The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (21 page)

“Lucy?”

“No,
Maxwell, this is Ilene.”

“May I
speak with Lucy? It’s urgent.” His voice shook.

“She’s
busy. Can I take a message?”

“I have
to talk to her! Please.”

Ilene
pulled the phone away from her ear, a little shocked by his tone. “It’s
Maxwell,” she told Lucy. “He says it’s urgent.”

“What?”
Lucy barked into the phone as she took it.

“I
don’t know how to tell you this, but I think, maybe”—his words cut off. He
couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“What?”
Lucy demanded.

“Is
there any chance Jared could wake up?” Maxwell felt the words slip from his
mouth, like a rope falling from a rock climber who wants nothing more than to
grab it and pull it back.

“What
do you mean?” Lucy asked, her eyes trailing to the word Resurrection on the page
she had been translating.

“I feel
terrible suggesting it. We could be wrong. I know how awful—”

“What
makes you think it?” She snapped.

“Vincent
Blackwell killed his mother and then himself. His body vanished from the morgue
three days later. The coroner was killed. The door had been kicked out. From
the inside,” Maxwell clarified. “Today’s Jared’s third day.”

Lucy
felt a cold rush, as if all the blood in her body suddenly slipped down into
her shoes. “I think you’re right. I’ll call you later.” She hung up. Ilene
watched her, wanting to speak, but waiting. “We have to go to the morgue.”
Ilene shook her head in confusion. “Jared might be alive.” Lucy clutched her
mom’s hands. “We can’t tell Alec.”

“Tell
me what?” Alec’s rough voice came from the door. Red rimmed his eyes.

Lucy’s
panicked eyes shot to Ilene. Ilene turned to Alec. “False hope is the most
cruel hope,” Ilene mused. “But sometimes a chance is all that keeps us alive.”
She crossed the room to Alec and placed her hands on his cheeks. “We think
Jared might resurrect.”

“What?”
Alec choked, pulling away from Ilene. He cut his eyes to Lucy. “Why?”

“Vincent
did, in Portland. Darius did, after you killed him.” Lucy saw Ilene’s head jerk
involuntarily at the mention of Darius’s name.

“Let’s
go,” Alec commanded. He spun and sprinted toward the door.

As
Ilene and Lucy caught up with him, he was hopping on one foot as he pulled
shoes on. Ilene clasped her hands to her mouth, hoping she did the right thing.
Alec’s hair was matted and his face greasy. She could tell he had not bathed
since Jared’s death.
The most cruel hope
,
she thought. She grabbed her coat. “I’ll drive.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Complete
darkness.

And
cold.

Suddenly—Jared
sucked in a long, deep breath. His back rose off the cold metal under him as
his chest inflated with air. Slowly he could hear his own breathing. His mind
told his arms to move, and then, languidly, they obeyed. His knuckles struck
against something hard, smooth, and cold like a sheet of ice. He pressed his
palms to it, judging the space around him, feeling, suddenly, that it was a
coffin, that he had been buried alive. And he was trapped in this utter cold
darkness. Panic set it instantly. He tried to voice his panic, but his words
caught in his throat, and he was as silent as a nightmare. His hands flailed
around the cubical. He took a deeper breath and coughed. The coughing fit
seared in his chest—and he suddenly remembered.

Being
shot. Seeing Alec holding his hand. Feeling darkness close around him, as a
flickering beam of a flashlight fades to black.

Jared
brushed his hand over his chest. He felt no wound.
But the pain
, he thought. He realized then that he was naked and
that a sheet clung to his legs.

Where’s Alec?
The thought suddenly spun
through his mind with the virulence of a Chinese star. Had Alec been shot—and
the others? He tried to recall the night more fully, but he could not extract
the images from the fog. Jared began to kick at the end of the coffin-like
enclosure. “Please let me out.” His voice choked out of his mouth, and he knew
no ears could hear it but his own. He kicked at the metal, his bare heels
thudding against it repeatedly. Jared felt his strength coming back into his
limbs as his blood pumped with fear and anger. And suddenly, he felt something
else.

