Im serious. I pulled him back up to eye level. What if he wakes up?
Hell be jealous. Marc leaned in to kiss me, but I put a hand on his chest. Breathing an impatient sigh, he glanced through the car window over my shoulder, then back up to meet my eyes. Hes out cold. Besides, we never have any privacy at the ranch, anyway, so what does it matter?
Privacy. It had become our most precious commodity, and the supply was never enough to meet the demand in a house full of propriety-challenged werecatsnoisy, overgrown children with supernatural hearing and no lives of their own. Marc was right: middle-of-nowhere Arkansas was about as private as we were going to get. Ever. For the rest of what passed for our lives.
I nodded, sliding my hands slowly beneath the front of his shirt. Okay, but youd better have a blanket in there. I tossed my head toward the trunk. Cause Im not lying down on this gravel.
He frowned, and his nose met mine as he bent down for one more kiss. Who said anything about lying his cell phone rang out from his hip pocket, just as his lips brushed mine down.
I smiled, not a bit surprised. Timing was everything, and in that regard, my father was a force to be reckoned with.
Marc stepped back, pulling the phone from his pocket, and my hands fell from his chest to rest on my hips. Damn it, Greg, he muttered, glancing at the backlit screen.
Tell him what we were about to do, and hell probably leave us alone, I said, pulling open the front passenger-side door. Unlike most fathers, mine wasenthusiastic about my relationship with my boyfriend. So was my mother. They loved Marc as if he were a son, and would have done anything to make an honest couple of us, including gluing the ring to my finger. It was kind of creepy, if I stopped to think about it for too long.
Thats not a conversation I particularly enjoy having with your father. Marc scowled as the phone continued to ring. And if I get one more tip from Michael, Im going to throw him right through the living-room window, even if he is your brother.
I flinched. He didnt.
Marc raised his eyebrows.
Damn. He did. Marc wouldnt have to kill Michael; Id do it myself. I just could not make people understand that my private life was exactly that: private.
Smiling now, Marc pressed the on button and held his phone to his ear. Hi, Greg. Whats wrong?
My fathers reply came through loud and clear. I just checked my messages and found something interesting. An anonymous call about a dead cat. I hope you have your shovel.
Of course Marc had his shovel. Because what better way was there to end a date than by burying a corpse in the middle of the night?
Its official. My job sucks.
Two
An anonymous call? Marc said, his brow furrowed. Thatsunusual. What time did it come in?
Shortly after seven. Thanks to my werecats enhanced hearing, my fathers voice was easily audible, even though I was several feet from the phone.
I pressed the button on the side of my watch, illuminating the face. It was just after ten. The message was three hours old.
Where did the call come from? Marc asked.
Over the phone, my father cleared his throat. A phone booth in southern Arkansas. You and Faythe are closest, so keep your eyes open, because whoever made the call could still be around. Silence settled in over the line for a moment. I need you to identify the corpse and take care of the body.
Marc glanced at me, and I shook my head. Hell no. Wed already detoured from a much-anticipated weekend road trip to take care of some random trespasser, and were just about to take care of each other. That was enough for one night. The body could rot, for all I cared.
Except that we couldnt really let it rot. At least, not where a human could find it. Humans tended to get uptight and curious around corpses, and were generally adamant about pinning down the source of the problem. Which, of course, was us. Well, not my Pride specifically, but likely a member of our species. So, Marc and I would take care of the body, whether we wanted to or not. For the good of the Pride. Because that was our job.
Marc frowned at me, and I nodded reluctantly. Yeah, well take care of it as soon as we get rid of the stray in the backseat, he said.
Did she do it on her own? my father asked, and I ground my teeth together. I couldnt help it. Id called to report the intruder like a good girl, and was rewarded with an order to take him unassisted. It was my fathers idea of a test.
Most aspects of my training didnt agree with me. There wasnt as much bossing around as Id hoped for, and there was way too much following orders. Fortunately, there was also ample opportunity to vent my frustration in the guise of protecting and defending our property boundaries. That part wasnt too bad.
Lets just say your daughter has one heck of a right hook, Marc said, laughter bubbling up behind his words.
