“No.” I pulled my phone and scrolled through the text messages that came in during the night. “I asked the New Orleans vamps for a healer. Aaaaaand”—I spotted one from Bruiser, clicked on it, and interpreted the text—“a Mercy Blade is coming in tonight from Charlotte. Her name is Gertruda,” which might be German or might be a typo.
“What. Some fanghead is gonna bleed the kid? Not gonna happen,” the tobacco chewer said. He shifted his weapon in its holster and spat again.
I took note where not to step. “She’s not a vamp.” Which was the truth as far as it went. Mercy Blades were anzus, feathered birdlike creatures once worshipped as storm gods, now hiding among humans and vamps, under layers of glamours. I didn’t tell them that part. They didn’t ask. This should be interesting. “I was bitten by werewolves once. A Mercy Blade got to me in time and healed me of the taint.”
“Yeah?” Grizzard looked me over as if looking for dog ears and a tail. “Is she gonna stay a while?” he asked. Meaning would others have access to her services. The people bitten at the crime scene below. Cops in the future.
I texted a short line into the phone. “I’m requesting an extended stay until the weres are brought down.” I pocketed the cell and changed topics. “Back to the tracks. Was there another track, a weird one, maybe on top of the were-paw tracks? Like it was stalking them?”
The group exchanged looks that excluded me. Grizzard said, “Can you describe them?”
“Pen?” He placed one in my hand and slid a scrap of paper to me. I was no artist but I could draw grindy tracks. Most any moderately talented three-year-old could. I sketched in the three-toed tracks, the middle longer than the others, claws like sickles. I could tell by the way the small group froze up that the tracks had been found at the crime scene.
“It’s from a creature called a grindylow,” I said. “Ugly little green thing about four feet tall. It hunts weres that break were-law. If we can find it, we might learn something from it.” And I might be able to convince the little creature to join forces with me. Didn’t tell them that either. I couldn’t lie worth a dang, but lying by omission? I was learning to do that real well.
“We’re not releasing that to the public,” Grizzard instructed.
“Fine by me. The press is plastering my name and likeness all over the airwaves. They aren’t my best pals.” I thought I had worked my way into their good graces and so I took a shot. “Can I see the site?”
Grizzard nodded to Sam. “Orson, take her on down.”
Relief poured through me. “One last suggestion,” I said. “Weres are really hard to kill. Silvershot may not kill them any faster than regular ammo, but silver will hurt them. Bad. If they suffer a wound—say silvershot double-oughts—I don’t think they can change form to heal until the silver is surgically removed, forcing them to stay in the form they were in when injured. Left in them long enough, it’ll poison their bloodstream. If you want, I got a local guy who hand-loads my rounds with silver fléchettes. I killed several in New Orleans with them.”
“You’ve killed these things?”
“Yeah.” I looked into the trees, down the slope. They had nearly killed me, but I left that out too. Lying was getting easier. I waited for some guilt but nothing happened. It was Sunday morning; I should be getting ready for church instead of lying to cops. Yeah. I was going to hell.
“Name? Cost?” Grizzard barked.
I gave him the name and contact info for the guy who hand-loaded my rounds. “I can’t tell you the cost. That’s dependent on the market value of silver, the amount of silver he uses in the fléchettes, a whole bunch of factors.”
“Okay. Take her down. Don’t fuck up my crime scene, Yellowrock.”
“You’re such a softie.”
Before he could reply, Sam grabbed my elbow and pulled me away. “You never did know when to shut your mouth,” he growled.
I looked down at him and grinned. “You can’t hold your liquor.”
Sam Orson did a little eye-roll-blow-out-breath thing and pulled me down the hill. On the breeze I smelled blood. Dead meat. Human.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vigilante Law’s Got No Place in My County
The hundred square feet inside the yellow crime scene tape reeked of human blood, werewolf, and dead fish to my sensitive nose. The three humans the weres had feasted on were still near the tents, buzzing with flies. The smell in the campsite had drawn a murder of crows, sitting in trees, watching, waiting. One turned and looked at me, cocking its head to the side in a movement reminiscent of the way vamps move when they aren’t trying to ape humanity. Or when they don’t care if someone sees their true nature. I held my face still, nonreactive, and studied the scene, walking around the perimeter, viewing it from every angle. Some of the crime scene techs were bagging evidence, marking where each body part or piece of evidence was found. Others were taking photos or making notes or putting down little evidence markers for new physical trace to be added into the bigger picture.
The campers had been attacked in the night, the wolves rushing in from the west, tearing into the tents, then into the sleeping campers. Three had been killed quickly. Three others had run into the woods and been chased. “What did the surviving campers say?” I asked.
“They were chased, knocked down, bitten, and let go.”
“All of the live ones were female,” I stated.
Sam studied me as I analyzed the scene. “How did you know that? We implied to the press that the one who called for help was male.”
“Three tents, three coolers, three bear-bags of food. All the dead and eaten ones are male, but you have female clothing of different sizes scattered all over the site. I admit to an assumption that it wasn’t six cross-dressers, ergo three couples.” Sam snorted softly. “Also, the werewolves in New Orleans were trying to make mates. Werewolves aren’t like other weres. They don’t breed true. The only way they procreate is to bite a human.” Of all the weres—the Cursed of Artemis—the wolves were the ones still sick, and the disease that made them two-natured and furry also meant they weren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. I finished, “Females who are bitten don’t survive, or if they do, they go insane and into permanent heat.”
Sam sucked in a breath as the words sank in. There was so much I couldn’t say to the cops, but the effects on the victims could not be kept secret. I thought about the grainy, poor quality photograph of Itty Bitty: delicate features, big blue eyes, pretty. I closed my eyes, feeling the gritty dryness of exhaustion. “Where did the wolves enter the campsite?” I asked, though I already knew, having tracked the scent on the wind.
Sam pointed uphill. “They came in from a church parking lot, up that hill there, about three miles. Went out the same way.”
“Dogs tell you that?”
Sam snorted. “Dogs got all squirrelly soon as the handlers drove up. Every single one. Went into full-blown panic mode. One bit his handler. Fu—freaking terrified.” I grinned at his careful change of wording. Cops aren’t known for their diplomatic language, but Sam was trying. “The handlers took them down to the river after the three-toed thing instead. What did you call it?”
“Grindy. Short for grindylow,” I said. “I need inside the perimeter, closer to the vics. Tell me where I can step and where I can’t. Then I want to see where the grindy came in from.”
“The grindy came from a stream at the bottom of the crevice,” he pointed. “I ain’t going down there. The fall’ll kill ya,” he quoted from an old movie. “And so will the hike back up.”
“Okay. Walk me in.” Placing my feet into Sam’s footprints, I got close enough to the victims to verify that they had been dinner. I’d seen a herd of deer after a werewolf pack tore into them. This was a lot like that. I also smelled witch blood, and since few male witches survive to adulthood, it likely meant that one of the bitten women was a witch. Itty Bitty was of witch blood. This wasn’t coincidence. The wolves had tried turning human women for mates and it didn’t work. Now it looked like they were going for witches.