I followed the smell to a spruce. Branches fanned the ground. Carefully, I pawed one aside. The smell was almost hidden by the astringent odor of the needles. I pushed my head into the dark cavity under the branches. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I saw white bone. A skeletal arm encased in a ragged sleeve.

  The skeleton’s hand was missing. As I pushed farther under the tree, I could see other parts were missing, too, including the skull. Did scavengers often make off with skulls? I couldn’t recall encountering that—like the hands, there wasn’t much “meat” there.

  I eased back for a more critical look at the body. It’d been reduced to clothing-covered bones. The clothes were ripped too badly for a struggle, suggesting predation. It looked like male clothing. The body seemed small, too. Not child-small, but not adult-sized, either. On both counts, though, I was just guessing. So I backed up and let Clay in for a look.

  He spent a few minutes examining the remains. When he was done, he couldn’t tell me what he thought, obviously, just gestured that we could move on.

  We made a mental note of our surroundings, then headed out in search of other bodies. Yet if there were more, it quickly became apparent that they were either a lot farther into the woods or too old for me to smell.

  I stopped to tell the guys we should head back. When I looked around, though, I saw only Clay’s golden fur. I threw back my head and howled. After a moment, a distant yip from Morgan replied.

  Clay chuffed and shook his head. I howled again. Morgan yipped back. Damn it, when I called, he was supposed to come.

  I didn’t glance over to see Clay’s expression. I didn’t dare. Just gave one last howl, edged with anger, and then set off after Morgan.

  14.

  We found Morgan at the foot of a steep hillside. He was standing by a clump of bushes, staring up at a pie pan hanging from a branch. The pan twisted in the breeze, glinting in the moonlight. Great. How the hell was I supposed to convince Clay that Morgan could be Pack material if he was distracted by every shiny object he saw?

  He didn’t even seem to notice us until I let out a chuff, and he glanced over, casually, as if he’d heard us all along but had really been more interested in the pie plate. I sighed.

  He nosed around the bushes for a moment, then looked at us, head tilted as if to say, “Well, are you coming?”

  To do what? Join his rapt contemplation of baking tins? I grunted. He yipped, then dove through the bushes . . . and disappeared into the hillside.

  Oh.

  Clay bounded over, stuck his head through the bushes, then pushed in until the tip of his tail vanished. I followed.

  The bushes disguised the entrance to a cave. The pie plate must have been someone’s way of marking it. When I got inside, I smacked muzzle-first into Clay’s rear end. He chuffed an apology, his nails clicking on stone as he moved farther into the inky blackness.

  Only slivers of moonlight managed to get past the entrance. I backed out and held down one of the biggest bushes under my paw. Moonlight flooded into the cave. Inside, Morgan dipped his muzzle as if in thanks. When he started nosing the floor, exploring, Clay let out a low growl.

  Morgan looked up, confused. Clay head-butted him toward me. More confusion. I released the bushes a little and then stepped on them again and jerked my head toward him. It took a moment, but he figured out what I meant. He sighed, came to the mouth, and took over the job of holding down the branches while I went into the cave for a look.

  I suppose it’s a testament to how long I’ve been a werewolf that I didn’t feel guilty. It was simple hierarchy. He’d get his look around . . . after we got ours.

  The mouth of the cave was narrow, which is why we’d smacked into each other. Now Clay squeezed to the side to let me through first. Again, hierarchy, not chivalry. That feels a little strange sometimes—taking precedence over my mate, my partner. We’ll be fine as long as the imbalance in power doesn’t extend beyond this, and I can be damned sure Clay is never going to allow that.

  I trotted into a second, bigger chamber. It stank of woodsmoke, as if someone had used it for a bonfire. Everything was dark for a moment, as Clay came through the mouth and blocked the moonlight. Then he stepped aside and I looked around.

