At first, I only stood, clutching my phone in the blue case, breathing as if I’d been running, cold in the warm room. So cold I shivered.
Then I called. Without a plan, without an answer, without an explanation. Only knowing I had to call and I had to do something. Even if I didn’t know what or how.
“Cass? Thank God. Did you get my messages? I’m so freaked. It’s after two in the morning here. Cass—” Her voice broke and she was crying before I could even get a word in.
“Mel, I’m sorry. I just got your voicemails—”
She launched in, the whole story: their morning conversation, how Henry had been normal, excited to get home in the evening and settle the details for their trip next week. How he’d walked to work, far, but nothing special for the summer. He’d walked there and back while I’d stayed with them in July. He did it for the exercise as long as the summer light and weather held. Then gone. No voicemail, email, text, or hint. At work like usual according to the coworker she’d been able to contact. Perfectly normal day. Start his walk home. Gone. Last anyone had seen of him. Sun still out, a beautiful day in Brighton, and gone.
She talked and cried and talked, and told me how scared she was until I said, “I know, Mel. I know. I’m going to come over.”
“Oh, Cass, don’t be ridiculous—” Gasping through her tears. “There’s nothing you can do. I just needed someone to—”
“Mel? I’m going to come over tonight. I’ll be there soon.”
Silence besides the shuddering breaths through the phone.
“I’m in England,” I said quietly. I took a deep breath. “I’m in southern England right now. I just got back here this morning. Or, yesterday morning, I guess. I was writing you an email to tell you but I fell asleep.”
Another blank hush.
“Mel? I’ll be over in an hour or two.”
“You’re serious?” It was the voice equivalent of that face people have when they look like they’ve seen a ghost.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I’m here. Remember how I told you I was trying to help someone before when I was staying with you? Well … I’m back because, while all that was going on, I … met an English guy. It doesn’t matter right now. Just that I’m here and I’ll be right over. We’ll find him, Mel.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. On instinct. I’ve got to go. But I’ll see you soon.”
My travel clothes were still in the bathroom from earlier. By the time I was out of there I was dressed, needing only shoes and a jacket.
Kage was up, meeting me in the doorway of the bedroom. “What’s going on, princess?”
“We have to go into Brighton. Will you both get dressed?”
“You all right?”
“My brother-in-law is missing and I need to see my sister. I can’t go into town alone and the more of you come the safer you are. So…” I headed for the kitchen and the front door as I spoke.
I tried to open it, had to unlock first. “Jed?”
It wasn’t raining yet, although the night was cool, no stars visible with the clouds settled in. A night of looming rain, hinting at autumn’s approach.
Jed stepped up to me in the glow of front lights from every home.
I sat on the step and took his face in my hands, holding the thick fringes of fur behind his cheeks, speaking softly.
“Listen. We have to go to Brighton. All of us, I’m afraid. Please get Isaac and Zar. Bring them to the motorcycles. Wait…” I squeezed my eyes shut, bowing my forehead to touch his, then looked up again. “No, we’ll need to take Kage’s Jeep. We don’t want all those noisy bikes with us. And it might help to have someone in fur. Bring them to the bike shelter anyway. We can meet there. And you … if you stay in fur … it might mean having to lie low and hide in the Jeep, but maybe you can help us. Will you do that? It would help if… We need a collar.”
I thought of Jason’s prong collar. Not about to put that on Jed, though.
Jed wagged his tail once.
“You have something? Bring whatever you have. They have leashes in here. Okay? Isaac and Zar. We’ll see you in a minute.”
Not wanting to waste time sorting things out, I only pulled on my jacket, threw my phone and water bottle into my backpack to bring the whole thing, pulled on my trail shoes, and put on my warded necklace and leather bracelet. I already had the silver ring and belt on.
This was a whole different situation. I wasn’t worried that shifter murderers had started striking mundane humans under our noses. But I was plenty worried that shifter murderers would know we were out in Brighton tonight, traveling areas around the territory and the city that had been their prime targets—and dead of night was when they struck. I had every reason to believe they were watching roads in and out, either by scry, or simply in person keeping surveillance on the mobile home park. This was so much more complex than fear of random violence—a city mugging, a missing person. If only Melanie knew. Yet it was much better that she did not. I had to keep it that way.
More nausea, hot also—from shivering to sweating in the time it took me to tie my shoes. Not the time for this. Nux vomica under my tongue and ginger in my coat pockets.
Jason had the thin chain necklace on anyway. I directed Kage to put on his watch and grab his car keys.
The six-foot leash rested in the chair with Jason’s prong collar and I grabbed it on our way out.
We jogged past homes for Jason’s family’s place at the back of the property near the hedge. Green, with a yellow door, but it all looked orange now.
Jason led the way to the open window at the front of the double-wide.
“Andrew?” I called softly through the screen. “Get up. We have to go into Brighton.”
A scramble. “Bloody hell—what are—?”
“My sister’s in trouble. I need all of you to come with me.”
“Your sister?” He appeared at the dark window screen on the inside, fumbling on his glasses. “She’s not even in this, right?”
