A Wolf in the Fold

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Ain looked at Elain like he was trying to decide if she was pulling his leg or not. “So let me get this straight,” he carefully said. “You’re telling me we need to go back to Maine?”

  They’d stopped at the IHOP in Venice for breakfast before heading home to Arcadia. She’d decided to wait until she had a cup of coffee in front of her and until they were in a public place where Ain couldn’t lose his shit.

  She nodded. “That’s about it.”

  He hung his head, slowly shaking it back and forth.

  Brodey cleared his throat. “I think what Prime is saying, babe, is what the hell?”

  “I know,” she said, completely aware of how it sounded. “But it’s a Seer thing.”

  “Of course it is,” Ain mumbled without raising his head.

  She fought back a wave of irritation. “You told me you were okay with me doing this Seer gig.”

  He finally looked at her. “I am. But I’m damned tired of having to chase around the country. I want the four of us to have some peace and quiet for a while. Is that too much to ask?”

  “I’m not doing this on purpose!”

  “I—” He stopped, took a deep breath, and reached across the table to take her hand in his, stroking his thumb over her knuckles. “I know you’re not,” he said in a gentler tone as he caressed her hand. “I realize that. I’m not frustrated at you. I’m just frustrated at this whole situation.”

  “Well, join the freaking club. How do you think I feel?”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She stared at Cail. “You haven’t said anything.”

  He was taking a sip of coffee and shrugged. “Not much to say. You’re a Seer. You say we go, we go.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. But can we have a few days? We’ve got about ten cows due to calve. It would be easier if we were here rather than saddling the hands or your dad with it.”

  She closed her eyes. The urgency she’d felt the night before had faded, as if whatever she’d seen was over and couldn’t be changed. Although it was funny how, even this morning, she still felt all warm and fuzzy.

  Guess they boinked me even better than I thought they did. After a moment, she opened her eyes. “Okay.”

  Ain gently squeezed her hands. “Okay. Next week, then?”

  “Next week.”

  He kissed her hands again. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  “I’ll call Lina when we get home and tell her,” Elain said. “Mom and Dad can babysit the Beasts and BettLynn. I don’t know what we’ll be up against when we get there, but I don’t want the babies anywhere near the place. I’d rather not have mom traveling since she’s pregnant.”

  “She’s only a few months in.”

  “I don’t care.” She thought about how Lina’s parents and her own in-laws had all been murdered in car accidents. “I’d feel better if they’re all here at home. We can have Zack stay, too, to give them a hand. We should take Kael with us for air backup with Jan and Rick.”

  “We should call in the jaguars, too,” Ain said, sounding resigned.

  “Why?”

  “Do you honestly think we’ll ever hear the end of it if we think we’ve got a line on Rodolfo Abernathy and we don’t include Ortega?”

  “Oh. True.”

  Brodey sat back in his chair and rubbed at his face. “I never thought I’d ever look at getting up at daylight to shove my arm up a cow’s twat to check on a calf as a vacation.”

  * * * *

  The jaguars were notified and said they would fly to Maine in their private jet and meet them there at the appointed time. The night before flying out of Tampa, Lina and her crew were once again in Arcadia, spending the night there after bringing the Beasts down for Carla to babysit. BettLynn was happily shifted and running circles around the giggling Beasts.

  “I give up,” Lina said from where she sat on the couch. “They’ve been grouches ever since we left here a couple of weeks ago.” She looked at Mai. “We’ll look at buying land down here and building a house. They haven’t been this happy since we’ve seen you guys.” Lina, Elain, and Mai had gotten together several times since returning from Maine the last time, but they always left the babies at home to prevent a lengthy delay in departure due to infant temper tantrums.

  “Well, if they’re meant to be together anyway,” Carla said, “why fight it?”

  Lina slumped against the back of the couch. “I’m not fighting it. I get it, believe me. Been there, done that, got the Beasts as proof of it.”

