Wild Card (32 page)

She was skirting the truth by a fair margin, but luckily none of them caught it.

“What part of your
independent investigation
would have brought you here?” Silas asked suspiciously. “How did you find out this belongs to us?”

“No one told me, if that’s what you’re asking.” Melissa coughed quietly. “This was just the next on my list of factories to check.”

“Explain.” Silas knelt down beside us and frowned at her.

I pulled Melissa closer. There wasn’t a lot I could do alone against Silas, but I didn’t want him threatening her. She’d had enough.

“Fertilizer dust.” She tried to lift her hands, but they were still tied. She gestured upwards with her chin and our eyes followed. One of the beams of sunlight passed a couple of yards above us, turning all the dust floating in the air into tiny, incandescent stars. “Some of the bodies dumped up in the mountains had traces of fertilizer, like you’d get from transporting it in a van used at a factory. Or if the killer worked at a factory.”

“But that wasn’t in the records,” I said, despite myself.

“The department didn’t want to include it,” she said. “Too remote a chance. Might be a false connection. Bunch of bullshit reasons. Not too remote for me. Been checking them all.”

“That’s crazy. There are dozens of these kinds of factories,” Silas said.

“What’s it to you anyway?” Ursula asked.

Silas edged closer.

I pushed them back. “Give us some space.”

“What it comes down to,” Bian’s voice cut through the tension that was growing again, “is this woman’s status. Is she part of your House, Amber?”

And part of Altau by association. Bian was verbally pushing them all back. The one thing that definitely would make them back off was the thought that they were stepping on Skylur’s toes.

Damn. Damn. Damn. I was being hustled into a decision.

My House or not?

I looked down at Melissa and my Athanate suddenly made my mind up for me.

“Mine,” I said, exasperated by the feeling of Athanate pleasure that gave me.

“Good,” Bian said. “You all can give us some time here for a few running repairs, then we’ll answer your questions.” She motioned them away.

Bain and I lifted Melissa gently to her feet. One of the workers motioned to the back of the building. “Restroom there,” he growled.

We just got her there when a door opened at the back and Doctor Noble arrived, pissed at not being called earlier and even more pissed that he’d had to postpone a consultation to find out what was going on.

“Jumped-up quack,” muttered Bian as we closed the restroom door behind us.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” I hissed in Melissa’s ear as I started to untie her.

“Just the job I was supposed to be—” she complained before I stuck my hand over her mouth, muffling the cry of pain from her bruised lips.

“Time for a few hard truths,” I whispered, “seeing as I’ve had to take you on board.”

She nodded carefully. There was still that look of satisfaction in her eyes. She was on a lead that was yielding big results. Forget that she’d nearly been killed. And they called
me
a crazy bitch.

I dropped my hand. “Everyone in this building, except you, isn’t human.” Her eyes widened, but the threat of my hand kept her silent. “Among other things, we have very good hearing. They can hear us outside if we raise our voices. And when we go back out, remember this: everyone will be able to hear how quickly your heart is beating. Everyone will be able to smell how nervous or scared you are. We’ll even be able to tell your reaction to a question. So avoid lying, starting now.”

I was watching her as she nodded again. Her breathing was rapid and her heartbeat was all over the place, which wasn’t surprising. She was scared. Well, she damn well ought to be.

“You lied about checking all the factories, for instance.” That worked like a slap in her face. “What made you come here?”

“Anomalies,” she said quietly.

I freed her hands.

Bian wet some paper towels and handed them over to start cleaning her face.

“Family-owned for over fifty years,” she explained. “Only just covering costs. All the other little independents like that have been bought out.” She tried shrugging and ended up wincing as she added ruefully, “Unfortunately, also the only one with someone on the premises, 24/7, as it turns out.”

“You’re telling me this is the only uneconomical, family-owned fertilizer business left in Denver?”

“No, there are ten. I’ve been checking one a week for the last couple of months. Testing the dust. No matches.” She cleared her throat, eyes flicking desperately between Bian and me. “Is this the…are you…are they all in it?”

“No. This isn’t a cult responsible for those murders. Or not that I know of. But if they really were killing them, they’d have just processed the bodies here, not dumped them out in the mountains.”

