Animal Attraction (27 page)

“When I was shot at?” I thought about the map
again and tried to get myself oriented. “Yeah, you’re right.”

I kept an eye on where we were headed. A
weather-beaten sign appeared on the right side of the road,
proclaiming we were now entering the Fulton Falls Country Club
Hunting Grounds. Members and Guests Only.

Sometimes it sucks to be right. It really
sucked to realize that it wasn’t just Tattingail hunting shifters.
Duke and who knew who else were also a part of this. For all I
knew, the whole blasted country club was in on the scheme.

We pulled into a clearing big enough to park
a dozen cars. At the end of it squatted a rustic cabin made with
reddish logs. Tattingail’s car pulled up to the front. He got out.
Our ride parked next to Tat’s sedan, and Duke joined him.

They went into the cabin, chattering and
happy now that they’d taken the evidence of Ryan’s presence out of
the public eye.

“Let’s do something about these creeps,” I
told Dan. He nodded and we headed for the closed cabin door.

No sooner had we stepped onto the porch when
all the energy left me. Dan cried out with me and we jumped
back.

I felt almost light enough to float. Dan
looked a little wispy around the edges as he swore. “It’s warded!
Sons of a bitch, they warded the thing with an energy drain
spell.”

I snarled at the door much like Gerald might.
“Anti-para until they want some of what we’ve got. Typical
hypocritical bigots.”

Dan shook himself, trying to recover. “We
need to get in there. But how?”

Headlights in the early morning light showed
up on the dirt lane. Someone was coming, and it gave me an
idea.

“We can amp up off this late arrival. Maybe
we can handle a power drain if we’re on overload.”

The vehicle behind the headlights came into
the clearing, a gold Lexus. It pulled up and parked.

Dan nodded his approval of my idea. “Let’s
stay out of sight, though. Don’t take in so much power that you
appear to the living. They don’t need to know we’re coming.”

The driver within the car was a dim shadow. A
small splash of light showed he spoke on his cell phone. He kept
the Lexus running as he continued to talk.

Dan and I went to the front of the car. We
ducked down behind the hood to avoid being seen in case we took in
enough energy to appear. It was easy to get greedy when snagging a
power snack. It was like a certain brand of potato chips; once you
started, it was darned hard to stop.

We shoved our hands into the engine
compartment. Power flowed in, replacing what we’d depleted and then
some. This was so much better than draining a cell phone. Yow, the
tingles. It felt good. In fact, slurping up this much energy was
second only to live blood. Plus I tended to get a little high from
it. I wasn’t the only one. Dan and I grinned and then started
making goofy faces at each other. Good times.

The car coughed as we pulled hard on its
battery. We heard the driver curse. He shut the car off and the
pouring of power subsided.

“Aw man,” I complained. “Dude ended my ride
on the happy train.”

Dan snickered and then waved for me to be
quiet as we heard the driver get out of the Lexus. He continued to
jabber on his phone.

“Yeah, I’m overdue for a tune up. Hey, I
gotta get going. I’ll call you about that tomorrow.”

I remembered that voice. I jerked up to have
a look even though its owner was already walking past. My joyous
high fizzled and became anger in an instant. I barely managed to
contain it until he disappeared into the cabin.

The owner of the Lexus was Ryan’s accountant
friend Mark. His former frat brother, the one who had sworn up and
down he and Ryan’s other friends would tear his blackmailer a new
one.

“You slime! You hateful, lying piece of
garbage!” I raged at the now absent Mark. “He trusted you! And I
bet you were the one who told Tattingail he could be
blackmailed!”

Dan put a hand on my shoulder. “Ease down,
baby girl. Losing your temper isn’t going to help Warner.” He
looked at the cabin and considered. “Let’s go in through the back.
We got a little carried away. I think we might be visible to the
living with all this energy, and we don’t know how little will be
drained off.”

My burst of anger having been vented, I went
back to feeling giddy. “Want to skip arm in arm?”

Dan snickered. We did not skip, but our
journey to the back of the cabin was far from dignified. We kept
purposely bumping into each other, laughing like loons as we did
so. Yep, we’d taken in too much power to work effectively. With any
luck, the ward would take the edge off and we’d be good to do what
we needed to once we saw the situation inside.

