Outcast (Hunter: A Thieves Series Book 4) Read online

  “This was obviously some kind of animal attack,” Gray said. “Do we have reason to think we’re looking at a supernatural killer?”

  “Oh, yes,” the king said. “We’re fairly certain because the first victim was a woman named Hester Miller. She’s a bit of a mystery, but we’re fairly certain she’s a supe since her body was destroyed in some kind of chemical reaction in the morgue.”

  Gray sighed. “Damn, I wish my CSI could have gotten hold of that. She’s quite good with soup.”

  Soup was what we called corpses that had disintegrated. Supernatural bodies break down quickly. Some of them do it immediately. Vamps either turn to dust or explode in the nastiest way possible. Were creatures break down over the course of a few hours, a couple of days at the most. It tends to confound the police and medical examiners who have to deal with them. If it happened in Texas, Gray would be called in and he had a team to handle it. His CSI, a lovely woman named Nicole who had recently started dating my brother, Jamie, could take some soup and tell us the species in minutes. But I was certain in this case the material had been destroyed for fear of contamination.

  I glanced through the photos. It looked like there were eight victims. “The rest of these look human.”

  “Only because witches’ bodies don’t rot the way the rest of ours do,” Lord Sloane said. “Three of the victims were witches. The reason I’m involved is I am the patron to a coven in the area.”

  “By patron he means they sold their souls to him,” my uncle offered with a shake of his head.

  “Father, what have you done?” Gray asked.

  Sloane shrugged. “What I do, son. Normally I wouldn’t care that a couple of their contracts came up early, but these particular witches are doing work I need them to do. I need thirteen skilled witches for this particular project, and it’s surprisingly hard to find decent witches who are willing to sell their souls these days.”

  I didn’t even ask what they were doing because the man’s a Hell lord and he lies. “Why do we think this is a stray wolf?”

  Trent pointed to a particularly nasty picture. “I’m not sure at all. There’s not a lot of blood, though rabid wolves have been known to behave in some crazy ways. Sometimes they get caught for the simple fact that they’ll stay at a kill site for hours licking up blood. They usually eat more of their victims though. There are definitely chunks taken out, but not the way I would expect.”

  “If you’ll turn to the back of your folders, you’ll find the newspaper stories and police reports I’ve pulled about the wolf sightings,” Marcus explained. “I’ve had Mr. Lane working on this since yesterday. He believes the trail began at the cabin of Hester and Christopher Miller. They lived off the grid, as he puts it. She was killed three weeks ago. Her husband’s blood was found on the fireplace, but no body was found. We believe he might be the stray wolf.”

  “We have a working theory,” my uncle explained. “There are a few viruses and bacteria that can affect a werewolf’s brain. They’re very rare, but they exist. We believe Miller came into contact with something that caused him to go rabid. He fought with his mate, killed her, and went on the run.”

  There was something missing from the file. “Why didn’t Casey include the council records on these two?”

  It might not tell me much, but the council kept detailed records of family lines. Talking to their families might give me some insight.

  “They were not known to the Council,” Marcus said, a gravity to his tone.

  I looked to Papa Sloane. “What am I not being told?”

  The Hell lord crossed one leg over the other, the only sign that he was at all uncomfortable. “Given the route the wolf seems to be taking, I believe both Miller and his mate were likely from a town named Glenton. It’s very close to national forest land. My coven uses those woods for their rituals. They refuse to go into them again until the wolf is put down. I need them working.”

  It was kind of cool that the witches had unionized, but typically the boss won these fights. “I gotta ask, man. Why don’t you just force them to?”

  Trent backed me up. “Yeah, uhm, I kind of thought you guys didn’t negotiate once you had a contract.”

  “Of course,” Gray huffed. “The demons only know how to use violence to get their way.”

  He said it sarcastically, but it was totally true. Demons aren’t known for being reasonable bosses.

