Belonging. Part 6

"I should have been able to control this," she said woodenly. "All of this happened because of the life she left behind and that is something I'm responsible for."

Malachi c.o.c.ked a brow. "Indeed. You're responsible for setting a watcher on those she left behind. Pray tell, who is this watcher? I'd like a word with him."

"Get in line." Kelsey moved to the table, neatly gathering up the mess of papers that made up Cori's file.

She rearranged everything and with the exception of the reports, she tucked the rest back into the file.

She studied the reports and then placed them back in the file. "I'm going to be gone for a little while." The knot in her chest wouldn't go away and her gut went tight as she forced herself to look at Duke. Cori was her responsibility. She was supposed to protect those left under her care at the school and she'd failed. But, however unwittingly, she'd added to the pain by trying to handle this mess before discussing it with Cori.

Cori might not have what it took to be a fighter, but she wasn't so weak she couldn't handle a tragedy. She'd handled the Change without going nuts and that said something about her character. Still...

No, Duke had done what he thought was best. Taking a deep breath, she said, "I'm sorry-Mal's right, this isn't your fault."

Duke didn't reply but she hadn't expected that he would. She slid Grady a look. "Give Cori a little bit of time and then go check on her. Make sure she's okay."

Get out.

She had to get out.

That was the only thought in her head as Cori tore through the halls to her rooms. She stumbled inside, gasping, unaware that she was crying. She crossed to her dresser and reached inside the top drawer.

There was a photo alb.u.m in there, one she rarely looked at. The cover had a picture frame in it and the sight of the framed picture sent a shard of pain into her heart. It was of Owen standing behind her with his arms wrapped around her. They smiled into the camera, Cori with her big, horn-rimmed gla.s.ses and boring clothes, Owen with his wrinkled jeans and T-shirt. He'd always been more interested in finishing up a book, solving a puzzle, working endlessly, than worrying about how he looked.

Just off to the side, staring at Owen and Cori, was Levi. He held a beer bottle in his hand and he'd been teasing Owen while the picture was snapped. For the life of her, Cori couldn't remember what Levi had said that had Owen laughing so hard.

"Stop it," she whispered, her voice thick.

It didn't matter now, did it? Owen, laughing at his cousin, teasing Cori. It was something that would never happen again. Jerking her clothes off, she tore into her workout gear.

You'll train. You won't ever be a Hunter, but you'll train, Kelsey had told her. I don't allow people to live and work with my kids unless they know how to fight.

So Cori had learned how to fight. Hated every second of it. But she'd learned. Because she had to. She'd needed to be here at the school, needed to be some place where she belonged, where she was accepted, where she could have some semblance of a life, needed to have something that felt like it was still hers, that couldn't be taken away. So she'd trained regularly, though it took everything she had to make herself do it and it left her exhausted and drained for hours afterward. She'd learned how to fight.

Whether or not she'd learned enough, she didn't know, but she wasn't staying here another minute. She wasn't staying here where it was nice and safe while somewhere out there was a monster that had killed Owen.

Wild animal attack, my a.s.s. Duke had mentioned a were. Another monster. A monster like the vampire who'd forced the Change on Cori-different types, but monsters all the same.

Tears burned her eyes as she drew the clothes on-simple black cotton, stretchy enough to let her move, not so baggy that it would catch on anything to trip her up. St.u.r.dy black boots that laced up over her ankles.

She quickly wove her hair into a braid and threw it over her shoulder, not bothering to look in the mirror.

The tears continued to sting her eyes and blur her vision as she crossed her room and came to a halt in front of the dresser. Once more, she found herself staring at the photo alb.u.m.

She'd loved Owen, though she hadn't been in love with him. In love seemed to be an emotion that escaped her. But she'd loved him. Trusted him. Cared about him. Even after she knew she had to break things off with him, she'd cared about him. He'd been such a huge part of her life...and then that life had come to screeching halt.

"I'm sorry, Owen," she whispered, touching her fingertips to the image of his face. "G.o.d, I'm so sorry."

Chapter Six.

Hours had pa.s.sed since Levi had arrived at what remained of Owen's home. The trailer would have to be destroyed. The stink of blood and death had already permeated the d.a.m.n thing.

He was waiting.

Exactly for what, he didn't know.

Something is out there, man. I know it, Owen had told him a few weeks earlier. I can feel it at night watching me.

I think it might be one of THEM.