  Zack stood behind Lina and rubbed her shoulders. “It’s all good, Goddess girl. You all go on and find that slimeball, or whatever’s left of him, and end this shit once and for all.” He’d be staying in Arcadia with Carla and Liam.

  “Did you pack my booze?” Lina groused.

  “You don’t need to be soused for the flight,” Elain told her.

  Lina glared at her. “Says you.”

  Mai walked over. “It’s the three of us, together. I bet we could hold hands and will the damn plane from Tampa to Bangor”—she snapped her fingers—”just like that.”

  When Lina’s face lit up, Elain and Zack both said, “No!”

  She scowled. “Why not? It’s a great idea!”

  “Also an idea that would get the FAA and US government coming down on our asses,” Elain said. “The flight will be fine.”

  Lina slumped back in her seat. “I hate it when you gang up on me with logic. That’s sooo not fair.”

  * * * *

  The sense of urgency grew deep inside Elain’s brain the closer they drew to the Clan compound. The flight had, as predicted, gone without a hitch despite Lina’s fears of them meeting a fiery mid-air demise.

  They met up that afternoon at Blackie’s house. The jaguars were waiting for them there, as were Lacey, Kitty, and Wally.

  Elaine didn’t understand the slight aloofness she felt from the big cats, or from Lacey for that matter, but didn’t bother to ponder it. She wanted to get on with the search.

  Blackie brought out a detailed topographical map of the Clan’s territory. “What did you see in your vision?” he asked.

  “Twice now I’ve seen a cave.” She described it to him. “Any place like that on Clan territory?”

  He scowled. “We have a few caves over this way, but they’re not far from Lacey’s house.” He looked to the old Seer. “Have you noticed anything?”

  “Not a thing. I can take you there.”

  “Let’s go,” Blackie said.

  Two hours later, they were all standing in front of a cave that looked nothing like what she’d seen.

  She frowned. “Dammit. Where are the others?”

  In less than an hour, they’d eliminated the other caves. They returned to Lacey’s to regroup.

  Blackie tapped a spot on the map. “I don’t know this area that well. It’s pretty rocky, a few hills and cliffs. I think there’s some sort of rock pile around here or so I’ve heard. There could be a small cave in this area and no one would know it. There aren’t any homes close by, and it’s not on the way to the river.”

  She ran her finger over the area on the map, feeling a little tingle at the base of her spine as she did. Then she spotted a dashed line. “What’s that?”

  Blackie turned the map around so he could see it better. “Fire road, it looks like.”

  Lina brought out her iPad and they pulled up Google Earth. Through the dense tree cover, they could see what looked like a fire road running along the approximate location as the one on the map.

  “I know where that road is, but it doesn’t even go as far as the river. No one ever uses it. Forestry service cut it through years ago.”

  “Then let’s go,” Elain said.

  Blackie ordered Callie to stay behind with Lacey. The former Immortal, now showing, hadn’t been very happy about it.

  They loaded up into their vehicles, the jaguars taking their own vehicle, and followed
Blackie to end of the fire road. While visible, it was obviously overgrown in places, and a downed tree not too far from the main road meant they’d have to trek in on foot.

  The jaguars stood off to the side. “Should we split up?” Ortega asked. “We can run down to the end of the trail and double back and meet you in that area.”

  “That’s a good plan,” Kitty said before Elain could voice her opinion. “We’ll come with you.”

  The jaguar nodded but refused to make eye contact with Elain.

  Maybe I don’t want to know what’s up with them. But she didn’t miss that while Ortega and his brothers had been relatively friendly with everyone else, they’d maintained their physical distance from Elain. Even Lina and Mai had eventually received hugs or handshakes from them. It was now common knowledge amongst their group that her Seer superpower seemed to frequently occur when she touched someone. So what did they have to hide? Or Lacey, for that matter?

  What-fucking-ever.

  She had bigger worries on her plate than the jaguars acting goofy.

  The jaguars quickly stripped and headed out, silently disappearing into the woods before Elain could even blink.

