by Lori Drake
Joey picked herself up off the floor. “You did the right thing, but that won’t keep him down for long, and he’s going to be pissed when he comes to.” She looked at Brandon and Adam. “Help me move him?”
They came forward as one, while Lucy delicately stepped around her unconscious Alpha and joined Colt on the bench. He looked shell-shocked.
“We can use my room,” Brandon offered.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Joey said. “Grab an ankle.”
The three of them carried Eric down the hall. Joey called a halt outside the master suite.
“It’s locked,” Adam said.
“I know.“ Joey released Eric’s wrists and let his upper half thump to the floor, then squatted beside him and slipped her fingers into his pocket, producing his keys with a flourish and a jingle.
They left him bound and gagged in the bathtub. It wouldn’t hold him forever, but it’d at least slow him down.
“Now what?” Brandon asked, when they stood in the hallway once more. Joey locked the door. It wouldn’t keep Eric in, but it should in theory keep anyone looking for him out. Namely, Jessica.
Joey handed Brandon the keys. “Go find Ben and tell him what happened. Actually, take Colt with you. He could use the distraction. I want everyone to buddy up, stay in common areas, and meet me back here in”—she consulted her phone—“ten minutes. I mean it. No one behind closed doors.”
They nodded, and Joey turned to Lucy. “Who’s with Jenny?”
“Itsuo.”
“Good. Have you seen Chris? For that matter, have any of you seen Chris?” They shook their heads. “Shit. Hopefully he’s with Ben. I’m going to find him, and if you run across Jessica, get her to meet us here too, but don’t tell her what happened with Eric.”
Joey turned to head for the stairs, but she only got about halfway down the hall before stopping in her tracks as someone lurched out of an open doorway and into her path. Her heart damn near stopped.
It was Kate.
14
Chris froze near the top of the stairs and flung an arm out to stop Jessica. The hairs on the backs of his arms stood up as he took in the scene. Down the hall, Joey and Brandon were holding back Colt, who surged between them in an effort to get to the woman at the other end. Chris recognized her, even from behind. Kate. He didn’t need spirit vision to know that something wasn’t right with her. For one, he’d been inside her when she died. No one—not even wolves—came back from strangulation. For another, her stance was askew. She stood there awkwardly like a marionette, all wooden limbs that didn’t bend quite right.
“Stay back,” he told Jessica in an urgent whisper, then crept up the last few steps to come up behind Kate. Or, rather, Kate’s body. He put a finger to his lips when he saw Joey’s eyes widen. She saw him, but the others seemed too distracted by the sight in front of them.
Kate shambled forward, movements jerky and unnatural. Chris’s smooth, graceful movements were a stark contrast as he prowled forward, but was betrayed at the last moment by a creaky floorboard. Kate spun and lurched toward him, a raspy growl emanating from her throat. Hands clawed, she reached for him, but he caught her wrists and held her off. Her eyes were glassy, sightless, her features twisted in an unnatural scowl.
“You!” she rasped.
“It’s not her, Colt. She’s gone.” Joey’s voice drifted down the hall.
“Let me go! Kate!” Colt cried.
“Colt, no!”
Chris looked past Kate to see Colt thundering down the hallway toward him. “No, Colt! Stay back!”
“Let her go!” Colt grabbed Kate’s body from behind and, rather than playing tug o’ war with the dead chick, Chris released her wrists. She stumbled back against Colt’s chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry, baby, oh god, I’m so sorry…”
“Colt, it’s not her,” Chris said. Colt wasn’t hearing any of it. He clutched his lost love’s body to his chest and buried his face in her hair.
Kate’s filmy eyes were fixed on Chris, but as her mouth twisted in a cruel smile, he knew he had to get Colt away from her. Still, something inside him said to wait—that Colt had to see the truth for himself. Kate twisted in Colt’s arms and looked up at him.
“He’s right, you know. I’m dead,” she rasped, her damaged throat no more capable of speech now than it had been earlier. “You killed me. Why, Colt? Why?”
