Blood's Shadow: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 3 (9 page)

“Maximilian wasn’t the only one touched by the blood magic,” the white-haired lady murmured from the door.

I turned to face her and moved so my body was between her and the baby. “What do you mean, Lady?”

She shook her head. “That’s for you to discover in your own time, Wolf-man. As for the babe, do not fret. She is safe from my kind for now. Do watch over this family. They straddle two worlds, which is a dangerous place to be, as you’ll come to find out.”

With those words, she disappeared. The spoon jumped out of the jar and clattered to the floor, and bright orange mush splattered everywhere.

Chapter Ten

When I woke the next morning, I wasn’t sure if Max’s illness and the fairy’s visit had been a dream. After Reine had disappeared, I’d wiped the floor and left Lonna and Max to their discussion and baby. Max assured me they would be safe, and Lonna already had Wolf-Lonna, her psychic double, on the prowl. I wished I could say I felt more peaceful as I drove home in the late twilight knowing that Max was going to have some training in this dangerous magic he’d use. However, after having seen the toll it could take, I’d lost some confidence in his assurances that he knew exactly what he was doing. Had I pledged my support for the Institute prematurely based on Lonna’s and Joanie’s word without knowing enough about the lycanthropic reversal process itself? I’d trusted them based on their knowledge and my gut instinct.

Plus, the lady’s warning to me to watch over them stuck with me, and I suspected worse was to come. This unease translated into me squinting at every shadow along the side of the road and watching my rearview mirror to make sure I wasn’t being followed or stalked by something otherworldly, or that would aim silver arrows at me.

No ghosts visited me that night, and I woke from what I’d perceived to be a dreamless sleep. Detective Luke Garou didn’t look nearly as well-rested when I arrived at his office at nine o’clock sharp. His eyes had dark circles under them accentuated by loose folds. “More baggage than a Pan Am flight,” we’d say, back when Pan Am was a relevant airline.

I shook my head at that little intrusion from my past, but at least it was from my own past and no one else’s. My father’s ghost seemed to pull me in that direction. What else did he want me to see? I resisted that train of thought and reached to accept Garou’s offered handshake.

“Feeling better, I suppose?” he asked with a barely concealed growl.

I ignored the challenge. “Yes, it’s amazing how restorative a good night’s sleep or two can be.”

He glared at me but didn’t respond to my barb. Instead, he said, “And you must then be coherent enough to give a statement as to how you sustained a concussion during your investigation. Lady Morena has cautioned me not to let any detail, however insignificant it seems, slip by me.”

“How lovely of her to be so concerned for my welfare,” I muttered. The detective was a canny one, I’d give him that. He remembered my excuse for withholding information from him two nights before and threw it back at me.

“I’m ready whenever you are, Investigator,” he told me and bared his teeth in an almost smile that was a challenge.

“You do know that with some head injuries, you end up with memory loss,” I said. “I’m afraid I can’t remember anything that might be helpful to you.”

“I’ll be the judge of what’s helpful.” He tapped the eraser end of his pencil against the pad in front of him. “And what’s suspicious. Such as your behavior, Investigator.”

“Don’t challenge me, Garou.”

“I’m only doing my job, as you cautioned me to when we met at the Institute. As for why you won’t answer my question, could it be that you’re protecting someone?”

I stopped myself from changing my breathing pattern, shifting in my seat or doing any of the other nonverbal things that would tell him he’d hit home. “Trust me, I’d like whoever bashed me on the head to be punished for their crime, but I honestly didn’t see who did it.” There, that was enough of the truth that it would hopefully not come back to bite me later.

“They snuck up behind you? Where?”

“In the alley behind the West Port Inn,” I told him. “I didn’t realize he was there until he bashed me.”

“And you’re sure it was a man.”

“There aren’t many women who can hold me immobile like that.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Did he talk to you, say anything?”

“No, he was silent.”

“Was anything stolen?”

“Only my pride.” It occurred to me that it would have been easier to say my wallet had been, but he would’ve then asked about me filing a report of a robbery, and I preferred to lie as little as possible. In my experience, lying was more trouble than it was worth and always came back to bite me in the ass.

