Dire Warning WC0.5 (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

The camera crews showed up in the late afternoon as Rifter watched Bill plan his own destruction.

True to her word, Marley said nothing to Bill, remaining in the kitchen for most of the morning, venturing out in the early afternoon when Bill decided to make his announcement to the crew.

She’d slept on the downstairs couch in a toss and turn fashion as Jinx watched over her. She hadn’t wanted to go into Paula’s apartment for fear of seeing the ghost, and Jinx said he couldn’t blame her for not being ready yet.

“Come on, gather round.” Bill motioned for the crew to come closer and Rifter and Jinx waited on the outskirts of the crowd as he made his big announcement. “After careful consideration, I’ve decided to up the ante. I’m going to film the first episode of my own series, and use it in conjunction with the tape of the werewolf to turn this into a major deal. So tonight, we’re filming right here. On the second floor.”

There was a predictable hush and then Bill continued. “We’re going to talk to Paula tonight. She’ll tell us about what really happened with the wolf.”

Yeah, the guy was a fucking genius. One who didn’t realize he was about to totally screw himself over with his borrowed plan.

He really hoped the human female was up to the job and followed her and Jinx into the kitchen as Bill directed the crew on how to set up.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Marley was telling Jinx.

“We have to get him to admit it,” Jinx said. “You can do it with Paula’s words the night she was murdered.”

“I don’t know what she said,” Marley protested weakly.

“She’ll help you,” Jinx assured her. “You have to trust.”

Although he could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced, she didn’t argue any further. “I owe this to Paula, right?”

“Right. She won’t be able to rest if you don’t.”

“If this doesn’t work, I’m a target for Bill,” she said.

“We will keep you safe if this plan backfires,” Rifter assured her. “We’ll keep you safe afterwards, no matter what happens.”

“I can’t pay you.”

“I don’t need your money.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Same reason you are. Closure.” Rifter smiled around the human word.

The plan was set. The cameras were being prepped. Marley was nervous, although she and Jinx had discussed their roles extensively.

If the plan didn’t work, Rifter would need to take care of Bill himself, and that would go against everything the Elders wanted for the Dires.

Marley wrung her hands for the millionth time as she tried to pull herself together.

For the love of everything good and holy, you’re not Lady Macbeth.

She’d already weighed her options until her head hurt. She couldn’t go to the police with the theory she and Jinx and Rifter had. She knew that. Telling them that a ghost was trying to help her would sound crazy.

Heck, it was crazy, but for the first time in her life, she didn’t care. Not when Bill was starting up with his ridiculous I-see-dead-people thing and there was no one there.

Now, he pointed at the corner. “It’s Paula. She’s obviously unable to rest until she tells us who her killer is.”

Maybe I’m losing it. Or maybe I’ve never had it to begin with,
Marley thought. Could she have imagined that entire incident in the dorm room? Or the time she saw her cousin standing at the foot of her bed the night he passed away—the exact moment he’d died, she’d later learned.

You have what it takes, you know you do.
And Jinx did as well. She hadn’t imagined Paula the other night. Now she just needed the ghost to come back and Marley would help Paula tell her story.

“Paula, can you tell us the name of your killer?” Bill asked. As the cameras moved closer to pan in on him, she felt a shiver crawl up her back. A gentle touch on her neck and she automatically looked for Rifter. But he wasn’t standing close to her at all.

The touch again and she turned all the way around and saw her.

Paula.

And if Marley was seeing Paula standing in the middle of the room, that meant Bill couldn’t be. Same as last night.

“She has revealed the name of her killer to me,” Bill announced theatrically. “The werewolf she took the video of was who killed her.”

In front of her, Paula shook her head no. And right then and there, Marley realized her anger had overridden her fear.

Bill was posturing like hell, claiming that Paula said she was killed by a werewolf.

Jinx tried to catch Marley’s eye. She had her back to Bill’s and was staring at Paula, who was in the center of the room.

When Bill couldn’t get Marley’s attention, he turned to her and saw her trancelike state.

“Marley, who do you see?” Bill asked her in an overly dramatic voice.

