Dire Warning WC0.5 (2 page)

Chapter Two

The fight was short-lived. Human testosterone was no match for wolfkind and the crack of fists against flesh quickly got old.

Wolves liked fighting wolves, but few humans proved to be up to the challenge. Judging by how easily the human bikers fell, they were really all talk.

Vice was having a blast, though. He’d need to be talked down from the ledge and Rifter did not have the patience for that tonight. His senses—and Brother Wolf’s—were still on overdrive and he felt ready to pop out of his skin.

Clyde was pissed, even after Rifter peeled off bills for him to fix the window and the pool table.

He wouldn’t dare ban the Dires, though. That would be stupid as shit, and that’s exactly what Clyde wasn’t.

“You fix this and meet me in the woods,” Rifter growled to Jinx, who still looked slightly dazed.

Yes, a run would do them all good. He pushed past Chrissy and Penny, who were still angling for time with him, made his excuses and headed out into the night.

He circled around the outside of the bar, sniffing the cold winter air. Wolf scent mingled with human, but that didn’t mean anything was awry. He jogged around back, checking things out. Saw some Weres shifting behind trees and a human couple making out on a car parked around back, obviously unaware of what was happening around them.

Maybe the night air was carrying too much of their scent. He tried not to be in places where there were so many of them packed in at once because it bothered Brother Wolf. And so he walked around to the front, his boots crunching on broken glass. Inside, there were still the usual sounds accompanying a good, old-fashioned bar fight. He ignored it all and revved his custom built Harley, taking off out of the lot at a high enough speed to satisfy his wolf.

Brother Wolf loved fast. Rifter, almost as much. This close to a full moon, the need for it was magnified.

Unlike the Weres, the Dires weren’t forced to shift during a full moon, and they could remain unshifted for a lot longer than the Weres without any harm. The Dires generally had more control over themselves, their first shift occurring at twenty-one rather than the Weres’ sixteen.

The Dires and their Brother Wolves were equals, inhabiting the same body, respectful of the other’s needs and wishes. And Rifter’s Brother Wolf was more than a little pissed he hadn’t been allowed to fight.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Rifter told him when he stopped the bike off the main trail through the woods and parked it where it wasn’t easily spotted. He stripped and threw his clothes over his bike. Didn’t matter that the temp was below zero—Brother Wolf always ran hot. For a long moment, he took in the quiet of the woods around him, before his brothers and no doubt some Weres arrived. And then it would become rowdy and raunchy and Rifter could get into that, too.

But the feeling that everything was about to change, that’s what sent shivers of a different kind through him.

He’d been around for a hell of a long time, watched eras come and go. He’d seen great leaders and watched the horrors that humans inflicted on one another. Most times, he’d had to numb himself, and they’d always fought on the side of good.

But this . . . something was happening in his world. Surrounded by supernatural beings his entire life—Weres, vamps, other shifters, witches, demons—most of the time, they kept to their corners.

He’d prayed to the Elders for any kind of help, the way he’d done when he’d been captured but he’d refused to continue because it only made him more frustrated. The mystical clan of four who watched over the Dires, all created by Hati, son of a god who chased the moon, was unattainable; they believed in letting the Dires work out their own problems.

Don’t think on that now
, he warned himself, and Brother Wolf agreed enthusiastically.

He shifted, letting himself revel in the pleasure and pain of the process, the impossibility of which had been widely documented by doctors and scientists alike. He felt sorry for those tied so closely to logic that it left them so bound to rules, to black and white, that they missed out on a lot of life and its messy, unexplainable, follow-no-rules beauty.

For Rifter, being a Dire meant everything. There were many things he regretted over the course of his extended lifetime, but being a wolf had never been one of them.

Vice needed that fight—although it wasn’t long enough to really do his body justice, it was a start. He allowed Jinx and Stray to yank him out of the bar, with Clyde cursing behind him and young Weres trying to follow him like he was some kind of rock star.

Vice knew better than all of them that he was damned sure not someone to be emulated, but some would try to, anyway.

He, like all the Dires, was built for battle. Their warrior culture was born and bred into them, and they’d trained from a young age, long before their first shift.

When they returned from their Running—the six month period in a newly shifted Dire Wolf’s life when they literally ran free among humans to make sure they could handle themselves—they’d discovered that the Elders had gone ahead with the Extinction. Their entire kind was wiped out except for six Dires, and he, Rifter, Rogue and Jinx stuck together. Harm left them months before and they didn’t find Stray until fifty years earlier.

After the Extinction, they were charged by the Elders with keeping humankind safe and making up for the pain their kind had caused.

