Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan (22 page)

Vice was taking on several Weres at once, his white wolf speckled with the blood of the enemy, his silver eyes lighting the night. Now, as a Were flew straight toward Rifter, it was met by Vice—large, snarling—and it
hit the first wolf hard, slamming it far from Rifter and right to the ground.

Rifter knew that, for Vice, this call to excess during his fight could be terrifying and exhausting, and that was just for his brothers watching him. Vice was an out-of-control killing machine. Harm’s singing could probably soothe him, Rogue’s voice definitely would, but right now, there was neither. His Brother Wolf was so pulled to anger, there would be no stopping him until the job was done.

Vice’s Brother Wolf roared over Rifter again—now his fur was muddied with red blood, since he’d caught the Were by the throat and rolled him the way a croc would its prey.

After the death roll, there was no doubt the Were was dead. The white wolf howled as two more Weres came toward him.

These wolves were beyond spelled—they were demon bound. Vice had a demon inside of him as well, and it was pissed. Rifter hoped to high hell Jinx had holy water available.

T
wenty minutes later and Gwen could still feel the static electricity along her skin. Liam’s anger washed through the room in waves. She could literarily smell his anger and frustration as he pressed a palm against the glass. “They won’t let me out there, and this is my fight.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re here for me,” Liam growled. “They didn’t finish the job the first time.”

But they were also here for her, according to Rifter. She kept that to herself and continued to watch the massive fight outside. The howls chilled her—the thunder rocked the solid-as-anything house, and she fought the rising fear to stand her ground.

“No one’s coming in here,” Liam told her, and she believed him. But she didn’t lower her weapon.

There had been at least fifty of the outlaws at first, although their numbers were greatly reduced now. “Why are they after you?” she asked Liam.

“I’m next in line to be king of the New York pack—alpha of all werepacks. The outlaws killed my father. When you helped me, I was recovering from nearly dying at their hands. And now there’s a war among the Weres. It threatens all of us. Makes us too public, and we
have no desire to come out to the humans.” He raised his chin proudly. “I didn’t mean to bring this trouble here.”

“Neither did I,” she said with a quiet dignity she hadn’t been sure she could muster, let alone truly feel.

Liam nodded and looked back out at the fighting. There was blood and dirt everywhere—the smell would forever be embedded in her nose, and although she was used to it from the ER, this was different. There was a mystical quality to it, and she knew for sure she’d passed somehow into another world, a portal, thin as it may have been, between the rational world of science, where none of this existed, and the supernatural one, where all of this was possible.

Suddenly, shots rang out in the air.

“Teague,” Liam said fiercely. “He was a sniper before he got dishonorably discharged from the Marines. He’s hiding in the trees.”

She put her hands against the glass like she was about to push and leap through it. Palms flat, she scratched helplessly against the glass as Rifter’s Brother Wolf sustained a bullet wound that ripped through his side.

She was so busy staring out at the fight, which was finally waning, when the Were literally came out of nowhere. Maybe he dropped from the roof, but when he landed between Cyd and Cain, she took a step back and Liam moved forward as the two young wolves who’d saved her went at him. The Were was gray, its fur matted, and it looked at her through the glass with eyes more demonic red than anything she’d seen from the others.

It was up close and personal, bloody and vicious, and she’d never been more grateful in her life. And when Vice’s white wolf joined in the fray, the red-eyed Were met a quick end.

Cain and Cyd howled, a whooping sound that echoed
through the trees, as the Dires did the same, celebrating the spoils of victory.

It was over, at least for now. Four naked men stood in the field, surveyed the bodies littering the ground. Several Weres had run off, and she watched Cyd and Cain bound away through the trees, governed by some unspoken command to check the property, as the Dires walked back toward her, stopping outside the house and pacing restlessly, waiting for the young wolves to come back.

“None if this seems… normal. I mean, beyond the wolf thing,” she said, more to herself than to Liam.

“There’s some kind of spell at work. The magic dissipates when the sun comes up,” Liam explained. “A lot of it, anyway. And a Were shifting to fight during the day is rare, anyway.”

“Because of the moon?”

