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booksabaking There had been better evenings in Jayla's life. Having to drag a semi-conscious, sobbing barely-adult back to her terrified friends had been all kinds of not fun, especially the part where she had to lie through her teeth. Better than leaving the girl in the dark about her close brush with danger-possibly-death, but it beyond sucked to know no one would be finding the 'black van' or 'creepy looking guy' they'd made up. There would be no resolution for the girl, only a life long 'what if', if things went well. If the vampires came after her again, who would save her then? Were there protection spells they could put on her?
Jayla and Vivian left when one of the girl's more industrious friends dragged in a beat cop from the street. They narrowly dodged having to give a statement. Jayla kept the guilt about that at bay by staying alert for possible ambushes as they made their way back to the mansion.
"She'll be okay," Vivian said, almost convincingly. She looked to be distracting herself by keeping in touch with Lisa and the rest of the pack. Texts flew back and forth, constant updates about what street corner they were on, how close they were to Sledge or home, and how no one had spotted any vampires. Yet.
Jayla did her best to keep lookout while Vivian texted. The only people they'd run across since they'd left the Diggs had been drunks and slightly less inebriated students, but the mansion was still out of sight.
In the distance, an ear piercing shriek started up. Jayla instinctively switched back to regular old human hearing, ears ringing painfully.
"The hell is that noise?" she asked Vivian, resisting the urge to cover her ears. Would be the height of stupidity if someone's overly dramatic car alarm kept her from noticing a vampire ambush.
Vivian froze, latest text half-written, eyes gone wide and mouth shaping a horrified 'o'.
Jayla waited for her to speak, bracing for bad news. The street they stood on was otherwise empty and well away from downtown, but vampires were fast and could probably fly. I really need the full edition of that How To Werewolf guide, yesterday.
The hellish noise kept on looping, uninterrupted.
Vivian set off helter-skelter down the road, repeating "Shit!" like a mantra, only interrupting herself to shout: "Whatever you do, keep to human hearing!"
Jayla raced after her, pushing to keep pace without crashing into a car or slipping on the ice hidden under the new snow. Vivian wobbled more than once but kept on her feet. She reached the mansion's front door ahead of Jayla. This close it was obvious the alarm came from inside the house.
Cursing up a continuous storm, Vivian dug through her gazillion pockets, scrambling for her keys.
"I've got you," Jayla said, digging out her copy of the house key, but Vivian waved her aside. Instead she pulled two different keys out of inner pockets on her jacket and opened a panel on the side of the door to reveal new keyholes.
"That," Vivian bellowed over the alarm, "is an amplified music box. Arturo must have activated it, which means the house is in lockdown and things have gone as wrong as they possibly can. Do not step on anything that looks like blood. Do not use werewolf hearing. Be prepared to fight anything that comes at you, all right? Punch anything that isn't Arturo, Jesse, or your cat."
Adrenaline back in full force, Jayla nodded and steeled herself. Maybe she'd get to fight vampires after all. Be careful what you wish for is in full effect, damn, damn, damn!
"Right behind you!"
"Stick close to me and watch your step. On three!"
One final twist of the keys and Vivian slammed the door open. Indoors the alarm went from ear-piercing to guaranteed tinnitus with a side dish of nausea.
"Arturo?!" Vivian shouted over the din. Jayla managed to join in with "Jesse? Ginger?"
She didn't hear any answers. She could barely hear herself think. The entrance hallway gaped empty; no blood, no bodies, no tracks of mud. Nothing but the skull-splitting shriek of the music box.
At the other end of the hallway, Ginger came rushing down the stairs. Jayla's feet carried her over to him while her mouth let out a sob of relief. She picked him up and hugged him tight. His fur stood on end in pure panic, but there was no blood or broken bones. One down, three to go.
Jayla read Vivian's lips more than heard her say the word, "Basement!"
She did her best to follow Vivian's lead, keeping an eye on every shadow. Ginger kept surprisingly still, clinging to her shoulder for dear life, leaving her little distraction from her own panic.
At least there kept being no broken furniture or smell of blood.
"Art?" Vivian kept calling all the way to the basement level. She didn't pause to listen for a reply, which made Jayla think she kept calling more to reassure someone. Maybe her, maybe herself, maybe Arturo if he lay trapped somewhere.
"Art? You down here?"
The basement's main hallway had two doors on the right and a second, narrower hallway that went off to the left about midway from the stairs. Vivian took a peak around the corner to this second hallway, hesitated, then backed up and tried the handle on the first door.
It opened.
"Oh my fucking god, Art!"
Vivian shouldered the door fully open and threw herself inside, Jayla hot on her heels. Arturo lay curled up on the floor next to an overturned computer chair, hands over his ears, knees pulled up to his chest, eyes squeezed shut.
He wasn't moving.
Vivian threw herself down next to him, but she didn't touch him. Instead she reached out and groped around under the desk next to the fallen computer chair.
Jayla stayed by the door, attention torn between keeping watch and trying to figure out if Vivian needed help. She was just about to ask what she should do when a soft 'click' echoed through the room, followed by the music box noise going silent mid-shriek.
The ensuing quiet caused a sensation akin to pressure equalizing after a deep dive; achy ears but worlds better than the outside force previously pushing in on you.
Jayla shook her head, the sudden lack of a klaxon drilling its way into her skull leaving her unsteady on her feet. On the floor, Vivian pushed herself up on hands and knees, her litany of curses having evolved into a soft mantra of "Please, please, please let that have worked."
Arturo still didn't move.
"Is he okay?" Skin wasn't supposed to be that gray, even for vampires, was it?
Vivian crawled over to grab one of Arturo's hands. When she touched it, it lost its death-grip on his head. His whole body went lax as if on command.
"I think he will be," she said, a fraction of tension bleeding out of her shoulders. "He'll be out of it for a while though. What the hell made you activate the music box alarm without precautions, you idiot?"
Jayla shifted Ginger to her other shoulder and swept a glance over the hallway outside. With the alarm gone the house stood eerily quiet.
"What exactly is a 'music box'? You keep saying it and I don't think you mean what I think it means."
"It's a witch thing." Vivian scooped Arturo up and carried him over to the nearby bed as if he were a small child who'd fallen asleep mid-play. That's when Jayla noticed the room served as both office and bedroom, likely Arturo's. If Jesse hadn't been missing still, she would have paid more attention to the books in the bookcases and the posters on the walls.
As things stood, she barely noticed the place had furniture.
"A witch thing?" Jayla echoed, doing her best to listen both to Vivian and to their surroundings. Only a week with super hearing and already she felt deprived when she couldn't use it. Jesse might be hiding upstairs, but there was no way to tell with her ears still ringing. Maybe she could try and track him by scent?
"Noise fine-tuned to stun people with better than human hearing, like us. Easier for werewolves to deal with than for vampires since we can turn ours off and on. Bonus of being a shifter, I guess. Pretty handy as long as you don't shoot yourself in the foot with it." Vivian gave the unconscious Arturo a meaningful glare. "Things must have gone all kinds of wrong for Art to activate that level of lockdown without earplugs."
Jayla nodded along, trying to funnel her scattered focused into listening. She kept hoping her failure to hear any signs of life beyond their talking and Ginger's worried purring was due to her temporarily only human ears.
Ginger seemed unharmed at least.
Vivian moved back over to the computer and started it. It came to life on a log-in screen.
"No getting past that until Art's awake. Wait another minute before you use your hearing fully, okay?"
They both jumped at a bang from upstairs.
"Hello?" came Melissa's voice from the floor above, quickly followed by Dorothy's, "What's wrong? Why was the lockdown activated?"
