Hunter's Trail (A Scarlett Bernard Novel) (2 page)

Chapter 2

“Scarlett?” Molly said uncertainly. She had put a hand out like she was spotting me, and I realized I had swayed a little bit on my stool. I grabbed the edge of the lab table for balance and told myself to get my shit together. It wasn’t like this was my first dead body.

“Hang on a second, Will,” I said into the phone. Without hanging up I put the phone in my hoodie pocket and looked at Molly, tilting my head toward the door. She nodded and began gathering our jackets and her purse. Technically Molly could have stayed, since it was after sunset, but she wouldn’t have been able to taste anything without me anyway. She handed me my cane, and we walked—well, Molly walked, I did more of a weird pirate shuffle with the cane—out to the hallway. “Good luck!” Hoshi said gaily, probably glad to be rid of the two of us. Didn’t blame him at all.

As soon as the door closed behind us I put the phone back up to my ear. “I’ll come,” I said to Will. I raised my eyebrows a tiny bit at Molly, mouthing
Will you help?
at her. She nodded an affirmation. “Molly’s driving,” I added, sending her a grateful look.

“Fine,” Will said impatiently. “I won’t be here; you’ll have to clean up without me. I was just stopping home for a second to grab some papers. I was lucky I noticed it on the doorstep.”

“Wai
t . . .
you’re leaving?” I asked, genuinely confused. I’d expected Will to be angry with me, but I didn’t think he’d actually blow me off, not with a dead body.

“Yes,” he said shortly. “Esmé’s watching the bar, and she has to pick up her kids.” I had met Esmé, a short, pretty werewolf in her mid-thirties who had gotten married young, had kids young—and then had been turned into a werewolf when she and her husband were attacked during a camping trip to Canada. Her husband hadn’t survived, but Esmé had made it through the change, and suddenly found herself a thirty-year-old widow with three kids and never enough money. With Will’s office manager, Caroline, dead and his bartender, Eli, in hiding, I understood why Esmé was picking up shifts at his bar, Hair of the Dog.

But not why the bar needed to be open. “Couldn’t you just put up your
Closed for Private Party
sign?” I asked. I’d seen it a couple of times when Will had emergency pack business.

“Health inspector’s coming tonight. Too late to reschedule.” His voice was coming out as a growl now, his words in terse short sentences. This was not a good sign. Will’s control is excellent. If he was struggling to keep it togethe
r . . .
he was either really upset, or the body was in really bad shape, and the smell of it was pushing at his self-restraint. Or both.

I kept my voice calm and careful. “Is anyone else at your place?” Will’s place served as the pack’s home base; all the werewolves spent a lot of time there. I’d been there myself twice, both times to clean up blood after werewolf fights.

“No. House is empty. I’ll leave the front door open.”

“Okay, I’m on it,” I said. Will just grunted and hung up. I looked at the phone, shaking my head. Shit. I glanced up at Molly, who was patiently holding out my jacket.

Only a week earlier, my psychotic ex-mentor, Olivia, had been running amok in LA. Olivia had a thing for controlling people, and I was the toy she wanted most for her collection. So she’d come after me and mine, hoping to break me down in every way she could. Olivia had sent cookies laced with wolfberry to Hair of the Dog, where my friend Caroline and my sometimes-friend-with-benefits Eli both worked. Caroline and Eli were werewolves, and giving them wolfberry is basically like giving a regular human a truckload of PCP and a bunch of stabby weapons.

I hadn’t been with them when they were poisoned, but I’d seen the fallout. Caroline had died that night, shot with silver by Will when he couldn’t keep her from attacking the poor humans who’d been at the bar. Eli had lost control so completely that he’d killed two people. Plagued by guilt, he’d begged Will to shoot him too, but I wouldn’t let him. Instead, I’d done something I was not supposed to be able to do: I’d focused my power outward and changed Eli back into a human. Permanently.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, honest.

I’d passed out afterward, possibly from changing him, or possibly as a result of the confrontation with Olivia, when she’d poisoned me with illegal chemotherapy drugs and made me fight an enormous man-shaped clay demon. What can I say, we had some issues
.
At any rate, it sent me int
o . . .
well, a bit of a coma.

When I woke up a few days later, I’d felt the vertigo before I even opened my eyes, a nauseous sensation as though someone had scrambled gravity within the boundaries of my own skin. It took me a few attempts just to open my eyes because pulling up my eyelids was like trying to hold up the bottom of a curtain with a stick. When my eyes finally focused, I saw a bunch of medical supplies on a little table next to me. The table and the wallpaper behind it were familiar, and after a moment I put together that I was in my own bed, in my own bedroom at Molly’s house.