  “I’ll shift,” Brodey said as he started to strip.

  “Why?”

  “I’m the best tracker.” He playfully waggled his eyebrows at Elain. “You can carry my clothes.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him but didn’t have a good counter for his argument. He was the best tracker of the group.

  Following the map and using a handheld GPS unit that would work where their cell phones wouldn’t, they started making their way toward the area on the map. As they traveled, Elain felt more sure of it, until she wanted to race past Brodey and follow her gut instincts to the area.

  After another thirty minutes, she felt absolutely certain. She started to run, keeping up with and eventually overtaking Brodey, who still hadn’t picked up any unusual scent tracks.

  “This is the way. I’m sure of it.” Elain plunged through the underbrush, the visions of the cave and them standing before it as clear in her mind’s eye as if she were staring at a high-def TV screen.

  She pulled up short as she came upon a monolithic structure of stacked slabs of rock. Approximately twenty feet wide and ten feet high, apparently ancient from the look and feel, it radiated an air of mystery and power.

  And it wasn’t even on her radar of interest.

  Dodging around it, she started to run, leaving everyone else behind. She followed the pull on her soul, the true path, her Alpha leading the way. Brodey gave up trying to lead. He stopped her long enough to get his clothes back and fell behind to jog on two feet next to Ain and Cail.

  Lina and Mai called for her to wait up, but she continued on her course, single-minded, certain when she emerged from the woods she would be staring at the cave that had haunted her dreams.

  Behind her, the sounds of the others faded away. It was like her destination pulled at her, drawing her forward and keeping her true. So it was with no surprise when she finally pushed through into the clearing nearly an hour later that she found herself standing before the cave of her visions.

  “Ha!”

  Triumphant, she stared at the opening. Someone had tried to disguise it with brush and branches, but it was exactly as she’d pictured it.

  “Elain, wait!” Lina caught up with her first, grabbing her arm before she could plunge toward the opening.

  Fear and caution swept through Elain from Lina’s touch.

  It was the only thing grounding her and holding her back.

  Mai stepped up to Lina’s other side and took her hand. “Together,” the coyote whispered.

  Elain grabbed Lina’s other hand, lacing fingers with her. “Together,” Elain said.

  Lina nodded and looked forward. “Together.” She raised her hands, Elain and Mai following suit.

  The Lyall men, Micah, and the Alexandr dragons swept into the clearing and skidded to a halt behind them. Around the women the wind picked up, swirling, the trees bending and dancing as a whirlpool of air swept through the clearing. A vibration filled Elain, the same one she knew now circled through her fellows in the Triad, their power circuit complete.

  Lina lifted her chin. “Goddess above, Goddess below, from inside all threats do show.”

  The brush in front of the cave entrance exploded away from it in a shower of dirt clods and leaves, never touching the Triad, as if an invisible bubble surrounded them, protecting them.

  Elain was aware of Brodey stepping closer behind them. “Whoa,” he muttered.

  The women moved forward, the cave entrance now completely exposed.

  And, apparently, completely empty.

  Lina dropped her hands. “Well, shit.” She rested her fists on her hips. “That was disappointing.”

  “Girl,” Cail said, “I think your idea of disappointing and mine are two totally different things.”

  “I got this,” Rick said, racing around in front of them, shifting into his largest dragon form as he did.

  He stuck his head into the cavern, his neck sweeping back and forth for a moment.

  “Anything?” Ain called out.

  Rick shifted back to human form and turned to face them, his nose wrinkled. “Not a goddamned thing. Looks like there was someone here, but I don’t see anything but a couple of animal tracks. They don’t look fresh, days old, maybe. And it looks like someone swept the floor of the cave with a branch or something.” He looked around, then picked up a branch that had been broken off a fragrant pine tree. The needles were starting to dry out. “This would help mask the scent, too.”

  Brodey stepped forward and gave a sniff. “Son of a bitch. Ammonia.”

  “What, like someone peed?” Elain asked.