“You’ve blundered into something just as dangerous, though,” Bian said.

Her eyes went back to the door. “What—”

“They’re werewolves, okay? I can’t explain it now. Sometimes there are casualties and they can’t leave them lying around for forensics to have a look at. This is one way to dispose of the evidence. In the fertilizer, like you would have been.”

“Werewolves.” It wasn’t a question. It hadn’t thrown her. Even in her shocked state, her mind started working on what she knew about the cases and how this new fact might fit in. It was probably her coping strategy. The trouble was, her idea of werewolves was a product of modern entertainment. “But—”

Bian came and rested her chin on my shoulder. “Do we bite her now, or keep her to play with later?” she purred.

I could smell the elethesine hormone that triggers the Athanate changes, and manifests the fangs. From Melissa’s startled reaction, I knew that Bian’s fangs were out.

The question was why.

Bian loved being shocking, but the real message was for me. I’d been maneuvered into accepting Melissa as part of my House, and Bian was reminding me it was now my responsibility to ensure that the Athanate remained secret. Or she would.

“Oh God! Vamp—” Too loud. I shoved my hand over Melissa’s mouth again until she calmed down.

“Not vampires. Do not say that word out there.”

“But, the fangs… Oh! You mean they don’t know?” So much for never speculating. Her mind was leaping from the facts into the big blue sky.

“We’re Athanate, not vampires. Vampires don’t exist and the werewolves know that.” I sighed. “There’s a whole bunch of stuff you’re going to need to know, but for the moment, just say as little as possible.”

I felt Bian’s presence prompting me.

“And everything paranormal you find out is secret. So either you’re stuck in my House keeping it a secret, or we erase your memories. That’s not pleasant. It spills over. You might lose years of memories.”

That hit her. Maybe she shared my phobia—lose a little and how do you know how much you’ve lost?

“Stuck in your
House
?” she asked tentatively. She’d picked up it didn’t mean where I lived.

I nodded. Detailed explanation would have to wait: Bian tapped my shoulder and jerked her thumb at the door. Noble had finished his rant. Someone was coming over to check on us.

“We’re back on,” I whispered in her ear. “Say as little as possible, don’t lie. Yes, I’ve taken you on in my House. Think of it as my Athanate clan if you like. Your job is to do back-office investigations—forensics, databases, that sort of thing. Out there, you’re going to need to do exactly what I tell you, without question, to convince them that’s true. If they think it’s not true, their instinct will tell them to kill you. Understood?”

She lowered her head. Maybe the extent of what she’d gotten into was becoming a little clearer.

We walked her back to the waiting group.

Melissa had been wearing her glasses rather than her contact lenses. They’d barely survived the beating they’d given her. One lens was cracked down the middle. Silas handed them over and towered over us.

“Pretty eyes,” he said to Melissa. “Keep them that way. Don’t spy on us, don’t get clever, or I’ll rip those eyes out myself.”

I shoved him back. He moved, not as angry as I thought he might be. Doctor Noble, his own ranting aside, seemed to have had a calming influence on the group.

“Since you’re investigating, do you have anything new to tell us?” Felix said. He sounded almost reasonable now.

Melissa leaned shakily on me. “I don’t know how much of what Amber and I have discussed has been passed on yet,” she said, cleverly implying there was a lot in progress between her and me. “I don’t have conclusions. Background stuff? How about this: Unless the perp is just using something mechanical, he’s getting bigger and stronger over time.”

“What do you mean bigger?” Felix’s eyes narrowed. I picked up that was something he’d suspected.

“The test bites—”

I stopped her. “From the top, please.”

Melissa took a breath and steadied herself before rerunning the argument that the thigh bites were a test or demonstration of strength.

“And the damage to the bones shows both a bigger jaw and more force over time,” she concluded.

“Not a characteristic,” Felix said triumphantly, looking across at Noble. He’d gone quiet and just dipped his head to acknowledge, his mouth curving down thoughtfully. Silas and Ricky shook their heads. Ursula folded her arms.

