Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(71)
“If he so much as starts to twitch—”
“Shh. I know.” Wearing only my bulletproof vest on top, I slowly lowered my body to the floor. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about Will shooting me in the back by accident.
A cornered wolf was one of the most dangerous creatures in nature. Still, all I had to do was get close enough to get him in my radius, which meant I needed to move maybe fifteen feet. I wanted to try my new expansion trick, but it had backfired on me at Kirsten’s, and besides I just couldn’t trust my ability to concentrate, not now. I dropped the sweater on the floor and put my right hand on it. I kept the bar towel covering as much of my left hand as possible, though my finger pads got cut almost immediately. My hands more or less protected, I got down on my hands and knees. Ignoring the pain in my back, I kept my lips closed and my teeth covered as the Velcro on the bulletproof vest rustled softly. My gaze focused on the floor, I made my first “step” on all fours toward Eli’s wolf.
The wolf growled again. I had changed the rules of behavior. I cringed a little but kept going. “It’s okay,” I said softly, keeping my eyes on the floor. I kept my body low, so my face and my imaginary tail wouldn’t appear to be any higher than the wolf in front of me. The struggling woman had started making involuntary whimpering sounds, which probably wasn’t helping Eli calm down any. “I’m a friend. It’s okay.” I kept going, crooning nonsense in the same calming tone Will had used. The bar towel was already soaked through with blood, though none of it was mine.
I flicked my eyes up for the briefest of seconds, to check on the wolf’s reaction. The fur had gone down along his spine. He was still growling, but there was a note of uncertainty in it now.
“My mom was an veterinary tech at an animal hospital,” I said to no one in particular. I just wanted to keep talking, keep the calming sound going. “She worked with abused dogs a lot, crazy dogs.”
“Thirty seconds, Scarlett.” Tension had crept into Will’s voice now. I gave a very brief nod without looking back and kept going. Just eight more feet.
“I know you’re not a dog, Eli, but I’m really hoping the same rules apply,” I added, keeping my voice low. Five more feet. The wolf’s low-throated growl changed slightly, to something that sounded more like whining. His tail, which had been standing perfectly straight and stiff, wilted a bit into a more relaxed pose.
“It’s gonna happen, Scarlett,” Will whispered urgently. As he said it, the wolf made a sudden cry of pain and began to flinch, cringing inward upon himself like he’d been viciously kicked in the stomach. The woman cried out in fear. Without thinking, I dropped and rolled as fast as I could, sliding in the slippery mess. Blood-covered glass fragments cut into my jeans and the bulletproof vest.
There. I felt Eli enter my radius, and faster than my dizzy eyes could follow, a naked man dropped suddenly to the floor in place of the wolf. The woman gave a full-out scream, but I skidded right past her through the blood, to Eli’s side. He was unconscious. I shifted to kneel next to him and checked his pulse, held my cheek in front of his nose. Alive. I sighed with relief and looked back up.
The woman had run toward Will and was clinging to him, her body shaking with sobs. Behind her, Will nodded at me, a complicated expression of relief and misery clouding his face.
Will walked the bloody woman over to a bar stool and propped her on it. Her upper body collapsed down onto the bar’s surface, and she stayed there, sobbing into her arms. Will moved his hands like he might try to comfort her, but then reversed direction, disappearing for a moment into his office through the back door. When he came back there was something in his hand, but I didn’t see the syringe until he’d stabbed it into the bloody woman’s upper arm.
I gasped. “Will—”
“It’s okay,” he said levelly. “It’s just a sedative.” A lot of that going around, I thought. The woman’s body went limp, and he picked her up from the bar stool and lifted her whole body onto the bar, which was much cleaner and safer looking than the floor at the moment. “She’s going into shock, but I need her to stay here until I can get some of Dashiell’s crew here to erase her memory. I just called him, from the office.”
“Is she going to change?”
He frowned. “I can’t tell. His teeth punctured her neck, but only slightly—I think the rest of the blood on her is from the glass and the other…the other…” Victims, I thought, but neither of us wanted to say it. “And you were here, which might have slowed the magic. I’m just not sure.” He shrugged. “We’ll erase her memory, but we’ll keep an eye on her.”
“What happened here?” I said bluntly, unable to keep it in. “Caroline…?”
Without answering, Will crunched across the glass toward the nearest body lying on the ground. It was a man I’d never seen before, around thirty, wearing one of those tacky bowler shirts under a lot of blood. I couldn’t see his actual injuries from where I was sitting, but Will checked for a pulse, checked for breathing, just as I had with Eli. Then he shook his head. “Dead,” he said briefly, and moved on to the next body. I looked away. Part of me felt like I should get up and help him, but I had no idea if leaving Eli would cause the wolfberry’s effects to start up again.
“It was cookies,” Will said matter-of-factly, and I looked up at him. He was answering my question. “Small businesses like ours, we exchange gifts with a lot of our vendors. Gourmet chocolate, nuts, microbrews, that kind of thing. We got a big tin of Christmas cookies delivered here a couple of hours ago. I was at the bar, but Caroline was in the office, and Eli was back there eating his dinner at my desk. They both had some.”