But not that night. That night when Katelyn had gotten home from her gymnastics practice there had only been two places set at the table. Her mom had made her own version of mac and cheese, a delicacy because she hardly ever served cheese. She’d made Katelyn’s favorite dessert, chocolate soufflé, as well.
Her mom’s eyes had been puffy, like she’d been crying, but she’d said she’d been dicing some onions for dinner. And Katelyn had believed her even though there were no onions in mac and cheese.
But Katelyn hadn’t questioned. She’d been so thrilled to be able to have the things she loved. She hadn’t questioned her mom’s red eyes, or the lack of a third place setting, or the meal.
Then, late that night, the doorbell had rung, and she had gotten out of bed because it was one in the morning and who came by the house that late? She had peered through the banister railings, watching as her mom opened the front door.
Her mom wasn’t in her pajamas. She was dressed like she’d never gone to bed, like she’d been expecting someone to come by the house. Two police officers had stood in the doorway. One of them had been Detective Cranston.
They had said something to her mother, so softly that Katelyn couldn’t hear. Then Giselle Chevalier, the great ballerina, the most graceful woman in the world, had fallen on the floor and begun to sob.
Katelyn remembered creeping down the stairs, terrified, but her mother wouldn’t even look at her, wouldn’t touch her. Detective Cranston had taken her into the kitchen, found the rest of the chocolate soufflé in the refrigerator, and had given it to her while he’d told her that a bad man had shot her dad.
Could it be
this
man?
In the cabin, the landline rang. Katelyn jumped. She hadn’t realized the phone was working again.
Her grandfather raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “It’s gotta be for you. Not many folks call me.”
She sprang up from the couch and ran into the kitchen to get the phone. Her heart beat a little faster. Maybe it was Trick or Justin.
Preferably Trick.
“Hello?” she asked somewhat breathlessly.
There was a pause and then a familiar voice said, “This is Sergeant Lewis. Can you put your grandpappy on?”
“Oh, sure.” She covered the mouthpiece. “Grandpa, it’s Sergeant Lewis for you,” she called.
A moment later his frame darkened the doorway. Jekyll and Hyde: he was scowling, a different man than the one who had been teasing her just a minute before.
He took the phone from her and she retreated a couple of steps, but didn’t leave the room. She could hear both sides of the conversation clearly.
“What can I do for you, Pat?” her grandfather asked.
“There’s been another one.”
Her grandfather glanced at her, but she refused to move.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Wanda Mae Peterson.”
Katelyn gasped and her grandfather’s eyes narrowed as he studied her face. She turned away, struggling to compose herself, straining to hear the rest of the conversation.
Wanda Mae, the werewolf assassin Arial had sent, who had sworn allegiance to Katelyn. She was dead. Katelyn’s head swam. First Mike and now Wanda. Both had attacked her. She had beaten both of them. Now both were dead. Could that possibly be a coincidence? The twisting in her gut said definitely not.
“Is that the retired librarian?” her grandfather asked.
Librarian? She stiffened. Could Wanda Mae have been helping Lee Fenner find books dealing with the mine, like the Switliski book? “That’s the one. Something different about this, though.” He paused. “She was found in the woods all right, but she was naked.”
“Beg pardon?” her grandfather asked.
“Not wearing a stitch. And she’d been pretty slashed up. Whatever killed her took a few chunks out of her, too. As in, ate.”
Cannibalism. Wouldn’t that be what it was if one werewolf ate another? Katelyn’s stomach roiled more fiercely. Or maybe it was the Hellhound who had gotten to Wanda Mae. After all, if she had known something about the silver mine, maybe she had gotten too close to discovering it.
I lost my ally
. Whoever had killed her, whether it had been because of Katelyn or the mine, the woman was gone.
“Another posse is forming up. They found tracks in the snow leading away from the body. Something big. Jed Crane’s bringing his hunting dogs along for this one. Those hounds have never quit a trail.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” her grandfather said, his voice tight. She blinked. He almost sounded angry.
