She Smells the Dead (17 page)

Cal’s phone suddenly started vibrating, making it dance epileptically along the pavement, and we both nearly jumped out of our skins.
Oh why did my mind have to conjure up
that
image?

With a shudder, Calvin reached down and grabbed the phone. Pressing the button to answer he closed his eyes and brought the phone to his ear. “Simon?” Cal asked.

“Right on one,” Simon quipped, though his tone quickly turned serious. “We have a problem. Did you get the photo I sent you?”

“Yeah, it just came through,” Cal said. “Is…is it what it looks like?”

“If it looks like a dead wolf, then yes, it’s what it looks like,” Simon answered.

I watched Cal’s Adam’s apple rise and fall with his swallowing. He was obviously trying to keep it together and avoid being sick. I really hoped he managed to control the gorge rising in his throat. Some people are social yawners, but I have the unpleasant habit of social yacking. If Cal puked, I was so totally going to start uncontrollably puking on his shoes. Hurling on my boyfriend would definitely not help this situation.
You better not throw up Calvin Miller.

“Do we know who it is?” Cal asked. He didn’t ask if the wolf was one of the Old Blood.
He already knew.

“Looks like he was an accountant named Gavin Sanders,” Simon replied. “He worked in the city and would come out here to the woods on his way home at the end of the work week and go for a run in wolf form. His way to unwind, I guess. I found a pile of his clothes, folded neatly, with his wallet, phone, and car keys not far from where he parked on the road. I’ll have to go back and do some more tracking, but it smells like he was followed into the woods. Someone must have known his routine.”

“And that he was a werewolf,” Cal said, voicing what Simon must have been thinking.

“Aye, it seems that way,” Simon said with a sigh. “I’ll sniff around a bit more and see what turns up.”

“Thanks Simon,” Cal said. “I’ll head home and start calling the others. We need to warn everyone that there may be someone hunting us.”

Simon made a growling sound in the affirmative and hung up. Calvin stood frozen with his phone in a white knuckled grip still held to his ear. I stepped forward and reached up to touch his hand.

“Cal?” I asked.

His eyes were still closed, but he flinched and began to slowly open them. I once read an ostrich will hide its head to avoid seeing danger. Calvin appeared to be doing something similar. Unfortunately danger wasn’t something you could avoid by keeping your eyes shut.
I should know.

“Come on,” I said, holding his hand. “Let’s go sit down in your truck. We can come up with a plan and if you’re too freaked out to drive I’ll call Emma. She can come pick us up.”

Calvin nodded, but his eyes were unfocused and I could tell he was in shock. He let me lead him to his truck where I grabbed the spare key and opened his door. He stepped inside and sat behind the wheel while I raced around to the passenger door and climbed into the truck cab.
What should I do now?

I sat there awash in wet dog smell wondering what I could possibly do to help. Over the past few weeks I had noticed Calvin gave off the smell more when he was stressed. Seeing the picture of a dead man definitely ranked high on the stress meter. I just hoped Cal could retain enough control to remain in human form. His alpha status and Simon’s training helped, but that didn’t change the fact that many of the Old Blood shifted during times of extreme duress.

Cal already had a close call with shifting into wolf form on school grounds. During the Homecoming dance I had made the mistake of letting loose on the dance floor which inadvertently called out to Calvin’s wolf spirit. He had begun to transform right there in the school gymnasium and we only managed to escape with the help of our best friend Emma.
But not everyone escaped unscathed.

Cal had been injured, breaking his arm or foreleg as it was at the time, and though he was healing quickly I could tell his arm was still tender. The worst wounds from that night weren’t physical. We all blamed ourselves for what happened and none of us would easily forget the events of Homecoming and the disaster only barely averted. I had promised myself I would never let something like that happen again, but I wasn’t sure what to do next. I was supposed to be the anchor that kept Cal from losing touch with his human self. We were soul mates.
Soul mates.