Vivian sank down on the bed next to Arturo, posture sagging from fight-or-more-fight to exhaustion. "Down here!"
Four pairs of footsteps ran toward them, one pausing to presumably close the front door and lock it.
"We need to find Jesse," Jayla said. The pained look that took over Vivian's face was both expected and disheartening.
"Yes," she said, hands curling into fists, grabbing at the bedsheets. "At least there's no blood smell."
You can die without bleeding, Jayla's brain unhelpfully supplied.
She managed to ducked out of the way of the oncoming stampede. Melissa led the charge. When she saw Arturo she let out a noise like she'd been punched in the face. Dorothy didn't do much better, stopping halfway into the room and clutching at her chest. Sledge was the only one to not freeze up. She strode over to the bed with determination, pulling small pouches from the plethora of pockets on her sensible dress suit.
"Where's the shapeshifter?" she asked, sprinkling strong-smelling flakes over Arturo's head.
"We haven't found him yet." Jayla knew she had to be hugging Ginger a little too tightly, but he wasn't complaining and she suspected she'd break down crying if she let him go. Not knowing was such a godawful feeling. "I was-"
"Jayla." Lisa appeared in the doorway, face blank in the careful way of someone who very much wants you to remain calm at all costs. "I think it's best you stay here and guard Arturo and Ava. We have a plan for how to search the house efficiently. Leave it to us. Please."
Direct and sensible. Normally Jayla might have argued being left out. 'Direct and sensible' were words that had made her howl at the moon long before any wolf bites, but this time that urge failed to rear its head. The thought of being the first to find Jesse's lifeless body sent all her senses reeling.
She buried her face in Ginger's fur and whispered, "Okay".
The house-search took an hour to complete. Jayla spent that hour in the now upright computer chair, petting a twitchy Ginger and watching Sledge mutter spells over Arturo. By the end of her incantations the room smelled of nutmeg and cinnamon.
As Sledge straightened up from her uncomfortable looking crouch at the end of the bed, Vivian barreled back into the room, startling all present.
"Sorry," she said, gaze flickering from Arturo, to Sledge, to Jayla, and back again in a loop. "Jesse's not in the house and the backyard reeks of vampires. We need to access the cameras."
Not in the house. No body. That...that might be good. Please let it be good. Jayla got out of the computer chair and kept a close eye on the stirring Arturo. He struggled to sit up, groaning like someone waking up after a night of binge drinking. Vivian quickly came to his aid while Sledge stood back to observe.
"He's awake!" Vivian called out, ignoring how this made Arturo flinch.
The rest of the pack came pouring back into the room, Dorothy armed with a water bottle and blanket that looked beyond cozy.
"Good to see you back with us," Lisa said, taking center stage as Melissa, Dorothy and Vivian gathered on the bed to steady Arturo. "What happened? Why didn't you let us know there was trouble?"
Arturo drew in a shaky breath and leaned heavily on Vivian. The blanket Dorothy draped over his shoulders completed the polio-victim-look he had going.
"Shapeshifter distracted me," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "Things went too fast. Needed to keep them from entering the house."
"The vampires?" Jayla heard Lisa ask, though she couldn't fully focus on it because had Arturo said Jesse had distracted him?
Cold dread settled in between Jayla's ribs. She could only listen on, numb, mechanically petting Ginger.
"Three of them," Arturo said, each word a struggle. "Backyard. Shapeshifter looked pretty friendly with 'em. Must have let them through the wards. I had to keep the basement safe."
This drew a mixture of prayers and curses from his audience. Jayla watched on as if it were a movie. She felt floaty, as tended to happen when your body distanced itself from your mind.
"Lucky for you we got here quick," Lisa said, glancing at Sledge. "The last thing we need right now is for you to become the first case study of long term music box exposure on vampire neurology."
"I'll be fine. Just need to catch my breath."
There was bickering. There was more damning descriptions of what Arturo had seen through the backyard cameras. There was general worry and fretting when Arturo face-planted as he tried to get out of bed to show them said video. Plans were being made for a second and third sweep of the house while he got well enough to stand up.
Through it all, Jayla kept to a corner of the room, desperately trying to process the situation.
Whoever the vampires in the video turned out to be, they couldn't be the same as the ones outside the club. Jesse's meeting with them had to have happened parallel to their parking lot stand-off, which meant yet more hostile vampires. Terrible. But as terrible as these news were, Jayla couldn't help but focus most on Jesse.
He'd talked with the vampires. He'd broken the wards. Why?
Arturo clearly believed Jesse was a mole sent by the vampires. The rest of the pack had jumped on that theory pretty quickly. But no matter how convinced Arturo looked and sounded, it didn't mesh for Jayla. Maybe she rejected it because Brandon's voice was back, pointing out how she was such a terrible judge of character. But she couldn't convince herself of that, not truly and fully.
Rational or not, her gut kept telling her there was more to it. The vampires hadn't been let inside the house. By the sound of things Jesse had done nothing to get at the magical stuff in the basement. Why hadn't he done that? Shapeshifters didn't have enhanced hearing. The music box shouldn't have affected him. Why leave the mansion without having a go at the grand prize in the basement?
She should wait. Wait to see the tape, wait to get more info on vampires, wait to hear what the plan was. Just like she should have waited to move cities until she'd secured a job and should have waited for the bus instead of cut through a park the evening Melissa bit her.
She'd always sucked at waiting.
It would be a good idea to stay put. But she couldn't. Jesse was gone and either a traitor or kidnapped. Sitting around and waiting to see how things turned out would be like putting her hand on a hot stove and keeping it there.
"Look after my cat for me," she told the semi-conscious Arturo, leaving an almost calm Ginger on his bed. Arturo didn't answer, but Dorothy gave her a grateful nod.
Good thing I'm not suspected of treason. For now. How did you put 'I really don't want my new friend to be evil and I'm worried you won't give him a chance to explain himself' into words without sounding super selfish?
Maybe she was being selfish. Maybe she was being a wonderful friend. Either way, the pack was moving far too slow and her thoughts were running a mile a minute.
There wasn't much thought involved in her next actions however. Mostly, it was impulse. Stupid, stupid impulse.
Lisa had left the bag with the scarf on the kitchen table. No one was guarding it. Jayla took it and a bathrobe from the stash in the chaise lounge. Going out into the backyard didn't set off any alarm bells either, which could mean she was being impressively sneaking or that the pack were letting her go.
I'm about to be either the best or worst friend.
The back porch had faint traces of Jesse's scent combined with three strangers' that trailed off into nothing. No way to track, like with the parking lot face-off. But she had another option.
A memorable attempt at skinny dipping had taught her that running while taking off your clothes sucked, so she kept them on until she got out of camera range. Heart racing, she ripped off her shirt and pants, leaving everything but the scarf and bathrobe in the snow. Shifting deadened the sense of anticipation, of expecting a hand on her shoulder any second, a voice calling out to her.
The dread returned full force once she had paws instead of hands.
Running was trickier while panicking and holding both a bathrobe and a scarf in her mouth, but she managed to at least not trip or stumble.
Jesse, you better be a good guy. She did not want to picture what her welcome would be when going back for Ginger if this turned out to be the proverbial Worst Timeline. At least the scent on the scarf was very distinct, a clear contrast to the bathrobe, trees and snow. Small mercies. The scent in the woods had faded, but it wasn't completely gone. With her nose to the ground like a blood hound, she caught a whiff of the same smell that permeated the scarf. A definite match.
Calm down and think. You're no tracker, you've barely been camping. There's no way this trail is clear enough to follow, especially not for a newbie like you.
