Chapter 14 Furyon
Furyon
“Why ain’t there a trace of anything wrong now?” Echo crosses her arms as we stand at the bottom of the gulch, watching the horses.
Their eyes are normal, their behavior even more so.
Nothing out of the usual as they graze and play in the water.
I suck at my teeth, considering the possibilities.
We still don’t know what we don’t know, because Mykel isn’t sure if his cattle were sick before he moved them back to his ranch.
The only thing that’s clear is that whatever got his cattle is affecting the mustangs now too.
“Let’s consider this. We don’t know what happened with the moose prior to it ending up in Lemon’s hole.”
Echo lets out a disapproving snort, which I promptly disregard.
I wave at the mustangs. “As far as we know, Mykel’s cattle were sick for at least one day before going catatonic. And then, of course, we have no idea how long the moose was sick for before it died. The mustangs attacked Lemon, but they’re fine now.”
“The only commonality is that vampire, far as I can see,” Echo grumbles. “Something ain’t right there, Boss.” She sighs. “Saw you two in The Gossip this morning. You ain’t worried about how it all looks? I don’t normally pry in your personal life, but…” She trails off, frowning at me.
I freeze at her mention of the Sunday gossip paper.
Merit and Bryony’ll be to blame for that.
I wonder if Lemon’s seen it yet. The way she left made me think she wasn’t all that pleased with how Tryst showed up.
I don’t like it. Makes my skin itch. Reaching down, I rub my fingers over the mustang tattoo.
“I ain’t worried about the optics.” I look at Echo.
“My gut’s always been good, you know that.
Something else is going on here, Ek. When I was out with Lemon yesterday, we saw one of the ranchers refuse to sign a contract with Varek.
” I give her a meaningful look. “I wanna talk to him. ‘Cause when I think about that black liquid and the way it ate up the land, it occurs to me that land becoming less valuable potentially gives him something to gain. If he’s struggling to get folks to sign rights over to him, maybe he’d be desperate enough to resort to something like this. ”
Echo’s dark eyes go wide, then she looks up at the sky as she seems to consider it. “Damn, Boss. That’s a dark fuckin’ angle to this story, but it makes sense. I’ve seen him in disagreement with a few ranchers lately.”
I ain’t really sure how things are going for Varek in terms of his grand plan, but now’s the time for me to start digging into that. Which means this has moved past a Fish that’s the only thing I’m relatively sure of. ”
Bishop grunts, running a hand through his unruly waves. “Alright, you keep lookin’ through the computer records, and I’ll go over the printouts for anything weird.”
It takes us all of forty minutes to discover a couple things—Varek has spent a significant amount of money buying up ranches just north of downtown. There are just four holdout parcels of land that seem like he’d need them to build anything cohesive. Mykel’s ranch is one of those.
That sense of something amiss raises the hair on my nape, concern and worry filling me in equal measure.
“Shit, Furyon,” Bishop says with a growl. “Varek’s got reason to want the land to be worthless for a time, at least. If he can’t get those couple of plots, he’s got nothin’.”
We sit in silence for a moment. I still find it hard to believe Varek would do this. While I don’t love the idea of mini ranches and townhomes any more than the rest of the Gulchers, I’ve never known him to be cruel. It goes firmly against minotaur values to uphold the sanctity of the land.
“We need more info,” Bishop says. “Something more than just happenstance. He’s got motive, but that ain’t enough for us to do anything more than question him.”
“Agreed.” I rise and grab a comm disk from its spot on the wall by the door. The disk allows us to call monsters in other havens from our own. Dropping it on the table between us, I ask it to call FJ Zayle.
While it rings, Bishop rises. “I’m gonna leave you to that, but let me know what comes of it.”
Nodding, I watch as he limps out of the archives and up toward the main floor.
With a snap, my older brother’s hologram rises up out of the disk. His dark brows lift. “Furyon, this is a surprise. It’s been what, twenty years?”
I nod, threading my fingers together as I lean over the desk. “I need your help, FJ. You still got access to the havenwide financial database?”
He crosses his arms and scowls. “Why, hello, FJ. Good to see you. How’s everyone at home? Glad you asked, brother. We’re doing just fine, thank you.”
I sigh. “FJ, I’m practically dead to our father. In fact, last I heard, he’s actually telling monsters I died. Doesn’t seem like you’ve been correcting him, either.”
“Lies,” FJ spits, his scowl deepening. Then he smirks. “I always correct him when he says you’re dead. For real, though, how are you? And, yeah, I’ve still got database access.”
I resist the urge to tell my brother all about Lemon and the spark of happiness that’s suddenly blowing life into my fire. Now ain’t the time, and he’s right about one thing—we don’t keep up with one another much since I opted out of the family business.
“I need you to look into the financials of a minotaur who lives out here—Varek Longhorn. Came from Hearth Headquarters originally.”
“That name sounds familiar,” FJ muses. “I’ll look into it and see what I can find.” He smirks at me again. “You want me to tell Father you said hello?”
I snort out a laugh, “We both know he couldn’t care less.”
FJ’s smile falls. “I’ll do this for you, Furyon. But I want to come see you soon. You asked me not to in the past, but you look good, brother. I wanna know what’s going on in your life if you’ll allow it after all this time.”
I think about it for a second, unsure if I wanna open the can of worms that is my family. It’s been nice not having any of their expectations choking me for the last fifty years. “I’ll consider it,” I say finally.
“Good,” FJ says. “Check in soon.” He clicks off without another word.
I sit with the conversation for a minute, mulling over how it felt to see my brother for the first time in two decades.
Despite my fallout with our father, FJ’s the only one of my brothers who tried to keep up with me, even when I lived with the vampire coven.
He told me then they were bad news, and he was right.
I didn’t listen then, but I should have.
I could’ve avoided some heartache if I’d taken his advice to leave the coven in my rearview.
Setting that aside, I head to Lemon’s cottage to see if she’s home.
She ain’t there, and even though I wait around for a half hour to see, she doesn’t show up.
It’s past quittin’ time by the time I get back to downtown.
I go to Whiskey Business to see if she’s on the karaoke stage.
It doesn’t surprise me at all to find her there with a Jell-O shot in one hand and a microphone in the other.
I slide onto the barstool, smiling at Oz as I watch her. She’s belting out a country song about yet another human truck driver.
Oz laughs when he sees me. “If it isn’t our hometown heartthrob himself.”
I groan. “She’s seen it, I take it?”
Oz nods. “Oh yeah, I showed up at her place first thing this morning to go over all the juicy details.”
It occurs to me to ask just how much he knows about last night, but then I don’t love talking about my personal life with anyone. I like for that to remain private. Although if we made the Gossip then it’s all out there for public consumption.
His smile falls. “I hung out with her most of the day. Her brother called, gave her some shit about some girl with hives back home. She’s been upset about it, for some reason. Been plying her with shots, but it might do her good to see a friendly face.” He winks at me. “Or get laid.”
Aww, Lemon. I look over at her. She belts out a long, perfect note.
When her eyes fall on me, they narrow slightly.
She turns and heads over to the machine where you can pick the karaoke song.
After punching in a series of buttons, she smirks at me as she retakes her place in the middle of the stage.
Around us, Whiskey Business is busy. Sunday afternoons’re always a raucous time. But why do I get the feeling this woman is about to tease me in front of everyone?