Blood's Shadow: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 3

by Cecilia Dominic

  Max nodded. “The boy’s energy field is off. He lives in a lot of fear, and not of the spirits.”

  “Can you do something for him?” I asked. “He’s technically one of you even though he has lycanthrope parents.”

  “As far as you know,” Lonna said. “He could be adopted or from a previous marriage. Or his father could suspect he’s not his. It’s extremely rare for two wolves to produce a little wizard, especially one so strong and talented.”

  “I’ve only met his mother once, and that was briefly.”

  Max ran his hand through his hair. “We’re limited in what we can do for him right now since we’re at odds with the Wizard Tribunal.”

  “What about your friend Arnold?” I asked. “Surely he’d be interested in a little clairvoyant like Alexander.”

  “Still missing. Leave the boy with us,” Lonna said. “At the very least, I can fatten him up, and Max can maybe show him some shielding techniques so he’ll have more control over how much the spirits communicate with him. As for his home life… I’ll kick in some of my social worker training and see what options are available for him and his mother.”

  We all looked at each other, feeling helpless, but even our sketchy plan felt better than just leaving the boy there with his brute of a father for the afternoon.

  “And what are you going to do?” Max asked me when he walked me to the door.

  “I have a date with a vargamore tonight. He has Selene.” I gave him a summary of what had happened the night before.

  “My condolences for your loss. I didn’t know him well, but David seemed like a good guy.”

  “He was.” And now he’s relying on me, too.

  The weight of all those counting on me for help—David and my father, Selene and her brother, Max and Lonna, and now Alexander—pressed down on me along with the heavy torc around my neck. Morena and then Alexander had urged me to seek help, but I didn’t know where I could find it. Morena hadn’t volunteered, and I was pretty much out of options unless one dropped into my lap.

  I drove to David’s estate and parked outside the main house. I thought it was empty, but Garou came out of the front door. He looked even thinner and less rested than the previous time I’d seen him, and I suspected he’d been up all night.

  “Burning the candle on both ends again?” I asked him.

  “If my witnesses would only cooperate, I wouldn’t have to,” he replied. “I don’t suppose I’m fortunate enough you came to give a statement.”

  The soft breeze and sunlight on my face mocked my irritable mood, and I couldn’t help but bait him. “I hadn’t planned on it, no.”

  “Fine. I will file an order with the Council.” He ran a hand over his face, and I could almost hear my mother scolding me. My mental voice wasn’t as gentle as hers would’ve been.

  Stop being an ass, Gabriel. He’s just trying to do his job.

  “Look, I have a few hours to kill, and I need to fill you in on what I’ve found,” I said.

  His expression of surprise turned to one of suspicion. “What’s the catch, Investigator?”

  “No catch. Honestly, I may need your help.” It surprised me to say so, but now that David was gone and Morena had essentially stepped aside after warning me and giving me the torc, Garou was my most reliable ally.

  Now he looked even more skeptical. “Are you healed from your injuries last night? It seems you may have hit your head.”

  “Let’s just say I’ve finally started listening to what the universe is trying to tell me.”

  He nodded. “I am at your disposal. Shall we go inside?”

  The front door hung open like the mouth to a den of horror. The images of my father and then David flashed through my mind. “I can’t go in there. Grab one of the bottles of whiskey and a couple of glasses, and we’ll talk on the back patio.”

  Because that’s how we Scots prepare for battle.

  He gave me a strange look but went inside and closed the door. My father’s picture, the one the commander took on the battlefield, nudged the edge of my consciousness, but I pushed it away.

  I have to focus on the present now. And my future.

  “Mind if I smoke?” Garou tapped a box of cigarettes against the wrought-iron table. It seemed ridiculous, the two of us sitting there sharing a decanter of whiskey like gentlemen of leisure. I checked my watch. Seven o’clock. Three hours until sundown…and my showdown with Wolfsheim. A long time to wait and a short time to figure out whether Garou would be a useful ally. Not that I wanted to put anyone else in danger, but the overwhelming chorus seemed to be in favor of me not doing this alone.

  “No,” I said. “How very continental of you.”

  He lit one. “Why have a long lifespan if you’re not able to enjoy it?”

  The combination of the smells of cigarette smoke, summer air, and Scotch brought old memories to the surface. I struggled to hold on to my sense of time and place. “How old are you, anyway?”

  Garou leaned back and squinted at me before putting on his sunglasses. “Old enough to have known Agatha Christie.”

  “No kidding? You’re older than I thought. I’d ask if you were her model for Hercule Poirot, but you’re French, not Belgian.”

  “No, I am Belgian, albeit a Walloon. But no, I wasn’t her model. I did help her with some of the finer details of her stories.”

  “Interesting.” Had I never really looked at the guy before? Or had I been seduced by the “old family, Council member” snobby mentality I detested so much? That thought made me squirm.

  “And you?”

  “About eighty. And feeling every year.” I looked into my glass, where the amber liquid reflected the still strong sunlight. “Kind of makes it ridiculous that you and I were arguing over Selene last week. She’s just a pup.”

  Garou shrugged. “Does age matter, Investigator? The young are full of impulsivity and passion, but that’s what keeps us old dogs alive.”

