by Lori Drake
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that angry.” Her whispered words drifted up to him after a few quiet seconds.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been that angry.”
She tipped her head back to look up at him, understanding in her eyes. “He’s an asshole, I know. But there’s only so much we can do about it, and Jess… she can take care of herself. I’d be more upset if it’d been Lucy.”
Chris didn’t even want to think about that. His eyes slid toward the open door, but she caught his attention with a finger beneath his chin. He looked down at her again, brow furrowing. “We can’t leave things like this. We have to help them.”
“We are helping them.”
“Not just with Bob. This whole pack dynamic, it’s… toxic.”
“It’s none of our business,” she said, though there was regret in her tone.
“I know, but at the same time, I don’t care.”
“Let’s just get through tonight, okay? Let’s just deal with this whole ghost situation and see what’s left on the other side.”
Chris smirked and glanced at the door again. “Maybe Bob will save us some trouble and take him out.”
He expected her to chastise him for such a dark thought, but she only murmured, “Maybe.”
Lowering his eyes, he studied her face. There was so much he wanted to talk to her about, so many things on his mind. Where they stood. Why she’d run away from him. If she was finished running. His conflicted feelings about this house, the pack, and how it was all tied into his past—not to mention his present. But now wasn’t the time, for a variety of reasons that began and ended with not wanting Eric to get downstairs much before they did. So instead of starting what could be a very lengthy conversation, he released her and stepped back.
Side by side, they headed for the door. She caught his hand on the way, fingers lacing with his. He squeezed her hand, and for the moment it was enough to quell the questions chasing each other through his mind.
It had to be.
The atmosphere in the living room was tense. Joey stood with Chris near the fireplace, enjoying the extra warmth from the fire. Colt sat on the floor near the hearth, staring morosely into the flames. Poor guy. She leaned over to give his shoulder a squeeze, but he didn’t even look up at her.
The other Granite Falls wolves—minus Eric—were lined up on the floor at the foot of the couch where Jenny lay, bookended by Itsuo and Jessica. Although Itsuo’s expression was as unreadable as usual, the rest eyed Eric with varying degrees of wariness and anxiety. The only one who appeared at ease was Eric himself, sprawled in the oversized armchair kitty-corner to the couch. He had one leg thrown over the arm of it, master of his domain, by all appearances.
Chris squeezed Joey’s hand, and she glanced in his direction. He gave her a small but encouraging smile and motioned toward the others with his head.
Joey nodded and cleared her throat. “Okay, now that we’re all together, let’s talk about what’s going on.” She launched into an explanation of everything she knew about the situation, minus the details about Chris’s astral walking. That was extraneous information. All they needed to know was that they’d killed a man and he was back for revenge. She also told them about her call to Dean, and what he’d told her.
“I got a chance to talk to, uh, ‘Bob’ briefly. He said something about a wife and child, so maybe they’re tied in to what he wants. If we can get him to talk some more, maybe we can find out. But that raises the question: do we have a name for this guy? Or, for that matter, any other information about him?”
An awkward silence followed, broken only by the crackle of a log in the fireplace.
“He was a hunter,” Brandon eventually said. The others nodded, as if this were all they needed to know.
“Anything else?” Joey asked. On the one hand, was that enough to kill someone? On the other hand, why wouldn’t it be?
“His nickname was the Butcher,” Chris offered. “He’s been active in the northwest for the last five years. His methods were… particularly brutal, and he killed someone named Micah last year.”
There was a collective nod of agreement from those assembled, but Eric studied his pack with a frown. Wondering who the stool pigeon was, perhaps.
“Wait,” Joey said. “Last year? When last year?” She addressed the question to Eric, rather than put anyone on the spot.
“April,” he replied. “Why?”
“Because Jenny’s only been here since, what, July?”
“It took us a while to track the slippery son of a bitch down,” Eric explained. “We put him down a few weeks ago.”