He felt
the beast within him awaken.

Jared
froze. He could hear the beast already in his heavy, labored breathing.
Can I stop it?
He wondered, feeling how
close to the surface the werewolf was. He was glad, suddenly, for the complete
darkness he lay in. He feared that if he could have seen himself, could see the
beast in his eyes or face, he would lose control. Jared took measured breaths,
forcing his body to relax. He thought of Lucy, of her meditation. He crossed
his legs at the ankles and folded his hands over his chest.

But he
could feel the beast, rattling the cage of his flesh, as it paced back and
forth.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The
car’s headlights scattered the darkness as Ilene drove them toward the
coroner’s office. “Children, we need a plan,” Ilene announced in the calmest
voice she could muster. She cut her eyes from the road to Alec in the passenger
seat and then to Lucy in the backseat. “They aren’t going to just let us waltz
in and take Jared’s—take Jared. Or see him.” Her face tightened as she stumbled
over her own words, not wanting to plant anymore false hope.

“I just
want to get there. I can’t think. I can’t think.” Alec muttered, his voice tight
and quivering. His eyes were wide open, manic. Ilene could feel his tenuous
grasp, how close to falling over the brink he was. His anxiety radiated off him
like heat.

Ilene
dared to reach her hand out and rest it on Alec’s leg. “We’re almost there.”
She looked in the rearview mirror at Lucy. “If we’re right, we cannot try to
explain this to the coroner and then to the doctors and then the police and
then—I don’t know who else.” Ilene took a deep breath. “We have to sneak in. If
Jared’s awake, we need to get him without anyone noticing.”

“You’re
right, but how the hell do we do that, Mom?” Lucy asked.

Ilene
could smell the tension in the car then, the pheromone of fear and agitation,
like a dog when stressed.
I have to calm
them down or this will explode.
“Lucy, I actually have a plan. And, it’s a
good one.” She tried to form a plan in her mind quickly. “You and I will
distract the guard, and Alec will sneak into the coroner’s office where the
bodies”—and she flinched at the word—“are stored.”

“Where’s
that?” Alec asked.

Ilene
recalled her trip to the morgue to see Adam, and she felt the heat of the
memory rise in her cheeks and make her arms tremble. “It’s in the back, down a
corridor.”

“I need
more specifics,” Alec snapped.

Ilene
could hear the change in his voice, the subtle deepening, like a low growl
slowly rising. “Change of plan. You two distract the guard while I sneak in.”

“What?”
They both asked.

“You
two are not able to focus,” Ilene said, trying to keep her voice even as she
pulled into a parking spot. “You distract the guard, and I will head to the
back. I know where I’m going.”

“If
it’s locked?”

“It
will be,” Ilene confirmed, “but I can get in. Trust me.” She turned off the
engine. She grabbed Alec’s hand, and it felt feverish. She reached into the
back and grabbed Lucy’s hand, too. “I would do anything for the two of you. My
love for you both knows no constraints. It knows no boundaries, and nothing can
stop me.” Alec and Lucy looked into her unwavering, loving face, and they
believed her, believed in her. “Let’s go.”

Ilene
fell behind Alec and Lucy as they headed for the front entrance of the
coroner’s office. As they walked inside, she ducked out of sight on the
sidewalk, and watched through the window.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Hidden
in the darkest coroner of the parking lot, Carmen watched through her car
window as Ilene slowed her pace behind Alec and Lucy. She hated this
crazed-stalker obsession that had blossomed within her, but she knew each time
that she saw them that there was something more—and tonight, she felt she would
find it.

“Why
the morgue?” She asked aloud, her breath fogging the window. She knew Jared
Kincaid was in there, but why they were rushing to the morgue in the middle of
the night was beyond her. She rolled her head on her neck, trying to ease the
tension she felt collecting in her shoulders. Lance’s words repeated in her
head, and the image of the werewolf—
no,
animal,
she told herself—replayed.