“Because of the police.” He stared past her, his eyes on the sky, brow furrowed. Checked his watched and looked out again. “Six in the morning. Even with a storm, that sky’s not normal.”

Not for daytime, she agreed. It was still pitch-black out there, the sky a mix of heavy clouds and clear spots with no stars. No sun either, and still the hint of the moon, which she was sure could not be good for beasts pulled to it and by it.

You’re one of those beasts,
she reminded herself.

The dead Weres’ packmates would have to come pick up and bury their own. Until then, the bodies would remain in the woods as fresh kills, trophies to show the Weres and witches and trappers that you couldn’t fuck with the Dires and not expect to die in the process.

But the Weres had definitely been spelled. Rifter wasn’t sure if it was the weather giving them their demonic edge or if he was still off from the second mating,
but they were much harder to kill than they normally were. And he knew he wasn’t getting weaker.

Fucking witches.

Jinx probably already had some idea of it, because he’d already said, “We need to talk,” as soon as what was supposed to be dawn rolled around and the men shifted back on the lawn under the too-eerie cover of night to recoup and assess their injuries.

Thunder and lightning still reigned in the sky, the moon barely visible, and yet still her pull was indescribably strong. And when he’d finally gone inside, satisfied the battle was over for now, Gwen had been talking to Cyd and Cain, and the young wolves looked pretty damned enthralled with her. A look from Rifter made them back off, albeit with the cocky grins only teenagers could get away with. Liam had been there too, rifle in hand, ready to strike.

Now Liam, Cyd, and Cain remained downstairs with Gwen. She wanted to talk to him, but Rifter knew he needed to find out what the hell was going on with the witches and trappers first, and that took priority.

The Dires gathered upstairs, wet and partially clothed, having grabbed towels from the linen closets in the hallway. Rifter wrapped a towel around his waist, pressed another to his bleeding side and listened to Jinx’s story about seeing his father’s spirit as they sat among the ruins of Rogue’s room.

They always held meetings here out of respect for him, but this time, Jinx looked uncomfortable. He paced as he spoke of what he’d seen in the cemetery, and Rifter tried to process all of it as the storm raged outside.

Rifter’s throat tightened. “Seb’s raised—and enslaved—our dead Dire packs?”

“Appears he’s trying. He hasn’t fully succeeded yet, but he’s getting close. All of this”—Jinx turned to wave at the sky—“is
part of it. A supernatural pull. Seb’s behind it.”

Jinx hadn’t stopped pacing since his return. Rifter fully expected him to shift and run any second, but the man remained in human form. Muttered a prayer in the old language, and they all bowed their heads out of respect.

If successfully raised, would the army of passed Dires be forced to fight their own kind? Would they know what they did but remain helpless against that kind of magic? It sounded that way to Rifter, and Jinx agreed.

“I think it’s been in the works for a while,” Jinx continued and then stared at Rifter as the realization dawned on him—on all of them, judging by the dead silence.

Finally, Rifter said, “My dreams. Fuck.” Bits and pieces of the nightmare flashed before him—his father asking to be saved—the battle, the souls rising.

“They never passed over?” Vice asked. “Wouldn’t Rogue have known that—or you?”

“It’s not like they’ve ever visited,” Jinx said.

“Wouldn’t the Elders be concerned enough about this to tell us?” Stray asked.

“Again, I don’t know if Seb is actually bringing them back or if they’ve been hovering. And the Elders never tell us shit.” Jinx’s voice was bitter, as Stray’s had been.

Vice was sitting on the floor next to Rogue, the fight having mellowed him to the point of extreme calm. It was unnerving, given the circumstances, but not abnormal. The pendulum would swing in the opposite direction all too soon. “How can we fight against the dead—especially our own kind?” he asked as he blew the smoke from his hand roll so it drifted over Rogue’s head.

Rifter half expected Rogue to reach out and take the cigarette from Vice’s hand and take a long drag, the way he’d
done so many times in the past. But nothing happened and he pulled his mind back to the present, and Vice’s damned good question.

It was a true concern, especially for the Weres. Tonight had been only the tip of the iceberg. If enough Weres were possessed, trained to do anything the weretrappers wanted, battles would not be as easily won as tonight’s was. The minds of the Dires were harder to penetrate, but maybe with their own kind…

Jinx said, “I can try, but the dead… that’s just not really my thing.”

