Veldi looked up, his short brown hair sticking out as if he’d been raking his hands through it in frustration. “Have a good run?”
Enyowas gave a slight nod, knowing if he said more, he’d betray how close he was to letting his beast take over and burying his human side. The pull to do so had been growing lately and wasn’t easy to ignore. It didn’t help that though he had a shwack of responsibility—family—here, he felt constantly alone with nothing tethering him to remaining human.
He bypassed the stack of files on his desk and went to the window. Fat drops of rain had begun to pelt the glass. He’d made it back just in time.
“It’s nasty out there,” Veldi said.
“Yeah.” Enyowas didn’t look forward to going out again, but that was more to do with the task ahead.
His head began to throb. Sixteen years, and still the guilt ate at him.
It didn’t seem to matter that it was a completely useless emotion. One couldn’t change the past. It was what it was.
He’d tried to change the future. To give his family a good life, though apparently the scars ran too deeply to let some of them accept what could be.
Now he needed to go identify yet another female—the fourth in four weeks.
Lord knew he’d seen his share of bodies, some whose lives he’d even taken himself, but he had a bad feeling about this one.
First Ky betrayed them and Amit paid the price, then a year later his stupidity once again cost them, sending his quiet little sister to heaven. When would he learn?
“We don’t know if this is Elsary,” Veldi said, well aware of his brother’s thought process.
“No, we don’t.” Enyowas prayed it wasn’t, but deep down, he feared. Their little sister was missing, her cell went to voicemail, and of course they couldn’t trace the damn thing until they were back up and running.
“But you think it is,” Veldi said. “And again, you blame yourself.”
Enyowas didn’t answer. He tried so hard to keep Elsary—to keep all of his family safe. Veldi was correct, he didn’t know if it was Elsary. Yet. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that this latest victim would indeed be his sweet, yet headstrong sister.
For the first time, he considered delegating the job to another.
As leader—Tom—of the Spite Cats clan, and leader of the Spokane Chapter of the EfPP, he could easily ask any of his sentinels to go in his stead. But the chance this could be Elsary prevented him from doing so.
Still, he’d try to talk Veldi out of joining him. His brother was mourning his girlfriend. Though human and not a true soul mate, Veldi had cared about her. He’d been away investigating a similar attack on their Vegas EfPP chapter when his girlfriend had died in a hit-and-run car accident four days ago.
Enyowas sighed. He couldn’t pawn the morbid, heartbreaking task on anyone else. It would be the coward’s way out, something he definitely wasn’t. Just … please don’t let it be Elsary.
Veldi came up beside him to stare into the night. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, stop punishing yourself.”
“Like you?” Enyowas immediately regretted his words. “Sorry. Look, with everything going on, I don’t think you should—”
“Stop. I’m going.”
“Enyo?” A young female interrupted them.
“Boss?” Then a male voice.
Enyowas held Veldi’s gaze, knowing the battle was lost. Veldi would join him. Enyowas turned to the two newcomers. He glanced at his top sentinel, then to his youngest sister. “Sima, how did you get here?”
“I ran through the forest,” she said.
Was she the one he thought had been watching him? Then he knew she hadn’t been, his cat wouldn’t have reacted the way he did if that were the case. “No more runs alone, understand?”
“But—”
“Don’t bother,” Enyowas said. “Consider it a new rule until we figure out why we were attacked.”
Sima glanced back out into the main room of the EfPP, then met his gaze. “Fine.”
“What do you need?” Enyowas asked.
A typical teenager, the knees purposely torn out of Sima’s faded skinny jeans, and her black tank top revealed more than Enyowas wanted to see. A splash of brilliant neon pink across the front looked like she’d been splattered with paint.
Sima tucked a stay strand of long dark-brown hair behind one ear and mild annoyance flashed in her bright-green eyes. “Elsary’s stood me up three times now. I need to go Christmas shopping. Will you please just find her already?”