“Now if you’re done with your questioning,” I said, “I’m going to resume my role of Investigator and ask about what you’ve found so far. I read your preliminary report, and you seem to have been adequately thorough with the crime scene.”

Garou pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s only been two days. I’m still waiting for the evidence the forensics team gathered at the scene to be processed. Both scenes,” he said. “Doctor Fortuna found the closet where the security guards had been butchered last night.”

“Excellent,” I said, not giving away that I already knew Max had found it and had suffered for it. “I’m sure your people are sorting through it as we speak.”

“Don’t patronize me, Investigator. You have secrets like anyone else. I know you were at Doctor Fortuna’s house last night and that you had a visitor of a supernatural nature.”

“And how did you know that?”

“We have someone following the wizard,” he told me through gritted teeth. “Not by my orders, but by those of someone above me.”

“Interesting.” Since he supposedly reported directly to me, anyone above him and me would have to be on the Council.

“Is there some problem with the wizard?” He referred to Max as Reine had talked about Max’s family, as more of a curious object than a person.

“He should be fine.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Investigator.”

“The wizard Maximilian and all that concerns him is classified Institute business.”

“And if you had allowed me more information about the Institute and the controversial nature of its operations from the start, Otis LeConte might not have been murdered. We would have had someone patrolling in and around the grounds.” He stood and leaned forward, his palms on the table. “Sometimes secrets can kill, Investigator. I thought you and I were on the same side with trying to expose them for the protection of the Council and all of wolfkind.”

“Have a seat, Detective. It’s too early for your dramatics.”

He sat and rubbed a hand over his face.

“When was the last time you slept?” I asked. The man’s behavior at the Institute had seemed odd, especially his inviting Selene to the Solstice ceilidh.

He waved his hand. “The sun is up late, and so am I. I cannot sleep when the sky is light and birds are singing, particularly when something is on my mind like a potentially key witness withholding information.”

“They do make blackout curtains and sound-blocking devices.”

“I am too sensitive to the sun being out regardless of those things,” he said.

I decided to move on. “Summarize what you’ve got for me so far, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“As I mentioned, I do not have anything to share about the evidence we collected, but I do have this.” He opened a file. “Two groups have come forward to claim the murder.”

“Wait, how did they know?”

He pulled a printed article from the Lycan Crier, the lycanthrope news site, detailing the murders.

“This was supposed to have been kept from the press.”

He ran a thumb and forefinger over his eyes. “It was. We have a leak, I suspect in the forensics department. It’s being looked into.”

I kicked myself for being so preoccupied with other Council business and putting out Institute-related fires that I hadn’t bothered to look at the news, now delivered to us lycanthropes through encrypted emails with a password. “The groups?”

“Two guesses.”

“The Purists and the Young Bloods,” I said, thinking of what David Lachlan had told me at the pub. “They were on my list to interview, anyway.”

He nodded. “I will take the Young Bloods if you tackle the Purists,” Garou said. “You, being a Council member, have easier access to Cora and Bartholomew Campbell.”

“Theoretically.” I suspected Cora had been one of the votes against me the day before.

He shook his head. “You have a better chance of getting her to talk than I do.”

“You could bring her and Bartholomew in for a statement. The Purists taking credit for the attack warrant their interrogation.”

“I would prefer for them not to be hostile when I speak with them. They are more likely to treat the Council Investigator amicably than a humble detective.”

The edge of frustration in his voice kept me from arguing, and I understood what he meant. In spite of their supposedly “love yourself no matter who you are” position, Cora and Bartholomew Campbell could out-snob most of the English when it came to social class consciousness, and that was even beyond our lycanthropic tendency to define everyone in terms of where they stood in the hierarchy. It irked me to think I was considered a junior Council member, but I still ranked above Garou when it came to class and old blood.

“Fine, I’ll talk to them, and you can tackle the Young Bloods. Do you know who their leaders are?”

He snorted. “Of course. I have the name of their Facebook page administrator. I will start there and report back to you.”

“Of course there’s a Facebook page. Idiots.”

“We are monitoring it. Don’t be concerned—it looks like a typical LARPing organization, except instead of live-action role playing, they engage in live-action complaining about being werewolves. It’s rather amusing, actually—they drive the humans crazy.”