She turned to him but pointed directly across from him. “Paula. Bill, Paula’s here. She says she’s got something to tell me.”

Bill’s face went predictably whiter than any ghost mist Jinx had ever seen portrayed in bad B movies. Marley shook visibly but Paula smiled at her and Jinx knew it would work.

Bill was acutely aware of the cameras rolling and he tried to pull himself together. “Tell Paula we’re actively hunting down the werewolf who killed her.”

“He’s lying,” Paula said. The first words she’d ever spoken.

“She says you’re lying,” Marley repeated.

“Bill killed me. He lured me outside to the bar, told me we’d discuss things over a drink. And that’s where he killed me,” Paula continued.

“You killed her,” Marley said, then spoke all of Paula’s words and everything went so still. The only sounds were the night ones that accompanied the woods and the camera’s whir. “She says you were trying to blackmail her. That you told her you loved her.”

“Marley, why are you doing this?” Bill demanded. “Are you trying to gain your own fifteen minutes of fame at my expense? You’ve never been able to see ghosts on your own—I know you’re making this up.”

Jinx had to give the guy credit for rallying, but Paula struck out to hit a soda can balanced on a piece of camera equipment. It went flying, straight at Bill.

This ghost had anger issues for sure. Bill was a dead man.

“Paula did that,” Marley said, continuing to translate the dead woman’s words for Bill and the cameras. “She’s pissed. She won’t leave until you admit what you’ve done.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Bill protested, spinning around to look for a friendly face and failing miserably. “Can’t you all see she’s lying? Stop taping!”

“He knocked me unconscious using chloroform,” Paula said. “He said he would give me the tape of Kyle and I together. When I realized he’d watched us, I got so mad—I lunged for him, fought him but he restrained me and shoved the cloth in my face. He had this planned. His big moment.”

Paula sank to her knees in front of Bill the same time he did. He reached out his hands like he was begging Marley to stop, but his hands ended up brushing right through the hole in Paula’s chest in some kind of bizarre recreation of the murder.

“You loved her, but she told you she was going to marry Kyle. Why couldn’t you accept that?” Marley asked.

“Because the bitch was seeing one of them,” Bill seethed. “Some dirty wolf—and she wasn’t even going to tell me about it. I gave her a job and a place to stay and she showed me no loyalty. She was quitting.”

“And so you killed me,” Paula said, her voice even. “You killed me.”

Bill fell forward then, clutching his heart, his face twisted in a grimace of death. He was gone before he hit the floor, but the cameramen wouldn’t know that, raced to him while another called 911.

Suddenly, Marley stepped back and Jinx noted that a second ghost appeared. “Kyle’s here,” Jinx told Rifter quietly as Marley tried to help Bill, no doubt because she wanted him brought to justice. Jinx had seen the anger in her eyes, but he quickly forgot about that as he watched the scene unfold in front of him.

“What’s happening?” Rifter asked.

“It’s Kyle and Paula—they’re together. They’re going up together.” Indeed, the couple embraced and then walked away until he couldn’t see them anymore.

“I thought Weres went to a different place?” Rifter asked.

“Me too.”

It fascinated Jinx to watch them rise together, wolf and human, twined together. Happy.

Death and love. Two things the Dires were expected to live without, and Jinx hated it so much that it could still make his throat tight to think about it.

Chapter Fifteen

“This is why you don’t fuck with the dead,” Jinx said as they watched from the woods as the paramedics tried and failed to revive Bill, and Rifter agreed heartily. His ability to dreamwalk was bad enough with the living. He was a dreamcatcher of sorts, dealt with all their dreams—and their nightmares.

The nightmares of others were preferable to his own. Most of the time, he wouldn’t let himself go there.

“We were never here,” Rifter told Marley minutes earlier, left Cain to represent the security team. None of them were even on film, at Bill’s insistence, and the indoor security cameras had been erased.

Now, they waited until the police cruisers were down the block and the ambulance took off with lights flashing but no sirens, indicating Bill’s death.