The scarf belonged to the hunter, no doubt about that now. The vampires had all but said they were allied with the hunters. The vampires' hideout was unknown but she'd seen Sledge point out the hunters' barrier on the scrying map. She was pretty sure the hunter and vampire connection was an important key to all this. Find the hunters, find the vampires, find Jesse.
Or you're grasping at straws. Or Jesse's a hunter.
She choked back a growl of frustration. Screw it! She'd started this, she had to finish it. Either she was wrong and would get her heart broken up-close and in person while she (hopefully) got a chance to bring intel back to her actual friends, or she was right and would save a friend from whatever hunters and vampires did to shapeshifters. That's almost a win-win.
The scarf could, maybe, get her through the barrier. Somehow. Best bet I've got. Magic isn't logical. Snatching the bathrobe and the scarf back up, she set off south-ish, toward where she thought the camping grounds were.
If she was lucky, she'd not get shot.
The blood tasted rancid. Arturo clung to the tree, braced in his usual cradle of branches, and did his best to swallow the bitter, sour mess out of the cold plastic bag. It was barely edible.
Choking back the acidic aftertaste he let himself breathe and stared up at the night sky. Light pollution made it impossible to see any but the three brightest stars, but the cloudless dark and the tiny spots of light had serenity to offer still. Arturo let the cold seep into him, opening his jacket and removing his gloves. The empty blood bag he stuffed in one of his pockets, uncaring of the drops staining his trousers. It barely smelled like blood anymore. It wouldn't be an issue.
How could I be such an idiot? Of course the shapeshifter had been up to no good. Lisa's theory notwithstanding, anyone who showed interest in having their blood drunk had to be playing a long game. It had to have been a trap, all of it. Him 'randomly' meeting Jayla at that club, his 'interest' in offering blood and his…
Unbidden came the memory of the shapeshifter leaning on the fridge, perfectly at ease with a hand around his throat, close enough to kiss.
You fell for it. You fell for the whole act. What does that say about you?
He didn't have time to go back down that pity path. Not with this mess on their hands. The new girl had run off to, in Vivian's words, 'probably do something stupidly heroic'. Lisa hadn't put it as politely. How she'd pulled herself together to sweet-talk Sledge into aiding Vivian in her rescue mission was anyone's guess.
Arturo hadn't argued when Lisa told him to get more blood. The only reason Jayla had been able to slip away unnoticed was that the whole pack had been panicking about him. He refused to be more of liability than he already was. Also, he'd been close to feeding on Ginger.
New girl missing. One or two vampire groups invading Merrihollow. Hunters. A shapeshifter mixed up in it all. What an utter, terrifying mess.
No time to sit and mope in a tree. He should be able to walk now.
"I'm done."
Dorothy got up from her bench, a polite distance from where he'd been huddling like a starved crow. He couldn't make himself meet her eyes. She'd stolen blood from a hospital for him, agreed to sit in this park and wait instead of bringing him home, and he had no words of gratitude for her.
"We should hurry back," she said.
He nodded in reply.
Next time, he'd need to find a new tree.
The campgrounds looked like exactly that: campgrounds. Jayla had assumed the thick layer of snow would mean less campers, but apparently not in Merrihollow. That, or the place had a whole bunch of surprise guests.
There were patrols about. Armed patrols. Jayla's heart had cramped in her chest and then done its best to crawl up into her throat when she'd spotted them. Not helpful.
Keep your head on. Wait for them to pass. You'll be fine.
Hiding behind a clump of bushes had never felt so childish and futile. But to her relieved surprise the two men with gun holsters on proud display passed her by without as much as a glance in her direction. The advantage of going after hunters rather than vampires – no super hearing! Bet Arturo would have heard my heart pounding from across the camp.
Jayla had expected the hunters to be more, well, hunter-y. Then again, they were inside their 'barrier'. Maybe they were more on their toes outside of it?
Because there was a barrier. It surrounded the campgrounds like the glass of a snow globe and distorted the air in the same way water broke light. She doubted ordinary folks saw it but it was anything but subtle to her. One of the hunters had, casually and without flinching, pushed his arm through it as he and his partner had walked past her hiding place. The barrier had parted for him with a soft plop and reshaped itself when he withdrew.
Jayla dug her teeth deeper into the scarf and the bathrobe. She could turn back. She could, but she wouldn't. Worst came to worst she'd bounce off the barrier like a tennis ball and alert all hunters in the camp to her presence. If she'd understood Lisa's barrier explanation correctly.
She held her breath. She stepped through.
Anticlimactically, nothing happened. No alarm. No gunshots. Just her, continuing to sneak her way through the woods around the camping area.
This is such an impressively stupid idea! They've probably got traps and spells and all kinds of shit set up here. What am I doing?
Now that impulse had caved to semi-rational thought, the ram-shackled scraps of ideas she'd cobbled into a plan creaked ominously. The pack's mansion had more booby-traps than an inventive kid fighting burglars would rig. Even if this camp was temporary, a group of professional murderers had to have a whole catalog of ways to mess up intruders, barrier or no barrier. She'd likely get herself dead before she found any traces of vampires.
Can't chicken out this close to the goal. Well, she could, but then she'd be going back to the pack with nothing to show for her stealing the scarf and running off. She needed better results from this mad dash through the snow than 'you were right, the scarf gets you through the hunters' barrier' or she was sure she could forget about going back to the pack at all. She'd been kicked out of friend groups before for far lesser 'crimes'.
Eyesight thankfully didn't get too wonky when in wolf-form; either because wolf vision was no different from regular human vision or because werewolves worked differently from wolves. She wished she'd get the chance to ask Lisa for info on that later, but for all she knew the pack had already branded her traitor or too much of a loose cannon to be trusted near their home.
Stay on track! Way past the point of no return, the only way is forward.
While her eyes gave her no extra leverage in wolf-form, her speed, hearing, nose and lower position to the ground had to count for something in the stealth department, even when hiding from hunters. How long could she skulk around here though? Taking on people who killed werewolves as their day job (night job?) would be suicide. She couldn't dodge the patrols forever. What was the acceptable time limit for searching a hunter camp for traces of vampire?
This would be so much easier if I could ask someone for directions. Her tongue tried to loll out of her mouth on its own accord, in dog-like amusement. At least wolves kept silent when laughing hysterically at their own bad jokes.
She put her nose to the ground. Sorting through the scents around her took effort, not eased by the knowledge that she'd left a fine set of paw prints in the snow all the way from the pack's mansion. The hunters would spot them eventually – likely soon, unless she'd managed to keep well away from all their patrol routes. At least her nose and instincts helped her figure out where the heaviest human traffic had been in the past day or two, despite the new snow covering their tracks.
One of the scents pinged as familiar. It headed off away from the other human ones, in the opposite direction of the camp.
Was it...?
Putting the bathrobe and the scarf to the side, Jayla raised her nose from the ground and inhaled repeatedly, mimicking every hunting dog she'd ever seen on the silver screen; or the less silvery box of the television. This, surprisingly, worked pretty well. Instead of being a distraction the scarf turned into a good reference point, helping her sort through the information barrage. The vampire scent on the scarf was faint but the scarf's owner's all but overwhelmed.
Another mad idea hit her.
She doubted she'd be able to avoid the hunters' patrols much longer, but if her nose and instincts weren't barking up the wrong tree, someone who had to know the patrol routes was already keeping out of their way. Following in their footsteps could buy her more time to scout the campground for signs of a vampire lair.
It was a long shot. Getting too close to the person she'd be following could be as dangerous as the patrols. That hunter had been about her age, yes, but being young and seemingly new at a thing didn't necessarily mean you weren't good at it. Likelier didn't have to mean likely.
