by Lori Drake
“Is this where you run?” Chris asked of no one in particular. Whoever wanted to answer. “For the full moon, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Brandon said. “Usually.”
“Seems small,” Chris said, looking around. “Probably not much game either, with houses in close proximity.”
“We make do,” Eric said.
His tone discouraged further inquiries, so they walked in silence for a time. Chris tucked his hands under his arms again, grateful that he was at least wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but longing for his own pants. The borrowed sweats weren’t much protection against the cold wind, but it was better than roaming the forest in his boxer briefs. Or his wet jeans, for that matter.
He tried to make conversation again, this time to distract himself. “So how long have you been in the U.S., Brandon?”
“A couple of years. I came down here on a work visa to work for the Evil Empire.”
Chris thought about that a moment. “Starbucks?”
Brandon chuckled. “Microsoft.”
“Ahhh. That makes more sense. I didn’t have you pegged as a barista type.”
“Thanks. I think. There’s a barista type?”
“Yeah, they usually wear man buns and talk about surfing. Hm. Now that you mention it, maybe that’s a Cali thing.”
Eric’s quiet snort drifted back to him.
“How’d you and Ben meet?” Chris asked, ducking a low-hanging tree branch.
“Joey introduced us. It was kind of funny—from the moment she found out I was gay, she was like ‘I’ve got to introduce you to my brother!’ As if all it takes for two people to connect is compatible sexuality.” He did sound amused by it, at least. Brandon had seemed like a pretty good egg from the start. Chris could see why Joey would want to introduce him to Ben, above and beyond their mutual interest in men.
“To be fair, you seem like a pretty nice guy. Plus, it’s hard enough for a single straight wolf to find a match. There aren’t a lot of us, you know? I imagine it’s worse for you.” He shook his head. It was something he’d thought about plenty over the years. They all—the whole family—wanted Ben to find love. “Seems like it worked out, though.”
“It did, but you know… sometimes I wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
Brandon was quiet for a moment. “If he’s really into me or just tired of a lack of options.”
“He seems pretty into you, man. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Hey, if you two want to talk about your feelings and braid each other’s hair, I’m totally fine with doing this alone,” Eric called back to them, glancing over his shoulder.
Chris smirked. “You’re the one leading us around in circles.”
Eric halted and looked around. “No I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. We’ve passed that boulder three times and I’m freezing my nuts off. Quit screwing around.”
“I’m not—get bent, Martin.”
Eric picked up the pace. Chris and Brandon followed, this time along a different path through the trees. A few minutes later, they came upon a small clearing and Eric planted his shovel in the ground. The earth was mounded subtly underneath a blanket of frosty pine needles and cones. If Eric hadn’t pointed it out, he might’ve overlooked it entirely.
“This is it,” Eric said. He left the shovel where it was and moved a few paces away to lean against a tree.
Brandon strode forward with his own shovel and started to dig. Chris grabbed the handle of the first shovel and pushed it into the ground with his foot, then leaned on the handle to turn a scoop of dirt over. It wasn’t as difficult as Chris expected, maybe because the earth there had been turned relatively recently. It also wasn’t a high-traffic area, so the only thing that would’ve compacted it was pine needles and snow.
“So, you’re just going to supervise?” Chris asked.
Eric shrugged. “There are only two shovels.”
Chris grunted and set to work. At least the exertion kept the shivering at bay. The hole broadened, then deepened. Eric did come over to relieve Brandon after a while, letting him take a break.
Though he was determined not to complain, Chris was unaccustomed to this sort of labor. Dancing, yes. Grave-digging, no. His hands, shoulders, and back began to ache early on, but he pushed through it and tried not to think about the last time he’d been in a cemetery. The smell of freshly turned earth didn’t help. He wished Cathy were here now. She’d probably be able to unearth the corpse without breaking a sweat. Heck, she might even know what to do with it.
