Blood Diamond (43 page)

I scowled and muttered, “Short trip.”

“Ha, ha. Make sure you do this for me. Eat something, rest, and tell Gerald he’s to keep an eye on you. If you faint or start running a fever, he’s to call me. Don’t use any witchcraft for now.”

“If I did it, which you have no actual proof, it wasn’t on purpose.”

He sighed. “I know, I know. You’ve never had any control over it. Tell Evelyn to stay out of trouble so you don’t do something stupid.”

“Evelyn, Elliot says you have to stay out of trouble,” I dutifully relayed, grumbling a few curses under my breath. “Happy now?”

“No. Tell Gerald.”

Snorting, I held the phone out to Gerald. “Tell him yourself.”

My friend took his cell. “What do you need me to do?” There was a long pause. “We took a plane. We’re here for some work, which turned a bit sour. Yes, it’s legitimate work for my government. I’ll take care of him.” Hanging up, Gerald stowed the phone, shaking his head. “Stop causing me so much trouble, Jackson.”

“Sorry.”

Gerald hauled me to my feet, shoving me in the direction of the kitchen. It proved to be larger than the main room, complete with a long table lined with benches and sufficient space for twenty to sit comfortably. I sat at one end with Evelyn at my feet, resting her chin on my knee while Gerald sat beside me.

The Fenerec crowded the main kitchen area, watching me warily. I forced myself to relax, staring down at the woodgrain of the tabletop. “Tell me everything you know about Suzanne and Jacqueline,” I demanded.

~~*~~

It took us an hour to untangle the web of lies Suzanne had spun. To my dismay and disappointment, the Fenerec didn’t know much about her. She had told them each a different story, with the only common thread being the way she painted me. None of it was pleasant, and by the time they finished telling their stories, I trembled from rage.

Chris stared at the tabletop, shaking his head. “My version is even worse,” he admitted.

After hearing tales of me hitting Suzanne and threatening her, I had a hard time imagining how that was possible.

“Just say it,” I said, wishing I could wake up from the nightmare my life had become. At my side, Evelyn whined, licking my fingers. I trailed a finger down the length of her nose.

“She told me you had raped her.”

I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and held it until my lungs burned. When I exhaled, I shook my head. The admittance clarified everything. I didn’t want to believe it, but the longer I considered Chris’s words, the more I understand why the pack had acted as they had.

“She told you I had raped her,” I whispered, opening my eyes to stare at Chris, shivering from a bone-deep chill Evelyn’s presence couldn’t warm.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Anderson,” Chris replied, his gaze fixed on the table.

“Are you okay, Jackson?” Gerald asked.

I shook my head. How could I be? If what they told me was true, my life with Suzanne had been a lie from the very beginning.

“What I don’t understand is why she told us all a different story,” Sven hissed, slamming his fist against the table. The mugs bounced, and Gerald rescued my coffee from spilling.

“It sounds to me like she catered them to each of you, making sure you were too uncomfortable to talk about her circumstances with each other,” my friend said. “Sorry, Jackson.”

“What I don’t understand is why,” Sven admitted. “If you’ve got money like you say you do, why would she leave? She worked for one of the banks. That was a big deal for her. She rejected Chris, so far as I know, because he wasn’t rich enough for her tastes.”

I drew a deep breath and held it until I could control my temper. “Maybe I have money, but I didn’t buy her the world.” I had given her everything she had asked of me. I had given her more than that.

But if Sven was correct, she probably had wanted more than what I offered. Once again, I was left wondering where I had gone wrong.

“I never abused her, not once,” I stated.

“He can’t even bring himself to curse in front of women. I’ve heard him do it once,” Gerald added before grumbling something under his breath I couldn’t hear.

“We know that now,” Sven replied. “But why did she do it?”

I shrugged, tangling my fingers in Evelyn’s fur. The question had been one I had been asking myself without finding a single answer.

Gerald drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m trying to figure out why she felt so threatened by him that she coerced an entire Fenerec pack into protecting her, and after going through all of that work, skipped town. It’s not like Jackson had any idea she was still alive.”

No one said a word.

“Maybe it’s because he’s pig-headed, stubborn, and simply doesn’t know when to quit,” Richard growled from the doorway. I twisted to face him. His wolf-yellow eyes bore into me. “I feel a very strong urge to take you outside and beat sense into you, Jackson.”

