Pack of Lies, page 26
“I don’t want the money—I want the notebook,” Bucknell snapped. “Cody already told me he left it in the cave. Now it’s gone.”
“Then maybe Cody lied,” Eli said.
“Men don’t tend to lie when you stick a knife in their gut.” Bucknell adjusted the gun to point at Eli’s belly. “I assume the same goes for a bullet.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Eli said without flinching. “But that doesn’t change the fact that there was no notebook. Granted, we were a bit distracted by the millions of dollars and the mummy and—”
Bucknell fired the gun. The shot hit the floor directly in front of Eli’s feet, splintering the wood and kicking up a volley of glass as he and Julien jumped away.
“That’s your first warning,” Bucknell said when the room stopped ringing. “I don’t have the patience for a second. All year I’ve torn this mountain up looking for that goddamn cave. All year I’ve had to waste my time at the lodge, indulging Annabelle’s bullshit. I’m not going to let you steal that notebook from me now when I’m this close.” As he talked, his arm started to shake and his grip on the gun tightened, rising incrementally to point at Eli’s head.
“I know where it is,” Julien said, stepping between Eli and the gun.
“You?” Bucknell said, frowning. “You don’t have anything to do with this.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Eli agreed, yanking Julien back with a hiss.
“I’m telling you I know where it is,” Julien said, trying to step forward again, but it was like fighting against the tide itself. “If you don’t believe me, ask me about it. I can tell you anything in there. Nielsen, his daughter, Vanessa, how afraid he was the Preservation would steal his experiments.” The names rolled off his tongue easily. He’d spent so long reading and rereading those pages that even the words that hadn’t made any sense echoed through his brain at night when he was too tired to stop them. “I’m the one who hid the notebook. But if you want to know where it is, you’re going to have to let us go.”
Bucknell was staring at Julien and slightly lowered the gun, though frustratingly he didn’t angle it away from Eli. “All right,” he said finally. “I only want the notebook anyway. As soon as I get it, you can walk away.”
“You mean like you let Cody walk away?” Eli scoffed.
A strange look passed over Bucknell’s face. Surprised, curious and almost pitying. “Do you know why he asked to meet with me that night? He wanted to tell me you were the monster stalking Annabelle.”
“That’s hardly news. He only told everyone the exact same thing every single day.”
“Ah, but this time was different. This time he knew you were the same kind of monster as Ian.”
Julien inhaled sharply. But to his right, Eli just shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? Cody was so excited to tell me all about it. How he’d seen it before with Ian. Seen him change at night in the woods. How he’d killed Ian to protect Annabelle last year and now he was going to kill you, too. He even wanted my help.”
Bucknell shook his head and laughed. “I should thank you for that, actually. You know, the minute Cody saw that carving, he ran right to the cave to check that Ian was really dead. And where was I? Watching and waiting for Annabelle to do the same thing. All these months I thought she’d killed the fucker herself. I might never have known different if you hadn’t gone and shown Cody what you really are in the kitchen. I mean, he could be thick and all, but even he knew when someone was too strong to be normal.”
“Whatever Cody thought I am has nothing to do with me,” Eli said primly.
“C’mon now, we’re all friends here. I know all about you and your little retreat for runaways. I even heard you used to run with a pretty tough crowd. Rebels, right? Before your alpha sold you to some people or something? See, me, I wouldn’t bother with the whole alpha thing,” Bucknell said. “What’s the point of being a rebel if you still have to listen to someone else telling you what to do?”
Confused and uneasy, Julien glanced at Eli and grew more worried to find his face eerily blank. It was so different than his usual, put-on boredom that he almost looked like a stranger. With a jolt, Julien realized he’d been able to recognize Eli more when he was a wolf in fur than right now looking perfectly human and so...empty.
“You’re nothing like I expected at all,” Bucknell was saying, and his gaze flickered over Eli’s body. “You can show me, you know. I like seeing it. I like to watch for the moment when you think it’s all done, and there’s that last little push more. Go on. Show it to me.”
