by Red, Lynn
“Why isn’t he doing anything about it? Why do we have an Alpha who can’t even stop some murders?” someone from inside the building was obviously not very happy with Damon’s leadership. “He’s a child! What kind of a joke is this? Why are we supposed to follow him if he can’t do something as simple as this?”
Damon turned to Hunter. “Murders? More?”
Hunter shrugged.
Even before he went inside, Damon felt the hostility. He took a deep breath, and clenched his jaws tight. “Come on,” he said, looking straight ahead.
The instant he pushed open the door, the whole place went silent. Every head, of which there were about fifty, turned to look at him. Damon recognized Steve, a couple of others, and the thirty-something werewolf who had tested him the night before. Sweeping his eyes from left to right across the room, he finished with no illusions about the mood in the room.
“Glad to see you could make it, Alpha.” Someone said, taunting him. “Next time, why not let us know when it’d be convenient for you to have a wolf killed. Another one. What were you doing? I bet you were fu—”
“Enough!” Damon said. “You can be as angry at me as you would like to be. I understand you’re irritated, and I understand most of you don’t have the first clue who I am or why I’m now your leader. But I won’t have my mate talked about like that.”
“Yeah,” the same man said. “I’m sure you won’t.”
Purple agony shot through the front of Damon’s head. He winced, but refused to show any pain in front of the pack. He knew better than to exhibit any weakness at all. Instead of shrinking back, instead he laughed, which loosened the tension a little.
“We have pack business now,” Damon said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Any personal complaints about me can be brought up in private.” He sneered. “One at a time.”
A grumble went through the room, but no one spoke up in protest. It must have been enough of what was expected to calm the wolves for a moment.
“Now,” Damon said. “Why are we here? I understand these meetings aren’t called lightly.”
“He doesn’t even know?” The man from earlier almost screeched. “One of the most respected wolves in our pack is murdered and the Alpha remains clueless? What kind of a joke has Pokorann played on us this time? Maybe the rumors are true after all!”
Damon growled, quickly losing his patience. The more noise they made the more his head pounded. “If you’re going to insult me and your elder both in the same breath, at least have the courage to give me your name.”
“Erik Armstrong,” the man said as he stood. He was big, broad across the chest, but not as tall or as muscular as Damon. Still, he was impressive and obviously knew it. As he gestured, his chest flexed. “I’ve been in this pack, in this town, my whole life, and I called Nathaniel my friend. All of us trusted him and now he’s dead. What are you going to do about it, Alpha?”
The way the title dripped off his lips reminded Damon of the oil on a snake’s fangs.
“Nathaniel,” Damon said quietly. “Is dead? Just last night he and two others tested me.”
“I did,” the man Damon recognized in the crowd said. “Moses Craig speaking. He showed his strength. I can vouch for the Alpha.”
“And I,” Hunter added in. “I was there too.”
“Oh!” Erik said in the same mocking voice. “Two younglings vouch for a child Alpha. This is truly a wonder. Our oldest wolf has been murdered, along with two others before, and we have three cubs playing at being men.”
A round of laughter burst out, and seconds later everyone in the hall started talking at the same time. Noise pounded in Damon’s ears just like the throbbing in the front of his brain. Throwing back his head, he growled, “Quiet!”
“Quiet!” Damon shouted again. His voice echoed off the walls, and everyone fell silent at once. “This is not a contest to see who can yell the loudest. Respect me or not, but you will all say things in turn.”
For a split second, his vision went purple, and he thought that maybe he heard some kind of laughing, but he shook his head and immediately forgot.
Everyone was still quiet, waiting for him to keep talking.
“Good,” he said. “Thank you. Now that’s over with, someone tell me exactly what happened, as best as it’s known.”
That was Erik’s cue to snort, then laugh. “The Alpha asks the pack for help. What’s he here for again?”
“Shut up, Erik,” another member of the crowd said. “We’ve all had plenty of that for one day. It isn’t doing us any good.”
