Blood's Shadow: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 3

by Cecilia Dominic

  “Identification?” the brawny lad at the door asked me, so I showed him my ID, and he let me in. I found Jade at a table in the back with a couple of other young women.

  “Oh, is he the kind of man you get to be with in your club?” asked one of them. She batted her eyelashes at me.

  “I’m not with her organization,” I said. “I prefer to think for myself.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.” They stood. “Maybe catch you next time, Jade.”

  She watched them leave, her expression exasperated. “Thanks. Now I’m going to have to stay out all night to catch more.”

  I sat beside her. “Or you could just quit the cult. You seem to have a pretty good idea what it’s all about without having bought into the brainwashing. Except for the affair you’re having with Bartholomew.”

  “Oh, but it’s not just an affair. You see, he loves me. He’s going to leave Cora for me.” She didn’t sound like a lovestruck young woman but rather like someone who was enacting a battle strategy.

  Even so, I figured I’d put my two cents in. I’d heard similar words from other women, and it never worked out for them. I told her as much and finished with, “And they usually find happiness with someone else soon after.” I couldn’t help but think of Joanie and Leo.

  “Like you?” she asked. “You’re like him, Bartholomew. You’ve got power.”

  I stopped myself from recoiling. “I wouldn’t say I’ve got his kind of power. I don’t use women like he does. You must have some doubts about him if you invited me out tonight.”

  She stirred the dark red concoction in her glass with a cocktail straw and took a sip. “You need a drink,” she said and signaled to the waiter. He leaned over, and she whispered in his ear.

  “Table service? What is this place?”

  She looked around with a proprietary expression, a female predator in her hunting grounds. “It’s a little classier than most of the pubs here, and the patrons often have more money. Bartholomew likes that.”

  I recognized her for what she was—a beta but also a hunter. “He’s recruiting humans? That’s in violation of Council policies.”

  “It only goes against policy if he’s luring them in to change them. He keeps them on the edge of the organization in perpetual ‘development classes’ while draining away their money and resources.”

  “That’s illegal in their world and in ours.”

  She sipped her drink. “They’re looking for something more than ordinary life. Is it really illegal if we’re giving it to them, even if it’s only in a peripheral sense?”

  “What do they think they’re signing up for?”

  “Worship in an ancient Celtic rite.”

  The server brought me a cocktail before I could order.

  “What is it?” I asked, but the whiskey, bitters, and orange smells told me. “An old-fashioned?”

  “Like you,” she said. “A hero at heart. They just don’t make guys like you anymore.” She stirred her drink again.

  Meanwhile, the one she’d ordered for me had more of a kick than I expected, and I put it down after two small sips. “That’s enough for me. I need to drive back to Lycan Village.”

  “Stay for a bit.” She put her hand on my arm and looked up at me with her big, brown eyes. “I have some friends coming to meet me here.”

  “What kind of friends? Other Purists?”

  She shook her head. “No, you’ll see. Oh, there they are now.” She waved one skinny arm to signal a tall couple dressed in leather and denim. The woman’s long blonde hair flowed out from beneath a leather top hat, and the guy had a lush blond beard. At first glance, they seemed annoyed to see me, and then they smiled, showing their teeth.

  They’re lycanthropes.

  With the odds now three to one that I would get out of here unscathed, my mind reviewed the exit strategies it had formulated upon walking into the place.

  “Alice and Rob,” Jade introduced them. “This is Gabriel. He’s the Council Investigator.”

  They nodded. “We’ve been wanting to meet you,” Alice said and sat in the chair Rob held out for her. “We’re very interested in the work the Institute is doing.”

  “And how would you know about that?” I asked.

  “Well, there was the article in the paper,” Rob told me, taking the other empty chair and sitting a little too close. “But you know it’s hard to keep a secret among our kind for long. We’ll sniff it out, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  What had Garou said? Alice and Robert MacLemore, the leaders of the Young Bloods, liked to hide in plain sight, and here they were with a representative of a rival organization. “Speaking of keeping secrets,” I said, “you know you’re risking exposing all of us with your social media presence. I should shut your page down.”

  Alice laughed, but her smile didn’t rise above her beautifully high cheekbones. “As if you could. We’d only pop up elsewhere, and we don’t recognize the authority of the Council. We’re humans with a health problem we’d like access to curing, not werewolves.”

  “And where will I find you two nights from now when the moon is full and singing in your blood?”

  She gazed at me for so long with her big blue eyes that Rob tensed. “At home, tranquilized with anxiety medication and antipsychotic drugs that will leave me hung over for two days and make it harder for me to work on Monday. It’s hell, Investigator. I’ve already lost two jobs due to weekday absences.” Her eyes sparkled, but it wasn’t with moonlight. I wondered if they might be crocodile tears, but her distress seemed genuine enough. “The moon won’t cooperate with her timing, so we need your help.”

  I glanced at Jade, who turned her glass between her palms. “Strange company you’re keeping considering who you work for.”

  She lifted her thin shoulders. “I work for myself, not Bartholomew Campbell and his group of crazies. There’s a reason I’m the worst recruiter beyond the fact that most of us can’t be found in the cities anymore because it’s too difficult to be what we are in an urban environment.”

