I was in the middle of a dream that included a lot of turkey and pumpkin pie when an insistent noise pulled me into wakefulness. The buzzing paused, then started up again a second later. I pulled a pillow over my head in an attempt to drown it out.
When the buzzing finally stopped and I felt myself drifting back down into sleep, a loud chime jerked me awake again. I wanted to ignore that, as well, but there were only three people in the world set to ignore my phone’s Do Not Disturb settings at night. None of them would be calling this late unless it was serious.
I groaned as I rolled over and patted around the bedside table until I found my phone sitting on the charging stand. Forcing my eyes open against the brightness of the screen, I stared at it for a few seconds until I could make out the words. Two missed calls and a voicemail, all from Ollie. The police sergeant usually worked the day shift, so whatever this was had to be important.
The voice mail played as I put the phone against my ear. “Jack, call me. Got something here that has to be one of yours. I hope to God this isn’t the work of a human.”
Lifting the phone away from my head, I squinted to make out the time. Just after two in the morning, a time when nothing good happened. I fumbled with the phone for a bit before managing to call Ollie back.
“Jack? You get my message?”
“Yeah, Ollie. What’s going on?” That’s what I was trying to say anyway. I’m sure my mouth got most of the syllables out.
“I’m at the UTSA campus, north of town. You need to get out here, Jack. This is a messy one.” I could hear sirens in the background, and the voices of other police and crime scene techs as they passed by.
“Mmkay, give me half an hour.”
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I padded into the bathroom. Ollie’s tone told me it was urgent, so I settled for splashing water on my face before I pulled on a t-shirt and jeans. The weather was starting to turn colder, so I also grabbed a gray hoodie from where I’d dropped it a few days earlier.
Five minutes after waking, I was in my car and driving north. The roads were pretty deserted at that time of the night, so I was able to set my cruise control and speed along the highway as I wondered what could be so bad that it would freak Ollie out. After almost thirty years on the force, I didn’t think there was much that could phase him.
As I pulled into the campus, it was easy to find the crime scene. Flashing lights lit up the night, and there were patrol officers blocking several streets. It took a few minutes of explanations before one of them allowed me to park just past his barricade.
Sergeant Oliver Williams was rumpled and wearing an expression of shock I’d never seen on his face before, when he arrived to escort me further into the blocked off area. “Thanks for coming, Jack.”
His shell-shocked expression woke me better than the cold water had. “What’s going on, Ollie? You look like a rookie at their first scene.”
“I feel like one, too.” He shook his head, wiping a sleeve across his mouth. “This one’s bad, Jack. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a body this mangled outside of the worst traffic accidents.”
He wouldn’t say anything more as he led me past a dozen patrol cars, a couple of crime scene SUVs, and an ambulance with two paramedics sitting inside the open rear doors with vacant expressions.
A detective approached us, looking upset as he noticed my street clothing. When he recognized me, he looked even less thrilled. Most of SAPD knew that Ollie and I were friends, but the attitude toward private investigators was frosty, to say the least.
Ollie and the detective walked a few steps away to speak quietly. I’m not sure what my friend said, but the detective finally nodded grudgingly and shot me a disgusted look before he strode away.
“You’re clear to take a look, Jack. Prepare yourself, because it is not pretty in there.” He led me along a path to a small, wooded area bordered on three sides by sidewalks that led between campus buildings. “Couple of students were returning to their dorms around midnight. One of them had to take a piss after all the beer drinking, and he stepped off the path a few feet. When he found the body… well, I’m pretty sure those boys are going to need counseling for a while.”
He glanced back at me, and I saw him swallow against the lump in his throat. The coppery smell of blood was on the air, growing stronger with each step as we entered the trees. After several more, Ollie stopped and turned away. His face was grim as he jerked his head for me to keep going.
I took another step hesitantly. Then another. Two people in blue coveralls were crouched down in front of me, but I could see dark splashes of blood all around. When I looked up, there were drops of the thick liquid on leaves far over my head.
One of the medical examiners glanced over her shoulder at me, as if wondering if I should really be there. Her shifting movement opened a gap for me to see what they were crouching over. Bile rose in the back of my throat and I raised a hand to cover my mouth.
The torso of the body was torn apart, almost shredded. Bits of organs were spread out for several feet in every direction, and my first thought was that a bomb went off inside of the poor guy. I forced myself to look closer, though, and saw ragged tears where something sharp tore through skin and ripped apart bone. Something that looked very much like large claws.
Ollie was standing outside of the wooded square as I stumbled out. I leaned over to put my hands on my knees, taking deep breaths of air that wasn’t tainted with the smell of blood and organs. “You okay, Jack?”
“Me? That poor kid. What the hell happened in there?”
“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me. The detectives think it must have been a mountain lion that wandered in from the Hill Country.”
The claw marks were large enough for the big cats. There had never been an attack by one in this area, though. At least not for the last forty or fifty years. Mountain lions tended to just eat small portions of their kills, too, not rip them apart as if for the fun of it.
“No way. If that were a wild animal attack, there would have been sightings in the area.”
“Yeah.” Ollie nodded, staring off into the distance. “So what does that tell you?” He tapped a finger against his chest, indicating the area where my talisman rested under my shirt. It was a silver chain running through a small hole in a large coin. The coin was pure silver, with gold inlay forming the profile of a man surrounded by words in a language no one had ever been able to translate. It was a Relic that gave me the ability to detect Filii Nox, supernatural creatures that lived among humanity.
“Aw, shit,” I muttered, knowing I would have to go back into the clearing. Another thing the coin did was give me the ability to see essence trails left by Nox in the recent past. If I could detect one in the clearing, it would tell me if one of them was involved.
I took a steadying breath before pushing through the trees again. Stopping several feet away from where the medical examiners and crime scene techs still worked over and around the body, I reached a hand up to touch the talisman under my shirt. With an effort of will, I opened myself to the supernatural world.