Damon shot a glance in the direction of the man who defended him and nodded in thanks.
“Best we know, Alpha, he was killed just like them other two.” The man who spoke was baldheaded on top, and had a ring of hair. Even seated he was tall, but very thin and with narrow shoulders.
“You are?”
“Wilton Myles,” he said. “I’m the one who found him.”
Erik Armstrong looked like he was about to open his mouth again, but a sharp look from Damon shut him up. “Go on,” he said.
“Well, when I happened upon that cabin, I thought I saw two shadows in the windows. I waited around for a time, knowing that was where Sara and Lawson were found.”
Damon narrowed his eyes. “Those were the names of the first two lost Skarachee. No one’s told me before now. Terrible.”
“Yes, well, the very same place. I was going by to begin their ritual of internment, to cleanse them and prepare them for burial. I’m a shaman,” he said at Damon’s confused look. “Like our elder Pokorann.”
Nodding, Damon urged him to continue.
“I stayed in the brush until mid-morning. I realized it had been some time since I saw the shadows moving in the windows and so I went in. The two were gone, replaced with one. Nathaniel was bound, just like the others. Wrapped in silver chain, burned, and covered in claw marks.”
Damon looked down at his feet.
“Claws,” he said quietly. “What do you make of it, Shaman?”
“Seems to me must be wolves. I don’t know how else such marks could get on him. And it was brutal, too. When his spirit left, his flesh hardened, as it does. He was nearly flayed with wounds. He suffered a great deal.”
Taking a deep breath, Damon held the air in his lungs momentarily. “Wolves, you said? You’re sure there’s no other alternative?”
A thought pulled at his head. Something he couldn’t quite remember, couldn’t quite place, was there, just out of his mind’s vision.
Why can’t I remember? What’s clouding my mind? There’s no reason I can’t remember what I saw at that cabin. I just… can’t. If only I could force myself to remember…
“No, I don’t, Alpha.” Wilton’s aged voice shocked him back to the present. “Though I will say there are plenty of things in this world that even I don’t understand. I can’t fathom why a werewolf would do this to another. After all, unless he was from another pack, it wouldn’t make sense. Why would a Skarachee do this to another?”
Closing his eyes and squeezing his temples, Damon got a flash of something that teased the edge of his vision. It was right there, so close that he could almost touch it. In his mind’s eye, he forced himself to go back to that cabin, to his first night run.
The throbbing in Damon’s head intensified, but this time was tinged with teeth that nipped at his consciousness. He felt like two forces were pulling him in opposite directions, and that he was going in both of them, being torn right down the middle. But instead of pain, instead of confusion, he felt oblivion.
“Two shadows,” he said in a soft voice. Damon slipped further into his trance.
He heard voices.
From his left, a spirit materialized; a faceless ghost, gray, with sparks of white where the eyes were supposed to be. It spoke, but not to him, rather through him.
“Two shadows,” Damon repeated.
“He trances?” Wilton said, drawing nearer to Damon, listening intently. The entire room seeme
d to lean toward him. “Not since Pokorann have I known a wolf who heard the spirits. Could it be?”
“A woman,” Damon intoned. “And a man. A… rogue… wolf.”
In Damon’s mind, a second ghost formed from mist, this one tinted blue, and standing to his right. “Not a woman, a creature,” he groaned. “A creature summoned by the rogue.”
“That’s impossible,” Wilton said, standing up stiff. “Summoning hasn’t been done in a thousand years. None would have the knowledge. Not even the language of demons is known. How could a wolf take on those powers?”
“Shh!” Hunter said, grabbing the man’s shoulder.
“Both of you, quiet!” Erik shushed them. “Listen!”
Damon began to rock from side to side, front to back. His boot heels clicked on the hard wood floor, and he groaned. In his mind, a third spirit came. This one looked familiar.
“War… lock,” Damon whispered. “He is an old soul, knows the secrets. Found them in a blood ritual. He walks with… with a demon.”
