Page 32 of Wolf Bane (Marked #3)

My head gave a steady, strong pulse of pain as people started filling me in on all the nitty gritty.

Gina Perrin and Reba joined us. A firefighter went over some protocol with me and handed off some paperwork I’d need to fill out.

Someone else handed me the same paperwork but told me the owners would need to fill it out.

Reba made a strangled sound, asked if she could get the appointment books from her desk and was led off by a young firefighter with his turnout coat hanging open, and a bright smile on his too-young face.

Everything was a buzzing blur by the time I’d nodded enough and made the right sounds. Gina Perrin was the one to finally lead me away to a quieter spot in the parking lot.

“What the hell?” she hissed. “I don’t buy for one second this was some random teenage gang.”

I shook my head, forcing myself not to look at the spray-painted word on the storefront. “It definitely wasn’t.”

“Where the hell were you? Reba nearly lost her mind trying to get hold of you!”

“Jesus,” I groaned. “How much time have you got?”

Gina Perrin’s glare would’ve been able to scorch that spray-paint right off the building if she’d turned her head just a few degrees to the right. “Talk.”

Sheriff Nelvin’s voice was loud and cut across the parking lot, drawing both of our attention away. “What’s the matter? He too sensitive to have a conversation with a man?”

“Oh, fucking hell. Of course he’s one of those. Of course.”

Gina Perrin raised a brow at me. “We’re in rural Texas. Are you surprised?”

“Honestly, yeah. Most folks here live in the twenty-first century and either don’t care or are openly accepting.” I shrugged. “The few phobes I run into these days are usually in the bigger cities. Go figure.”

“Safety in numbers, hm?” She straightened her spine as the sheriff marched over with Ethan in tow.

A very red-faced, stiff-necked Ethan.

The chat went as well as could be expected, which wasn’t very. A lot of very thinly and not so thinly veiled suggestions about my culpability in the damage, despite the fact security cameras showed it wasn’t me and the cameras from the surrounding businesses showed it wasn’t me.

“Those aren’t official,” Nelvin sneered. “Not without the right paperwork. As it is, that’s just hearsay until we subpoena the footage.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright then. Subpoena it. In the meantime, I’ll do what I need to do to make sure the owner is able to restore the clinic, and I have my job.”

Nelvin snorted. “Last thing the community needs is you touchin’ on people, spreading that influence.”

Gina Perrin made a low, threatening noise in her throat but Nelvin glared at Ethan instead. “What’d you say, son?”

“Your line of questioning is an excuse to threaten,” Ethan said smoothly, a hint of a growl in his words.

The very faint lisp—barely discernible unless you heard him talk often—told me his teeth were trying to lengthen, to become sharp canines instead of human appropriate ones.

“If you have actual cause, you can contact his lawyer.”

Which I did not have. I turned my foot to step none too lightly on Ethan’s toes, but he didn’t even flinch. Instead, he produced a card from his wallet and held it out until Nelvin took it. “Dianne Kessler,” Nelvin read out, then turned a sour gaze my way. “She one of you?”

I had the feeling that, if Ethan had her card handy, she definitely was member of at least one community I belonged to. “Yeah. Human, just like me.”

Nelvin flicked the card back at Ethan, who let it fall to the ground after bouncing off his chest. “Your sort is ruining the state, Doctor Babin. Stay nearby. We’ll be talking later.”

“Over my dead body,” Ethan muttered as Nelvin sauntered back towards Wisher, who looked whey-pale and tense. “He’ll be out of office before Christmas, if the clan has anything to do with it.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Like… replacing him with someone else or…”

He didn’t reply. Instead, Ethan shot Gina Perrin and I both a glance. “Tyler’s waiting for us. We need to get moving. Doctor Perrin…”

She shook her head. “Nope. I’m coming with. I’m neck deep in this bullshit now so you’re stuck with me.”

* * *

Tyler, Justin, and Mal were crowded into my kitchen when we got back. I introduced Gina Perrin to everyone who’d yet to meet her and she had a keen eye for Justin. He didn’t seem to notice, but I wondered if she’d found her first long-term patient.

No, I didn’t wonder. I hoped .

Tyler had made a huge pot of coffee while Mal had prepared tea. Mariska was curled up on the sofa, looking less wan but still unwell. “I thought we were going to your place,” I said as I passed Tyler in the kitchen.