It was all wishful thinking. He had no way of contacting her. Joey might, once she retrieved her phone. Chris wasn’t even sure where she’d resettled after leaving San Diego. It was pretty selfish of him not to ask. He made a mental note to do that, once all was said and done.
They dug and dug, until Chris started to wonder if there was anything buried there at all. But about four feet down, his shovel hit something that wasn’t hard-packed dirt, and a noxious odor rose from the ground. Bile rose in his throat and he gagged, but swallowed the urge to retch. It smelled awful. Truly awful. But at least the digging was almost done.
The body was wrapped in a blue camping tarp, which at least made it easier to pull out of the grave once it was unearthed. They set it down on the ground beside the grave and stepped back, upwind, to lean on their shovels.
“Now what?” Brandon asked. “We can’t bring that into the house.”
“We’ll stash it in the shed for now,” Eric said. “Come on, grab an end.”
Eric carried the shovels, of course.
Chris didn’t try to make conversation on the way back to the house. Mostly, he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, breathing through his mouth, and trying not to let the tarp slip from between his icy fingers. It was awkward going, moving across the uneven terrain with the burden of a tarp-shrouded body shared between them, but they did the best they could. Eric, whistling a jaunty tune as he strode along, got more than a little ahead of them, but Chris was fairly certain he could find the way back without him. Hell, he could just follow the whistling.
The wind picked up, tugging at their clothes and hair. Chris thought he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he glanced in that direction, there was nothing there. Shaking his head and chiding himself for a fool, he returned his gaze to the front.
The biting wind rustled tree branches and blew bits of pine detritus across the ground.
Snap.
Chris whipped his head to the left, certain he’d heard a twig—or something else—snap. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Brandon replied.
No help there.
“Nothing. Let’s pick up the pace a little. Eric’s getting pretty far head.”
Brandon’s grunt was all the compliance Chris needed. They picked up their feet to move more quickly through the trees. Eric’s whistling had stopped, but Chris could still make out the shape of him ahead. Every now and then, Eric whacked a shovel against a tree trunk in passing, causing snow to sift down from the thin needles overhead.
Chris hadn’t been paying much attention to the sounds of nature around him, but when they went silent, he took notice. His eyes lifted from the ground in time to see a figure rushing toward him. No, not so much rushing as flying. Flowing. Barreling. A man, but gray and translucent, with glowing red eyes and a mouth full of pointed teeth.
He dropped the tarp and dove aside, but the pale figure dove with him. It had appeared ethereal while flying through the air, but connected with him solidly, knocking him to the ground.
The air rushed out of his lungs, but he struggled against his attacker, surprised that the spirit was so solid but not so surprised that he couldn’t defend himself. He was distantly aware of Brandon cursing and calling for Eric to come back, but the lion’s share of Chris’s attention was on the apparition trying to savage him with its teeth. He didn’t know what’d happen if it succeeded, but he didn’t pa
rticularly want to find out, either.
How did one defend oneself against a ghost? He didn’t have a crucifix. Kicking it in the nuts seemed impractical at best. He grappled with the shade, managing to hold it at bay, but barely. It was ugly, its features twisted into the stuff of nightmares, but he could still make out human features beneath. A hooked nose, a close-trimmed beard. Thin lips. Shaggy hair.
A sharp whistle sounded from off to one side. “Hey, asswipe.”
The spirit froze and turned its head, then misted away into nothing as Eric swung the shovel through where it had been a moment before. Chris felt the air stir as the shovel passed within inches of his face. He scrambled to his feet, heart pounding.
The ghost reappeared some fifteen feet away, its image flickering like an old reel-to-reel film. Chris turned toward it, but it vanished. He cast his eyes about, looking this way and that, eventually spotting the specter behind him. He spun to face it, but it disappeared again.
“You okay?” Brandon asked.
“I think I shit Colt’s pants,” Chris said. It wasn’t true, but it cut the tension, however briefly.
“I think that makes them your pants. I wouldn’t want ‘em back if I were him.”
“Touché.”
