We paid the Swift River Pack for the use of their plane and pilot, but it was getting to the point where it might be cost effective for us to buy our own plane and have a pack pilot, especially with Kennedy having to fly back and forth to the trauma center in Anchorage each week.
I got in my car and typed in the address for the outfitter, grimacing at the route and estimated arrival time. If I hurried, I could squeak in just before closing time. And be very very late for smoked trout tonight.
A half an hour later, I was pulling into the parking lot when Brent called.
“Dustin will be at the harbor to pick you up at six. I know it’s early, but he’s got two other charters tomorrow and that’s the only time he can squeeze a pick-up in.”
Great. Get to Karl’s around ten or eleven, and have to be out of there at four thirty at the latest. So much for any marathon sex sessions. And from experience, sleeping while flying in a tiny plane wasn’t ideal, at least not for me.
“Thanks, boss.” I meant it. A six o’clock pick up by plane was better than an eighteen-hour ferry and drive home. “How do you want to handle the bullets? And tracing Joseph Floyd’s purchase?”
“I was thinking of sending the bullets up to Kennedy. She’s a surgeon, not a lab technician, but she’s bound to know someone. She’s got resources, and can probably put a rush on it.”
I wrinkled my nose, eyeing the store and wondering how quickly I could wrap up this conversation. “Does she have some kind of mage in the lab? I don’t think it’s a natural substance on there. Shifters have been around for ten thousand years. If this was some plant or mineral that had this sort of effect on us, I’m pretty sure we would have encountered it by now.”
“I still want her to take a look at it. I’ve been up close and personal with the killing bullets, and while I’m thinking magic too, I don’t want to rule out that there’s a genetically modified foxglove that’s lethal to us. But I’m thinking before we send it to her, we should have Ahia look at it.”
Ahia was an angel, and might have a better take on magical spells or curses than I would. Even better, she was shacked up with an archangel—an archangel with billions of years of life experience and connections that spread far beyond Alaska, or even this realm of existence.
“Magic would be tricky, though. It would be a pain to have to spell every single bullet.”
“I don’t think it’s mass produced, though. There were only six bullets in this pack, and the naturalist had only loaded one tainted bullet in with regular ones. It’s not like everyone is running around with these, and the hunters in Kenai that you encountered seemed to be an exclusive group. I’m thinking maybe they are individually spelled. If so, they’d cost a fortune and wouldn’t be available to everyone or be the sort of thing you’d load a whole magazine with unless you were super rich.”
“But then why release the bullets that cause a shifter to go rogue?” Brent asked, half to himself. “Mass hysteria is only profitable if you’ve got the volume of product to meet the need.”
Well, I was the marketing expert. “Supply and demand. If people were scrambling, panicked, for the bullets, they could push prices way up. The market would bear a thousand percent increase if demand was there. And there’s no saying they won’t hire a bunch of mages to replicate the bullets on a faster scale if they had orders in queue.”
“Hopefully we’ll bring their business down before that happens,” Brent said. “And I’ve given your information on Joseph Floyd to Marcus to see what he can dig up. Hopefully he can find enough to determine where he bought the tainted bullets. This is our only chance.”
Well that and the store in front of me that was closing in…fifteen minutes. Crap. “Brent, I’ve got to run. I’ll talk to you when I’m back home.”
I hung up and ran for the store, feeling like an idiot when I burst through the doors to find myself in a silent room filled with life-vests, fishing nets, tents, rifles, and one very startled employee.
“Uh, can I help you?”
“Looking for some bullets,” I told him, trying to slow my breathing and heart rate as I walked to the back counter.
He eyed me worriedly. I didn’t blame him. I was a disheveled red-head in dirty jeans and a crumpled T-shirt looking like I was desperate to shoot something before the sun went down.
“Caliber?”
“.35. .358 diameter”
He pulled a few boxes out from under a cabinet. “How many do you need?”
“Uh, no. I need the special bullets.” I tried to give him one of those knowing looks.