Tears flowed from Colt’s eyes as he gazed down at her. He probably couldn’t even see her clearly. “It wasn’t me! I’d never hurt you.”
“But you did… and now you have to join me.”
Chris darted forward to grab her, but he wasn’t quick enough. She clamped her teeth down on Colt’s neck. Colt cried out in pain, swiftly reversing course from holding on to Kate to trying to push her away. Chris grabbed Kate’s braid and yanked hard. Her head snapped back, lips and chin bloody, but at least she hadn’t managed to tear a chunk out of Colt’s neck in the process. How badly his flesh was torn, Chris couldn’t see for certain. He had his hands full, literally, with a dead chick. She stumbled backward and he grabbed her arms, holding on tightly.
The others rushed forward to pull Colt back, but Joey darted around him to address the Kate situation. “Now what?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Chris said.
“Batter up!”
Chris looked over in time to see Jessica swinging a bat at Kate’s head—which was alarmingly close to his own. He leaned back, and the bat passed within inches of his nose but struck Kate’s noggin with a solid thump. The blow rocked her head to one side and caved in part of her skull. She growled and pulled hard against Chris’s grip, gnashing bloody teeth and trying to get her clawed hands on Jessica now.
Jessica stood there awkwardly, holding the bat as she looked from Kate to Chris to Joey. She shrugged. “Works in the movies.”
“She’s not a zombie!” Chris growled, and started to pull the struggling corpse in the direction of Colt’s room. “Also, you nearly hit me with that thing, and my head still hurts from the last time.”
“Give me that.” Joey yanked the bat from Jessica’s hands and pointed at the others with it. “Stay with them.”
Joey followed Chris as he dragged Kate’s reanimated body into Colt’s room, and together they managed to get her tied up with a combination of bedsheets and electrical cords. She growled and snapped at them the whole time, occasionally spouting nasty threats.
Once the threat was firmly immobilized, Joey turned to Chris. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. She didn’t get her teeth or claws on me.”
“There’s blood in your hair.”
Chris’s hand went up automatically. “Oh, that’s from earlier.” At least his head wasn’t throbbing anymore.
“You said Jess hit you? What happened?” She shot a glare in the direction of the door. “Your taste in women could really use some work.”
Chris’s eyes narrowed. “You’re really not one to talk. Your guy’s a real charmer, you know.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “He’s not my guy.”
Chris looked down at her neck. Hours had passed, and the mark there was almost entirely gone, but there was still a faint discoloration. “I would really love an explanation right about now.” When he lifted his eyes again, she was glaring at him.
“Oh, would you? Because I tried to give you one earlier, but you wouldn’t fucking listen. Instead, you got all pissed off and ended up in bed with the first she-wolf to lift her tail.”
Chris bit back a retort, hands clenching into fists as he fought the urge to throttle her. There’d been more than enough friendly fire tonight. “That wasn’t what it looked like.”
Joey stared at him for a moment, then turned and stalked for the door.
“Where are you going?”
She didn’t answer, just slammed the door shut and marched back to him. He looked at her in confusion, but at least it tempered his anger somewhat.
“I
t wasn’t what it looked like. What was it, then?” she asked.
“We were talking.”
“She had her shirt off!”
“What if she did? You had me, Joey! You had me, and you walked away. Now you’re allowed to parade around with your asshole boyfriend, wearing his love bites like fucking trophies. Where does that leave me?”
Joey winced, actually having the grace to look embarrassed for a moment. “That wasn’t what it looked like either.”
“What was it, then?”
“Him being an asshole, pretty much. Guilty as charged. There’s nothing going on between me and Eric. At least, not as far as I’m concerned. That’s what I wanted to tell you, back at the house, before all of this started. He bit me earlier because he was being a dick, but we’re not sleeping together.”
