Chapter 39
“Take it off,” Vesta said.
“Now you’re talking,” I agreed with a leer.
Nurse Crandall just snorted, completely unimpressed. Vesta was already pulling the shirt the rest of the way off my head, impatient to see.
“Where? Oh, I see. It’s tiny,” she said, her tone changing the two words into you weak wimp, this is nothing.
“I told you it didn’t hurt much after the first moment. I just don’t know why she attacked me.”
“She didn’t attack you,” Vesta said, leaning close. “That elemental bitch marked you… with her fucking name! That I gave her!”
“What?” I asked, twisting around. I was more concerned about a furious Vesta than a scar. Nurse Crandall also seemed to be aware of the greatest danger in the room. “That tiny little mark is a name?” she questioned innocently. Her eyes flicked to mine and back, widening in warning.
“Omega, can you magnify?”
“Yes, Vesta. It appears you are correct. There is carefully etched scar tissue in the precise runes that Craig and you used to identify the elemental. More importantly, the tissue is located in one of the six circles surrounding the greater circle of the largest unknown tattoo on his back.”
“Which Dad feels is an elemental symbol to begin with,” Vesta said, tone tight but at least not homicidal.
“Tattoo?” Crandall asked.
“They’re not usually visible,” Vesta said. Omega must have flashed a laser or something because Crandall gasped and Vesta said, “Huh?” with something like real curiosity.
“Didn’t you feel like Flint was able to sense my tattoos?” I asked.
“Yeah, I did. She was instantly fascinated.”
“This thing isn’t a real she, right?” Crandall asked. “I mean, there’s not girl parts or whatnot?”
“No. Flint is an elemental spirit, a force of nature. Her true self is deep underground, likely a pocket of magma under the mountains west of here. She has sent a tendril of thermal power through the ground to a point under this town. A tiny point. The little flaming woman we see is her projection, which is remarkable for such a young elemental. My working theory is that she became aware of humans over thousands of years of people visiting the springs to bathe. Sometime during that, she decided that of the two kinds of people that came, she felt more in common with the females. It’s just a theory that I need to run by Dad. ”
“Vee?” I asked. “Do you think the elemental symbol was created between humans and elementals eons ago?”
“Hmm. You should get dressed; the sheriff is waiting to have us look at those crime scenes.”
I did and we found Sheriff Brower near the hospital entrance with one of her deputies—a really large one.
“Ah, you ready? Okay to travel?”
“Just a scratch,” I said, pulling on my parka.
“Okay, we need to go in the department’s Humvee-E as the roads are getting really bad.”
“Or we could just take the Bludgeon drone, which doesn’t care about weather at all,” I suggested, immediately earning a sharp look from Brower and a glare from the hulking deputy.
“We’ll use the vehicle. Bad enough that machine is powering our town,” Brower said.
“Sheriff is an elected position,” Vesta whispered in my ear. Her breath tickled and my attention was shot, so it took a second for the words to kick in. Ah, election. Town of Omega haters. Right.
The big vehicle thundered through the streets, the heavy electric motors making short work of the deep snow. It didn’t take long to reach the outer edges of the town, where houses backed up to forest.
The deputy pulled us into a driveway of a small, two-story house that appeared almost burgundy in color. I think it might have been an example of something called Craftsman, but my architectural knowledge of American homes was exhausted after that guess.
We all ducked under the crime scene tape and stepped inside. The front hallway rug was a synthetic mat clearly designed for Montana weather. Wet circles showed where tracked-in snow had melted recently.
We stood for a moment taking in the ambience, Vesta sniffing the air. She made a face.
“Nasty?” I asked.
“Vile,” she answered.
“You want to Change?” I asked.
“That might be best,” she agreed.
“What now?” Sheriff Brower asked.
“She’s going to Change forms, Sheriff, to get her best sniffing on. Won’t take but a moment,” I said. Vesta was tugging off her boots, and I took her coat from her extended arm. She continued to strip, handing me sweater, mittens, hat, pants, and shirt.
“Ahem,” the sheriff said to deputy drools a lot and he reluctantly turned his back. Bra and panties topped my pile and then she shimmered and shifted, leaving a giant three-hundred-pound wolf whose back came up to the bottom of my rib cage.
“Shit,” the sheriff breathed out in quick hiss. The deputy whirled around and grunted in alarm but managed to keep his hand away from his gun.
“Are both of you new to weres?” I asked.
“Ah, seen some at a distance,” the big deputy said. His nametag read C. Smith.
“Same,” Brower said, eyes on Vesta, who watched them back as she leaned on me with enough weight to set me off balance. “Is that speed normal?”
“Not remotely. She changes faster than any were ever, although her mom is pretty quick too. As you can see, she is the same person in either form,” I said, recovered.
Now she was pressed against me but not hard.
“So in this form, Sheriff, you have a living, breathing crime scene processing machine. She will pick out every chemical trace or smell there is to find. Ask questions, especially yes or no questions. She’ll understand and convey an answer.
