“Let me get the rest of these, then we can do the werewolf Q and A.”
Her voice disappeared as Eli maneuvered up the steep trail, and when it turned into a ravine, he followed it up away from the cliff edge. The foliage changed. The trees were larger here, as if they hadn’t been harvested in nearly a century. Trunks and limbs coiled out and up toward the daylight in every nook and cranny where they had taken root, laurel and rhododendron thickets in between the tall trunks of oak, sweetgum, hickory, walnut. The birds fell silent as he pulled himself up the hillside, grabbing trees and hauling himself higher. When he reached the top, a crest of a hill, the faint track he had been following disappeared. This would be a good place to set a drone to look ahead, but he wanted his team together first.
Eli secured a rope at the top and dropped down fast, back to the narrow place where he had left his team. He whistled a single note before he came around the corner at the rock slide. Didn’t want Chewy to shoot him.
“Coulda shot your ass anytime for the last hundred yards, Hoss.”
Eli raised his head to see Chewy, well-hidden by his camo overalls sitting in the fork of a tree, his rifle pointing in Eli’s general direction. “First rule in country?”
“Always look up,” Eli answered. “Did look. Good camo.”
“The old lady made it for me. You find anything?”
“Big ass hill we gotta climb. I secured a rope at the top.”
“Your girl talks to the dog like it’s human.” Chewy pulled himself to standing position and eased down the hill toward Eli. “Damn dog talks back.”
“Brute’s a werewolf stuck in wolf form. He’s as much human as wolf most of the time.”
Chewy grunted. “So you said. Figured you were shittin’ me.”
“Not shitting you. Let’s go see what she’s figured out.”
Liz
She didn’t noticewhen Chewy disappeared, but it was shortly after she started questioning Brute. Once all the cockleburs had been removed from his fur, the wolf drank three bottles of water and relieved himself against a tree. Then the werewolf sat in front of her, waiting. The grindylow wasn’t around.
“Did you find the creature we’re chasing?”
Nod.
“Do you know what it is?”
Head shake.
“So, not a were creature. Not something common. Still possibly a Dwayyo. Did it smell sick?”
Nod.
“Rabies?”
Nod and head shake.
“Something like rabies but maybe not exactly rabies?”
Nod. Shake.
“Rabies and something else too?”
Slow nod, his eyes holding hers.
She remembered the staggering prints, as if the creature had been drinking. There were other things that could result in that kind of gait. “Maybe something like mad cow disease but in a paranormal creature?”
Brute’s head tilted and his eyebrows went high. He gave a soft whoof.
“Was there anything peculiar about it?”
Nod. Brute extended a paw to the pile of white fur and cockleburs.