Joey frowned. A few weeks ago. While she was in town. They’d killed a hunter right under her nose. How? Her mind rolled back. A few weeks ago. That would have been right around the full moon. She, Sam, and Ben had spent it on their own, because Eric had blown off her overtures to run with his pack that night. Now she understood why. She also felt she was gaining some measure of understanding of what exactly bound these wolves together so tightly. They’d been through some shit. Been hunted. Survived to hunt the hunter. No wonder Eric commanded their loyalty.
Shaking off the thought for the moment, Joey turned her attention once more to the task at hand. “Okay, so he’s only been dead a few weeks. You hunted him for months, so… what do you know about him?”
The others mostly looked between themselves. Jessica stared at the floor. Eric just sat there looking smug, but, after letting the question hang in the air for a few moments, deigned to answer. “His name was Roger. Roger Eaton.”
Joey swallowed her annoyance. Mostly. “Okay. Roger Eaton. That’s a start. What else do you know about him? How’d you track him?”
“This is pointless,” Eric said. “It’s obvious what he wants. Revenge, plain and simple.”
“Dean says—“
“Fuck Dean.”
“Come on, Eric. This is serious,” Jessica said.
“I’m being serious. We can’t reason with this fuck. That’s the same reason we killed him to start with.” Eric stood, surveying his audience. “He was a hunter, he hated us, and no amount of polite asking was going to make him stop. So we made him stop.”
“We have to try,” Joey said. “Whatever it was Dean said we could do, it’s apparently awful for the spirit.”
“Awful. Good. What he did to Micah was pretty awful. What he did to Jenny, to Kate and Colt and Adam, that was pretty fucking awful.”
Heads nodded slowly in agreement. Joey glanced at Chris, but he wasn’t nodding. He merely studied Eric with a frown.
Eric continued, “So I say let him burn. Let’s make with the exorcism or whatever.”
Joey looked to the others. “Do you agree?” she asked.
Colt answered, “Yes. What he did to Kate… Fuck him. He deserves what’s coming to him. Whatever that is. I’m in.”
That seemed to decide it for the others, though Lucy chewed her lower lip and didn’t commit one way or another.
“Well, not that this is a fucking democracy or anything, but I’m glad we’re in agreement,” Eric said, smirking.
It didn’t sit well with Joey. Sure, they had a point, but they were talking about someone’s soul, here. A bad soul, in this case, but a soul nonetheless. Or whatever it was. His spirit, his essence. There was so much she didn’t know about spirits—part of her wished she’d stayed in San Diego long enough to ask Dean more questions. When all this was over, maybe she’d have to pay him a visit, but tonight was about survival. Kill or be killed.
“What do you think?” she said, turning toward Chris.
His shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t like it, but we don’t have a lot of options. It’s him or us.”
Joey nodded but sighed, resigning herself to what seemed inevitable. “Okay, then here’s what I propose: we break up into three groups. One stays here to protect Jenny, one goes with me to look for my phone and call Dean. The third goes grave-digging with Eric.”
“I’l
l remain with Jenny,” Itsuo said, predictably.
Joey nodded. “Ben should also stay here, in case she wakes up and needs medical attention.”
“Lucy and Adam will stay too,” Eric said. “Jessica and Brandon with me. Colt, you go with Joey and Chris.”
The Granite Falls wolves started moving to comply, but Chris held up a hand. “Wait. I think it’d be a good idea if Joey and I split up.”
Joey blinked and turned to regard him in confusion. “What? Why?”
“Because Bob—er, Roger—isn’t interested in killing Grants. He can tell the difference, apparently. We should split up, put one person in each group that he isn’t going to go out of his way to mess with.”
“Does it really matter?” Joey asked. “Either way, it’s two on one.”
“The odds are better,” Chris insisted, though she could tell he wasn’t happy about it from the tightness of his jaw, especially as he added, “I’ll go with Jessica and Eric.”
