Page 67 of Witchblood

The distance flew by with little recognition on my part. Not that I knew the area well. There were roads and trees and houses. I wondered if we looked odd, a fox bathed in cold fire, which froze the ground with each step, followed by a giant wolf so dark grey he looked black.

Pack magic could make people believe they saw large dogs instead of wolves nearly the size of small cars. Would it extend to me now that I was mated to Liam? Not that it mattered. Let the world film this if they wanted. Most wouldn’t believe. The supernatural beings of the world had been dissuading humans for centuries. The advances in digital technology helped allothershide in plain sight.

At least this time the fire wasn’t eating at me. It almost seemed to loop between Liam and I. When it got too cold, a blast of heat would explode around me, singeing the air as I sailed through brush and trees. Nothing caught fire, so I wondered if it was some sort of metaphysical fire.

Soul fire. I liked the idea of that, and hoped it did something more spectacular than make me cold, hot, or crave jumping Liam’s bones.

We raced into town. Down the main street which was mostly absent of people this early in the morning. There was the usual line outside the bakery, but no one even glanced our way as we passed. Beyond the grocery store and even down the road past an auto shop that I thought must have been Sean’s.

How many miles had we covered? I wasn’t even sure where I was going. I was just following Dylan’s heart beat on my soul radar. Or whatever this weird link was. Maybe it was Liam who was feeling it and I was just following him. We were side by side now. Dashing through trees and brush, zig-zagging through yards and around parked cars, though those things grew further and further apart.

Liam’s pace quickened and I struggled to keep up. We were close. I could feel Dylan now like a beacon throbbing in my mind. Internal GPS. At least it didn’t have that annoying electronic voice.Turn left here. Recalculating…

Sounds filled the darkness around us. Pack, wolves running, claws digging into wood and dirt.Ours.Liam told me.

And there was something dark ahead of us. Something not unlike the Volkov’s black cloud.

The house appeared an unremarkable two story farm-style surrounded by a dilapidated barn and massive groves of trees. An apple orchard perhaps. I had a brief moment of wondering if there had been people here, or if they might still be there, injured or held hostage. But wolves burst out of the front door like a startled hornet’s nest spewing its angry inhabitants. More than seven. At least a dozen, large and very deadly wolves flew at us.

Liam leapt over me, catching one by the throat seconds before it reached me and broke the wolf’s neck with little effort before tossing it aside and heading for the next foe. I darted around raging claws, thinking hard about the cold fire that lapped at me. I imagined it extending over the wolves surrounding me, freezing their lungs until they couldn’t breathe and stopping their hearts.

Cold blanketed the area like an instant blizzard. Snow dropped around us and ice slicked the ground. The wolves didn’t fall over dead, but they did slip and slide into each other, comically. One leapt only to have its back feet slide out from under it and land in the rapidly rising snow. At least that was a start. The one closest to me coughed, a thick, mucus-filled wheeze that sounded like it hurt. He backed away from me, turning to go after Liam, but I gave chase. Latching onto his back leg with sharp teeth and shaking it, trying to break it.

The wolf snarled at me, turned to shred me with its claws, but Liam arrived a second sooner and ripped out its throat.Find Dylan!Liam commanded me, mind to mind. There were so many wolves for him to hold off, and I hadn’t even seen Felix yet.

A giant black wolf leapt into the clearing, landing on two wolves who’d been trying to get behind Liam. This wolf made Liam look small and was so black in color he’d have a hard time blending into shadows. Life wasn’t usually that absent of shades of gray.

Oberon.

A smaller gray wolf, spattered in white, slid into the field, taking out three wolves back legs and turning at the last second to tear another wolf open from tail to nose with claws sharper than butcher knives.Apa. There was a fury in him I hadn’t seen in a long time. His eyes glowed with a demonic light. It scared me, but bolstered me as well. Liam had backup. I needed to find Dylan, and I was the only one who could change shape back and forth instantly.

I scurried around the battles toward the house, expecting another rush of wolves to come at me. Or at least to have Felix emerge like the demon he was. Only nothing happened as I nosed my way to the door, carefully peering inside. Nothing moved. I listened hard, straining to hear around the violence behind me.