I suddenly knew what to do. I reached down and dragged my backpack up onto the bench seat. Pulling out books and notepads I found what I was looking for. I lifted a half-eaten sandwich from the plastic bag and jumped out of the truck. I peeled the bread away, letting the cheese fall with a slap to the pavement, and started crumbling and tossing the bread in a circle around the truck. I wasn’t sure if this would work, but I would take all the help we could get.
Not really feeling choosy.

A few weeks ago, while training with Simon, I had learned crows have a special relationship with wolves. In the wild, crows will lead wolves to a food source and have been known to warn them of danger. I didn’t know if the crows could help if the danger to Cal happened to be his own wolf spirit, but my frenzied brain logic thought it was worth a shot. I continued to scatter bread in a circle around Cal’s truck. When I ran out of bread I tried to think of some other offering. I looked down at myself and smiled. Crows like shiny objects. I stood in front of Calvin’s truck with my arms open wide, sun shining on my metal shirt. It was a good day for being covered in safety pins.

“Yuki?” Cal asked.

His voice was coming from behind me and for a moment I wondered if I’d imagined it. I had closed my eyes against the sun and was reciting a mantra of “help Cal” and visualizing a flock of crows coming to his aid.

“Is there a reason why you’re standing out there like that?” he asked. “If you’re pretending to be a scarecrow, it’s not working.”

I opened my eyes and turned around to see Calvin looking at me quizzically. We were surrounded by crows feeding on the bread crumbs I had scattered. I approached Cal’s window and leaned in for a hug. He didn’t smell like wet dog. I felt so elated I twirled around singing, “shiny, shiny, crows are led, by safety pins, and bits of bread!” Cal just looked at me and laughed.
Hooray for frenzied brain logic.

Our moment of gaiety was over too soon. There were storm clouds on the horizon, one filled with spirits of the dead and the other containing a person angry or disturbed enough to kill a member of Cal’s pack in cold blood, and running away would only be a temporary solution. No, this was a storm we had to face head on.

I joined Cal inside the truck and together we dealt with the difficult task of deciding what to do next. I looked away, suddenly engrossed in the movement of one lone crow eating the remaining crumbs from the ground, as Calvin opened his phone to look at the wolf picture one more time. With a decisive nod he closed the phone and started the engine.

“Can you call Emma and ask her to meet us back at the cabin?” he asked. “Tell her we’ll be there in about twenty minutes and to bring her supplies.”

“Sure,” I answered, already pulling out my phone.

“Need anything from your house?” he asked. “A change of clothes maybe?”

I could see Cal eyeing my safety pin shirt with amusement. If he thought I was changing out of my shiny shirt, he could think again. It was my new lucky shirt.
I might never change my shirt again.

“Well, actually I could use my power boots,” I answered. “I can run in and grab them and leave a note for my parents that I might be a bit late coming home tonight.”

“Good idea,” he said, already backing out of the school parking lot.

I speed dialed Emma and she answered on the first ring. “Girl, is everything okay?” Emma asked. “I just had the creepiest thing happen. I stopped by the veterinary clinic to check this week’s work schedule and when I was holding Duvet, our resident boa constrictor, he
spoke
to me. He said you were in trouble.”

A storm definitely was on the horizon.
When it rains it pours.

About the Author

E.J. Stevens writes poetry and young adult paranormal novels. E.J. is author of the haunting collection of dark poetry From the Shadows, the chilling collection of paranormal poetry Shadows of Myth and Legend, and the young adult paranormal Spirit Guide Series, including She Smells the Dead, Spirit Storm, and Legend of Witchtrot Road.

E.J. is a graduate of the University of Maine at Farmington with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and is an active member of the Paranormal Romance Guild. E.J. currently resides in a magical forest on the coast of Maine where she finds daily inspiration for her writing. When E.J. isn't at her writing desk she can be found blogging at From the Shadows, a paranormal book blog, or hanging out on Goodreads and Twitter.

Visit E.J. at:

http://www.FromTheShadows.info

Learn more about the Spirit Guide Series at the official series website:

http://spiritguideseries.blogspot.com

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