Slowly, a trail of smoky essence formed through the clearing. It was too dark to see it beyond the limits of the portable lights focused on the body, but the essence was a murky shade of blue. Thicker around the corpse, with wisps of essence already drifting away as the wind and presence of so many people caused it to begin degrading. The smell that drifted into my nostrils alongside coppery blood was reminiscent of a dog, but wilder. Wolfish.
The nausea that always rose up inside of me while I opened my senses threatened to become overwhelming. When I was already queasy from the sight of the body, it was more of a risk than I wanted to take. I shut off my senses quickly, and almost ran away from the clearing.
“Well?” Ollie had his arms crossed, his lips tight under his black mustache as he stared toward one of the dorm buildings. Lights were on in many of the windows, with students staring out at the action of the police presence.
“Yeah, it’s one of mine.” I sighed. Whatever had killed this poor kid was my responsibility. The coin around my neck not only gave me the ability to see through the human masks the Nox wore, it made me the only person in the city that could protect humans when one of them broke the centuries-old Covenants by attacking innocents.
* * * * *
It was several hours before the crime scene people finished working the scene. My limited pass to view it didn’t allow me to stay and wait, so Ollie and I retreated to an all-night diner down the road. He’d been off duty when he heard the call about the body being found, and something in the voice of the reporting officer had given him a gut feeling the attacker might not be human.
We drank coffee mostly in silence as we waited. Outside, a thunderstorm had rolled in. The rain and wind were probably causing all kinds of hell around the crime scene, and I was glad I hadn’t chosen to stand outside the barricaded area to wait for everyone to leave.
He ducked out around five to call home and talk to his wife. As a cop’s spouse, she was used to her husband being out all night now and then. But we both knew she’d worry if she didn’t hear from him around the time she woke up to get ready for work.
“Sandra said you’re coming over next weekend. We’ll grill some fish, keep it healthy before the holidays.” Thanksgiving was coming up soon, the meal I looked forward to most of the year. Not only for the great food, but for the childhood memories that were all I had left of family.
“Sounds good. How is she doing?”
“Good.” He sipped coffee and then chuckled. “Starting to talk about doing this spin cycle nonsense. We don’t even belong to a gym.”
“Cardio is good for you,” I said, eyeing his gut which had been expanding the last few years.
“Uh huh. You want to go run a few laps at the stadium, see which of us needs that cardio workout the most?”
I wisely kept my mouth shut, moving my eyes to watch the early news programs on televisions hanging nearby. “So much for keeping a lid on things.”
Ollie twisted around to look at the tv I pointed to. One of the local stations had apparently been sent shaky cell phone footage from some students on campus. The angles weren’t the best, but you could just make out some of the gore left behind from the attack.
“Great,” he said as he turned back. “They’ll have us guarding the scene all day now, to make sure the news people see how seriously we’re treating this.”
I winced, thinking that I might not get a chance to take a look at the scene in daylight, after all. “You, uh, couldn’t get assigned to that, could you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s rookie work, Jack. Them and their poor training officers will get assigned to sit around and watch grass grow for a day.”
“And I’m left trying to sneak in without being seen.”
“I’m sure you won’t be the only one,” Ollie said. “If all those faces in the windows are anything to go by, those college kids are all going to be trying to sneak a peek.”
A guess that proved correct when I headed back to the campus. I drove around for a while, getting a feel for where the cops had stationed themselves. Parking in an administration lot, I hurried across the campus on sidewalks that kept me away from police eyes. Not that I needed to worry.
Thirty or forty college kids were standing on the sidewalk surrounding the wooded square. With no classes that day, they had nowhere else to be. Yellow tape kept them back, along with three hard-eyed patrol officers who hurried over any time one of the students tried to get a closer look.
On the plus side, I didn’t have to worry about the cops seeing me. I just wouldn’t be able to get any closer to the crime scene. Even a rookie wouldn’t let me past if I told them I was investigating the death.
Resigned to doing what I could, I touched my talisman. Doing so didn’t help me open myself to the supernatural world any easier, but it had become an unconscious gesture. I didn’t release it until the queasiness rolled in and I knew I was looking beyond the veil that hid the Nox from humanity.
Faint traces of the midnight blue essence were visible, but they were no more than small puffs of smoke here and there. The rain from the thunderstorm had washed most of it away, dissipating the essence as it would a scent trail for a dog. The heavy traffic of the students hadn’t helped, either.
I tried to follow what was left of the essence trail, but it just led me in circles around the nearby buildings. I couldn’t tell if this was the route the attacker had taken or just the areas they had travelled through leading up to the attack. I couldn’t even guess at how old these traces were because they were degraded so much.
Grumbling in frustration, I returned to my car. I’d have to check in with Ollie later in the day, see if they’d managed to ID the victim. Perhaps checking their recent movements would give me a clue on why the attacker chose them. Unless this was some random opportunistic attack. In which case, I might never find out who did it unless they were stupid enough to have left a ton of physical evidence behind.
* * * * *
“Not a scrap of physical evidence,” Ollie muttered. “The rain didn’t help, but even before that the crime scene people couldn’t find anything that would point to a specific suspect. Too much trash left on the ground by the college kids walking by every single day.”
I leaned back in my office chair, looking out at the gray November day through the window. My small office suite was halfway up the building, giving me a view of a couple open-air parking lots, a smaller office building just past them, and the convention center beyond that.
“How about the victim? Did they manage to ID the poor guy yet?”
Loud honking made me pull the phone away from my ear for a second, and I heard Ollie talking loudly to someone as he covered his phone. “Sorry, Jack, there’s been a bit of road rage out here, and I’m waiting for the tow trucks to get these cars off the road.” His voice was muffled again as he told someone to focus on the road and drive.
“As to an identification, his name is Martin Corver. Freshman at UTSA, family lives a few miles west in the Hill Country. His parents came in and did the identification.”
I could imagine all too well the pain they were feeling at the moment. I’d gone through something similar when my sister’s body was found years earlier. That was when Ollie and I first met, the case that started me on a new path and revealed the existence of another world to the police officer.
“Do the detectives have any leads? People who didn’t like Marty or something?”
“He was a quiet kid. His professors barely even realized he was in their classes, because he never spoke up or got himself noticed.”
