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Authors: Eileen Rendahl

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BOOK: Dead Letter Day
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I followed him out into the hall, past the stairway to the upper floor, past the dining room and the living room and out the door. It was a big house. Somewhere near the back was a kitchen. I could smell the food cooking and hear voices, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying and my hearing is damn good.

Chuck had built the place himself. Well, not by himself. He had help. An Alpha pretty much always has help. Besides, it was his business. Chuck was a contractor, which is in some ways kind of a perfect job for a werewolf. Who is surprised when their contractor disappears for a few days every month? Hell, most people are so thrilled to get one that shows up most days that they wouldn’t think to question a little flakiness around the full moon. Who notices a few extra flashes of temper or a bloodstain or two on a ripped pair of jeans on their contractor? I’ll tell you who. No one in northern California.

A vampire couldn’t do it. First of all, day work is not a vampire’s strong suit. Group loyalty? Also not totally their thing. Which isn’t to say they don’t band together, but there’s not a lot of trust and camaraderie there. Their politics are much more Borgia-like. But werewolves? They’re strong. They’re loyal. They work well together in groups. They love to be outdoors, no matter what the weather is like. Construction work? It’s like the universe invented it for werewolves.

As a contractor, Chuck can provide employment for a whole range of men and women who are trying to find where they belong. Sometimes it takes a while to find a pack. There are always lone wolves wandering around. Chuck offers employment for a few days, a few weeks, a few months. Whatever’s needed. Some wolves stay with him. Some move on. It’s a good system. At least, it looks good from the outside. Paul always thought it was a good thing, too. Of course, Paul never said anything bad about the Pack. Never. Not in all the years I’d known him.

I was seventeen when I first met Paul. It had been hard enough to figure out how to park in Old Sacramento, but then to walk into a bar? Especially a big old trendy bar like McClannigan’s? I’d been intimidated before I’d placed a hand on the big brass doorknob.

Watching Paul become aware of me being there hadn’t helped. He’d known what I was within seconds of me walking into the bar. It was the first time I saw him lift his head and scent the air in recognition of something Arcane entering the bar, but it sure wasn’t the last. Then he’d taken one look at me and muttered, “They make ’em younger every year.”

After that, he’d started calling for more and more deliveries. It took me a while to realize that most of them were messages and items he could easily have delivered himself. It took me a little while beyond that to figure out that he was
keeping an eye on me. After a first flare of teenage resentment, I’d learned to appreciate knowing a werewolf who had my back.

He’d been protective of me then. He’d wanted me to understand who I was and what I was, but he wanted me to survive learning the lessons. Mae had been my mentor at the dojo and she taught me so much that I am still processing it all, but Paul was like that cool young uncle who would tell me how it really was. He’s never stopped either.

Which brings me right back around to where I started. Where the heck was Paul? I had needs, damn it, and he wasn’t around to meet them.

I turned to say something to Chuck, but he shook his head and gestured to a path ahead of me and to the right. I can take a hint. I walked. I wasn’t totally happy about him walking behind me like that. It made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up like steel filings under a strong magnet. I wasn’t sure if he was watching my back or thinking about snapping my neck.

It’s bad form to hurt a Messenger. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I deal nearly every day with beings that often consider humans prey when they bother to consider us at all. Even those that don’t consider us a food source, don’t always have good impulse control. Granted, I’m not your average human. I’m stronger. I’m faster. I’m meaner. Hurting me comes with consequences. Sometimes I think that just makes me a challenge. I was pretty sure that Chuck was smarter than that. I was gambling quite a bit on that assumption as I traipsed up into the woods with him.

It didn’t help that Chuck was most definitely not the only werewolf around. The place was swarming with them. One had answered the door when I’d rung a while ago. She was the only one I’d seen but I could feel the others nearby. It
wasn’t exactly threatening. I didn’t feel a huge amount of aggression directed toward me. There was no imminent attack.

It wasn’t exactly peaceful for me, either, though. In addition to all that strong, loyal, outdoorsy stuff that I actually kind of like about werewolves, they’re also territorial, protective and, frankly, a bunch of hotheads. A lot of intense feelings were swirling through the air. Walking through the area around Chuck’s house was like walking through the emotional equivalent of a hot humid day in the middle of July.