Damon’s knees buckled, and the two nearest Skarachee grabbed his arms, helping him to the floor. He sat, looking back and forth between the three visions that no one else saw. They spoke faster and faster until his head began to spin with their revelations.
With his mind reeling, the purple returned. The ghosts called out to him, but Damon was gone.
“Damon!” Hunter shouted.
He heard the voice, heard his friend yell for him, but it seemed to be a voice simply floating in a void. It had no weight, no reality.
“Too far,” Damon mumbled. “There’s nowhere to grab on… to…”
“Help him!” Hunter shouted. “Do something, old man!”
Damon sensed the old man – Wilton the shaman – sit next to him, though he didn’t react.
“I don’t know what’s happening to him,” Wilton said in a hushed tone. He turned to Hunter. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Did you know he was able to fall into trance, young one?”
Hunter shook his head no. He grabbed Damon’s hand.
“This is ancient magic,” Wilton whispered. “Older than me, older than anyone here. I fear for the Alpha’s soul, but… there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Nothing?” Hunter asked. “No incense or oil or, I don’t know… a tincture or something? There must be something!”
Damon fell to his side, and groaned. He grabbed at his head, holding on with both hands, kneading hard into his temples. “Where am I?” he said. “What’s happening to me?”
“Alpha?” the old man’s voice was the first he heard, although the only thing he saw in his mind was Lily.
Lily held him, cradling him in her arms, stroking his face.
Then she faded.
“Alpha! Damon!” the shaman patted his cheek. “Are you awake?”
Damon shook his head, clearing the cobwebs out of his brain. “I… think I am,” he said, shaking his head a second time. What happened?”
Though his whole body shuddered with waves of cold and hot, Damon was steady enough to sit up. He needed Lily right then, at that second, more than he had ever needed anything, and worst of all, he didn’t know why.
“You visited the spirits,” Wilton said. “They… they spoke through you. They spoke of a demon and her warlock master. Could it be those are the shadows I witnessed?”
Damon steadied himself and swallowed his nausea. “Hunter,” he said, ignoring the old man, though not consciously.
“Yeah, what can I do for you? Need some water?”
“No,” Damon said. “Take my bike. You can ride, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” Hunter said. “And…?”
Once again, Damon began to rock back and forth, his eyes wandering as he did. “And find Lily. I’m… I don’t know, but I think she might…” He fell silent, shaking, trembling.
Something had him. He felt it squeezing his mind, pulling him back into the void from where he’d just escaped. Something dug in, grabbed him, and held on tight.
Hunter was up and almost to the door a half-second later. “Take care of him,” he said, turning back to the old shaman.
As the door slammed shut behind him, the cow head on the front of it bounced off the wood, somehow detached from the nail that held it on the door, and fell to the ground. Hunter kicked the bike into gear.
If Hunter would have looked back, he would have seen ghostly eyes open in the cow’s skull.
He would have heard the ancient head cough.
And then he would have heard Danness’s laugh.
She had Damon, and she wasn’t letting go.
Ten
“What you do you mean he started muttering and talking to spirits?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Damon fell on the ground, started gibbering and groaning, and then talked to ghosts?
Hunter tossed me a helmet and motioned for me to get on the bike behind him. “Just like I said. He’s at the Skarachee meeting house. There was a meeting about a new murder, and then out of nowhere, Damon was clutching his head. He fell on the ground, and suddenly voices were talking through him. Even freaked out the shaman.”
“Shit,” I swore under my breath. “I don’t… I wish we could get ahold of Poko somehow. He’d know what to do. I found some really, really strange things at the courthouse. Old murders, a whole bunch that went unsolved. Seems like the same stuff that’s happening now.”
“He said something about demons. Or a demon. Or… I’m not gonna lie,” Hunter said. “It was some of the weirdest shit I’ve ever heard.”