She
stared at Ilene, hovering by the door. Carmen felt a strange kinship with her,
mother to mother. She knew the lengths a mother would go to protect her child. Ilene
leaned forward, looking through the window, and then stepped in, easing the
door closed. And, then, she darted out of sight.

Carmen
settled into her car seat, her eyes trained on the door, determined to wait
until she knew what they were doing.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Ilene
checked that Alec and Lucy had fully distracted the guard—but she couldn’t hear
what they were saying—before she breezed in the door and slipped unseen down
the hall to the morgue. She felt a twinge of panic as she heard the familiar
echo of her shoes on the cement floor. She braced against the sharp memory of
identifying Adam, fought the bile churning in her stomach. She had to keep her
head and move quickly. When she reached the door to the morgue, she twisted the
handle, but it was locked.
I told Alec
I’d get in
, she thought. She glanced around senselessly, as if she’d find a
means to get in just lying on the floor.

She
stared at the door handle, as if willing it to open by telekinesis. She tugged
on the handle again and pushed against the door. Ilene suddenly stood rigid and
collected herself. This was the public entrance, so, of course it was locked!
She turned and walked back down the hall to the reception area. The guard had
his back to her as he escorted Alec and Lucy out. Ilene darted past the guard
desk and down the hall toward the swinging doors marked personnel. They swooshed
open as she ran through. They swung a few final swings then shuddered to a
close. Ilene peeked through the window in the door to see the guard returning
to his desk. She took two steps and then thought of her cell phone. She dug in
her coat pocket and turned it to silent. She heaved a sigh, thinking she had
just avoided a mishap.

Ilene
looked around the hall and spotted the door marked morgue. She closed her eyes
for a quick prayer and approached it. The handle turned and she slipped inside.
Light from the hallway cut a cut a sliver from the dark room. Ilene held the
door open for light as she searched on the wall for a light switch. She flipped
it. An overhead light fluorescent light flickered to life. Ilene released the
door, and it pulled closed. She raised her hand to her nose, grimacing at the chemical
smell of the room. She took a tentative step toward the drawers where she
assumed Jared was held.

I could really use that
intuition right now
,
she thought as she approached the drawers. The idea of opening—violating—the
drawers where others were held made her freeze. She felt the drawers looming,
seeming to stretch infinitely in all directions with nothing but wrong doors to
open. She took a tentative step to the left, and then to the right. She closed
her eyes. Ilene envisioned Geraldine, and she could almost hear her whisper,
“Allow yourself to
feel
.”

Ilene walked
to the right again, past a few rows, then stopped. She reached for the door at
chest level. She pulled it open. A sheet hung loosely to feet. She pulled and
the drawer rolled out in front of her. “Jared?” She whispered.

“Y-yes,”
he replied, his teeth chattering.

Ilene
screamed. She knew it was foolish, and she clasped her hand to her mouth and
looked at Jared as the sound echoed around the room. “I have to help you down,”
she grabbed his arm. He shivered violently, and his flesh was covered in goose
bumps and cold to her touch. “Lean on me,” she said, and she tried to help roll
him off the table.

Jared
more plopped to the floor than climbed out, and he huddled into a fetal
position, naked, and trembling. Ilene pushed the drawer in and shut the door to
the morgue refrigerator. She slipped her coat off her arms and draped it over
Jared, saying, “Here.” She helped him stand and pulled his arms into her coat.
She buttoned the coat and looked toward the door. She rubbed her hands over his
face to warm his cheeks. “We have to run for the car, and then we’ll get you
warm.” For the first time, she studied his face. The bluish tint was from the
cold, she knew, but his brow was deeper, darker. His eyes were set deeper,
angrier than she remembered. She smiled to hide her concern, her realization
that the beast within him had awakened. “Alec is waiting for you.”