Silver Kiss (13 page)

He shook his head, said nothing, which only
intensified my irrational feeling of guilt. Finally Eddie sighed
and set down his knife and fork. “I spoke to the doctor in charge
of Molly first thing this morning and he told me there were large
quantities of drugs in her system. Specifically traces of
aconite.”

I regarded him blankly. My experiences with
drugs were limited to headache pills and evening primrose capsules.
If I was supposed to know what aconite was, I’d failed. “Oh?” I
said politely.

“
It’s turning into a real
problem, this Silver Kiss junk,” he continued, oblivious to my
ignorance. “I’ve been saying it for months, this rubbish is going
to lead to trouble, and now this happens.” He tucked into his food
again. “I know everyone thinks we alphas are old-fashioned and out
of touch, but I keep an eye on what’s happening in this city. Molly
won’t be the only wolf who ends up this way. Addiction! It’s a
killer.”

I flipped my egg and watched the white spit
and sizzle at me. Of course I agreed that what happened to Molly
was awful, but I didn’t see why Eddie felt the need to come and
talk to me about it.

“
I understand your partner
was working with Tina Brady to find Molly?” Eddie asked.

I tensed. Was Shannon in trouble? “Tina
hired Shannon—she’s a private investigator—because she thought the
police weren’t doing enough,” I confirmed. “That’s not a problem,
is it?” I added, an arch note creeping into my voice.

“
No,” Eddie assured me.
“No, no, of course not. But I’d like to talk to Shannon and see
what she found out. We’re all concerned about the growing
popularity of this drug and if Shannon has any information on
dealers or whatever, it’d be very useful to us.”

“
Oh.” I must have looked
visibly relieved because Eddie chuckled and shook his head at
me.

“
Don’t look so worried,
Ayla! We’re not going to hold Tina’s mistakes against her child.
Molly’s still a member of the Pack.”

Shannon joined us then, poking her head
round the kitchen door to crinkle her nose at me. “I smell
breakfast.” She smiled at me expectantly. I rolled my eyes and
started dishing up. Then Shannon noticed Eddie. “Oh, sorry. Is this
a Pack thing?”

“
Not at all.” Eddie stood
to shake her hand. “Eddie Hughes. You must be Shannon. I was hoping
to meet you.”

She sat at the table, pursing her lips. “Can
I help you with something, Mr Hughes?”

I set a plate down in front of her and set
about pouring myself a bowl of cereal. “Eddie wants to ask about
Molly,” I told her.

“
Oh, well. Obviously all my
cases are strictly confidential,” Shannon said. “I can’t reveal
anything without discussing it with a client first.”

“
Of course, I understand
that,” Eddie said. “I’m sure in this case Ms Brady would be happy
for you to talk with me.” He explained briefly about the drugs in
Molly’s system and the growing trend amongst younger wolves for
Silver Kiss. Shannon ate while he spoke, but her mind clearly
wasn’t on the food, which only annoyed me more as I tucked
halfheartedly into my cereal.

“
Marc Wright did say Molly
was a habitual cannabis user,” Shannon mused. “From what he said,
she’d moved onto something else before she went
missing.”

“
Silver Kiss,” Eddie said.
“Has to be.”

“
It’s just herbal stuff
though, isn’t it?” I interrupted. “One of my workmates smokes it
all the time and he says it just chills him out.”

“
It’s the aconite,” Eddie
replied, like it should be obvious. “The regular stuff is fine, but
some idiot’s cutting it with aconite before selling it to wolves.”
When I looked blankly at him, he sighed. “Monkshood, Ayla. Look it
up.”

I scowled at him over a spoonful of corn
flakes. Alright, so I wasn’t up on my herbs and spices. Screw
him.

“
Well, obviously it’s
tragic that Molly’s drug habit lead her to this,” Shannon said,
best professional voice on, “but I don’t see what I can do. I can’t
tell you anything except that her boyfriend thought she was smoking
something other than weed.” She shrugged. “It’s not exactly
helpful.”

“
The Pack is looking into
the matter, of course,” Eddie said. “Aconite is both addictive and
dangerous for wolves. We want this stuff controlled—banned,
ideally. The problem is, because it’s a street legal herbal
substance, there are no laws against selling or carrying Silver
Kiss at the moment. And that means people can buy it, cut it with
aconite and sell it on.”

