Dead in the Water (Gemini: A Black Dog Series Book 1) (14 page)

T
he Chandler pack
had commandeered an old bait-and-tackle shack that had, at some point, also served fast food. The scent of grease and fries clung to the air. After breathing in the calories for a few hours, I could have used a handful of antacids.

The wargs moved fast to organize their base camp. Our long drive from Wink had given them ample time to settle in and set Graeson’s plans into motion. Plans I wasn’t privy to. Not that I was bitter about being treated as cannon fodder or anything.

The witchy brother-in-law Graeson had mentioned, Miguel Garza, had set up shop at the now-defunct checkout counter. A younger man stood beside him, his face a dark shade of red from the blustering I had interrupted. Both had black hair, richly tanned skin and milk-chocolate eyes. Some of their more creative swearing called to mind the year I took Spanish in high school, but I pretended not to understand the insults being hurled like javelins lest I make myself a target for rolling my eyes at their dramatics.

Apparently the witches were debating the hour of the kelpie’s attack. One, being a traditionalist, argued for midnight. The witching hour. The other, being more progressive, felt if a kelpie had committed eight previous murders in order to set a ritual circle, then its higher intelligence indicated it would hunt during times when children were more likely to be exploring unsupervised. He cast his vote for dusk. Five full hours earlier than the time Miguel suggested. And ’round and ’round they went.

“Are they always like this?” How did the pack stand the constant bickering with their sensitive ears?

“Pretty much,” Dell, who stuck to me like a magnet on a fridge, confirmed. “You get used to it after a while. It becomes white noise. It’s when they get quiet that you have to worry.”

Tired of the sniping, I left the storefront and ventured back into the kitchen/bait-cleaning area. The narrow hall terminated in a grungy door. Scuffs and dents marred the brassy kick plate at its base. Long, thin lines of scratched paint bore testament to the number of times waitresses had dinged it with trays on their way through.

The tactical team—all six wargs—bent over maps they had spread over the countertops and weighted down with cans of pureed tomatoes. One tall woman sharpened a knife while a stout man fidgeted with his gun. Two steps into the kitchen, I attracted their attention. The annoyed vibe they cast in my direction sent me backing through the door. Must be a private meeting then.

One last bastion remained, and that was the staff break room outfitted with Wild West-style saloon doors. I let my feet guide me there as if that had been their intended destination all along.

I had showered off the blood and clay from the Rebec farm shortly after our arrival, then slept in a tiny closet masquerading as a studio apartment above the store. Coming downstairs had been a mistake. I should have known all roads would lead me right to Graeson.

“You’re pacing tracks in the floor. Come in and sit down.” His voice carried down the hall when I hesitated with a hand resting on one half of the set of swinging doors. “You’re going to make yourself tired, and tired people make mistakes.”

“Like trusting wargs?” I shoved inside and found him playing solitaire on a scuffed laminate tabletop, sitting in a chair with a warped leg. “Lesson learned. How about you let me go, and I forget about this whole unlawful-imprisonment thing you’ve got happening here?”

“You’re the best chance we have at success.” He thumbed the edge of his deck of cards. “Knowing what you know now, would you leave even if I gave you a set of keys?”

I didn’t bother with an answer. It was a rhetorical question. There was no way I could bolt when he had intel pinpointing Charybdis’s next move. Not when together we had the resources to stop him from taking another child’s life.

I joined him at the table, and my leg bounced under it. “I need some answers. You said you want my help. Fine. How long is this operation of yours supposed to last? I can’t stay off the grid for an entire month.”

“You won’t have to.” His lips pursed while he debated his next move. “The Garzas are fighting out the timeline. We expect Charybdis to make his move within the next seventy-two hours.”

“That breaks his pattern,” I argued. “Isn’t timing part of the ritual’s magic?”

“The short answer is… We don’t know. He takes his victims weeks prior to their discovery. The McKenna girl escaped. Losing her might have broken the pattern.” He tapped a card on the table’s edge. “Or, it’s possible the dead girl Letitia claims to have seen with the kelpie was taken in time to be sacrificed on schedule.”

I waved a finger through the air. “The Garzas can’t wave a magic wand and tell us?”