Will was in a folding chair next to my bed, bent over a cell phone. He looked terrible. Which was startling in itself, because werewolves don’t really look terrible. There are many downsides to being a werewolf, but one of the few advantages is that the werewolves practically hum with good health. They have a high metabolism and natural athleticism, and they don’t get sick or suffer minor ailments like pimples or cold sores. Most of them don’t even have bad hair days; they’re that healthy. When they’re in my presence, some of that sheen dulls a little, but they still look like the picture of wellness.

But Will looked as terrible as I’d ever seen any werewolf look. His tan dress pants and Hair of the Dog polo shirt looked slept-in, and his unremarkably brown hair was greasy and sticking out in weird directions. There were new hollows under his eyes, and even sitting in a chair, he looked like he was struggling to stay upright.

I must have shifted or something, because he looked up from the phone. “You’re awake,” he noted.

“Will,” I mumbled. The vertigo had eased a little bit, but trying to put words together was like trying to do magnetic poetry upside down. “What happened to you?” I managed.

“The pack,” he said heavily. “The pack is falling apart.”

I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but that wasn’t it. “Why?”

Will looked at me patiently for a moment, but when I didn’t speak, he sighed and said, “Because you cured Eli.”

It came back to me then, in a rush: the witch murders, the mentor-turned-vampire, the scarred witch in the white lab coat. Her pet golem. And Eli.

I had changed Eli back into a human.

Despite the disorientation, I tried to sit up, flailing my arms backward and ramming my head forward like a spastic turtle. “Stop!” Will ordered, and although he looked like shit and he was human in my presence, there was such command in his voice that I froze. “I’ve had a doctor taking care of you, but she’s on a food break,” Will said, more quietly. “Don’t do any damage to yourself while she’s gone.”

For the first time, I noticed the IV and catheter that were attached to my body. Awkward. The IV stung where I had tugged at it during my daring attempt to flail around. I felt so strange, like my head was tired and sober but my body was on spring break in Cabo. “S’wrong with me?” I mumbled.

“You had a grand mal seizure after you cured Eli,” Will said matter-of-factly. “You hit your head on the metal bars of the cot and got a mild concussion. You also twisted your knee and tore a ligament or something. The doctor can fill you in when she gets back.”

I leaned back and took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
Cured
. I had never attached what I could do to that word before; it seemed absurd, cartoonish.

Bu
t . . .
wasn’t that exactly what I had done?

“I wanted to help hi
m . . .
I thought I wa
s . . .
” My voice broke, and my mouth was suddenly too dry to swallow.

“I’m fairly certain you weren’t thinking much at all,” Will said frankly. I started to protest, and Will held up a hand. “Look, I understand why you did it. I saw Eli fall apart too. But now he’s had to leave, Caroline’s dead, and there are rumors flying in the pack. You have no idea how you’ve changed things.”

I winced. Will regarded me sadly, and for a minute his expression was
exactly
like the look on my father’s face when I’d been suspended for liberating a few dozen frogs from the high school science lab. “I have to get back,” he said, “but I need you to understand something, okay?” I gave him my best nod, and he continued with careful enunciation, “You can’t tell anyone.”

I blanched. “About Eli?”

“Eli, what you can do, that night at the bar, none of it. I’ll do my best to keep the pack together, and hopefully it’ll blow over soon.”

I thought of Jesse Cruz, the LAPD detective who’d partnered with me on the witch murder case—who had kissed me after I’d shot Olivia. Oh, God. He must be worried out of his mind. “Jess
e . . . 
,” I began.

“Detective Cruz has been taken care of,” Will interrupted. He saw my jaw hit my lap and immediately shook his head in tired bemusement. “Sorry, bad phrasing. We didn’t kill him. Dashiell pressed his mind to think you’re in the UK for a bit. We didn’t know how else to handle him until you woke up.”

I relaxed. I had sent my brother, Jack, to the UK to visit another null when Olivia was running amok. Jack must have returned to LA by now, but Jesse didn’t know that.

Will stood up. “I’ve got to get back.”

“Will, wait,” I protested. I had a hundred questions. Who was the doctor? How did I get to Molly’s? Who already knew what? And for the love of God, who had changed my clothes while I was unconscious? But I settled for simply, “Where’s Eli?”

“Hidden,” Will answered. “I’m keeping him in the city until we know for sure that it’s permanent. There’s still the chance that the wolf magic will seep back in.” There was a note of hope in his voice, which told me just how bad things were. Eli had been tortured by guilt over killing those people when he was on wolfberry. And apart from that, he had hated being a werewolf, which is like constantly fighting a battle for your own identity. Will should have been at least a little happy for him, like a cancer patient whose chemo buddy goes into remission. The fact that the alpha was actually
hoping
the werewolf magic would come back was a very bad sign.