  His words tickled the back of my brain and returned me to the question of how Wolfsheim had managed to live for centuries.

  “What do you know about Wolfsheim?” I asked. “If you’ve been around that long, surely you’ve heard of him.”

  “Yes, I am aware of the Order of the Silver Arrow, but I thought they were a legend. I could never understand why the Council was so obsessed with them.”

  “It’s very much alive, but in a way no one expected.” I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. “What if these organizations we’ve been watching closely, the Young Bloods and the Purists, weren’t their own gig, but rather were the new face of the Order?”

  “How many of them could possibly be involved?” Garou asked. “You’re talking about a huge conspiracy.”

  “There’s no way to determine the entire scope of it. I can’t help but wonder if there truly is a Wolfsheim or if it’s a title that’s been passed down. Secret societies have outer rings and inner ones. It could be that there are so many layers that there isn’t a true center anymore.”

  “Oh, no, there is a Wolfsheim,” a young male voice said. I turned to see Robert MacLemore and his wife Alice, the leaders of the Young Bloods, standing at the edge of the patio.

  Garou and I leapt to our feet, but they both drew weapons before we could reach for ours. Not that I had one. The menacing firearms in their hands seemed at odds with their golden, sun-kissed stylish appearances. The thought crossed my mind, But hippies hate guns! I guess hipsters don’t. Remember the era you’re in.

  “And he wants to see you right away,” Alice added. “You should’ve stuck with us, Investigator. We would’ve made your capitulation a lot more pleasant.”

  “I’m sure you would have. Tell me, do you drug the objects of your interest often, or just the ones you really like?”

  “Just the ones we think might fight back too hard.”

  Ro
b kept his gun on us while Alice patted us down for weapons. She took Garou’s service weapon and the knife he kept strapped at his ankle.

  “Of course we can’t confiscate your most dangerous weapons, your wolf selves,” Rob said. “But we can dampen them for a while.”

  Alice took a syringe out of his pocket. “Just one?”

  “We were only instructed to bring in McCord,” he said.

  She sighed, obviously exasperated. “I told you to bring two just in case.”

  “I didn’t have an extra. You forgot to pick up the refills. We used the other two last night. Just inject McCord.”

  “I’m not going to let you,” I said.

  Rob turned his gun on Garou. “If you don’t, I’ll kill him. The boss doesn’t care whether he lives or dies.”

  “I bet you know what this is,” Alice said in a singsong voice and came toward me with the syringe in one hand, her gun in the other. “If you try anything, Inspector Garou gets it.”

  “Let me guess, Luridatone?” I asked. An atypical antipsychotic, it cut off our ability to change by short-circuiting the reward and motivation pathways in the brain, making our bodies not want to go through the effort. Its effects were temporary but potent.

  “Very good,” Rob said. “Now inject it into his quad, Alice. Either one is fine.”

  I sighed, frustrated that they had Garou hostage. Alice took the top off the syringe and injected the clear liquid into my left thigh. It burned, and my knees gave way beneath me.

  “As for you, Detective,” she said, “I’m going to have to make sure you don’t get found for a long time. Lead the way inside.”

  “Act like you don’t want to go in the dungeon,” I told him with my telepathic wolf-voice, hoping I had the talent Morena had mentioned earlier. Theoretically it shouldn’t have worked with us both being in human form, but he nodded slightly as she walked him away. “There’s a hole with a grate at the very end. It leads to a tunnel in the woods. Follow my trail to the ruins. Wolfsheim’s lair is underneath.”

  They disappeared into the house. Rob checked his watch, but not for long enough that I could distract him or get away.

  “Aren’t you millennials supposed to be addicted to your phones or something?” I asked. “You know, there’s a pause in the action, so you need to tweet about what you had for lunch. Or Facebook—‘OMG holding Council Investigator hostage.’”

  “Very funny,” he said but didn’t laugh.

  After a few minutes, Alice reappeared. “All right, I knocked him out and locked him in the dungeon.”

  I cursed under my breath to sound like I wasn’t happy about it. Hopefully Garou wouldn’t be out for too long or get lost once he woke up. As for me, a heaviness spread through my limbs, and my vision narrowed.

  “There might’ve been a little something else in there.” Alice’s voice floated above me like an oil slick on the water—opalescent in color but not pretty. I sank into the blackness away from the blue sky and everything that was safe and pure in my life.

  I woke in a cave. A single torch—a real wooden one this time—flickered in its sconce on the wall above me, and a stalactite dripped cold water onto my face. I rolled to my side and then to my knees, noting how dry my mouth felt. Scraping my tongue against my teeth only brought a little relief, and I dared not try the water dripping in the cave for fear of microbes and parasites.

  Speaking of parasites, where did Rob and Alice go?

  I stood, careful not to bump my head on the ceiling. Trying to close my eyes and start the change didn’t produce any effect. Dammit, that’s right, there was Luridatone in there. On the other hand, maybe if I’m in human form, I won’t be as susceptible to Wolfsheim’s spells. If I’m lucky.