The fact that her first scenting of the place was defined as vile means something evil.
She has been exposed to almost everything in the supernatural world, including demons. Questions?”
“Can I pet her?” Smith asked.
“Jesus, Smith,” the sheriff swore.
“Would you pet her in human form?” I asked, putting an edge in my voice.
“Ah, well, that wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Not appropriate in this form either, but she has massive teeth, so be warned.”
Vesta had lost patience and moved ahead, scenting the scene.
I followed, watching her closely, and the two law enforcement types trailed behind me.
With quick, sure steps, she covered the ground floor, paying no particular attention to anything. Although when she got to the kitchen, she sat down in front of the fridge.
“She hungry?” Deputy Smith asked.
“Curious. Who is the resident, Sheriff?” I asked as I opened the refrigerator door. Side by side, my wolf and I peered into the well-lit interior.
“Tammy O’Brien,” Brower said. “Widow, eighty-one years old, retired from the Post Office. She’s our first disappearance, two nights ago.”
The fridge held small amounts of food, but a solid variety and good quality. Lots of organic, lots of produce, local cage-free eggs, fruit, orange juice, ground coffee in a canister, and a six pack of local beer.
I closed the door as Vesta slipped away, heading for the stairs.
She paused at the base and looked up at the second floor and her entire demeanor changed.
Her muscles coiled as her ears folded back and her lips pulled ever so slightly away from her teeth.
She knew I was right behind her as she moved with an apex predator’s natural grace up the steps.
I followed closely, my Intent at full power, but I sensed nothing above us.
At the top of the stairs, she paused to scent the air, her mouth slightly open.
Then she started casting back and forth, parsing the scent information.
I took it all in with my own merely human senses, trying to figure out what had happened.
There were three bedrooms and a full bath on this floor, and Tammy’s room was the largest. One of the smaller rooms doors was closed and cold air gusted under the jamb.
When I opened it, a broken window was revealed, snow swirling into the room and beginning to pile up on the floor.
Frozen blood streaked up the short wall and over the sill, presumably continuing outside.
Vesta covered it quickly, then moved to the main bedroom where a bedside light was still lit up. The bedsheets were thrown back and a small revolver lay in stark contrast to the white of the bedspread. Vesta sniffed it, then looked my way.
“Can I handle the gun?”
“Keep your gloves on, although we already processed it,” the sheriff said from behind me.
It was an older model .38 Special. Smith and Wesson.
In excellent condition, chromed steel. Two of the five rounds had been fired and when I looked behind me at the wall near the door, I spotted two holes in the drywall, about seven inches apart.
I also noticed the bedroom door was splintered around the knob.
“Good shooting,” I said.
“Her husband had been a deputy back in the day and he taught her,” Brower said. “Yet no blood spray.”
I had left Vesta’s clothes in a neat pile out in the hall, and she slipped out the door while the sheriff, deputy, and I were talking about the gun.
“Which implies that she either missed or the bullets passed through it without doing any damage,” I said.
“All the blood in the house is hers,” Sheriff Brower said.
“Is the other crime scene like this?” Vesta asked from the doorway, tugging her sweater down to her waist.
“Ah, yeah. No shooting, though. Mr. Morris didn’t own a gun and was pretty crippled with arthritis.”
“Omega, can you patch me through to Uncle Chris or Aunt Tanya?”
“Of course. Here is Chris.”
“What’s up, kiddo?” the God Hammer said.
“Uncle Chris, we’re in Montana helping warm up a town during this epic storm and there seems to be a supernatural killer.
I scented it and I immediately thought of Aunt Tanya’s words about creatures in Michigan that you guys hunted when you were Rovers.
Something odd that smells of decay and wild and also, a little bit, human. ”
“Cheenos… also known as Wendigos,” he said instantly, his tone suddenly worried. “Vesta, these things are extremely fast and hard to kill.”
“I remember but I have Craig with me, of course.”
“Oh,” he said, tone much calmer. “That’s… that’s good. How can I help?”
“Any advice on hunting them, if I’m right?”
“They’ll come to you. You, specifically, Vesta, as they prefer to hunt weres over regular humans. Although they don’t really like witches, but I suspect the smell of werewolf will be a powerful attractant.”
“Sheriff, did you find any sign of more than one?” Vesta asked.
Sheriff Brower looked pretty shellshocked, likely due to the fact she was on a call with the Hammer of God himself. To her credit, she pulled herself together pretty fast. “Ah, no. Just one set of claw marks on the outside of both houses, one set of tracks at each location.”
“Let me guess… these people lived near the edge of town?”
“Exactly,” Vesta said.
“One block apart,” the sheriff added.
“Pick a house another block past the last one, walk around a bit, and let your scent into the wind. It will come from downwind. Craig?”
“Yes sir?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Track and destroy anything that tries to get anywhere near Vesta,” I said.
“As quick as you did at school?”
“I’m wide awake, sir. It’ll be faster.”
“Good.”