Part 12 (1/2)

”Yeah, I am,” he said. ”They're still out there, but nowhere in our city, you can be sure of that.”

”Why would a Wendigo attack Luna?” said Sunny.

”Better question,” I said. ”Why did a bunch of psychopaths kidnap me and leave me for a Wendigo to hunt?”

”I can't help you with that one,” Dmitri said. ”I don't get involved with that. Redbacks don't deal with Wendigo and we like it that way. Packs that do always end up f.u.c.ked over because that's what happens when you deal with monsters.”

”Your delicate sensibilities aside, where could I find these things?” I asked.

Dmitri crossed his arms. ”I put my foot down there, Luna. A Wendigo almost killed you, and you're not going to rush in like you always do and make things worse.”

”Hey,” said Sunny. ”Don't talk to her like that. I didn't see you showing up to save the day when she got kidnapped.”

”You stay out of this!” Dmitri rumbled. ”You couldn't understand all the politics at play. If a were confronted the Wendigo, the repercussions would be disastrous for all of us. Luna just doesn't understand what consequences her recklessness might have.”

”Oh, I know you didn't just tell me to sit in the corner like a good little woman while the men keep me safe from the big bad monsters,” Sunny said. ”I think you're forgetting who stepped in when Alistair Duncan was about to arrest you, and who looked out for Luna for all that time when you just left left . . .” . . .”

”Okay, enough enough!” I bellowed. ”Both of you. Sunny, you're being rude. Dmitri, stop telling me what to do.”

”Luna, I can't can't let you go looking for the Wendigo,” said Dmitri. ”If you contact them, every pack in this city will be out for your blood. Packs that use them as underground hitters guard their a.s.sets jealously, and everyone else will see you as a traitor to weres.” let you go looking for the Wendigo,” said Dmitri. ”If you contact them, every pack in this city will be out for your blood. Packs that use them as underground hitters guard their a.s.sets jealously, and everyone else will see you as a traitor to weres.”

”Somebody already is,” I snapped. ”Gerard Duvivier. I just have to find evidence.”

Dmitri stopped pacing and frowned. ”No. That doesn't follow. The Loup are small-time and they mostly deal with plain humans. No way would they go after weres in other packs. They'd get their entrails strung out over a ten-block radius.”

”But . . . ,” I started, and then realized he was right. The murderer was the same four times over, and Duvivier didn't fit. Something about the deaths was hidden, like the thing in the nighttime forest.

”Okay,” I said. ”Then I have to go to the source. I have to meet the Wendigo.”

Dmitri came to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulder. My head clunked against his collarbone and I left my arms at my sides. ”Why does it always have to be you?” he whispered into my hair. ”Why can't you leave this one?”

”Because it's my job,” I said, putting my hands on either side of his face and looking into his eyes. ”And if I live with this, I'll have to be afraid for the rest of my life.”

Dmitri's eyes went hard as jewels, not black and not pa.s.sionate. Not the eyes I knew at all. ”I guess you'll do what you'll do,” he said finally. ”Like always. I'm going to go make us some dinner. Sunny, you staying?”

She nodded mutely.

”Well, that could have gone better,” I said to Sunny after Dmitri had disappeared into the kitchen.

”He's just worried about you,” Sunny said. ”It'll blow over.” She was a terrible liar.

”Forget it,” I muttered. ”How are we going to find these Wendigo? I mean, are they always so . . . hungry? And misty?”

”Texts say that most of the time, they're human,” said Sunny. ”The Wendigo change can only be pa.s.sed by blood, and they only change when they hunt. But . . . they hunt a lot. Almost every recorded sighting of a Wendigo has been in, um, creature form. And that's just the witches who lived to tell about it later.”

I went into the kitchen, where Dmitri was chopping carrots like they'd insulted his mother. ”Where are they?”

”Who?” he grunted.

”The Wendigo. You have have to know, even if the Redbacks didn't deal with them. A community of people doesn't just disappear into the landscape.” No matter how romantic it seems for gangs of outlaws to roam a state forest, a group of any size needs food and shelter and bathrooms, and people notice that sort of thing. to know, even if the Redbacks didn't deal with them. A community of people doesn't just disappear into the landscape.” No matter how romantic it seems for gangs of outlaws to roam a state forest, a group of any size needs food and shelter and bathrooms, and people notice that sort of thing.