  There was a moment where I thought I’d found some ancient cave painted by Neolithic man. In my defense, it was only a brief moment. I may not have Clay’s background, but I know we’re a long way from anyplace with Neolithic cave paintings. When my eyes adjusted, I could see these weren’t even mock paintings. They were symbols, sketched with what looked like chalk and soot.

  They weren’t the same symbols I’d seen on the trees, but some were similar. As I stepped forward for a better look, Clay nudged my flank and whined. Telling me to stop. I looked over at him. He bent his muzzle to the cave floor and nosed what looked like a white, tubular rock. Then he jerked his head toward the rest of the floor.

  We were on the edge of a ritual circle, adorned with more symbols. In the center, ashes and burned wood explained the smell. There were dark splotches just to my left. I carefully picked my way over to them. Dark red. I lowered my nose and inhaled. It was hard to get past the smell of smoke that permeated the cave, but I detected blood. Animal or human, I couldn’t tell—it was too old—but it was definitely blood.

  Clay nosed the white rock again, then gestured to a pile of them in the middle of the circle. I walked in, being careful not to step on the markings or the dried blood. When I reached the pile, I realized they were finger bones.

  Was this where those missing hands ended up? If so, they hadn’t been scavenged. These bones were bright white and smelled faintly of sodium hypochlorite. Boiled clean and bleached.

  I needed a better look. Which required fingers, a camera, and a penlight. Time to Change back. I communicated that to Clay, then had him hold down the bushes while I let Morgan take a look around before we started the long run back to our clothing.

  I snapped pictures while Clay examined the symbols. Morgan hung back and watched.

  Clay said, “They look like a mix of elements. That could suggest a supernatural ritual, not a human one.”

  I nodded. “The bones and blood point to necromancy. The symbols look more witch or sorcerer. I’ll send the photos to Jaime and Paige.”

  I was taking another picture when my cell phone beeped, reminding me I had a message. It must have come in while I was in wolf form. A text from Chief Dales asking us to stop by the station. She’d sent it at nine, and it was just past ten now.

  I told Clay and Morgan, then said, “We can drop by, but I’m guessing she’ll be gone for the night.”

  “Are we reporting this?” Morgan waved at the cave.

  I shook my head. “Not this and not the other body. Finding two corpses in one day is a little much. We’ll have to hope they conduct a thorough search of their own.” I looked at the cave. “And hope they don’t find this until we figure out what the hell it means.”

  So what did that cave mean? I could be optimistic and say it had nothing to do with the dead bodies. Sure, it was a little coincidental finding corpses missing hands, then hands missing a corpse. Maybe someone had found the hands carried off by animals and decided to boil them for ritualistic parts rather than turn them over to the police. You know, you’re out, walking your dog through the woods, he brings you back human hands, and you think, Huh, I could use those. Perfectly plausible.

  Actually, if the dog walker was a necromancer, it was possible. They needed human remains for rituals, and they didn’t require fresh ones, so they got creative. Jeremy’s longtime girlfriend, Jaime Vegas, was a necromancer, and she did use “bits and bobs” from dead bodies, most of them ancient. Still, she’d never claim random body parts found lying about. And she didn’t use blood. Dried flesh and old bones signify death, which is the domain of the necromancer. Blood signifies life.

  It seemed more likely to be spell-casters. Witch, sorcerer, or maybe one of the rarer and weaker races. While 99 percent of magic has nothing to do with ritual sacrifice, there is that 1 percent. The highest level of magic, requiring the highest level of sacrifice: a human life. But I wasn’t sure the blood was human. It could be animal sacrifice . . . paired with human remains from someone conveniently killed under completely separate circumstances.

  Any explanation other than a ritual murder was a stretch. A big one. No matter how rare it was in the supernatural world, I had to entertain the very strong possibility that’s exactly what this was.

  I expected to find the police station shuttered. Or, at the very least, nearly dark, with only the night officer on duty. Instead, all the windows were ablaze and I could hear voices from a hundred feet away. It seemed every set of footprints on the street led straight to the station doors. The only three cars in sight were parked out front.