Instead he stared at me as though I were the “special” one. “Like hollow point, special? What are you trying to kill?”
“Bear.” I clearly should never go into acting. “You know, bear. Like the kind that’s not a bear, but then is a bear, and doesn’t go down with regular bullets.”
I felt like such an idiot, but someone sold these things. I doubted Joseph Floyd from Portland, Oregon cooked them up in his basement. And he did have a receipt from this store in his wallet. It was the only sound lead I had.
“Are you going into Canada? Did you get a special permit or something? You can’t just go around shooting grizzlies in the woods.” The guy started to put the bullets away, obviously thinking that I wasn’t of mental soundness enough to be trusted to shoot even a BB gun.
“Self-defense.” I now tried for the weak and helpless expression. I might be a skinny redhead, but I’d never appeared weak and helpless in my life. And I doubted that I was pulling this one off either.
“The best self-defense is to just make a lot of noise in the woods and ensure you’ve got your food locked into a bear-proof container. We sell those here. And bear spray too.”
I reached out and grabbed his hand, trying not to hold on with excessive strength. “Five people were killed a few days ago—mauled by a rampaging grizzly. But he wasn’t a grizzly, he was like a werewolf grizzly. And a guy out hiking said that yesterday a crazy grizzly attacked him. Bullets didn’t stop this bear. If a wolf hadn’t shown up and distracted the attacking grizzly, he wouldn’t have gotten away.”
His eyes searched mine. “Look, I’ve heard things. I don’t know if I believe them or not. We’ve grown up knowing there are people in Alaska who have animal abilities. Some say they can even magically turn into an animal. None of these stories say anything about people getting attacked up until a few weeks ago.” He shoved a box of .358 bullets toward me. “I can sell you these. I can sell you some heavy game ammo that should be enough to take down a polar bear if one comes at you, but that’s all I have.”
I got the feeling he was telling the truth. I also got the feeling he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
“Five people are dead.” I just let that statement hang there in the air between us.
He hesitated a second, then his expression hardened. “I can’t help you. All I have is regular bullets. If you want something else, then you need to shop elsewhere.
“My friend bought some here.” I pulled up the receipt on my phone and turned it to him. This was my Hail Mary effort. “He said you had them.”
The clerk shook his head. “If he bought ammo here, they were regular bullets. A regular bear killed those five people. Maybe it was rabid, I don’t know, but it wasn’t some magical were-bear that attacks people. Even if it was, I don’t sell those kind of bullets.” He looked around the store then lowered his voice. “I went on a climbing expedition with a couple of guides that I’m pretty sure were wolf shifters. They were good people. I’m not about to go selling the equivalent of murder weapons in my shop. If you’re afraid, then stay home, or get some spray. Otherwise, go elsewhere.”
Now, I believed him. He knew where I could get the tainted bullets, but he wasn’t about to tell me. And I honestly believed that he didn’t carry them. But if he didn’t, someone else had.
Someone. Out of the thousands of outfitters, of convenience stores, of bait shacks that sold bullets, someone supplied the tain
ted bullets to the hunters and to this Joseph Floyd. And it wouldn’t have been good business to keep that sort of thing too quiet, or their customers wouldn’t be able to find them. As Sheriff Murray had said, there was no law against selling bullets. These people advertised somewhere. I just needed to put on my marketing hat, think like a business owner, and figure out who, and where, they were.
Chapter Eight
I drove as quick as I could back to Karl’s little cabin, breathless with excitement as I headed down the slashed-bark-lined path to the entrance. This felt big. Bears didn’t let just anyone into their homes, and they were crazy possessive when it came to their food. Karl wanted me here, and he wanted to feed me.
He pushed open the heavy wooden door at my knock and motioned me into the tiny cabin.