Ouch. That didn’t speak well for them, but I knew how big those classrooms could be. Unlike high school, the students didn’t show up every day, either. It would be easy to miss one face in that sea of rotating strangers.
“You’re not giving me a lot to go on, Ollie. The scene was a total bust. Or it was from the closest I could get to it.”
Ollie laughed. “Just a normal investigation, Jack. It’s pretty rare to stumble upon that clue that solves the whole case. Have to do the grunt work to get there.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I turned back to my desk, where my laptop was running some searches online. I was looking for any recent attacks that might be related to this one. Murders with mutilated victims left behind, especially. I was running the search on the entire state, and there was a depressing number of results to sift through. “Guess I’ll get back to grunting, then.”
“I’ll call you if I hear anything else, Jack.”
After the call with Ollie, I was feeling pretty hopeless about finding a lead to follow on this murder. The only thing I had was the essence I’d detected early that morning near the body. My first thought was werewolf, but I knew the lycans received a lot more hate than they deserved. Hollywood made them out to be remorseless killers, but most were-creatures were quite docile. They had urges, like all of us, but contained them well.
In the time I had that thought, five more open cases popped up on the search results. Far too many people in this state died gruesome deaths, even if a lot of those were farm or traffic accidents.
Sitting there watching the results come in was depressing, so I pulled my hoodie on and left the building. I walked several blocks to go down a set of stairs to the Riverwalk. Even on a dreary November day, tourists were crowding the narrow paths along the river. Packing into the bars and restaurants that catered to them.
I reached my destination without having to think about it, going down the five worn stone steps that were so familiar after many years of frequent visits. The rusty steel door opened noiselessly on well-oiled hinges, and I entered the confines of Lyon’s Den. A small bar that was a haven for the Nox of San Antonio, and home to one of the people I called friend.
“Hello, Jack. I’ve still got a couple of organic burgers left, if you’re here for lunch.”
My stomach gurgled, demanding attention. “Sounds good, Richard. I’ll have one.”
He went into the small kitchen behind the bar to start on my order, but not before pouring me a pint of the local selection. Richard bought a keg or two of a different beer every couple of weeks, offering it as a rotating selection that I always tried out. This one had a hint of pumpkin and nutmeg, and I was ready for a second when he came back with a burger and thick-cut fries to put on the bar in front of me.
The Den was almost empty as I munched on my meal. A couple of Nox sat at the far end of the bar from me, heads together in quiet conversation. One of them glanced over now and then, but I was used to that. Those who frequented the bar knew who I was, and most were wary of me the same way you felt cautious for no reason if a cop was nearby.
“You’re working a new case.”
I looked up at Richard in surprise. “What makes you say that?”
“You always get quiet when you have one. Too much internalizing.” He smiled at me as he wiped the bar nearby. Richard had been an obsessive cleaner for as long as I’d known him.
“Well, now I’m going to be internalizing about how I internalize.” I took another bite of the fantastic burger. “Did you hear about the body found out at the UTSA campus?”
“Ah,” Richard said, throwing the white towel over a shoulder and leaning against the bar. “I thought the news reports were focusing on that one a little too much. Something strange about the death?”
“Just that the body was ripped apart. Blood and gore stretched out for several feet in almost every direction. It was… not pretty to look at.”
“Any traces?” he asked, tapping his chest just as Ollie had at the crime scene very early that morning. Richard was the one who told me what the coin was when it came into my possession and helped me figure out how to use it.
I nodded as I chewed another bite. “Werewolf. I’m pretty certain on that.”
“Hm.” Richard looked over his shoulder at the other patrons, checking to make sure they didn’t need his attention.
“What? Now I can see the internalizing going on in your head.”
He snorted a laugh. “I was just thinking of something I heard last week. A family from out near Grey Forest were in, and I overheard them complaining about something attacking their animals. A few chickens went missing, then a goat turned up with its belly torn open.”
“Oh.” It wasn’t uncommon for coyotes to attack animals in such a way, especially in a lightly populated suburb of the city. But that was awfully close to where the UTSA campus was located, enough that I didn’t think it was coincidence. “Do you happen to know if there are any werewolf families living up there?”
“None that I’m aware of.”
“Yeah, I don’t know of any, either.”
Lycans were often very insular, more so than most Nox. You might find a cluster of families living together that no one else was aware of, or that aren’t seen away from their comfortable nooks more than once or twice a year.
In my eight years as one of the Nine, I’d encountered a were-creature only five times. One of them had been a werewolf, a woman I’d come across during an investigation into attacks on other Nox. She’d been pointed out as a suspect by one of the survivors, who said he’d butted heads with the werewolf several times. In the end, she’d been cleared by a simple interview. And she was probably the nicest of the people I’d had to talk to during that investigation.
“Guess it’s time to start driving,” I said, stuffing the last few fries into my mouth before I drained the remainder of my second pint. “I know a few other people out that way, so I’ll check in with them.”
* * * *
I spent several hours that afternoon and most of the next day driving around the suburbs north of San Antonio. It was good to visit some Nox I hadn’t spoken with in too long, but none of them had any information on werewolf families in the area.
As a last resort, I opened myself to the supernatural world as I drove slowly along back roads and country lanes. I was hoping that I’d spot some trace of a werewolf presence. Instead, I just ended up pulling to the side of the road to puke my guts out as my head pounded with a hammer beat.
After that experience, I decided to call it a day. There had been a full night without an attack, so maybe whatever creature had killed that poor college kid ran away when they realized what they’d done. Unlike in the movies, werewolves didn’t need a full moon to shift their form, and they often didn’t consciously realize what they’d done in their animal shape until after the fact.
The sun was setting behind the hills to the west as I pulled back onto the country road I was traveling. It was a beautiful sight, a good payment for all the time I’d been putting into the search. An image that stayed with me as I drove through San Antonio and pulled into the short driveway of my house.
I stumbled through the front door, dropping my hoodie just inside as I kicked my shoes off. Ollie hadn’t called all day, so I pressed his name on my phone as I flopped onto the couch. While it rang, I turned on the tv and flipped through channels looking for anything interesting enough to take my mind off my worries.