  “Party at the cop shop?” Morgan said.

  “Something’s going on. I just hope Chief Dales’s message didn’t mean ‘get your asses over here fast because we have a situation.’”

  “No reason it would involve us,” Clay said.

  “I hope not.”

  I sent Morgan back to the motel. I wasn’t sure how far news of his escapade had traveled, but my experience with small towns said the answer was “far.” Best to leave him out of this.

  Clay and I stepped inside to find three people hanging out in the small foyer. They moved aside for us but didn’t say a word. I kicked the snow off my boots and opened the interior door.

  Officer Jaggerman manned the front desk. Three more people stood in front of it, all leaning in, holding Jaggerman’s attention. A couple in their late thirties cast anxious glances at us. Another in their forties sat off to the side. I could hear Chief Dales’s voice coming through her closed office door. Talking to Kent, it sounded like. Or hiding in there with him. If so, I wasn’t sure I blamed her.

  Two of the people in front of Jaggerman seemed to be a couple. Maybe my age. Latino, like the younger couple to the side. With them was a man of about thirty-five, balding and beefy, a worn Westwood Werewolves team jacket straining over his broad chest.

  “I demand to see that body,” the woman was saying, loud enough to make my ears ring.

  “It won’t help, Mrs. Rivera,” Jaggerman said. “You wouldn’t be able to tell if it’s—”

  “Are you telling me I wouldn’t recognize my own son?”

  “The body is in”—Jaggerman swallowed—“poor condition.”

  The guy in the football jacket laid his hand on Mrs. Rivera’s arm. “If it is Ricky, you’ll know as soon as they do, Maria. Some of the other team parents”—he gestured at the sitting couple—“have volunteered to take turns staying here all night until Jess has an answer.”

  As if on cue, Chief Dales’s door opened. She walked out, papers in hand.

  “No one needs to stay,” she said. “I just got Doc’s preliminary report. As we thought, the body is that of a man in his early twenties, too old to be Ricky. Even more conclusively, there were several tattoos. That means it definitely isn’t your son.”

  Chief Dales offered a few quieter words of sympathy. I could tell she was struggling. I recognized that look—I can feel deeply for people, but I have trouble expressing it, especially to those I don’t know well. Yet her sentiment did seem genuine.

  Mrs. Rivera muttered something under her breath and then stalked out, leaving her husband and the guy in the team jacket to hurry after her. None of them paid any attention to us. Nor did Chief Dales as she walked to the front desk, still holding the pages.

  “Doc confirmed it looks like homicide,” she said to Jaggerman. “I’ve compiled a list of persons of interest. All our local recluses.”

  “You want me to take a run at them tonight?”

  “Your shift ended two hours ago, Phil. I told you to go home then, and after that visit, I bet you’re wishing you listened.”

  He chuckled. “No kidding.” He glanced at us. “Uh, Jess, we have—”

  “I’ll leave these addresses here,” she said. “Take Wes in the morning and see who you can round up for questioning.”

  I approached the desk as she set the pages on it. “You texted me?”

  She glanced over sharply, as if startled. A little too startled. As if she’d only been pretending she hadn’t noticed us.

  “Oh,” she said. “You didn’t need to stop in.”

  “The message said—”

  “I just wanted to know if you’re spending the night in Westwood.”

  “We are. No luck getting our tires fixed with all the storm calls.”

  “Staying at the Red Cedar, I’m guessing?” She struggled for a tired smile. “Only place in town.”

  “It is.”

  “Good. I may have more questions in the morning. If I don’t stop by before you leave, give me a ring.”

  “All right.”

  I started to turn away.

  “Grab yourselves a coffee before you head out,” she called. “It’s a cold night.” Then, to Jaggerman, “Phil? Got a few things for you to sign.”

