Matters of the Blood (3 page)

Maybe that's all this was—fear, worry that Boris was descending back into his own private mental hellhole, triggered by what he'd seen at the ranch. I didn't want to upset him any further, but it did bother me that Boris seemed to be trying to warn me in the same breath he used to speak of the Wild Moon and mutilated animals. Who did he want me to tell—and what?

Before I could say anything, Greta spoke.

"We need to go now, Boris. Let Keira have her breakfast.” Her voice still sounded strange—strained, as though she were forcing out the words, making herself act normally. She turned and practically dragged her brother out the door with her. As they exited, Boris shot me a despairing look.

Still a popular hangout after more than fifty years, not much ever changed about Bea's Place, not even after Bea took it over from her parents ten years ago. Still single, like me, Bea and I had been friends since nearly forever.

As a feisty eight-year-old and the only child of aging parents, Bea took me under her wing, determined to befriend the pallid, scared and semi-motherless seven-year-old with bushy black hair, pale gray eyes and a funny accent.

Thirty years later, I'd lost the accent and tamed the hair, but still had the same pale eyes and best friend. Bea was the one person in my life who I could count on to be there for me without an underlying agenda. My family always had ulterior motives for everything. Bea did things out of the goodness of her heart and for friendship. At least some things never changed.

And some things most definitely did not stay the same. The string of brass bells tinkled again; the caf? door swung open and my day got even more complicated.

Beige Stetson poised on his once very familiar head, Carlton Larson, acting county sheriff, stood in the doorway, his handsome face serious as a funeral. Nearly six-five, and with a build to match, he'd always tended to overwhelm a lot of things, not the least of all—some fifteen years ago—me.

I spoke first, hoping my voice would stay steady and friendly. “Hey, there. Welcome back."

I succeeded.

"Well, if it isn't Keira Kelly,” he replied, his deep voice rumbling throughout the restaurant. “Been awhile. Good to see you."

He seemed just as calm as I was pretending to be. Good sign. Last time we'd been in the same room together, sparks flew, and not from passion. We'd both lashed out. Me to wound him, him in anger—cut too deep, not wanting to hear what I was saying. I'd still wanted to be with him then, but not in the way he'd wanted. Not forever, because that was impossible.

Flirtation at twenty-two became an affair at twenty-three. Then one morning, nearly a year after our first date, I woke up and realized he really meant what he said the night before about the whole white-wedding-and-matching-appliances-from-Sears thing, and ended it. No looking back. No other options.

A couple of months after that, just long enough to go through the application and admissions process, Carlton left Rio Seco to join the San Antonio PD. I'd beat his exit by five days and five thousand miles.

I'd beat him back, too—by just under two years. Except ... unlike me, he brought back a hell of a lot more baggage than he'd taken away. He was married and had children.

This was the first time I'd seen him since he'd returned a couple of weeks ago. In fact, it was the first time I'd seen him since I'd left.

We stared at each other, appraising, the silence acknowledging every single one of those thirteen years. He'd trained to become a cop. I'd trained to become ... something else. As far as he knew, I was still the same unemployed trust-fund baby as before. The trust fund still existed, but my job description was totally different—and nothing he would ever find out about.

I took a sip from my cup, taking a moment to taste my feelings as I tasted the rich flavor of the coffee. As I swallowed the hot liquid, I began to relax. His voice once charmed the pants off me—literally—but there was no more charming here. Everything I'd ever felt for him was most definitely in the past tense. Lover: as in
former.
These worn blue jeans were definitely remaining firmly on my body. Thank goodness. Not that I'd be opposed to some horizontal exercise, but definitely not with him. Not now, not ever again. Especially not now.

"Just getting breakfast.” I smiled the polite smile of I-have-no-clue-what-to-say-right-now. “So, what's new?"

Carlton took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick, short-cropped brown hair. He still didn't show any gray, even though he was a couple of years older than me.

"Want to sit?” He strode over to the nearest empty booth, put his hat on the tabletop and motioned to the seat across from him.