Stray had Cyd slip the new tape into Bill’s safe, where Marley had found it to hand over to the police. He’d spliced in the Vice footage with the Paula and Kyle footage, clumsily but not so much so that they wouldn’t believe Bill was trying to dupe people.

“They took the new tape as evidence. They want me to go downtown to make a formal statement, but if there’s enough on tape, I won’t have to testify,” Marley told them when they returned. They’d watched her dismiss the crew, telling them she just had to get her things from upstairs.

In reality, Cain was already up there, gathering her suitcase.

Marley continued, “Cain gave them the contact information, but they didn’t seem interested in you guys.”

And that was the best news of all. Probably thought supernatural bodyguards were a joke, which was exactly the way Rifter wanted it.

“Where are you going to stay?” Jinx asked Marley.

“Cain says he’s got a place I can crash for a few days, until the police clear me,” she said. “After that . . .”

“You should continue doing this,” Jinx told her. “I have some contacts further upstate I can set you up with. They’re legit—not in it for TV shows or fame, but you’ll get paid. And you won’t be alone.”

Marley considered it for half a second before saying, “I’d like that. Thanks.”

“Cain, get her to the apartment safely,” Rifter said as the young wolf came up next to them, Marley’s bags in hand. It was a building the Dires owned, so there were many Weres and a couple of shifters who lived there, with a select few humans and a single vamp named Jez who’d been living there when the Dires bought the building thirty years earlier.

There were lots of empty apartments. Marley could’ve stayed there indefinitely, but it wouldn’t be the right thing for her, staying involved with the Dires. She was already privy to info she shouldn’t have, and Jinx’s contacts would keep her busy—and safe.

“Do you guys specialize in wolves or something?” Marley asked.

“You could say that.”

She looked at him strangely, and opened her mouth to say something but wisely decided not to.

“All wolves aren’t scary, if they’re treated right. Same with ghosts. Same with people,” Jinx said finally. “You have my number. Give me a call if you need help with a ghost. Although I think you’ll handle them just fine.”

Marley smiled. “Me too.” And then she surprised him with a quick, fierce hug. “Be careful, Jinx. Please.”

“Will do.”

“You too, Rifter,” she said, before she got into the truck, with Cain shutting the door and getting into the driver’s seat.

“Well, that made it worth it. I guess some humans aren’t all bad after all,” Jinx said as they drove off.

“I think she’ll keep her word,” Rifter added.

“Imagine if she knew what we really were?” Jinx asked.

“I’m not all that sure she doesn’t,” Rifter said.

“We dodged a bullet. If the tape had gone viral, this would’ve been huge.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Rifter stared up at the moon. She would turn fat in the next days, her pull sending tingles throughout the supernatural community.

After a few minutes, Vice and Stray showed on their bikes, the sounds as unmistakable as a wolf’s howl.

“Next year, we’re definitely not going out on Valentine’s Day,” Vice announced. “Well, unless Rifter says so.”

“Thanks, Vice.”

These men allowed him to lead. Rifter had always been clear that, for them, it was a seemingly easily made choice and not blind alpha devotion. It was a respect he was most grateful for and one he’d never taken for granted.

As a Dire not born with the ability to dreamwalk, but rather cursed with it by a shaman at birth, he’d always felt like an outsider. Lived the warrior code as a young pre-shifted Dire but had never been entirely comfortably as his pack grew increasingly aggressive to humans—and that had been the Dire’s downfall.

“The pride’s headed out west,” Vice told Rifter. “Too many bad things happening.”

Rifter growled low. The pride didn’t often get involved in Were business, but they were often a good source of unexpected backup.

“They’re worried about the weretrappers,” Vice continued. “They’re getting stronger.”

“And so are we.” Rifter would grow their army. He had no choice.

Chapter Sixteen

Still on his bike, Vice walked himself over until he was next to Jinx.

“Dude, you reek of human.” He sniffed again. “Not as bad as some I’ve smelled.”

Jinx smiled. “She was okay.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re not planning on––”

“No,” Jinx said abruptly. “I like wolves. But Marley’s cool.”

“Think we’ll run into her again?” Rifter asked.

