Banewolf (Dark Siren Book 2) (5 page)

“What would a rogue want with a catalogue that details dark lords? Most of the filth in it would be of their kind.”

Thanks a lot, Rhane thought. “Maybe she was feeling nostalgic.”

River snorted through the line. “Rogues are nothing more than murderous sociopaths capable of appreciating nothing except the blood of their victims.”

“I don’t think it was the book they were after. Something was hidden in the back of it, a list of some sort. Come to the manor and have a look at it. A side by side comparison with the map may give us some idea of why this thing is so important.”

“I guess it would be worth a shot.”

“Thanks.” A different question occurred to Rhane as he slipped the book underneath the seat again. “Is Orrin with you?”

“No.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I didn’t realize it was my turn to babysit.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Rhane bit back his initial reply. Sometimes, River could be a pain. “He’s still searching for the college kid that went missing nearly a month ago.”

“Yes. I know.”

The condescending tone of River’s statement made Rhane grind his teeth. River had information. That much he could tell. His brother just wanted him to beg for it. Rhane waited.

It took a full minute, but River finally spoke.  “Get to the High Falls reserve in Jackson. During my last communication with Orrin, he was headed into the abandoned campgrounds in the southwest part of a nearby ghost town.”

“That’s over three hours away.”

“He is persistent,” River said flatly. “I’ll give him that.”

“Were you helping him look for the kid?”

“I was making sure he didn’t get into trouble.”

“What changed? He’s still out there and you’re not with him.”

“I am not with him, but I am at the reserve.”

“What?”

“I think he’s in trouble. I was essentially about to call you.”

Rhane swore. The diesel engine of his truck roared to life. “I’m on my way.”

“Should I wait for your arrival?”

Hesitating for a hair split of a second, Rhane wa
s uncertain how exactly he felt. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust River. And Orrin was a skilled fighter. Whatever had him out of contact had to be serious. But if something bad had happened, Rhane would have been able to feel it. He wasn’t truly Orrin’s sire, but as the boy’s surrogate, a special bond had grown between them. A bond like one shared by those of the same bloodlines. He made a decision and hoped it was the right one. “Wait for me. I’m on my way.”

#

A navy blue pickup barreled into the camping area, kicking up thick plumes of dust and gravel in its wake. It was York. Right after hanging up, Rhane had placed
a call to his second. Arriving less than ten minutes behind Rhane, York hadn’t disappointed.

River stared coolly at the approa
ching vehicle. A mighty wind brewed, summoned by the storm east of their location. It snatched the remaining leaves from hibernating trees and whipped Rhane’s dark hair into his eyes. But River seemed almost untouched by the natural elements. His long, white hair was barely stirred. His clothes scarcely rustled. He reminded Rhane so much of their father, it almost hurt. Even now, the differences between them were a steady reminder of what an outcast Rhane had been from the beginning—even before he’d met the siren. 

“The war ape has finally arrived,” River said as York emerge
d from the heavy duty truck. He had purposefully spoken against the wind so it would not reach York’s ears. 

Adjusting the strap that secured Bellefuron across his back, Rhane glanced at his brother. “Will you ever muster the courage to say such insults to his face?”

River smirked. It was one of the few human expressions he had mastered. “No. Men of his sort would naturally react with violence. And I have no desire to fight him.”

“Maybe you guys would get along better if you did.”

“No. I think he would try to kill me.”

“He might.” Rhane saw no need to lie. Honesty couldn’t possibly make things worse. “But could you blame him?”

River was silent.

York trotted over and thrust a blue slip of paper under Rhane’s nose. “I got here as fast as I could. This is yours now.”

Rhane took the ticket, ogled the amount and then pocketed it. “I’ll take care of it.”

York looked around. He was all business. “What’s our situation?”

Rhane suppressed sigh. York became a different man in River’s presence. While the two had never been on each other’s fan lists, in the past they had managed to find a way to work together. But after that last time…Rhane couldn’t be sure they would ever get over it.

“River thinks Orrin may have found King Richard’s body and some trouble with it.”

York’s brows shot up. “That college kid?”

Rhane nodded.

“If this guy knew Orrin was in trouble, then why didn’t he go help him?” York addressed the question to Rhane while giving River an accusatory glare that fell just short of murderous.

“He’s still here because I want us all to go in there together.”

“So now he’s following orders?”

“York. Save it for later.” Rhane noticed his brot
her looking past York as if he didn’t exist. “Better yet, save it for never.” 

Throwing back his head impatiently, Rhane trilled a whistle into the late afternoon sky. A faint cry answered him. It was Orrin. He was okay. Rhane whistled again.
Come to us.