  They disappeared into her office as I was pouring a coffee. She shut the door behind them and I sidled back to the front desk and glanced down at the pages she’d left there. Clay came up beside me.

  “A list of the local loners?” I said. “Otherwise known as a list of potential mutts or supernaturals involved in nefarious business.”

  “Handy.”

  “No kidding.”

  I took out my phone. He stood guard as I snapped photos of the pages.

  15.

  I got outside the police station before I took a sip of the coffee. It tasted like roasted tree bark. I prepared to dump it into the snow.

  “Uh-uh,” Clay said. “We’ve got a long night. You’re going to need that.”

  He was right. The best time to investigate this list was while it was dark enough to skulk around and before the local cops tackled the job themselves.

  So I choked down half the coffee as fast as I could manage. We were heading toward the motel when a woman’s voice called, “You there!”

  We turned to see Mrs. Rivera bearing down on us while her husband scrambled from their parked car.

  “Maria!” he called.

  We waited until she planted herself in front of us. “I saw you at the police station. Then I remembered someone said strangers found the body. A blond couple.”

  “Yes, it was us,” I said. “We were hiking—”

  “Maria.” It was the other man from the station, the one in the football jacket. He came up beside her and lowered his voice. “They only found the body. They didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Of course they didn’t,” she snapped. “They arrived today. I just wanted to ask if it could be him.”

  She held out a photo of a teenage boy. He was heavyset and soft. I would have guessed he was about thirteen, but he wore a football uniform, so he had to be in high school.

  I stared at the photo. He was grinning at the camera. So proud of that uniform. So young. When had he disappeared? How had he disappeared?

  “You recognize him,” she whispered.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” I looked up at her. “He looks very happy. I’m so sorry.”

  The man took the photo. “And I’m sorry to bother you,” he said to me. “We’re all very upset, as you can imagine. This . . . discovery has only brought it all back.” He held out his free hand, first to Clay, who had to be nudged to shake it, and then to me. “Tom Hanlon. I’m a teacher up at the high school. I coach the football team.”

  I introduced us.

  “We’ll let you get on with your night,” he said, putting an arm around Mrs. Rivera’s shoulders as he handed back the photo.

  She knocked his arm away and turned to us. “Are you sure it couldn’t have been—?”

  “Jess said the body has tattoos,” Coach Hanlon said. “Ricky didn’t.”

  “I don’t care what she said. I don’t know how she got that job. Or who she slept with.”

  “Maria!” The coach’s eyes widened. “Jessica Dales is the chief of police because she was better qualified—”

  “This is my boy, Ricky,” she said, shoving the photo at me again. “He went missing just after last Thanksgiving.”

  I shook my head. “The man we found was older and died much more recently. It wasn’t your son. I’m sorry.”

  It took a few minutes—and her husband’s help—to get Mrs. Rivera back to the car. I didn’t leave until she was gone. We just stood there, waiting. As the car drove away, we set off slowly, not wanting to seem like we had better things to do.

  “The guy we found this afternoon definitely wasn’t him,” Clay murmured as the rear lights of their car faded in the distance. “But the second body? The smaller one? Hard to judge exactly, but I’d say it’s been there about a year.”

  “I know.”

  Two hours later, we were hiding in the forest watching an old woman with a rifle stalk around her dilapidated cabin, her gaze on the ground as she searched for footprints. She didn’t find any—I’d been careful to approach only as close as I could get without leaving the forest. She stomped back to her porch and stood there, faded nightgown whipping around her spindly legs.

  “You better run!” she shouted. “This is private property, you hear? Don’t want no damn hunters. Or kids. Or sledders. Or . . .” The list went on, covering everyone who might break the sacred seal of privacy she’d created out here.

  “Aliens?” Morgan whispered.

  “Bet she’s been beamed up a time or two,” Clay muttered.

  “It’s like something out of an old hillbilly cartoon,” I marveled as I watched. “I thought the last cabin was bad.”

 

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