“Sergeant Oliver Williams,” he answered. He almost never answered that way when I called, which told me he was busy enough that he hadn’t looked at the caller ID.
“Ollie, it’s Jack. Anything new on the kid?”
“Hey Jack. Autopsy report came in this morning. Hard to tell when everything was so shredded and spread out, but a couple of organs seem to be missing from our victim.”
I perked up. “Oh yeah? Which ones?”
“Heart and liver. But like I said, they could have just been scattered and weren’t found yet.”
That was interesting information. One of the things I knew for sure about werewolves was that they loved eating hearts. The blood-rich muscle was the first thing they dug out of a kill. The liver was the second favorite organ, based on accounts from past attacks on humans. That would seem to cement my idea of the type of Nox I was looking for.
“Find anything interesting on your end?” Ollie asked, breaking into my reverie.
“Not a damned thing. I’m pretty sure I know what killed the kid, but finding the specific Nox is proving to be a lot more difficult than I anticipated.”
I heard the squeal of old chair wheels as he pushed back from whatever desk he was sitting at, then several seconds of echoing footsteps. “What are we dealing with here?” he finally asked, once he was in a place he couldn’t be overheard.
“Werewolf,” I said, finding a replay of an old Super Bowl game. It was one I remembered from my childhood, filled with player names I used to be able to recite from memory.
“What? Are you serious? Those are real?”
I laughed. “You should know by now, Ollie. If there’s a myth or legend about it, then it’s more than likely a species of Nox.”
“Yeah, but… werewolves!”
“They get a bad rep, really. For no reason I can think of. It’s like all those people who are afraid of sharks, even though the odds of being attacked by one are like one in four million. Something stupid high.”
“But they’re still sharks,” Ollie said. “If you see one floating around, you get out of there as quickly as possible.”
“Point.”
“How many werewolves live in San Antonio, Jack?”
“Um, it’s hard to say. Lycanthropes are very insular as a whole, so you often don’t know they’re around until you stumble across one.”
“Ballpark it for me,” Ollie said dryly.
“Maybe a dozen? Could be more, could be less.”
He sighed, and I could picture him rubbing a hand across his face. It was late, so I knew he had to be exhausted and near the end of his shift. “And that’s what we’re dealing with here? How do I tell the detectives to look out for a big furry animal that might attack more students?”
“Well, the good news is that you probably won’t have to. When werewolves do attack, they start small. Stray animals, goats, cows, that sort of thing. By the time they work up to humans, they’re usually propelled by an impulsive desire to kill that’s almost impossible to resist. The fact that there weren’t any attacks last night makes me think they’ve pulled up stakes and gone somewhere else.”
“That’s not exactly good news, is it? Just means this thing could start killing in some place that doesn’t have a person like you around to stop it.”
Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll keep my eyes open for any news reports of strange killings in the state.”
“I’ll do the same, but I’ll also look at police blotters in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.”
I yawned, pulling the phone away from my ear. “Sorry, it’s been a long couple of days.”
“I hear you, Jack. I’m still trying to catch up on my sleep from that night on the campus. Get some rest, and we’ll talk in the morning.”
There was no way I was going to argue with that. I had a quick dinner as I watched the third quarter of the old game, then dragged myself into my bedroom to fall onto the mattress. I was out before my mind had time to start obsessing over worries and concerns.
* * * * *
When the buzzing of my phone woke me this time, my eyes snapped open instantly. I grabbed the phone from the charger, seeing that it was just past five in the morning. Earlier than I liked to wake up, but I’d had enough sleep to feel mostly refreshed.
“Hello,” I said into the phone.
“Jack.” Ollie’s voice was sleep-roughened, and he sounded strained. “It happened again. I just saw the report, a body found at the UTSA campus just after midnight.”
I groaned as I rolled into a sitting position. “Crap. Same area? What did the victim look like?”
“I’m still reading the report,” he said. I waited as he skimmed it on his laptop. Ollie was an early riser, often up at half past four. Even on days off, he’d glance at the nightly reports for anything that might be of interest to me. “No photos attached to the report yet, but the crime scene drawings look very similar. Blood and viscera found up to eleven feet away from the body, the torso ripped open. Early indications that the heart couldn’t be found.”
The werewolf had struck again. I couldn’t figure out why they would skip one night, when it was normally a consistent nightly pattern until they were caught or killed. I shuffled toward the bathroom. “I’ll head out there in a bit, try to get a look at the crime scene. Send me anything new that comes in?”
“Will do, Jack. And be careful. The department is going to have a heavy presence after a second attack so soon.”
I showered and dressed, walking through the front door fifteen minutes after the phone woke me up. It was the first day of the work week, so traffic was already starting to get heavy as I drove north across town. Another hour, and I’d have been slowed by several choke points where major roads intersected.
The campus was covered in patrol cars again, and I had to drive around for more than half an hour before I found a place I could park and walk to the latest crime scene. It was another secluded area, a restful place with a couple of benches surrounded by shoulder-height bushes to provide a slight privacy screen.
Four cops were standing in front of those benches, keeping back any curious passerby. I found a secluded place to observe them from a distance and saw a lot of college kids making three or four passes as they craned their heads to see past the officers.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I answered it quickly when I glanced at the caller ID. “Ollie, got something new?”
“Crime scene photos are coming in now. Remember how I told you the first one was messy?”
“Yeah.”
“This one is ten times worse.” His voice cracked and I heard a gulping swallow. “The bastard practically ripped her head off, Jack.”
I grimaced, both at the image and the fact that our victim was a woman this time. “Another student?”
“No, this one was a professor. Young enough to be a student, though. It’s her first year of teaching, and she’s assisting several tenured professors in her department. Covering classes when they have other things on the schedule.” He sighed heavily. “Twenty-five, Jack.”
I knew what he was thinking about as he said it. Ollie’s youngest child was the same age, though she lived out west. I could never remember where she’d ended up, but she’d gone to law school at a campus much like UTSA before she left home for good.