  Sloane stared at his son. “If the dark prophet would do his job, I wouldn’t need the witches. Prophecy is a delicate thing. It doesn’t tend to work when the ones doing the magics are coming at it from a place of fear. Believe me I will deal with those bitches eventually.” He gave the king a smooth smile. “When they’re on my plane, of course.”

  Donovan did not look amused. “Of course.” He turned to me. “At this point, the police haven’t put it all together yet. They believe this is some kind of rabid animal.”

  “It is,” Trent said. “We can’t view this creature as anything but a killing machine. He might be able to change back to human and find some sanity, but the minute the moon goes full, he’ll be right back to wolf form, and there will come a point when he won’t change back. He’ll simply kill until someone kills him.”

  “That’s why we’re sending you out in the morning,” Marcus explained. “The king believes that Mr. Wilcox is the best wolf to aid you in your search. He’s the strongest alpha known to the Council who has no ties to a pack.”

  “And he knows I need this wolf put down,” Sloane said with a sigh. “Which is why I’ll consider loosening your outcast status if you properly do this job.”

  “What’s the catch?” I asked because there was totally a catch.

  Sloane rolled his eyes. “There’s no catch. If you fix my problem, Mr. Wilcox can begin to work his way back into being recognized by the Council.”

  “What?” Gray asked, his whole body stiff.

  “Well, I didn’t say it would be easy, son.” Sloane pointed a finger Gray’s way. “I’m doing all of this for our family. Nemcox is gone. We’re going into delicate negotiations. It’s important that I do everything I can in order to ensure our status when the contracts are signed.”

  “I thought you actually cared about my brother,” Gray said bitterly. “I should have known.”

  Trent turned to the king. “This is happening outside of Glenton?”

  The king nodded. “Yes, it’s a tiny town but as Lord Sloane said, it’s important in a couple of ways. There are apparently ley lines in the area that aid in prophesy. The actual town itself has a population of less than two hundred.”

  Trent went stiff beside me. “Less than two hundred humans, you mean. You can add about seventy werewolves, though they wouldn’t live in town. There’s a Lupus Solum stronghold in that area. They have a commune deep in the woods. It’s one of the smaller communities, but they’re dangerous.”

  “Yes, I know,” the king said with a sigh. “I’m in a bind here. Our relationship with the wolf council isn’t as strong as I’d like it to be. I’ve withheld fertility rites for the last couple of years.”

  “Because of the booming population of young,” Marcus said, seeming to shake something off and trying to concentrate on the issues at hand. “Devinshea’s fertility rituals have caused a ten percent increase in the wolf population in the last decade. We can’t keep that up and remain secret in the human world. They have to understand this.”

  “John understands, but he’s also a politician and he can’t seem to be too involved with me,” the king pointed out.

  John McKenzie was the alpha wolf, and by that I meant like the alpha. He held the wolves’ seat on the council, but like any government there was always infighting. In the past few years, there had been rumblings of the wolves breaking off. The relationship between wolves and vamps was tenuous, to say the least. It was probably because the vampires of years past were assholes who subjugated the wolves as often as they could. Daniel had done a lot to repair relations by offering his pa
rtner’s fertility magic to help the wolves conceive, but it might never be enough to make them forget the king can call wolves.

  I’ve never seen it happen, but from what I understand, the king has some measure of influence over wolves. It’s a rumor in the wolf world that the king can call them. It’s an absolute truth that if a wolf takes the king’s blood like my uncle does, the king can completely take the wolf over. All it would take was a couple of drops in a punch bowl at a party and he could potentially take over entire packs. At least that’s what the crazy conspiracy theorists say.

  But I didn’t like to delve into politics. I was concerned with the idea of a stray wolf. For the most part wolves need packs or they become dangerous. There are some wolves called Loners, but they’re very rare. Even I need a pack or I lose my shit from time to time. Mine was cobbled together and didn’t vaguely look like a proper pack, but they were mine and they kept me in line. If there was a solo wolf roaming the woods, I would have to do something about it. “What makes you think this is a wolf? I mean a werewolf. If they’re far out in the forest, it could be a regular old wolfy wolf. Not every animal running around the woods is a werecreature.”

