Hounded

by Tasha Black

  “Unless…” Van said, trying to put the pieces together in his mind.

  “Go on,” Dulcie prodded.

  “Unless Wenderly killed Barrymore because he caught the old man plotting to kill Selden, and then he was too late to stop the hit?”

  It had sounded better in his head.

  “You keep coming back to Wenderly, but I really think his hands are clean in this,” she said. “I think you’re… never mind.”

  “Go on,” he sighed. “I deserve it.”

  “Barking up the wrong tree!”

  She laughed a full laugh. It was beautiful, like the final school bell before summer break. He tried not to think about what he would be willing to do to make her do it again.

  “Speaking of which,” she asked, still smiling. “You said you saw the dog. Did it seem angry when it went after Selden?”

  “It wasn’t a real dog,” Van replied. “It was too fast for that. But it was like a real dog. It wasn’t mad, but it was fierce. It’s hard to describe, but I wouldn’t say it chased him in anger. It was more…purposeful.”

  “So… maybe the way a hunting dog would feel?” Dulcie asked.

  “Yes, the way a dog would chase for his master,” Van agreed thoughtfully. “Not for himself.”

  “But there was no one else around,” she said. “How would he know who to chase?”

  A fat raindrop fell on Van’s hair, interrupting his thoughts. It was followed by two more lazy drops, and then the sky opened up.

  “Ack,” Dulcie said, holding the canvas bag over her head.

  “Let’s go into the convent until it blows over,” Van suggested.

  Dulcie looked over at the closest building.

  It was old rough-pointed brick, and covered in vines, but it looked stable to Van.

  “But it’s locked,” she said.

  “Not for us,” he told her with the careless half smile he knew women loved.

  She nodded at him with wide eyes and removed Wenderly’s coat from her lap.

  Any victory Van might have felt at wowing her with his hot smile was lost. He gaped and tried not to gasp at the luscious sight of her pale thighs.

  Somehow, he managed to rip his gaze back up to her eyes instead and offer her a hand.

  “Thanks,” she said pulling herself up and grabbing the quilt with her. “I thought I might literally be stuck there.”

  He didn’t let go of her hand, but led her quickly to the doorway of the ruined brick building, his hand burning under her touch.

  A rusty padlock graced the thick wooden door.

  Van let go of Dulcie’s hand, stepped back, and gave the door a hard kick.

  The door groaned, and the metal hasp squealed, and then gave way, leaving the padlock hanging uselessly as the door opened inward.

  Van grabbed her hand again and pulled her inside.

  Shafts of light from missing portions of the roof filtered in through the ivy. The space felt more like a cave than a building.

  Dulcie laughed with delight in the shadows beside him. The sound reverberated through every part of him. Her hand was warm in his.

  Van wished he could drink that laughter, assimilate her somehow. She was like a bottle filled to the brim with happiness, the tiniest squeeze made her overflow with joy - her merriment exploding out of her pores, and saturating everyone around her.

  Before he could think about it, Van had pinned her to the wall. She was soft and yielding, her body accommodating his, her laughter still ringing in the chamber.

  He moved his mouth to hers, tasting the scent of her laughter, trying to inhale it.

  He loved her, he was in awe.

  But his body was moving as fast as his heart. When she took a breath, he quickly sealed her mouth with his own.

  Suddenly she was dead serious. Her sweet tongue answered his call. Her nipples were so hard he could feel them through the dress against his own chest.

  Van was overwhelmed. He had been with her once already. How could it feel new all over again? Like he’d never been with a woman before. Like he didn’t know which part of her to touch first.

  She pushed against him hard, and he let her reverse their positions, so that she was pressing him to the wall.

  Amused, he allowed her to do what she liked.

  She pressed her hands to his chest, molding it and then grabbing his shirt to pull him into her, hard, for a kiss. Every touch made his blood boil with desire.

  He grabbed her lower lip between his teeth and sucked.

  Dulcie whimpered and he flipped them over so that he had her pinned once again.

  They were under a hole in the roof now. A shaft of greenish light haloed her, and rain trickled in, dripping into her hair from above.

  She looked like a wood nymph from a myth.

  Van leaned in and slowly licked a rain drop from her cheek.

  Dulcie held still, her eyes closed, trembling.

  Van wished he were an empath, so that he would know if she were trembling from cold, or from lust. Or from the same heady rush of love that was making his heart pound.

  “Dulcie, I—” he began.

  But he was interrupted.

  “I know you’re in there!” an angry voice from outside assaulted them.

  Dulcie’s eyes popped open.

  “Who the hell is that?” Van asked.

  Dulcie’s eyes danced with merriment.

  “Oh boy, we’re in big trouble now!” she half-whispered, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “This is private property, and you’re trespassing!” the faraway voice complained.

  “That’s Arnold James,” Dulcie explained. “He’s a caretaker. He’s supposed to look after the cemetery and keep everyone off convent property. Kids growing up here tend to have run-ins with him.”

  “I’ve got your jacket, and I can track you through a river now. You may as well come out and face the music!” Arnold announced.

