by Marc Daniel
Chapter 29
Olivia pushed back her plate with a satisfied sigh. The steak had lived up to her expectations. Daka had picked her up in front of her dorm located near Yellowstone’s North Entrance, and they’d driven to Gardiner, the closest town.
The waitress came to clear the table and looked impressed with Olivia’s empty plate. She probably hadn’t seen too many 124-pound women finishing up a 30-ounce porterhouse, but she likely hadn’t served too many werewolves either.
Daka reached for the check and Olivia pulled her wallet out of her purse.
“It’s on me,” he said.
“It’s not my birthday, Daka,” she replied with a smirk. “Let’s split it, you already paid for the gas to drive all the way from Bozeman.”
Bozeman was only an hour away—probably less, at the speed the young man drove—and she knew the gas hadn’t cost him much, but there was no reason for him to pay for her food. This wasn’t a date. They didn’t think of each other that way. At least she didn’t think they did.
“You can get the next one if you want. This one’s on me. I insist,” he said, handing his credit card to the waitress.
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Thanks. You really didn’t have to do that.”
“That’s why I wanted to do it,” he replied with a wink. “I know a summer internship at the oldest national park in the country pays the big bucks, but you can’t rival my working-man riches.”
It was true that Daka’s construction job was likely paying a lot better than her internship, but that didn’t justify him paying for her food.
“How much longer are you going to be in Bozeman?” she asked.
“The town is booming so we’re probably going to be there a little while. It keeps expanding in every possible direction.”
Daka worked with four of his packmates. Their crew hired itself out to local builders in search of skilled workers.
They headed back to the Shoshone reservation every weekend to reconnect with the rest of their pack but remained in Bozeman through the week. This made seeing Daka a lot easier. Had he lived fulltime on the Wind River reservation, the five-hour drive would have made casual dinners between friends more difficult.
“Ready to head back?” he asked, placing his wallet back in his pocket.
Olivia nodded, and they headed for the exit.
The dinner had been a nice distraction and she felt better than she had an hour earlier when Daka had picked her up.
Lucy was still her main concern, but now something else nagged in the back of her mind. Something odd was going on in the park. She couldn’t quite explain it, but the atmosphere had been different these past few weeks. More oppressive, as if a storm was brewing. Except this had nothing to do with the weather.
Daka placed his hand on the small of her back, gently pushing her through the exit. Once outside, his hand lingered there a moment longer than necessary before dropping back to his side. Had she imagined this? Probably. He was also possibly lost in thought and had acted instinctually without even noticing what he was doing.
For the first time, Olivia felt herself longing for the contact of his hand on her skin. The thought scared her the instant it materialized. Her last romantic experience hadn’t exactly ended well. And had it not been for Daka and his pack, it could have ended a whole lot worse.
No, she decidedly wasn’t ready for a relationship. A good thing, since Daka had displayed no obvious sign of attraction towards her. Their relationship was a purely platonic one, and they were all the better for it.
The text message arrived as she was closing the car door. She pulled her phone out and glanced at the display.
She didn’t like what she saw there.
The message was from Michael. Sheila had been attacked and was in a coma. They were on their way to I-Naur-Tal, the elvish city hidden in the woods somewhere between Yellowstone and Bozeman. Michael didn’t explain why they were heading for the elves’ stronghold, but Olivia could draw her own conclusions. He was bringing Sheila to their healer.
“Bad news?” asked Daka.
She related the message to him.
“What happened? Where was Michael when she was attacked? Surely nothing could have gotten to her if he’d been around.”
“I don’t know. The message doesn’t say.”
She was reading the text one more time when a second message arrived. At first she thought it was Michael giving her more details. But the single sentence displayed on her screen had been sent from an unknown number, and most definitely not by Michael.
She felt blood draining from her face as she read the one-liner.
Daka noticed too, apparently. “What’s going on, Olivia? You’re as white as a ghost.”
She handed him her phone so he could read for himself.
The next dead wolf will be you.
Chapter 30
Michael parked his rented SUV along the curb and headed for the property’s front gate. He’d never been in this part of Houston before but, based on the houses around him, Sheila’s sister was doing even better for herself than he had imagined. He rang the intercom three times before concluding nobody was home. This was his third visit in the past twenty-four hours and his third failed attempt at contacting Stephanie Wang.
After a day sitting idly at Sheila’s bedside, he’d decided his time would be better spent in tracking down whoever had attacked his girlfriend. But before that, he needed to let Stephanie know what had happened to her sister. He’d found her number in Sheila’s phone, but his calls had all gone to voicemail.
Truth be told, he also wanted to ask Stephanie a few questions. He couldn’t figure out how their attackers had ended up in St. Lucia. Had they followed them there? That was highly unlikely given the way airport security functioned nowadays. In order to overhear their destination, they’d have needed to be right behind them at check in and then have hurried to buy some tickets.