“
So you need to build a
case for banning its sale to wolves,” Shannon surmised. Eddie
nodded.

“
Any information you can
give us that might help would be invaluable, Shannon. Someone is
dealing to kids like Molly and we want them protected.”

“
Molly would have been
protected if her mother wasn’t outcast,” Shannon said. I bit the
inside of my cheek, marveling at how cool she sounded. “She might
never have run away in the first place if she lived in the kind of
loving, secure environment the Pack is supposed to
provide.”

Eddie bristled. In wolf form, his hackles
would have been up. I tensed, ready to leap to Shannon’s defense
either verbally or physically if need be. Then Eddie forced a
smile. “Perhaps, but she’d still have been smoking Silver
Kiss.”

“
Have you spoken to Greg
Maxwell?” I asked, more to take his attention off Shannon than
anything else. “His son, Oscar, is hooked on the stuff. Maybe you
can find out who his dealer is.”

Eddie nodded. “That’s something we’d ask you
to look into,” he told Shannon. “If you agreed to work for us.”

She stared at him, forkful of mushrooms
halfway to her mouth. “You want to hire me?”

“
We’d pay generously,” he
said hurriedly. “We can discuss a rate—”

She waved her fork at him, cutting him off.
“I’m sure we can, but let me get this straight first. You want me
to start chasing down drug dealers? Is that right? Drug dealers
whose main clients are young werewolves.”

“
That’s the gist of
it.”

“
No,” I said immediately.
They both glared at me. “No way. Shannon, you can’t. Drug dealers!
You absolutely can’t.”

She frowned at me. “I’ll decide that, thank
you.”

“
Shannon! Drug dealers!
Werewolf drug dealers!” I slammed my fist on the table, making her
jump. “You can’t!”

“
We wouldn’t send you out
alone,” Eddie said. “Shannon would be working with one of the
Pack.”

I bit back the snarl that rose in me at the
thought of another wolf messing with my mate. “Who?” I
demanded.

“
Moira Clayton,” he said.
The name meant nothing to me, which didn’t make me feel any
better.

“
Private investigator?”
Shannon asked.

“
Retired police officer,”
Eddie corrected. “She worked in Narcotics at Scotland Yard. Moved
down here after she retired. She’s pretty much an alpha now. Very
well respected.”Shannon’s face brightened and they fell into an
animated chat about the mysterious Moira Clayton, who I already
hated. I fidgeted; certain Shannon would take the case and hating
that too. Looking for a missing cub was one thing, but tracking
down werewolf drug dealers was ridiculous. You couldn’t ask a human
to do that! And why did the Pack even need Shannon if they had
Moira bloody Clayton at hand?

“…
ferals in the
city.”

I tuned back into the conversation on
hearing Shannon’s words. “What?”

“
I was saying,” she said
patiently, “how you saw that feral. We were wondering if it’s
anything to do with the drug dealing.”

“
You should have told us
earlier,” Eddie reprimanded me.

I opened my mouth to defend myself, then
shut it. Sometimes you just know you’re not going to win. “Yeah, I
suppose,” I muttered.

They stood, shaking hands. “I’ll be in
touch,” Shannon told Eddie. “I’d like to meet Ms Clayton as soon as
possible.”

“
Of course,” he said. “Good
to meet you, Shannon. Thanks for breakfast, Ayla. I’ll see myself
out.”

As soon as the door slammed, I turned on
Shannon. “You can’t do this. It’s too dangerous!”

“
Don’t tell me what I can
and can’t do, Ayla. I can’t afford to turn down a case right
now.”

“
You could be hurt!
Killed!” A thousand episodes of Real Crimes whirled through my
head. People beaten, maimed, murdered for messing with drug
dealers.

“
We’re not talking crack
cocaine and heroin. This is small-time drug dealing, probably
kids,” she said dismissively. “And I’m not going to be snooping
around crack dens looking for meth heads. For God’s sake, Ayla,
don’t overreact. I’ll be asking a few stoned teenagers where they
get their Silver Kiss and giving the names to the Pack. And I’ll
have an ex-copper with me. What could go wrong?”