Im not surprised. Our esteemed Alpha gave Marc directions to the exposed corpse as we settled into the car, and by the time we turned left out of the empty lot, hed hung up the phone.
So, what are we supposed to do with the body? I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer.
Bury it. Unless youd rather take it to school for show-and-tell?
Smart-ass, I snapped. Burial was what Id expected. Unfortunately, we hadnt come prepared with a backhoe. Or a coffin. All we had was an emergency kit and a couple of shovels Marc kept in the trunk, for just such an occasion.
Huffing in irritation, I glanced at my clothes, selected with our weekend getaway in mind. But our trip had been canceled. There would be no quiet dinner in a nice restaurant with cloth napkins. No popcorn in the dark theater. No private hotel room, far from the inescapable eyes and ears of our fellow werecats.
Instead, wed be working. All night. For no overtime.
Most of my friends had returned to school the week before and had probably spent their night gathered around textbooks and boxes of pizza. I, on the other hand, had chased down a trespasser, in three-inch heels, and would soon be digging a grave by hand in the middle of the night.
I felt my mood darken just thinking of school, and of not being there. Of not completing my masters degree, or even using my brand new BA in the foreseeable future. But Id bargained with my father for the next two years and three months of my life, to be spent serving the Pride and training for a future I wasnt even sure I wanted.
Definitely a broken neck.
Hmm? I murmured, staring hard at the line of trees twenty feet to the east. If I focused on them, on the way the moon cast ever-shifting shadows of the branches as they swayed in the early-morning breeze, I wouldnt have to look at the corpse. And I really didnt want to look at the corpse.
Wed found him just where the informant had said we would, in an empty field about half an hour south of Little Rock, near a tiny rural town called White Hall, which boasted some six thousand residents. From what little I could see of it in the dark, White Hall seemed like a decent place to grow up. A place that did not deserve a middle-of-the-night visit from us.
Marc turned his flashlight to my face, and I winced, squeezing my eyes shut against the sudden glare. Pay attention, Faythe, he snapped, his earlier playfulness gone. He was all business now, kneeling next to the dead man who lay facedown in the grass. I said its definitely a broken neck. Come feel this.
No thanks. I shoved his flashlight aside and blinked impatiently, waiting for the floating circles of light to fade from my vision. I can see it fine from here.
Yes, but you cant feel it.
I glanced down to see Marcs fist around a handful of the corpses hair, using it to rotate the poor mans head, which obviously provided no resistance. The bones kind ofcrunch, when you turn his neck. That means his vertebrae are fractured.
Fascinating. Really. I swallowed thickly, and Marc continued to twist the mans neck, his ear aimed at the ground. Maybe he could actually hear the bones grinding together. Ewwwww. Could you stop that, please? Leave the poor man alone.
Sorry. He dropped the head, and it hit the grass with a nauseatingly solid thunk. Its weird, though. Not a bite or fresh claw mark anywhere.
How do you know? Youve only seen his neck. With a resigned sigh, I stared down at the body, scenes from the latest CSI rerun flashing through my mind. Shouldnt we turn him over, or check for wounds beneath his clothes, or something like that? What if he was killed somewhere else, then moved here to keep us from finding the real crime scene?
Crime scene? Marc laughed, and I gritted my teeth, uneasy with the fact that he was so comfortable around corpses. You watch too much TV, he said, refocusing the light on the werecats neck.
Only it wasnt just any werecat. It was a straya human initiated into our secret existence by violence rather than by birth. At least he had been a stray. Now he was dead, and his social standing no longer mattered.
Lucky bastard.
Its research. I dragged my gaze from the corpse to Marcs face. His gold-flecked brown eyes glittered in the moonlight.
Whatever. Marc shrugged, and the flashlights beam swung off into the grass. My point is that he wasnt bitten or clawed. I dont smell blood.
Pushing damp strands of hair from my face, I sniffed the air, flushing in annoyance when I realized he was right; if there had been any blood present, fresh or old, we would have smelled it. And if there was no blood, there had been no fight. No werecateven one in human formwould fail to draw blood with a bite or scratch.
