“Werewolf?”
He cocked his head. “Maybe.”
She asked, “Was it sick?”
“Yes.”
“Rabid?”
Brute thought. He had a wolf’s scent brain and every scent he had smelled since the day he was changed from normal mundane human to werewolf was engraved in there. He never forgot a scent and he had smelled a rabid raccoon once. Werewolves stank bad enough. His kind were often insane, unless a pack could be found and the moon-called insanity reined in by a strong alpha. Rabid lone werewolves? That was bad. He tapped, “Yes.” Tapped the question mark, then “Maybe.”
“Doesn’t rule out a Dwayyo,” Liz said. “Dwayyo’s could have always been rabid werewolves.”
Brute sat, thinking. Rabid werewolf? If so, where was the grindy associated with it? There had been a time when were-creatures in this hemisphere were rare, and grindy’s even rarer, having never followed the weres here when his kind made their way over—crossing the ocean or walking across an ice age icepack. The local tribes had killed most of them, and the few remaining went into hiding, under the control of alphas strong enough to control their packs. But from the moment the grindy’s were introduced as a species, they had popped back and forth through space policing were-creatures. He stared at the buttons and tapped the question mark.
“You have a question?” Liz asked.
“Yes.”
“Is it about the creature?”
He tapped, “Small.”
“A little bit about the creature?”
“Yes.” Brute put a paw to his ears, wiped off a smear of blood, and showed it to the humans. He tapped, “Small,” again.
“Oh,” Liz said. “Are you talking about the grindy?”
“The grindylow didn’t react to the blood on your jeans,” Eli said. “So it wasn’t a werewolf. We’re dealing with a different kind of shapeshifter, who has rabies.”
Brute tapped, “Yes.”
Eli
Chewy answered his cell,“S’up, Hoss?”
Chewy didn’t answer calls except from a select few people. Like the ones who had survived a firefight in some little border town in Mexico, tracking drug cartels under orders from a former president who authorized the illegal incursion across international borders. They successfully rescued an American citizen from them, along with eight Mexican females, all destined for the international sex trafficking trade. That created a bond between brothers and Chewy always answered his calls.
Eli explained what his problem was, how high the level of danger was, how much the pay was, and then said, “Yellowrock is calling the governor to see if we can dip into the para cleanup fund to help defray any extra expenses. You want in?”
“Hell, yeah. My old lady wants me to stop drinking beer and keep the damn grass cut. That kinda money, I can hire out the grass cuttin’ and drink better quality beer while I supervise. When and where?”
Eli gave him the particulars and the address and Chewy ended the call with, “Copy. Dawn.” No see you then. No later or goodbye. Just a disconnection. Chewy was efficient like that.
“Paranormal cleanup fund?” Liz asked from behind him. There was an edge to her voice.
He had known she was in the doorway to his suite. There had been the faintest alteration of the lighting and the air currents had shifted, bringing to his nose that soft hint of vanilla and stone that was uniquely hers. Lizzie had watched him when he left Alex’s office, had followed, and had been listening in. “Ummm,” he said, without turning around, texting the list of supplies he thought they would need to Chewy and to Alex.
“You involvedJanein this?”
Yeah. Definitely an edge. He knew Liz still had feelings about Jane, complicated feelings because Jane, his adopted sister, had killed Evangelina, Liz’s sister, as part of the way to send a demon back to hell. It should have been an Everhart problem, not a Jane problem, but she had been forced to clean up their nasty, demon-calling, black-magic, and blood-magic problem.
They had talked about it a lot. Rationally, Liz knew there had been no choice. Her heart was a different thing entirely. It was all tangled up in love for the sister who had been lost long before she died, shame for her actions, horror, and mostly, “what ifs.”
“What ifs” were the most useless emotions in the world. They were like the brain gnawing on a bone, or maybe like the heart sucking on poison candy, knowing that nothing can change but still going over and over and over it. A form of even more PTSD. He knew all about that.
He finished his texts and turned to her. She was standing in the doorway, arms on her very curvy hips, frowning. Eli said nothing. Giving her time for the emotional reaction to fade and time to let her think. She looked good standing there, her red hair loose on her shoulders and her eyes glaring.