Jesse had said she probably was an apprentice. Hell, Jesse might know the girl. Fuck.
I've been gambling this whole time, why stop now? Better than curling up in a corner and crying or turning tail and running back empty-handed. Because if Jesse turned out to be working for a bunch of monsters she'd need to take a mental health week. Especially if this stunt of hers got her thrown out of the pack.
As if I'm a member. The wishful thoughts sure keep coming tonight.
This trail turned out to be crazy easy to follow, like when she'd sniffed out Ginger back at the mansion. Tracking must be one of the freebies you got when you turned wolf, along with the ability to walk on four legs without freaking out and getting super strong over night without breaking everything. Gotta ask Lisa if she's researched that. Might be able to give her data. Scientists like data, right?
The scent carried her away from the campground and farther into the woods. The wind kept helping her out, blowing right at her. Way too easy. She could be walking into an elaborate trap. She could at any moment be locked in a cage or skewered with spears.
Not a helpful train of thoughts! Getting off at the next station!
Voices and footsteps echoed in the distance, likely more patrols. She wasn't following any of the guards around though. If she interpreted her nose's signals correctly, she was following one person and one person only.
A big 'if' to trust her life to. Then again, when your entire plan was built of ifs you couldn't get too choosy about where it led you.
Thato does like to say that my weapons of choice are impulsive decisions and brutally open communication. Her brother hadn't exactly been giving her a compliment with that character analysis, but that didn't make it a lie. Play to your strengths.
Adrenaline rushes and a racing heart made going slow tricky, but she managed by focusing on the fact that sure death or imprisonment and interrogation were the other options. Not the part of a spy movie she'd wished to experience in real life. She'd much rather skip to the part where she'd saved the day and got to go drinking while looking ridiculously cool.
The worst speed-run of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon steered her imagination from spy movies, to general dangers, to death. Would her family ever find out what happened to her, if she died here? Would they have a body to bury if she died in wolf form? Would the pack explain what happened, in a censored type of way? She hoped they would, even if they thought she'd betrayed them. They seemed like kind people. They wouldn't make her family suffer because she'd made stupid choices.
Her target's scent grew stronger. The hunter must have stopped moving.
I'm a few trees away from a probable spear attack. Yay. She stopped and took another deep breath, nearly choking as new-old smells joined the background hum of the forest and snow.
Vampire. That was definitely the smell of vampire. Pink-haired vampire with entourage, to be exact.
Jayla's mind went blank. She stood frozen, hackles rising - another eerie sensation on top of a whole pile of eerie sensations - until the wind changed. She could still smell the hunter she was tracking, close by, but the vampire scent had died away. It hadn't been that strong to begin with.
Is this an 'oh shit!' scenario or a 'two birds one stone' scenario?
It was intel. She should hurry back and let the group know that pink-hair hadn't been full of it. Then again, she still had no idea where Jesse was. She couldn't track the vampires. And she could only hear one other person nearby. One other person that might have answers.
Her legs walked on before she'd fully decided on what she wanted to do.
Passing yet more trees and the barest hint of a path, covered by snow and marked with one set of recent foot prints, Jayla finally spotted her prey. Wow. Poor choice of words there.
The hunter in question sat on top of a boulder, staring off into the distance. In profile her expression was hard to read. She could be keeping her face carefully blank to not reveal her role as bait in a round of Catch The Werewolf or she could have gone this far from the other hunters to gaze into the metaphorical abyss.
Here's to hoping for the void! Jayla crouched down behind a mess of bushes and did her best to not freak the fuck out further. She put the bathrobe and the scarf down in the snow. This is going to get so cold.
Shifting back to human went quicker than changing into wolf-form, as if she'd hit a reset button. Her stomach growled at her, which was concerning, but no need to rip anyone's head off followed. She had confidence she could do one more shift before needing to eat, likely thanks to the transformation lesson she'd gotten from Jesse.
Her eyes began to burn, but not because she wanted them to glow. She dashed away the mounting tears with the back of her hand, then pulled the bathrobe on and picked up the scarf.
No more thinking about Jesse until I know if I should hate him or not. A pretty impossible task seeing as her whole stupid reason for being out here alone in enemy territory stemmed from wanting to rescue his ass. But the challenge of it was a good distraction from the discomfort of walking around outside barefoot.
Jayla stood stock still until her skin felt fully human and her feet had gone a bit numb. Unpleasant, werewolf fueled cold-resistance or no.
Jump-scaring a person likely armed with spells and silver via a tap on the shoulder seemed like a sure way to die. Therefore Jayla got up from her hiding place and called out:
"Hi, please don't kill me!"
She hadn't expected to send the hunter tumbling down the boulder.
"Uhm." Jayla slowly approached the fallen hunter, hands up and held in front of her to show how much she wasn't planning on ripping anyone's throat out.
The hunter sat on her ass and stared up at Jayla as if she'd come armed with a dagger, a bazooka, and an army of swans.
Forcing herself to talk despite her dry throat, Jayla managed a strangled, "Again, hi. Could we talk?"
The hunter's mouth opened and closed, a fish pulled up on dry land. Conversation looked to not be on the table for the moment. Best go with monologuing then or we'll be here staring at each other until her coworkers come along and kill me. Or both of us. Probably. Doubt hunters are cool with their own talking to the enemy if they're anything like your usual cult.
"Like I said last time we met, I'm Jayla. Wait, did I tell you my name? I honestly can't remember. At least I brought clothes with me this time."
She kept her hands up, shifting her weight from foot to foot to take a little of the chill off them. She'd transcended through panic and come out the other side to manic dazed glee.
"Should have brought shoes too, but you know us wolves, lacking in the opposable thumbs department."
More staring, more soundless opening and closing of the mouth. No weapons or spells yet. Yay?
"I'm going to take a piece of clothing out of my pocket now. Will that be okay with you?"
All she got in response was a frown. She decided to go for it. She managed to not drop the scarf despite her nerveless fingers.
"Did you give this scarf to the pink-haired vampire or did she take it from you?"
"What?"
A word! At last!
"This," Jayla held the scarf up higher and gave it a gentle shake, deciding to soldier on. "This is yours, isn't it? It smells like you and it got me through your barrier. So. Yours?"
The hunter got to her feet as slowly as Jayla had approached her. Another possible good sign. "Where did you get that?"
"While reenacting West Side Story in a parking lot. It is yours, right?"
"...yes."
Okay, we're talking without stabbing. Good enough. Jayla lowered her hands as carefully as she could force herself to.
"You wore it when you were sneaking around my friends' home and then I found it in the hands of a vampire. Still not quite over that they exist. I'm even less over the fact that they had your scarf and said they're your buddies. You follow?"
The hunter kept by the boulder but hadn't pulled out any weapons or crouched into a defensive stance or anything. The power of the monologue!
"I dropped that," the hunter finally said, looking far too normal and confused (and kinda cute in that combat-trained way that Jayla really shouldn't be noticing at a moment like this). "I lost it on my way back from your den. What makes you think I'll believe you got it from a vampire? Why would you think I'd fall for a lie like that?"
What's with the 'den' label? I mean, wolves, yeah, but has an actual werewolf ever called their house a den? They do call each other pack, but- Shaking off that distracting line of questions, Jayla said, "Don't you have like a truth spell you can use on me?"
"A what?"
Still no stabbing. Or shooting. Or silver spear spells. She had to be doing something right.
"I could smell the vampire I got this from on my way over here. They've been in or near your campgrounds, less than an hour ago." All right, the time estimate was pure bullshit but it sounded good. Might come back to bite her in the ass though. Damn.
She may have said that last bit out loud too. Extra damn.