He meant not part of the magical community.
“Right, but this is something else. Her husband is missing. I need to see her.”
“Hunt Moon. If it’s not one thing… Be right out, Belle.”
“Andrew? Bring the dingo.”
In a matter of minutes he’d joined us and we all headed for motorcycle parking at the two-story workshop building. Isaac, Zar, and Jed were already there. Isaac and Zar dressed and coming to meet us, asking what was going on, speaking in whispers. Jed wore a huge yellow collar that reflected the electric lights. I’d never imagined Jed would be willing to “dress” when in fur. The collar startled me. Clearly it was meant to be noticed—like a road-guard vest.
I didn’t comment, but said I would fill them in during the drive and for now we just needed to head for Brighton.
Isaac had his phone. Zar even had his thick bracelet on.
As everyone climbed in, I warded the silver Jeep Wrangler, holding Kage’s hand at my side, touching the hood—or bonnet, as they called it—and drawing an invisible shield down over the vehicle.
Kage drove his Jeep while I insisted Isaac—the tallest—take the passenger seat and I could ride in the back with the others.
Zar climbed into the very cramped far back with his brother in fur while Jason sat behind Kage, Andrew in the middle.
“I’m sorry to involve you all in one more uproar—”
“Just tell us what you need, Cassia,” Isaac said from ahead of me.
Headlights picked out the winding, bumpy road ahead as we whipped over it with a pace suitable to a motorcycle. This time, I wanted to be in a hurry just as much as Kage did. Yet I also suspected it would come at the price of vomiting in my lap.
I started on another piece of ginger, rolling the window halfway down, both of which helped. Andrew watched me. I slid the fingers of my right hand into his left and shut my eyes. Even England’s mixed up side of the road added to my disrupted equilibrium.
I started with
the dreams, how I’d woken from seeing the waterfront in Brighton to find the messages. Henry, the call to Melanie, admitting I was here.
“I’m sorry,” I added. Been saying that so much lately. “I’m asking a lot of you all to rush into another crisis in the mundane world when we could very well be being watched by the people we’re supposed to be focused on finding right now. But I have to help my sister if I can and…” I gulped.
“You can,” Andrew said.
I nodded in the dark Jeep, now speeding down the motorway north of Hove. “I want to go to the waterfront first. I’ll scry. Or maybe we’ll just look. If there aren’t people around Jed can help. I’m afraid…” I had to swallow again. “I’m afraid he’s in the water or … something. I’m afraid she’s right because women in my family tend to be right about these kinds of gut feelings. Melanie isn’t a witch, but she’s known plenty by guessing in the past.”
“If he’s in the area, we’ll find him,” Isaac said. “We can try up and down the beach. It will be dark but, if you can take us to where you saw in your dream, Jed would be able to catch the scent, alive or dead.”
Yes, it was a big city. But no, it wasn’t exactly known as a murder hub. A mugging gone wrong, though? A hit and run? Even an accident, the nature of which I couldn’t imagine yet, but might all become clear with a scry. Things happen. Even on summer days out of the blue like lightening. You can be walking down the street one moment, and your life completely turned upside down the next. I knew it all too well.
I focused the last five minutes of the trip on fighting fear and nausea—each one coming from multiple directions at once.
Chapter 29
Tide was out, the waterfront quiet. I’d never heard it quiet before—other than my dream. Brighton was a large enough city to stay up late, party late, and keep tourists on tap in all seasons. Even in the wee hours of morning, in the dark, on a cool night just starting to deposit raindrops, I would have expected a few drunks, some music playing, something.
We walked down to the beach as a group, our way hushed, careful, the wolves tense as cats on wires as they kept a lookout around me. Until we reached the red pebble of the beach itself after the concrete ramp. Here, our footsteps could not be muffled. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
I held up my right hand. Everyone stopped around me. My left clutched two loops of the nylon leash clipped to the thick yellow collar around Jed’s neck. Not as if there was anyone to see this display of responsible pet citizenship. Every one could have been in fur for all the audience we had.
So why did I feel like we were being watched?
Why did my pulse speed as if I’d just been in a car crash? Breaths short and sharp, skin tingling, adrenaline surging?
Why did I feel we were walking down a gravel road by night in the rain and something was about to attack and tear our throats out?
This wasn’t even related. A random crisis. A bad situation thrown into a worse situation.
Only it wasn’t. I understood there was some connection as my vision contracted and I felt bristling guard hairs with the hackles lifting down Jed’s back. I couldn’t even try to scry—my energy too jittery.
Jed stood so close I felt his warmth against my left thigh through my jeans. He was not, however, staring or focused, not growling or keyed into anything. He was looking around, ears twitching, and, like the rest of us, finding nothing to actually be alarmed about through the rushing sound of waves up the beach and orange streetlights, plus long rows of glittering lights down the Brighton Pier to our right and ahead.
Nothing to focus on. Something here all the same.
I turned my attention to the dream: where I’d been. Here, yes, the same view, but the pier as well. I’d been looking from the pier down onto this beach. Higher ground seemed a nice idea. How to get there, though?
