Chapter 16 #2
Jena’s hand stilled behind the dog’s ear. Well, that wasn’t particularly reassuring considering she smelled like one. Nana huffed, looking up at her with big liquid brown eyes, and Phil chuckled.
“Don’t worry. I let her and the rest of them know you were coming.”
“Um…okay?” Jena gingerly resumed her scritches, and the dog’s eyes closed in bliss.
“They’ve got pack memory Dad can access. It’s way cool,” Kelsey added, doling out condiments from a picnic basket. “She probably remembers you.”
“She seems really familiar…did my mom have a dog like this?” Jena asked.
“No,” Phil said, setting the platter of burgers on the table and sitting across from her.
“But I did. That’s actually Nana Four. They’re beautiful dogs, but they don’t live very long.
You probably remember Nana One. The two of you were inseparable whenever we brought her over to the manor, and she stayed up there more often than not after her own pups were grown.
In fact, that’s how her line got their names, after that dog in Peter Pan.
Your mother couldn’t ask for a better babysitter. ”
“I think I remember…” Jena murmured, a vague recollection of being dragged out of the house by the back of her shirt. Around her, the smell of smoke intensified.
The alpha grunted. “Well, dig in while it’s hot,” he said, motioning toward the platter. “You eat while I talk. I’m gonna assume you had a look at your mother’s grimoire?”
Jena nodded, waiting for Felix to pass the mayo and not meeting Phil’s eyes.
“Good, because some things can’t be spoken about without drawing attention.” Jena did look up at that, and Phil nodded at whatever he saw on her face. “I’d suggest you keep it close for now.”
“Why do I abruptly feel like the cool kids have a secret, and I’m not one of them?” Felix asked, his eyes narrowed above his burger.
Phil snorted. “Because we do, and you’re not, but for better or worse, it’s about to come out,” he said, ignoring Felix’s irate glare.
“If you tell me to wait for it, I’m going to scream,” he muttered.
“Why didn’t she call the feds?” Jena asked over his grumbling.
The alpha pushed back, buzzing his lips. “You don’t ease into things, do you? You get that from her, you know. Rebecca was always direct.”
“You know you’re killing me, right? I’m so dumping you,” Felix groused, biting into his burger. Kelsey’s mom sat beside him and patted his arm.
“It has to do with the sidhe,” Kelsey stage-whispered.
“Oh no,” Felix dropped his burger on his plate. “Now you’ve really got to spill.”
Phil shot Kelsey a look, and she shrugged.
“We didn’t get the feds involved because if they sent one of their inquisitors out here, that wouldn’t have been the only irregularity they found.
” He smeared his burger with mustard and slapped a bun on top with another warning look at Kelsey.
“And that’s all that’s gonna be said about that. ”
Jena fished a pickle out of the jar, her mind racing. Who else in town had sidhe blood? It had to be someone still established here if they’d been worried about it back then and hadn’t squealed since…It also had to be someone who wasn’t a dick, otherwise they wouldn’t care if they got picked up.
A plop of macaroni salad landed on her plate, and she jumped.
“Oh look, your favorite,” Felix gushed, knowing full well she hated the stuff.
He smirked as she bit back a scowl at the sacrilege.
Pasta was not meant to be served cold in dressing; it belonged in sauce with ungodly amounts of pipping hot cheese.
“Is it?” Tess asked, her face brightening. “Oh, I’m so glad! It’s my mama’s recipe; everyone raves about it.”
“Awesome.” Jena smiled back. Crap. Now she had to eat it.
Felix stabbed a noodle and popped it into his mouth. “Mmm, delish.”
“So’s the burger,” Jena said, trying not to gag at the pile on her plate. “I hope I have room.”
Tess beamed. “Oh, don’t worry, honey, I’ll send you home with some.”
Great. Maybe Aggie would eat it.
“So why the big to-do about this wedding?” Felix asked all chipper, apparently satisfied he’d gotten his revenge. “Which is totally a lie, by the way. Chase said it’s some scheme his father and the mayor cooked up. Why break the silence between the packs now?”
Phil put a napkin over his mouth and finished chewing.
He cleared his throat. “Two reasons. First, Chambers is an idiot, and those turbine foundations need to be dismantled. It shouldn’t be happening, but ever since they went in, all the power that’s supposed to be streaming to the next node is backfeeding into this one and leaking out into the reserve nexus.
” He glanced at the outcropping of granite.
“Even I can feel it building up out here.”
Jena frowned, not happy that the coven had been right about that.
“Second reason is that if Wallace cedes alpha to one of his sons, they can declare open season on the Eastside pack without fear of invoking that curse Felix mentioned,” Kelsey added, apparently immune to her father’s stink eye.
Jena shook her head. “Chase would never do that.” Beneath the table, Nana stirred, wriggling out from underneath to stand. She shook herself and scented the air, facing west.
