“Fine.”
I looked at the cell, thinking that Bruiser was awfully short-tempered for a guy who’d nearly had his way with me in the shower not so long ago. I put the phone back to my ear. “Thanks.” I closed the cell. “Okay. Money’s not a problem. Name and double your fee for the info you’re collecting. The vamps want the weres caught and handled.” I ate some sweet potato fries while studying the map and, with the other hand, pointed to three creeks, close to Asheville: Spring Creek, Big Laurel Creek, and Bushy Creek. “This is the farthest east the grindy marks have been seen, and there seem to be a lot of them here, too. Maybe more than up Stirling Mountain.”
“There may be more in other places, but they don’t get the traffic, even in the touron season,” a river guide said from over my shoulder. It was the guide with the silver stud in his tongue. At my curious look, he said, “Tourist? Moron? Touron.”
I gave him a small smile. I laid my cell on the table, the fancy one paid for by Leo, the one with all the bells and whistles, including a map-app and GPS tracking. “Here’s where I was this afternoon.” I pointed to the GPS coordinates. “Is this close to any of these creeks?”
Dave took over, aligning my coordinates with the ones on the map. “That’s a feeder creek not far from where Shelton Creek and Laurel merge to become Big Laurel Creek,” he said, his damaged voice soft but still carrying over the screams of the tourists’ children.
“So, here, here, and here”—I pointed to the places on the North Carolina side of the mountain range—“he’s marked several dozen times. And all three creeks are within hiking distance of the kill-site of last night’s attack. So maybe the weres have a hidey-hole somewhere in this area too.”
“There’s hundreds of rental and camping places, and thousands of empty, unused places where someone could squat for the summer,” Mike said, “and they’d never be noticed.”
“Mmm,” I murmured, considering the map, eating more sweet potato fries and licking my fingers free of grease between bites. I tilted my head to follow the overlay of streets and recognized the street where Molly lived. She was at the top of a mountain above one of the grindy-marked feeder creeks. All the blood left my face in a cold rush. A painful tingling started in my fingers. “Crap,” I whispered. Two of the smaller creeks were on either side of the mountain ridge where my best friend, her husband, and kids lived.
Beast woke up and rolled to her feet in my mind, a low growl vibrating through me. Kits, she thought, hunching as if preparing to leap.
Two of Molly’s sisters lived just down the mountain from her. Angie’s school wasn’t far away either. I stood up and turned the map again. The third creek was near a road that went right by my old apartment, the one I’d moved out of when I thought I’d be staying in New Orleans for a while. If the grindy was hunting wolves, then the wolves were hunting me. I sat and dialed.
Angelina, Molly’s daughter, my godchild, answered. “Hey, Aunt Jane. You chasing the big doggies?”
The feeling of cold spread through me. “Angie Baby, have you seen some big doggies?”
Mike and Dave stopped midmotion and focused on me.
“Yep. Two of ’em. They standed up on two feets and looked in my window. I stuck-ted my tongue out at them and made some black light and they ran away.”
Black light. Were’s had gotten through the wards on her house, and Angie had used her gift to chase them off, both of which were bad. Crap. Crap, crap, crap! In so many conflicting ways. Angie wasn’t supposed to be able to draw on her witch gift until puberty, but the little girl had the witch gene from both mother and father, and her gift had come upon her early. Even with her parents binding her gift down, she was scary strong. She knew things she shouldn’t far too often, as if the gift was searching out ways to express itself and had found an opening in prescience and in knowing what was happening to the people she loved. But when the wolves got close, she used the gift to protect herself and her family. Which was good. Wasn’t it? “Angie, let me talk to your mother, okay?”
“Okeydokey. Mama!” she screamed in my ear. I pulled the phone away. “Aunt Jane!”
“Big-Cat, what’s up?” Mol said a moment later.
“Hang up, Angie,” I said. I heard the click, though Angelina had ways of knowing what was going on other than eavesdropping. I swallowed, feeling my stomach contents rise. “Did Angie tell you about the dogs at her window?”
“Yeah,” Molly said, drawing out the word.
“Could have been werewolves.”
There was a long silence, and I could almost see Molly testing the wards on and around her home. “Hmmm,” she said, her voice dropping an octave. “We have them set to allow wildlife through. Looks like we need to change a few settings.” Change a few settings was Mol’s way of talking to me about magic. She knew I’d never understand if she used real magic vernacular.
“Mol. They’re looking to make mates. Human females don’t survive the werewolf taint. Maybe they think a witch might have a better chance. Tell your sisters. Be careful.”
“I saw the mug shots on TV. They followed you here, didn’t they?”
