“Blood,” he said for Hale’s benefit. “There isn’t a lot of it, and what’s there isn’t very fresh, but it’s definitely not werewolf blood.”
Which meant it didn’t belong to Zane or Alyssa, thankfully.
They found Mike, Trevor, and Diego standing outside a set of stairs that led down into what Connor assumed was the maintenance level. The smell of blood was stronger now. When he stopped beside his pack mates, he saw something painted in muddy brown along one side of the wall above the steps. It looked like some kind of graffiti. He frowned when he realized that was where the scent of blood was coming from. Someone had used blood as paint.
“What the hell is that symbol?” he asked.
It was a diamond with a long line running vertically through it. A few slash marks had been added to the top and bottom of the vertical line, like the fletching on an arrow. Connor honestly had no idea what he was looking at.
“I don’t know,” Mike murmured, staring at the symbol, brow furrowed above his dark eyes. “But I took a picture of it and sent it to Rachel. She’ll see if STAT can come up with something on it.”
“I’m not sure we can wait for them,” Connor said. “Painting a ritualistic-looking symbol on the wall in human blood falls under the category of supernatural indicators. I think we need to see where these stairs lead.”
When none of his pack mates seemed to have a problem with that plan, Connor led the way down the debris-cluttered steps to the set of metal double doors at the bottom. He expected to see more chains around the handles, like the ones on the front door, but there weren’t any, which was kind of weird.
“I’m picking up some scents,” Mike said.
Connor glanced over to see his teammate standing there with his eyes closed, an expression of intense concentration on his face.
“I want to say they belong to Zane and Alyssa, but they’re barely discernible,” Mike added. “Like they were here months ago instead of days or even weeks.”
Connor shared looks with Trevor and Diego to see if they’d picked up anything, because Connor couldn’t smell anything other than metal, but they both shook their heads.
“Your nose must be better than ours because we’re not even getting a hint of whatever you’re smelling,” Connor said. “Is it coming from whatever’s on the other side of the door?”
Mike opened his eyes. “Only one way to know for sure.”
Connor expected the doors to be locked, so he was surprised when Mike pushed them open without any effort at all. He was about to question if maybe this was a trap when he picked up two very familiar scents.
“It’s them,” Mike said. “I’m sure of it.”
Pulling his department-issued weapon from the holster on his waist, Mike stepped through the door and moved deeper into the darkness within. Diego, Trevor, and Hale followed. Connor did, too, not even slowing to consider what might be waiting for them in there. Zane and Alyssa were Pack. That meant it didn’t matter what dangers might be waiting for him and the other guys. They’d face whoever they had to face and do whatever they had to do to rescue them.
The basement of the complex was a sprawling collection of interconnected rooms, support columns, and decades’ worth of broken wood pallets and assorted junk covered with a thick layer of dust. The only illumination came from the tiny grated vents set up high near the ceiling. But none of that mattered as they followed Zane’s and Alyssa’s scents toward the west side of the building.
In a puddle of light created by two of the small windows, they found their pack mate and his fiancée leaning against a concrete block exterior wall. Zane and Alyssa were surrounded by dirty plastic bottles filled with even dirtier water and a handful of cardboard boxes and cellophane wrappers—Twinkies and Oreos, he’d guess by what was left of the packaging. But the strangest thing wasn’t any of that stuff. It was the two broken pieces of wood lying across their laps. Like they’d been using the makeshift weapons to defend themselves.
To put it bluntly, Zane and Alyssa looked like death warmed over. Alyssa in particular, as she was bleeding through half a dozen rough bandages that had been applied to wounds along her arms, shoulders, and sides. Both their clothes were smudged with so much dirt, it was like they’d been rolling in it. If Connor hadn’t heard their slow, shallow heartbeats with his own ears, he would have thought both of them were dead.
After holstering his gun, Diego scooped Alyssa into his arms as Connor dropped to his knees at Zane’s side. He cupped his pack mate’s jaw and carefully lifted Zane’s head to get a better look at him in the darkness.
“He looks like he’s lost thirty or forty pounds,” he said softly.
Connor had never seen a fellow werewolf look so gaunt.
“That’s probably because he almost assuredly gave all the food they had to Alyssa,” Mike said as he and Trevor knelt on Zane’s other side. “Even if it was only ten days, that’s a damn long time for a werewolf to go without food. Especially with whatever the hell it was they had to fight off.”
“None of that matters now,” Connor said, knocking aside the scrap of wood and picking Zane up in his arms. “We’re getting both of them the hell out of here.”
Zane came to as Connor and the other guys headed for the door through which they’d come in, his voice hoarse as he mumbled something.
“Don’t worry, buddy,” Connor murmured. “We got you. We’re getting you and Alyssa out of here right now. Promise.”
“Can’t…leave,” Zane whispered. “Won’t…let…us.”
Connor could only imagine that Zane was delusional from hunger and exhaustion, so he didn’t bother to respond to his pack mate’s comment. Up ahead, Mike led the way while Trevor and Hale brought up the rear.
It wasn’t until they reached the doors leading to the stairwell that Connor began to understand what Zane had been trying to tell them. The doors had disappeared, and in place of them, there was simply a rough concrete block wall.
