The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (22 page)

A weak
smile parted his blue lips. “Alec,” he rasped. A softness began to grace his
face as he spoke Alec’s name. “He’s okay?”

“He’s
fine. He’s waiting for you. Desperate to see you.”

Ilene
looked around the room, and seeing a metal tray, thought of an escape plan. She
walked Jared to the door leading to the employee door. “Wait here,” she said.
She sprinted across the room, grabbing the tray on her way to the public door.
She opened the door, glanced down the hall, and then whipped the tray as hard
as she could toward the back of the building. It landed with a satisfying
clatter. She shut the door and sprinted back to Jared.

“Let’s
go.” Jared leaned on her—and he was heavy and slow—as they plodded through the
door into the hall. At the swinging doors, Ilene peeked through the window to
make sure the guard had left his desk. She pushed the doors open and, pulling
Jared along, ran as quickly and quietly as she could for the doors. The frigid
night air felt like freedom sliding across her face as she pushed through the
exit door. Jared staggered alongside her. Alec and Lucy leaped from the car.
Alec tore across the sidewalk, nearly plowing into them. He grabbed Jared in an
enormous hug, tears streaming down his cheeks. “We have to hurry,” Ilene
cautioned.

Alec
scooped Jared up in his arms, barely seeming to notice the burden, and raced to
the car. He slid Jared in and jumped in beside him, pulling the door shut as
Lucy and Ilene climbed in the front seats. Ilene slammed the car into reverse
and drove toward the exit without looking back. If the guard spotted them, she
didn’t want to know.

She
looked in the rearview mirror at Alec cradling Jared in his arms. Alec patted
Jared’s face and hugged him close. “I thought I’d lost you,” Alec kept
repeating in broken, fragmented breaths. Ilene felt her own tears streaming
down her face as she witnessed the love and overburdened joy between her son
and the man he loved. “We have to get him warm,” Ilene said, her voice
breaking. “We have to help him heal.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Carmen
lowered her camera and fell back in her car seat, silent. She took a few deep
breaths to collect herself. She squeezed her steering wheel to try to stop the tremors
racking her arms. But she could not control herself; what she had witnessed
demanded to be screamed into the night.

She screamed
at the top of her lungs and then collapsed onto the steering wheel sobbing.
Terror filled her and she wanted to flee, to rush home, pack up Mona, and just
run as far from the Runes as she could. She screamed again and smacked the
steering wheel. She glanced down at her phone, regarding it like a snake. She
grabbed the phone and hit play. Shaking footage—her arms didn’t stop trembling
the whole time—showed Ilene sprint out of the morgue with Jared.

I saw him dead. I saw the bullet
hole in his chest.

She
felt herself about to descend into hysterical sobbing and stopped. She clenched
her eyes closed and took a series of deep breaths. “You can handle this,” she
said. She looked down at the video on her phone. The screen glowed red as Ilene’s
flaring brake lights filled the screen. “What are you people?”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Collin
looked up from the textbook he was reading on his bed. The room was draped in
shadows, the only light coming from his bedside lamp. He asked Tony, “Have you
seen Mark since they took him away this morning?”

Tony
shook his head. “Nah. It’s got me freaked out, too.” Tony peeled off his
clothes and draped them on the end of his bed. Tony took a moment to admire his
physique in the mirror on the closet door. He did this every night, to see the
definition maintained by an aggressive daily workout. Collin had to admit Tony
was built. Collin looked down at his own thin arms holding his book. Tony slid
under the covers without saying anything else.

Collin
slung his legs off his bed, also giving them a scrutinizing review. He had to
face it; he was a beanpole. “Should we look for him?”

“It’s
almost lights out.” Tony dropped his arms heavily to his bed. “Maybe he’s in
his room. It’s not like they let us have cell phones to call each other.”

“Maybe
you’re right,” Collin concurred and sat back down. “What if we don’t see him
tomorrow?”

“We’ll
figure that out tomorrow. You worry too much.” Tony pulled the sheet over his
chest and rolled over, signaling the conversation was over.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Outside
the Cook County Morgue in Chicago, Vincent cut the engine to his motorcycle and
kicked the kickstand into place. He threw his leg around the motorcycle as he
hopped off. His thighs and ass ached from the ride from Las Vegas. And he was
tired. He had slept for a few hours here and there at rest stops but never a
full night’s sleep, never in a bed. And now he had to go free Griffin from the
meat locker. Vincent took a whiff of himself and grimaced.
I smell like a wolf.

The shadows
of buildings and leafless trees cascaded onto the street as the sun slipped
beyond the horizon. Vincent’s timing was impeccable. He was showing up at the
morgue as most of the employees left. At the reception desk, Vincent flipped
his sunglasses off and smiled at the receptionist. She looked delicious. “I’m
here to identify a body,” he said as if it was something he did every day.

“I’m so
sorry,” she recited, as if it was something she said every day. “Let me call
back to the morgue.” Vincent paced toward the vinyl-clad waiting seats. He
glowered down at them with disdain, smelling the sweat and tears of the
multitude of humans who had marched through the office. “You can walk back
now,” the receptionist droned. She pointed down the hall. “It’s right that way,
on the left.”

Vincent
pushed the door to the morgue open, and immediately he could smell the rot and
decay—and Griffin. A bright smile spread across his face, and he sniffed a
little deeper. Yes—Griffin was awake and waiting patiently. “I’m here to identify
a John Doe,” Vincent announced. “He got his throat ripped out by some animal,”
he added with completely inappropriate hand gestures to mimic the act.

The
coroner blinked at him silently, before saying, “Sure. Over here.”