Can’t
, Orrin answered.
Help
.

Snarling a curse, York dropped to all fours and disappeared into the trees without waiting for orders. River stood watching Rhane expectantly.

Rhane bit out a command with more heat than he meant to. “Go.”

The smell hit them hard. It was a pungent blend of rose petals and a fermented dumpster. Their smell…the smell of rogues almost masked the scent of the rotting corpse. But sulfide and methane gases released from a decaying body left an unmistakable odor. Rhane pulled up short. River, running next to him in human form, slowed as well.

It wasn’t the smell that made them stop. Shadows high above in the pine trees had moved like no natural fauna would. Rhane glanced up. River nodded. He had seen them too. But there was nothing to do except move forward. River took the rear. His eyes and ears were sharp for the attack that could rain down on their heads at any moment. Trusting his brother to provide the first defensive should that happen, Rhane focused all his senses into finding Orrin. He didn’t whistle again. That would signal their position to every rogue lurking in the forest.

Rhane closed his eyes, letting his mind project every sound into a three-dimensional map. And then he saw them. York moved so covertly, he was just a faint outline. But he too was being stalked. Orrin was less than half a mile away. And he was surrounded.

Knowing the rogues had a reason for not attacking and realizing there were far too many of them to bother with stealth, Rhane started running. Already pumping hard, his adrenaline surged when the cacophony erupted. Pine needles rustled violently overhead. Rogues screeched. River swore.

At some poin
t, they burst through a line of hostiles that hemmed Orrin in place. The large brown wolf whirled, snapping and snarling as Rhane and River plowed through the dense undergrowth and came out almost on top of him. When recognition filled the honey colored eyes of his battle skin, the wolf’s ears laid back in relieved submission. Together, they turned to face the approaching danger. An enormous black wolf reached them and immediately moved to flank. It was York.

River’s eyes drilled into Rhane’s profile. “This is why we need Banewolf.”

“Sorry.” Rhane drew his sword. Bellefuron’s metallic song hummed into the wind, anticipating another chance to fulfill the purpose for which it had been forged.

A dozen hooded figures emerged from the trees, gliding rather walking across the leaves. Shadows darkened the silver masks covering each of the rogue’s faces. Long leather cloaks shielded their bodies from natural sunlight—the only thing that could strip away their human appearances and reveal the monstrosities of their true nature.

The figures stopped advancing. And for a long breath, nothing else moved.

“River, we’ve got a fight coming. Harness your skin.”

River obeyed. Silver fur immediately began to course across his arms and face. A large wolf appeared where he once stood. And then madness descended upon the Warekin. From all sides and above, the rogues attacked. A furious snarl ripped from York’s throat. In the next second, the claws of a Siberian-sized paw shredded a rogue into three separate pieces. The snarl ended when his jaws clamped onto the head of another.

Agilely darting in and out of the fray, River punished their opponents with the quick and fatal strikes of a viper. Orrin stood his ground like a mad grizzly, destroying any challenger who dared come near the prize he guarded. Orrin didn’t just kill. He tore his opponents to pieces.

Without teeth, claws, or an indestructible war skin at his disposal, Rhane relied on Bellefuron. Bane silver glowed bluish-green as the sword’s razor-sharp edges sliced through muscle, organ, and bone. Black blood flew from rogue bodies in spurts and splatters. The liquid contacted Rhane’s skin, burning like acid. He ignored the pain, swinging Bellefuron until the targets stopped coming and there was nothing left to kill.

The forest was silent again. Bodies were scattered across the ground with thick rivers of blood spilling out from them. Sunlight marred the rogues’ human flesh into gruesomely twisted limbs. Rhane closed his eyes. It wasn’t strange pewter masks or dead rogues he saw. No. For a long time, the faces had always been the same.

Rhane sensed rather than saw River and York come to stand beside him. Noting Orrin’s absence, he turned. The young kin was still in wolf form, standing in the very same spot he had been when Rhane and the others had first arrived. Mutilated bodies lay at his feet. The decomposing corpse was just beyond them.

Rhane stabbed Bellefuron into the ground and whistled softly. Gravity would do its work and help drain the blood from its metal. “It’s alright, Orrin. You can stand down.”

The wolf watched him, breathing heavily but quietly. Its eyes were angry, still flashing from battle. Rhane realized this was Orrin’s first encounter with rogues. What a grisly first time.

“It’s alright,” Rhane repeated. “Stand down.”

The massive brown head lowered. Wolf features melted away, and Orrin emerged. Rhane watched carefully as he stood, until the younger kin nodded. He was okay.

“Now show me what you’ve got there,” Rhane said.