”I haven't changed my mind,” Dmitri said. ”I'm not helping you do something this foolish. Wendigo and weres stay apart for a reason, Luna. Trust me.”

”Fine,” I said. ”If you won't do it for me, then think about the four people they've killed so far. Three of them were good people, at least.”

Dmitri stopped chopping and jammed the knife into the cutting board. ”d.a.m.n it.”

”Please, Dmitri.”

”The abandoned Paiute reservation,” he said. ”Out past the fireworks stand on the interstate. That's the last I heard of them.”

I touched his shoulder and then went to the front entry and got my gun, badge, and a map of Las Rojas County.

”Hey!” Sunny said. ”You're not going out there alone?”

”Unless you want to get turned into jerky snacks,” I said, ”then yes. I'm on my own.”

”Far be in from me to stand in the way of the charge of the Luna brigade, but you're bleeding,” Sunny said. I looked at the floor where I was standing barefoot, and saw a crimson print. I hit the wall.

”Hex me.” I couldn't very well go wandering into a Wendigo nest with a b.l.o.o.d.y cut. I'd seen what blood did to weres-I could only imagine the reaction something like the thing in the forest would have. Even though the cottage was stuffy, I s.h.i.+vered. ”I hate this,” I said aloud to Sunny. ”I can't access any of the case files and David isn't sharing information with me anymore, not with Mac and Morgan staring at the back of his head.”

”What would you advise me to do?” Sunny asked, folding her arms. I pressed an old sock over the reopened cut on my foot and glared at nothing. ”Well?” she demanded. Even though she was smaller than me, with a cherubic face and angelic farm-girl falls of wavy brown hair, Sunny had a grit to her that I lacked. She got what she wanted, one way or another, and kept smiling politely the whole time.

”I don't think you'll ever investigate a murder, dear cousin, much as I have supreme faith in your witchy powers.”

”It must get awfully dark inside your box, Luna. Step outside it for two seconds.”

”G.o.ds, you're b.i.t.c.hy,” I said. ”All right. I'd try to find a link between the four victims and myself. Dig into their backgrounds. Find out what they didn't tell us. Rattle their closet skeletons until something breaks.”

She grinned at me. ”What are we waiting for? The library's open late.”

The downtown branch of the Nocturne City Library looks the way a library should look: gray granite on the outside, somber wood and hushed voices and the smell of a million dusty pages on the inside. A bronze statue of Jeremiah Chopin regarded Sunny and me with blank, gleaming eyes as we mounted the steps and pa.s.sed through the iron-bound front doors.

We went down the marble steps to the cool, slightly misty-feeling bas.e.m.e.nt that housed the newspaper morgue, the genealogical society's records, and the computer lab.

”This would be so much easier with a police computer,” I muttered, sitting down at one of the battered gray terminals.

”Even cops use Google,” said Sunny. She had a point there. ”Give me two of the names and I'll see what I can find.” I gave her Priscilla Macleod and Jin Takehiko, keeping Aleksandr Belodis and Bertrand Lautrec for myself.

We surfed in silence for a few moments before Sunny said, ”The Macleods have a history in Nocturne City. The historical society has a bunch of pages on them.” She typed for a moment. ”The Takehikos, too. Mariko Takehiko was the first woman and and the first immigrant to own her own business in the city limits. They still own a textile import business. Lots of charity work.” the first immigrant to own her own business in the city limits. They still own a textile import business. Lots of charity work.”

”Sweet,” I muttered. ”Legit, charitable weres. What about the Macleods?” Similar pithy, congratulatory statements were turning up on my screen concerning the Lautrec family-financiers who rivaled the big downtown firms, at least until Bertrand took a left turn into drug pus.h.i.+ng-and alarming clips about the Belodises, who escaped Latvia ahead of some horrific political regime and went from a single tavern on the waterfront to the sort of verbiage that newspapers use to dance around organized crime.

Well, the Viskalcis looked the part.

”Macleod . . . lawyers, until the early 1950s,” said Sunny. ”Theodore Macleod was disbarred for jury tampering in a corruption trial. After that, the family sort of fades away . . .” Her breath hitched. ”Get this: the police detective on trial for taking bribes? His name was Jim McAllister.”