Brighton Palace Pier was a public attraction with opening hours. It wasn’t just some jetty. Nearly 1,800 feet long, it struck boldly out into the English Channel like a cruise ship ready to launch. The entrance was controlled and gated at night below the clock tower at its mouth.
Last time I’d been out there was in daylight with Isaac after Susanna had been killed. It seemed likely I’d have to wait until daylight to visit again.
Instead, I stood for a moment, my pack waiting silently around me, taking it in turns to watch me or our surroundings, patient for my decision and insights. I found those insights not in a real scry, but my own instincts looking back to the dream and feeling fear amounting to terror down here—a sense of dread that something horrible was about to happen. The only place I knew to turn that felt right was the pier.
That water made me shiver as much as anything else about the night—rush and swish, roll and rumble, all in the dark. Cool, endless, pitch black water stretching away into an invisible, inky horizon. Part of the fear may be dread for Henry, the quiet night. But part was simply that black water. I’d had a thing about dark water for many years, though usually found it easy to avoid exposure to the phobia—unlike spiders.
“Go back,” I whispered.
We returned to the ramp, then the sidewalk and street. Some cars did pass. There were a few people walking around a corner down there, heading to their hotel.
Quiet, though still alive. I took slow, counted breaths as we walked to the pier.
Should we be back on the beach? What about logic and thinking this through? When had my life become all feeling and no thinking? Could one twinge of nerves be stopping me from right now leading Jed down the beach where he might sniff Henry out for us?
Palms tingling, recalling the dreams, the line of sight, I kept heading for the pier: for black water over a dimly lit beach and black horizon. Only because that little bit of magic without needing a scry told me so.
We stopped at the illuminated entrance to the pier, the clock tower, the columns, the curved roof and barred passageways below. Signs taken in, window booths all closed and barred, dark inside but lit outside.
Jed turned his head. The others looked as well. I was the last to see, only clued in by their sight as they caught what I had not in the patchy light. On the far right side one of the accordion metal gates had been broken open and pushed back just enough to allow someone to walk through.
I twisted the leash, hands sweaty even as a soft rain began to cool my skin.
They looked to me.
When I said nothing, only consumed by a sense of oppression, of doom and wanting to run, Zar touched my shoulder.
“Is this where he is, Cassia?” Isaac’s voice was a breath. All were listening, feeling the pressure around us maybe nearly as much as I was.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “But we have to go in there.”
“You wait with—”
“We’re not splitting up.”
Silence.
More cars drove past. The lights glowed. Black waves rushed up the beach and lapped against the pier’s supports.
I could not make myself move, could not lead them through that gate where something lurked that made my mouth dry.
Alternatives? Call the police and report a break-in to the pier? Yes, that might get someone out. Some officer to check, or some security guard to lock it up. And what? We would still have to search for Henry. Only then we might not have access to the pier. Go home to Melanie and … what? I couldn’t scry around her either. She wasn’t expecting me to be out here looking for him. She wouldn’t know the difference. But I would. Because I was pretty sure I could find a clue leading to her husband by going out onto that pier—and I couldn’t figure out a way to do it without involving my pack.
I took a step toward the open part of the gate, stopped, and shut my eyes.
Fighting for every bit of magical force I could muster, I felt along the electric currents to find wires and optical eyes. There would be security cameras all over the pier. Only … there weren’t.
My search turned up nothing but lights and carnival rides and ovens and deep fryers and so on. I could
see the cameras with my third eye. I could not detect power into them. I could not, in short, find one that was working.
I couldn’t take my pack into danger like this. The pier just went from creepy to totally fucked up. I valued all of our lives too much to lead us in there—Henry or no Henry.
Still, I didn’t turn away.
I stood for so long, silent, immobile, Jed sat with his paw on my shoe, gazing up at me. Zar took my clammy right hand. Kage pressed my left shoulder. They were looking at me much more than around us now: worried, unsure if I was scrying, if I knew something, if I didn’t, if I was simply thinking, planning, or hopeless.
I didn’t know of anything that could simply cut power to those cameras and leave everything else alone without any external damage—other than magic. I didn’t see how Henry’s being attacked could have anything to do with these shifter and caster attacks on the South Coast wolves. But our whole supposed mission was finding the casters and shifters doing the killings. Now, for the first time in all these weeks, for the first time ever aside from inside my own scries, I could feel them. I felt them in the air like heat lightning, their presence, their gaze, their magical energy. So we had to keep going. We should follow our own path, regardless of Henry being out here or not.
“The cameras are dead,” I whispered.
They all looked at the pier.
“Magic?” Kage asked under his breath.
“Yes.”
“What does that have to do with your brother-in-law?” Zar whispered.
“I have no idea,” I said, and walked to the broken gate.
Chapter 30
Nothing happened. We walked onto the pier, started along the planks, looking around to the structures ahead, the dark beach over the sides, or the glowing city behind. A cool sea breeze washed over us with more rain. I zipped my jacket. Nothing else.
No one about. No noise or lights that shouldn’t be there.
Moonlight Lovers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 7) Page 19