They’d been so young then. Kept to themselves for a while and then five years past their shift, they felt ready to join the human population. The Dires lived among them but kept what they were private for obvious reasons.

Barely twenty-six years old and the remaining Dires were fighting battles with and for humans, having decided that was the best way to blend and use their warrior ways. Losing themselves in that kind of controlled chaos they understood so well helped all the young Dires, reminded them of the days their kind stood side by side with the Vikings.

Recently, they’d all spent time enlisted in the modern, organized military, but before that, they would join in whatever wars and battles they could find. They fought during the second and third crusades. Stayed together as much as possible for fear of never finding their kind again.

Weres began to show up in battle during that time. Young, uncontrolled, Vice spent a lot of time telling them to calm the fuck down.

The wolves weren’t alone in their supernatural realm. Vampires had long done similar things to live among humankind, along with other shifters. The world was always filled with supernatural beings and all the
others
dealt with the problems stemming from the merging of the human and paranormal worlds.

The Salem Witch Trials—and subsequent burning of Weres—was just one example of why
not
revealing themselves was smart.

The wolves knew how fragile humans were because they saw it firsthand, up close and personal. They died at the drop of a hat, they mourned, they worried. They also fucked up a lot of shit in the world, and really, the Dires had little use for most of them.

Vice and the other wolves knew things humans would kill for—like who, not what—Croaton really was. Who built Stonehenge—who killed Kennedy and why.

Oh, and Paul Revere was
not
the one who spread the news about the British, but hell, Vice let him have that one. Because hell, humans deserves a little glory now and again, since it seemed to be what most of them lived for.

Vice gunned his bike and Jinx was right next to him. Behind them on their own Harleys were the Weres Jinx was mentoring. The twins Cyd and Cain were nearly twenty-one now, the same age the Dires were when they’d lost everything. But Weres shifted at sixteen, way too early, Vice thought. No wonder they were so unstable. Hell, the twins got kicked out of their werepack for being completely uncontrolled.

If the Dires hadn’t taken pity on them, they would’ve been put down by the King Alpha, who lived in and ran the Manhattan pack. Who was currently MIA.

The Weres were ruled totally by the moon, shifted uncontrollably during the full moon. This close to one, they got antsy as shit, but hell, so did the Dires. Hence, the fighting at the bar.

Well, that probably would’ve happened anyway. Vice couldn’t stand posturing humans, although he did appreciate the pack mentality of the motorcycle gangs. Really, the wolves were very similar to them in terms of loyalty, which was why humans emulated them.

Vice’s bike roared with a crash through the woods and he found Rifter’s own parked off one of the trails, his Brother Wolf long gone. He and Jinx and the twins stripped and prepped to join him, Cyd and Cain headed into the woods first, still in human form like they couldn’t wait to just start running.

Ah, youth.

“You know they think they’ll catch up to Rifter,” Jinx said, the pride in his voice evident.

“You think Rifter’s pissed at me?” Vice asked, contrite as hell for starting the fight. That was the problem with his excesses—there was no goddamned balance in him. It made him able to help other people and wolves, but not himself.

“He never gets pissed at you,” Jinx pointed out and yeah, that was true. Rifter got it. So did Jinx. “He’s just really worried. Never seen him like this.”

“You think he’s losing it, because of the capture?” Vice asked and. Jinx shrugged.

“I think he needs to talk about what those trappers did to him before he does.”

Vice could just imagine what they’d done to Rifter and Rogue, often did, even though it was the last thing he’d wanted to know. “Good luck with that.”

“He’s not psychic, but over the years, his feelings have been right,” Jinx reminded him. “He was really reluctant to come back from Europe, even to help Linus.”

Vice remembered. “It’s getting harder for all of us now.”

“We’ll make it work. We always do.”

Jinx sounded so sure and Vice chose to believe him, because he didn’t want to deal with the alternative. Instead of asking more questions, Vice looked up at the moon and let out a long howl before allowing his Brother Wolf to take him over.

Chapter Three

Rifter read the online headline over and over, like he was convinced if he did it enough, the headline would change.

He blinked the sleep from his eyes and tried again, even as Brother Wolf growled loudly in his ears. They’d just woken up minutes earlier when Stray called to him with this news.

Alleged Werewolf Attack.

And this was the local paper, not some gossip rag. The AP had already picked it up, along with Yahoo news and motherfucking TMZ.

Werewolf attack.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Rifter gripped the iPad so hard it shook. Stray pried it from his hands before it cracked in half and read the article to him while Cain handed him strong coffee.