As I slid across the bench, Noe came over and dropped off my food without a word. He set down a full glass of tea and several packets of sugar in front of Carlton, then returned to his post at the cash register.

I watched Carlton perform a routine I'd seen countless times. Tap the packets together to line them up, tear them all open at once and dump too many teaspoons of sugar into his glass. The long-handled spoon clunked against the plastic as he stirred.

"Still drinking sweet tea?"

Carlton chuckled. “Yeah, still."

I took a bite of my bacon-and-egg taco dripping with salsa. Heavenly. I sighed and settled in to eat, just like it was any other day. I was good at pretending.

"You look good,” I ventured, talking around a mouthful of food.

The years away from Rio Seco had etched Carlton's face. Fine lines defined his deep brown eyes, a few extra lines on his tanned forehead enhanced his good looks. He'd always been a candidate for Marlboro Man ads, even more so now that he was older and more settled into his features. He even made the cheap brown polyester uniform he wore look good. Not a mean feat.

"Thanks,” he said. “Good genes, I guess.” He picked up the spoon again, stirring and staring at me, a puzzled expression on his face.

"You know, it's really amazing, Keira. It's been too many years to count and you haven't changed a bit."

"Good genes,” I repeated and took another big bite of my taco.

"How's your family? I heard they moved to Canada."

Sure did. Lock, stock, and grimoire. Everyone from my great-great-grandmother on down to my brothers and once-local cousins. Everyone but me and Marty.

"Can't keep a secret in this town,” I joked. “They're in British Columbia. Doing great. Dad enjoys the hunting."

I returned his query, lobbing the conversational ball back over to Carlton's side of the court.

"So, speaking of family ... Carol and the kids getting settled?"

"They're fine."

Carlton put down his glass with a small thump, sloshing a bit of the tea over the side. As he mopped up the spill with a paper napkin, he changed the subject. “What have you been up to?"

Score a point for me in the I-don't-care game. It obviously bothered him to talk about his wife with his former girlfriend.

"Just breakfast,” I said, with a shrug. “Still not so much into the cooking."

The smile crinkled the corners of his eyes and he inadvertently echoed my earlier thought.

"Some things don't change, do they, Keira?” He spoke softly.

Well, not exactly.

I knew the Change wasn't obvious since none of the people I'd talked to earlier had noticed. There was no neon sign above my head or anything, but oddly enough, it would've been nice if someone noticed something, anything. Someone could ask me if I was feeling okay or even—

Damn it. I didn't really know just what I wanted. It was kind of like getting your first period. You didn't want to talk about it, but you wanted everyone to know you were a woman. Maybe not the best analogy, but it works for me. This was a major rite of passage for me, but no one other than my clan really understood what it meant, and they were all in Canada or other parts of the world. Which actually is a good thing most days. It means they stay off my back. But today, I wanted to be able to share with someone who understood.

I looked at Carlton. He'd known me so well back then, or so he thought. He never knew me, what I really was. All he ever saw was a girl who'd broken his heart. I hated it, but I did what I had to then. No regrets.

"So what's been happening?” I asked, bringing us back to the present and to safer ground.

His face tensed, the smile was wiped away in an instant.

"I suppose you've heard about what happened out at that ranch. Up to hearing the gory details?"

I put down the remains of my taco, my appetite waning as I slowly wiped my hands on a paper napkin. I couldn't meet his gaze. “There are gory details?"

I should have known that they'd called out the sheriff.

"Pretty nasty details, actually. You sure you're up for this, you look a bit—"

"I'm fine,” I said, cutting him off. The nasty details were what I needed to hear. I wanted to know more.

He frowned, but continued. “Out at the Wild Moon—its outskirts, really. Got the call before dawn. A couple of kids took a walk down on the Point after an all-night party out at the Bar-K dance hall. Probably went to make-out by the lake. You know how dark it is out there."

Another smile zipped across his face, a flash of the old twinkling eyes peeked out at me, before the seriousness returned.