In life, King Richard was a party loving, skirt chasing frat boy. Beneath the wild exterior was a kid mostly everyone liked. He was known for going out of his way to help a friend, and didn’t let his love for the game, parties, or girls get in the way of good study habits. And despite the horny pretense, he was actually crazy in love with the girl next door, a neighbor back in high school. Now King, a handsome, likeable guy, was only fertilizer.

Marbled black
and green flesh had stretched taut, rapidly losing ground against expanding gases and liquefying tissues swelling inside the body cavity. In some spots, the skin had ruptured and leeched brownish fluids. Frothy purge drained from the mouth and down two mottled, decaying cheeks. Both tongue and eyes protruded. Maggots moved in pulsating masses beneath the dermis. The hatching was accelerated by the nourishment of oxygen seeping in from tears in the blackening skin. As Rhane watched, the boy’s hair line retreated half an inch as the skin sagged away from the scalp.

“That’s just nasty,” York said from behind him.

King had been missing for nearly a month. From the look of things, he’d been dead only a week or so. The boy’s throat was ripped out, making it safe to say that was the likely cause of death. Rhane knelt beside the body and ran his fingers through the soil.

“Orrin, come here.” As Orrin kneeled next to him, Rhane explained, “Notice there are flies—but no maggots have migrated to the surrounding area.”

“Yes. I see,” Orrin answered tightly.

“At this stage of decay, those insects should have already reached the soil. This body was recently moved.”

Orrin nodded but still looked confused. The waves of nausea that washed over him blocked his mind from absorbing a lesson in forensics. “What would be the point in moving a decaying corpse all the way out here?”

“And why did they wait until all of us got here to attack?” York added.

Rhane stood up. “Good questions.”

Orrin moved away from
the body, needing to put distance between his nose and the awful stench. His stomach quivered again, forcing him to yank his mind toward a different direction. Rhane had more questions. That helped.

“After your arrival, at what point did the rogues get here?”

He’d been out in the woods for a long time in a stand-off against the creatures. “A few hours…I believe they were already close, waiting for the body to be discovered.”

“So, they brought the body here for the sole purpose of being found? It doesn’t make sense.” Rhane paced away. Retrieving Bellefuron from its earthen scabbard, he rubbed the metal with a handful of sand and polished it with a cloth kept inside his back pocket. As soon as the blood was cleaned, the bluish-green glo
w disappeared and a natural metallic sheen returned.

“Perhaps they did not want just anyone to find it.”

Rhane looked up. “Go on.”

“As York has already observed, the creatures waited until all of us were here before taking action. They could have attacked me, but they did not. Neither did they allow me to leave.”

“Do you think this battle was staged?”

River spoke first, shaking his head. “It felt real. We killed many, but dozens more were out there who never joined the fight.”

“Let’s start with the connection between King and these rogues…other than the fact that they murdered him.” Rhane folded his arms across his chest. “York, what did you find from asking around on campus? Give me something to help us.”

Before York could answer, River interjected. The action earned him
a dark glower from York. “If there was some connection via King’s school, I have faith even you would not have missed it. Where did the boy work?”

York waited for Rhane’s nod before answering. “Clever Dust Book Sellers,” he said.

“Mothers be damned.” All heads jerked to rigid attention. Rhane had uttered a curse on their foremothers, a shocking oath only used in the direst of circumstances. “They wanted the ledger,” he said and backed away. “After that fight, our DNA is sure to be all over this area. Clear the scene. Then reconstruct it. Move the body to somewhere this kid will be found by the proper authorities.” He took a folded leather parcel from the inside pocket of his jacket shoved the item into River’s accepting hands. “Get this to the manor and compare it to the map. Call me when it’s done.”

“Where are you going?” York called as he dashed off, but Rhane was already too far away to answer.

At the parking area, his pickup was a ruined mess. Both were doors ripped off. The leather seats were in shreds. The dashboard dangled from the truck’s frame. Rogues had done this. No doubt shaded Rhane’s mind. It was the ledger they sought. Checking under the back seat confirmed the book was gone.

So, it was York’s truck that carried him down the state park road at an Indy 500 practice pace. Thirty minutes outside of High Falls, he was about to hit the ramp for the interstate when a dark mass ran into the road a hundred yards in front of the pickup. Rhane stood on the brakes and steered the vehicle through a controlled skid. Then he threw open the driver’s side door.
“Get in.”

Bailen didn’t waste time. A nimble jump lifted him inside the cab. He climbed over Rhane with less grace to sit in the passenger seat. Rhane glared at him. “The last time you did that, I hit you and pointlessly felt bad about it.”

He didn’t ask why Bailen had traveled two hundred miles to find him. Rhane already knew. Kalista was in trouble.