He needed to figure out whether Stephanie had talked to anyone about this. Maybe the leak came from her side…
He knew from Sheila that her sister lived alone. Alone in a multimillion-dollar house in Houston’s prestigious River Oaks area. The lawyer was apparently unable to maintain a relationship lasting more than a few weeks at a time. This didn’t scream of happiness to Michael, but who was he to judge.
It was eleven at night on a weekday; Stephanie should have been there. She could also be on a business trip, but in that case, she should still answer her phone. Especially when the calls came from her sister’s cell.
Michael made up his mind and a moment later he was on the other side of the gate heading for the front door.
He rang one more time to no avail and tried the door. It was locked, the alarm most likely on.
Triggering an alarm in this neighborhood would bring a dozen cops running in under three minutes.
He walked to the back of the sprawling mansion, glancing quickly at the oversized pool in the backyard before returning his focus to the windows and the two back doors.
The alarm panel was visible on a wall from one of the windows, its LED light a solid green. It looked as if Stephanie had forgotten to turn it on.
Breaking and entering it is, decided Michael as he headed for the closest door. He was surprised to find it unlocked. Something didn’t feel right.
All senses on alert, he cautiously entered the house. The inside was dark aside from the greenish glow of the alarm panels located nearby the main entry points.
He was crossing a kitchen bigger than his entire cabin when he smelled it. The scent was faint but definitely here. His nose had been slightly improving over the past few days but was still far from functioning at peak capacity.
The scent wasn’t human, but praeternatural. A mountain lion. And not just any mountain lion either. This was the same animal whose scent he’d detected the day of the hot spring incident. He’d known then that something was off with the picture, but he’d been mistaken. Michael had thought the mountain lion smell wa
s following him around when, in reality, he’d been the one following it. The lion had been the man with the rifle, the one who’d sacrificed the kid to get away. He’d also been the one who’d attacked them in St. Lucia. Michael’s nose had still been too weak to identify the cat’s odor for certain during the attack in St. Lucia, but it had improved over the past few days. There was no longer any doubt in his mind; the scent was a match.
And now this scent was in Stephanie’s house. What mess had Stephanie thrown herself into? How had the lawyer gotten involved with praeternaturals?
Michael also strongly suspected their attackers to be responsible for the slain black bear they’d found in Yellowstone two weeks earlier. A weremountain lion would easily get the advantage over a black bear, even over a grizzly. The question was, why would he bother?
Michael still had no idea what the killers were up to, or where to find Stephanie, but his spirit was at its highest since Sheila’s attack. The bastard who’d pushed the poor kid into the pool was gone for good. Leka’s arrow had made sure of that.
Michael remained on his guard as he methodically searched the house for any useful information. The mountain lion was gone, but the tiger was still out there.
He searched the house for over an hour but didn’t find anything useful other than a calendar on the kitchen wall. Handwriting covered most of the days with small messages like Dinner with Tod or Girls night out. If the calendar was to be trusted, Stephanie should have been in town this week.
Michael was starting to feel more and more concern about Sheila’s missing sister. Where was Stephanie? And how was she involved in this mess?
His next finding did nothing to alleviate his uneasiness. On one of the back doorframes was a small, dark stain with a long black hair sticking to it: dried blood.
Chapter 31
The 7 A.M. briefing in the rangers’ station small meeting room felt quieter than usual, as if the other interns also sensed the unwholesome atmosphere that had settled over the park in the past two weeks. That or Olivia was imagining things and the interns were just sleepier than usual.
“Did you hear me, Olivia?” asked Helen Fletcher, standing in front of the white board.
Olivia looked up. “I’m sorry, my mind was somewhere else.”
“I was saying that you and Alexei will be on assignment at Norris today.”
Olivia nodded. The Norris geyser basin was one of the park’s most popular features. Even this early in the season, she was guaranteed to be seeing her fair share of tourists today.
“Kewanee and Raj will be on backcountry duty around Slough Creek. A few hikers were spending the night on the trail and we want to make sure everyone’s safe and the wilderness gets the respect it deserves.”
That sounded just like something Michael would say. It wasn’t the first time Olivia noticed it, either. The two of them would get along just fine. Despite the small scars she’d received in the car accident that had claimed her husband’s life, Helen was still a lot prettier than average. There was of course her burnt arm, permanently hidden under a glove reaching to her elbow, but that was a detail many men would be willing to overlook given the woman’s rocking body. Once or twice Olivia had caught Helen staring at Michael, but he was unlikely to have noticed anything. For one thing he was completely oblivious to women, but more importantly he was with Sheila. And as far as Olivia could tell, it was meant to last. At least on his part.
Olivia liked the journalist well enough but wasn’t sure she was a good match for Michael. Sheila was a city girl.
Her train of thought was interrupted by Jason Parrish walking into the meeting room with a pronounced limp. “A tourist reported an accumulation of cars parked all over the place on the main road near the junction leading to Indian Creek. Probably a bear but they didn’t spot it from their car. Are any of you heading that way this morning?”
“Alexei, Olivia, could you stop and have a look? It’s on your way. You know what to do. Just make sure nobody gets too close to the bear, or whatever else it may be,” said Helen.