  “So why do you work for him?”

  She looked at me like I was dense. “So someone can watch what he’s doing. Luckily he’s gotten so inflated with his alpha wolf thing that he wouldn’t even consider I’d betray him, not his cute little secretary.”

  Her statement didn’t ring true. Spies didn’t necessarily sleep with the object of their observation. It occurred to me she was either unsure of what she was doing or, more likely, wasn’t being honest with me.

  “Inflated, perhaps even tumescent,” Rob interjected.

  I snorted, but Jade didn’t find it funny.

  “Just because I’m willing to use unorthodox methods to stay close to the leadership doesn’t mean you have any space to judge.”

  “Your methods aren’t unorthodox,” Rob said and put an arm around Alice’s shoulders. “They’re the oldest methods in the world: to get to the king, you get to the queen or get in his bed, sometimes both.”

  “I doubt Cora is into that,” Alice said. “Leave Jade alone, Rob. She’s the one who got the letter off from their headquarters claiming responsibility for the murder.”

  I took another swig of my drink. Some of the ice had melted, making it less strong. “And I can guess where the other one came from and just how not responsible you are.”

  “We needed to get your attention and that of the Council,” Alice told me. “But we’re not murderers.” The waiter put a pink drink in a martini glass in front of her, and she sipped at the edge.

  “You have it,” I said. The girl just got more stunningly beautiful the more I talked to her, and… Oh no. I looked at my drink. What had they mixed in there? A glance around the bar revealed several of the young people looked my way, and now I was aware of it, I felt their gazes land on me too frequently. Jade watched me intently as Alice and Rob bantered. At some poi
nt, Alice’s hand found its way onto my knee.

  “I should be going,” I said and tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t work, and I flopped back into the chair.

  “You shouldn’t be driving.” Alice threw some money on the table. “We’ll take you home. Jade, will that cover it?”

  “Yep, we should be all set.” Her small mouth curled into a feral smile like a wolf about to snag a rabbit.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just need some water.” But when I blinked, the pub tilted, and my stomach churned. I kept myself from throwing up through sheer will and throat muscles of steel.

  “You’re not okay, mate,” Rob said. “We’ll take care of you.”

  “I’m sure you will.” I commanded my legs to move, but they refused. I looked around for some sort of friendly face, but most of the ones there only had mocking expressions. I’d stumbled into a den of Young Bloods, and I suspected I’d be carried out if something didn’t change soon. But what did they want to do to me? Hold me hostage until they got access to the Institute?

  “Drugging and kidnapping me isn’t going to make me sympathetic to your cause,” I said to Alice.

  “No one said anything about kidnapping. We’re just going to bring you back to our flat to sleep it off.”

  A dark figure made its way into the pub, its hat pulled low over its brow to shade its face. It wore a large jacket and tan pants. No one looked directly at it, but all got out of its way. When it paused at our table, Jade didn’t look at it, but she stirred her drink with such speed an ice cube flopped over the side of the glass, and Rob pulled his collar up around his neck.

  “Did it get cold in here?” he asked.

  Alice looked around. “It’s just another pub ghost. You’re too sensitive.”

  “You say you want a sensitive bloke you can talk to, but I’m too sensitive.” He spoke rapidly and rubbed his neck.

  A blast of cold air down the back of my shirt made me jump to my feet, and this time my legs worked.

  “Thank you for your hospitality and the drink,” I said, “but I need to get going.”

  I followed the ghost out of the pub, and it vanished once we stepped into the cool night air. I walked a block and leaned against the wall of another bar, listening for sounds of pursuit. The staccato click of Alice’s boots came to my ears, and I ducked into a doorway that was deep enough to keep me hidden.

  “What the fuck was that?” she asked someone, presumably Rob. “How did you let him get away?”

  “Didn’t you feel it?”

  They continued to argue as they passed me, and I slumped against the door, wishing I hadn’t worn a white sweater. They didn’t see me, however, and passed on. Something like static thrummed in my chest, and I recognized they probably felt the same tension. Encounters with a ghost could do that to you, and I wished I’d seen my savior’s face. Perhaps it had been my father, but he had never produced such a feeling when he appeared to me before. Could it be whatever they’d laced my drink with?

  Speaking of which, I needed to move on, but now that the crisis had mostly passed, my adrenaline reduced. Although my brain worked and ticked through my strategy, my knees went soft, and I couldn’t feel my tongue. I feared someone would find me passed out in a doorway like a common drunk, and what would that do to my hope of becoming a full Council member? Our politics were not so different than humans’ after all, except that we excused less bad behavior since an out-of-control lycanthrope could cause more damage.

  The door opened behind me, and I fell backwards, landing on my arse with a disgusting splat.

  “Gabriel?” Selene asked and looked down on me with wide eyes. Whether they shone with fear or surprise, I couldn’t tell, because that was when I blacked out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The smell of strong coffee woke me, and I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling of draped cloth. I found myself in a canopy bed that was, in a word, girly, and it brought to mind an incident from my childhood when I’d slept over at a friend’s house and woke to find myself the victim of his sister and friends’ cosmetic attention. A hand over my face revealed I wore no makeup, but I also had no clothing on other than my underwear.