Being in the presence of that many ’Canes had all my Messenger senses tingling at such a high frequency that it was actually a little difficult to listen to anything else.

I reached the top of a hill. A valley spread out below me. The sky was blue with big fluffy clouds creating patterns over the hills in front of me, like moving shadows. Patches broke through in brilliant almost fluorescent greens and yellows while other areas fell into velvety shadow. It would have made a beautiful painting. It was even more spectacular spread out before me as a reality.

“Nice spread, Chuck,” I commented.

He sighed. “It sure is.”

I turned back toward him. “That generally isn’t something to sound depressed about.”

“I’m thinking it’s about time I moved on.” He took another step so he stood next to me. “I’ve been here long enough. Maybe even a little too long.”

The downside of being nearly immortal and not aging very much is that people eventually notice that kind of thing. For a decade or so, you might be able to get away with everyone thinking you had good genes. Let twenty years go by? People start to wonder out loud. The next step after that is people talking and the last thing any group of ’Canes out
there wants is to have the ’Danes talking about them. It’s trouble for people with supernatural powers when the regular folk start to gossip about them. And by trouble, I mean the pitchfork-and-torch kind of trouble.

“That’s too bad,” I said and I meant it. “You’ve built a nice place up here. A lot of people count on you.” I paused a little on the word “people.” It’s bad form to talk out loud about werewolves and vampires. You never know who might be listening. Still, they weren’t actually people. At least, not anymore. I’m guessing Chuck hadn’t been a “person” for several hundred years.

“True that.” Chuck shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “Still, it is what it is.”

He had a point. As much as I ranted and railed about what I was, plenty of folks, ’Cane and ’Dane, had it worse. Or, at least, not better. Sometimes you had to do what the Boss said and learn to live with what you can’t rise above. I really should have been born in New Jersey. It would have suited me so much better than California. Well, maybe not the big hair, but definitely the attitude. “Where will you go?”

He propped one leg up on a rock. “Not sure. Used to be you didn’t have to go far. My last place isn’t even fifty miles from here. Nowadays, though, with the Internet, well, I’m not sure if any distance will be far enough.” Then he just stared out over the valley spread below us.

“So did you come up here to show me the view and let me know what you’re planning to give up?” I finally said.

Chuck shook his head. “No. I was hoping for a few moments of privacy.” He turned away from me now and scanned the trees behind us. “Beat it,” he growled, although I couldn’t see anyone or anything to growl at. Sure enough, though, I heard
a faint rustling noise and then a slight lowering of the supernatural temperature around us a few seconds later.

He waited another minute and then said, in a low voice, “You, too.” That was followed by more rustling.

“Is that it?” I asked. I had only recently begun to be able to distinguish between the different kinds of ’Canes that I could sense, and while I could sense intensity, I wasn’t exactly certain of numbers. Yet. I felt like my senses had been becoming even more acute and not just my Messenger senses. Food tasted more savory. Smells were stronger. Noises were louder. It was like everything was on high alert, and yet it didn’t come with a feeling of anxiety. Which was surprising since I wasn’t sure that anything ever in my life came without a sense of anxiety. That said, with all those wolves around I was feeling jittery.

“For the moment,” he said. “Now about Paul. He’s been gone for about two weeks now.”

“How uncommon is that?”

Chuck shrugged. “It’s not totally out of the usual.”

“Did he tell you where he was going? What he was going to be doing?” Paul hadn’t said anything to me—or to Meredith—about going anywhere.

Chuck shook his head. “I’m his Alpha, not his mother. If he needs to be gone for a while, then that’s what he needs. I trust him.”

That surprised me again. “That’s not what I’ve been hearing.” What I’d been hearing was that the Pack was uneasy about Paul’s relationship with Meredith. That there was something about a strong and virile werewolf playing fetch and tickle with a seductive and powerful witch that made the Pack nervous. And by “the Pack,” I’d figured everyone pretty much meant Chuck.

