Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels Read online

  A few key strokes and she had him. Trent Bailey. He was twenty-two years old. He’d been bitten a few years ago, in high school. He’d never killed anyone, just been shuffled into the SF right away. He fit Cole’s profile, just like she’d known he would.

  Actually, she couldn’t be sure of that, could she?

  She made a note of the date that Trent had been added to the system.

  Then she went back out to a search screen and entered that date.

  Trent was one of only two people admitted that day.

  She clicked on the other entry, a girl named Coraline Shirley.

  The door to the tracker office opened, and Avery strode in.

  Dana looked up to see him. “Did you talk to him?” She’d insisted that someone go talk to Cole after they’d gotten back with Trent. Considering that she wasn’t allowed to see him currently, she figured that it had to be Avery, who’d agreed to go down and see what he could figure out.

  “I talked,” said Avery, sitting down next to her desk. “He just smiled.”

  “He didn’t say anything?”

  “He said one thing,” said Avery. “He said he wants to see you.”

  Dana rubbed her forehead. “Well, maybe I should go down there.”

  “No way. You give in to him, and he wins. He doesn’t get to win,” said Avery. “Besides, I thought you were going to figure out who’s our rogue’s matched pair.”

  Dana nodded. “Yeah, I got it.” She checked the screen to confirm. Coraline and Trent had been the only survivors of the same attack, which had been Trent’s older brother. Damn. No wonder Trent was such a mess. He’d lost his parents and younger sister to his big brother’s attack. “Coraline Shirley.”

  “So the two of them fit Randall’s profile?” asked Avery.

  “To a T,” she said. “You still think Cole isn’t involved somehow?”

  Avery sighed. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if we have time to think. You got Miss Shirley’s home address?”

  “Right here,” said Dana.

  “Last time, the next attack didn’t happen until the next day,” said Avery. “Assuming that this is related, we have to assume that Coraline Shirley’s going to go rogue as well.”

  “Then let’s get to her before anything happens,” said Dana.

  * * *

  Coraline Shirley lived in a log cabin in the woods with her husband and young child. The nearest neighbors were about a half a mile away. Avery and Dana had to urge the car up steep, turning roads to get to the cabin, which perched on top of a mountain.

  When they finally got there, the house was silent and dark.

  “They’re probably asleep,” said Avery. “The sun’s not due up for another hour.”

  “Well, we’ll have to wake them up,” said Dana.

  Together, the two trooped to the door of the cabin. There was a stone walkway, each rock embedded in the ground, arranged artfully. It was surrounded by flowers on each side. They were just getting ready to bloom. Avery knocked.

  They waited.

  Dana peered down at the welcome mat outside the door. It said, “Welcome Friends!” in a pink script that looked like a ribbon. Behind the ribbon was a picture of a wreath.

  Avery knocked again. “I don’t think they heard me.”

  Dana raised her voice. “Coraline Shirley? This is the Sullivan Foundation. We need to talk to you.”

  They waited.

  Nothing.

  “Maybe they’re not home,” said Dana. A garage next to the house concealed the presence or absence of a car. She gestured with her head. “Should we see if it’s empty?”

  “Won’t tell us anything definitive, but sure,” said Avery.

  They walked over the stone walkway, across the driveway, and over to the garage. There was a side door, white, with a window. It had scuff marks on the bottom, and small paw prints. The Shirleys might have a cat.

  Dana cupped her hands against the window to look inside. “Two cars.”

  Avery looked as well. “Yeah. They’re here.”

  “Unless they have another vehicle.”

  “That’s why I said it wouldn’t tell us anything definitive,” said Avery.

  Dana looked from the garage to the house. In the east, the sky was lightening. The sun was coming. It made her realize she hadn’t been to sleep tonight. She was hungry, too. They’d come all this way, and the Shirleys were either sleeping through everything or had gone on vacation without their cars, or—

  A high-pitched mewling noise interrupted her thoughts.