“No.” This time it was Jessica that spoke up. All eyes swiveled in her direction. “I’ll go with Joey. Brandon, go with Eric and Chris.”
Joey’s head was spinning a bit from all the reorganizing of groups, but she had no immediate objection to the revised plan—other than that it put her and Chris on different teams. That didn’t sit right with her at all.
“Maybe we should all go together to look for the phone, then go dig up the body…” she murmured, but the others were already in motion. Eric, Brandon, Colt, and Jessica headed for the front door.
Chris approached and slipped an arm around her shoulders, walking with her in their wake. “I’m sorry,” he said, giving her a squeeze. “You know I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think it was our best chance.” He paused once the others stepped outside, and turned toward her, curling his arms around her and bending to put his lips near her ear. His breath was warm and moist against her skin as he whispered, “I didn’t want to leave Eric unsupervised. Be careful, okay?”
The pieces clicked into place suddenly, and Joey now saw what Chris was trying to do. She turned her head to whisper back to him, curling her arms around him to make it look like a parting hug. “Be careful, okay? I don’t trust him. Watch your back.”
He squeezed her, then stepped back. “I’m always careful,” he said, flashing her a boyish smile that turned her insides to jelly before he turned to go.
Joey followed him out and shut the door behind her. The two groups parted ways on the porch. Joey looked over at Jessica. “I’m all turned around now. Can you lead us to whatever side of the house that window is on?”
Jessica nodded and set off in the opposite direction from where the others had gone. Joey immediately wished she had her coat, but no one else had theirs either. It wasn’t cold enough for any of them to die of exposure or anything, but it was pretty uncomfortable. The biting wind tugged at her clothes, but at least there was no frigid rain to deal with. She tucked her hands under her arms as she followed Jessica around the side of the house, trusting Colt to bring up the rear.
Jessica soon stopped and pointed up. “This is it.”
Joey glanced up the side of the house, spotting the broken window, then downward to scan the ground for her phone. The others followed suit, and after a few minutes of searching, they found the electronic device in an overgrown flower bed. Joey thumbed the home button but nothing happened. She pushed it again, and again.
“No, no, no… shit!” Her fingers clenched around the device and she fought the urge to fling it against the side of the house.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica asked.
“It’s dead. Fuck!”
“Take it to Adam. He’ll know what to do.”
Joey took a deep breath and pocketed the phone. “Maybe it’s just cold. I know I am. Let’s get back inside.” She rubbed her arms as they started back for the front of the house, but they hadn’t gone more than a few steps before a screech piercing the night air brought them to an abrupt halt.
Joey cast her gaze skyward. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah,” Colt said. “Sounded like… a bat or something.”
“We should keep moving,” Jessica said, wariness in her tone and posture. She started forward again, but Joey’s eyes remained glued on the sky.
Something was moving overhead. She couldn’t quite make it out, but the distant beat of wings soon rose, and the movement resolved itself into a writhing mass of tiny black bodies. Bats. They seemed to dart between the stars, but in reality, they were just flying around, occasionally passing in front of the group. Then they dove.
“Run!” Joey cried, motioning to Colt before taking off after Jessica. “Go, go, go!”
They weren’t fast enough. Swooping bats hounded them all the way to the door, flapping their wings and screeching as they dove again and again at the wolves’ unprotected heads. Joey did her best to cover her head as she ran, but she heard a pained cry and a thump behind her, and twisted to find Colt on the ground under a seething mass of black. He flailed his arms and legs, swatting and kicking.
Joey yielded to impulse and ran back for him, doing her best to shoo the bats away and help him to his feet. Blood streamed down his face and hands from a multitude of abrasions. The little fuckers had sharp claws and teeth, apparently. Joey’s arms stung too, but she didn’t stop to examine them. Once she got Colt moving again, they raced for the front door amidst a cloud of black that followed them up onto the porch.