“Why don’t you go with Kayta?” He knew better than to suggest she go with their mother. The woman would drive a saint to suicide.
Sima blew out a breath. “Kay’s logical.”
“And that’s bad why?” he asked.
“Because she’s no fun, she treats me like I’m ten, and doesn’t let me buy what I want. It’s my money, I should be able to do what I want with it.”
“That’s what happens when your older sister raises you.” Enyowas would normally have laughed, but he couldn’t find any humor in light of where he was headed next.
Sima let out a frustrated growl. “Look, I can’t take it anymore, can one of you just find Sary, please?”
The other two males in the room remained silent.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Enyowas said, heart clenching in silent sorrow.
Sima came over, leaned up on her tiptoes, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, big brother, I can always count on you.”
“Take the tunnel,” Enyowas said.
Sima paused, then her shoulders dropped the slightest bit as she glared back at him. “I’m not stupid, or deaf, I heard you the first time.”
As she left the room, Veldi let out a long breath. “She was going to run through the forest.”
“Yes.” Enyowas watched through the glass of his office as his sister took the stairs down to the basement, rather than the hall leading to the back door. Then he looked at the EfPP sentinel. With short, cropped blond hair, the male stood a good six feet, four inches tall. “Ferno.”
A pair of cool blue eyes met his. “Sorry, Boss. I told her you were busy …”
“I’ve long ago given up on trying to keep Sima out of here. Now, what’s with this group of dead Ilyium males?”
“They were found in an alley downtown. I’m not sure, but it seems as if someone stopped another abduction attempt.” He held up a tranquilizer dart.
Enyowas swore. The Ilyium—druid witches and the enemy to all supernatural beings—had been upping their game lately, using drugs to knock out supes and take them captive. Only now they seemed to be snatching humans as well, and the EfPP hadn’t been able to figure out what the witches were doing. Their normal operandi was to kill. So why were they taking prisoners? Torture? It didn’t sound right.
“I’m sure the Ilyium deserved what they got, but I don’t ever want to meet up with the one who took them out,” Ferno said.
“Why do you say that?”
Ferno met his gaze and Enyowas was shocked at the look in his top sentinel’s eyes. “Place looked like hell rode in on a pissed-off tornado and cleaned house.”
“You picked up the scent of shifter?” Enyowas asked.
“Yes,” Ferno said. “But none I’ve ever come across before. Someone did this, and he or she isn’t canine or feline.”
“Night or daywalker?” Veldi asked, referring to the vamps.
“No.”
“Just what we need, another supernatural being in town tearing the place up,” Enyowas said, mulling over what Ferno described.
“Let’s just hope they’re on our side of things and it’s not some rogue with bloodlust,” Ferno said.
Enyowas nodded. “What else? We get forensics back on the attack yesterday?”
Ferno pulled his phone out and scrolled through his emails. “The team working on it is done collecting everything. They’ll send you their report tomorrow, but as you already know, the attack here
has the same MO as the one on all the other EfPP chapters over the last two years.”
“I’m aware. How is everyone?”
Ferno glanced at another email. “The two sentinels who were on guard duty are now healed, but Doc’s still in a coma, and the kid”—a young looking emergency phone-line operator—“is now conscious and healing. He’ll be fine, but he’s pretty shaken. I told him to take a week off.”
Enyowas was brutally relieved no one else had been hurt, or killed. “I’ll go see him later tonight.”
“I called everyone in until we get things sorted out,” Ferno said. “Though since none of the other chapters have been hit twice, I don’t imagine we will be, still I’d rather be prepared.”
“Agreed.”
Ferno continued, “A situation popped up while you were out, so I put team two on it. They’re tracking a pair of young, newly turned were-wolves who decided that riding out the full moon in a mall was a good idea.”
“Bloody idiots.” Veldi snarled.
“It gets better,” Ferno said. “They got into a scrap with a couple cats shifters.”