Evelyn’s ears turned back and she growled, baring her teeth at the Alpha Fenerec.

Ducking under her husband’s arm, Nicole shoved Richard aside. “He won’t, not if he knows what is good for him. Are you okay, Evelyn?”

My mate bobbed her head before shuffling closer to me, resting her head on my lap. I stroked her silky fur, forcing a smile for her benefit.

Nicole nudged her husband with her elbow before coming to me, embracing me from behind, resting her chin on top of my head. “You’re nothing but trouble, Mr. Jackson.”

There was something calming about her touch, and with a weary sigh, I leaned back against her.

“Poor thing, you’re all wound up.”

“I can tell.” Richard turned his attention to the Fenerec pack. “All right, gentlemen. I’m Richard Murphy, Jackson and Evelyn’s Alpha. Where are your Alphas?”

The Fenerec stared at each other before turning to Sven, who said, “Nirliq.”

Richard frowned. “Nirliq is an Omega. Omegas are not, and cannot, serve as an Alpha. Where are Russell and Janet?” he demanded.

At the two names, the whispers of the dead filled my ears, and their eagerness intrigued me. Instead of words, they spoke in the rumbling growls of wolves, until their voices joined in a mournful howl.

The Fenerec weren’t among those burdening me, but through the spirits haunting me, I was aware of their lingering presences.

“They’re dead,” I whispered.

Sven flinched. “Not long after Suzanne vanished, they were murdered. A bunch of kids found out they were… different. They were teen punks, not from around here, and they thought it’d be fun to find out which werewolf myths were true. By the time we reached them, they were dead.”

At Richard’s approach, Gerald shifted over so the Alpha could sit beside me. “What happened to the kids?”

The silence chilled me. Nicole’s grip on me tightened, and I felt her growling. “You killed them, didn’t you?”

When the Fenerec refused to speak, I closed my eyes and listened for the whispers of the dead. Instead of their voices, all I heard was the cold, unrelenting silence of the grave.

“They did.” At the sound of Nirliq’s voice, I opened my eyes. The native leaned against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. “What foolish things have you done now? Attacking an earth witch and his beloved? You beg the spirits of our ancestors to curse us all.”

“You should have called me, Nirliq,” Richard whispered.

“How could I? I would have sentenced my pack to death.”

I grimaced. Was the Canadian way of policing the supernatural as violent and unforgiving as the Inquisition? I didn’t want to believe it, but there was no mistaking Nirliq’s fear.

“Circumstances are considered in cases like this,” Gerald replied, confirming my suspicions.

Sven slammed his fists against the table. “They would have outed us to the public.”

When the silence dragged on, I considered what I could do to find the truth. There was only one way I could contribute. Bracing myself for the inevitable, I asked, “What happened to their bodies?”

Sven swallowed, lowering his gaze. “They’re buried in the bush, not too far from here.”

“Show me,” I demanded, rising to my feet despite Nicole’s weight against my back.

She squeaked, letting go of me. “Jackson?”

The dead whispered to me, and their demand for freedom was accompanied by their need for justice.

~~*~~

The dead assaulted me with a barrage of wailing, crying, and shrill screams, until the real world passed by me with the haziness of a mirage. I was vaguely aware of following Sven into the forest, following a path weaving through the trees.

A hazy glow enveloped the woods, and in its illumination, something stirred. The endless cycle of life and death spun on around me, from the tiniest of insects to the decaying leaves blanketing the ground. The weight of countless spirits melded together into some vast and cohesive entity.

As I became aware of it, it focused its attention onto me. A shiver went through me at its regard, and for a brief moment, I got the feeling it thought I was an interesting bug, one too amusing to swat quite yet.

At my side, Evelyn whined, bumping my hand with her nose. The forest’s eerie illumination dimmed as though my awareness of her silky fur beneath my fingers bound me closer to her world, sheltering me from the spirits and their influence.

“It’s here,” Sven announced, coming to a halt in a mossy clearing. The dead fell into expectant silent.

I knew the ten teens lying beneath my feet. I carried their souls within the stone tied around my neck. Their cries were faint. Shivering at the cold of their presences, I stared at where they were buried.

How could someone die two deaths? 