  “No. Like someone sprayed the place down to mask a scent trail before they swept the dirt floor with the branch.”

  Elain walked past him and into the cavern, pulling the small flashlight from her back pocket and sweeping the beam around the cavern. He was right. The remaining scents weren’t fresh, and considering several bio animals had apparently tracked through as well in the past couple of days, it was hard to say who or what the other scents had belonged to.

  Although one stood out clearly to her sensitive nose.

  She walked to the far back wall of the cavern, tucked into a natural alcove hidden from view unless you walked most of the way in, where someone had driven two metal spikes into the wall a couple of feet up, with large, silver rings attached.

  Lina joined her. “Damn,” she quietly said.

  “What?”

  “Silver.” She reached out and fingered the rings. “Someone wanted to keep a shifter under wraps.”

  “What?”

  Kitty rushed in and shifted back from wolf form. “Anything?” Blackie followed her in.

  Lina shook her head. “Nope. Skunked.” Mai walked in and quietly looked around.

  “Where’s the jaguars?”

  She let out a snort. “They, uh, got skunked. Literally. They’re heading back for the car with their apologies.” She blew out a breath. “Fortunately, Wally and me missed out on that fun.”

  “They find anything?”

  Her expression turned somber. “We split up to cover more ground. They found a couple of graves, not too far from here. The jaguars said they smelled like cockatrice.”

  “What the fuck?” Blackie said. “Cockatrice graves in the wolf Clan territory?”

  Kitty shrugged. “They said they didn’t look fresh, but they could faintly smell cockatrice.” She knelt down, nose close to the ground for a moment before she sat back and sneezed. “I’d bet someone had Abernathy here.” She rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand before she sneezed again. “But I don’t smell his cologne. And…” She frowned. “That can’t be right.”

  “What?” they asked.

  She waved Mai over. “You spent more time sniffing Abernathy than any of us.”

  “Not really.”


  “Through Paul.” Kitty waved Mai down. “Give a sniff.”

  Mai squatted and leaned in, her nose wrinkling. “Yeah, it does sort of smell like him.”

  “What was the other thing you smelled?” Elain asked, her wolfie senses now tingling.

  Kitty stood and brushed dirt off her hands and knees. “Probably nothing. Sort of smells a little like cockatrice, but not really.”

  “You smell cockatrice?”

  “I don’t know. It’s weird. Diluted.” She pulled her pack off her back and sniffed it. “Then again, it could just be residual scent on me from the last time I went on a hunt for the cocksuckers. I haven’t washed this pack in a while.” She looked around. “This is, unfortunately, a dead end.”

  Elain reached out and touched the silver rings. That didn’t feel right at all. In fact…

  “Is this where you saw Abernathy being held hostage?” Lina asked Elain. “When you talked to Baba Yaga that time?”

  “No. It was definitely a room, like a basement. Not rough rock walls like this.”

  They emerged from the cave into the sunlight. The light was growing dim as the sun settled lower on the horizon.

  “Now what?” Elain asked.

  “I think it’s time we call it a night,” Kitty said. “There’s nothing around here.”

  “What about those graves the jaguars found? Did you check them out?”

  “No,” Kitty said. “The jaguars smelled skunky and, no offense to them, but Wally and I had no desire to stay anywhere near them. And, frankly, I don’t feel like digging up cockatrice graves.” She turned to Elain. “If you all want to dig, be my guest.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Blackie said. “If they’re not Abernathy, and none of our people are missing…”

  Elain looked at the others It was obvious she was the lone holdout. “No one wants to see who they are? In the graves?” Her men looked at each other a little uncomfortably. “What?” she asked.

  “Let’s just go back to the cabin,” Ain suggested, stepping forward and apparently taking the lead. “It’s late, everyone’s tired, and I’d like a hot shower and dinner.”

  “They’re just cockatrice,” Lina gently said from behind her. “The bad guys. If the jaguars said they were cockatrice graves, I have no reason not to believe them.”