“What have you been hearing?” Chuck asked with a surprising lack of edge to his voice.

“That Paul was a threat to you. That there had been words, at the very least. That his present relationships weren’t to the Pack’s liking.”

Chuck’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit. “You aren’t entirely misinformed.”

“So what’s the deal then? Where is he?” Paul wasn’t exactly the most predictable being I knew, but he had his favorite places and he hadn’t been seen at any of them. Meredith was half out of her mind, and the last thing I needed was a half-crazed lovesick witch wandering around Sacramento looking for trouble. Ted was acting stern and concerned. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen my boyfriend like that before, but it didn’t mean I had to like it. Even Alex seemed anxious. No one likes an anxious vampire. They’re already so damn narcissistic, anxiety makes it ten times worse. Plus, if Alex was anxious, my roommate Norah was anxious. None of that made my life any easier. Besides, I missed him. Paul was my buddy. He patently refused to pour me a decent drink down at McClannigan’s, but he was my bro.

Chuck rocked back on his heels a bit. He was a big man. Not as big as Paul, but easily as powerfully built. His biceps bulged under the black T-shirt he was wearing and his shoulders were broad and powerful. Right now, they were also creeping up toward his ears. Talking about Paul was clearly making the tension build in him. I’d never seen him fidgety like this. “I honestly don’t know. We had words a few weeks ago. I told him he needed to examine his priorities. No one has seen him since.”

“So what were those words you had about?”

Chuck made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. “That woman, for one thing.”

By “that woman,” I assumed he meant Meredith. I sort of got that. A werewolf and a witch together? It did sound like a power play. It wasn’t like that, though. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Frankly, his involvement with you.”

I took a step back. “Me?” What did I have to do with Pack politics? If there was something I was truly uninterested in, it was definitely who got the biggest bone at dinner up in the Sierra pack.

“Yes, Melina. You. His involvement in all your little schemes and battles. He ran the risk of exposing himself when he was swooping in to save your ass, and if he’s exposed, guess what? The whole Pack is exposed. Paul was getting to be a problem. At least, that’s how quite a few of us up here perceived it. We talked to him and he didn’t seem to want to change his behavior. Not with that woman and not with you.”

I felt ill. Literally. My stomach lurched with a sudden bout of nausea. “I…I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do.” Chuck’s jaw clenched. He took a moment to calm himself. “I’m hoping that he’s off somewhere taking a good hard look at his priorities.”

“And if he’s not? You said yourself, no one’s heard from him around here. I haven’t heard from him either. Neither has Meredith or anyone else I’ve talked to. What if something’s happened to him?” I hated to be a Debbie Downer, but someone needed to do something.

Chuck turned and stared at me again, his muscles flexing. “What exactly do you think is big and bad enough around here to take down one of us? And Paul is far from our weakest link, Melina. Don’t you think I would have heard of something that powerful if it was in my territory?”

I chewed on my lower lip. He had a point. It’s not like someone could come in and casually take down a werewolf. There’s a reason everybody knows about the Big Bad Wolf.
On the other hand, those three little piggies came out on top in that story and they weren’t exactly big and powerful. “So what are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“About Paul being missing?” I knew he was being deliberately obtuse, but I hadn’t driven up here to come away with no answers whatsoever.

“You’re assuming that being out of touch with you is the same as being missing. Give Paul a break. Give him some space.” Chuck turned away from the vista in front of us, then stopped for a second and turn around again. “Let me be clear, though, Melina. If I had wanted to get rid of him, it wouldn’t have been like this.”

“Like what?”

“Sneaky and underhanded. Paul wouldn’t have mysteriously disappeared. I wouldn’t have slunk around and done something behind the Pack’s back. If I’d wanted Paul out, I would have challenged him directly. If an Alpha can’t do that, well, it’s time to step down.” He sounded almost sad, in a growly tough-guy kind of way.

I believed him. It made a kind of werewolfy sense and everything in his tone and posture spoke to his frustration and his concern. So this was a dead end. Chuck didn’t have anything to do with Paul’s disappearance and he didn’t know anything about it either.

BOOK: Dead Letter Day
12.45Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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