“Jack Bronson’s even called in to volunteer.”
“No!”
She definitely wasn’t imagining the anger this time.
“You leave that man out of it and I’ll come. I won’t be in any hunting group with that idiot.”
“You got it, Mordecai. Rather have you than that city boy. We’re going to meet at the old Miller dry creek.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Her grandfather hung up; he crossed the kitchen and clamped a hand down on her shoulder, turning her to face him.
“So you heard,” he said, and she nodded, not bothering to deny it. “How do you know Wanda Mae?” His tone, instead of being sympathetic, was harsh, suspicious.
“I-I don’t,” she lied. “But there’s a guy at school with the same last name. Maybe they’re related.”
She had no idea if there was a guy with that last name at school. She hoped her grandfather didn’t check.
“Oh,” he said, after a moment. “Grandson, maybe.”
“Poor guy,” she muttered, feeling disingenuous.
“I got to go. Hunting party’s forming up,” he said as he moved toward the living room.
“Why do
you
have to go?” she asked him.
He pursed his lips. “Honey, a lot of the people who will come are from town. They’ve lived their entire lives on the edge of the woods but not in them. They’re good marksmen, good people, but they don’t know the forest like I do. And with everyone so jumpy about everything that’s going on, they need someone with them like me so that no one accidentally gets hurt.”
“Why do you hate Jack Bronson so much?” she asked, pushing it.
His back was to her — his back that was covered with scars. “I’ve told you, the man’s a damned fool.”
He pulled his rifle down from the wall, cracking it open, checking it. Not looking at her. She just couldn’t let it go.
“I don’t think you’re telling me everything.”
“Katie, I don’t have time for this right now. Look, the man’s a moron. That’s all there is.”
He moved to a cabinet in the family room, opened it, and she heard the sound of a creaking lid, like on an old box, and then rattling, like bullets being jostled together. She blinked. She hadn’t known he kept bullets in there.
“How come you never told me that his last name is McBride?”
He swore and she heard a couple of the bullets hit the floor and roll. She walked into the room just as he was scooping them up.
He straightened slowly, slipping the bullets into his pocket. He sighed, a deep, bone-weary surrender. She could see in his eyes that he wanted to lie to her. For a moment she thought he was going to.
“Where on earth did you hear that?” he asked.
“I read about it online, how he changed his name. That he had a past.”
Her grandfather swore again. “He turned his back on his family a long time before he changed his name. I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t important. He’s no kin of ours.” He said the last in a dark, vehement tone that left no doubt exactly how he felt.
He walked past her and she cast her gaze down to avoid looking at him head on. There, on the ground, halfway under the couch, was one of the bullets he had dropped.
“You forgot one,” she said, bending to pick it up before she could think.
And as her fingers closed around it she could smell the stench of silver even as her skin tingled. She froze for a moment. A silver bullet. He had them in the house, too, and she hadn’t known it. He was taking them with him now, which meant he must know he was going after a werewolf.
Her mouth went completely dry. She had to do something, say something. She couldn’t just stay bent over indefinitely. Slowly, she straightened and looked at him.
She held out the bullet. As if in slow motion, he reached out to take it from her, their fingers touching on the silvery metal. He pulled away, tucked the bullet in his pocket.
“What are you?” she whispered.
The words had just slipped out and hung in the air between them, fraught with meaning. She sucked in her breath hard. She hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to give voice to one of the many questions that had been plaguing her.
He had stopped, his whole body gone very, very still, and she knew that he understood what she was asking.
He took a ragged breath and looked her straight in the eyes. “I know that you can’t live here, especially not with all that’s been going on, without hearing things. Rumors.” Something flickered in his eyes. “I am your grandfather. And I pray to God that’s all you ever need to know.”
He turned abruptly and strode out the door, closing it firmly behind him. Katelyn sank down on the couch, staring into space.
“What just happened?” she whispered.
Seconds later, she heard his truck start up and drive away from the cabin.