  “Your outer garments were filthy,” a female voice said. “You landed in a puddle of vomit when you fell. You’re lucky it didn’t soak through, although your white sweater might never be the same.”

  I raised myself on one elbow and saw a dark-haired beauty wearing a silk kimono-style robe sitting at the dressing table. She didn’t hold any of the cosmetics, just looked at them wistfully, from what I could tell from her reflection in the mirror. The bedroom was old-fashioned with wardrobe, dresser, and the bed and dressing table. Although the furniture was likely antique, the clothing strewn about was modern, but not on a scale large enough to fit the voluptuous woman who spoke to me.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “And where am I?”

  “That redheaded girl brought you home. She lives here. As for me, I’m only a shadow of what’s gone before. Someone wanted me to check on you, so now that I have, I can be off. Good luck, young man. You’ve gotten yourself into a real mess, and not just your clothing.” With a wink to me in the mirror, she disappeared.

  “Lovely,” I said and covered my face with my hands. “More ghosts.”

  “More what?” asked Selene as she opened the door. She carried a tray with an American-style breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits. My nose also picked up coffee, and I scooted up to a sitting position.

  “Ghosts,” I said. “Did you realize you had one?”

  The color drained from Selene’s face, and she looked around. “Not that I’ve ever seen, thank goodness. I heard this place was haunted. It’s how I was able to get it so inexpensively. You’d think you Scots with your haunted as hell country would be used to them. I never will be, though.”

  “You’re babbling. Don’t worry, she’s gone.”

  A lovely shell pink flush came to her cheeks when she saw my tented boxers, and I pulled the sheets over my lap. Surely she wasn’t so innocent she didn’t realize what happened to men first thing in the morning? Not that I could blame my body’s current state solely on morning wood. The collar of her cream-colored shirt draped low and caressed the tops of her breasts before the folds of fabric gave way to a fitted center and then a skirt that hugged her curves and long legs. She placed the tray on my lap gently.

  “Is that, uh, comfortable?” she asked and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “I’m fine physically but a bit uncomfortable mentally. How did I get here? Where are my clothes?”

  She sat on the bed and exhaled, obviously relieved for the change of subject. “They said dry clean only, so I had to send them out. Trust me, you didn’t want to wear them in that nice car of yours.”

  I picked up a piece of bacon and took a nibble. When my stomach didn’t object, I assembled a bacon-egg biscuit. “And the means of my arrival?”

  “I was out with some friends last night. They helped me bring you here.”

  “What friends?” Not a gentleman friend, who would likely have objected to me sleeping in her bed and not on the couch. The idea relieved me. Dammit, I did not need to become attached to this woman even if her damsel-in-distress demeanor activated every single one of my rescue tendencies, both man and canine.

  “No one you would know. They’re fellow Americans. Why were you in the club door?”

  I chewed a big bite of biscuit and considered how I should answer her. The truth seemed paranoid in the light of morning, especially since I didn’t seem to have any adverse effects from the night before. If anything, I felt like I’d slept solidly, but not drugged.

  “What time is it?” I asked, hoping to put her off her question.

  “About one in the afternoon.”

  I dropped the biscuit. So much for no adverse effects. I reassembled what was left of it and tried
to piece together the night while I chewed. “Why did you let me sleep so long?”

  “I tried to wake you several times, but you were solidly out.” A door opened and slammed shut somewhere outside the room, and she stood, her expression dismayed. “Oh, no. Not now.”

  “What?” I shoved the tray aside, and coffee sloshed over the side of the mug and pooled on the white napkin beside it in a spreading stain.

  “Get dressed,” she whispered. “Here.” She pulled a man’s checked shirt, T-shirt, and jeans out of the closet and handed the garments to me along with a ball cap.

  “I would never have picked you for a cross dresser,” I said.

  “They’re my brother’s. Luckily he likes his clothing big, so it should fit you. Go in the bathroom and pretend you’re messing around under the sink like a plumber.”

  “All right.”

  “Oh, and no matter what happens, don’t come out. You have no idea what’s at risk by you being here.”

  With those cryptic words, she walked out of the bedroom, and I got dressed in the borrowed clothing, which were snug but fit adequately aside from the jeans making my underwear crawl up my arse. I wondered if I should pull them down to show some crack, but the T-shirt and over shirt were too long to milk that effect. I knelt in front of the sink and opened the cabinet doors underneath.

  Why did she bring me here if it was too dangerous? She knows where I live.

  With eyes closed, I activated my lycanthrope hearing.

  “Did you think you wouldn’t be followed? Watched? Where is he?”

  My skin prickled. It was the scar-faced Englishman. I wondered if he had his big friend with him.

  “He’d obviously had too much to drink,” Selene said. “I couldn’t just leave him passed out there. Besides, helping him might get me brownie points with the Council. That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it?”

  “Not if it pisses off the boss. He doesn’t want another man in your bed.”

  In a second, I was on my feet, but Selene’s words kept me from doing anything. “What does he mean, ‘another’?”