We got to the back door and shoved our way
through. The energy drain was expected. What we walked into was
not.

We got through the energy-stealing ward with
a tad less than normal strength to spare. It didn’t help. We’d no
sooner walked into the backmost room of the cabin when our feet
froze in place.

I flailed as I tried to step forward, but
could not. Next to me, Dan was in the same fix.

He didn’t have the slightest care about not
cursing in front of me at that moment. “Damn it! This place is
warded inside as well!”

“Great. This is flipping great,” I said. “At
least it’s not pulling our energy away and making us into wraiths.
We’re just stuck.”

“We’re not the only ones. Another silver
lining; we found Ryan and he’s alive.”

Dan was right. My sister’s husband was in the
room, in an enclosure. Two sides were made up of thick metal bars
that could have held a gorilla. They were bolted to the floor,
ceiling, and the two walls they butted up to in the corner of the
room. One of the walls appeared to have a door that would open to
the outdoors, but I saw no handle to open it, at least not from the
inside.

Ryan sat in the middle of this cage on the
tile floor, his expression that of an utterly broken man. He didn’t
look hurt physically. That had to be a plus too. I took all the
good I could get out of the situation.

I looked around at the rest of the room. Two
racks of hunting rifles hung on the walls next to a closed door.
Like the floor, the walls had been covered in tile. There were two
drains in the floor. A faucet with a hose attached.

I shuddered. The room had been designed for
easy and quick cleanup. I had a mental image of someone hosing
blood down the drains. It made me wonder how many shifters had died
in here, perhaps refusing to run for their lives. Maybe they had
simply sat on the floor as Ryan did now, not caring that rifles
with silver shot pointed at them.

I didn’t have long to indulge in the morbid
fantasy. The door on the far end of the room opened and Tattingail,
Duke, and Mark walked in.

Ryan’s head came up slowly, as if it was
almost too heavy to raise. His dejected expression disappeared in
hopeful surprise, and he jumped to his feet. “Mark!”

His accountant gave him a little wave. “Hey
bro. Glad you made it to the party.”

My heart broke to see awful realization fill
Ryan’s face. His mouth opened and closed twice before he managed to
say, “You – you’re part of this?”

Tattingail snorted at his shock. “Who do you
think gave me the information to get you here?”

I did not take offense to the language as my
brother-in-law turned the air blue with profanity. After a string
of curses that got no reaction from his captors, he screamed at
Mark. “You were the best man at my wedding! You’re Jesse’s
godfather! How could you do this to me? To my family?”

Mark shrugged. “You’re not human, man. It’s
not your fault, but – well, you have no business in our world.
That’s the way it is.”

I ached to punch him in the face. “That is
one cold piece of garbage.”

Dan looked as disgusted as I felt. “Sick.
Twisted and sick.”

Tattingail spoke as if there had been no
exchange. Smooth and polite as if he conducted a deal, he said, “I
would like to thank you for your patience, Mr. Warner. The delay of
our outing couldn’t be helped, but this business of our last, er,
guest, has been successfully resolved. The hunt will be
tonight.”

Ryan glowered. “I won’t do it. Not now, not
with him involved.” He jerked his head in Mark’s direction. For
good measure he added, “Fuck you.”

“May I remind you of what will happen when we
disclose your doings to the medical board? To your former partners?
Prison time, your family is ruined—”

Ryan looked like he might explode again.
“Ashley and Jesse will be fine. Her parents will see to it. You
can’t hold them over my head.”

Mark spoke up, his tone amused. “Maybe Ashley
was in on it. My paperwork could be altered to make it look like
she enjoyed a portion of your thievery.”

My hands clenched into fists. “Oh, I will so
chew your neck through if you try it. You leave my sister
alone.”

Ryan went still at the threat. His voice soft
with pleading, he said, “Mark, come on. You can’t be serious.
Ashley is innocent of anything I’ve done!”

“She stayed married to you. She consorts with
inhuman freaks, endangering her child. Nothing innocent about
that.”

Ryan’s mood swung to anger once again. He
started to shift, his body swelling to strain the tee-shirt and
jeans he wore. The claws on his feet grew longer, and fur ran out
of his skin. An animal growl trickled from a snout grown full of
sharp teeth.