  Both she and Avery turned in the direction of the sound, just in time to see a furry tortoiseshell cat crawl through a cat door. The cat pranced down the stone walkway, leaving behind dark, wet paw prints.

  In the scant light, they looked black, colorless.

  Dana stripped away her protections, let out the wolf’s sense of smell.

  She knew Avery had done the same thing, because he started moving towards the door of the house as quickly as she did.

  She could smell it. The cat was tracking blood.

  Avery banged on the door again, but this time he didn’t wait for a response. His hand went to the doorknob and rattled it. The door was locked. He looked over his shoulder. “Stand back.”

  He put his shoulder into it, forcing the door open.

  Behind them, the cat meowed.

  They stepped into the cabin, Dana scrabbling along the wall for a light switch.

  She found it, and the interior of the house was illuminated as a too-yellow overhead light snapped on.

  They had entered a living room. The carpet was a light brown color, stained in a few places. Dana could smell wine, coffee, even ravioli. None of it was blood.

  There were two couches sagging against the wall, hugging a corner together. Child’s toys—blocks, rattles, a teething ring—were scattered in front of the ratty couches. There was a TV hanging on the wall. It was a sleek, brand-new flat screen. It looked out of place next to the stained carpet and the old couches. It showed where the Shirleys’ priorities were, Dana guessed.

  She could still smell the tang of blood, rusty and sharp. But it wasn’t in the living room. It was further inside the house somewhere.

  She and Avery moved into the next room, a kitchen.

  Light came in through a glass sliding door at the back of the room. A door that had been shattered, the screen behind it ripped through, clawed open. Dana and Avery both sniffed the air.

  “That was the rogue,” said Avery. “Female.”

  “She was in wolf form when she went through the door,” agreed Dana.

  The rest of the kitchen showed signs of disruption. The table had been knocked onto its side. A napkin holder must have been on top of it, because Dana could see it lying on the floor now, paper napkins scattered everywhere. A breeze blew in from the shattered door, fluttering the paper, lifting the napkins from the ground.

  “Should I go after her?” asked Dana.

  “We follow procedure,” said Avery, shaking his head. “Secure victims first, then go after the rogue.”

  Dana drew in a deep breath, nodding. She smelled the blood again.

  This time it was intoxicating, a tempting bouquet.

  Shift for me, Dana.

  Cursing under her breath, she pulled back her sense of smell, closing off any avenue for the wolf to come through. Her hand went to the skin on her stomach. She traced the puckered outline of her scar. She’d have to trust Avery’s nose to tell her what she needed to know. She couldn’t trust herself not to screw things up, especially considering what had happened with Hollis.

  Avery was going down the dark hallway of the house, and she followed him.

  The first door they came to was open. They looked inside to see a bathroom with a claw-foot tub. The linoleum was white, but it reflected back the dark blue early morning sky. Even without wolf senses, Dana could smell the soap smells from the room, along with an undercurrent of mold. She’d bet that the Shirley
s weren’t big on scrubbing.

  Avery went inside, shoved aside the shower curtain. But behind it, the tub was empty. Avery backed out, continued up the hallway.

  The next door was closed. Avery knocked.

  No answer.

  He pushed the door open.

  She smelled it right away.

  Blood.

  Involuntarily, the wolf surged in her, scratching and whining at her spine, begging to be let out.

  Dana gritted her teeth. She found the light switch inside the door and flicked it on.

  It was a bedroom. There was the same brown carpet in here. Two sets of mismatched dressers, an open closet. Clothes spilled out it, onto the floor. A few were hung up, but most looked as if they’d been shoved inside.

  There was a vanity against one wall, with a large mirror. In front of it, clustered lipsticks and perfumes stood tall like little soldiers. They were reflected back in the mirror, which had a large smear of red across it.

  Blood.

  He was on the bed.

  Mrs. Shirley’s husband. He lay face up, his head dangling over the edge of the bed, his arms above his head.