I smiled back out of reflex. Oh yeah, I knew how dark it was out there. Nights out at the Point, by the lake. Nights spent with Carlton, doing things that might get a person arrested for trespassing and more—except his daddy had been the law back then and we'd had the arrogance of youth.

He kept talking, his big hands folding and re-folding a paper napkin.

"They literally stumbled across the carcasses. Two Sitka deer bodies."

"Do you know who did it?"

I wanted to see what he'd say. There was no way he could know that the hunters weren't human, but someone else had mutilated those deer ... and my bets were on the mundane.

"Not a clue. Anyone can sneak out to the Point. I don't know if you've seen the ranch since the renovation. Most of it's fenced now, some even game-fenced, but not all the way out to the lake. I think it has something to do with an easement or something. Right now, my guess is poachers. Some out-of-town fools with more money than sense trying to get out of buying a license or getting a jump on the season. Even so, I can't put my finger on why these deer."

"Why not?"

"Sitka aren't much good for trophies in any event, and these particular ones were young. Not much meat, not much in the way of a rack."

Young deer. Not a bad choice for hunters chasing prey on foot. Hunters not interested in meat or trophies, just blood, the exhilaration, the bliss of the chase followed by the capture and the kill. Small animals, almost too easy to find, to follow under a hunter's moon, full and bright.

I never saw the predators’ faces in my dream, didn't see their real forms. That part of my memory was hazy, wrapped in shadows. Clear as dirty ice. Deliberately? Something else I didn't know.

Carlton spoke again, eyes almost closed as if telling the story tired him out.

"Keira, there is something else that really freaks me out—something that makes me sick to my stomach."

I turned my attention to him, reinforced my mental barriers, and placed my hand on top of his. The energy that radiated from his body flowed over and around me, as I tried not to notice the distraction. Most humans emitted some kind of “noise,” but Carlton's anxiety increased the sensation, so that it felt like the hum of a high-tension wire sizzling against my skin.

He looked around, as if to see who was nearby. Most of the tables had emptied by now. It was getting late. No one sat within earshot. Even so, he dropped his voice to a pitch so low that even I almost had to strain to hear it.

"When I said trophies, I meant it. They weren't field dressed and pieces left behind—the heads are missing."

He paused a moment, then continued. “Gone, hacked off, brutal. I can't help but think this is something more than just poachers.” He dropped his head and wouldn't look at me as he whispered. “What if we have some sort of satanic cult around here?"

I pulled away.

"Shit, Carlton, you're not serious?"

Shielding my emotions was one thing, but my control would be harder if I were touching him. What was he doing talking about cults instead of poachers? I tried to control my breathing, the irrational panic I felt building. Crap, crap, crap. Not good. Too many childhood stories racing through my mind. Persecution, being hunted down, treated as Enemy. We weren't, but it was too easy to call us “cult,” or worse.

"Carlton, you can't possibly believe that."

As far as the general public was concerned, my people were nothing but rumor and superstition. Fine by me. I'm not so ready to wave that particular pride banner, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, stupid imitators and wannabes kept enough rumors alive to leave just a tiny bit of doubt in people's minds. Just enough to make me worried in this kind of situation. I was not in the mood for another Inquisition. Torquemada may have been right about one thing, we were pretty much all heretics, but I wasn't going to burn at anyone's stake. Not even a symbolic one.

"I can't really believe in any of that stuff, Keira,” Carlton admitted. “But what if some group's gotten into voodoo or Santeria or something like that? We may be a small town, but you know how many new people are moving out to the Hill Country. Maybe somebody's into animal sacrifice or something. You wouldn't believe some of the weird-ass cult shit I saw in San Antonio."

"Come on, Carlton, are you listening to yourself?” I fought to keep my voice from rising. “Nothing's changed around here. We're still in the middle of White People Central."

No shit. We were Texas’ answer to Wonder Bread, mayo, and Baptist church Sundays. This part of the Hill Country had been settled by conservative German immigrants. The closest thing to a cult was a little charismatic Christian church across the lake. No practitioners of Voudoun there, just a bunch of folks who like to sing loud hymns and testify about Jesus to unsuspecting campers.