Giving him a few moments to collect himself, I did the thing I’d been dreading. I reached up to grasp my talisman as I opened my senses. The brightening morning quickly became darker as the midnight blue essence of the werewolf filled my vision. The Nox had been all over this area, though most of the essence was concentrated around the benches where the body was found.
There was something strange about it this morning. It felt wrong somehow. I stared at the essence trail for several seconds before seeing what my subconscious mind had picked up on. There were streaks of light gray throughout the essence today, which I hadn’t seen the day before. Thin traces of the lighter color, but they were jagged and disconnected from each other by variously sized gaps.
“It’s definitely a wolf again,” I said into the phone. “Impossible to say if it’s the same person, but I’d have to lean that way.”
“How are we going to stop it, Jack? Before they kill another young person?”
I tried to determine the direction of the essence trail, somewhere I could trace it back to wherever the Nox had come from. The werewolf had moved in such an erratic fashion that the trail was entirely twisted in on itself.
“I’m going to have to call a friend,” I said. “I know a guy who can help out. We’ll find this thing before it strikes again, Ollie.”
“Find them, Jack. And call me if you need another hand.”
After ending the call, I stayed in my shaded spot and watched the cops as they shifted around. A pair of rookie cops appeared who seemed no older than the college kids trying to get a glimpse of the scene, taking the places of two others who looked relieved to be able to leave. They weren’t taking any chances of someone wrecking the crime scene before they could be sure they had everything it might give up.
It was early, but I knew I needed to get a jump on this search while the trail was still fresh. I scrolled through my Contacts list and pressed the name of the person I was hoping would agree to help.
“Hello,” the gruff voice answered. He’d been sleeping.
“Nyk, it’s Jack. I’ve got a bad one, and I’m hoping you have a day or two to help me out.”
“Just got in from delivering the latest bounty,” he said matter-of-factly. Nyk Walsh was one of the best bounty hunters in the States, probably the entire planet. Not only could he often track someone down who’d evaded a dozen large agencies, but he was also one of the few humans who knew about the supernatural Nox. Because of that, he was often hired to do jobs that regular bounty hunters couldn’t be trusted with. He was in high demand, but often made time when I needed his help. We traded favors often. “Give me an hour, and I’ll meet you.”
“Thanks, Nyk.” I told him how to find me on the campus, spotting the perfect place to wait for his arrival as I talked. Once the call ended, I jogged over to the small coffee shop that was just opening up. A line of half a dozen students had already formed, and I queued up with them.
I got the largest coffee available along with a blueberry muffin, and then was able to snag a small table outside where I could mostly see the crime scene. One of the cops walked over as soon as he saw the place opening, ordering regular coffees for all of the officers on guard duty. He ignored the questions the college students asked while he waited.
When Nyk arrived, he dropped into a chair next to me. It groaned in protest at having to hold him up. One of his ancestors had been an ogre, and the size and strength of that Nox had come to the fore big time after skipping a few generations. He stood a head taller than my six feet, with shoulders wide enough to need their own zip codes.
“So, what’s going on?” Short and sweet, one of the things I liked about working with Nyk.
“Werewolf,” I said quietly, making sure no one could overhear. “College kid torn apart late Friday night, and a young teacher in the wee hours this morning.”
“Nothing Saturday night? That’s odd.”
“Yeah, I thought the same thing.”
We were quiet as the cop walked past, carrying a small drink caddy with four tall cups on it. “I know a wolf down in Floresville. Are there any up here?” he asked.
“Not that I know of. I spent all of yesterday driving around hoping to find any traces of a family. No luck. Your guy in Floresville, do you think he might know others of his kind in the area?”
Nyk shrugged. “I can call and ask later. He’s a night owl, though, sleeps until afternoon.”
“Good plan B, in case we can’t find any trail to follow here.” I told him about the essence being twisted up so badly I couldn’t trace where it had come from or where it might have gone.
“Let’s take a look,” he rumbled, pushing up from the chair. I tossed my trash as I followed him, wondering what he might see around the crime scene that I’d missed.
The cops guarding the area with the benches eyed the big man nervously, seemingly ignoring my presence entirely. I couldn’t blame them. Nyk was the kind of person that drew your attention even when you weren’t on the lookout for anyone trying to get past you.
He stopped a few paces away from them, not having to crane to see the reddish-brown stains that coated one of the benches and the ground around it. There were stains on the inner leaves of the surrounding bushes, as well. It was my first time getting to see more than tiny glimpses, while the officers were busy watching Nyk.
After a short time, he nodded at the two cops that had edged closer. Nyk turned to walk away from the scene, head down as he watched the ground in front of his feet. I followed again, trying to find whatever he was looking at without success. We walked past the large building, around the corner, and across a parking lot packed with vehicles.
Nyk stopped at the edge of the lot, his gaze rising to look through a screen of trees at the interstate not far away. “The wolf came through here,” he said.
I looked around, trying to hide my confusion. “How do you know that?”
“The tracks,” he said, waving at the ground. I bent closer to the ground, looking for anything that would stand out. Anything at all. Nyk laughed, crouching down to point out a faint impression in the ground beside the paving of the parking lot and then a small clump of dried mud a stride into the lot. “I saw more of this just beside the bench where the body was found.”
“Huh. But couldn’t it have been tracked in by someone else? A student, or a cop walking the crime scene overnight?”
“Could be, but the odds are good it’s our wolf.” Nyk placed his hand flat on the ground next to the faint impression. The footprint looked normal-sized, until I remembered just how large his hands were. “Big footprint, and yet they walked lightly. Students aren’t usually that the self-aware, and cops tend to barge into everything since they’re accustomed to being in charge.”
Good reasoning, when I thought about it in that context. “So, we can keep tracking these footsteps, right? Go all the way back to wherever the werewolf came from?”
Nyk nodded, but his eyes weren’t filled with certainty. “I can try. A lot of roads around here, though, and a smart person would travel across them in a way that would prevent someone like me keeping on their trail.”