  My uncle shook his head. “This is definitely a were. There have been sightings of this wolf and the locals are creating urban legends about him. He’s much larger than a natural wolf by all reports.”

  “Lots of people have no idea what a natural wolf really looks like,” Gray pointed out.

  “The witches are certain it’s a werecreature,” Lord Sloane said.

  “And we’ve got stories of the wolf going into houses.” Marcus handed me a second folder. “There are a couple of police reports about break-ins in the vicinity. They occur in roughly the same areas where the murders happened. The only thing stolen was food, particularly things like chips and ice cream. The only prints around the homes the next morning were wolf prints in the snow. Natural wolves don’t break into homes and they can’t open freezers.”

  “Do we think he’s Lupus Solum?” I asked. It could make sense. From what I knew about the group, I would want to get away from them, too.

  Trent shook his head. “If he’s out in the world he’s likely not from the family. Or he’s shown not to be worthy. He might have something physically wrong with him. Young males are held inside the compound until they reach their majority. They watched us closely for signs.”

  “Signs of what?” the king asked. He leaned forward. “I know this is hard for you and I’ve tried to keep you out of it, but I need to know about your time with Lupus Solum.”

  Trent seemed to consider the king’s request for a moment.

  “Mr. Wilcox, I’ve done a thorough study of Lupus Solum,” Marcus said quietly. “I believe they could be a threat to the king if they ever decide to attempt to exert political influence over the greater werewolf population. However, I don’t think that will ever happen. They prefer to be alone.”

  “Yes, where no one can see what they’re doing,” my uncle pointed out. “We all know they likely abuse their women and children.”

  “See, demonkind isn’t the only problem,” Lord Sloane pointed out.

  Marcus shook his head. “Daniel cannot police the entire supernatural world. If he attempts to disband Lupus Solum, other wolf factions will point to it as a harbinger of a greater war on wolves. You have to look at the politics of it. There’s a greater good to be served here.”

  “Fifteen-year-old girls don’t see the greater good, Marcus. They only know they’ve been given to the alpha wolves long before they’re ready. Young boys don’t care about politics. They only care that they’re beaten and left for dead, and only if they survive are they able to join the pack. Women don’t give a shit about how the king looks when their babies are taken from them moments after birth,” Trent said, his voice a monotone that told me he was holding in his emotions.

  I put my hand on his, trying to give him solace. “You were one of those boys, weren’t you?”

  He was still for a moment and I worried he wouldn’t speak. Slowly his hand turned over, coming palm to palm with mine, and he threaded our fingers together. I couldn’t help but think about what Gray had said. I didn’t know a lot about the cult Trent had been raised in. They didn’t touch Council business. But maybe it was time I worried about more than the Council. I didn’t have to worry about political ramifications. I could simply do what was right.

  “Yes, I was considered a potential,” Trent said. “In my world that meant I could possibly be the wolf king.”

  Daniel let loose a long huff and his eyes widened. “Seriously, man? Damn. I hoped that was a rumor. They really think they can bring about a wolf king?”

  “Not only do they think it, they’ve built a religion around it,” Trent explained.

  “What is a wolf king?” Gray asked.

  “I thought you knew everything,” Trent shot back.

  Gray sighed. “I’m sorry, man. It was a cheap shot. When it became apparent that Kelsey had feelings for you, I looked into your background. I asked some questions of the few wolves I could find who would talk about the cult. They said there were breeding programs and you were part of it. I thought they were trying to create strong alphas.”

