Maybe once upon a time the Wilcoxes could’ve made a person evaporate in a puff of smoke or whatever, but these days everyone had too much of an electronic trail. Sure, people did disappear from time to time; of course they did. In Jessica’s case, though, there would have been a lot of questions asked. She was from a prominent and well-connected family, and she’d been seen in public with Damon. It wasn’t a risk the clan members were willing to take. After so many other young women had been killed, her death in exactly the same manner wouldn’t cause nearly as much uproar as a mysterious disappearance might.
Horrible that her poor body was just dumped somewhere, though. I didn’t want to think about that, nor her pale face watching me from the shadows of Damon’s entry hall. There had to be some way to get her to move on, to relinquish her hold on this plane of existence. That had never been my power, though. I could talk to ghosts, but they had to be the ones to decide it was time to move on. It had happened once or twice in Jerome, so I knew it was possible. I just had never been the one to help them make that transition.
Cleaning up the scene of the crime, however, didn’t help much with the ultimate problem of what to do about Damon. I’d vaguely heard the term “skin-walker” before, but hadn’t paid much attention to it, thinking it must be only a legend. What was happening here in Flagstaff was real, though, and I had to trust that Marie knew what she was talking about. Anyway, I had the evidence of my own eyes to prove that Damon had succumbed to some sort of horrible dark spell. Was the killing of the young women purposeful, to fulfill a black and needy magic, or was it the wolf striking out with no control, killing those who looked like the girl who’d thwarted his attempt to grasp even more power?
Lying there in the dark as Connor slept fitfully against my shoulder, I had the horrible thought that maybe it would’ve been better if Damon’s plan had worked, that he’d somehow managed to bond with me even though he was not my consort. At least that way only one life would have been ruined, not seven. Eight, I amended mentally, adding Jessica to the list of the wolf’s victims.
No. The word resonated from somewhere deep within me, not sounding like myself at all. Then I would never have been with Connor, never felt the rightness of bonding with the one man in the world who was meant to be mine. All this was terrible, and I couldn’t see my way through to a happy ending, and yet I knew there had to be one, had to be some way for us to find our way past the darkness to one another.
With that thought to soothe my fears, I fell asleep at last as well, my warmth blending with Connor’s and wrapping around both of us, sheltering us, keeping us safe.
For now.
* * *
He was subdued the next morning, but calm, as if the sleep into which he’d escaped had helped him to put some distance between himself and the terrible events of the day before. That calm was shaken a little when the morning news reported the discovery of an eighth victim. The reporters made special note of the fact that this young woman did not match the descriptions of the others, and no one was sure exactly what that meant.
They’d never figure it out, of course. All the policemen and sheriffs and fish and game officials in the world wouldn’t be able to hunt down this wolf. No, that task must fall on us.
Would you hesitate to kill a rabid dog? Marie had asked. Most people would say no…but the question became a little more complex when the rabid dog in question was something that used to be a man. And not just any man, but the primus of the Wilcoxes, a dangerous warlock who already had more power at his disposal than anyone else around.
Except you, I thought, and stirred my coffee uneasily. Connor and I were sitting in the living room, the TV on, although neither of us was paying much attention to it. He was staring out the window, at the blue sky peeking in between the blinds, as if wondering how the sun could be so bright and the sky so clear when the world had been turned upside down. His world, anyway.
I had wondered in the past why it was that a prima of my clan could hold back the power of the Wilcoxes when, to all outward appearances, they were so much stronger than we McAllisters. Now that the magic had been fully awoken within me, I thought I began to understand. It was a power called on only when needed, but no less potent because of that.
Damon Wilcox was the primus…and therefore only a prima could hope to defeat him.
The toast and eggs I’d just eaten churned uneasily in my stomach. Knowing you must do something didn’t make it any easier to take, especially when that something involved confronting a magically enhanced supernatural being who also happened to be your brother-in-law in everything but name.