Enyowas’s headache was growing steadily worse. How he could be a powerful shifter able to heal from most injuries, and still get headaches was beyond him. “How many dead?”
“Six that we know, five humans and one were-wolf. Another five humans have been bitten. I’ve deployed a containment crew and sent Shabina in with two others to calm and wipe minds.”
The place would be packed with holiday shoppers. “Good.” Wrong. Nothing about the situation was good other than Ferno’s handling of it.
“Two sentinels were hurt early this evening when they went after a nightwalker feeding on a human. They’re healing, but I’ve pulled them from rotation for tonight,” Ferno said, then checked his phone when it dinged. “A family of six is coming into the shelter. They need to be stashed where the husband can’t get his bloody paws on them.” He slid his phone into his pocket. “Oh, and the San Francisco chapter called. They have an adult female and her young sister they want to relocate up here. I said we could take them.”
Enyowas nodded. “Tell Kayta. She’ll see that they’re all taken care of and let the shelter staff know how many so they can prepare.”
“Already done,” Ferno said, a slight smile cracking his lips, though his gaze remained distant.
“Anything else?” Enyowas knew there was more. There always was.
“Yeah, Garret just got back. He chased that lead down to Arizona, but it was a dead end.”
“Damn.” Enyowas knew how badly the leopard shifter, who’d been held captive by his evil twin for seventeen years, wanted to find his boy. “So he got nothing?”
“He found the foster family who last had his kid. They claimed the boy ran away years ago.”
“Who knows what might have happened to Garret’s son in the meantime.” Enyowas sighed. “What else?”
“Sin from Club Purgatori called. They’ve got a supe who keeps messing with her dancers. He’s been banned from the club, but then waits around the corner for them to come out at the end of their shifts. Sin sent a couple bouncers after him, but the creep disappeared. So far he hasn’t done anything, but you know Sin. She doesn’t plan to let anything happen to any of her girls. She claimed she just wanted to let us know what was going on.”
Which was code for she planned to take care of it, and if he didn’t like that, then he’d better send someone over, and quick.
Ferno started to say something else, and hesitated.
“What?” Enyowas asked.
“You know you both really don’t have to go do this tonight. I can go. In fact, if it is your sister, then you shouldn’t go.”
“Not happening,” Veldi said.
“I appreciate the offer,” Enyowas said. “But that’s exactly why I have to be the one.” Enyowas ignored the scowl Veldi shot him.
Ferno nodded. “Then I’ll go check out the creeper.”
The male wasn’t one of his top sentinels for no reason. “Do that, but don’t go alone. With the full moon, it’s shaping up to be a crazy-ass night. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt. I trust your instincts, if you think this nut job’s a danger, bring him in.”
“Will do, Boss.” With that, Ferno left.
“He’s right, you know. You don’t have to go. In fact, as the oldest, I should be the one to identify the body,” Veldi said.
“Like you said, not happening,” Enyowas replied. Even if his brother weren’t in mourning, there was no way he’d let any of his siblings do this alone. In the last sixteen years, Veldi had bulked up even more, and as a fighter, he’d become a force to be reckoned with. But he still had one of the softest hearts in the family. “Ready?”
“No. You?”
“Not at all,” Enyowas said.
“Right, let’s do this then.”
The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle as Enyowas pulled up in front of what used to be an old, two-story church. The place was a known hangout for drug addicts and the homeless to crash or to get high. He turned the truck off and slid the keys into his pocket, then surveyed the run-down, boarded-up building.
Veldi got out first, then Enyowas followed suit.
The captain of team five, the team who’d found the body while doing a sweep of the area, waited for them, while another guarded the door. Enyowas knew they’d have someone at the back as well. “She’s inside,” the male said, looking abnormally pale. “We think she’s been here a while.”
Without a word, Enyowas and Veldi followed him up the overgrown path and into the building. The place was a death trap, with broken bottles and needles lying everywhere.
