One Eye Open

Despite her taunts, Carson said nothing. His features seemed cast in stone. Implacable. Angry. Hurt. She noticed he, too, wore the same faded jeans and dark flannel shirt as the night before. And boots. The man wore cowboy boots made of some kind of exotic leather.

“Somehow I have to prove to you that my brother is not the devil incarnate.”

“You only have to prove it to yourself.” Bitterness coated his words with acid. “Grab your coat. We’re hitting the road. Since the robbery was less than an hour ago, the investigation will be in full swing.” He consulted his watch. “The interstate should be plowed. If we leave now, we’ll get there in time to talk to them.”

For the space of a heartbeat, she merely looked at him. “Logic,” she drawled. “The one thing I can’t argue with.”

A few minutes later they were back on the road. He’d been right about the snowplows. Piles of snow lined the one open lane on each side. Carson constantly pressed the Seek button on the radio, looking for more news about the robbery.

The farther north they went, the less deeply the snow appeared to blanket the ground. The highway opened up, too, all lanes, though the traffic seemed considerably lighter than the day before.

Welkory, Exit One Mile.

As they approached the turnoff, he reached behind him and yanked a wrinkled black jacket from behind the seat.

“Here,” he said, shoving it into her lap. “Put this on over yours.”

Noting the yellow DEA on the back, she guessed the coat would provide cover as well as warmth. Shrugging out of her own parka, she slipped on the lighter jacket. “What about you?”

“I’ve got a cap.” His tone discouraged conversation.

The two-lane road that led to Welkory was curved and lined with towering, leafless trees. Coated with a light dusting of snow, they appeared both majestic and threatening. Brenna sensed the presence of animals in the woods, though she and Carson sped by so fast that she had no time to communicate with any of them. Before long they rounded the final curve and found themselves smack-dab in the middle of Welkory.

Downtown seemed oddly deserted, as though at the first hint of danger all the shops had rolled up their carpets and locked their doors.

Carson slowed the car, though every one of the four stoplights turned green at his approach. First Street, flanked by well-maintained, charming historical buildings. Then Second and Third, until finally they reached the intersection of Main Street and Fourth. Yellow police tape squared off the corner of Welkory First Bank and Trust, and a yellow fire truck, lights flashing, was parked next to the drive.

Brenna counted no fewer than seven police cruisers, two of them local, the rest state police.

Carson rolled down his window to flash his ID at the officer blocking the entrance. “DEA,” he barked and was rewarded with an immediate wave past the barricade. They barely glanced at Brenna. Wearing Carson’s jacket made her look like another DEA agent.

He parked between two police cars, right next to the building. After turning off the ignition, he pocketed the keys and grabbed a battered black cap and crammed it on his head. The DEA letters in yellow made the cap a mate to her jacket.

“Ready?” he asked, his voice raspy. All traces of emotion had vanished from his face. He looked every part the professional government officer, stern and unforgiving in his quest for justice.

She licked lips suddenly gone dry before she replied quietly, “Yes.”

“Then let’s go,” he said. “More than anyone else, you need to see this.”

She heard the unspoken second part of his sentence: so you’ll understand what kind of man your brother has become.

Eager to prove him wrong, Brenna pushed open her door. Ice-coated gravel crunched underfoot as she walked beside Carson to the squat brick building. Crisp air carried a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the grim mood radiating from the uniformed officers who congregated inside the bank.

Brenna froze, sensation overwhelming her. The interior of this place smelled strongly of fear, of blood and death, like a hunt gone brutally wrong. She wanted to cover her nose, so nauseated did the scent make her. The odor of evil hung in the air so strongly she thought she might be sick. More than anything, she wanted to break away, lunge for the door and run. But she was a huntress, strong not weak. Though her sense of smell was ten times more powerful than a human’s, she would force herself to stay.

She breathed, though each lung full of air felt cloying, full of decay and hate. She swallowed, tasted bile and concentrated on not being weak. Nothing, not the hunting rituals of the Pack, nor any of the limited television shows she watched, had ever prepared her for the carnage here.

Mindless savagery. Hate. Pure evil.

It felt surreal and simultaneously more real than any experience had ever felt. She despised every minute, wishing she were somewhere, anywhere, else.

Three sheet-covered bodies lay in front of the long, paneled counter. One man, probably the coroner, knelt beside the nearest one, making notes. Quiet sobbing came from a group of people clustered in the back.

“Tellers and other customers, most likely,” Carson told her, sotto voce. “The ones who survived to tell their stories to the police.”

Heart in her throat, Brenna managed a nod, trying to hide her trembling. Though hunters by nature, her people did not believe in mindless violence or senseless slaughter.

Two uniformed locals intercepted them.

“DEA,” Carson said again, touching the brim of his cap. They looked at Brenna, eyed her jacket and relaxed their stances. One, a younger man, met her gaze and blanched. Some humans always reacted so to one of the Pack.

“Where’s the FBI?” the shorter of the two officers asked, his tone disapproving. At Carson’s shrug, he grimaced and moved aside to allow them access to the witnesses.

Striding across the room as if they belonged, they moved into the edge of the group surrounding the survivors.

Then she smelled it, mingled with the acrid, coppery scent of blood. His scent—faint, but definitely Alex. She felt an instant of panic. Was he hurt? She nearly turned to Carson, then, remembering he was not like her, glanced casually around the room instead.

There. A faded jean jacket lay crumpled on the floor next to the wall, splattered with blood. It carried her brother’s scent. She would have to inspect it, smell it better and touch the cloth before she could determine if the blood belonged to him.

Carson’s hand on her shoulder kept her in place.

An older, heavyset woman, bright spots of color high on her pale cheeks, talked quietly. “The leader was a tall man, built like a wrestler or something. Muscular, and he liked to show those muscles off, I think. Despite the weather, he didn’t wear a shirt or coat, only a black leather vest. And jeans.”

The officer taking notes nodded. “Any other distinguishing characteristics, ma’am?”

“His hair was long—longer than mine. Oh—and he had a tattoo.”

Carson looked at Brenna. She knew he was thinking of Alex’s birthmark, shaped like a wolf.

“Tattoo?” she asked, keeping her voice professionally level. “What did it look like?”

Eyes wide, the woman waved one plump beringed hand. “Oh, it was very intricate, some sort of curly snake thing, evil looking, that wrapped all the way up his arm.”

Not Alex’s birthmark. With an effort, Brenna kept her relief from showing on her face.

“Hades’ Claws.” One of the troopers muttered to another. “It’s their mark.”

Carson gave Brenna a narrow-eyed look, and she saw that he already knew about this tattoo. Again she wanted to open her mouth, to tell him Alex would never defile himself like that, but too many others surrounded them, so she held her silence.

“Eye color? Hair color?”

Ah, now was the important part. Brenna held her breath.

The woman didn’t hesitate. “Dark eyes. Brown, I think. And that hair, why it was so inky black it didn’t reflect the light. It had to be dyed.”

Another officer had begun to question two more tellers, who responded with similar answers to the first. Carson watched and listened, intent on their answers.

Brenna had heard enough. Glancing around the brightly lit interior of the bank, she wondered at the creepy feel of it, as though the room had taken on a texture both clean and sharp, yet tainted and foul. She ran her hand along the faux wood surface of a desk, the smoothness an odd contrast to the rough menace that still hung in the air.