“I have no doubt,” Jinx said as he watched her car glide down the street out of sight. “I’ve got one more thing to do. I’ll meet you home.”

Rifter and the others didn’t argue although it looked like they all wanted to. But they roared down the street behind Marley’s car, leaving Jinx on his own in front of the now dark house with the police tape all around the porch.

“I thought you weren’t going to show,” he called finally, turning to see Anna coming through the side gate toward him.

“Are you kidding? I’m holding you to your promise.” She got to the bike and motioned back toward the house. “Great job. Although now I’m never getting paid.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“Cocky.”

“Get on.”

She did, sans helmet, holding him tightly as he wove through the dark streets toward his destination.

The cemetery was predictably deserted. He had to break a lock to get inside, leaving his bike behind and strolling with Anna.

“If this is where you bring girls, I can understand why you’re single,” she told him, hesitating only slightly before following him.

Jinx gave a sharp laugh that echoed in the darkness. “I’ll work on my dating skills if you do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Deal with your shit.” He pointed to a gravesite she was studiously avoiding.

“I want to go back to the house now.”

“I know why you’re refusing to leave, but you have to. You can’t hang around forever. You did what you needed to.”

“Please.”

“Look,” he commanded and she did.

The gravestone read Anna Pearson and gave dates that made her twenty-one when she died six months earlier.

For several long moments, Anna just hugged herself, rocking back and forth on her heels.

“You never worked for Bill. You’re also not the first ghost who lied to me. So what really happened?” he asked.

She turned back to him finally, her eyes sad. “I was lonely. Drank too much. It was accidental—I passed out and the alcohol poisoning killed me before my roommate found me. So stupid.” She paused. “Marley . . . she was nice. Really nice. She was the first one who actually saw me, even though I scared the hell out of her. And when Bill came in, well, I didn’t trust him at all.”

It was like he always told Vice—ghosts only told the truth if it suited them. If they knew the truth could get under your skin, they’d use it. And Anna had found a way to get under Bill’s skin, while helping Marley.

It was the least Jinx could do to help her. “You’ve got to go now, Anna. You did what you had to. But I can’t let you get stuck here.”

“I’m scared.”

“So am I. All the damned time. But in about five seconds, your fear will be over.”

She turned to him one final time. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“No, but I sure as hell hope it’s true.”

With his words, she held out her hand to touch his, starting as her hand went right through his, the icy feeling chilling Jinx to his bones. “Thank you,” she said quietly and then she began to walk.

Concentrate
, he told her as much as he told himself without saying the word out loud, and he waited as the familiar light floated over her. He was never sure if he brought the light or if the ghost called to it, but either way, it somehow collected Anna.

One minute she was there, the next, he no longer saw or felt her presence.

There was, however, an unmistakable one about two feet behind him. He turned and found Vice leaning against a gravestone, watching him.

“You’re my protection?”

“That’s a scary thought.” They both laughed and sobered quickly when Vice continued. “Rogue would be here. He said you shouldn’t do this shit alone.”

“He’ll come out of it,” Jinx said finally, wondering which one of them he was trying to convince more.

“I know,” Vice said. “Hey, that werechick you hooked up with at Clyde’s is asking around about you. I think she’s one of those modern women who wants to ask you out on a date.”

Jinx punched him in the shoulder., “Thanks for the update. And if you give her my number I’ll . . .”

“Already did. No need to thank me. If you don’t use your dick more often, it’s gonna shrivel up and fall off.”

Vice ran out of the cemetery, Jinx at his heels, their howls rising through the air.

Rifter heard them over the roar of his bike, would recognize his Dire brothers’ howls anywhere. At one time, he might’ve reprimanded them, but for what? For being so free, for being themselves?

Not anymore.

Before he drove home, he circled Bite one last time, like there was something he still couldn’t quite put his finger on. As the snow fell heavily around him, he threw back his head and let Brother Wolf howl through him, a sound he knew would echo through the woods around him, could be heard for miles by humans. Would reverberate through the weretrappers’ souls, if they even had them.

Fuck it. He was here to stay.

One more long howl, this more joyous than mournful, and he pushed the Harley toward the Dire house.