He'd said THEM just like that-capitol T-H-E-M. But Levi hadn't paid much attention to the man's ramblings-he'd been too busy brooding over what life had done to Owen. His cousin, his best friend, was either a certified lunatic or an alcoholic in serious need of rehab.

But he could remember what Owen had said, especially now. Looking back.

"What do you think you're going to see?" he whispered, rubbing a hand over his face.

Then he shifted his gaze, eyeing the box at his side. Inside it was enough weird s.h.i.t that Levi might find his a.s.s in serious trouble for not letting the investigating authorities know about it. He only knew about it because Owen had shown him his stash on one of his visits out there. One of the many, many visits that Levi had made, hoping to talk his cousin in to coming back home.

I can't, Levi. I'm close. I can feel it. Gonna find one of them. Prove to everybody that I'm not crazy. That some monster attacked Cori. She wasn't kidnapped-she was murdered. Right in front of me...I saw it.

Levi could believe that easily enough. Although Cori's disappearance was still listed as unsolved, Levi could easily believe that she'd been attacked, murdered right in front of Owen and that was what had pushed the man over the edge.

He was a changed man after that. One who was determined to hunt down monsters that only existed in fairy tales. He'd collected weapons so he'd be ready when he faced those monsters and he'd hidden them behind a panel in his bedroom. If a more thorough investigation of his death had been done, the investigators would have found the weapons. But why waste the manpower on an animal attack?

Owen's death had been ruled a tragic accident. Some kind of wolf attack, though the coroner had made notes in the chart that the bite marks on Owen's body had been unusually large for a wolf. And of course wolves weren't exactly that common in Richmond, Virginia.

h.e.l.l, even if they'd found the s.h.i.t, they wouldn't have made much of it.

They just would have laughed, maybe muttered some quiet commiseration for the f.u.c.ked-up fool.

"Like h.e.l.l," Levi whispered, shaking his head.

His cousin probably wasn't the picture of mental health but Levi wasn't going to let a bunch of jerks share a laugh over him.

Besides, some of the stuff in the box was either very strange, borderline illegal-or just plain illegal. Like the unregistered gun, loaded with some of the weirdest ammo that Levi had ever seen. It gleamed, glinted almost like pure silver. A couple of small vials, thinly made-the sort of the thing that an old-time pharmacist might have used a century earlier-marked with just a simple cross on the wax seal and nothing else. A couple of knives, again made from something that had the luminous sheen of good silver.

Then there was that knife-a big, wicked-looking piece of work that was easily ten inches long.

Little plastic bags that held some kind of groundup plants. At first look, Levi had flinched, almost certain he was staring at marijuana, but the smell was off. If it was some kind of drug, it was one that Levi was completely unfamiliar with. After seven years in Vice, he was familiar with just about every street drug out there.

"What were you messed up in, Owen?" he whispered.

Pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, he shifted on the stairs once more and continued to wait.

"Is this our good little shepherd?" Malachi asked as Kelsey dismounted the motorcycle. He pocketed the keys and did the same, hooking his hands in his back pockets as he stared up at the simple brick house.

"This is where he lives, yeah." Kelsey stared at the house, grim-eyed and p.i.s.sed. She'd let Malachi talk her into riding the bike to the quiet Richmond suburb instead of a quicker means of transportation. Yeah, using her magick to make the trip probably wasn't ideal when she was this p.i.s.sed off but the long ride hadn't done a d.a.m.n thing to cool her temper.

"There's n.o.body here." Malachi didn't need to knock. He couldn't sense any life inside the house, though judging by the scent in the air, the werewolf hadn't been gone more than a few minutes.

Kelsey scowled. Folding her arms over her chest, she glared at the brick cottage. "It's kind of late for him to be running around. Guy works as a schoolteacher at one of the local high schools."

Malachi glanced up. The sky was dark and only the faintest sliver of the moon was visible in the sky. "Full moon is still a few weeks away. But maybe he felt the need to run."

She eyed the house, considered that possibility. But it seemed off. "I don't know, Mal. Something...

something's weird here."

"How often have you talked with this gentleman?"

Kelsey shrugged. "Not often. He knows one of the teachers out at Excelsior, Hank Corbin. Corbin suggested that maybe the guy could be useful as one of our monitors. He's been doing it for a few years- never had a problem."

"So you've only had a little bit of contact with him?"

"Very little." It hadn't seemed much of an issue before, but in that moment, it started to weigh on Kelsey.

Her gut churned and she had to swallow back the bitter bile that rose in her throat. "He just emails his reports in. One of the older students who is good with the tech stuff always prints them out. I read the reports then they are filed. His last report on Marc.u.m was that the man seemed to be adjusting better. Over the past two years there have been fewer and fewer mentions of Cori, the attack or vampires. He reported nothing that concerned me."