Will moved toward the door. “Can I see him?” I asked, trying to get the words out quickly before he could disappear.

He paused. “You can talk to him on the phone, if you want to,” Will said gently, “but you should really think about whether or not that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

He gave me another one of those sorrowful, knowing looks, like I was being dense on purpose and it was making him sad. “Because he’s
free
now, Scarlett. Give him a little time to adjust, figure out what he wants. Maybe something good can still come out of this mess.”

Guilt sagged down on me like a new layer of pain as I realized he was right. Eli was no longer chained to magic or the pack; he could do whatever he wanted. And he deserved a chance to be human without me pulling him back into all the crazy.

So I’d stayed away from Eli. And now there was a dead body at Will’s to get rid of. It seemed like a pretty clear sign that I’d done the right thing.

As Molly and I walked out to the van, I glanced over at my roommate, who had a self-satisfied smile on her lips like she’d won a bet.

“What?” I asked.

“See?” she said smugly. “Now aren’t you glad I wore my play clothes?”

Chapter 3

I tossed Molly the keys when we got to the White Whale. I’d managed to maneuver it to class myself by throwing my hurt leg over Molly’s lap in the passenger seat and driving with my left foot. It was awkward, and I had to go slowly, but I prefer to drive when I go somewhere with Molly. Whether she’s in my radius or not, Molly drives like a lot of vampires: as though she would definitely survive a catastrophic car accident. At any rate, letting the vampire Danica Patrick behind the wheel now would ensure that we got there as fast as possible.

The LA night was cool, and I shivered in my hoodie and light jacket. My insides actually felt contracted, like they’d been squeezed by a giant fist. Still dazed by the phone conversation with Will, I climbed into the passenger seat without a word. Molly was looking at me, brow furrowed. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yes. Well, no,” I answered. My knee ached with a thick, swollen intensity that I’d gotten used to working aroun
d . . .
as long as I was taking four ibuprofen at all times. That wasn’t what was worrying me right now, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain human anxiety to Molly again. “I’m fine. Just go.” She shrugged and backed the van out of the parking spot at twenty miles an hour. The tires screeched and the odor of burned rubber wafted into the van. I winced and managed not to comment.

I instructed Molly to get on PCH toward Pacific Palisades. I braced myself against the armrests, thinking about the call. Someone had dumped a body on the alpha werewolf’s doorstep? That was pretty damned bold—and also eight shades of crazy. Who would do that? The full moon was still a week away, which made it unlikely that one of the werewolves had changed and killed someone. Technically most of the werewolves were powerful enough to change between full moons, but Will discouraged it as much as he could. Even if one of them had mauled someone to death, I couldn’t see them doing it at Will’s house.

I supposed it was possible that one werewolf had killed another. A vampire is always a vampire, and witches are comparatively ordinary people with the ability to channel magic, but werewolves have a rough time of it. The magic that forces them to change into wolves once a month never lets them truly relax; instead, it itches away at their psyches, keeping them on guard and antsy like recovering alcoholics at an open bar. That’s why the pack members get into fights so often. The problem with that theory, though, was that it’s insanely difficult to kill a werewolf— one of the other benefits of their condition.

My thoughts spun around and around like that, testing and rejecting scenarios, until I realized Molly had been asking me a question. “Hmm? What?” I asked.

“I said, this must be a long commute for Will, to get to the dog food place.”

I smiled briefly. I’d never heard anyone call Will’s bar “the dog food place,” but then again, the vampires aren’t exactly known for their respectfulness toward other Old World factions.

The stoplight a quarter mile in front of us turned yellow, and Molly stomped on the gas pedal. I grabbed the passenger seat’s “oh shit” handle, my fingers tightening until the knuckles glowed white. “I guess he probably works unusual hours,” Molly said thoughtfully, oblivious to my panic. I took a few deep breaths, distracting myself by imagining what we would do if Molly got us pulled over. As a vampire she could press a cop’s mind and get us off without a ticket, but I’d have to get at least ten feet away from her first, and didn’t cops get really upset if you got out of the car?

It was almost eight by the time we wound up Temescal Canyon Road toward Will’s street. The alpha werewolf of Los Angeles lived in the last house on a little dead-end street off the canyon road. It was an ideal location for the pack because Will’s property backed up to Temescal Canyon Park, which closed every day at sunset. Once a month, all the werewolves in LA drove up to Will’s place, hiked deep into the park, and changed together as a pack when the moon rose.