  His face was frozen in a startled expression. He was a good-looking man, dark blonde hair, blue eyes. He had a strong chin. Dana thought it might even be described as chiseled.

  He was wearing a white undershirt and a pair of black boxer briefs.

  The shirt had been torn down the center. The ragged edges were sopped in blood, so concentrated that it wasn’t even red anymore but rather a deep black.

  The man’s skin was ragged and torn, just like his shirt.

  He’d been ripped into, right in the middle of his chest. His ribs were exposed. One was broken and stood straight up.

  His intestines were spilling out of the gaping wet hole that was his stomach.

  He was very dead.

  Dana’s nostrils flared. The wolf inside her whined, pressing its snout against the base of Dana’s neck.

  She stumbled out of the room.

  “Gray?”

  Her voice was hoarse. “Where’s the baby?”

  “What?”

  “There were toys in the living room. Oh, God, Brooks, you don’t think...”

  She rushed down the hallway, throwing open the next door she came to.

  It opened onto a room full of stacked boxes. There was a path through them to a desk with a computer on it, but on the other side of the room. The room was like a maze. It was clear they hadn’t quite unpacked yet.

  She shut that door and turned to the only one that was left.

  The first thing she saw was a crib, white bars, a mobile over it. Jungle animals. Dana could make out the long neck of the giraffe.

  The second thing she saw was the red streak of blood across the bars of the crib.

  Then she smelled...

  Young blood. Sweet blood. Tasty—

  “Shut up!” Dana screamed. She slammed the door closed. She would not let the death of this little one excite her. No. It was a baby for Christ’s sake, only a cub, too tiny to take care of itself, and eating something like that was an abomination, too horrible to consider.

  Cub? The wolf suddenly settled, curling up inside her as if it had never stirred.

  “Gray?” said Avery, appearing in the hallway. “You have confirmation of death?”

  She shook her head, tears springing to her eyes. “I can’t look.”

  Avery took a deep breath and threw the door open again. He turned on the light.

  And was greeted by a wail.

  Dana’s stomach knotted in relief. Alive.

  She darted into the room. Besides the smear of blood on the crib, the baby was completely fine. Except for the fact he was screaming his lungs out, that was.

  * * *

  Coraline Shirley clutched her baby and rocked both of them as they sat on one of the couches in her living room. Her eyes and nose were red. She was still in shock.

  “I knew this was going to happen,” she said. “I knew it would. I just knew it.”

  Dana stood in the doorway to the living room, unsure of what to do. Avery was outside, making calls. He needed to call the police and notify the Sullivan Foundation.

  They had found Coraline outside the house in the woods. She’d still been in wolf form, but she’d shifted back at the sight of them. She’d been horrified ever since. Speechless for the most part, only speaking up to beg to hold her son.

  Dana wanted to ask Coraline questions, but she knew the woman wasn’t ready. She’d just killed her own husband, the father of her child, and it was a miracle that she hadn’t killed the baby as well. Dana had seen children killed in werewolf attacks. Not often, and never one as young as this baby, but it happened. Werewolves had no sense of what they were doing. They were unfeeling monsters who killed everything in their paths.

  But somehow Coraline had gone into the baby’s room, smeared her husband’s blood on the crib, and then left the little guy unharmed.

  How had she managed that?

  Coraline continued to rock. “I told him something was wrong, and he said I was being paranoid. He said... And now he’s...” She pressed her face against the cheek of her baby.

  Dana took a few steps closer to Coraline. “Wrong? Something was wrong?”

  Coraline jumped, turning to look at Dana, as if she hadn’t realized the tracker was there.

  “Sorry,” said Dana.

  Coraline gazed at her warily, then began to rock again. “I told him this would happen. He wouldn’t listen.”

  “Who did you tell?” said Dana.

  “Keith.”

  “Is Keith your husband?”

  “Was.” Coraline’s expression was fierce. “Was my husband. He’s gone now.”