  I grabbed the torch and followed the corridor. In Celtic legend, caves were supposed to be places sacred to magical creatures like wyrms and fairies, and I wondered if Reine could be lurking about somewhere. I came to a widening and entered a room covered top to bottom with shining crystals. They reflected the light of the torch like a million little flames. In the middle, a stone throne held a young man. He gestured for me to come forward.

  “You are seeking me,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. “I am Wolfsheim.”

  I looked around for guards or other signs of human life. It made sense he was powerful enough to sit without guards, but something felt off.

  “I don’t think you are,” I said.

  He nodded and vanished along with the crystals, leaving me alone with my torch.

  “Well, that was one,” I muttered. “Fairytale things happen in threes, so here we go.”

  My steps next brought me to a cave where the walls seemed to be assembled from planes of black mirrors. Again the light from my torch filled the room in a blaze like the walls were on fire. In this room, a wizened old man with a long gray beard sat on a black throne made from a material that looked like obsidian. The flames from my torch reflected in his eyes, and he looked like a centuries-old wizard.

  “I am Wolfsheim,” he said. “You and I have business to discuss, young man.”

  Although they were merely reflected, it seemed the flames in the walls emanated heat, and a bead of sweat dripped down my face and pooled underneath the torc, which still sat on my neck. Again, I couldn’t name what it was, but something told me that this was not he.

  “You are not Wolfsheim,” I said. He vanished, leaving me to blink the after-images of the flames from my eyes.

  “And that was two.”

  I walked through that cave into a third. It was just a cave with what at first glance looked like stalagmites and stalactites reaching toward each other from above and below, but too regular. Further examination revealed them to be Roman statues staring at me with blank eyes. The thought of the ones behind me watching me made my neck and back muscles twitch. The throne stood large and faced away from me. I circled it slowly, ready for any surprise. When I could finally see its inhabitant, I nodded. This, finally, made sense.

  “Did you miss me?” asked Jade. She puffed on her cigar, which smelled like a combination of pipe smoke and kerosene. Yes, that was the scent of the killer. She waved her hand, and my torch went out, leaving us in blackness.

  Chapter Thirty

  Blinking in a cave didn’t do any good, but I couldn’t help it. It was reflexive to struggle to see in the pitch darkness. When the cave was once again illuminated, I squinted tightly.

  “Damn, Jade, you’re wreaking havoc on my retinas.”

  “Jade is gone.” The voice held the softness of velvet and the age of the Roman statues that surrounded us in this chamber. A well-dressed man sat in the throne. He seemed ageless and ancient at the same time, like he’d cultivated his wrinkles for show. Gray-streaked white hair fell back from his temples.

  “Jade is you.”

  “No,” he said. “Jade is my daughter. Or did Morena not tell you?”

  His words landed like a punch to my throat, and I swallowed. “No, she left that little detail out.”

  He studied his nails. “She never wanted to claim me, to confirm we were lovers. She thought she was playing a game for information about my activities. I found it to be an entertaining seduction.”

  “There go my assumptions,” I said.

  “Not necessarily. It has been a constant source of shame for her that she succumbed to my charms and lost my game. Hence why she is not here at your side.”

  “So you used your daughter to infiltrate the Purists and the Young Bloods,” I said.

  “She acted on her own, but I accepted her help.” He gazed at me, and I found I couldn’t look away from his eyes, which were slitted like a snake’s. “People tend to want to help me, Gabriel.”

  I shook my head and forced my gaze away from him. “I will not willingly do so, Wolfsheim. I wouldn’t give you control of the reversal process even if I had that power.�
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  “But you can bring it to me, all the instructions, once they’ve perfected it. I can supply my own blood magic. And first I will play with your useless Council and control them with their own blood, and then humanify them.”

  “Again, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Ah, but I have a bargain for you.”

  I sighed. “Fairytale villains always do.”

  “First, there is the easy offer.” He gestured over my left shoulder, and I saw Rhys and the young man from the first throne room holding Selene by her arms. Her hair was now chin-length. “You are rather attached to Doctor Rial, are you not? She had hoped to offer herself in exchange for her brother’s life, but as you can see, he is more than willing to serve me. A pity because I do love redheads.”

  “You’ve spelled him,” I said. “Like you’re trying to enchant me.”

  “And then there is your second choice.” This time, he pointed to the space beyond my right shoulder. Jade posed like a game show girl with the racks of blood samples that had been stolen from the Institute. “The proof of your accusations to the Council today, both regarding Bartholomew Campbell and Dimitri Corvair. To sweeten the deal, I have the paper trail showing how they conspired to hire Jade to kill Otis LeConte.”

  “Okay, fairytale stuff happens in threes. What else have you got?” I asked and turned back toward him. He held a manila envelope.

  “And choice three: the answer to what happened to your father all those years ago.” He caressed it with his long fingers. “I have the letters that didn’t make it out, the mistakes that told me his position and what he was after. Once all comes to light, his soul will finally be allowed to rest in peace. You may only pick one. Which will it be in exchange for you handing over the formula and procedure for the lycanthropic reversal process?”

  He had me pinned between love, duty, and family. What would an alpha wolf do?

  The answer came to me immediately: Take control of all of it.