Chris frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve always known something was wrong with this pack. From the moment I met them. Something was off. I still haven’t quite put my finger on it. I thought at first it was just because Eric’s a domineering asshole, but it’s more than that. They’re afraid of him, but they’re still incredibly loyal to him. There’s something going on, but the pieces don’t quite fit together. Mom suggested I get close to him, and that involved pretending he wasn’t repulsive, and when he seemed interested in dating I thought… Shit, I don’t know what I thought, but it was working. They were starting to get used to me. Hell, earlier tonight I thought Jenny was going to open up to me, but Jessica walked in on us at the wrong damn moment.”
“She does seem to have a way with timing,” Chris muttered, rubbing his face. What a mess. Joey was right: she had tried to tell him but he hadn’t wanted to listen. “Joey, I’m sorry. I should’ve listened.”
“Damn right you should have.” She glared at him, but the expression softened when he touched her arm.
“There’s nothing going on between me and Jess, either. She snuck in while I was sleeping and tried to seduce me, but I turned her down. We were just talking when you got there, I swear.” He held her eyes as he spoke, imploring her to believe him. It was important to him, as ridiculous as it felt. After all, she was the one that had turned her back on him, and he still didn’t understand why.
She regarded him for a moment, then closed the narrow gap between them and hugged him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her in return and held her close. Closing his eyes, he let his head drop and breathed in the familiar scent of her hair.
“She was right about one thing, though,” he murmured.
“Hm?” She tipped her head back to look up at him.
“Thinking we were sleeping together sure made you jealous.”
Joey’s cheeks reddened. “I wasn’t jealous.”
Chris chuckled and bent to kiss her forehead. “You were jealous.”
“Shut up.” The words were mumbled, without any particular ire.
He let it go, choosing instead to stand there quietly for a little longer, holding her. He still didn’t know quite where things stood between them, but she obviously still cared for him, and he very much cared for her. Nonetheless, there was another pressing matter to attend to.
“As much as I hate to spoil the moment, we should probably talk about the other elephant in the room.”
“Hmm?” She looked up at him again.
“There’s a ghost trying to kill us.”
Joey grimaced and nodded, not nearly as surprised as he’d expected her to be. She stepped back from him and turned, looking toward Kate’s body. “I suspected that might be the case. Colt has no memory of what happened, and Ben… Shit, have you seen Ben? He had a blackout too.”
“Yeah, that was me. With Ben.”
Joey blinked. “You?”
“Yeah, when Jess knocked me upside the head, I ended up outside my body again.”
“What?” Eyes wide, she clutched his arms. “But you’re back now.” Her relief was palpable. It was touching, really. She still cared enough to worry about him.
Chris’s lips quirked in a small smile. “I am.” The smile faded as he looked past her, studying Kate’s inert form. She’d gone very still. He wasn’t sure if the spirit was still in her or not. “I tried to stop him, to save Kate. But I failed.”
“I’m sure you did the best you could.” She loosened her grip on his arms, rubbing them lightly.
Had he? Doubt assailed him. “I tried to take over Colt first, but I couldn’t get in at all with the spirit possessing him. Kate… she was hurt and cowering, so I hopped into her instead. I keep replaying it over and over, wondering what I could’ve done differently.”
Joey gave his fingers a warm squeeze. “It’s not your fault. If you hadn’t tried, he would’ve killed her anyway. At least you were able to do something. I was stuck on the other side of that damn door. It wouldn’t budge.”
“Maybe it was the spirit. It seems… powerful. And it certainly has a good reason to want revenge. I think it’s someone that the Granite Falls pack killed. A hunter.”
Joey frowned. “A hunter? Like, an actual hunter this time?”
“That’s what Jess said. I have no reason not to believe her. Well, aside from the whole ‘plunger to the head’ thing.” He probed his head again with gentle fingers. It was still a little tender, but it didn’t feel like his head was going to split open anymore. Progress.
“You never did mention why she clubbed you.”
“She said she was trying to protect me from whoever was on the prowl tonight, but after what happened to Kate, she reached the same conclusion we did. It was the hunter that they saw in the woods earlier.”
“The dead one? That’d explain what spooked them so badly. But why didn’t they just tell us that?”
“Eric wouldn’t let them, as I recall. He’s in denial, thinks that it’s another hunter. I get the feeling there are a few of them buried in the woods.”