Molly was smart. Sometimes too smart for my comfort level. “Could be,” I admitted.
“Big Evan will have a cow. So don’t tell him. I gotta go, Jane.”
She called me Jane. Which meant she wasn’t happy with me. “Bye, Mol,” I said, feeling properly rebuked. She hung up without saying good-bye. Great. I was putting the family of my best friend in the world in danger. Again. If Big Evan found out I was responsible for this latest situation, he’d skin me alive and I’d deserve it, totally.
Weary and sleepy, I tucked the cell into my pocket and ate the last of the sweet potato fries before heading to the parking lot where I climbed into the SUV and sat with the air-conditioning running, thinking. I could drive up the mountain and visit with Rick, but . . . Guilt and exhaustion in equal measure taunted me. Exhaustion won. I wheeled the heavy vehicle out of the Bean Trees lot and onto the interstate. Away from Rick. Chicken, yeah, that’s me. I’d rather fight an old rogue-vamp in my underwear, with my bare hands, than deal with relationship problems.
I motored back to Asheville along Highway 70. Along the way I crossed over Big Laurel and Spring Creek where Mike and Dave said there were multiple grindy marks. Because the summer had been so wet, they were running, but only enough to support smallmouth bass, not a boat. The rocks I could spot from the road were smaller than the boulders on Big Creek, the runs looked twisty but easy. But what did I know? Less and less the longer I lived.
Back at the hotel, I dropped off the vehicle with the valet and found my room by feel and smell. Way past exhausted, I showered off the sweat, fell onto my bed, and wrapped up in the sheets; I was asleep instantly.
And woke just as quickly. Predator in my den, Beast thought at me. Human male. Stranger.
Someone was entering my room. Yeah, there had been knocking. My sleeping mind had ignored it, thinking it was housekeeping. Thinking they’d see the DO NOT DISTURB sign and go away. He hadn’t seen the sign because he’d entered from the twins’ adjoining suite.
I didn’t move, my breathing steady and slow, listening, eyes slanted open a crack. Afternoon light angled through the window blinds. I’d been asleep for several hours and was now lying on my stomach, hair everywhere, pillow pushed away, hands buried under it, thick comforter bunched at my side, hiding me from the sitting area. And obscuring my view of the intruder.
Two guns were on the nightstand, three feet away. I’d have to push upright, roll, grab, off-safety, aim, and squeeze the trigger. If he was armed, I’d be dead. The knives were on the coffee table several feet away. My weapons might as well be in Europe. And there might be people in the next room. Others in the hallway. Collateral damage. All I had was speed, bed linens, and pillows. Not much to use against an attacker. I was naked. Vulnerable. Alone. But then, he didn’t know I was here, what weapons I might be holding, or were at my sides in the sheets. A tiny point in my favor. Or not. His uncertainty might make him kill me first and ask questions later.
Need claws, Beast thought. Shift.
I clenched my hands and relaxed them. Once, and only once, I had brought Beast’s claws to my human hands. But I had no idea how I’d done it, and it didn’t happen now. Too far away for claws, I thought back to her. She hissed, but didn’t disagree, so I lay unmoving. Listening. Thinking. Beside the bed was another weapon I could use. It offered no precision, and was more along the lines of brute force, but it might give me time.
My intruder was stealthy, silent except for his breathing. Human blood-servant by his scent. Unfamiliar vamp-taint marked him, but it was old. He hadn’t fed from his master’s blood in days. He wore soft-soled shoes and unscented deodorant, no cologne. He hadn’t seen me yet, hadn’t killed me. I appreciated that in a man. But I smelled gun oil and lubricants. Yeah. He was armed. By the movement of air, I placed him. He was at the couch, looking over my weapons on the coffee table, paying special attention to my Benelli M4 shotgun. It was my baby, and was loaded for vamp with silver. If he tried to take it, I’d tackle him, weapon or no weapon. He moved to my clothes, which I’d left piled on a chair. I heard the faint movement of cloth and leather as he went through my pockets and inspected my boots. He needed to turn away before I could move. I felt more than saw when he noticed me. Adrenaline poured into the air, the scent sharp and spiky as cactus. Now or never. I drew Beast up into me, pulling her strength into my bloodstream.
In one smooth motion I slid my hands down, beneath me. Pushed up and off the bed, whirling. Grabbing the bust of the founding father, its weight and my momentum continuing my spiral. Seeing the man, turning, raising his arm. Faster than human. I released the statue with as much force as I could power through shoulders, arms, fingertips. Grunting softly with the effort. Slung my hair out of the way. Grabbed the Walther PK380. Had it in hand when the bust impacted his body.