Had her grandfather really just admitted to something? The very fact that he had gotten out silver bullets was proof. The bullets did belong to him, and not to his friend who had died, as he had told her. And the only thing you needed silver bullets for was werewolves.
She shuddered.
Her grandfather was hunting werewolves.
She had to call Justin, to warn him. The pack had to stay hidden, safe.
Her cell still wasn’t getting reception. She ran over to the kitchen phone and dialed Justin’s number. It went straight to voice mail. She took a deep breath and redialed. This time she left a message.
“My grandfather just left. There was another person killed. It was . . .” she hesitated, still not sure what to reveal, “some woman named Wanda,” she said at last. “There’s a bunch of people going out hunting. I wanted you to know.”
She hung up and waited fifteen minutes, hoping he’d call back. He didn’t, so she tried him again but it still went to voice mail. Cell reception was nil. Maybe he wouldn’t even get the message.
I should let my grandfather kill them
, she thought. But she couldn’t do it. Whether it was pack instinct or just being moral, decent, she had to intervene.
Decision made, she grabbed her keys and put her new gun and lots of bullets in her backpack. Then she locked the cabin and climbed into her Subaru. She didn’t know how deep the snow was on the roads, but she had to try to get to the Fenners’. The snow was melting, but it still covered the roads, and she forced herself to drive slowly and carefully even though it felt that each second was a year.
The woods were dark and deep; and just as she finally reached the turnoff for the Fenners’ house, she hit her brakes with a shout.
An impossibly tall man stood, seemingly immovable, in the center of the driveway as she practically plowed in to him. He was dressed in a robe identical to the one that Magus had been wearing, and the bumper of her car stopped mere inches from his body. Slack-jawed, she gaped at him; he had to be over seven feet tall, built for basketball, but she’d be willing to bet money from the look of him that he’d never played a game such as that in his life.
He was tattooed all over his face, like Magus, with crosses over his high, pronounced cheekbones and gaunt cheeks. His abnormally large eyes were black and she couldn’t detect pupil from iris. A shock of white hair swept his high forehead, which seemed out of keeping for a face as young as his.
She waited for him to move out of the way, but he didn’t budge, just stared at her through the windshield. He had to be another one of the Hounds of God.
She debated what to do. Part of her wanted to throw the car in reverse and get the heck out of there. Another part wanted to stomp on the gas and run him over. The logical part of her triumphed, and instead she opened the door and stepped out to face him.
“I’m Katelyn McBride,” she said, not sure why she needed to announce herself so clearly.
“I know who you are Ms. McBride,” he said, his voice deep as an ocean. “I’m Daniel Latgale. I’m the alpha of the Hounds of God.”
And she understood in that moment everything that an alpha could,
should
be. She had an intense, implacable urge to lower her head. Because she wanted to do it so badly, instead she forced herself to stay upright, head straight forward, looking him squarely in the eye.
He stared back at her, unblinking, and she again had the urge to show submissiveness. It was more than just his imposing height. There was a presence about him that felt regal. He was someone who commanded respect and was so used to it he didn’t even stop to think about it.
“Aren’t you going to lecture me for being disrespectful?” she asked when he remained silent.
“There’s no lack of respect when one alpha doesn’t bow to another,” he said slowly.
She blinked. “I’m not an alpha.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “You are. You just don’t know it yet.”
She didn’t have a response to that.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“To remind you that you must act swiftly to end this conflict before it goes any further. More have died and there’s been another Hellhound attack already.”
Wanda Mae. That had to be who he was talking about.
“Cordelia and I want to end this. We’re trying.”
“That’s not enough. There’s been too much blood, and there will be more. With no Fenner alpha in place, things will only become worse.”
He took a deep breath and it was if all the oxygen had left the air around her. She swallowed. Her mind was just playing a trick on her.
“We’re still willing to offer you sanctuary. One way or another this war
will
end. You don’t have to die with the others.”
The certainty in his eyes chilled her. She had seen fanatics back home — religious guys on street corners, people a little too into the redwoods and keeping the beaches clean. But Daniel Latgale had them beat — his brand of intensity held more menace.