Vincent
strolled behind him in a loopy, careless pace. The coroner pulled the door to
the locker open, and the smell of Griffin grew stronger. He rolled the table
out and pulled the sheet off Griffin.

“That’s
him,” Vincent beamed.

“Then
you can identify him?” The coroner asked perplexed.

“Sure.
Take a look at him,” Vincent instructed.

The coroner
turned his head slowly, knowing already that all was not well.

Griffin
popped his eyes open. “Boo.”

The
coroner jumped back with a start. He bumped into Vincent.

Vincent
shoved him, forcing him into the table where Griffin lay. The coroner recoiled,
as Griffin tossed off the sheet and jumped to the floor.

“What’s
the matter, doc,” Vincent jeered. “You look like you just saw a monster.”
Vincent grinned as his eyes flashed with rage. His canines protruded from his
mouth, and he laughed at his own joke.

Griffin
snaked his arm around the coroner’s head and covered his mouth with his hand. He
sank his teeth into the delicate flesh of the coroner’s shoulder. Griffin
closed his eyes in ecstasy as he tasted the blood and felt the vibration of the
man’s stifled scream against his palm. He jerked his head back, taking a
sizable chunk of flesh.

The
coroner fell to the tiled floor, shrieking, as blood pumped from his shoulder
and the white lab coat blossomed dark red. He crawled across the floor and
bolted to his feet. Grabbing a scalpel from a tray, he knocked other implements
to the floor, and they clanked noisily. “Stay back,” he cried.

“Oh,
stop blubbering,” Griffin dismissed. “I barely bit you.”

Vincent
flashed a winning smile at the trembling man. “See you on the next full moon,
sweet cheeks.” He turned to Griffin. “Speaking of sweet cheeks, I want to take
a bite out of that receptionist’s ass.”

“Do
tell,” Griffin said in mock formality.

Vincent
patted Griffin on the back. “It’s great to have you back.”

Griffin
halted abruptly. “How about a concert? I feel like hunting.”

The
next day, Collin finally spotted Mark at lunch. He nudged Tony as they stood in
line for their trays to be filled. They joined Mark, where he sat at an empty
table. “So what happened to you yesterday?” Collin asked as he sat. He grimaced
at the plate of food on his tray. All the food at the school was fairly
unidentifiable; today’s lunch looked like a beef casserole. Collin suspected
the main ingredient was horsemeat. It didn’t quite look or smell like beef.

“They
fucking locked me in a small room in the basement and tied me down to a goddamn
bed is what they fucking did,” Mark fumed. Several students looked toward him. Mark
mugged menacingly at the students who looked away. He cut his eyes back to
Collin and Tony, lowering his voice. “They gave me some shot to calm me down.
Are they allowed to just give us shit?”

Collin
and Tony looked at each other. They shook their heads. “I don’t know,” Collin
admitted. “Did they say what it was?”

Mark
shook his head. “Nope. But I feel like shit today. I’m hungry as hell too.”

“Is
that why you weren’t in class?” Tony asked.

Mark
nodded and shoved a bite in his mouth. “I had chills and sweats all night.”

“Is
this shit any good?” Collin pointed at the food he hadn’t touched yet. Mark
nodded, but Tony looked doubtful as he took a bite. He furled his lip in
distaste, and Collin shoved his tray away.

“I’ll
eat that if you don’t want it,” Mark offered.

Collin
shoved the tray to him. “What if you had an allergic reaction?”

“I
didn’t even think of that. I’ll sue these assholes.” He gave Tony a high five
across the table.

“You
feel okay now?”

“More
or less.” He lowered his voice. “I’m not gonna smart off to that bitch Ms. Ruhl
again.”

“I
thought you’d make a break for it after this,” Tony said.

“Got
nowhere to go,” Mark admitted with an amiable shrug. “My mom would run me off
if I blew this chance.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

More
than a week had passed since the night in The Fullerton Building, and Tristan
was finally bringing himself to upload his footage from the cameras to his
computer. His hesitation erupted from two dueling voices: one told him that he
did not want to relive that night; the other told him that the footage would
belie his memory, that they had been spooked by a stray dog having a litter. He
savored the memory of it, the delight of the low calm that effervesces after an
adrenaline high, once one reaches safety. He did not want his dream—that he
finally captured something supernatural—to be tainted. He held the footage like
a lottery ticket, the hope of winning too great to give up for reality.

Yet a
third vice chimed in when his memories of the night flipped to the footprints
in the dust. Ghosts don’t leave footprints, the voice told him. No, someone—
something
—had been with them that night.
Tristan sighed as he watched the footage loading onto his computer; he would
know soon enough. When the footage finished rendering, he opened all three
files, playing footage from each of their cameras on one of the three monitors
he had set up in his editing studio.

He
split his attention, screen to screen to screen, with the volume low. He
ignored the jumpiness of the camera work, marking good places for cuts and
checking shadows for anything he missed that night. Finally, the footage
reached the point when they heard the woman’s scream. He turned up the volume. Even
through speakers, her cries chilled him. The sound was as he remembered: not
fearful but agonized. He felt a little nauseas as the footage jumped around the
stairwell—stairs, the railing, a snippet of wall—as they all reacted, their own
cries added to the chaos.

The
footage blurred and bounced as they ran into the hallway. Kevin seemed to
forget his camera; the upside-down, out-of-focus footage showed the hallway.
Molly’s footage trembled, not quite angled on Kevin’s face. Footage from the
camera Tristan had mounted on his head proved the most consistent.

As he
poured over the footage, a very clear narrative formed in his mind. Tristan pieced
shots together from the various cameras, even using a split at points. In the
dim glow on the monitors, a bright smile radiated from his face. He knew he was
working on the best video ever posted on their blog.

Tristan
worked late into the night preparing the video for posting.