“My place is lousy with clan,” he muttered. “They keep coming by just for a quick question Tyler, hey do you think you could tell Ethan something for me Tyler, hey Tyler we’re thinking of expanding the farm but the Geezens are being dicks, hey Tyler ?—”

Ethan snorted, pouring himself a third cup of the day. “You gotta set some boundaries, man. Office hours. If they come by outside of your hours, tell them to come back. Or do what I did and just don’t answer the door.”

Justin stirred his tea lazily, watching the milk swirl. “I told him he should get one of those rental office spaces. Like those work share things out near the bigger cities.”

“Not a bad idea,” Ethan agreed. “Not necessarily renting an office space but having somewhere separate from home. That’s what I did.”

Tyler grumped at his coffee, frowning. “I’m just holding your place till this whole training period is over. I’m not gonna go investing a ton of money into a temporary problem.”

Ethan didn’t say anything, just gave me a look over the edge of his mug.

If Tyler couldn’t see what was happening yet, it wasn’t my place to tell him.

He’d always been one of those sorts who needed to think something is his own idea, or he’d fight you on it till you were both exhausted.

I smiled, small and tired, back at Ethan—Tyler would figure it out sooner or later.

Right now, though, Ethan would keep the training wheels on for him.

“We need a murder board,” Justin announced, looking around my kitchen with wide eyes.

He was still too pale, too gaunt, and Tyler said he wasn’t sleeping still, but there’d been a subtle shift in his mood since the makeshift clinic.

Like he was finding a part of his old self again.

Or maybe not his old self, but something like it.

Maybe being able to do something, to use what he knew before Garrow wasn’t entirely lost. Something more than fear and anxiety was blooming under the surface, and I hoped it would keep growing.

That it would be a damn kudzu weed of healing, however that looked for him.

I saluted him with my mug. “Sorry, I meant to go get a multi-pack from Costco last week but got distracted.”

Justin rolled his eyes, looking more alive than I’d seen him in literally a year. “You just seemed like the kind of guy who’d have a whiteboard laying around, you know? Maybe one of those that’s like a whiteboard but has the fabric bit on the side so you can use pushpins.”

“He really does, doesn’t he?” Mal mused, giving me a considering look. “Not gonna lie, I’m consistently surprised at Landry’s lack of murder boards, given everything he’s got going on.”

“Hey, what’s this he shit? You’re in this too!”

“Fair.” Mal smiled, tired eyes crinkling slightly. Talk of a murder board had stirred Tyler into a search and he reappeared from our home office with a pad of paper and a handful of pens that were of dubious usefulness.

“Swear to God, I’m buying a whiteboard after this,” he muttered, dropping his bounty in the middle of the kitchen table. “Alright. Let’s go.”

All eyes turned to me. “Uh. Right. Okay. Here’s all of the puzzle pieces.”

Tyler started writing as I started talking.

The Clemens kids, Robards, Lugaru, Justin.

Monk and Hood. “I already checked on Kayley, that teacher who got bit. She’s not showing any signs,” I added.

“At least as far as I can tell without flat out asking if she feels like turning into a werewolf all of a sudden.”

Gina Perrin chimed in with what she knew from her recent time with the council’s main offices. “I’m sure there’s more,” she said with a heavy sigh. “There’s so many rat holes and warrens there…”

“And Garrow,” I added quietly. “Can’t forget him.”

Tyler growled at that. Mal just sank lower in his chair. “I’d love to think this isn’t related,” I admitted, “but this all looks, smells, and quacks just like a duck.”

“So, this is what we have. A non-council backed group is going around posing as healthcare outreach, aiming at communities with high were and shifter populations.” Tyler sighed.

“Mostly rural,” I added.

“Mostly rural. Right. The people who seem to be getting and staying sick, or just not recovering, were either injected with something that was allegedly a booster, or some sort of vitamin shot, or were given painkillers.”

Justin made a distressed sound, scrubbing his hands over his face.

He’d been doing better, having something to focus on, which made me wonder how much of his lingering malaise had to do with depression and dysmorphia and how much was whatever he’d been exposed to.

One eating the other, I thought, like one of those damn ouroboros.

“And we have Robards.” I tapped the page Tyler was charting on, Robards’ name separate from the others. “He wasn’t a were when he came in my office.”

Ethan heaved a heavy sigh and, as if the words weighed a ton each, said, “I’ll start shaking that tree, finding out where he’s being kept right now. If he’s still with us.”

I nodded, stomach sloshing uneasily. If he was dead, what next? His family weren’t were. What would they be told? How would they be told? Would it be up to me or would the council handle it?