I gaped in surprise. The dwelling was a single twenty-by-thirty room with a loft over the back third and a stout ladder leading upward. A woodstove doubled, no doubt, as a heat source as well as a method of cooking. There was a small refrigerator in the corner—an old-fashioned ice box with a section for a one-foot cube of ice and the food storage below it. The sink was a wash basin with a drain that led under the floor and outside past the rear of the house. There was no bathroom. There wasn’t even an outhouse that I could see. The cabin was far more primitive than I’d expected, but that wasn’t what had me catching flies with my mouth as I stood with my feet rooted to the hand-hewn oak floors—it was the books.
There had to have been hundreds of them. They were stacked in precarious towers on the floor, filling makeshift shelves that lined the walls, piled under the table and next to the sofa. I even spotted at least a dozen of them up in the loft next to the mattress.
“I thought you said you were a bear on the move, a sort of nomad shifter?” I commented as I walked into the house. “Do you pack the books up and ship them around every time you change dens? Or do you just leave them here?”
He wrinkled his nose and grinned sheepishly. “Leave them. I’ve got just as many in my other dens. Winters are long, and I’m alone a lot. Books make for good company.”
They did indeed. And it blew my mind to think that Karl had just as many books in several other dens. I hated to admit that I’d been stereotyping, or that I was a snob, but I’d never thought of Karl as a reader. I’d just assumed he was one of those jacked-up, good old boys whose idea of reading was a copy of Field and Stream once or twice per year. The guy didn’t have a cell phone, he didn’t have internet or television, heck he didn’t even have electricity or a bathroom. The idea of him sitting by the woodstove on a cold winter’s night and reading…holy cow, the guy had a copy of Great Expectations.
“Sorry. The place is a mess. I tried to clean it up a bit today, but I didn’t really build it to entertain a lady.” He moved a pile of books and ushered me over to the sofa with a hand on my lower back. “There’s nobody I’d rather have in my den, though. Glad you’re here for the night.”
Me too. He pushed me down on the sofa and wiped some spill off the maple-topped end table with his arm, then hustled into the kitchen, banging cabinets and firing up the woodstove.
Wait. How did he start that fire? He didn’t have one of those long grill-starter thingies, nor did I see him pull any matches out of anywhere. I didn’t have time to wonder though, because just as quickly as he’d begun dinner prep, he was pushing a glass of liquid into my hands.
“It’s not fancy whisky, or wine, but it’s not bad.”
I took a sip and caught my breath. Holy cow, Karl had moonshine. And it wasn’t half bad as moonshine went. Alcoholic as all get out, but with apple, cinnamon, and berry notes, and some herbal flavors that gave a refreshing finish to cut the corn-whisky bite.
“Dang, Karl. Are you trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me?”
“Hopin’ I don’t have to get you drunk for that. There’s a still out back and I put down enough hootch to last me through the winter. Books and booze, know it? Now, what are you hungry for, my red-headed wolf? Fish? Fowl? Venison?”
“Romaine salad with goat cheese and croutons, and a light balsamic vinaigrette,” I teased.
He shot me a mock scowl. “Then you best leave now and start driving to town, ’cause I ain’t got no green shit in this den, let alone balsamic crap.”
I laughed. “Seriously. If you’ve got meat, I’m gonna eat. You pick. Whatever sounds good to you is going to sound good to me.”
“Fish then. I never had it until I came up here. Well, I did, but it was the frozen breaded fish sticks or the stuff in the can. Nothing beats fresh caught, but smoked is a close second.”
I blinked in surprise, but didn’t dig into why a bear shifter would have been raised on frozen and canned food. We were all picky when it came to our meals—well, all except for Ahia who seemed to exist on macaroni and cheese. I watched him pull spices and oils from the cabinet, then head out in the back of the den, down to the woods. He vanished into the trees and I got into my duffle, pulling out my laptop and cell phone, then wandering around the room to find a cell signal. Nothing. I felt itchy at the thought of being so disconnected. Yeah, I’d lived in Alaska my whole life. I was used to dead spots and having to wait until I got back into the city for decent internet, but somehow, sitting in this tiny cabin full of books with no electricity or running water, I was two seconds from having to breathe into a paper bag.