“No.” Reluctance flavored the word. “The purported victim’s body won’t be found for a few weeks, and if we’re truly ahead of him, then by the time that girl is found the next will have already been taken.”

Nodding that I understood, I still battled the feeling we had abandoned the poor girl, though a corpse was all we could have reclaimed had we stayed and searched for her.

“We’re here because Miguel’s magic said this is where the kelpie is or will be soon.” He tilted his head. “The fact is, there are too many variables. We don’t know enough about Charybdis to pinpoint any one thing as breaking his pattern. The conclave has never been a step ahead of him before.” He flexed the card in his hand until it almost bent in two. “Coming to Mississippi so soon after a kill may be part of his process. He may be here scouting the area while he searches for potential complications prior to moving his operation here.”

We were talking about a glorified horse thinking in terms that would be alien to an animal. This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill kelpie, we knew that, but this wasn’t the bipedal fae Thierry saw exit the portal either. Did that mean the portal fae was controlling the kelpie? To what end? What did he gain through having another creature commit murders on his behalf? Where did the circle fit into things? Why was Tennessee the target? We didn’t have enough information to do more than guess, and guessing made for sloppy detective work.

We needed more from the Garza brothers. This was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. We needed a means of tracking the person holding the kelpie’s reins. The only way I could think of to do that was offering up the kelpie itself. Charybdis’s magical signature permeated his victims’ bodies long after death, but the trace was so faint I wasn’t sure the witches could use the bodies we had recovered so far. Not to mention I couldn’t very well sneak them into a secured conclave facility or smuggle one out for them to cast over. Our best bet was capturing the kelpie or, gods forbid, finding the remains of the Alabama girl before the conclave did, when they would be freshest.

Rolling my head on my neck, I rubbed my sore nape. “How long until the Garzas give us an update?”

“If they can’t make up their minds soon, I plan on cracking their heads together.” He thumped a card against the table. “We won’t know the kelpie’s whereabouts, but at least we’ll be able to hear ourselves think.”

I accepted that with a nod. “When do I get my phone call?”

“I’ll drive you into town tonight. We’ll pick up a burner cell and let you make your call.” His expression didn’t change. “Soon enough for you?”

“Yes,” I said thoughtfully. Time to do some serious soul-searching. Did I want to go this alone? Did I trust Graeson and his pack to keep me safe? Or did I want to sneak a call in to Vause and bring in conclave reinforcements? “Am I allowed to go for a walk?”

“As long as Dell goes with you, sure.” He didn’t look away from his game. “Stick close to base.”

The urge to slap him upside the head came and went on a sigh. I’d had my fill of alphahole for the night. Or was that betahole? Was there even a difference? I left Graeson to his cards and hit the rattletrap porch. Dell, who had been hovering in the hall, fell in step behind me.

Violet clouds bruised the pink sky. Water glittered on my left. I turned right.

“So…” Dell scooped up a rock and hurled it bouncing down the road ahead of us. “What are you exactly?”

“Graeson didn’t tell you?”

“Don’t call him Graeson, seriously. That last-name thing you cops do is weird.” She wrinkled her nose. “I did ask him what species of fae you are. I figured if I was helping him kidnap you, I ought to at least know how much trouble we stood to get into with the conclave over you. Cord told me to mind my own damn business.”

“You called me a freaky shifter.” Those had been among the first words out of her mouth to me. “I assumed that meant you watched the show out at the Rebecs’ place.”

“Well, see, we decided to go in fangs out. We’re scarier on four legs than two,” she said conversationally. “It turns out the Rebecs raised chickens. Some guy saw me coming and flung open the pen.” She licked her lips. “I might have chased the hens down and eaten them instead of providing backup.” She offered me a shrug. “Cord said he had it covered, and how often do you find all-you-can-eat chicken buffets?”

“Raw chicken?” Now it was my turn to wrinkle my nose. “Never, I hope.”

Her brows waggled at me. “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”

A chorus line of salmonella danced through my head. “I’ll pen that onto my to-do list.”

