego, maybe he would talk. Most people did.
It worked. “Of course he couldn’t find me,” the Silverman said in a disgusted voice. “He’s a brute animal, a beast, and I’m a man.”
“You had no problem working for the alpha of the Martell pack,” Nadine said. “He’s a beast as well.”
“I started by hunting the Martells.” The Silverman’s voice was rough, unused, but he was starting to enjoy this. “Their alpha was so terrified of me that he offered me work taking care of the wolves who disobeyed him. I had free rein to kill, and he gave me silver bullets and money. So I did it.”
So that was where he’d gotten his silver bullets, at least at first. Christian Martell hadn’t volunteered that little fact, the self-serving bastard. “Why did you stop?” she asked.
The old man shrugged. Despite the long walk over tough terrain, with both hands cuffed behind his back and an injury, he showed no signs of tiring. “I was tired of working for an animal,” he said in the dismissive tone he used when talking about shifters. “The man should be the master of the dog, not the other way around. One of the alpha’s sons was going to rebel against him anyway, so I took the opportunity to come to Colorado and hunt in new territory. Alone.” He showed his yellow teeth in a pleased smile. “These particular wolves are tough, not weak and soft like the California ones. They’re harder to track, harder to kill. They don’t die so easily. But I don’t mind. To me, it’s just a challenge.”
Nadine’s spine was chilled, and she was tired of being alone with this creepy, crazy old man. She discreetly scanned the trees around them, looking for a sign of Devon. She didn’t see one. But she felt in her bones that he’d been telling the truth, that he’d stay nearby and hidden. Devon wouldn’t leave her.
“You ran out of bullets,” she said, “the ones Christian Martell gave you. So you came to the mine to get more.”
“I don’t need silver bullets,” the Silverman said.
“But you went into the mine. And you melted silver with the equipment there.”
The old man’s attention had wandered. “That wolf,” he said. “The one with you. He’s the biggest wolf I’ve ever seen. I’m going to kill him—I’ve seen it in my visions. It will be the best kill of my life so far.”
To avoid any further conversation, Nadine took out her phone and called in her location. A few minutes later they met with the cops coming up from the service road—seven in all, including Ben, her other deputy. Above their heads, the helicopter air ambulance whirred by, on its way to Tate.
Ben came forward and looked from Nadine to the Silverman. “Any ID?” he asked.
“None,” Nadine replied. “And he refuses to give his name.”
“We’ll know it soon enough,” Ben said, taking the old man’s elbow. “Let’s go, pal.” He looked down at the Silverman’s wrists, handcuffed behind his back. “He’s injured.”
“A flesh wound in the hand,” Nadine said. “I bandaged it.”
“This looks painful.” Ben looked at the Silverman. “You in pain, pal?”
The Silverman just grinned at him with yellow teeth.
“He’s not in pain,” Nadine said.
“How do you know? We could have a lawsuit,” Ben said. “Police brutality. This guy’s seventy if he’s a day. He’s bleeding through the bandages. Jeez, Sheriff.” He turned to their prisoner. “It’s a rough walk down, so I’ll switch your cuffs to the front if you behave. You got me?”
“Don’t,” Nadine said, a bad feeling in her gut.
But Ben just gave her a look and moved behind the Silverman, taking out his cuff keys. The other cops moved forward, some of them to help with the prisoner, the rest moving on to help the ambulance crew with Tate, disappearing into the trees.
Everything happened so fast. The handcuffs clicked, and the old man moved, quick as a snake. The cop in front of him fell, and when Ben tried to grip the Silverman’s arms, he was thrown back with an elbow to the jaw, his head snapping back before he tripped to the ground and lay still.
Nadine drew her gun and aimed it, but the man was so goddamned fast. He grabbed a third cop, threw him down, and yanked the gun from his holster. He swung it and aimed it at Nadine.
“Don’t shoot!” she shouted at him. “Don’t shoot!” She took aim.
In response, the Silverman’s thumb expertly flipped the sa
fety.
There was a growl from the trees, and a flash of movement. Devon Donovan’s wolf landed on the Silverman, and the Silverman’s gun went flying, a shot going wild into the trees. Man and beast rolled, locked together, the man with his hands around the wolf’s neck, the wolf snapping his huge, sharp teeth.
One of the cops pulled his gun. “No!” Nadine shouted, but it was as if the sound was carried off in the wind as one cop fired first, then another followed suit.
If the bullets hit either the wolf or the man, neither showed it. They continued to grapple—the Silverman was wildly strong for an old man matched with a werewolf, but he was starting to give in, his arms weakening as Devon snapped at his neck. Nadine rushed forward, still shouting for the other cops to stop shooting.
She was close when she saw it. The Silverman twisted in his position beneath Devon. He snatched something from his boot. And then he sank a blade into Devon’s shoulder blade.
Devon howled, snapping, obviously in pain. Nadine cried out in dismay. To make a werewolf hurt like that, the blade must be silver.
But the old man had given up his grip. Twisting in agony, the wolf bent down, ripped the man’s neck, and then pulled back and ran, silent as a shadow, as the police officers shot at his wake. In seconds, he had vanished back into the trees.
The shots stopped. All was quiet. And there was nothing but a minute of stunned silence, as Nadine watched the remains of the Silverman leak his blood into the ground.
18
Devon woke when the door opened. He scented Nadine immediately, even though she was in the next room. She was alone, and she was exhausted.
He rolled over, checking his bandages. He was in Nadine’s bed, lying on top of her covers. He’d bandaged himself carefully, trying not to bleed on her things and ruin them. He didn’t know much about women, but he figured that bleeding all over their nice belongings was probably something they didn’t like.
He hadn’t meant to fall asleep—and he’d been sleeping deeply—but the bandages seemed to have held. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed as pain lanced through him, from his shoulder down his chest, arm, and back. Stoically trying not to wince, he stood and left the room.