For one full beat no one moved, no one spoke, even the wind seemed to slow.
Then Eli held up his middle finger and his trimmed, clear nail hardened and lengthened into a razor-sharp hook. “This moment?”
“All that power,” Bucknell breathed, eyes glinting hungrily. “You could be anything you want and you choose this. What a waste.”
“Fuck you,” Julien snapped without thinking, and both Eli and Bucknell looked at him, surprised. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it.”
“Ah, Doran,” Eli said briskly. “How rude of us. Allow me to fill you in. Ian Ackman found Nielsen’s treasure and was shortly afterward murdered by Cody, perturbed to discover his unnatural nature. Presumably knowing that Ian died with the notebook on him, Bucknell here has been setting fires, staging bodies and generally wreaking havoc across the mountain in order to drive the lodge into bankruptcy and force the killer into revealing the location of the treasure. Unfortunately for him, he’s been focusing his campaign of horrors on Annabelle, believing her to have been Ian’s killer. Tell me, did she know? Did she know he was a wolf?”
Bucknell shrugged. “Ian never told any of us. I certainly didn’t find out werewolves were even a thing until after he was dead.”
“Yes, you do have a rather helpful source, don’t you? Someone to tell you all about Nielsen and Ian, the retreat and me. The same someone who’s been tracking Annabelle’s every move this last year, creeping in to search the lodge at night, and frightening the shit out of her. Our second shooter.”
Julien automatically looked to the satellite tower and gasped. “They’re gone!”
“But not far. She darted down around the time you started reciting all your favorite passages of Nielsen’s Notebook. Don’t lurk behind closed doors, darling. I know you excel at sneaking, but it’s a lost cause now.”
Behind Bucknell the door creaked open, and the woman from the retreat with the red hair stepped inside.
“Gwen,” Eli said simply.
She spread one clawed hand in a conciliatory way, while the other loosely held a long-range rifle angled toward the ground. “Sorry I’m late to the party. David called me last night, but I was unfortunately detained.” Gwen sniffed the room delicately, then smiled. “I’m so relieved you found ways to keep yourselves busy.”
“Nowhere near as busy as you. I’d chastise you for giving both runaways and rebels a bad name, but you’re obviously neither.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because your winged monkey here seems to believe the defining characteristic of a rebel pack is freedom from an alpha, something no actual rebel wolf would believe.”
Gwen tilted her head curiously. “Growing up in a ruling pack, we used to hear such romantic stories about life as a rebel. What a pity it isn’t true.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Eli bit out. “Perhaps the next time you play dress-up with someone else’s trauma won’t be such a bummer.”
She pursed her lips. “Everything I told you was true. I know what it’s like to be used, just like you. I know what it’s like to want to run. The only lie is I haven’t gotten away. Not yet.”
“That and the fact that the alpha you’re plotting to get away from is Celia De Luca,” Eli said. “I suppose that explains how Nia and Brett knew exactly what was happening. You did warn me that spying and setting up wolves was your specialty. More the fool me, to not have listened.”
“It was Celia’s idea that I pretend to be a rebel runaway and check into your retreat. She thought it’d be a good idea to keep an eye on Park and Dayton’s little pet project.”
“How fortunate that you were already in the middle of running a year-long coup next door. It must have done wonders for your commute.”
“Nothing about this is fortunate,” Gwen hissed. “I told you how much I hate being Celia’s spy. Doing her dirty work. Uprooting everything to move wherever best assists her obsessive expansion of territory so she can gain a seat in the Preservation. All I wanted was a chance at being my own wolf. The same thing you want to give rebels with your retreat—another choice, a new life, a way out. That notebook is my way out.” She paused and glanced at Bucknell, almost guiltily. “Our way out. Now, where the hell is it?”
Bucknell pointed his gun at Julien. “He said he knows.”