The place stank. Death, booze, defecation, and sex. It was almost overwhelming. I heard nothing from inside. Not the sound of anyone’s heartbeat, or the breathing of a mouse. Though my ears were not nearly as sensitive as Liam’s, I had to focus on the tie to Dylan again. Had he died in the time it took us to get here? Maybe they’d felt us coming and had killed him? Was that why I couldn’t feel him?

More likely it was the stench that made it hard to focus my senses. I wandered room to room, searching for life, trying to ignore the gore at my feet. The rotting smell wasn’t all from takeout bags. Pieces of things littered the floor like forgotten morsels. Not all of it identifiable. There was the hind leg of a cow in one corner. Something that looked suspiciously like a dog head had been rolled into the bend of the couch. I identified a finger or two in a huge pile of discarded bones.

Nothing about this was normal. These weren’t wolves or men. They were monsters. I wondered briefly if Nicky’s remains lay scattered about this nightmare somewhere. My gut rebelled, and I fought the need to vomit. Now was not the time for weakness. I could sob and be sick later, reflecting on the horror and terror. Liam battled a pack of wolves to buy me time to save Dylan. The pack needed Dylan. Of that I was positive. Me…well, I wasn’t sure the pack needed a fox omega.

But Liam needed me. Of that I was positive, even if his wolf drove the desire. I needed him too. Something metaphysical, yes. Just this weird tingle in my brain that began to panic at the thought of him not being close. But there were other things, too. His scent, the way he held me, the way he looked at me sometimes, like I mattered. I let out a long sigh.

Liam needed his pack whole and at his back. I could give him that. If Dylan was still alive. We could work on the mate thing. I still wasn’t positive I was the best thing for Liam, but hope had planted a seed. Maybe if I nurtured it a little instead of jerking it out by the root right away, we had a chance. A lifetime of getting stabbed in the back would make just about anyone shy away from affection. My gut kept telling me that Liam was too good to be true, while my heart said wait. In reality, I needed Liam now. Not just because he said pretty things to me, and had wrapped his soul around mine, but because he’d given me hope for the first time in a very long while. He loved me. Said so, with no trace of lie in his voice. Fuck, he was too good for a mute like me.

I could be useful at least. Find Dylan, I chanted to myself. Liam was counting on me. Sean needed Dylan back. I was pretty sure the whole damn pack needed Dylan more than they needed some little fox shifter messing up their den. Dylan first, self-doubt later, I reminded myself.

Finding the first floor empty, I headed up the stairs, dreading again that feeling of not being able to escape. As a fox I could probably jump from the second floor and live, but I’d likely snap a bone or two trying. Werewolves were more unbreakable than I was. I really hoped that was true of Dylan.

Where are you?I asked into the pack bond I could still feel through Liam. If I thought hard enough I could feel the tiny ping of their presence in different directions. Some closer than others. Like Liam outside, and Carl racing our way in his truck, trying to hurry yet still obey traffic laws, as he tracked his alpha through the same pack link I was using.

And then faintly…

I followed the tiny ping down a long hallway of doors. The stench of death overrode everything. Maybe the alpha Liam had taken the territory from hadn’t been deranged when Liam took over, but he was now. My sensitive nose wondered just how many horror novels would be written about the events in this house. Made for TV mystery stories of the serial killer no one knew haunted their little backwoods town.

How many had died? Would Oberon cover it all up? How would they explain the missing? There had to be a lot of people missing.

A cow or a dog wandering off was easy enough to explain away. But the number of dead here reminded me of a ghoul nest I’d stumbled onto once. Ghouls weren’t ghosts as some legends thought them to be. They were a sort of spirit. They’d taken up residence in an old cemetery outside this tiny town in Iowa. Ghouls didn’t really need the old bodies, since it was flesh they craved. The softness of the ground appealed to them. Recent death would draw them in, just like the group of four teens who’d died in a car when the driver had been texting, had drawn these ghouls in. Once the cemetery was infested, it was only a matter of time before the ghouls started finding food the good old-fashioned way. Hunting for it.

Usually they started with deer, or dogs if the area was too urban. It always ended in humans though. Humans were too slow, dumb, and meat covered, to be left by something as simple as a ghoul.