They darted inside and slammed the door shut. Joey leaned her back against the door, heart pounding, and listened to the sound of thudding as the bats flung themselves against the door and pelted the front windows.
“What the hell?” Ben exclaimed.
“Nothing unusual here, just your garden-variety swarm of wolf-eating bats…” Joey said, trailing off as she took in the sight of her brother and the others looking on in confusion. “You don’t hear that?”
“Hear what?” Ben asked, tilting his head.
The racket outside suddenly stopped. Joey straightened with a growl and turned to yank open the door. Outside, all was quiet and still, with no trace of the bats remaining. Frowning, Joey closed the door and locked it again. As she turned back toward the others, she caught a glimpse of Colt looking down at his arms, which no longer bore any trace of bat claws or teeth. Her own arms no longer stung, and upon inspection, the skin was smooth and unbroken.
“Joey?” Ben started toward her, brow furrowed.
“Um, nothing. I guess Bob—er, Roger—was messing with us.”
“I don’t think Roger likes Plan B,” Jessica said, on her way to the liquor cabinet.
“Speaking of which…” Joey pulled her phone from her pocket and tried to activate it again, to no avail. However, in the light of the living room, she could see that the screen was cracked. “Shit. I think my phone’s toast.”
“Let me look at it,” Adam said, holding out a hand.
Jessica shot Joey a “told you so” look from across the room. Joey smirked, but passed Adam the phone and flopped in a chair to catch her breath while he fiddled with it.
In the quiet that followed, Lucy said, “Jess may be onto something, you know. We’ve been talking about this plan openly, and who’s to say he hasn’t been here all along, listening?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Joey tipped her head back, looking up at the ceiling. How did you stop a monster that knew your plan and didn’t want to be stopped? On the upside, he couldn’t possess them all at once, but if the group hallucination they’d just experienced was any indication, he had plenty of other tricks up his metaphorical sleeves.
Lucy stood suddenly. “I have an idea.” She headed for the back of the house.
“Lucy, wait!” Joey hopped to her feet. “Where are you going?”
Lucy didn’t even slow down. “The basement,” she called over her shoulder.
Joey exchanged a glance with Jessica, and then they both took off after Lucy.
“The basement,” Joey said. �
�Great. Isn’t that where bad things always happen in horror movies?”
At least this time Roger wouldn’t be able to shove her out a window.
16
They stopped for shovels on the way. Chris hadn’t even noticed the little storage shed out back when he was out there earlier. The structure looked older than the house, dilapidated and leaning dangerously to one side. Chris suspected a stiff breeze might take it out.
I’ll huff and I’ll puff…
The shiny steel padlock on the shed door seemed unnecessary, given the state of the structure. He tucked his hands under his arms and waited in the cold night air with Brandon while Eric unlocked the shed and slipped inside. Curious, Chris approached the door and looked inside, but found nothing more exciting than a musty, dark space full of gardening implements.
“We gonna do this?” Eric asked.
Chris nodded and moved aside. Eric passed two shovels to Brandon, then closed and locked the door.
“Are you really worried about someone stealing your gardening shit?” Chris asked, not able to stop himself.
“Hard to bury a body without a shovel.” Eric tugged on the padlock to be sure it was secure, then reclaimed one of the shovels and sauntered in the direction of the woods with the tool across his broad shoulders.
“You have occasion to do that often?” Chris asked, trying to keep his tone casual.
“Hey, you never know when you might have to bury a body,” Eric said, not even looking back. “The last thing you want to do when the occasion arises is make a run to the hardware store.”
“You’re a regular Boy Scout,” Chris remarked, but followed him nonetheless. Maybe following Eric into the woods wasn’t his brightest move of the evening, but it had seemed like the best call at the time. Hopefully Brandon would have his back. The guy seemed nice enough. Hell, he was Canadian, for god’s sake.
The trees weren’t very close together, but the canopy overhead was thick. It was more of a wooded area than “the woods,” but the farther they got from the house, the more isolated it felt.