Once again I had that sense of fighting a
losing battle. “I want to meet this ex-copper first,” I grumbled.
“Make sure she knows what she’s doing.”

Shannon sighed and began cleaning up the
remains of breakfast. I looked wistfully at the cold black pudding
she was scraping into the bin. If Eddie was going to come and steal
my breakfast and my girlfriend, the least he could have done was
enjoy my cooking.

NINE

I spent most of the
morning feeling
utterly useless and utterly pissed off in turn. Shannon had
disappeared to the bedroom with her laptop to pull together her
notes on Molly Brady’s case ahead of meeting Moira Clayton. I had a
free day and too much energy to burn through. I couldn’t settle on
anything but I didn’t feel like going for a run, so I stalked
around the house, anxious and itchy, until midday when I scoffed a
ham sandwich just for something to do.

I switched on our ancient PC and connected
to the Internet while I ate. A quick search on aconite left me far
better informed, not to mention more worried, than I had been when
Eddie first mentioned it. My appetite had vanished by the time I
was done.

Aconitum
napellus
, also known as monkshood and
wolfsbane, was a heart and circulatory stimulant. It was also
highly toxic and, based on what I knew about Silver Kiss,
incredibly addictive. I remembered that stupid Wolfman movie from
the sixties, Lon Chaney Jnr’s cringe-worthy portrayal of a pathetic
cursed werewolf. What was that poem? Something about wolfsbane
blooming and saying your prayers?

I slumped in my chair,
trying to clear my head and think it all through.
Okay
. So regular Silver
Kiss was fine. Just herbs, as Lawrence had told me. But someone was
buying it, cutting it with this poisonous crap and selling it on to
wolves.

Why?
And where did it tie in with Molly’s case? Had she fallen out
with her dealer? Owed them money or something?

Shannon had probably thought of all this
already. I chewed my thumbnail and pondered. Where did the feral
wolf come in? Guilt stabbed me as Eddie’s words echoed in my head.
I should have told someone. What if something had happened to the
cub I’d seen that night? I’d never even tried to find out who he
was. Paranoia rode hard on the heels of my guilt. I grabbed my
phone and called Vince.

“
Hey, girlfriend,” he
greeted me. “You and Shannon set for tonight? I think it’ll be just
what we need after last night’s drama.”

“
Tonight?” I repeated, mind
blank.
Oh God, Joel’s big celebratory
meal
. “Yeah, yeah, we’re raring to go.” I
hadn’t even mentioned it to Shannon yet. “Listen, Vince, have you
heard of any Pack kids getting into trouble recently? Running off,
getting into fights, anything like that?”

“
You mean beside Oscar and
his cronies?” Vince snorted. “Potheads.”

I avoided mentioning what Eddie had told me;
not knowing if he would want me sharing our conversation.

“
No, I mean… I ran into a
feral a few nights ago and he was fighting a Pack kid. I don’t know
who the kid was, but—”

“
A feral? In the city?”
Vince sounded doubtful. “I haven’t heard anything.”

His words soothed my guilt. Working in a pub
as he did, Vince picked up most Pack gossip sooner or later. If
another teenager had gone missing or been hurt, word would have
spread fast. I could only assume the wolf I’d seen that night was
safe and well. Some of the tension knotting my stomach eased.

We chatted a bit more, made plans for that
night and said our goodbyes. I switched off the computer and went
upstairs to disturb Shannon.

She looked up from her laptop with a smile
and patted the bed. “Recovered from your hissy fit?” she asked
me.

I rested my head on her shoulder. “Yes, but
I still don’t want you doing this.” I told her what I’d found out
about aconite. She typed as I spoke, adding my findings to her
notes.

“
I need to call Tina and
make sure she’s happy to share Molly’s case with the Pack. It might
be useful to speak to Marc Wright again, get some leads on local
dealers,” she said. “And I’ll need to speak to Molly, once she’s
well enough and find out exactly what happened.”

“
She told us she didn’t
remember anything.”

“
Shock. Once she’s
recovered, her memories will come back,” Shannon said confidently.
“Of course, she’ll have to talk to the police first. I can’t wait
until you’re on the force, Ayla. It’ll make it so much easier to
get inside info.”