The hunter squared her shoulders and crossed her arms over her chest. She would have looked intimidating - more intimidating - if her clothes hadn't been flecked with snow, getting soaked through by the minute. She looked like a kid who'd taken a tumble down a hill and now was fiercely pretending none of that had happened and daring you to say anything about it.
"Right," the hunter said after a far too long pause. Jayla's toes had gone fully numb. "So what if there were vampires near our campgrounds. What's that to you?"
Bit of a curve ball there. "They kinda bragged that you had their back. I'm super new to this, so stop me if I'm wrong, but aren't you people supposed to murder vampires?"
"We don't murder anyone!" came the hunter's far too swift reply. A pledge of allegiance at school level of brainwashing response.
"Is that assassin double-speak?" Jayla curled her toes, desperate to get life back in them. If she needed to run soon numb toes might mess up her transformation. Or not? What would running in wolf-form feel like with her paws half-dead to the world? "I'm pretty sure that if you chase someone down and kill them, that's murder. In all fifty states."
The hunter let out a noise between a pained moan and a frustrated curse. She kept her back to the boulder. No sudden movements.
"H-how are you doing this?" the hunter all but croaked.
"That's a super vague question. Doing what?"
"Talking!"
Jayla literally jumped and took a step back. She'd seen people on the edge of a breakdown far too many times; standing too close to one who surely had a knife or five on them was a bad idea. Someone must have heard them by now, but she couldn't make herself run. Not with that stupid question unanswered!
"I've known how since I was a toddler. Why the hell wouldn't I be able to talk?"
Another keening noise from the hunter. Her gaze remained steady on Jayla, but her shoulders shook.
"You're a werewolf!" she stage whispered.
"Thanks for noticing?"
"Werewolves don't talk!" the hunter said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world instead of the clearest lie Jayla had heard all evening.
"That tells me you know less about werewolves than I do and I've only been one for, like, a week." Jayla took another step back, eyes and ears more on the woods around them than on the hunter. "Skip class a few times too many? I'm not judging! Never finished high school myself."
The hunter, who unlike Jayla was dressed for the winter weather, pulled up the hood of her jacket. Jayla flinched, then grimaced at her own jumpiness. Why wasn't she running yet? What was that noise? Was that a branch breaking? Were they surrounded?
"You're scared of me."
The hunter said it with such disbelief Jayla almost laughed out loud. Almost. She had some impulse control, foremost when faced with immediate certain death, thank you very much. Threats of bodily harm and only probable death apparently not so much however, or she wouldn't have been in this mess to begin with.
"Wow, you've only noticed that now?" She clung to sarcasm like a life preserver. "Why wouldn't I be scared of you? You're a hunter! Doing what I'm doing now, a-k-a being very stupid and walking in to your 'territory' all on my own, is basically like signing up for private cooking lessons with Hannibal Lecter after stepping on his toes. Last time we met, you tried to stab me! With silver spears!"
She paused for a steadying breath and to try analyzing the mixture of shock and something in the hunter's expression.
"That's what that spell was meant to do, wasn't it?"
"It was," the hunter answered in a low, remorseful tone.
Another truth point to Jesse! Speaking of which, "Okay, second question: Did you kidnap my friend?"
It was the hunter's turn to flinch. "W-what? Who? Why-"
"About yea high, green and blue hair, last seen wearing a leather jacket and a smirk?" Jayla cut in, steamrolling over the hunter's squawked questions. "You saw him with me, but he looked like a gray wolf at the time, and he could honestly be anything by now."
"Anything?"
Jayla paused. Could he?
"I think? I don't know if there's a size limit. I think he can turn into other people, but I've not actually seen him do that. Just changing height and the wolf thing." She groaned at herself. "Man, I've got to start actually asking all the questions I hoard inside my head when someone can answer them."
The hunter started tugging at one of her sleeves in what might be a nervous tick or a preparation for a spell. Jayla made ready to transform and dash.
"You're friends with a shapeshifter?"
Not sure where to look and nerves a frazzled mess, Jayla went on word-vomiting, "I hope I am. It's either that or I've been bamboozled by a vampire minion. Which would suck since he's great fun to be around and I want to know what his D&D character's backstory will be."
The waterworks were coming back online and she did all she could to stave them off. No way was she breaking down crying in front of a hunter. Not even a cute hunter. Nope.
"Did you say 'bamboozled'?" The hunter stopped tugging at her sleeve and instead covered her face with her hands. A surprising move if she thought of Jayla as any kind of threat.
"Actually, scratch that, did you say D&D character?" Under her breath she whispered, too quiet for a human to hear but not quiet enough to avoid the ears of an adrenaline-fueled werewolf, "What the fuck is going on?"
The hunter could be a child prodigy for murder and an excellent actor. She could be, but Occam's Razor gave a ring and pointed out the likelier answer; they were both equally out of their depths.
Think I'm at the end of this thread. Also at the end of the trying-not-to-cry thread. This had been a completely terrible idea. She was such an idiot!
"Right, it's been terrifying talking to you. But I should get back to my friends. Well, the people who might now hate me for going here and telling you all that."
She put her hands on the bathrobe belt, pushing her hearing to its maximum capacity to make sure no one had approached while they had their heart-to-heart. Only distant voices and footsteps flew about along with the wind and faint traffic noises.
"This night has been fucking something all right. Just, eh, keep an eye out for vampires? And if you see my friend, free him? At least don't hurt him? Please?"
"Wait!"
Jayla very much didn't. Before the hunter could do more than shout, she'd shifted to wolf-form, snatched up the bathrobe, began running, scrambled to a halt, bolted back for the scarf, and rushed off again.
Behind her, slowly but surely, more shouting voices joined the hunter's.
The dizziness had tapered down. The bad taste hadn’t left his mouth, but that could be ignored. He had to deal with the security tapes, then he could collapse in bed and work on getting over a whole week of terrible decisions.
"Art." Melissa appeared out of the living room, pallid and sluggish as if she'd recently finished an all-night study session. "Are you okay?"
"I've had blood, if that's what you're asking."
Dorothy had needed to carry him to the hospital, which would have been embarrassing if he hadn't been busy clinging to his self-control by the skin of his teeth. He might be a bit unsteady on his feet but Melissa had to see the improvement.
"I'm asking if you're okay." The sentence had an obvious silent 'please don't be an ass about this' tacked on at the end. "Do you want to talk?"
"Later." He put his hands up before she could move in to hug him. She deserved better than having to mind his angst. "Please. I just want to sleep. Can we talk later?"
Melissa deflated which was another terrible look on her.
"Yeah, sure." She drew back into the living room, probably to join Dorothy in keeping an eye on the backyard and the new girl's clothes, which Dorothy had folded neatly and put on the sofa.
"Call if you need anything."
Arturo managed a grunt in affirmation. He could hear Lisa downstairs in the lab, muttering to herself. Vivian...
Sledge better have given her all her best talismans. He prayed she'd caught up with Jayla and that they were heading back.
Worst night in seven years. That's a terrible record to break.
His bed called to him, but he managed to redirect himself to sit down at his main computer. It spoke volumes that Lisa hadn't nagged him for his passwords even once tonight. If there had ever been a time to point out the flaws in him having sole access to the security feeds, it would have been now. Yet not a peep.
He still believed it was safer for only him to know the codes. That way they'd know who'd been compromised should they get bypassed. All the same, he'd likely give in to her demands. Tomorrow. He had one final thing to wrap up, then he'd pass out in bed.
The video program came to life as soon as he logged in, autoplaying the video it had been left on.
Best watch all of it with actual words. Dread mounted at the back of his throat. He did his best to strive for numbness. He needed to stay objective until he'd finished watching.