“Good. I’ll let you know if Cora and Bartholomew have anything interesting to say. Oh, and I’m going to talk to Lonna and Max about the applications they’d received for the program today.”

“I trust you will share what they tell you if it impacts the investigation,” he said, but his tone and the expression on his face conveyed doubt that he could trust me.

“I take my role as Council Investigator seriously, Garou. I would not willingly stand in the way of your job as detective.”
At least only to the extent that I’m delaying you going after Selene.

“It is the unintentional obstruction that concerns me more, Investigator.” He stood and held out a hand.

I stood and gave it a hearty shake. “Then you’ll just have to trust my judgment.”

“Right. Innocent until proven guilty, as the Americans say.”

With those words, he walked out of his office and left me to show myself out. I respected his level of motivation to be thorough, and as I walked out of the small office building that served as the Lycanthrope Police Station—labeled as the Council Offices to throw off the humans—I reminded myself not to be angry with him for just doing his job. I also appreciated how he was letting me tackle the Institute contacts in spite of there being a reason for me not to be objective around them, namely the Institute being my pet project, as David had hinted.

That reminded me—he had a story to finish. I called and left him a voicemail that I’d like to meet for lunch, if possible, and headed to the Institute to talk to Lonna. I also called Laura and had her set up something with Cora and Bartholomew Campbell for the afternoon, if she could manage it.

The yellow and blue-marked police car stood as an obvious reminder in front of the Institute that all was not well. When I’d come on Tuesday, it had been with optimism. On Tuesday night, trepidation. Now on Thursday, it was with resignation that I pulled my car into one of the Visitor parking spots.

The patrolman on duty let me into the empty reception area. I didn’t wait long before Lonna appeared behind the window.

“The officer told me you were here,” she said. “I’ll buzz you through.”

She led me through the hallways and up the stairs to Max’s office. She unlocked the door. “Garou’s men are still processing mine, and since Max is still at home recovering, here I am. Coffee?”

“No, thanks.” My interview with Garou had left me sufficiently wound up. We sat, her behind her desk and me in front of it. “How is Max?”

“He’s doing well. His friend gave him some interesting instructions as to how he should get well, and I’m…” She blushed, an unusual expression for her.

“You must be exhausted,” I said with as straight a face as I could muster. “If only medical doctors prescribed that sort of thing.”

She laughed. “I’m definitely worn out.” She looked around. “Not that I should be discussing this with a proper Scottish gentleman in my husband’s office.”

I waved away her concern. “I was there when Reine told him, so don’t worry about it. Since when do you become nervous about what we talk about? You know you can tell me anything.”

“Can I?” Her perfectly arched brows drew together. “Things have changed, Gabriel. What started out as an interesting project and the professional challenge I’ve been craving has turned into a nightmare, and my husband, the only man I’ve ever truly loved, is at risk. I try not to be irrational, but you’re the one behind us being here and the Institute in general.”

“I’m trying to fix it for you, Lonna.” I had the image of sitting in front of her with hat in hand—there was that damn imaginary hat again—asking for forgiveness.

“I’m afraid there is no fixing it.” She toyed with a pen on the desk, and a tear splashed on the back of her hand. “Three men are dead, another—Max—is injured, and I don’t know what poor Selene is going through. I thought she and Otis had some sort of relationship, but now I’m not sure.”

I shifted in my seat. Her resigned expression reminded me of the one my mother wore in the weeks after we’d been informed of my father’s death. “Then let’s start there. If I can’t fix this for you, at the very least I have to solve it. Not just for you, but for everyone involved.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“Before I continue, I need to warn you that some of this may be shared with Detective Garou, but I promise to be discreet.”

“I understand. Do what you have to do. I trust you to balance the secrets necessary for the function of the Institute with the information needed to solve Otis’s murder.”

“Very well. Tell me about the relationship between him and Selene. Actually, tell me about them in general, and then their relationship.”

“They were both recruits from Joanie and Iain. Otis was from New York and had impeccable recommendations. He’d worked with Joanie as a graduate student and then did a summer internship with Iain, helping him with the evidence for the Cabal-Hippocrates case, so Iain felt he would be a good fit on the team, particularly since he had an understanding of Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome from both the inherited perspective and from that of those who were infected.”