  Right. Dana wished there was some way to comfort this woman. “I’m so sorry.”

  Coraline squeezed her eyes closed. She let out a heartbreaking sob. “He wouldn’t listen. But I knew. Oh, I knew. I knew. But in the end, it didn’t matter.”

  Dana sat down next to Coraline, placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “What did you know?” she asked gently.

  Coraline shied away from her touch.

  Dana backed off. “Sorry,” she said again.

  “It was nine... ten months ago. Silas was just born, only a few months old,” said Coraline.

  “Did something happen?”

  “I think I shifted,” said Coraline. “It was a full moon. I was outside the house. We have garbage that we burn out there. You have to walk the bags up over the hill, and I was taking the garbage up to the spot, and I thought... There might have been another wolf, or maybe not. Maybe it was only me. But I think I shifted.”

  “Nine or ten months ago, you think you saw another wolf, and that you shifted?”

  Coraline nodded. “Yes, that’s what I think. When I got back, Keith said, ‘Where you been for so long?’ and then I was sure that something strange had happened, that I’d been gone longer than I was supposed to be.”

  “Go on,” said Dana.

  “You have to understand, I only ever shifted the one time, at the SF, right after I got bit. I always kept it down, like they taught me.”

  “I do understand,” said Dana.

  “Oh, right. You’re wolves too. The people who work for the SF, they’re all wolves. Sometimes, I don’t remember that.” Coraline began to rock again. “I knew something was wrong after that.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about being a werewolf,” said Coraline. “I would think about it all the time, think about shifting, think about claws and teeth and fur. And I started feeling it sometimes. Like an itch. An itch on the back of my neck. You ever felt anything like that?”

  Dana nodded slowly. It was odd how she’d been feeling something very similar to that while searching this house.

  “I told Keith, I said, something’s going to happen. I’m going to shift one of these days, and I’m going to kill you all.” She rocked fas
ter. “I said he should lock me up. He laughed at me. He said I was being crazy. He said...” She looked up at Dana. “Keith was a wolf, too, you know. He thought I was crazy because he never felt anything like what I felt.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  “I was worried, you know. They say it’s not a great idea for werewolves to have kids. And it’s usually pretty difficult to conceive, you know? But me and Keith, we were pregnant so fast. Maybe that’s why it was. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Something abnormal. But Keith said I was fine. He said it was all in my head. But I knew I was gonna do it at some point. I could feel it. I just knew it...” Fresh tears were flowing over her cheeks.

  Tentatively, Dana put a comforting arm around Coraline, who stiffened at first, but then relaxed, burying her face in Dana’s shoulder, sobs wracking her body. Dana patted the girl’s arm, making soothing noises.

  * * *

  “Absolutely not,” said Ursula, leaning against her desk in the tracker office. “If we allow you to see him now, after we told him otherwise, then we’re only reinforcing his behavior. I’m not authorizing your seeing Cole Randall. Not today.”

  Dana was sitting in a chair across from Ursula’s desk. She leaned forward. “But that’s clearly why he’s doing this. He wants to see me. He’s going to keep killing people unless I go to him.”

  Avery snorted beside her. “King, I keep trying to tell her that there’s no way Randall can be doing this. He’s locked up here.”

  “No,” said Ursula. “Gray is right.”

  “I am?” said Dana.

  “Not about seeing Randall. You’re not going to see him,” said Ursula. “However, he does seem to be behind this in some way.”

  “That’s impossible, though,” said Avery. “I mean, he can’t force other wolves to go rogue.”

  “What if he can?” said Dana. “He seems to have a certain kind of charisma—”

  “Maybe to you, Gray,” said Avery. “But objectively, he’s just kind of stringy and pathetic.”

  Dana wrinkled her eyebrows. “Stringy?”

  “He’s built like a nerd. That’s all I’m saying. He’s not exactly football-player material.”

  “I don’t think he’s built like a nerd,” said Dan.

  “Well, you wouldn’t, now, would you?”