The first seconds of the betrayal had already etched themselves into his memory. Seeing it again gave it an air of theater, of falsehood in how exactly it replicated itself; the shapeshifter smiling at the vampires, them sidling up to him with graceful ease.
Something was off. The silent conversation happened the same as last time, of course, because it was a recording, but there was something in the shapeshifter’s face. A flinch? Maybe?
Hunger-induced hallucinations are for when you haven't had fresh blood. Though the 'freshness' of said blood was up for debate. Might have been a worse batch than he'd thought.
Getting the audio working took longer than it should. He kept self-sabotaging, double-checking settings, backtracking through the files, drawing things out as long as possible.
Just get it done! He clicked to replay, bracing himself.
The video started over. The vampires moved across the backyard. The shapeshifter nodded at them.
"Well well, look who's stopped hiding," the lead vampire called out, her voice low and amused. It had an off-quality to it that Arturo couldn't place but it made him nauseous.
The shapeshifter, leaning on the back porch railing, answered, "Hi. You're on Candid Camera." Smiling, calm as you please.
"We know."
The same saunter happened. Arturo kept a close eye on the shapeshifter, wishing there was a way to zoom in on a recording. Blurred pixels would tell him nothing.
"Bold of you to stand around out here, little thief. Would you like to see how fast I can break your neck?"
A new kind of dread began to make a nest in Arturo's guts.
"Do we really need to fight? I'm sure we can come to some form of agreement."
The leader let out a chuckle, now audible as well as visible, and looked around at the cameras, very deliberately. The shapeshifter angled his body in her direction, also as before because again, recording. Which made it all the harder to take in that yes that was definitely a flinch on the shapeshifter's part when the leader stepped closer to him. As open as his body language remained, as steady his smile, it was not at all the same welcoming vibe he'd been putting out when it had been Arturo in the vampire leader's position.
No, this couldn't be right.
"Tell me," the leader said to the shapeshifter, crowding into his personal space, "what made you come out here to face us? Without the wand you took from us no less. Here to bargain for a better position? Already tired of living with dogs? Their vampire draining you dry?"
This was the moment the shapeshifter bared his neck to her, his words making the movement seem more defiant than like an offering, "You seem to have gotten some wires crossed, love. Do I look anemic to you?"
"Your kind heals plenty fast. I bet you could feed my whole family and survive it."
Another barely-there flinch from the shapeshifter.
"Shall we give it a try?"
"Better get to business instead, don't you think? I'm willing to negotiate terms for its return, but you won't find the wand here. Sorry for the trouble. Must have taken you some effort getting around the wards here."
Arturo forced himself to take in every faint shiver, every tremble in the shapeshifter's voice. As good an actor as he was, his tone betrayed him; the man was terrified.
Another chuckle from the leader.
"Honey, you should know better than to try and bargain with us." She crowded yet closer, mirroring the shapeshifter's smirk with a sharper one of her own. "Thought you could get away with it, didn't you? Bet you were surprised we had allies who can track shifters."
"Hunters don't like anything 'unnatural'." The shapeshifter had to lean his head back to look the vampire in the eye, somehow forcing his posture to remain relaxed and at ease. Only his voice kept giving him away. "You're playing with fire, lady."
"Don't you worry your pretty little head about that. Lucky for you, I'm a decent sort. I'm going to give you a choice." The vampires' leader reached up and caressed the shapeshifter's cheek with the back of her hand, a gentle and soothing gesture that turned out anything but. Arturo's stomach twisted. "You can come stay with our family or I can find a good place to leave you for the hunters to find. I'm sure they've got use for you in their little witch-broths. Either way, you're coming with us."
This was the point where the shapeshifter leaned up to whisper in the leader's ear. The microphones barely picked it up, but Arturo caught the "Go fuck yourself," well enough.
The music box started up.
Arturo shut off the audio. The edges of his vision growing dark, he watched through the forming tunnels as the vampires in the video flinched and backed away from the house. The shapeshifter shimmered faintly, but before he could finish whatever transformation he'd planned, the vampires' leader wrapped her arms around him and they were gone.
The back porch stood empty. Accusingly empty.
"Lisa!"
Arturo didn't realized he'd called out for her until she threw the door to his room open, lab coat hanging off one shoulder.
"Are you hurt?"
"No." He kept his eyes fixed on the screen, started the video back from the beginning. "You should watch this."
He left her with the video and shuffled out of the room. He needed to think. Or maybe just disassociate for a bit.
They were on her the second she exited through the barrier.
How many times in a month can I end up running for my life? Going for a new record! Apparently gallows humor was an integral part of her coping with approaching death. A fact she wished she'd never had the opportunity to learn about herself.
Five people followed her. No one shouted for her to stop. No one spoke. No sound cut through the evening air but footsteps, the unnaturally quiet gunshots that sprayed around her, and her own panicked breathing.
At least Melissa had the decency to pant and snarl when she was doing the chasing!
Zigzagging seemed the thing to do. Heart in her throat, Jayla weaved in and out of the trees. She could outrun them. They were only humans. She could-
The rumble of an engine starting up made her choke on a whimper. She couldn't outrun a car, but cars couldn't drive between the trees. She'd need to stick to the woods, take the long way back to the mansion, lose the hunters and get within the mansion's wards. If the wards would let her through now.
A nearby tree took a hit from a bullet, raining splinters over her. She sped up. So did the engine behind her. It was gaining on her.
Fuck, it's a bike!
Jayla desperately tried to speed up. But try as she might, the roar of the motorbike grew closer and closer. Her jaw ached around the bathrobe and scarf but she couldn't find the will to drop them. She tasted blood. Had they hit her? You could get shot and not feel it, couldn't you? She thought she'd read that somewhere, but it could be a random factoid from the Wild West of the Internet.
She tried not to think about her family. Tried not to picture her parents, crying at her possibly body-less funeral, or forever wondering what happened to her.
Bared fangs and low growling barreled past on her left. Possibly. Terror could make you see things, that definitely was a fact.
A shout from behind her. The roar of an engine. A faint popping sound. She didn't stop to examine what they meant or if they were real. She kept running.
She crumbled like a paper doll when another body knocked into her at full speed. The snow wasn't as cold with fur on and it cushioned her fall. She couldn't make herself get up again. Am I dead? Is this how I die?
"Ack! I'm so sorry I took so long to get here! And for tackling you. Are you okay?"
Jayla blinked up at Vivian. This wasn't how she'd pictured their next meeting going. More clothes had been involved at least. All Vivian had on was a leather string with a crystal dangling from it. Had she been wearing that before?
"Don't shift back," Vivian said, barely above a whisper. She knelt in the snow, which had to be even colder than having your feet in it. "Are you hurt? We need to get farther away from here, but first I need to know you're okay. Can you nod?"
Jayla managed a weak nod, too stunned to do anything else.
"Good. I think I slowed them down but let's not take any risks." Vivian reached out and ruffled the fur of Jayla's neck, like you'd do to calm an injured dog. "You scared the shit out of us, running off like that! You want to come back to the house?"
Was she welcome back? Vivian did look genuinely terrified which didn't suit her. Then again, who the hell did that look suit? Terror should never be in fashion.
Jayla made herself get up and nodded again.
"Great." Vivian stumbled onto all fours and took hold of the bathrobe Jayla finally had dropped. "I'll keep hold of this and you take the scarf. We can talk when we're back home. You ready?"
The rest of their escape passed in a blur.
Jayla leapt the fence around the mansion's backyard and barely stuck the landing, all four legs trembling. The clothes she'd left behind were gone. From the smell of things, fetching them had been a joint effort between Vivian and Melissa.