“A young woman was found behind Bite early this morning, just before nine. Medics said she was DOA, and that her heart was torn from her body,” Stray paraphrased. “She’s been identified but they’re not saying who she is until they notify the family. She died sometime after four this morning.”

“We were right there. Dammit.” Rifter’s free hand was fisted and the slight feeling of contentment from the run the night before was now long gone. The coffee wasn’t helping. Nothing would, but he gulped it anyway.

Maybe if they’d stayed at Clyde’s later . . . done something more. But it was too late for twenty twenty hindsight. Now it was time to clean up this bullshit. “Where the hell did the werewolf thing come into play?”

“There’s an unnamed source who claims he had proof—a tape. They’re keeping his name out of the paper too, for safety reasons, but he’s planning on selling it to the media,” Stray said. “I can break into the police database and get her name, but we need to see the body. Better let Jinx get out his disguises.”

Jinx was the best at blending. Clocking in at six feet, six inches, he was the closest to nonimposing they had. Which was still pretty imposing, but with his collection of designer suits and different badges from law enforcement and the like, he was good at getting into places he shouldn’t be. And he needed to be there immediately, before the general public started rumormongering.

Humans were
really
good at that shit.

“This doesn’t make sense.” Rifter spoke more to himself than to Stray, as Cain went to find Jinx.

The Were twins, especially Cain, knew what the Dires needed and offered fast help. They’d grown up a hell of a lot under Jinx’s tutelage, despite living with Vice for the past five years.

Then again, that was enough of an education for anyone.

“What—the heart shit?” Stray asked without raising his head from the computer. “No way it’s a Were.”

Weres didn’t take human hearts. That was another piece of mythology both Dires and Weres put out there themselves to confuse humans who continued to try to prove their existence. They were in a different class than the weretrappers, who actively tried to keep the fact that wolves did exist under wraps. Otherwise, their plans would be ruined. It was strange to have something in common with them.

But the humans who considered themselves paranormal experts, who hunted for wolves and vamps and other creatures, were a royal pain in the ass. There were entire websites devoted to sighting of these creatures—and of the Dires themselves, no doubt because some Were had decided to tell a human girlfriend things he shouldn’t have.

The Dires never spilled who they were to humans. Weres knew who they were instinctively. They looked different. Smelled different.

“Could be a rogue Were,” Rifter offered, but that was a rare occurrence. He hadn’t seen a true rogue since last century.

“Or a moon crazed one,” Cain said, with Jinx trailing in behind him. The wolf normally wore black leather. Today, he had on a custom made Italian suit with dark glasses, looking very much like a man in black, someone important not to be messed with.

“I think the bigger worry is, are the police going to want to question everyone at that bar?” Jinx asked as he read the article over Stray’s shoulder.

Vice tumbled into the kitchen then, naked except for a towel around his waist, his hair dripping wet. “It’s not like we’re on film.”

“The bartender offered the film from his video monitoring system both in and outside the bar,” Jinx read, and Rifter cursed.

“Clyde is an idiot,” Vice announced.

“And we’ll take care of him later,” Rifter said. “Right now, we’ve got to deal with this fast.”

“Cleanup duty,” Jinx commented, and Vice asked, “What the hell else is new for us?”

Jinx showed his CDC badge to the coroner, telling the man named Dave Olson, who’d been working for the county for thirty years, that he was investigating the recent murder as part of an organ theft ring.

If this really was a Were attack, Jinx would have to find a way to get this body cremated before the cops or FBI showed up to investigate this further. They might not if she ended up being the only body, but if it was a moon crazed, rogue wolf, the deaths wouldn’t end here.

“This way, Agent Sixx.”

Jinx had rolled his eyes at the newest ID Stray had made him, but the wolf liked eighties metal too much to bother arguing.

Now, he followed Dave down the sterile-looking hallway. Dave was the only coroner for several neighboring towns and was used to all different agencies invading his autopsies. Fortunately, he seemed to be of the belief that no one would enter a morgue unless they were truly there for a good purpose.

Jinx was thankful for small favors.

He’d been up all night, running the woods with Vice and the twins, and had just settled into his bed, prepared to wait out the daylight, when Cain came to tell him the news about the werewolf attack. Night was their time, along with other supernatural creatures who lived a sub-life right under the humans’ noses.

Now, he walked the halls of the morgue, the antiseptic smell mixed with decay stinging his nose. He forced himself to not look directly at any of the ghosts who floated by him no matter how hard they tried to get his attention. And that was pretty damned hard.

He’d been born with the ability to see those who hadn’t passed on. His twin, Rogue, saw spirits. Together, they made a good supernatural team, and without Rogue, Jinx felt like half of himself was always missing.