The cage must have been solid. Despite the
terrifying display, Tattingail, Duke, and Mark only chuckled.

Tattingail said, “I see it’s shaping – or
would that be shapeshifting up to be a wonderful hunt tonight?
Until then, Mr. Warner.”

The punmaster and his cronies left the room.
When the door slammed shut behind them and the lock clicked home,
my half-changed brother-in-law slumped to the floor once again.
With defeat, the shift reversed, leaving him a sad semi-human man
once more. Sobs shook his shoulders.

I sent my furious glare Dan’s way. “They are
the worst waste of flesh posing as men. I’d like to take their
guns, shove ‘em up their butts, and pull the triggers.”

Dan looked pretty enraged too, but he got
control over it. “Ryan is safe until tonight. By then, you’ll be
pulled back into Patricia’s body.”

My first wish was to come in and tear the
place apart with vampire strength. However, these were community
leaders and they were legally, though not morally, human. Even
Tristan’s supposed sister wouldn’t be immune from anti-para
sentiment if I came in rampaging. The authorities would stake me in
the sun before it was over.

I made myself put aside thoughts of
well-earned revenge. “I’ll run straight to Levi. He can grab some
agents and come in with guns blazing.”

Dan nodded. “Atta girl. Who knows; maybe we
can figure a way out of this before then.”

I agreed. We set about brainstorming our
options.

It turned out we had none except to wait for
me to be called to my nighttime body. We could not get ourselves
loose from whatever occult flypaper kept me and Dan stuck. I found
it bitterly amusing that murdering anti-paras had called in a
topnotch witch to shield their little killers club from unwanted
intrusion. I wondered if hexes were in place to deal with
vampires.

That meant we spent hours listening to Ryan.
The werebear alternated between praying, crying, screaming, and
shifting as he attempted to break loose from his cage. For me, the
worst part was hearing him sob apologies to Ashley and Jesse.
Apologies he was convinced more and more they would never know
about. I alternated between wanting to throttle him for getting
himself into this situation in the first place and reassuring him
that he would get the chance to beg forgiveness in person.

After an eternity, I felt the familiar pull
of the body that demanded a soul. I uttered a sigh of relief and
smiled at Dan. “Sundown. I’ll bring help as fast as possible.”

“Please do. It sucks not being able to kill
myself so I don’t have to hear him anymore,” Dan replied with
gallows humor.

The tugging increased. I was certain I was
going, and yet my surroundings never changed. The yanking grew
harsher, more demanding. It wasn’t quite painful, but it sure as
shooting wasn’t pleasant. I grunted and moaned as I jerked
helplessly against the spell pinning me to the tiled floor.

Dan watched with mounting concern.
“Brandilynn? What’s happening?”

“I don’t ... know,” I groaned at the
insistent yanking. “I’m trying ... to go ... but I can’t frigging
move.”

It felt awful. I fought the ward holding me
in place, struggling to find relief from the call of Patricia’s
body. I moaned as the discomfort went on and on. I thought I might
go insane from the desperate need to leave and the inability to do
so.

Dan’s grip on my arm was meant to be
comforting, but there was no such thing at that moment. He
encouraged me as best he could. “Hang in there, okay? Gerald knows
we were going to look for Ryan. When he doesn’t hear from you, when
you don’t show up, he’ll come looking.”

Dan didn’t deserve to be yelled at, not when
he tried to keep me calm, but I found new reason to panic. I
snapped, “Oh yeah, that’s just great.”
Grunt
. “These jerks
can have a fine time –
groan
–hunting a bear and a panther
then, right?”
Whine
. “Two for the price of one.” I yelled
the last between clenched teeth. “Ugh, this feels terrible! Stop
calling me, body! I can’t go to you!”

I flailed. I yelled. I begged. I fought. I
couldn’t get loose. In that endless hell of my predicament, I have
to say that as much as I didn’t want to not be a vampire, I’d have
given anything to be in Patricia’s body right then.

After several minutes struggling, I became
aware that Tattingail and his merry huntsmen had returned. There
were two men besides the trio of the Tats, Duke, and Mark. I took
little notice of them or the heated exchange that cranked up
between them and Ryan. I was too busy with my soul’s insistence on
leaving the room and its inability to do so.