Under My Skin (12 page)

“Doesn’t sound very paranormal to me,” Matt said.

“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “But then Wade came along and made a big deal about it too. Told me we should look in my own backyard for bad guys.”

Matt’s expression brightened as if he were pleased my family and I were getting blamed for something.

Alec’s jaw flexed. “If he’s threatening your home, we’d better crank up our security. You know, the best place for you is our ranch, where we can keep an eye on you.” He looked trapped, as if the thought of me hiding out at their place held all the thrill of a social dance class in gym.

I didn’t want anyone’s pity patrol. I could handle Wade myself. “Although I hate to say
no
to that gracious invitation”—I gave a mock bow—“
if
that’s what it was, I think I should stick close to home and snoop around. See what the deal is with my uncle. It’s got to be freaky and paranormal, or Wade wouldn’t have wiped my nose in it.”

Brit and Matt exchanged a look. “She’s right,” they said in unison.

I grinned at them. Only Brit grinned back.

“Hey, Alec!” A big burly guy hopped out of a second tow truck and began unwinding a thick chain. “Let’s get you hooked up.”

Alec gave the guy a wave.

“Okay,” he told me, “we’re going to be here a while. Get home, find out whatever you can about the treehugger issue, and wait until we tell you your next move.”

“Right.” I folded my arms. “Should I hold it if I have to go to the bathroom too? Or are potty breaks something I can make a command decision on?”

“You don’t like taking orders. I get it,” Alec said, not in the least apologetic. “And I don’t like repeating them, or explaining myself. But I’m trying to keep you safe, Eryn.” Determination hardened his voice. “You want to go it alone, say the word, and we’ll leave you to it.”

I swallowed back a mouthful of angry words. Without access to my father’s men and resources, I had no way to keep Wade from entering the McCain household. I had more than myself to worry about. I had to keep my family safe. Besides, agreeing to be available when Alec called didn’t mean I had to sit on my hands.

When I kept my mouth resolutely shut, Alec continued, “Once we get to the ranch, we’ll find out how to keep Wade out of your house tonight, and
every
night. I promise.”

But what about my mind
? I wanted to shout the question at Alec, but the crew didn’t need the additional stress of knowing Wade was trying to influence me with telepathy. Vampire mind games were individual and very personal. Part of their lure was the sender’s absolute understanding of their prey. They knew exactly what buttons to push.

And Wade was certainly pushing ones I never knew I had.

Brit gave me a supportive smile. “Marie will know how to stop him. We’ll be in touch.” She paused. “Are the McCains religious? Do they have any crucifixes at home? Your athame is super cool and everything, but it’s not going to help with Wade.”

I blinked. I hadn’t thought of that. For so long my athame had been my major defense, but then my father’s cell of hunters had been focused on rogue werewolves and wolven.

“Crucifixes? I don’t know.” I couldn’t remember seeing any religious symbols on Sammi’s trendily painted walls. Generic artwork, yes. Crucifixes, no.

Brit fished in her pocket and handed me a small medallion. “Take this. It’s St. Anthony. He finds stuff for people who chronically lose things, like I do. Until we bring you some supplies tonight, he’s all you’ve got.”

I closed my fingers around the silverplated saint and thanked her through gritted teeth. As soon as the crew left for the truck I dropped the medallion into my backpack. A small reverse imprint scalded my palm, red and itchy—but already fading.

“It’s the thought that counts, Eryn,” I muttered, knowing Brit would never have given me the medallion if she’d known the pain it would inflict. My aching flesh would be back to normal in minutes, but any kind of silver burn was nasty. A full wolven would have thrown the medallion back in her face. I’d be in a lot more pain if the thing had been solid silver.

I started toward home. Now to figure out what kind of trouble my dear Uncle Marcus was into. Crap. I was starting to think of my uncle’s place as
home
, which meant on some level—I cared. A lot.

So not good.

Chapter 6:
A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing

Twenty minutes later, I shuffled down the narrow lane behind Marcus’s house, cringing at the ever-present barks and snarls from the neighbor’s yellow Lab. I couldn’t blame it for raging against the world, at the mercy of a higher power.
You and me, Cujo. We’re in the same stinking boat.
If only I could string up the dog’s owner, along with Sebastian, the guy pulling
my
leash. Now that would be the day. I pictured Mr. Philips droning on and on in physics-speak about the karmic laws of nature while Sebastian sat at a school desk, bungee cords strapping him in. And me, with the bwahaha evil giggles. Holding a can of gasoline and a match.