Joey blinked. “Hunters? They’re not that common.”
Chris shrugged. “I only know what I heard. But I was on the astral plane when I heard it, so we should probably keep it between the two of us. Speaking of Eric, where is he? Last time I saw, him he was heading up here.”
“Uh… he’s in the bathtub.”
He arched a brow. “Bubbles or bath salts?” She socked him in the arm. He smirked.
“He went apeshit on Colt, said that he was in cahoots with the killer, that he killed Kate and faked his memory loss to throw us off his tracks.”
“Cahoots? Why can’t I hear that word coming from him?”
Joey made as if to hit him again, but he danced out of her reach.
“So violent,” he teased, before turning serious again. “So, how did he end up in the bathtub?”
“Lucy Tasered him.”
Chris couldn’t help but grin. “Good girl.”
“Anyway, he’s going to come to pretty soon, if he hasn’t already. We need to have a chat with him, but first we should call Dean.”
Though he had plenty of reason to be wary of the medium and his intentions toward Joey, Chris felt not a twinge of concern. “I think that’s a terrific idea.”
Joey stepped out into the hallway with Chris and found a cluster of concerned wolves around Colt. He was on the floor, a bloody hand pressed to his neck.
“Everything okay?” she asked. The circle parted to admit her, and she took a knee beside Colt. “Let me see.”
Colt lifted his hand. His neck was bloody, but it wasn’t actively bleeding anymore. The bite looked nasty, but the ragged edges were starting to knit together again. He’d be fine, but he looked at her with fear in his eyes.
“Am I going to turn?”
Joey bit her tongue to keep from smiling. She squeezed his shoulder. “I doubt it. Even if it was a zombie bite, we’re pretty resilient against infection, remember?”
“It wasn’t a zombie bite,” Chris said, filling the gap in the circle that had been left by Joey’s passage. “But we need to talk about what’s going on. Where are the other
s?”
“Itsuo is with Jenny,” Lucy said.
“What about Ben?” Joey asked. They all looked between themselves, but no one had an answer. Concern ate at Joey like slow-burning acid. It was not a good night for anyone to be unaccounted for.
“I’ll find him,” Chris said. “Everyone just hang tight for now.”
Joey straightened and offered Colt a hand up, but her eyes were on Chris as she did it. “You shouldn’t go by yourself.”
“I’ll go with him,” Brandon volunteered.
Joey scanned the others. “Take Colt with you,” she said. If one of them ended up possessed, at least two on one seemed like better odds. Besides, Colt could use something to take his mind off his troubles, and if they did find Ben, he could patch Colt’s neck.
The three of them headed for the stairs. Joey turned to the others. “Okay, I know you’re all pretty confused, and I promise I’ve got some answers, but first I need to make a phone call. Where’s the least awful place in the house to make a call?”
The question sparked a lively debate, but eventually Jessica and Lucy deferred to Adam. He was the resident geek, after all.
“Outside is best, but if you don’t want to leave the house, the attic. There’s a spot by a window up there. I take my laptop up there sometimes and tether to my phone if the Wi-Fi is down.”
Lucy elbowed her brother. “So that’s where you disappear to. You’ve been holding out on me.”
Adam gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged.
Attic or outside. Joey gave the dilemma a moment’s debate. On the one hand, it was cold outside and her coat was downstairs. They’d all have to bundle up and trek outside with her, because she didn’t want to leave anyone behind. That would take time, time they might not have before the spirit struck again. On the other hand, attics were pretty much universally small, confined spaces. She really didn’t like small, confined spaces.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…
Swallowing a sigh, Joey nodded. “The attic it is. Lead the way.”
The access door was at the end of the hall. Joey had never noticed the pull-chain hanging from the ceiling before. When you were short, you didn’t always think to look up. Rusty hinges creaked in protest as Adam pulled on the chain, but the door opened and he unfolded the ladder with practiced ease. It spilled out of the rectangular opening like a wooden tongue rolling out of a gaping maw. Nothing but darkness lay beyond.