I waited in the parking lot as he pushed into the undergrowth of the green area that bordered the campus. I opened myself to the vision of the supernatural world, hoping for a stronger essence trail I could follow if Nyk lost the physical tracks. There was midnight blue smoke around the small, wooded area, but it was spread out and faint. It disappeared a step into the parking log on both sides of the trail. Passing traffic was one of the quickest ways to diffuse Nox essence.
Cars passed by now and then, and I got more than a few curious looks from the students and faculty behind the wheels. I almost expected one of the cops from the crime scene area to come over and ask why I was loitering there.
No one had appeared by the time I felt a hand on my shoulder. Jumping in shock, I turned to see Nyk standing beside me. I always forgot how preternaturally silent the big guy could be when he walked. He probably never would have left tracks to be followed.
“It’s exactly what I was afraid of. I made it across the access road, tracked the trail under the overpass, but then I couldn’t pick it up again beyond the westbound feeder lanes.”
Whatever we were dealing with was aware enough to keep from being tracked then. Not a full-on wild werewolf, as I’d heard could happen every rare now and then. Mostly in regions with a lot more wilderness around them.
“We know it came from the north, at least,” I said, looking that direction. It was the area I’d spent so much time driving around the day before.
“Possibly,” Nyk said with a cautious tone. “Or they could have been traveling a roundabout path that originated south of campus.”
I groaned, hating the wall I kept butting up against. “Well, call your guy in Floresville when you can. I’ll keep trying to find werewolf families on my end.” I glanced at the clock on my phone, noting the early hour. “I’m betting this Nox will attack again tonight. Since they seem to love the campus for some reason, want to meet me here at four? We’ll do a circuit of the area before it’s dark, and set up a place to watch from all night?”
Nyk nodded. “Good plan. I’ll let you know if I find something before then.”
He headed across the parking lot for a giant truck, the kind with two wheels on each side at back. It was jacked up a few feet off the ground, making it look normal-sized next to the giant bounty hunter as he pulled the door open and climbed in behind the wheel.
I jogged over to where my car was parked, having to pass the crime scene since I’d parked in another lot. The cops there eyed me uncertainly, and I raised a hand to wave at them. I appreciated the job they were doing, even if it was inconvenient for me personally.
The day passed quickly, without any success in tracking down werewolf families in town. I did come across a small group of werepanthers, who turned out to be standoffish but fairly nice once I introduced myself and told them what I was looking for. They only knew of one other lycan group in San Antonio, and those weren’t wolves, either.
After a late lunch that also subbed in for dinner, I headed back to the campus. Most classes were done for the day, and the parking lots were emptying out as I drove in. I grabbed a spot close to the crime scene from the previous night. I beelined for the coffee shop, managing to snag a large cup of go juice before they shut down for the day.
Nyk snuck up behind me again, making me spill some of the precious brown liquid when I jumped after he put a hand on my shoulder. He chuckled as I glared up at him. “Did you find out anything from your guy?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No luck there. His family doesn’t socialize with others, so he doesn’t know if or where other werewolf families might be.”
About what I’d expected. Insular, remember? Lycan families were the definition of loners and hermits. Which made it all the harder to find the culprit in the rare cases where one of them started attacking humans or other Nox.
Nyk and I watched as the cops changed shifts again just before five. Only two young officers were left to guard the scene, so they must not have expected too many students to be out and about on a weeknight.
Once we saw that, we started our rounds of the campus. I kept the pace to a casual stroll, so that we wouldn’t draw attention. Well, more attention than two guys in their thirties on a college campus would draw. Especially when one of them is big enough to be an NFL linebacker.
It took a little over an hour to complete a full circle as we wound between the buildings and around parking lots. There were too many places that would be ripe for an ambush by a creature hunting for prey. More than the two of us could hope to watch.
“We’ll have to split up,” I said. “You want the east, and I’ll take west?”
Nyk nodded, pulling out his phone. “Call me if you see anything, Jack. You don’t want to try and take on a werewolf alone.”
I certainly didn’t. My talisman might let me see the supernatural Nox for what they were, but aside from one instance on the first day I put it on, it didn’t give me any special abilities to protect myself from them. I also disliked guns, which left me with few options for self-defense.
Nyk, on the other hand, was always ready for a fight. He had to be when he was chasing down bounties, even though he was the last guy I’d want to tangle with. He crouched down to pull a three-inch knife from a sheath in his boot, passing it to me before he turned and headed for his section of the campus.
I put the knife into the rear pocket of my jeans where I could reach it in an emergency, then stuffed my hands into the pockets of my hoodie and started patrolling my half of the vast campus grounds. It was getting colder as darkness set in, and I could already feel the caffeine boost from the coffee wearing off.
For the next three hours, I was constantly on the move. I used the flashlight on my phone to peer into any wooded areas or behind bushes and large plants, I stared across parking lots searching for the slightest movement, and I walked miles in a figure eight pattern. The moon rose above the campus buildings while I was making my rounds, half full and casting wan light across the grounds that competed with widely spaced streetlights.
* * * * *
I had fallen into a semi-dozing consciousness when a loud noise jerked my head around. It had almost sounded like a howl, but rougher and throatier. I pulled my phone out. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah,” Nyk said quietly. “Northwest of my location.”
“Northeast for me,” I said, already moving as quickly as I could without making too much noise. “Has to be our wolf.”
Nyk didn’t answer, but I could hear the wind blowing across his phone as he moved toward the sound. I was running across a vast parking lot, approaching a strip of trees, when I saw him coming from the opposite direction. He waved for me to stop, and I crouched to catch my breath until he was beside me.
“Did you see anything?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “The howl had to come from here, though.”
We both looked at the strip of trees. It was a bit of green space that separated the parking lot from the freeway access roads, perhaps twenty feet wide though it was easily a hundred feet long.
I led the way toward it, our heads on swivels as we searched for any movement and listened for any sound that might indicate something coming toward us. We entered at one end of the strip, moving through it with about six feet between us so that we could see the full width of the space.