  “What jacket?” Van asked.

  “Wenderly’s,” Dulcie breathed.

  Shit. He’d been so busy trying to hold her hand they had forgotten the jacket she’d pulled off her lap.

  “Well, we can’t get him in trouble,” Van said. “Let’s go face the music.”

  Arnold James stood under the copper beech, rain soaking his white hair and beard, inhaling deeply of Wenderly’s jacket.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. James,” Dulcie said as they approached. “We thought we heard howling and with the deaths, we just wanted to get inside someplace. I hope you won’t be too angry with us.”

  The old man’s face softened at Dulcie’s approach. Van could hardly blame him.

  “That’s my friend’s jacket,” she explained. “I must have dropped it when we heard the noise.”

  “You need to be careful out here, Dulcie,” the old man replied gruffly, handing her the coat. “You and your…” he stopped to give Van a disapproving glance, “friend don’t know what could be out there.”

  “Don’t worry, sir, I’ll get her home safely,” Van assured him.

  Arnold scowled again.

  “No more messing around in the convent, kids,” he announced firmly.

  Van and Dulcie nodded like a bunch of pigeons bobbing their heads for a while. Then Van grabbed Dulcie’s elbow and led her back into the woods.

  She clutched the jacket and bag and seemed to be trying hard not to laugh.

  “Kids?” he asked, hoping her giggles would bubble over.

  She didn’t disappoint. The sound of Dulcie’s easy laughter filled his heart to bursting again.

  They walked for a while in silence, holding hands.

  Van dared to hope that she would let him take her home, and let him come in.

  When they reached the car something occurred to him.

  “You know, that made me think,” he mused, as he opened the driver’s side door for her.

  “What’s that?” Dulcie asked.

  He closed her door, and got into the car, pondering as he fastened his sea
t belt.

  “The caretaker, he’s some kind of shifter?”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Badger, I think.”

  “He was going to use the scent from the jacket to track us if we didn’t show ourselves.”

  “You don’t think…”

  “The night I saw the dog,” he said. “I swore his trail smelled like old man Barrymore. But what if I wasn’t following the dog’s trail at all? What if I was following the same trail the dog was tracking?”

  “The clothes…” Dulcie whispered in horror. “The clothes that Wenderly gave to Selden. They belonged to Rudolph Barrymore.”

  He could almost hear the pieces clicking into place.

  “So the thing went for Selden because he was wearing the old man’s clothes?” Van asked.

  “Yes,” she said sadly.

  “So it was never after Selden,” Van said. “It was always Barrymore. Selden just happened to be wearing his hand-me-downs.”

  And now he was dead because of it.

  “Someone is pulling the strings,” Dulcie said in astonishment. “The dog really was tracking for a master.”

  “Someone with access to Barrymore’s scent,” Van added. “His belongings.”

  “Which confirms my feelings about Wenderly,” she said. “He never would have told us about his arrangement, giving clothes to Selden, if he’d had any idea that was how the killings were done.”

  Van considered.

  “Henry Barrymore?” he suggested doubtfully. “We ruled him out based on money as a motive. What if there was something else? Some kind of family secret or something?”

  It didn’t sit right with Van. Henry was a thousand miles away when his uncle was murdered. Plus, he didn’t seem cut out for that kind of work.

  Dulcie’s eyes lit up.

  “Beryl Burroughs,” she said.

  Click. Another piece fell into place.

  Templeton’s sister, who had been making googly eyes at Henry when they visited the cabin, worked in the Barrymore house as a maid. It was perfect.

  “Can we call the police?” Van asked.

  Dulcie mulled it over.

  “What would we tell them?” she asked. “We have no evidence. Plus, any contact could bring suspicion on you. Everyone is freaking out about a white dog. And the cops know all about the shifters in town.”

  She was right.

  “We need to break in,” Van said, mostly to himself.

  “We need to what?” Dulcie asked, sounding less horrified and more excited than he would have expected.

  “I need to break in,” he corrected himself. “To the cabin. To find some evidence.”

  “You can’t. You have a record. If you’re caught you’ll be ruined,” she protested.

  She was right. Again.

  “I’ll do it,” she said firmly. “I’ll shift, and I’ll do it.”

  Chapter 23

  By the time they returned to Dulcie’s, the rain had stopped. The trees still dripped, but the birds were out, chirping happily as they caught the fat worms brought up by the storm.

  Dulcie’s little house looked even more beautiful to Van after the rain. The grass was greener, the cedar shake darker, and the light blue ceiling of the front porch somehow looked brighter too.

  Van loved Dulcie’s house, he decided, even if there were wind chimes.

  He followed her, bounding up the porch steps.

  Instead of going in, she sat down on the wicker sofa and looked up at him.

  Van had been expecting her to take off her clothes and shift, like they’d talked about on the way here. As a matter of fact, he’d been looking forward to it.

  “Van,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’m not very good at shifting. I haven’t done it in a long time.”