Those within the stone had been tortured in a white room, their tormented screams ignored, yet those lying beneath my feet had fallen prey to hunting wolves ghosting through the trees at twilight.

All I could tell with any certainty was that those within the gem had died first, and they had no memories of their second death.

I shuddered. How could the dead walk? What had driven them from the white, pristine place they had died to Thunder Bay?

“Jackson?” Richard grabbed my elbow, giving my arm a brisk shake. “What’s wrong?”

“Was there anything unusual about them?” I asked, jerking free of Richard’s hold.

“Everything,” Sven whispered.

Chris shoved his hands into his pockets. “They smelled weird.”

“What did they smell like?” The clearing didn’t look as though it had been touched, yet alone turned into a mass grave for a group of teenagers responsible for the deaths of two Alphas.

“Disinfectant and flowers,” Sven said.

“Flowers?” Nicole crossed her arms over her chest. “What sort of flowers?”

“How would I know? Roses, maybe?”

Poets liked to claim that death had a floral scent, but I hadn’t believed in it. While sometimes I saw the circumstances of someone’s death, smells and sounds eluded me. I could easily imagine the stench of disinfectants clinging to them.

Richard waved his hand in front of my face. “Earth to Jackson.”

“You didn’t kill them,” I told the Fenerec, unable to raise my voice louder than a whisper. “They were already dead.”

“They were already dead?” Nicole grabbed my arm, pulling me towards her. “What do you mean by that?”

Evelyn growled, and I quieted my mate with a wave of my hand. “They were already dead,” I repeated.

“There’s no such thing as zombies. Dead people do not get up, walk around, and kill others,” she snapped. “It’s inappropriate to joke about these things, Jackson.”

“He’s not joking,” Nirliq said, kneeling so he could stroke his hands over the mossy ground. “The spirits speak. He listens.”

I flinched as the Fenerec gawked at me. 

Richard snorted. “This is Jackson we’re talking about here. He’s incapable of joking about something like that. How do you know, Jackson?”

“He’s a witch,” Nirliq chided. “The spirits speak, and he listens. If he were one of my people, he would one day grow to be an Elder among us, a wiseman.”

Turning to Sven, I told him the names of the teenagers buried beneath our feet.

He sucked in a breath. “I didn’t tell you how many of them there were.”

One by one the ghosts left me, until only my daughter’s faint warmth remained. I dug my fingers into the scruff of Evelyn’s neck. I didn’t know what else I could tell the Thunder Bay Fenerec. I stared at Nicole and Richard, wondering how I would react if either one of them died, let alone both at once.

What would I do if someone killed Evelyn?

Clenching my teeth, I kicked a branch, sending it bouncing across the ground. I had wanted to kill Sven for hurting Evelyn. I was no different than them.

If something happened to any of them, there would be bodies, of that I had no doubt.

What I didn’t understand was how Suzanne was involved, and why my daughter’s soul lingered with the spirits of those who had killed the Alphas.

I exhaled.

All the dead had done was lead me to more questions I didn’t have the answer to.

Richard pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. “We’re done here. The rest will wait for morning.”

No one was brave enough to argue with him, not even the dead.

Chapter Twenty

While the aftermath of the earthquake left Thunder Bay in a state of chaos, Richard was able to find a hotel on the outskirts of the city, booking us all in for two nights. Amber, Alex, and Lisa met us in the parking lot as we were sorting out who would be in which room.

Lisa glared at me, anger in her voice when she announced, “I found this Melanie bitch. I’ve arranged a proper meeting with her at noon.”

Gerald scowled. “So you’re the reason she didn’t show up at all?”

The predatory way Nicole’s twin regarded my longtime friend sent a chill running through me. “I had a very long talk with her.”

Uncertain of what Lisa intended to do, I tensed and stepped forward to come between the two of them. Richard’s elbow cracked into my chest as he blocked me. “Both of you, back off,” he ordered.

Lisa grunted, crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned against Gerald’s rental. “He got one of our pack hurt.”

Heaving a sigh, Richard shoved me back a few steps. “Lisa. Jackson is a stubborn, manipulative son of a bitch. Gerald probably got suckered right along with the rest of us. Going on a work errand, Jackson? You
lied
to us—and pulled it off. You cunning, little piece of—”