Tony nodded as if that thought had occurred to him, and hed already been on board with keeping my secrets secret. You included yourself with the werewolves, though.
I shrugged. Im married to oneand he made me an official member of the pack. Not just in name, but in factaccepted by the pack magic that bound us all together. But Tony didnt need to know that. Even less than shapeshifting coyotes did people need to know that there was such a thing as pack magic. Where are you going with this, Tony?
He looked away, not happy. He patted the steering wheel nervously. I need to know if I can trust you.
For some things, I told him seriously. You can trust me not to leave people helpless against a monster. A human monster or a werewolf monster. I dont help bad guyseven if they are someone I thought I liked or felt some loyalty to. Bad guys need to be stopped.
That, apparently, had been the right thing to say.
Okay, he said with sudden assurance. Okay. Yes. He turned on the car and pulled out with a squeal, switching on his lights but not his siren. We need your help with something.
And thats all he said. But that something took us past the old Welchs factory, past the WELCOME TO FINLEY sign, past the road to my house that used to only be Adams house and once was Adam and Christys house. The semirural cluster of houses grew momentarily denser near the high school, then thinned again. We followed the main road miles farther on, out to where croplands took over from small ranchettes, turned down a rutted dirt road, and pulled in next to five police cars and an ominously unlit ambulance gathered along the edge of a hayfield.
I got out slowly as an angry man in a suit broke away from where a group of police officers were gathered and boiled over to Tonys car, glanced at me, and flushed even hotter with the rage that covered fear and horror.
What the hell are you thinking? Bringing her here?
I didnt know him, but he knew me. Adam was something of a local, if not a national, celebritygood looks are not always a good thing. That meant that lots of people Id never met knew who I was.
We need her, Tony told him. If what you told me was right and this was something other than human. She can tell us what it was.
I caught a scent that bothered me, but it wasnt coming from the direction of the group of police officers. Frowning, I turned in a slow circle to pinpoint it. I glanced at Tony, but he was busy arguing with the other man, so I wandered off in the direction my nose told me to, away from the cluster of officials.
The ground was more uneven than I would have thought a hayfield would be, maybe because it was alfalfa and not grass hay. I had to watch my step as I walked along the edge of where grass had been cut. The growing crop of hay was only about five inches highthe length of a lawn that had been left a week too long. Off the cultivated
field, Id have been wading through the weeds that ruled where the ground was too rocky to be farmed.
A short distance ahead in that tooroughtoharvest rocky area, a copse of cottonwoods grew where the ground dropped down in a natural drainage. Theyd probably been planted as a windbreak because we werent near enough to the Columbia River for the growth to be natural. By my reckoning, the source of the things I smelled seemed to be coming from the same general area.
Tony and the man had quit arguing to follow me.
Where are you going, Mercy? Tony called.
Something smells bad over here, I told him. Blood and feces is bad, right?
I left the tilled ground and broke through the edging ring of opportunistic alfalfa into cheatgrass that released spikypainful seedpods into my tennis shoes and socks as soon as Id traveled about two steps. I followed the toosweet, unmistakable scent of freshly opened organs and blood to a small clearing under the treesand stopped, appalled.
Holy shit, the stranger who knew me said in reverent tones. Then he shouted one of those words that dont mean anything except pay attention and come and are designed to carry over battlefields.
This was not a battlefield, or even the remains of a battlefield. It was the remains of a slaughter.
Bodies, blood, and pieces were scattered here and there and mixed, so it took me a moment to parse exactly what I saw. I finally decided to go with heads, because heads are difficult to eat, and the charnelhouse mess was definitely missing parts and maybe whole bodies. Five no, six people, all women, two dogsa German shepherd and something small and mixedbreeda horse, and some other big animal whose head was either missing or might have been under something.
I have a strong stomachI hunt rabbits, mice, and small birds while wearing my coyote skin, and I eat them raw. Before this, I would have said that lots of things make me squeamish, but fresh bodies not so much. This was so far beyond anything Id ever seen that I flinched, looked away, then turned back to stare because part of me was sure that it couldnt have been as bad as I first thought. It was worse.