All too soon my payback fantasy went up in smoke.

As I reached the whitewashed gate, muffled grunts and clanging came from inside the McCain’s detached double garage. My neck hairs vibrated like stage speakers at a deathgrind concert.

Not good.

Someone was inside, rummaging through my uncle’s things. Someone dared to threaten my home. My people. My pack.

Inhaling, I picked up familiar scents drifting from the house, the garage. Sammi’s baby-powder cleanliness, Paige’s cotton-candy perfume, and Marcus with his lemony cologne. And then some lingering car exhaust.

I opened the gate and sprinted along the narrow path bordering the fence. Silent but fast, my feet skimmed the ground. At the garage, I pressed my back to the grey vinyl siding and slunk along until I reached the narrow window. I peered inside, but a shelf filled with birdseed and ceramic flowerpots blocked my view. I ducked under the windowsill and crept along until I reached the side access door. Behind the thick wood, metal clanged and the occasional whispered curse came from inside.

I sniffed around the doorframe, tried to get a lock on the scent. Werewolf? Or human? All I got was the nose-hair-burning fumes of paint thinner.

Damn Sammi and her furniture restoration projects. She’d been working in the garage all week, refinishing an old church pew for the porch.

I let my backpack slip from my shoulders to land softly on the grass. I lifted the edge of my sweater. My fingers curled around the rosewood handle of my athame, warm from the leather shoulder holster I’d started to consider a wardrobe standard. I whipped out the dagger and held it high, ready to plunge it deep into whoever, or whatever, skulked inside.

I took a deep breath. Pivoting on my back foot, I struck the wooden door with a solid side kick that ripped it from its hinges. It slammed down onto the garage’s concrete floor, sending a cloud of sawdust into the air.

I paused. Silence. Did I scare them off, or were they lying in wait? Pulse thudding in my ear, I crept forward and peered through the empty doorframe.

My uncle’s startled, pain-filled face stared up at me from under the mangled door. His mouth gaped open, and he let out a deep groan.

I shot a quick glance around the garage. Only Marcus. On the floor. Under the door. No signs of a struggle or an intruder.

Craptastic.

“Marcus?” I angled my body away from him and swiftly tucked my athame into its holster. I adjusted my sweater over the silver dagger, then yanked the heavy wooden slab off my uncle’s chest.

“Eryn, is that you?” he asked.
Whew
. He was so dazed he hadn’t noticed my dagger or that I’d tossed the door aside like an empty pizza box.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I mumbled as I pulled him to his feet. “What hurts?” At least he wasn’t bleeding. I would have smelled it the instant he was injured. “Anything broken?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” Wobbling, he pushed my hands away. “This is what I get for putting off cleaning the garage for so long.”

Berating myself for panicking like an amateur and endangering a human, I dusted off his plaid, collared shirt and talked fast. I’d discovered people were more inclined to swallow the lies you fed them if you didn’t give them time to chew on your words.

“Wow,” I said, blinking innocently. “That was some wind. Came out of nowhere and blew the door right in. I walked into the yard and saw the whole thing.”

Marcus harrumphed, patted himself down, and rubbed a spot on his lower back. “Wind did that?” He eyed the trees, visible through the now-open garage. Not one branch swayed with even the gentlest of breezes. The sun hung low in the sky. A beautiful fall afternoon.

I couldn’t get a break. “Yup. Maybe it was a mini twister. Remember when you picked me up at the airport, and it was so windy it almost knocked me over?” I fabricated on the fly. “Didn’t you tell me that you get a lot of tornados around here?”

“Not that I recall, although we do get the occasional twister.” He swung his head around to run his gaze over his black Volkswagen. Luckily, it was parked far enough from the side door to have escaped harm.

I shrugged, waving a hand. “Maybe that was a dream I had. Sometimes they’re scary-real, you know?”

“Tornadoes?”

“No, dreams.” I tilted my head and gave him a concerned frown. “Are you sure you’re okay? I bet you fell pretty hard.”

Marcus studied me for a long moment. My stomach dropped. He didn’t believe me.