  Van was beside himself, he didn’t like when women cried. Especially not this one.

  “It’s okay,” he reassured her gruffly. “You’ll do fine. And you’ll feel braver and stronger when you shift. Your senses will be amped up. It’ll be great.”

  “I… I’m not that kind of shifter,” she said.

  “What kind of shifter are you?” he demanded, finally tired of this game.

  “I’ll show you,” she said in a hollow voice.

  When she stood to remove her clothes, Van was surprised to feel more somber than excited.

  She struggled with the zipper on the slinky dress, but he let her fiddle with it and she got it.

  Off came the sandals.

  Off went the satin bra and panties.

  Dulcie stepped off the porch and into the center of the front yard. Her house was set back far enough that she had total privacy.

  “If you hear the wind chimes pick up, help me,” she said mysteriously.

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  The cool air on her skin puckered her nipples. Her skin glowed in the sunlight.

  One moment he was looking at the curving shape of the woman he loved.

  The next moment she exploded into a thousand butterflies of every color and hue he could imagine.

  One by one, they disappeared, like puffs of colorful smoke after a fireworks display.

  And then there was only one.

  Dulcie hovered, flapping arrhythmically to stay in place before Van’s eyes.

  A single, flame-colored butterfly.

  He gaped at her.

  She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

  The next thing he knew, she fluttered among the chrysanthemums in the front bed, then flitted over to the flowering vines on the porch.

  Van watched. And he understood.

  No matter how beautiful the flowers seemed, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  This was Dulcie.

  This is what she did.

  She spent her days fluttering in and out of peoples lives, bringing a splash of color and joy with her. When she entered a room, you couldn’t help but look at her, no matter what else was going on.

  You wanted to touch her, to hold her, but she always seemed just out of reach.

  And when she extended her tiny, straw-like tongue to sip sweet nectar from one of the flowers, Van could picture human Dulcie, with a straw stuck into some over-sugared beverage.

  How in the world did she think she was denying her shifter side?

  She was a perfect butterfly.

  A moment later, she approached him with great caution.

  “I won’t touch you,” he told her, wondering if she could understand him in this form. “I promise.”

  Chapter 24

  The world expanded, in colors so bright they were almost painful.

  Slight movements in the still air were a tornado.

  Dulcie felt her wings flutter almost of their own accord.

  Then the hunger awakened and she sought sugar, helplessly, before her strength wore out.

  She tried to find Van again afterward, and by some miracle she was carried to him.

  He was mostly black and white, a dizzying contrast. Black hair, pale skin, black jacket, white t-shirt, red lips pulling over white teeth.

  He was saying something, but she had to struggle to understand him through the hot gust of air he was shaping with his lips.

  “—touch you, I promise,” he finished.

  He couldn’t have touched her if he’d tried.

  Her wings responded so quickly to threats, they were almost separate from her mind.

  The sunlight warmed her tender wings, and Dulcie fluttered away to sun herself over the front yard.

  Then she felt it.

  The rush of air that signaled something ahead, moving fast.

  Something sharp as a knife, fast as an arrow, whistling toward her.

  A robin.

  She should never have dared to change. She had no business sunning herself.

  Dulcie was so terrified she could hardly remember how to shift.

  When she saw the brilliant scarlet in the air before her, something clicked, and she felt herself spread and then thi
cken into a woman.

  The robin swerved away and flew into the maple by the drive, clearly quite confused.

  Dulcie turned to Van, shaking.

  He stood on the porch, mouth open wide, clearly flabbergasted.

  Chapter 25

  Van’s heart was broken.

  Shifting had been hard for him in the beginning, but in the years since, it brought him peace and a sense of being his whole self that nothing else could touch.

  Dulcie stood frozen on the front lawn, frightened and trembling with cold, her eyes haunted.

  “Come on, baby,” he said with an easy manner he didn’t feel. “Let’s get you warm again.”

  She didn’t move, so he grabbed a blanket from the wicker chair beside him and brought it down.

  Her eyes met his as he wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “You’re okay,” he told her.

  She blinked but didn’t reply.

  He swept her up in his arms and carried her to the porch. He felt some relief when she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  He brought her inside and laid her on her own bed.

  “Hold on, baby,” he told her, wrapping a quilt around her.

  She had one of those 1950s black and white bathrooms with porcelain knobs in the shower. He had the bathroom steamy warm in no time.

  When he returned to her she was right where he’d left her. He noticed with annoyance that she was still shivering.

  “I’m going to bring you where it’s warm,” he told her, sweeping off the blankets and carrying her to the bathroom.

  When he put her in the shower she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose. The warm water must have been ecstasy on her cool skin.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Van almost fell over with surprise at hearing her voice at last.

  “Sorry I freaked out, I know it was just a bird. But being a butterfly isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” she joked.

  That was probably true.

  “But why don’t other butterflies look scared all the time?” Van asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe because they don’t know any other way,” Dulcie ventured.

  “Or maybe because they’re used to being butterflies,” Van said, casually reaching into the shower to help her wet her hair.