“She’s really not recognizable,” the captain said as he led them inside. “And there’s been so many people in here, they’ve pretty much trampled the scene.”
More of the team waited inside, and their silence was telling.
Dread curled in Enyowas’s gut as they waded through the trash to the far corner, and he wrinkled his nose at the stench of rot—decaying corpse and coppery blood. Under all that was the reek of alcohol, drugs, unwashed bodies, urine, and vomit.
Enyowas drew in another breath, and though it was faint, he caught Elsary’s clean, sweet, yet wild, fragrance. No. Fuck, no! His men moved away as he and Veldi approached.
Despite the fact that his team had set up some portable lighting, Enyowas still used his flashlight to illuminate the path he took. Then he wished he hadn’t. The sight in front of him was one he knew he’d never forget. Crimson covered the whole area—the floor, the walls, and mostly, the body.
Enyowas fought not to gag as he tried to make sense of what he was looking at, but it wasn’t easy—his mind didn’t want to see what he knew was in front of him. About the same build as his sister, the female had long, dark hair, but that was all that was recognizable. She’d been shredded.
“Someone used claws on her,” Veldi said, covering his mouth.
“She’s been dead a while. Four, five days I’d guess.” Enyowas looked up at the members of team five. “And no one called this in?”
The captain shook his head, eyes sad. “Nah, they were all too stoned, or just didn’t care. We caught the scent of death a block away and followed it here. We came in and found the place full of humans, most out of their mind on drugs, or in an alcohol sleep-coma. We questioned the ones we could, then chased them off; though, I imagine they’ll be back soon.”
Enyowas scanned the body with his flashlight, trying to find something, anything to prove that this wasn’t his sister.
“You find a purse or any identification?” Veldi asked.
“No, nothing.”
Enyowas continued to look over what was left of the body, noting the bright-pink fingernail polish. “How many addicts or homeless do you think paint their nails?”
“Can’t imagine many,” Veldi said, crouching down beside him.
“Yeah,” Enyowas answered. But their sister did. She loved painting her nails,
said it made her feel happy, and always did Sima’s as well, even though their youngest sister couldn’t have cared less about her nails.
“What’s that around her neck?” Veldi asked, pointing his flashlight.
Enyowas swore softly, and using the blade of his knife, he peeled the gold chain up out of the gore for them to see better.
Veldi blinked, then without a word, got to his feet and went outside.
Enyowas could only stare at the little gold four-leaf clover pendant. It had been given to her by Amit before he died, and his sister never took it off. She considered it her good luck charm.
Sary, what were you doing here? Heart breaking, Enyowas stood, then looked at his team. “You got this?”
“We do, Boss, we’ve got this.”
Chapter 6
Club Purgatori
One Week Later
Enyowas tossed back a shot of tequila, grateful Veldi kept the drinks coming, though it was a damn shame that as shifters they couldn’t get drunk. At least the memorial service was over.
“Maybe we should never have told them,” Veldi said.
“Then what? Leave them thinking that Sary is still alive and will be home any day?” Enyowas asked, feeling his sister’s not-so-lucky charm burning a hole in his pocket. For years his mother refused to believe Amit had died the night they left. Now she enjoyed shoving it in his face that he’d gotten his brother killed. Although she alternated in accusing him of killing Amit himself, and of getting his brother killed.
“No, guess not.” Veldi finished another shot.
The thought of not telling his mother and sisters about Elsary had crossed his mind, but in the end, despite not wanting to cause pain, his family had a right to know.
Enyowas closed his eyes as images of his sister’s crime scene flashed through his mind. He knew he’d never be able to forget.
Sary had started going out on her own, searching for the missing supes a while back. When Enyowas found out, they’d fought. He’d tried to get her to stop, but when that didn’t work, he suggested once again that she join the EfPP. She already helped them out every chance she got, so why not go through training and join them?
Dance With Darkness Page 4