Eric tossed Chris a shovel. “Make yourself useful.”
“Thanks for the assist back there,” Chris said grudgingly.
“I still don’t like you.”
“Ditto.” Chris adjusted his grip on the shovel and cast his eyes about warily. “We need to get back to the others.”
“We can’t just leave the body out here,” Brandon said, opening a pocket knife he’d fished from his pants pocket. For all the good that would do.
“We can’t bring the body with us while we’re under attack,” Eric said.
Chris shook his head. “No, but swinging shovels at it isn’t going to solve anything either.”
The spirit manifested in front of Eric, its visage twisted in hate. Chris could empathize. He hated Eric, and the man hadn’t killed him. Yet.
Eric swung the shovel, but it passed through the spirit harmlessly. Spirit-Roger smirked and reached for Eric with clawed hands, but Eric danced backward, nearly knocking Brandon over in the process. The spirit disappeared again, and Eric growled.
“Getting pretty tired of this sh—“
The words died on his lips, and he jerked an elbow up and back, twisting to take Brandon in the face. Chris wasn’t sure what’d happened at first, but when Brandon staggered backward, his knife’s blade glistened wet and red in the pale moonlight.
“Son of a…” Eric pressed a hand to his back. The knife had taken him low, and while it was unlikely to kill him, Chris had been stabbed—twice—and knew just how much it had to hurt. “Okay, now it’s personal.”
Chris couldn’t help but stare. “Now it’s personal?”
Brandon rushed Eric, but this time his Alpha saw it coming. He swung the shovel at Brandon’s head. It was a one-handed swing, lacking in power, but it connected with Brandon’s skull with a dull thud. The knife flew out of Brandon’s hand to land in the dirt, and he ended up on his knees. He scrambled for the weapon, but Eric strode after him like vengeance personified and swung the shovel again. It crashed down on Brandon’s back. The two-handed blow sent him sprawling. He didn’t get up.
“Eric, don’t kill him!” Chris rushed to intervene, visions of Eric killing his brother’s boyfriend generating a hefty spike of adrenaline. He grabbed Eric’s arm and held on even as Eric tried to pull away. “Stop!”
Eric didn’t stop. He kicked Brandon in the side, so Chris did the only thing he could think of: he stabbed his fingers into the wound on Eric’s back. Eric howled in pain and spun, swinging the shovel in a careless arc that Chris was able to duck easily. Then he charged forward, planting his shoulder into Eric’s stomach. He wrapped his arms around Eric’s hips and they both went down, hitting the cold, packed earth hard.
Chris rolled away and got to his feet, but Eric was slower to pick himself up. Eric’s dark eyes glinted.
“I’ll kill you for that,” Eric growled, and in that moment, Chris wasn’t sure if it was Eric or the spirit talking. Was it still in Brandon, or had it hopped once he fell unconscious?
Or was he unconscious? Brandon stirred, rolling onto his back. “Did anyone get the license plate for that truck? What happened?”
Eric’s head snapped to one side, his eyes finding Brandon. Chris’s eyes darted between them. If only he hadn’t dropped his shovel…
“Is that you?” Eric asked, fingers pressed to his wound once more.
“Yes,” Brandon said.
“How do I know for sure?” Eric said, eyeing Brandon warily.
They fact that they were having the conversation at all suggested that neither of them were possessed, but before Chris could comment, everything went black.
Joey had thought the attic was dusty, but the basement was even worse. A single bare bulb illuminated the space, which was crammed with all sorts of relics of the past. Artwork, boxes, furniture, and other household items were stacked haphazardly about. There was a path to the washer and dryer, but it seemed oxymoronic for anything clean to come out of the space. Joey wanted to take a shower within seconds of arriving, and the cramped nature of the room made her stomach clench and mouth go dry. She lingered by the stairs with Jessica while Lucy dove into the stacks, as it were. Standing a couple of steps up, Joey could track Lucy’s cotton-candy-blue pigtails amongst the piles of stuff as she went searching for whatever it was they’d come down here for.