By the time we reached the far side, I was more confused than ever. Nothing in there, and if the Nox had gone toward the campus we should have seen it crossing the parking lot. Nyk grunted when I asked for his opinion. “I saw tracks,” he said, leading me back to where a few torn leaves were supposed to be the path the werewolf had taken through the trees.
“It would have crossed the parking lot, though, and we’d have seen it.”
“Not if it moved fast enough,” he said, looking toward the campus.
A second later a sharp crack filled the air. My ears perked up, and I saw Nyk’s eyes tighten. “Gunshot,” he said simply, before taking off.
I followed as quickly as I could, regretting my lack of cardio exercise as a stitch built up in my side halfway across the lot. We sped along the sidewalk on the far side, soon arriving at the open space where the previous night’s kill had taken place.
“I swear,” one of the cops was saying, his gun held out in front of him as he swiveled with wide eyes. “I saw it, right over there! It was a giant dog or something.”
Nyk and I traded a glance, then looked in the direction the cop had indicated. The young woman standing beside him still had her gun holstered, and she was giving him a worried look. Her hand strayed up to the radio clipped to her shoulder and she spoke quietly into it.
“I’m not crazy!” the male cop said. “It was there.”
We circled the area, keeping to the shadows so the spooked cop didn’t fire off a shot in our direction. It took longer to get to the area where he’d seen what had to be the werewolf, but it was worth it to avoid getting shot.
Nyk crouched down, peering at the ground and running his hand over the grass near the sidewalk. “Something big came through here. This way.”
I followed a few paces behind as he tracked the path of whatever had drawn the attention of the cops guarding the previous night’s crime scene. I was glad neither of them had managed to get a good look at the werewolf. That was the last thing I needed to deal with.
Nyk raised a hand after several minutes, stopping me. Then he moved his hand forward, going through some rapid motions that I didn’t understand at all. From knowledge gained while watching tv, I thought he was telling me the werewolf was close, but the rest of it could have meant anything from “it was here two days ago” to “it’s eating you right now”.
To be on the safe side, I reached back and pulled out the knife he’d given me earlier in the evening. Nyk pulled a heavy baton from inside his bulky windbreaker. There were wide rings of steel encircling one end, and I wondered how heavy the weapon would be before he even put his strength behind a blow.
He turned toward me, a whispered word escaping his lips. A white blur shot in from my peripheral vision, and in a second Nyk was gone. I twisted to find him on the ground, arms straining to hold back a snarling beast that had deadly claws sunk into one of his shoulders. The baton was nowhere to be seen.
This was only the second werewolf I’d ever seen, but the white fur was something I hadn’t expected. They were usually a dark gray, like wolves you’d see in the wild. It took me too long to shake myself out of that fascinated observation.
Nyk was grimacing in pain as the wolf’s claws sank deeper into the meat of his shoulder. I could see that arm weakening, even as the other tried to keep pushing the Nox away. I looked around wildly for a weapon, then remembered the small knife in my hand.
I darted forward, stabbing the knife into the side of the werewolf. It sank easily into flesh and muscle, and the beast let out a coughing yelp. A whirlwind seemed to envelop me, and a moment before I hit ground I realized it had hit me hard enough to throw me through the air. The wind was knocked out of me, and my vision filled with stars.
The distraction had been enough for Nyk to free himself, though. He grunted as he shoved the beast aside and rolled out from under it, jumping to his feet. Blood was flowing from the wounds on his shoulder, but he ignored it as he set himself to meet the werewolf that pounced at him.
Nyk got two handfuls of fur, twisting his body to use the wolf’s momentum against it. He tossed the beast aside, and it cracked into a thin tree trunk. The tree began to bend away from us as the werewolf pushed itself back up onto hind legs.
The wolf snarled as it began to circle the bounty hunter. It recognized him as the real threat between the two of us. As did I. The stars were fading as I pushed myself off the ground. My knife was still stuck in the wolf’s side, and I didn’t have a chance of even hurting it without a weapon. I looked around, hoping to find anything that I could use.
Moonlight glinted off metal, and I recognized the ringed baton Nyk had been carrying. It was lying near the tree that was now at a forty-five-degree angle. After a quick glance at the werewolf, I sprinted to it. In my peripheral vision, I saw the beast look toward me before leaping at Nyk.
The bounty hunter tried to catch and throw the wolf again, but it was ready this time. Claws raked across Nyk’s chest, and he growled as he shifted to grab the werewolf’s wrist and push it away from his body. The other claws came in lower, but Nyk was ready for that and batted the arm away. In the same movement, he slammed a fist the size of a small boulder into the bottom of the wolf’s long jaw. The beast’s jaws snapped shut with a loud click.
Nyk pulled his fist back for another blow, but the werewolf snapped forward to nip at his face. He had to pull back quickly, and the weight of the beast leaning into him pushed him off balance. He fell backwards onto the grass as I was scooping up the baton.
Or trying to. It weighed at least forty pounds, probably closer to fifty. I had to use both hands, and even then, it was a struggle as I start to drag it toward the fight.
The werewolf was pushing its advantage, jumping up to land with one hind leg on Nyk’s chest as it continued trying to sink those sharp claws into his skin. The wolf’s lips were pulled back in what looked to be a smile as it fought against the ogrish strength of the bounty hunter.
Nyk saw me coming from the corner of his eye, turning his head to look at me for a brief second before focusing on the wolf again. The hand closest to me flexed, opening and closing a couple of times. I knew what he was trying to say, and grunted as I strained to lift the heavy baton. With all of my strength, I tossed the weapon through the air.
Okay, so it was more like it skimmed the grass for a few inches before hitting with a dull thud and rolling. That was enough, though. Nyk gave a desperate push to create space between himself and the werewolf, then reached out to grab the baton. His hand wrapped around the leather-wrapped handle.
The baton whistled through the air, thudding against the werewolf’s shoulder. It yelped in surprise and pain, tossed to the side by the weight of the blow. Nyk sucked in a deep breath before he rolled to push himself up, the only sign of the toll the attacks were taking on him.
The werewolf was righting itself at the same time, rear legs bunching as it prepared to leap at Nyk again. I shouted a warning, but he kept his eyes on the ground as he got his feet set. The white wolf surged forward, streaking across the gap between them.