Wondering if she was about to be greeted by one of those dramatic scenes where you got all your things thrown at you from a balcony, Jayla approached the mansion with utmost caution. At least they wouldn't throw Ginger at her. They might keep him if they thought her a poor mom to him, which she probably deserved, but they wouldn't hurt him. She took small comfort in that.
This tension broke when Melissa came rushing out onto the back porch and all but threw herself over its railing, shouting, "You're back! Are you hurt?!"
"Get your ass inside!" Vivian shouted up at her after a quick shift. She sounded as close to crying as Jayla felt, though more stoic about it. "We're fine!"
Jayla followed behind Vivian with continued hesitation. Melissa took hold of the ruff of Jayla's neck, a gesture of 'please follow me' rather than an attempt at manhandling. Having a steady shoulder to lean on, so to speak, would have set her crying if she hadn't been a wolf.
The whole mansion smelled of nerves.
Vivian took up post by the panorama windows in the living room, coiled like a spring. The voices of Lisa, Arturo, and Dorothy drifted in from the dining room, but Jayla couldn't focus enough to hear what they were saying, only that they sounded upset. Melissa all but vibrated with terror.
Not caring about propriety any more than Vivian, Jayla spit out the scarf and shifted back to human.
"What's happened?"
"We were kinda mostly wrong about Jesse, and it's very, very bad." Melissa was as out of breath as her, though close to hyperventilating rather than coming down from a long run.
Relief and fear crashed into each other, leaving Jayla dizzy from more than lack of oxygen.
"What do you mean?"
Vivian tensed further. Seeing her clothes on the couch, Jayla began struggling to get them back on, trying to both survey the living room and keep Melissa's face in view at the same time. This resulted in more dizziness and anxiety.
"The vampires took him. They aren't allied with him, they kidnapped him! Because he's Ava's artifact fence."
Stuck with her t-shirt halfway on, Jayla choked on air. "Say what?"
"Yeah, what the fuck?," Vivian shouted in her ear, suddenly there to help pull at Jayla's uncooperative t-shirt. "This is insane! I thought Jayla running off was enough chaos for today."
Jayla allowed herself a teary-eyed chuckle at that, because this was getting to be far too much. She wasn't sure she could take any more revelations about Jesse.
"I'm sorry for sneaking out on you again," she managed to mumble before she forgot.
"You snuck out on us to be all brave and noble. Plus, you left your phone and cat behind," Vivian said and gave her a slap on the back hard enough to qualify as a Heimlich maneuver. "We can talk about that later. Melissa, tells us everything!"
"The vampires who've been messing with us used to own the wand Ava got Lisa. Jesse took it from them, gave it to Ava, and the vampires allied with the hunters to find Jesse." Melissa paused to gasp for air. "I can't believe we've been sitting around here not doing anything after vampires snatched someone off our porch," she whispered, hands clenched in her hair. "We're the worst."
As soon as she was fully dressed, Jayla got hold of Melissa's hands.
"Hey! Hey, look at me." Gently untangling Melissa's hands from her hair, she continued, "You're not, even by a long shot. You don't know Jesse and me from Adam, right? He could have told us he knew Ava."
She tried very hard not to dwell on the fact that Jesse might not be-, that Jesse might-, Here come the waterworks again.
"The people who took him, they're the bad guys, alright?" She choked back a sob. "We've got a whole team to go get him back with. The vampires won't know what hit 'em."
Melissa, eyes shining, sniffled and said, "Yeah, okay. We'll kick their asses into next Friday."
"That's the spirit!" Vivian crowed, already heading toward the dining room. "I better get to kick ass before the sun comes up. Let's go plan a rescue mission!"
Arturo couldn't make himself breathe, much less move, as Jayla recounted her mad adventure over at the hunters' campground. He wasn't alone in that regard.
"You talked to her?"
Jayla shrugged, not meeting anyone's attempt at eye contact.
"Stupid, I know, I know. It wasn't the plan - I didn't really have a plan - but I couldn't pass up the chance to figure out if they had Jesse. I kinda wanted to bring something of use back other than 'Yup, the vampires were at the camp at some point'." She squirmed in her seat. "I miiiight have been reacting more than thinking because I really didn't want Jesse to be a double-agent for the bad guys. I was mostly thinking with my feet. Paws."
Lisa heaved a sigh that could have powered a hot air balloon. "I wish you would have confided in us before you left. But I understand your actions. I'm also glad you're unharmed."
Pushing off the wall she moved over to Jayla's side and laid a hand on her shoulder. She gave her a smile Arturo knew all too well; it was her 'I'm not the boss of you but please go to me for advice next time' smile.
"What you did was insanely brave and the information you've brought back is valuable. We're incredibly grateful for it."
"And only a little mad we didn't get to come along right away," Vivian added. She slumped in her chair, her upper body half-laying on the table.
"It's a good thing you followed instead. You'd have challenged that hunter to a duel the second you saw her." Melissa gave a nervous laugh and sent an exaggerated wink Vivian's way.
Worry for Melissa needled at Arturo but he couldn't make himself embrace it. Not when everything around them was going to hell in a hand basket. He couldn't even make himself go to the kitchen, to stop Dorothy from starting up a third batch of cookies. Nailed to the spot, that's what he was. Again.
Vivian shrugged.
"Fair. I did get to knock one off a bike with Ava's neat shock talisman." She drummed her fingers on the crystal still around her neck. "I'll take that as consolation prize. For now."
"I fear you'll soon have ample opportunity to brawl." Lisa adjusted her glasses and took a seat by the short end of the table. She had all her 'take charge' signals on full broadcast. "Based on how that young woman reacted to Jayla's news, we can make an educated guess that not all hunters have been informed of the vampire alliance. That said, they're working together on some level or the vampires are risking life and limb to make it look that way. I trust your nose, Jayla. We need to figure out what they're aiming for, in case it's more than the wand and our deaths. We also need to find where the vampire coven is holed up."
"We'll need to get Ava back here," Vivian said in a monotone that revealed she knew it was the sensible thing to do and hated it. "No use running around town looking for vampire nests. That's probably exactly what they want us to do, leave the house unguarded again. They know to prepare for music boxes now."
"Earplugs will only get them so far." Lisa weighed on her chair, which Dorothy thankfully wasn't there to witness, and frowned at the ceiling. At least she hadn't put her feet up on the table. "We're going to have to plan this carefully."
Arturo curled in on himself. "Any news from the network?"
"No one in range of us. We could get more backup from Seong-Jin, but we'd have to wait at least three days. Ava's people won't be here until tomorrow." Lisa glanced at the wall clock. "Correction, this morning. But I doubt Jesse has that long."
Arturo could all too well picture what the vampires likely were doing to him, or what the hunters were doing if the vampires had followed through on their threat. Yet he couldn't find it in himself to fully let go of his suspicions. The shapeshifter had entered their home without fully disclosing who he was. He'd gone into the backyard for seemingly no reason. This could still be an elaborate trap. The terror could have been the play-pretend part, the acting.
Or maybe that was just wistful thinking, to assuage his own guilt. He honestly couldn't tell.
"Better arm ourselves with all we've got." Vivian rolled up her sleeves. "The second Ava gives us the all-clear I'm punching vampires!" She paused. "Should we update our wills?"
Jayla cut in, her eyebrows raised to brush against her blue hairline. "For those of us not in the know, exactly how bad can this get?"
Lisa took off her glasses to unnecessarily clean them. "We're not going to lie, this," a sharp inhale through teeth, "could get pretty bad. We will be in danger. It's-" She switched tracks less than smoothly. "Most of our kind are, as I've said, rough types. Very few of us know the people who made us what we are today. I woke up in a log cabin after a hike, with only a handwritten note with the word 'Sorry' on it for company. Luckily I ran into Dorothy soon after, and made a few other connections. Together we figured out how to be werewolves without being monsters, to put it crassly."