She sank her elbow into my side and dug it in to the bone. “Come on. Spill. You’ve got to have some kind of super-cool talent for Cord to be so nutso about you.” She bent and snagged another rock. “You should have seen him at the Rebec place. He was all but salivating over you. I figured you must be dead.” She winced. “Not that we go around killing and eating people—it’s bad press—but accidents happen. Meat is meat. I just mean he doesn’t much care for non-wargs, but he went ballistic when that Fury came to. I thought he was going to rip her—” As though sensing my unease—maybe she smelled it?—Dell dropped that line of thought. “So…anyway…you were about to tell me all about you.”

“I’m a Gemini.”

“Like the constellation, right?” She drew squiggles in the air to represent the stars. “What makes a Gemini a Gemini?”

I stopped walking and stuck out my hand. “Want to find out?”

“I asked, didn’t I?” She clasped palms with me without hesitation. “Now what?”

The spur in my fingertip slid from its sheath, the nail falling to the ground, and I pricked the back of her hand, between the knuckles. The wild tang of her blood flooded my veins, and a buzzing noise poured into my head. I barely heard her exclamation as a thick, golden pelt sprouted from my black-clawed fingertips up to my elbow, the spur receding as a claw took the place of that missing fingernail.

“
Whoa.
” Dell poked her button nose under my jaw. “You even smell like a warg. Kind of like me. Like a sister or cousin or something. Is that it? Can you do more? Can you shift into a wolf? Can you shift into
my
wolf?” The implications caught up to her. “Wait—does this mean you can copy anything?”

I held up a hand to halt the avalanche of questions. “Yes, I can do more. No, I can’t fully shift. And yes, I can copy any supernatural talent.” I rubbed my ear with the unclawed hand. “What is that sound?”

Dell took my paw in her hand, flipping it over and stroking the tawny fur, which soothed me the way a good foot massage might. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Voices.” I focused on the noise. “But not voices. There are so words. There’s just…presence.”

When I closed my eyes to focus, a ribbon of shimmering pavement stretched in my mind’s eye from here past the horizon. Warmth spread through my chest, filling jagged cracks left from Lori’s loss. The void still yawned in her absence, but the flaming light penetrated the absolute darkness that had shrouded me for so long. For a second or two I felt…at peace.

The wonder in Dell’s eyes distracted her as the pelt fell out in clumps. “It’s the pack bond.” She touched my cheek. “I didn’t notice before—I was distracted—but I can feel you.” A grin blossomed. “That’s
amazing
.”

As though her touch amplified the connection, I rested my face in her hand, absorbing the sensation of belonging. The burn in my fingertips as my fingernails regrew made me grimace. The comfort I had so briefly tasted scattered, and I was alone in my head again. A spike of grief swelled in my chest as I mentally grasped at what I could no longer perceive. The psychic feedback slammed into the walls of my skull and throbbed.

Amazing
was one word for it. To think wargs experienced that every moment of their lives filled my mouth with a bitter taste. Another time I might have called it jealousy.

I withdrew from Dell and turned my back on her while I pulled myself together. She kept pace beside me, seeming to understand I needed a moment alone. The rest of our walk passed in silence except for the chittering songs of cicada, though I caught her staring at me out of the corner of her eye more than once. When the buzz of mosquitoes became too loud to ignore and my face and neck grew lumpy and itchy, I accepted defeat and returned to the bait shack.

Graeson met us on the steps, a shoulder braced against one of the weathered two-by-fours supporting the bowed roof. If the red dots covering his arms were any indication, he had been waiting on our return for a while. “Enjoy your walk?”

My gaze slid past him to my home away from home for the next however long my kidnapping lasted. “Yes.” I smiled thinly. “The dirt road is one of the more scenic ones I’ve walked, and I’ve never seen bird-sized mosquitos before.”

A cool breeze off the water twirled loose hairs into my eyes. Graeson shot down the steps before I could pat them back into place. His hands cinched my upper arms, and he lifted my feet almost off the ground. His nose traced the length of my jaw, his breaths warm on my neck, his lips soft against my skin. Chills raced along the same path. I didn’t move. I barely breathed.

Having a carnivore pay that kind of close attention to me was enough to turn my knees to water. Good thing he was holding me upright.

“What are you doing?” That breathy voice was
not
mine.

“You smell female.” His words rumbled at my ear.