He laughed again, slanting his eyes at me as he reset the safety. I remembered to breathe. “Watchu want Injun Princess?”
“Keys to one of the SUVs. Preferably one fully trucked out.” Meaning one full of com gear, an onboard computer system, GPS, some extra armor plating built in, weapons, and all the other bells and whistles that Leo had provided. Though he didn’t ask, and as the titular head of security on this gig, I didn’t have to volunteer, I added, “They don’t know it yet, but I’m joining the cops and the SAR team this morning.” When he raised his brows, I said, “SAR, park service and civilian-speak for Search and Rescue.”
Derek holstered his weapon and walked across the room. I heard metal clink against glass. “I’ll call for valet parking to bring it around. You need backup?” He tossed a set of keys to me. I caught them one-handed.
“No.” I stepped from his room and closed his door, moving fast, down the hallway. I knew Derek wasn’t exactly a friend, but the sliding safety-off move had caught me off guard. It showed what our relationship was. And wasn’t. In front of the hotel, I slid into the driver’s seat of a partially armored SUV and closed the door. On the way past, I studied the protestors from behind the heavily tinted, bullet-resistant windows. Their signs were not particularly innovative, but they communicated their desires well enough: STAKE ALL VAMPS. VAMPS DIE! CUT OFF THE FANGHEADS. GOD GAVE THE WORLD TO HUMANS. That kind of thing.
I initiated the GIS, merged that info with the GPS as I drove. Buncombe County used GIS, the Geographic Information System, which was part of NC OneMap, a sort of geospatial backbone, mapping, and information project of the state, used by law enforcement, park rangers, realtors, and others who wanted to pay the fee. It allowed info about GPS positions, addresses, parcels of land, individual mountain peaks, etc., to be downloaded onto a spreadsheet or printable map, and was especially helpful in the steep, mountainous land of the county. Leo had provided us access to the system, making my job a lot easier and finding the cops nearly effortless.
It was after eight a.m. when I arrived at the location shown on early morning TV. If this new attack site had been a media zoo so early, it was a circus now. There were seven vans with satellite dishes on top: national broadcast news, local cable, and national cable. A dozen cop cars from different agencies were parked haphazardly among them: Asheville PD, Buncombe County Rescue Squad, a truck with the logo RRT, which was the interagency Regional Response Team, as well as sheriff deputy vehicles. There were maybe forty privately owned vehicles, mostly trucks, and most with stickers on the windows proving them to be owned by trained rescue volunteers. I saw two rescue support trucks, emitting strong odors of burnt coffee and greasy fast food. There was one ambulance, the paramedics sitting in the shade of a tree, chatting. Three trucks had cages in back for canine search units. Which meant that the cops were having trouble finding either the camping/attack site, or had found it and were hunting whatever scent the dogs had discovered. People milled everywhere.
I exited the SUV away from the cameras, tossed my prepacked backpack over a shoulder, and melted into the trees to find the sheriff standing in the shade, shielded by heavy foliage from the view of the cameras. He stood with three other men and a woman at a makeshift portable table, a series of aerial maps in front of him, a laptop open to the side. Sheriff Grizzard had been in office for several years, surviving into his second term, and was already running for a third. He was a hale-fellow-well-met politician, a savvy back-slapping elected official. He didn’t exactly hate me and all I stood for, but at one time he had blamed me for Paul Braxton’s death, and had done everything in his power to put me in jail. There was no evidence against me, but Grizzard’s detective, and Molly’s friend, had been killed on my watch. I had survived. I could understand his animosity.
I stood, half-hidden behind a tree, drawing on Beast’s better hearing, listening to the murmured conversation. From it, I gathered that the search area had been divided into grids early on, the campsite discovered just after dawn. The injured had been hauled up the mountain in rescue baskets and medevaced out. The dead were still in place. Crime scene investigators were working the site, which was widely scattered. And the dogs were tracking the things that had attacked the campers. Things. Multiples.
“I say it’s fangheads, maybe with some sorta spell to hide their footprints, or maybe like that weird thing that killed those people in Louisiana.” The speaker was a short fellow with a full brown beard. He spat to the side, a spew of tobacco, and patted the wad of leaves deeper into his jaw with an index finger. He wiped it on his jeans and kept talking. “Part fanghead, part something else.” He was talking about a liver-eater, and I’d only ever seen or heard of one, but it was a good guess. The damage made by meat-eating predators was often similar. “Vamp and magic and shit.” He added, “Maybe it’s that woman who come back from there.”
“I don’t think Jane Yellowrock mauled three people and left them to die, then killed three more and ate them,” Grizzard said.