Arturo appreciated the crassness. It was almost enough of a distraction to help him deal with where this conversation was heading.
Vivian put her hand up, like a student embarrassed they knew the answer to a question. "That bar fight gone crazy I mentioned, three years ago."
"Ambushed by a gang, in February," Melissa whispered, blinking rapidly, eyes on the floor.
"I saw Arturo's assailant, but was too slow to stop her."
Arturo could feel Lisa's gaze on him, but he kept his eyes on Jayla. He had to look crazed, staring at her so intently, but all her attention in turn was on Lisa, so he didn't bother looking away.
"Seven years ago, give or take a few weeks. In short, we've all either been left at loose ends or had to be rescued."
Arturo was sure he'd turned as green as Melissa. Vivian had a black look to her eyes that spoke of smashed furniture and knocked out teeth in some establishment's future. Thankfully Lisa had enough presence of mind to not bring up Dorothy's turning. That would have been a surefire way to kill all moral they had left.
Jayla gave a low whistle. "That's beyond messed up. I'm so sorry you've all had to go through that. But what do we do now? How bad will this get?"
Very good questions.
Lisa stopped weighing on her chair and assumed her 'I'm definitely a professional and I'll show you all my research data if you ask'-pose.
"We have backup arriving soon so things shouldn't get too dire. We wait for Ava to get here, and then we figure out where the vampires are and go get our shapeshifter friend back. Preferably while driving all threats out of town."
"Easy peasy lemon squeezy," Vivian muttered into her crossed arms, once more slumped across the table.
Arturo stole a glance at the clock. It was going to be a long night.
Isha stumbled back to camp in a daze. She'd run after the werewolf as far as her legs would let her, then found a hill to observe from. She'd seen the second wolf knock Viveka off her bike with a flash of light and then leave her be.
Werewolves fled or they fought. They could strategize up to a point, but they never let a fallen human be. They couldn't resist ripping out a throat, couldn't keep from eating anything or anyone in their way. Only fire or a silver bullet to the head could save you if you got knocked down by a werewolf.
Had she been taught anything true?
On her way back to camp, she'd cut the palm of her hand, dripped blood in the werewolf's tracks, and tried her clumsy hand at truth-seeing. It had been far from perfect and left her hungover and raw, but it had yielded results.
Not a trace of a lie in the air.
She accidentally shoulder-checked Dave while passing the campfires and didn't spare him a glance. She kept walking until she was back home and seated at the booth they used both as kitchen table and living room sofa.
She waited.
Woxell had said he'd sent people out to look for her when she'd been delayed at the werewolves' mansion. That had been her scarf.
She didn't flinch when the caravan door swung open. She barely looked up from her bloodied hand as Emma, Woxell and Jamerson came marching in, gathering around her like judge, jury and executioner.
No one could do magic within a mile of the camp without Emma knowing.
"So," Woxell said, taking a seat straight across from her once Jamerson and Emma had boxed her in. "What do you know?"
"Enough," Isha answered, feeling as if she was using someone else's mouth to talk. "Why did a vampire have my scarf?"
"Why did a werewolf have it?"
Isha didn't bother denying it. Emma must have known the second the scarf passed the warding lines. Curious how no one had come to find the bearer of that scarf, since they knew Isha had lost it. Almost as if they expected someone to wander in with it.
"I have no clue." The vagueness of the world around her intensified until she had to actively think about her own name to remember it. She let it float away, to be retrieved later. More urgent things needed her attention. "You're working with vampires."
The man in front of her sighed, his expression inducing familiar guilt and fear.
"We should have told you sooner, I suppose. Though if you'd only come back to camp when your guard shift ended, you'd have been told together with everyone else. Come morning, we finish this."
"Why ally with vampires?"
"Because they can be useful," the man said. "Herding them in front of us all the way from Chicago would have been much trickier without their cooperation. They're our ticket to getting the merging tool without losses. Once they've broken themselves against the local werewolf pack, we'll clean up what's left."
Backstabbing was on the menu. That should perhaps have been surprising. Other things gnawed at her worse.
"You knew that werewolves talk?"
"Some of them do," the man answered, no hesitation, no discernible doubt. "They only ever tell lies."
"But they talk."
"Yes."
Her insides churned. She thought back on charred bodies she'd helped hack up and put away where no one would find them.
"You said we don't kill people."
"They're not people." Again, no hesitation. The man looked like he pitied her, like he was looking at a horse with a broken leg, a cat hit by a car with its hindquarters smashed to pieces; not beyond hope, but close.
This is not happening. Please say this isn't happening! the voice at the back of her head cried. Her own voice, the part of her that still remembered names and places.
"I had the vampires send a thrall after you, for your first solo mission," the man said, the pity entering his words. "I wanted to make sure you were safe. You did well, up until the end. You're still young and impulsive. It's a good thing I had someone look out for you. Those werewolves could've gotten their wits about them and pursued you."
That meant the werewolves had deliberately let her run off. The werewolf - Jayla, she'd called herself Jayla - hadn't mentioned anything about fighting a thrall. Not that a thrall would be much of a match against two werewolves; or a werewolf and a shapeshifter. The thrall had likely kept hidden and stuck to following her.
Sluggish, she turned to look at the two people sitting next to her, fencing her in. The man looked as pitying as the one sitting on the opposite side of the table, even more somber, while the woman looked annoyed. They remained silent.
"Why did you lie to us about the werewolves, Isha?"
Isha slammed back into her body with a gasp. "Because werewolves aren't supposed to introduce themselves. They're not supposed to start up nice chats about magic. They're supposed to rip your throat out!"
Every muscle in her body trembled with impotent fury. Jamerson and Emma had her locked up as tight as a prison cell.
Woxell let out a sigh, like a parent frustrated by a headstrong teenager who'd come home covered in tattoos. It sounded uncanny.
"I wish you hadn't found out this way. We only kept the information from you because you weren't ready for it."
In her lap, Isha's hands curled themselves into fists. She wanted to scream at him, at all three of them, but she couldn't find her voice.
Woxell shook his head, far too calm, far too collected.
"I'm sorry to have to do this, but you're clearly not in your right mind. Emma."
Emma wrapped a hand around Isha's right wrist and squeezed. The burn was brief and light, barely more than the presence of a flame on the other side of thin glass, but Isha knew what it meant. Her fury grew, stoked from embers into a roaring furnace.
Woxell got up from the table, looking tired and sad in a way that he had no right to be.
"Your first true hunt will have to wait, as will your brother's. Such a terrible shame." He sounded like he believed every word coming out of his mouth. "You're not to leave the caravan. Your brother will stay to keep you company. Don't do anything else foolish. Understood?"
"Crystal clear." Far clearer than it had ever been.
Over the years, Isha had seen the occasional documentary when browsing local TV channels in dingy motel rooms. There had been one that had stuck with her, an interview series with people who'd gotten out of sects. At the time, she'd thought that must have been how thralls felt when freed from their vampires; until she'd gotten old enough to learn thralls died along with the vampire they were bound to.
What horrors would she be old enough to learn next year? Or the year after that? What were her mentors' true intentions for the merging tool? Did it do what they'd said it did? If she let them near Rahul with it-
Woxell and Jamerson had never injured her or her brother. Emma had ever only said the occasional hurtful word. But if they returned to camp after their next hunt and found her gone, Isha realized she had no idea what they might do.
With this revelation to guide her, she began to plan her and Rahul's escape.