Nyk raised the baton with lightning speed, the heavily weighted end slamming into the side of the werewolf’s head. The beast took a few lurching steps away from the bounty hunter, landing with a sickening thud between Nyk and I.
I held my breath as I watched, wondering if the wolf was still alive. That blow had been solid, and I didn’t imagine a human could have survived it. Nyk was watching for the same thing, standing with the baton hanging loosely at his side.
A whuffing sound came from the wolf, then it twitched. An arm shifted, then was still. I released my pent-up breath, looking uncertainly to Nyk. He shrugged, taking one step forward. He paused, waiting for a reaction, then took another.
Without warning, the werewolf rolled. It lunged forward, jaws open as it strained to get a hold of Nyk. He raised the baton in an instinctual reaction, dropping it to slam against the top of the wolf’s head. The jaws clicked closed inches away from Nyk’s leg as it dropped to the ground again.
This time we waited longer, several minutes passing as we looked for any sign of life from the beast. Nyk was stepping forward to check on it when a car screeched to a stop nearby. I turned to look in that direction, seeing a man perhaps ten years older than me come running.
“Dad!” he yelled. “What did you do to him? Dad!”
He dropped to his knees beside the white werewolf, lifting the massive head to his lap. His shoulders were shaking as he sobbed, rocking back and forth.
Nyk and I traded a glance over his head, and I crouched down. “You’re a werewolf, too? Was this your father?”
The man nodded, not looking up. I reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he flinched away. “Dad,” he moaned, pulling the limp werewolf tighter against his body.
I coughed to clear the lump in my throat. “Did you hear about the people killed on campus the last several nights, sir?”
He nodded again. When he spoke, his voice was so faint I had to lean in to catch his words. “We tried to keep him locked up. I thought we could, but then he got out last night. And tonight. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” The man looked up at me, his sad eyes meeting mine. “Dad keeps getting lost in his memories. I swear to you, he wouldn’t kill if he were still in his right mind.”
Nyk grunted, backing away from us. He and I could both tell the werewolf wouldn’t be getting back up. Whatever old memories had driven him to give in to his animal urges and kill would no longer afflict him.
“We didn’t have a choice,” I said. I think I was talking more to myself than the mourning son, but he nodded. “He would have killed again, and we didn’t have a choice.”
“I know.”
I backed off to give the man time to grieve. It wasn’t as much as I would have liked, though, as flashes of light drew my attention. Someone must have heard the noise of the fight and was coming to investigate. Nyk gave me a gentle shove toward the werewolves, taking off to try and delay whoever it was.
“We need to get him out of here,” I whispered, bending down next to the man. “If anyone finds him here, like this…”
“It would be bad,” the man agreed, sniffing and running a hand across his eyes to wipe away tears. “Help me.”
Together, we lifted the werewolf and carried him towards a small car parked half in the grass nearby. The beast felt so frail in death, and I reflected that the fur must be white from age. We managed to get the wolf onto the back seat of the car, and I shut the door as the man hurried around to the driver’s side.
He stopped to look at me over the roof of the car. “I understand why you did it, Dahlish. But I’ll never be able to forgive you for killing my father.”
So, he knew who I was. “I get it,” I said. “But there were two people dead, killed in a horrible fashion. I didn’t have much choice. It was your father, or an untold number of others before the cops caught up to him. We both know how disastrous that would be.”
His jaw clenched, but he nodded. Many of the Nox were more afraid of humanity stumbling across their true nature than I was. They remembered what it was like before the Covenants created peace, a respite from centuries of constant fighting and prejudice. Many feared being hunted again, just because they looked different from the mass of humanity around them.
The car backed up quickly, then drove away across the parking lot as fast as it could go. The taillights were just disappearing behind a building as running footsteps came to a stop beside me. I looked over to see the young female cop who had been guarding the crime scene earlier.
“What’s going on over here?” she asked, shining a flashlight in my face.
“Nothing,” I said, raising a hand to shield my eyes. “My friend and I were just having a little disagreement. Not a big deal.” I looked over to where Nyk was speaking with the other cop. For a moment, I wondered who was supposed to be watching the crime scene.
She stared up at me with a frown, clearly wanting to make a big deal out of it. The radio on her shoulder squawked, though, and that reminded her what she was supposed to be doing. The cop did a full circle with her flashlight, looking for anything that might give her cause to question me further.
“It’s late,” she said before walking away. “You and your friend need to get inside. Now.”
“Yes, officer.”
As she passed, she pulled the male patrolman away from Nyk. The young idiot had his face up as close as he could get to the man that towered a head and a half over him, his mouth working as he spat words. Nyk gave me a glance as the cops walked away, rolling his eyes.
“How is the son doing?” he asked as I walked over.
“As well as he can.” I sighed, rubbing my back where I’d landed after the werewolf knocked me away. “I hate that we had to kill the old guy.”
“He didn’t give us much choice,” Nyk said, putting a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“I know, but there has to be a better way. You know?”
That was the one thing I always came to at the end of cases like this. Why couldn’t there be a way to try and help the Nox who broke the Covenants? Those who attacked or killed others and had to be stopped in the only way available to me? Sure, sometimes I could turn them over to human law enforcement, but only when I was sure they wouldn’t expose the truth of what they were, and they couldn’t hurt those trapped behind bars with them.
“The important thing is that the people on this campus are safe tonight,” Nyk said, pulling me along as he started walking toward the lot where we’d parked. His jacket was ripped where the werewolf’s claws had swiped at him, but the blood that had poured from the wounds was hard to see against the dark material. Without that, we’d probably be in the back of a police car answering questions.
“Yeah, the kids can sleep safe.” I looked at the buildings around us. The dorms had a few lit windows, but most were dark so late on a weeknight. Studying was done, and they were dreaming of better lives once they got their degrees.
My phone rang, and I looked down to see Ollie’s name on the display. I smiled, glad I’d have a little good news to lighten his worries.
“Hey, Ollie. The problem is taken care of.”