Eli sucked his teeth loudly. “And he was quite obviously and foolishly attempting a bit of chivalry. I see you’re not familiar with the concept.”
“Don’t—” Julien protested.
“No need to be a gentleman. Thanks to your sloppy shooting, Doran was unconscious from cave to tower. I, on the other hand, took the time after delivering him here to sneak back out and secure the notebook somewhere secret. It seemed like a good bargaining chip to have by the by.”
“Yeah? How about this.” Bucknell pointed his gun at Eli. “If you take us there right now, I won’t shoot you. Hard to find a better bargain than that.”
“The notebook is somewhere in these woods and believe me, it won’t be as easy as finding a whole cave,” Eli said. “I covered my tracks and destroyed the scent trail. Kill me and you are never going to find it if you spend ten lifetimes looking. Twenty if your recent track record is any indication of your investigative capabilities. I have a knack for hiding.”
Bucknell hesitated a red-faced, breathless moment when Julien thought he might shoot Eli anyway, just from pure irritation. Then suddenly he found the gun pointing at him. “How about I kill him instead?”
“Then you seriously underestimate my ability to hold a grudge,” Eli said mildly. “If either of us so much as receives a paper cut at your hands, I will die out of spite and the certainty that you’ll have done all of this for nothing will be a better legacy than I ever dared imagine in my most audacious dreams.”
“I’m starting to think it might be worth it,” Bucknell bit out, shifting his gun back toward Eli’s head.
“Wait,” Gwen said, grabbing his sleeve and tugging his arm back down. “Just—what is it you want then?”
“That depends,” Eli said, “on what’s in the notebook.”
Bucknell laughed. “Of course you just want your cut. Well, I’m sorry to say it’s of no use to you.”
“Leave it, David,” Gwen said sharply. “He knows more than enough as it is.”
“Yes, leave it, David,” Eli mocked. “In fact, why don’t you go back to waiting outside? You make a better guard dog than detective anyway. Remember when you spent an entire year targeting the wrong person? Good times.”
Bucknell took a wild, furious swing aiming to knock Eli across the face with his gun, but Gwen yanked his arm and he stumbled backward toward the bench as if weighing nothing more than a child.
“What the hell, Gwen!” Bucknell shouted, slipping on the broken glass. He’d barely been able to stay standing.
Julien blinked and glanced at Eli, who didn’t look back at him. He seemed to be staring at a certain spot between where Julien stood and where Bucknell had hit the bench. Julien took an experimental step in that direction. No one even glanced his direction. But Eli blinked once, slowly. Yes.
Bucknell brushed the glass off his clothes and walked back toward Gwen, who was murmuring an apology. “I’m sorry, David, but you know he’s just trying to provoke you into doing something stupid.”
“How fortunate I take pleasure in the simple things,” Eli drawled. “You do know he just killed a man, right? Tortured him and threw him over the ledge. And then instead of doing the sensible thing and going to get the notebook right then and there, he decided to take the time to frame me first. I’d be careful there,” Eli added in a faux whisper. “I think he’s a bit obsessed with me. He was getting off watching me slip.”
“That’s not true!” Bucknell snapped, and Julien took another small step. “It makes me sick the way you squander it. Power is wasted on people like you and Ian. No ambition, content to watch other people dream and have none of your own. Just going where you’re told like a good little pack animal.”
“You mean like how instead of handling the situation yourself you sat outside all night listening to us fuck and waited for Gwen to come tell you what to do? Sort of like that?” Eli raised his eyebrows. “Why exactly do you think she involved you in this, I wonder? Your access to the lodge was helpful, or would have been if you hadn’t been leading her in completely the wrong direction all year. And of course she needed the cops to not go looking for Ian Ackman until she’d safely gotten the notebook. I suppose you did that right, at least.”
“Shut up!”
“Don’t tell me you actually think she cares about you. A man with means to an end practically tattooed across his forehead. Everyone’s second choice. Fourth, in Annabelle’s case.”
“I said shut up or I’ll shoot you!”