We turned onto Will’s street and cruised past Will’s next-door neighbor, who was only a hundred yards away from the alpha’s property. Will had planted a thicket of carefully chosen shrubs to insulate sound between the two houses. The small lot across the street from Will’s was empty—in fact, I was pretty sure he owned it, because I’d seen him use it for overflow parking when his driveway was full.

I made Molly take the time to turn the van around in the empty lot so we could back it into Will’s driveway. This was one of the useful tips I had learned from Olivia: when you’re dealing with a complete dead body, always back in. It means less exposure, and you can get away faster if there’s trouble.

We climbed out of the Whale at the same time, and Molly rounded the nose of the van to walk next to me. I took a second to glance around, checking for witnesses. We were still well within LA County, but the combination of the empty lot and the next-door shrubs made it seem like we were in the middle of nowhere. The smog still dimmed out the stars up here, but the expanse of city lights below made it seem like the night sky had just relocated a little lower. Looking at it too long was disorienting.

It was also
quiet
this far into the mountains. My hometown of Esperanza had also been quiet compared to the city, but not like this. There was an eerie stillness in the air, like we were inside a bubble of silence that covered the city below us, and if we so much as breathed wrong, it could burst. “What
is
that?” Molly whispered, looking around. There was no reason to whisper, but I understood the impulse. The sudden quiet was like being in a church or library. “Why does it feel like something’s about to shatter?”

I shrugged. “I think that’s just nature,” I said. I tried to keep my voice normal, but I was a little creeped out too. Someone had taken a big risk, driving way out here in this quiet just to dump a corpse on Will’s doorstep. One flat tire, suspicious neighbor, or broken taillight could have blown the whole thing.

I leaned on the cane to pivot, hobbling around the van to open the back door. I grabbed my black duffel bag of tools and supplies, slinging the strap over my head to wear it across my body. Molly watched me closely as we moved toward the house, probably expecting me to keel over. In her defense, I’d fallen down several times in her house while my equilibrium was returning.

Will’s driveway terminated into a small one-vehicle carport, which was empty, since Will had gone back to work. From the outside, there was nothing at all memorable about Will’s house. It was a small white split-level with a narrow wooden walkway, sort of like a boardwalk, that started next to the carport and ran around the corner of the house to the front door. Most of the homes we’d driven past made a point to exploit every possible opportunity for a big picture window, but Will’s had only a couple teeny bedroom windows visible from the front. However, I knew that the back of the house made up for them with an enormous window that was nearly the size of the whole living room wall. If you were inside the house, it seemed like you were in a cave that looked out over acres of wilderness—the perfect den.

Will had left several exterior lights on for Molly and me, which I very much appreciated as we made our way up the long boardwalk. The last time I was at Will’s, I could have sworn there was an extra large welcome mat out here, an ugly green thing that said
Please Wipe Your Paws
. Now it was missing. When we were about five feet from the door I paused, switching the cane to my left hand and pulling a heavy-duty penlight out of the duffel with my right. The penlight’s beam was the width of my thumb, and I ran it around the wood at my feet. Sure enough, I could make out a rectangle of darker, less worn wood where the welcome mat must have been only an hour or two ago. I looked for blood and spotted a number of red smears just outside of the rectangle. Whoever dumped the body must have dropped it right on the damned welcome mat.

I glanced back at Molly, who was still scanning the darkness surrounding the house. She was a little flushed. Molly had gone on one other job with me, but that had just been cleaning up a few chicken carcasses after one of the werewolves had decided he felt like chicken that night. A dead body was a different ball game. “Nervous?” I asked.

She smiled ruefully. “A little bit. I’ve never really spent much time away from big cities. This”—she gestured at the trees nearest the house—“is kind of scary.”

Of course. Molly the vampire didn’t even flinch at disposing of a corpse, but put some trees around her and it’s like she’s in a dogfight.

Well. Maybe that was a poor choice of words. “Nah,” I said laconically, leaning on the cane again as I poked along beside her. “Scary is what’s
inside
.”

Then I reached forward and turned the doorknob, giving it a gentle push. The door swung inward with a loud, theatrical
creeeeeeeeeeak
that would have made Vincent Price crap his pants. I glanced at Molly, who didn’t even miss a beat as she drawled, “Good
eve
ning,” in a fakey Dracula voice. We both chortled nervously.

“He’s
gotta
leave it that way on purpose, right?” I said, smiling a little. I stepped into the pristine rectangle of darker wood where I knew I wouldn’t get any blood on me and thumbed the penlight off. I put it back in my bag and leaned forward to reach around the doorway, feeling for a light switch. “I mean, how hard would it be to get some WD-40 and jus
t . . .
” My voice trailed off as I clicked the light switch. I felt the smile fall off my face.