He shifted a glance to Rogue, and Vice continued to smoke among the ruins of his own making.

Rogue’s mattress was far more comfortable than the floors they’d been chained to during the three-week imprisonment. Rifter didn’t have to close his eyes to picture the cells with the silver-lined walls and matching bars, could still feel the ache on his ankles where the silver cuffs had sunk down to the bone.

“You should be more angry with your own kind,” Seb told him during his one and only visit to Rifter. He’d been surprised the witch had the guts to come around at all. It had been the impetus for Rifter to escape—had forced the anger to well up past the drugs long enough to rouse Brother Wolf and formulate the plan to dreamwalk in a guard’s mind and escape. Through that same dreamwalk, he’d discovered where Rogue was being held, a mile away underground, and rescued him. After he’d carried Rogue out, Vice blew up the facility behind them.

That had destroyed years of research. Killed eighty weretrappers and some feral Weres that had been experimented on to the point of no return. Rifter comforted himself with the fact that he had cost the weretrappers a hell of a lot.

It had cost the Dires more.

Rogue. Damn it. As tough as nails, the way they all were, but always more sensitive because of his gift, because the dead were always bothering him. Had Seb known what he was doing? Was Rogue purposely spelled?

The demon doc Eidolon didn’t seem to think so. But now, with the possible rise of the Dire ghost army, it was looking more and more likely. “Why dream of this now? Seb’s always stayed out of my mind because it was too dangerous for both of us. He wouldn’t start now and give away his plans to me.”

“Maybe he can’t stop you,” Jinx said. “Maybe Rogue’s manipulating this.”

They stared at the prone man, sleeping peacefully. Whatever was going on in his mind, Rifter would bet it was anything but manipulation.

“Are you sure Rifter isn’t causing this with his dreamwalking?” Stray asked. He’d taken one of Vice’s hand rolls, and he’d lost some of the jitters that came with the shift and the fight.

“No,” Jinx said. “But he can see it happening, which means he should be able to see into Rogue’s mind.”

All that swirling blackness would envelope and choke him—and yet, there was no other way. “Then there’s only one thing left to do. I have to get inside Rogue’s head and see if he’s the conduit.”

“You’ve never been able to do it before,” Jinx said.

“I’m going to have to try harder.”

“And you might not come back,” Jinx pointed out.

“Are you more afraid you’ll find out that your twin’s the one fucking us over?” Stray asked suddenly, and Vice had his teeth on the man’s neck before any of them could utter a word.

“Yes,” Jinx said simply, and Vice let go of Stray. “It’s a risk we have to take. Rogue knows things. He might be
using whatever strength he can to keep Rifter out… or maybe he’s been waiting for us to figure it out and let Rifter in.”

“Jesus, Jinx,” Vice muttered, but Jinx continued.

“Things are goddamned falling apart—there are supernatural disturbances like I’ve never felt—things are falling apart. Weird murders. The weretrappers are trying to enslave humankind and the Weres.”

“With the help of witches and demons,” Stray added.

“No matter what, the weretrappers are stronger and more insidious than they once were. They’re becoming as inhuman as the things they’ve called upon,” Jinx said.

“You think they sold their souls?” Rifter asked, and Jinx nodded curtly.

“Fucking, fucking humans,” Vice shouted at the ceiling, as if the Elders would hear it and come down to what—help?

They could, of course, but the Elders had long claimed they wanted the Dires to have free will. Rifter and his brothers were told the big picture, the right thing to do. But there was seemingly no end in sight for their redemption.

Maybe doing what they were doing was supposed to be its own reward? After all, how long is too long for a human life?

It was something Rifter had never been able to answer.

In the meantime, the Dires had seen it all, done it all, but there were always new challenges. Getting close to humans without shifting was one, but that required a special skill set.

If he was right, there could be another race partially destroyed, the rest enslaved. And if the mutant superwolf Dire army created by the weretrappers took hold, humans were fucked.

The wolf world was large, underground. Meeting places for groups of packs took place in the mountains where humans couldn’t easily travel. This happened infrequently, but when Linus had called, Weres listened.