“Later, please,” he murmured to the ghosts, his voice barely audible, but that seemed to soothe most of them. At least it stopped them from tugging at his clothing and dive-bombing his head.

That was the hardest part of his ability. He couldn’t save them all without losing his mind, and so for the sake of his sanity, he concentrated on his current job of the day.

He’d come back here one night when this Were bullshit was all taken care of and help the others pass over.

When a person was killed suddenly—violently—his ghost was often earthbound. Confused. Occasionally vengeful. The way he died was often the way he came back. And if there was unfinished business surrounding him, the ghost would somehow find a way to let the live humans know what was going on. This morgue was a breeding ground for unhappy ghosts.

Dave opened the door to the room where the bodies were kept in storage until the funeral homes picked them up. The second Jinx walked inside, he spotted her, sitting in the corner, her pants and shirt stained and torn, her head down.

And a ragged hole in her chest where her heart should’ve been.

Some thought that ghosts were see-through. Corporeal. For him, that had never been the case, and he didn’t know if it was his ability combined with the fact that he was a supernatural being himself.

When Dave pulled the body out, Jinx felt the ghost stir and move next to him. He noted the name on the toe tag—Paula Sully. He turned discreetly toward her and nodded, his way of acknowledging her. Ghosts did not like to be ignored.

She didn’t move, even as she finally lifted her head and met his eyes. The familiar chill went through him as he went back to the task at hand.

“She looks like she’s midtwenties,” he said, turning back to her body, and Dave confirmed, “Twenty-five. We made contact with her mother—she lives in Albany. She’s coming down to identify the body, but her boss already did.”

“Who’s that?” Jinx flipped open a small pad and began writing the name and address of the man who employed Paula. His next visit would be to him, a Bill Sumner, who lived two towns over.

“The same idiot who was the anonymous source in the article,” Dave told him. “One of the police officers told me he runs some paranormal research center.”

Oh,
great.
“Wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall for that conversation.”

He bent down to take a better look at the body while the coroner unzipped the body bag. The first thing anyone would notice was the hole cut into her body. Her heart was missing, but it had been done clumsily, like it had taken whoever did so a great deal of time and effort.

If it had been an
other
—wolf, vamp—their power would’ve made the wound look like someone had cleanly punched straight through her body when they took her heart.

“Do you believe this werewolf crap?” Dave snorted. “Almost as good as the vampire report from last year.”

That had been a vamp killing, confirmed and quickly taken care of by the vampire society. But Paula hadn’t been exsanguinated. No, this murder had been long and painful.

“People live for the sensational,” Jinx said, his voice making it sound like he was bored as shit. “To me, an organ stealing ring is way more scary than any wolf.”

Dave nodded sagely, as if happy they were all simpatico on the supernatural stuff, and Jinx looked more closely at the body. There were slash marks all over her neck and arms, and she reeked of Were.

But the two things didn’t match up at all. Because these marks weren’t made by a wolf, although someone had gone to great lengths to make it look that way.

There was a hell of a lot more to this story. And Paula’s ghost was standing right next to him now, looking down at her own body, but she wasn’t talking. Normally, they didn’t shut up. Maybe she’d feel more like discussing things later, but at some point, he’d have to lead her into the light. Wandering the earth forever with no end in sight was a fate no one deserved.

He should know.

“Talk to me, sweetheart,” he murmured, when the coroner was out of earshot, and touched the body gently in hopes Paula would do something.

Instead, she turned away, confused. He sighed and rezipped the bag over her body.

“I’m guessing you’d rather me not tell the family what you suspect?” Dave asked.

“That would be best,” Jinx agreed.

“So you’re not meeting with the mom, then?”

He shook his head no. Meeting with a family in a case like this was always the worst—the human was usually sobbing, the ghost sitting next to them, confused and screaming that she was right there.

Sometimes, the ghost didn’t realize she was dead. Those cases were typically the worst. But Jinx had a feeling Paula knew exactly what happened to her.

Dave spoke, pulling Jinx out of his reverie. “Agent Sixx, is there anything else I can do for you? Got another autopsy to perform.”

“Have you seen any other bodies with this pattern recently?” he asked, and Dave shook his head.

“I can look through the database, though. See if anyone in surrounding towns found something similar. But you can probably do that as well.”

Stray could for sure—and was no doubt already on it. “Thanks for your time.”

“You know, that guy, Bill—he said she was out on a blind date for Valentine’s Day,” Dave called to Jinx as he started down the hall.

“Must’ve been a hell of a first date,” Jinx muttered.