Eli just leaned toward Gwen, stepping closer conspiratorially. “Tell me, what exactly do you plan on doing with him once you get the notebook? He’d only slow you down. He’ll be useless out there when Celia comes looking for you. Even more than he was here on his own turf, where he managed to let the notebook slip through his fingers three different times. Pathetic. Bumbling. Weak.”
“We’ll see how weak you think I am when I’m a werewolf,” Bucknell shouted.
Julien gasped. It seemed far too loud in the ringing silence. He turned to Eli, but to his surprise Eli just looked exhausted and little bit disgusted. “What, did she tell you she was going to bite you on a full moon?”
“No,” Bucknell snapped. “I know that’s not how it works. But Nielsen found a way. And once I’m a werewolf, I’m going to enjoy tearing you up with my bare hands.”
“Don’t be a fool. Wolves aren’t made any more than humans are. What’s in the book really?” he asked Gwen, but Bucknell stepped forward angrily.
“If you don’t know what’s in the notebook, how do you know Nielsen didn’t find a way?”
“The same way I know he didn’t find a way to turn cats into dogs or you into a charming, astute person. That’s not how it works,” Eli said. “And if she told you otherwise, she lied. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But no title, super strength, special abilities, or gun is ever going to get you the respect or the power you crave because in the end you’ll always be you.”
Bucknell yelled with rage and swung the gun up at Eli, and again, Gwen grabbed him and threw him backward. This time, Julien didn’t hesitate. He ran at him before Bucknell even hit the bench. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eli move as well, leaping at Gwen, and heard the shot of her rifle go off, but he couldn’t pay attention to that.
Julien didn’t waste time getting fancy either. He threw himself at Bucknell’s knees, toppling him to the floor. Combined with the momentum from Gwen, he went down hard, Julien landing on top of him with a groan and sending the gun clattering across the floor.
To his credit, Bucknell reacted quickly, swinging up and catching Julien in the jaw with a wild punch, but he couldn’t get the momentum needed to do damage at this angle. Or he just didn’t know how to fight without a gun in his hand. Julien punched as hard as he could down into his lower gut and Bucknell convulsed with a whoof of air. It was bad luck only that he happened to grab Julien directly where the bullet had grazed his arm.
A white flare of agony tore through him, and Julien rolled off Bucknell instinctively, anything to get away from the nauseating pain. As he hit the floor, he felt another hard edge press painfully into his ribs. Julien ignored it and braced himself for Bucknell to follow his advantage, but instead Bucknell scrambled to his feet and made a run for the gun, scooping it up off the floor.
Julien lunged and grabbed at his ankle with both hands and managed to grab his boot instead. Bucknell picked his foot up into stomp position right over Julien’s face, and Julien twisted the boot in his hand as hard as he could. A stuntman would have twisted his body in the air with the rotation of the ankle. Bucknell just tensed and had his knee wrenched out of place.
Bellowing with pain, Bucknell ripped his foot out of Julien’s hands and came down heavy on the weak leg, slipping on the shattered glass. His knee folded and he stumbled back against the empty window frame. Crack.
Julien had no idea what had happened. Bucknell was simply there. And then he wasn’t. The room was oddly quiet and Julien realized he was entirely alone.
He stood and walked hesitantly to the splintered remains of the window frame, and peered over the edge. In the snow, the dark shadow of Bucknell lay unmoving. Julien backed away from the window. For a moment he just stood there unable to think. There was nothing in his head but his heartbeat and the horrible, howling wind.
Then, gradually, somewhere below him, Julien heard the clanging and snarling sounds of Eli and Gwen, followed by a piercing yelp.
That managed to slam his brain back into gear. Julien looked around for some kind of weapon, but the gun had gone over the edge with Bucknell. A large piece of glass? He’d be more likely to hurt himself than be of any real help. Could he rip off a hunk of the splintered window frame? Even just the idea of getting that close to the edge again sent a swooping sensation through Julien.