"Was the move mentioned? Cori asked something about Marc.u.m moving to Richmond."

Kelsey shook her head. "No. Nothing of the move. I didn't know anything about the move."

"Then we have a potential problem, pet. And not just the one we originally expected." * * * * *

Duke scowled at the phone and just barely managed to keep from hanging up.

The only reason he didn't was because he figured if Malachi was calling, it probably had something to do with the current mess and Duke had already made that mess more complicated. No reason to add to it.

"What's taking you so long?" Malachi groused.

Duke rolled his eyes. "Look, I haven't gone hacking into government sites for a few years now. I'd rather use some caution here."

"I'm not interested in caution. I want answers. I need more information on this Owen Marc.u.m's death."

"Don't get your panties in a twist," Duke muttered, shifting the phone to his other ear and using his shoulder to prop it place as he pounded a series of commands into the laptop. It beeped and b.i.t.c.hed, Duke ignored it and added a few more commands. "Viola."

"I'm waiting."

Not very patiently. "The cousin, Cori's cop, found him. Kind of late for a visit, but looks like the original call to nine-one-one happened around ten-thirty. Anyway, neighbors deny seeing or hearing much of anything."

"How long had the boy been dead before he was found?"

"Not long. Body was still warm when the locals showed up on the scene. Our cop missed being werewolf chow by a few minutes, at best, I bet. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d might have heard the cop coming and that's why he ran, I dunno. The victim took a bite in the femoral and bled out. But he probably would have died from the injuries anyway. Bad internal injuries."

Malachi was quiet, then he sighed. "Okay. Find Lindsey. I can't remember the last name. Kelsey says she's the college student who helps her with a lot of the tech work. She needs Lindsey to go through the files and find the families that have been watched by Carson Hale. Once you've got the names, you need to have the families checked on. If anything seems off, you're to call me immediately."

"What's going on?"

"A mess, that's what," Malachi said, grimly.

Off in the distance, Duke heard Kelsey's voice and before Malachi even relayed the message, he pushed off the couch and headed toward the wing where most of the fulltime staff lived. He swallowed the nasty taste in his throat and rehea.r.s.ed some sort of apology to give Cori when she heard him lurking outside her door.

A waste of time, he realized as he turned down the hall that led to Cori's room.

Even from fifteen feet away, he knew the room was empty. Still, he doubled-checked, pounded on the door and when she didn't answer, he kicked it in. Swearing, he turned in a circle and then growled into the mouthpiece, "Cori isn't here."

Her stomach was revolting on her.

If Cori hadn't been so angry, hadn't been hurting so bad, she knew the smell alone would have had her turning back.

There was blood, thick in the air, but it wasn't just the blood.

There was death.

The ugly pall of it lay like poisoned candy on her tongue and she swallowed reflexively. She didn't want to puke. She hadn't fed since the day before and probably wouldn't do much more than wretch but she didn't want to do that, either.

She crept through the woods, relying on her nose and her refined night sight to guide her. All she had to do was follow the scent of death and make sure she didn't step on any branches or leaves. Quiet. Had to be quiet. There weren't a lot of houses in the area but considering Owen's rather b.l.o.o.d.y, violent death, the neighbors would probably be twitchy and she didn't need them calling the cops, or worse, deciding to investigate on their own.

She kept her ears p.r.i.c.ked to the sounds of others and, as she drew close to the trailer where Owen had died, apprehension curled inside her. There was somebody there. A heartbeat. She could hear it. There was a scent too, familiar, but the stink of old blood and death had her head too full and she couldn't isolate that one scent.

Careful...careful...

She halted just before leaving the cover of the trees. It was wicked dark, no light coming from anywhere.

Squinting, Cori focused on the dark shadow that sat on the front steps, head bowed low.

His scent...

Deep inside, she started to shake and her body-d.a.m.n treacherous body-went weak. It was him. She still couldn't quite believe, or rather, she didn't want to believe that it was Levi. Couldn't believe it was Owen's quiet, serious cousin. He'd been a star athlete, the muscle to Owen's brain, calm and serious next to Owen's quirks and oddities.

Off in the distance, Cori heard a whisper of sound. A quiet sigh. Faintly, a heartbeat. Another scent made itself known and it was one that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Were...

Slowly, she backed away from the trailer where Owen had lived and turned to stare out into the night.

Who was out there?