Page 19 of Blood Pack Beginning (Pack #5)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The ride to the compound didn’t take long, but Diego found himself anxious. He’d gotten a brief insight into Sasha’s emotions, a hint of confusion and anger, just to have it suddenly smothered. Most likely they’d drugged her again, but at least he could be sure she wasn’t dead. However, who knew what would happen to her if they didn’t find her in time?

They were silent on the drive, with Cyrus behind the wheel since he knew how to get there. Anabel and Pierrot sat in the back, the latter on his laptop, fingers flying as he prepared to hack. Diego occupied the front and leaned forward as they turned onto the road leading to the gated community for the Woolly Pillars Pack and saw their first glimpse of the fencing surrounding it. Wrought iron, eight feet high, with pointed tines topping it. Not impossible to climb, but enough to deter most trespassers.

“Park here for a second,” Pierrot asked. “I’m picking up a signal.”

The halting of the SUV to allow Pierrot to attempt to infiltrate the compound’s network didn’t help Diego’s agitation. He wanted to be moving. Acting. Doing fucking something.

A few minutes of tense silence led to Pierrot grumbling, “There’s a decent firewall in place. I won’t be getting in quickly, so we need to decide what we want to do.”

Cyrus glanced at Diego. “As pack members, we could see who’s manning the guard post and maybe get a hint of what’s going on. If it’s Harry or Lloyd, I can probably convince them to wake up Xander so we can talk.”

“While you do that, I’ll keep trying to get past their firewall and Anabel will scout the perimeter in case she spots an area that would allow unnoticed entry.” Pierrot glanced at the other vampire. “Try to not be seen.”

“Obviously,” she drawled with a roll of her eyes before slipping from the back seat.

“You might want to hide in the cargo area,” Cyrus suggested. “If the guards spot you, no way will we be able to sweet-talk our way in.”

“It’s probably best if I’m not in the vehicle at all. I can work from here just as easily.” Pierrot and his laptop exited the SUV, leaving Cyrus and Diego to continue the half-mile drive to the community entrance.

Like most exclusive neighborhoods, there was a sign saying Welcome to Woolly Pillars . And then in smaller underneath, Residents and Authorized Guests Only . The guard post that controlled the heavy metal bar that blocked the road had another message, Resident and Guest Check-In .

Cyrus stopped the SUV alongside the illuminated window in the small structure and waited. No one appeared to ask them their business.

“Wonder if they’re sleeping,” Diego stated, exiting the vehicle and rounding it to peek inside the window. The monitors were dark, and the chairs empty.

A whirring sound had him turning to see Cyrus rolling down the window to ask, “What’s wrong?”

“There’s no one here.” Which was beyond odd, because Xander insisted on a twenty-four watch. He even had a pair assigned to each shift to ensure if one went for a piss or to check on something that the post wouldn’t be unattended.

Cyrus joined him to peer inside. “That’s odd. Everything is turned off.”

“Keep an eye out while I go in.” Diego half expected the door to be locked, but it opened easily. He stepped inside, immediately sniffing and looking for any signs of foul play. No blood. Nothing out of order. He exited and shook his head. “No clue as to what happened to the guards, but I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Me, too.”

“Wanna go in with me for a look?”

Cyrus shook his head. “I’m thinking we should grab Pierrot and Anabel in case things get messy. You coming with me to fetch them?” Cyrus slid back into the driver’s seat.

“Nah. I’ll stay here and reboot the monitors. I wanna watch the last recordings and see if we can figure out what we’d be trotting into.”

“Good idea, but be careful,” Cyrus warned before flipping around to head back down the road.

While he waited for the computer to boot, Diego went outside and listened. The quiet this time of night was normal, yet he couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness that went deeper than the abandoned guard post.

By the time Cyrus returned with the vamps, Diego was cursing as the login screen foiled his attempts to watch any security videos.

The big vamp took one look and said, “Move aside.”

Since computers weren’t his thing, Diego let Pierrot have at it and instead hopped the bar blocking the road to walk a few paces inside the compound. From the entrance, the housing couldn’t be seen, only a bunch of trees and shrubs, part of the privacy offered in this private housing enclave. Once a person passed the band of forest, the houses were set in concentric circles, with the center being a park area with benches and playsets for the kids as well as a pavilion where they used to gather for pack meetings or before the full moon. The wooded land around the compound also technically belonged to the pack, although on paper it appeared to be owned by a numbered corporation. The same corporation leased the homes within the community, to Lycans only, of course.

“Seems too quiet,” Cyrus remarked, joining him.

“It is almost two in the morning,” Diego reminded.

“I wonder what happened to the night guards.”

“You might want to see this,” Pierrot shouted before Diego could reply.

They eyed each other and jogged back to the guardhouse, a tight fit with four of them clustered inside staring at the monitors.

“The last footage before the cameras were shut down was at ten o’clock,” Pierrot stated unnecessarily, since they could see it stamped on the video.

It showed the sedan, identified by its license plate, arriving, its bright headlights causing a glare and making it impossible to see through the windshield so they could confirm whether or not the two passengers who left the compound together had stayed together.

Diego recognized the guard that emerged. “That’s Harry.”

Harry bent down to speak to the driver. A moment later, he entered the guard house and his partner emerged, a young kid named Rory. Rory also spoke to the driver before nodding his head and getting into the back of the car. They saw the bar to the gate lift before the video ended.

“Monty must have whammied them,” Diego exclaimed.