How was I sure the murderer was a werecat? Simple. No human had the strength to break a mans neck one-handed, and judging from the bruises on the back of the dead guys neck, that was exactly what had happened to him. Sure, in theory it could have been a bruin, or one of the other shape-shifter species, but the chances of that were almost nil. What few other breeds existed werent interested in us, and the feeling was mutual.
Oh, I said, glancing again at the trees as I conceded his point. What else could I say? Marc was the expert on dead bodies, and in spite of havingummade one a few months earlier, I knew almost nothing about murder victims. And I liked it that way.
Marc sighed. Fine. If itll make you happy, Ill check for other wounds. With an Oscar-worthy grunt of effort, he tugged up on the dead guys T-shirt, exposing a tangle of old scars reaching toward his spine from both sides of his chest.
I frowned at the long-healed marks. Youre right. I admit it. Theres no reason to undress him.
Marc shot me a cocky smile and lowered the poor mans shirt.
Biting my lip in frustration, I glanced at my watch, pressing the button on the side to illuminate the face with a soft green glow. Almost one in the morning. Great. I should have been curled up next to Marc in bed, exhausted but satisfied. Instead, I was digging unmarked graves by moonlight, exhausted but creeped-the-fuck-out.
Wed dropped off the unconscious Dan Painter in a thick stand of trees just east of the Mississippi River and north of Arkansas City, still bound and now gagged, to teach him a lesson. Then wed backtracked two hours northwest, on a predominantly two-lane highway. Or rather, Marc had backtracked. Id recited the prologue to Canterbury Tales in my head. In Middle English. Backward. Marc had his special skills, and I had mine. Of course, his came in far handier than mine in our line of work. Bad guys were hardly ever intimidated by a stirring recitation from Hamlet.
Gritting my teeth, I clung to the last of my dwindling supply of willpower and gave up all hope of seeing my bed before dawn. If I was going to be awake all night, I might as well get something done.
Okay, a broken neck, but no other obvious wounds, I said, tugging on the hem of my snug white T-shirt.
Of course, if Id known I would be handling a corpse, I would have worn somethingdarker. Or disposable. As it was, I considered myself fortunate to be wearing jeans and a T. If not for the bag Id packed for our weekend getaway, Id be digging in expensive black slacks and a red silk blouse.
So, were probably looking for another stray, I continued, brushing imaginary grave dirt from my shirt. Maybe one with a grudge, or a history of violent behavior? I could feel the fine layer of grit all over me, like a ghostly dusting of death, somehow itching and burning beneath my skin.
Or maybe I was overreacting.
Marc shrugged, oblivious to my discomfort as his face smoothed into an unreadable expression. That describes nearly every stray Ive ever met. But it doesnt matter, cause were not looking for anyone. Were here to dispose of the body, not investigate the murder.
I nodded and glanced away. Id known better. The Territorial Council, nominally led by my father, would never tie up its resources investigating the murder of a single stray. They would almost certainly view the dead cat as one less flea in their collective fur.
It doesnt matter what he was doing here, or who killed him, Marc whispered, kneeling next to the body. No one gives a damn.
He would never have voiced such a concern to anyone else, and my heart ached for him, knowing what it had probably cost him to say it in front of me. I knew he cared not because hed known the stray, but because he hadnt. Because no one had. And because, like the dead cat wed come to bury, Marc was a stray. He was facing what I knew to be one of his worst fears: a quick burial in the middle of the night, without a single friend to remember him kindly.
As long as I was alive, that would never happen to Marc. He had me, my whole family, and our entire Pride to miss and remember him. Yet the injustice of a secret burial for the anonymous cat still bothered him. Righteous anger burned bright in his eyes when he looked up at me, and there was nothing I could do to put out the flames.
Marc glanced away from my sympathetic look, but before he turned back to the body, his expression hardened into its usual business face, cold and unreadable. It was a defense mechanism I had yet to master.
He pulled a brown leather wallet from the strays back pocket and thumbed through the contents: two credit cards, a few folded receipts, a single wrinkled twenty, and at least two dozen crisp new one-dollar bills. Marc slid a drivers license from its plastic cover and passed it up to me without even glancing at it.