“Okay, then—that leaves fangheads,” the shorter man said firmly. “Never trust something that wants to eat you or drink you dry.” Which sounded like good advice to me.
“Put in a call to Yellowrock,” Grizzard said. “Let’s get her take on this. If it’s the same kind of creature she killed in New Orleans, that makes her the resident expert.” He didn’t sound happy. And Deputy Sam Orson didn’t look happy when he pulled a cell phone from his pocket.
I sighed. This was not gonna be fun. Before my phone could ring, I stepped from behind the tree and walked closer, deliberately stepping on branch when I was halfway there. Grizzard looked up. My cell rang. I answered as I entered the area. “Yellowrock.”
The deputy looked at me, looked at his phone, and disconnected. I lifted a hand. Closed my phone. “Sheriff. Sam.” I nodded to the woman, “Betty.” I didn’t know the others but included them in my general greeting, “Morning.”
“And you’re here why?” Grizzard said. Trust Grizzard to go for bad-cop attitude first thing. Maybe he did it with everyone. Maybe he saved it just for me.
“I saw the tracks yesterday in Hartford,” I said, dropping into the short simple sentences of cops on a crime scene or soldiers on an Op. “I was wondering if the same things attacked here. Wondered if I could help. You were just calling me, right, Sam? Sheriff?” I lifted the cell, which showed a dropped call from this area code.
Sam gave a half smile. We had lifted a few beers the night of Brax’s funeral. More than a few, actually. He had gotten totally wasted. My skinwalker metabolism hadn’t let me find that kind of release, but I had done my best to keep up with him. Then I drove him home in his own car and helped his girlfriend get him into bed. I hadn’t seen him since. He was now wearing a wedding ring and ten extra pounds. “Yeah,” Sam said. “Good to see you, Yellowrock.”
“You got pics of tracks?” I asked.
Grizzard jerked his head to the side, a command for me to come on over. With that simple gesture, I was accepted into the search group. My breathing settled and my shoulders relaxed. It was good to be home. I tucked my thumbs in my jeans pockets, leaving my fingers dangling while Grizzard punched some keys on the laptop. A photo covered the screen, a close-up shot of a paw print. I set my spread hand on the table top. “About that wide?” I asked.
“Near enough,” Grizzard said. He hit a key and another shot appeared, this one with a ruler beside it. A small test to see if I really knew what I was talking about or was just blowing smoke. “Same thing that you killed in Louisiana? Half vamp?” I shook my head no. “Same thing that attacked that couple yesterday?”
“Likely,” I said. “Werewolf.” The cops around me shifted. Two put their hands on their gun butts, cop reaction. “There were two wolves at that site. They were trying to turn the girl. The man got in the way. You saw the mug shots, already, I take it.”
Grizzard sighed. Betty said, “So it’s true? They’ll turn into werewolves?” Unspoken was the worry that anyone who fought the weres could suffer an injury and go furry at the next full moon. Cops sign up for the danger, but some risks make even the best of them uneasy.
“No.” I pulled my phone and scrolled through the text messages that came in during the night. “I asked the New Orleans vamps for a healer. Aaaaaand”—I spotted one from Bruiser, clicked on it, and interpreted the text—“a Mercy Blade is coming in tonight from Charlotte. Her name is Gertruda,” which might be German or might be a typo.
“What. Some fanghead is gonna bleed the kid? Not gonna happen,” the tobacco chewer said. He shifted his weapon in its holster and spat again.
I took note where not to step. “She’s not a vamp.” Which was the truth as far as it went. Mercy Blades were anzus, feathered birdlike creatures once worshipped as storm gods, now hiding among humans and vamps, under layers of glamours. I didn’t tell them that part. They didn’t ask. This should be interesting. “I was bitten by werewolves once. A Mercy Blade got to me in time and healed me of the taint.”
“Yeah?” Grizzard looked me over as if looking for dog ears and a tail. “Is she gonna stay a while?” he asked. Meaning would others have access to her services. The people bitten at the crime scene below. Cops in the future.
I texted a short line into the phone. “I’m requesting an extended stay until the weres are brought down.” I pocketed the cell and changed topics. “Back to the tracks. Was there another track, a weird one, maybe on top of the were-paw tracks? Like it was stalking them?”
The group exchanged looks that excluded me. Grizzard said, “Can you describe them?”
“Pen?” He placed one in my hand and slid a scrap of paper to me. I was no artist but I could draw grindy tracks. Most any moderately talented three-year-old could. I sketched in the three-toed tracks, the middle longer than the others, claws like sickles. I could tell by the way the small group froze up that the tracks had been found at the crime scene.