“What is all this stuff?” Joey asked. The question hadn’t done her much good in the attic, but this time it bore more fruit.
“Chris’s inheritance,” Lucy said, climbing up on something to reach boxes stacked on metal shelves at the far side of the basement.
Joey’s brows went up. “This is his parents’ stuff?”
“Yeah, most of it. Some of it was left behind by pack members that moved on, but a lot of it is just the old Alpha’s stuff.”
“Huh. You know, it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder where all that stuff was.”
Joey ventured down the steps, curiosity overcoming her discomfort. She pulled back the first drop cloth she found. Beneath it was a pile of nursery furniture, everything a kid could need, from crib to dressing table, a small dresser, and a little wooden rocking horse. She wondered if Sara could use any of it, or if she’d rather have new stuff for their little one.
“So, what’s your big idea?” Jessica leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs and folded her arms. Everything about her was wary, from the way she cast her gaze around the room to the way she kept darting glances up the stairs toward the door. They’d left it open. Not just open, but propped open by a heavy case of beer in the hopes of curtailing any ghostly antics.
Lucy pulled a box down off the top of the metal shelves that was almost as big as she was. It was awkward, but she had the strength to manage it. “Um… let me see if I can find it first. No point in getting your hopes up.”
Joey let the drop cloth fall back in place, then leaned over to pick up a painting in an ornate wooden frame. It was oil on canvas, depicting a mountain pass with craggy, snow-capped peaks and a tiny human figure walking along a precipitous ledge, leading a pack mule. The sun—she couldn’t tell if it was setting or rising—made a colorful backdrop. It was masterfully done, and she recognized it as her father’s work before her eyes dropped to the signature at the bottom to confirm her suspicions.
“Ah ha! Found it!”
Joey put the painting back carefully, making a mental note to tell Chris about all this stuff. “Now will you tell us what it is?”
Lucy emerged from around a stack of boxes with a flat board game box in her hands. She held it up for them to see.
“A Ouija board? Really?” Jessica scoffed and turned to start back up the stairs.
“It could work!” Lucy scrambled to follow her, leaving Joey to take up the rear.<
br />
“He can possess people. If he wanted to talk to us, he would,” Jessica said, her footsteps heavy on the old wooden stairs.
“Do you want to host him while he does that?” Lucy asked.
Jessica paused on the stairs and looked back. “No.”
“Me either!” Lucy hurried up past Jessica with the box still clutched in her hands.
Jessica met Joey’s eyes. Joey shrugged, and they followed Lucy up into the kitchen. Jessica slapped the light switch on the way out, plunging the basement into darkness once more.
In the living room, Adam was still working on Joey’s phone. Or, at least, that was what she hoped he was doing. He had what looked like two phones in pieces on the coffee table, their electronic guts exposed and vulnerable. Bits and bytes. Joey’s only solace, seeing her phone like that, was the knowledge that it’d been broken to start with. The thing was a lifeline; she felt naked without it.
Ben and Itsuo were standing near the couch, talking quietly. Colt was still staring into the fire. He didn’t even look away when the group returned.
Adam took one look at the box and groaned around the pocket flashlight clenched in his teeth. His glasses had slid down his nose; he looked adorably geeky. He set down what he was working on and removed the flashlight to speak. “That thing again?”
“There wasn’t a spirit to talk to before! Now there is,” Lucy said. She knelt beside him at the other end of the coffee table and pushed aside some of the electronic components scattered on its surface.
“Hey, watch it! I need to know what order to put those back in!” Adam objected, and the two bickered like—well, like siblings for a few moments about whose project should have precedence.
Joey let them and halted near Ben. He leaned over and asked quietly, “A Ouija board? Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Joey shrugged. “What could it hurt? Worst case, nothing happens.”
“I’m not sure that’s the worst case,” Ben murmured, his eyes on Lucy as she removed the board from the box.