This would never work. Karl was totally hot. Sex with him was mind-blowing. I actually liked him, scary though he might be. But the thought of living like this, even for a few weeks or months of the year was terrifying. It would never work between us. Never.
Karl came back through the door with two huge fish in hand.
“I’m not eating that raw,” I told him. “Especially with the guts still in it.”
He laughed. “You could have knocked me over with one finger when you took a bite of that fish the other day. I was sure you’d turn up your nose at it.”
“I didn’t want to be rude.” And I didn’t want to seem like a girly-girl, squeamish wolf in front of him, even though I pretty much was.
He snorted. “Thought you were gonna puke.”
“Thought I was gonna puke too. You crunching down the rest of that fish didn’t help my stomach any, either.”
His shoulders shook. I noticed he sliced through the abdomen of each fish, carefully peeling meat from the bones and insides. “Did it just to freak you out a bit. I gotta admit that I don’t mind eating like that, in fact I kinda enjoy it.” He turned to me, his eyes with those golden sparks that made him seem more “other” than human. “There’s a lot of things I enjoy, Brina. I’m not the type of shifter that civilizes well. Don’t like to be around people most of the time.”
“You’re more animal than human,” I commented. It wasn’t all that unusual. We had a few in our pack whose wolf-selves were more in control than their human half.
He stared at me a moment, the gold rolling over his hazel irises. The hair rose on the back of my neck. “More than animal, Brina. I’ve got bad blood, and it’s better for me to live out here by myself. I like you. I more than like you. I want to make you mine and never let you go. And I realize that if I want that, I need to get control of my darkness enough to not kill your friends, to know which fork to eat my salad with. As well as actually eat salad.”
Was I weird? That had to have been one of the sweetest, most romantic speeches ever. Karl would eat salad for me. He wouldn’t kill my friends for me.
Wait. What?
“Well, I appreciate you cooking the fish this time.” I watched as he turned his back on me and continued to work, my gaze sliding from his broad shoulders, down his trim waist, to his amazingly tight ass.
“What did you find out from the police?” he asked, reaching for an unlabeled jar of seasoning.
I told him about my conversation with the sheriff, as well as what I’d found out at the morgue. Then I walked over and showed him the video that Brent had texted me of the wolf shifter attack.
The links didn’t work since there wasn’t a cell signal or internet probably within miles of this cabin, but thankfully one of the videos had actually saved into my phone’s memory.
“The guy shifted too fast. It’s not normal,” he commented.
“No, it’s not. That’s what Brent said happened when the hunters shot him and Leon up in Kenai. Plus, the film’s been edited, so parts are taken out. It’s made to look like a shifter ran in, changed forms, then attacked. They would have had to shoot the wolf with the tainted bullet after he got there so that they could get the shift on film, otherwise everyone watching the video would just think a rabid wolf attacked them.”
Karl frowned down at the screen. “Doesn’t make sense. Why would the shifter run in on a group of humans like that? Gotta say, if some stranger came bursting into my campsite out of nowhere, I’d probably shoot him too.”
Good grief. “Remind me not to surprise you while you’re out camping then.”
“I’d know your scent. You’re not a stranger.”
“Even upwind?”
“It’s not just your scent, Brina. I’d know you. I can feel you near.”
Okay, that was just weird. But I didn’t have time to get into that. “You’re right about the shifter in this video. What if there was an emergency and he was trying to warn them? What if the hunters or another rogue were after him and he was trying to tell the humans to get away?”
He squinted at the phone. “The humans don’t look freaked out until the guy shifts from what I can see. If some guy came running into my camp hollering that a bear was after him, I’d be grabbing my gun. Actually, if some guy came running into my camp, I’d be grabbing my gun.”
We’d already established that. “I need a bigger screen. If the video quality is good enough, I could see the shifter’s expression and maybe get a better idea of what’s going on behind the scenes. While you’re cooking, I’ll see what the video looks like on your…”
Oh yeah. The guy didn’t have a cell phone, or indoor plumbing. I doubted he had a computer.
My Paranormal Valentine: A Paranormal Romance Box Set Page 49