“Unlikely,” Pierrot countered. “Even if they’d been touched previously by Roderick, Monty’s not that strong in the mental arts.”

“Doesn’t look that way in the video,” Diego argued.

“It’s possible the guards were preconditioned to obey his instructions,” Anabel murmured. “And not necessarily by having a geas placed on them. Could be their alpha told them to allow Monty entry.”

“And then leave their post to ride in with them?” Cyrus shook his head doubtfully.

“Either way, we know they’re here,” Diego exclaimed. “Let’s go find the fucker.”

“Slow down,” Pierrot cautioned. “There must be a reason the cameras were disabled. Hold on a moment while I pull some logs.”

Pierrot scrolled the mouse over the screen, exiting the video playback module and clicking on one titled “Gate Entries.” It showed dates and times. Pierrot tapped his finger on the screen. “Here is where the sedan arrived. Ten thirteen. The next entry is just over an hour later, and shows the bar being raised and not lowering again for almost an hour. Then nothing.”

“Meaning what?”

Pierrot shrugged. “I don’t know but find it interesting. Why have the entrance unbarred for that length of time with the cameras turned off?”

“To hide their actions. Duh.” Diego drawled. “And I think we’ve done enough yapping about it. It’s time we went for a look-see.”

Four-legged style.

It took but a moment to strip and then shift, the intense pain nothing new and quickly forgotten with the euphoria of becoming his beast. Diego shook his fur out and held in an urge to howl. A glance at Cyrus showed him in wolf shape, nose to the ground, already sifting the many scents. This form allowed them greater ability to identify the various odors, such as the lingering exhaust from a diesel-powered vehicle, a surprising thing, seeing as how he didn’t recall anyone owning any.

The vampires split, one to the left, the other right, seeking their own path. Diego, however, stuck to the road. After all, a wolf wandering wouldn’t be an unusual sight. Cyrus trotted by his side.

It was a quarter-mile down the tree-lined road before they came across the first of the houses. Windows dark, as to be expected at this time of night, but the first hint of something amiss came in the form of a front door partially ajar.

Diego swiveled his head and made a soft noise to draw Cyrus’ attention. While he wandered in for a sniff and see, Cyrus kept watch.

The house, belonging to a young family with their first baby, appeared tidy—at least by normal parental standards. Some toys on the floor. The smell of baby spit-up on a blanket lain over a chair’s armrest. He nosed through all the rooms and caught only the four expected scents—male, male, female, infant. No signs of foul play, other than the fact the family appeared gone.

Gone without the purse on the side table in the front hall or the car keys sitting beside it.

He exited and shook his head at Cyrus.

The golden-hued wolf stared at him for a second before bolting for the next house, the door shut tight against intrusion but it had a latch handle and a smart wolf knew how to use its paw to press it. Cyrus’ turn to pop inside and emerge looking agitated. By the time they’d managed entry into five homes, all empty, it was becoming clear something had happened.

Where was everyone?

There appeared to be no signs of a struggle in any of the homes. Old, young, middle-aged. It was as if the entire pack had disappeared.

Time for a powwow.

They found the vampires in the center of the compound conversing by a bench. As they neared, Pierrot glanced at them and said, “Everyone is gone.”

Diego shifted, uncaring of his nudity to blurt out, “That can’t be possible.”

“Tell that to the empty homes.” Pierrot waved a hand. “Even that of your pack leader is vacant. Cars in the driveways. Purses, wallets, and phones left behind. In the home of a family with an infant, the diaper bag was sitting by the door.”

“That’s what we found, too,” an equally naked Cyrus revealed. “At least there were no dead bodies, like back in Moon Dew.”

“Seems they were removed en masse and most likely not voluntarily.”

A damning observation that had Diego clenching his fists. “Monty took them.”

“Most likely he is involved somehow, although I have no idea how. Like I said before, Monty isn’t a strong vampire. Even if every one of the Lycans here was previously touched by Roderick, he’d still struggle to get them to obey. In any case, the bigger question is, where are they?” Pierrot pointed out.

“I’d also like to know the why,” Cyrus interjected, his brow creased.

“Not for anything good, I fear,” Pierrot’s ominous conclusion.

“No shit. Whoever took them obviously wanted them for some purpose, else they would have killed them,” Cyrus retorted.

“We must tell Thaddeus at once. This many Lycans going missing along with our traitor is the worst kind of news.”

It chilled Diego to the bone to think a few dozen Lycans might be whammied into fighting for the wrong side or, worse, turned into savage ghouls. Clearly, Thaddeus, Nathan, and both councils had underestimated the problem. It didn’t matter that supposedly Roderick was dead. They had no idea how far his reach had extended before his death or, hell, if there was another who’d managed to replicate Roderick’s abilities to mesmerize Lycans.

“We have to find them,” Diego exclaimed.

“Agreed. Alas, I haven’t the slightest idea where to start looking.” Pierrot’s lips turned down. “And I fear we don’t have much time.”

Make that none at all.

Upon calling Thaddeus with their findings, their new alpha had grim news to impart.

An hour before, a massacre occurred inside a twenty-four-hour diner. According to witnesses, and corroborated by those filming with cameras, two men and a woman walked in, began tearing off their clothes, and shifted into wolves. Wolves that proceeded to tear into everyone there. Luckily, one of the patrons was licensed for conceal and carry and shot the wolves—in the head, double-tap kill shots—even as one was chewing on his leg.

The very public attack led to social media going wild, even the news agencies, all posting with variations on the same title that amounted to one thing.

Werewolves exist and they’re coming after humans.