“Try to remember,” I said. “What else did he say? There’s got to be something to this.”
Hunter kicked the throttle. “A warlock? And some kind of enslaved demon? I have no idea, but the last thing he said was for me to come find you. Thank God you’d already got back to the house.”
I nodded, chewing my lip. Demon? In the most twisted way possible, that all made sense. I still had no idea why my head had turned into a fuzzball, or why I could hear whispers through plate glass, but it explained why that creepy woman with Carrell was able to just disappear into thin air, and why she could waltz straight into a place that everyone else needed doors unlocked to access.
“I think I saw them,” I said almost as a side note, as we started down the road.
Going through town, we had to go slowly enough that we could kind of talk by yelling at each other.
“You what?”
“Carrel—”
“The guy who works in the basement of the police department?” Hunter sounded surprised that I mentioned him. “Damon asked about him the other day when we… er… anyway, he was asking about him.”
We pulled up to a stoplight. “Sweats a lot, wrings his hands, licks his lips. Anyway, today I noticed he was bringing me the wrong documents.” I could feel my voice getting higher and faster, like it always did when I was excited. “Like, I’d ask him for some stuff and he pretended like he was bringing it, but it was all wrong.”
Hunter opened his mouth, but I kept right on going. “At one point, a woman walked in. Like, without being checked in, or having to show her ID or be buzzed through the locked doors or anything. Real tall, black hair and heels. She just walked in and went to his office.”
“Did they…?”
“No, jackass,” I said, and punched him in the ribs. “They went in there and started talking. For some reason I could hear them through the glass.”
That got a weird look in the rearview mirror from Hunter, but I just kept on talking. “Anyway, she said she had Damon, or she marked him or something, it didn’t make much sense.”
His jaw dropped. “This explains… well, a lot more than I wish it did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When Damon fell into his trance, he was jabbering about spirits and all that, but then he started going on about a demon and a warlock, right?”
My stomach fell into my heels. I couldn’t believe what I was he
aring. I mean, when it was all in my own head, it was one thing, but when it became a real, external thing, I started doubting my own sanity.
“How can this be real?” I asked. My voice trembled so badly I was almost embarrassed for myself. I was supposed to be strong, I was supposed to help Damon, not be a scared little girl.
“Is he okay?” I said quickly, to change the subject.
The light turned green, we started rolling. “Yeah,” Hunter said. “I think so. He was still babbling a little bit, but his eyes weren’t rolled back in his head or anything.”
“Is there any way you can hurry? I’m getting a really bad feeling about this.” I grabbed Hunter’s shoulder and squeezed.
He twisted the throttle, and Damon’s bike roared. The throbbing engine pulsing between my thighs, the hot sun on my back, and the momentary flashbacks to Carrell and the mystery woman called Danness had me almost swooning.
“Hold on tight,” Hunter said. “I can get us there in about two minutes. Do you mind some bumps?”
Before I could answer, he turned off the road.
“Why do you wolves always stay in places that are away from major thoroughfares? Are streets bad for you or something? Thanks,” I said. “I’m fine with bumps. I just need to get to Damon.”
Hunter snorted a laugh.
I hugged him as tight as I could. The fang Damon gave me way back when was sandwiched between my chest and Hunter’s back. Somehow, just the feeling of it right there above my heart gave me a center, an anchor to hold.
*
“That’s… not good,” I said as we pulled up to a dilapidated Elk’s Lodge building and heard a roar. “This isn’t what I think it is, right?”
Hunter’s response was a worried expression and he grabbed my hand. “He was half unconscious when I left. I really hope he hasn’t been tranquilized.”
“Maybe that’s what he needs.” I followed him, stepping over a cow skull and inside the building.
“Damon!” I shouted and ran to him when I saw the rage on his face.
Damon was half transformed, his muscles bulged, his skin and wiry fur the color of quicksilver. And he was pissed.
“Get away!” he roared and snorted, snapping at the air. “They were trying to tie me down!”