There was obviously disagreement in the pack, but about what? And why hadn’t they told me?

Alex explained. “Weres come from mature humans. Weres don’t grow usually, and even when they do, it’s by very little. How much are we talking? Ten percent?”

“No.” Melissa had stopped shivering, focused on discussing her findings rather than her situation. “The progression shows an increase of at least twenty percent in size and at least thirty percent in force.”

“How do you mean, ‘at least’?” Alex queried.

“That’s the observable range in the bodies I have had access to, the newest of which is at least six months old. There’s no certainty that whatever made the bites was exerting maximum effort and, in fact, cleaner breaks in the more recent would be consistent with greater control of greater strength. Also, the force wouldn’t vary arithmetically by size, more…” She stopped, aware she’d lost her audience.

“Okay, bigger. Backtrack a moment,” Ricky said. “You said something mechanical?”

“I made a clamp to replicate the bite mark and measure the force.” Melissa shuffled her feet. “Until I get fresher evidence, I can’t rule out that it isn’t some psycho using a similar device.”

“So, it could be faked. And it’s grown,” Ricky said. “Were don’t do that. It’s not a Were. There’s no Call. No marque. We know, we’ve looked.”

“Well if you’ve looked like you’re searching for the Matlal Were, how do you know you haven’t just missed it?”

“What do you mean?” Ricky said.

“Your organization for your search is a freaking disaster. The Matlal Were have a comms system, and you use a bunch of cellphones. You’re all over Denver, with no ability to concentrate your force when you come across the Matlal Were. No one even knows who’s searching and who’s not. You got lucky on Monday and still lost people. You can’t even tell me if the Confederation are already in touch with the Matlal.”

Felix’s eyes darted to Bian.

I’d gotten carried away. The threat from the Confederation wasn’t meant to be shared with Altau.

“Oh, don’t worry, Felix,” Bian said. “They’ve already been to see us and we kicked them out.”

She spun on her heel in front of me, so her back was to the others. “We’ve got to tell them sometime,” she said, loudly.

“Huh?” Not my cleverest response.

Bian’s mouth moved silently. I read her lips.

You owe me, Round-eye. I’m calling. Just go along.

Oh, crap.
I shrugged. I had promised. After all, how much worse could it get?

Bian turned back to the rest of the group.

“House Altau has been forced into a corner by House Farrell. Since we’re fully committed throughout the rest of the country, we can’t spare teams to hunt for the remains of House Matlal in Denver. Organization of that task has been delegated to House Farrell.”

Huh, again.
But she hadn’t nearly finished.

“We asked, through House Farrell, if the Denver pack could assist her, and for your own reasons, you refused. House Altau is obligated to provide assistance to Farrell in Denver, and she’s used that to pressure us into hiring mercenary trackers who are skilled at the job.”

The pack liked that—the concept that I’d forced Skylur to do something. Hell,
I
liked that and I knew it wasn’t true.

“Bounty hunters?” Silas said.

“Yeah. No half measures. We’ve got two of the best,” Bian said. “I’ve arranged a meeting with them for you.”

“Why? What’s it to do with us?” asked Felix.

“Because this is an opportunity to work together. Amber’s already hunting the rogue for you and she’ll organize these hunters to go after the Matlal Athanate for us. I want the pack to add in the hunt for the Matlal Were. Even add in checking for the Confederation trying to slip someone into Denver. Get the full benefit of the hunters and the use of Amber’s military experience.” She hesitated. “Oh, and because these hunters…they’re Were.”

Chapter 33

“Airfields are always much colder than their surroundings,” I said. “I’m sure it’s been scientifically proven.”

“Even if it’s a disused airfield?” Bian said.

“Especially if it’s disused.”

“Well, blame the pack.”

Felix was still furious, but at least he was here. He and his enforcers formed a snarling knot around Silas’ truck, far enough away that we couldn’t hear the words, but close enough for the tone to carry. Noble had left to return to work. Alex paced halfway between the two groups, cell glued to his ear, trying to run his business remotely. Melissa was dozing in the back of his SUV. I’d thought about Bian doing healing on her, but in the end decided the bruises would serve as a good reminder.