“No, but Patrick would,” Kelsey said, pulling out her phone as it chimed. “The papers said he’s best man.”
“So?”
Tess gave a soft cough. “In were culture, that’s not just an honor reserved for your friend. The best man and the maid of honor are obligated to take the groom or bride’s place if anything happens to either of them.”
And Chase was missing, which meant Patrick would end up marrying Crystal.
Jena cocked her head. Sucked for the Westsiders having that dynamic duo in charge, but it wasn’t the worst news she’d heard today.
Well, aside from the potential for a were blood-feud kicking off in their midst. That was pretty bad—Wait a minute…
“But those weres outside my shop—they said Malcom wanted to keep us there. Why would he—”
“Because if you don’t claim guardianship of the node and our pack is out of the way, there’s nothing but a couple of old, worn-out wards between the node and him.” Phil frowned at the faint shrill of a siren squealing through the trees.
And the node just happened to be full of a metric shit ton of pissy magic, right before Samhain when the veil between realms was the thinnest, and Malcom had abducted Chase, who was conveniently his first born.
Jena felt herself pale. He really was going to try to turn the node into an unseelie mound, and he had everything he needed to do it by the full moon.
Which was tomorrow.
“I see you’ve grasped the seriousness of the situation,” Phil said, tossing his napkin aside and eyeing the dog as its ruff rose. “Nana, come.”
The dog gave a low growl and padded farther up the hill from them.
“Yeah. I think I do,” Jena said, her burger threatening to make a reappearance.
“Oh, it gets worse,” Kelsey said. Her throat bobbed as she tore her wide-eyed gaze from her phone. “That siren? They just found Wallace Montgomery’s body out by the tracks. He’s dead, and they’re giving even odds on whether the Eastsiders or Chase did it.”
Chase staggered around the bottom of the pitch-black pit, trying to focus on faint circle of night above, and his wolf going mental.
Either half the town was burning down or somebody had died.
There wasn’t any other reason the sirens above would be blaring like that.
God, please, please, please let Jena be okay…
He threw his head back, the howl that’d been building in his chest all day tearing from his throat and echoing up the tube. He panted, fists clenched, faced raised to the heavens as it faded, his anxiety on overdrive—
Move, he had to move. He willed his sluggish body around the pit again, his feet dragging and kicking up stones.
He stumbled, splashing to his knees, sharp gravel cutting into his palms as he caught himself.
Chase panted, mania creeping up his throat in a deranged chuckle.
He fell onto his side with a splash, his shoulders hitting the wall, and his head lolling as he laughed. Fucked, he was fucked—
The siren above cut out, silence humming in its absence.
Jesus, stop it. Pull your shit together, Chase. He ran a wet hand over his face. This place was screwing with him way too much. The leyline’s fucking hum that’d been plaguing him all day reverberated through his bones, filling him with a prickling anxiety, the need to do something—
Water sloshed against him from the other side of the pool.
Chase froze. His throat bobbed, his breath too loud in his ears. The fuck? He must’ve imagined—
A ripple tided against him again.
Fuck. He hadn’t imagined it. What the hell was in here with him?
Chase strained his ears, the hum rising up in response and growing louder. It broke apart, changing and flowing into a low murmur, then individual threads…conversations…
Swirls of color formed in the darkness, misty shades of blue and green coalescing into shapes…forms…he shook his head and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
No. Not this. Not again. He wasn’t losing it, damn it, he was sane—
Water splashed by his feet, and he flinched back, plastering himself against the wall, and holding his breath. The fuck?
The hum dropped an octave.
His eyes sprang open, the small hairs on his body rising as a low chuckle resonated through the darkness.
A specter of ghastly green stood with its back to him.
Wavering. Flickering like the end of a reel of film as it laughed.
Chase pushed back against the wall, his breath huffing out in a thick cloud, the temperature abruptly frigid.
The creature’s shoulders straightened. Ice-rimed water lapped along the sides of the concrete tube as it shuffled, turning.
Chase fought down a surge of bile as it stared blankly ahead, wearing his father’s face.
The specter’s throat was torn out and gaping claw wounds shredded its torso and ripped through its prodigious gut.
Loops of intestine dangled from the wound, fatty flesh hanging in tattered curtains swaying against the creature’s thighs.
Chase stared in horror as the specter became aware of itself. It looked down and put a ghostly hand to its belly, marveling at the slick of spectral gore coating its palm. Its fingertips slid together, and confusion marred its brow—
Its eyes flicked up to Chase.
Ire burned in their cold, dead depths, and a macabre expulsion of air rasped out as it tried to speak, the ruined flesh at its throat rattling in a death keel. It raised an accusatory finger at him and opened its mouth. The creature’s fangs extended, and it lunged at him in a blur.
Chase shouted, throwing his arms over his head as an icy blast went through him, and he seized, choking on cigar smoke and brandy.