Soul Mates 04: Secrets(43)

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Caleb standing outside the front door of the mansion. He was clearly worried, but he also looked sad. Like he was the kid who'd not gotten picked when it was time to play kickball at recess and both teams were even. The team had been such a big part of his life that I couldn't imagine how he must feel, seeing everyone loading up yet knowing he had no place.



The doors to the truck shut, and Lucien sat down beside me as the truck started moving. "This is not going to be good, no matter how we try to play it."



"Nope."



"They're not ours. No one from the pack would be so stupid," Xander said. He was sitting across from us, scowling. "I didn't think you two were supposed to go out anymore."



"I think this is an exception, Xander. From the way it sounds, we need all the manpower we can get." I glanced at Lucien. "What the hell are we going to do about witnesses and the fact that the place is crawling with cops?"



"We're going to blend and we're going to make doubt and confusion rampant among the crowd. No one should be sure of what they saw."



"And we're going to spin this how?"



"Hopefully as a prank among college kids," Lucien said thoughtfully. "And we're going to hope that people were too drunk to remember how to use the cameras on their cell phones."



* * *



The entire block was congested with emergency response vehicles. We parked a couple of blocks away and walked to the scene, splitting up among the crowd. Another team had been dispersed to comb the area for any signs of werewolves and to use any means necessary to retrieve them. By the time we made it to the front doors of the club, we'd managed to send half the crowd on their way, confused and disoriented.



Tanner met us just inside and pushed us farther into the club. "A news crew just pulled up. It wouldn't be good for them to see either of you here."



"So what's the deal?" Lucien asked. "How bad is it?"



The scent of blood was heavy and thick, but so was the stench of death. Not decay, but death. When something living was attacked by a shifter of any kind, the chances of them ending up with their guts intact were slim. It was the one spot on a body where the most damage could be done, rendering the victim immobile.



I could smell the victims that had been spilled open, and just beneath that and the coppery-tinged blood&two unfamiliar werewolves. No. Three? Four? I started for the stairs, but Lucien tugged on my wrist to keep me beside him.



"We've got two victims on the second level who appear to have been raped and ripped to shreds," Tanner was saying. "The good news is that some of your guys are already up there keeping my guys away from it all. One of them said they were waiting on a cleanup crew and they'd be out the back door as soon as possible. Right now, all we've got to do is buy them some time."



"Let me go look, Lucien," I said, trying to pull my arm from his grasp without making a scene. "Just let me have a look around."



"Be careful, lover," Lucien said, then turned his attention back to Tanner. "There's more than two dead here."



"Yeah, a few people were trampled trying to get out of the club&"



I tuned their conversation out and started up the stairs, slowly, letting my wolf lead the way. I paused here and there for scents that stood out, but there were no traces of blood anywhere near the stairs.



Whoever had killed the people upstairs hadn't gone down the stairs afterward. Maybe they'd jumped the railing and gone right into the crowd, giving everyone a shock. Or maybe they'd gone out a window or a roof access door. Either way, they'd gotten out somehow, because they were no longer here.



I came upon some of our team members standing guard midway down the hall. One of them looked like he was about to try to stop me from going any farther, but suddenly changed his mind and stepped back to let me pass.



I turned into a private party room off to the right and stopped. The once-white walls were covered in spray after spray of crimson, some tiny little spots and others large, messy smears. I followed the bloodstains to the bodies.one on the floor, bent into an unnatural position with his gut open and various parts of his anatomy missing, and the other sprawled on her back on the couch, eyes wide and mouth open as if her very last breath had been caught in a scream.



Blood from both bodies had soaked into a shaggy rug, keeping the hardwood floor relatively clean of pooling blood, but there were blood sprays everywhere. I took careful steps as I walked into the room, looking for any signs of bloody footprints. What really confused me was that there were no footprints at all. I scratched my head and turned to examine the rest of the room.