  “Oh, they want strong alphas, but they also want ones who are obedient and pious,” Trent explained. “Not two things that often go together. My father found Lupus Solum when I was young. Back then they were still trying to infiltrate packs, find good breeders. My parents were both acceptable to the group, and dear Dad moved us out to the commune along with some friends of his. From there they were both placed into the breeding program and I was viewed as a potential. Turns out I not only wasn’t a wolf king, I wasn’t pious or obedient, either.”

  There had been many packs over the years that had attempted to strengthen themselves through selective breeding. Basically they would pick the strongest females and mate them to alphas. It would suck because there didn’t have to be love between them, but they would form a team, lead the pack, and hopefully their sons and daughters would be alphas as well. I didn’t think that was what Gray was talking about. I had to have hope though. “Is a wolf king anything like a vampire king?”

  Daniel Donovan was the latest in a super-short line of vampire kings. From what I’ve learned, every couple of thousand years or so a hyper-strong vampire rises, and this time it was Donovan. He had all the best powers of each class—he was strong like the warriors, smart like the academics, was as persuasive as any magician, and could call wereanimals like an animus. There were a couple of rare classes like the primals and elementals, but I didn’t know enough about them to say what powers they had beyond being super long-lived and tied to the Earth plane.

  “Sort of,” Trent replied. “But unlike a vampire king, there’s never been a wolf king on record. The only one I can think of would be Remus, the first of our kind, and he’s mostly legend.”

  Donovan shook his head. “Don’t doubt it. Millenia later and that dude’s paw was enough to control an army. If that’s what we’re looking at, I’m officially worried.”

  “Ah, that makes sense,” Lord Sloane said, reminding me he was here. “The cult keeps strict genealogical records. They’re trying to find wolves with ties to historically strong packs.”

  “I believe it is Remus’s DNA that they’re trying to find,” Marcus said. “Though it would likely be diluted by now. I don’t know. DNA is a funny thing. It skips around and sometimes hides for centuries. Lupus Solum believes they will find it by pairing only the purest of wolves. I find it interesting that your father didn’t start out in the family, Mr. Wilcox.”

  “My father had family in the religion, but my great grandfather had gotten us all out. My father fell in with some friends who were unsatisfied with how close the wolf packs had gotten to the human world,” Trent began slowly, as if he had to work up to what he was going to say. “He connected with some of the elders who approved of both my parents’ lineage. My mother became a priestess. My fat
her was strong and he bore several of the markers they look for in a wolf king. I know it sounds crazy but they have a whole religion based on prophecy from the ninth century or something.”

  He seemed to falter and his hand came out of mine. He stood and began to pace.

  “There was an alpha who led a Norwegian pack during Viking times,” Lord Sloane explained. “His name was Haldor and he launched a war against vampire kind. Trust me, it was a good time to be a demon. So much chaos.”

  Marcus ignored him. “Unfortunately, we had our own problems. Vampires were stronger then. There were more of us and we turned at younger ages. The Council was waging war on all supernatural creatures, and had they been allowed to continue, they would have gone after the humans. The war with the wolves kept that from happening.”

  Daniel leaned forward. “Was this during the time of the first king?”

  “Yes,” Marcus replied. “Haldor was defeated in battle and his pack became slaves to the Council for many centuries. But the war had done what it needed to do.”

  The Hell lord rolled his eyes. “Provide balance.”

  The expression on Trent’s face was blank. “On his death bed Haldor said a bunch of shit about how a king would rise but only when the wolves were ready to accept him, only when the wolves were pure. When they were pure and unsullied by the outside world, then Lupus Rex would rise to unbind our chains to the vampires. Most wolves have something else in their line, a little Fae blood here, some werepanther there. Many of us have human blood. Lupus Solum sought to purge all the impure blood from its line. My parents were accepted because they were purebred wolves who converted. Luckily, I was the only idiot they managed to father. Had I stayed with the group, I would have been considered a beta, though I would have had the right to fight to move up in rank. I would have been bred to a priestess and any male children I fathered would have been watched for signs. Females would have been cloistered and if they weren’t selected to be priestesses, they would have become omegas.”