“You know, Eryn,” Marcus said, his voice slow and deliberate, “I’m experiencing a fairly strong feeling of déjà vu.” He heaved the wooden door upright and propped it in the doorframe. Bits of sawdust and dirt sprinkled the floor. “Your father had a habit of busting down doors too.”

“Seriously?” My father hadn’t told me much of his life before he joined the Council. “He busted down doors?” Dad was strong for a human, but he didn’t have superhero strength.

Marcus nodded. “Personally, I think he watched too many action movies. He had a thing for kicking in doors and
saving
us from Lord knows what. Back then Liam’s exploits were our parents’ problem, but if this is going to be a habit, tell me now so I can add an allowance for new doors to our monthly household budget.”

I grimaced and stared at my shoes. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree then, does it?” I balanced my weight on the outer edges of my Mary Janes before adding, “I heard someone in the garage and just reacted. Before I knew it, I’d kicked the door in. It won’t happen again, I promise.” I lifted my chin to scrutinize Marcus’s expression, praying he hadn’t witnessed my zooped-up strength.

He stood there, hands on his hips. Plainly shocked, but not because he suspected I was Supergirl.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You thought there was a
thief
in our garage—and you expected to do what? Beat him into submission with your homework? You barely bring any home with you anyway.” He swiped ineffectually at a dark grease stain spreading on his navy dress pants.

While the thought of Marcus worrying about my safety eased some of the sting of the no-one-wants-you-here vibe I’d been getting from Paige since I moved in, I couldn’t help but feel a bit miffed at the homework jibe. I was a hunter and wolven to boot—I so didn’t need to slam villains with textbooks. “I’ve been training with Dad since I was a kid. Martial arts and self defense.”
And tracking werewolves and strange nasty things that go bite in the night and aren’t supposed to exist
.

“You know, you even sound like your father. I never understood how someone that brilliant could be such a thrill seeker. Let me tell
you
, what I used to tell
him
. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to that Rambo nonsense Liam was so fond of. It can give you a false sense of confidence. Make you take risks.”

“I don’t take risks,” I protested, ignoring Marcus’s disbelieving snort. “But I did flatten you with a door.” My cheeky grin had no effect on him.

Marcus walked over to the door he’d propped up and then shot a look at my skinny (but toned!) arms in my wool sweater as if speculating how much I could bench press—and wondering how in the world I had managed to lift the solid slab of wood.

“So you know a few moves and you think you’re pretty tough,” he said. “None of that does any good if the other guy has a gun. The next time you think you’ve stumbled onto a crime scene, walk away and call 9-1-1. That’s an order.”

I winced. I really hated that word.

Marcus’s lips twisted. “Make that the request of a concerned uncle.”

I smiled and held out a hand. “You got a deal,” I lied.

Marcus stepped into the doorway and frowned. “Those hinges must have been rusted right out. You ripped them from the door jamb.” He strode over to a worktable and sorted through a bin of nuts and bolts. The grating clang of metal on metal rang through the garage. I rolled my eyes. So
that
was the commotion I’d heard. Talk about overreacting.

“I think I have a few extras in here somewhere.” He gave a long sigh. “This is so what I needed after today.”

“What happened today?” I plucked a metal washer out of the bin and slipped it onto my finger like a ring.

“Harbinger Properties happened.” Marcus found two hinges and set them aside.

Harbinger?
Didn’t that mean impending-badness-on-the-way or something? Not the typical publicity-buzz name most executives chose.

At my silence, Marcus glanced at me. “Haven’t you seen the commercials?” He adopted a deep voice-over tone. “
The future is here. The future is now.”

“Uh…no. I haven’t.” I dropped the washer back in the bin, willing my heebie-jeebies to go away, but they didn’t. They got worse.

“A few months ago a group of ranchers came to the office.” Marcus lifted a stack of sandpaper and peeked beneath it. “They’d all been offered a substantial amount of money from Harbinger to sell their land. As in immediately.” He paused. “Where’s my hammer?” He shoved a rusted old bicycle chain and a clump of soiled rags out of the way. “Thing is,” he continued, “they don’t want to sell. So they told the Harbinger sales rep to get stuffed. Next thing they knew, their cows were attacked in their fields. Horses were found slashed to death.”