Whatever indeed. Most tourists had the good sense to keep their distance with bears, but not so much with other wildlife. As a result, bison were responsible for the majority of accidents in the park. Due to their poor sight, they tended to notice only the obnoxious tourists when the pesterers were close enough to sit on the animals’ backs. At which point they charged the intruder and things got ugly.
Olivia and her Russian companion grabbed their lunch boxes and headed for their car.
They bumped into Jason limping his way to the station’s front door.
“What happened to your leg?” asked Alexei in his thick Russian accent.
“My leg’s fine. It’s my sciatic nerve acting up. It happens sometimes. It will go away in a few days,” answered Michael’s boss.
Olivia got behind the wheel despite Alexei’s protest, and they headed for Indian Creek.
They easily located the spot eight miles down the road. Nearly fifty cars were parked and double-parked on both sides of the main road. It was barely 8 A.M. This had to be some type of record.
The two interns walked to the vast circle of tourists that had formed in a prairie about 200 feet from the road, hoping they wouldn’t find a grizzly bear in its center. But their hopes had been in vain.
The said grizzly wasn’t about to harm anyone, however. His throat had been torn to pieces and the ground around him was darkened by the blood that had once flowed through his veins. The blood was completely dry now, absorbed by the grass-covered soil.
Olivia and Alexei looked at each other, uncertain what to do. The uneasiness that had been Olivia’s constant companion over the past few days had just turned into dread. There was no longer any possible doubt. A praeternatural killer was hunting Yellowstone’s predators.
“What do we do?” asked Alexei.
“We call it in. Then we ask these nice people to get back to their cars before we end up with a traffic jam. There’s nothing else we can do.”
Alexei started talking into his radio while Olivia told the reluctant tourists to get back to their cars.
“What do you think killed that bear?” asked Alexei when only a few of the most recalcitrant voyeurs were left, still taking pictures of the unfortunate grizzly.
“It looks like a big cat. A really big cat, given the size of that bear.”
What Olivia kept to herself was that her nose didn’t recognize the scent of the killer. She was still training her wolf’s sense of smell and was very far from being able to do what Michael could with his, but she knew that this was a smell she’d never experienced before. A smell that didn’t belong inside the park.
“That’s the third dead bear in two weeks, and the second killed by a cat,” said Alexei. “The third one was killed by a wolf. And let’s not forget the wolf that had been killed by a bear. What the hell?! Are all predators going crazy?”
Olivia had reached a slightly different conclusion: one she didn’t care to share with her companion. Hearing him list the morbid occurrences aloud had shown her she’d been wrong previously. They weren’t dealing with a praeternatural killer. They were dealing with several of them. And after the text message she’d received the night before she was starting to think that the choice of victims hadn’t been random. Bear and wolf… Someone knew about her and Michael’s little secrets. The dead predators were simply a message for the two of them: ‘We know what you are, and we’re coming for you.’
Chapter 32
Michael pushed open the restaurant door and immediately spotted Detective Samantha Lewis sitting at a table near a window. She waved at him, and he headed in her direction.
“Long time no see, Michael. How have you been?”
He’d spoken to Samantha on the phone the day Sheila’s car had exploded but hadn’t seen her in person for some time. How long had it been exactly? A year or two? Probably somewhere in the middle.
Keeping track of time was becoming increasingly difficult as
centuries flew by. Sheila had thrown him a surprise birthday party this year and invited Olivia and Daka. The skinwalker had just about fallen off his chair when he’d seen the four candles spelling out 1056.
“It has been a while, yes. I’m doing well, Detective. Thanks for asking.”
“How’s that reporter of yours? Keeping herself out of trouble? There was a bit of a gang war around here just after the car bombing. A few brothels went up in flames, and a few human traffickers got what they deserved. It only lasted a couple of days though and then it died out. As a matter of fact, I believe the hostilities ceased right around the time the two of you left Houston.” She pronounced the last sentence looking him in the eyes.
“Interesting coincidence,” he replied. Samantha was a bright woman. She knew full well that Michael had been behind the spring cleaning. Just like she knew his true nature and the fact there were others like him out there. People like her were called initiates. Humans in the know.
“I just wish it had lasted longer. There are still way too many establishments of this type all over the city. We can’t seem to get ahead of the traffickers. It makes me sick when I think of it,” she added.
Was the detective suggesting he carry on his vigilante work? That didn’t sound like the woman he knew. Samantha trusted him fully and was willing to look the other way if necessary but encouraging violence against humans sounded completely out of character, even if these particular humans were the scum of the earth.
“Were there any more threats or attempts on her life? Where is she, by the way?”
“Sheila’s not doing great right now. She’s in a coma, but the prognosis is good.”
“What happened?” Genuine concern was visible on the detective’s face. Sheila and the Houston PD weren’t on the friendliest of terms, but Samantha didn’t mix business and private matters. This was definitely private.
Michael related the attack to the detective, omitting only the elves’ involvement.