Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega #2)(66)

"Yes," Charles said. "Still, no sense advertising it if she doesn't." He paused in the hallway and looked at her. "You understand people better than I do. Do you think Dana would hire vampires? Do you think the vampires could be operating on their own?"

He underestimated himself, she thought, but put her instincts to work anyway.

"She's a Gray Lord. She enjoys playing games-she... takes pleasure in making herself look... unattractive. Which probably means she's either horribly ugly or stunning without the illusion." She closed her eyes, trying to make it fit. "No way she'd hire a vampire. She wouldn't trust them with her secrets." That was right. "She... she'd be okay having someone else do her dirty work-but not for money, I don't think. Someone who owes her-fae minions, maybe. Blackmail. But not hired guns."

"Agreed," said Charles.

"As far as the vampires are concerned... When they came after us, there was no emotion, no personal involvement in it. Just doing a job. But then we killed a couple of them, and that made it personal, right? So when they killed Sunny, they messed her up and left her where they did to... to count coup on the werewolves."

"Angus?" Charles asked. "Dana lives here. You'll know her better than we do."

"I don't understand women at all," disavowed Angus. "Add fae to that, and you can count me out." There was a little pause. "But I think Rabbit's got her nailed. Sounds right about the vampires, too."

"Anna," said Charles mildly before Anna could protest. "Not Rabbit."

Angus tilted his head. "Term of respect," he told Anna. "That's all. Anna."

"If you please." Charles didn't dwell on it, he just went on to the next thing. "The vampires have some way of masking their scent from us. Keeps us out of their daytime sleeping places."

Angus froze. "You think this is a vampire kill? Four vampires against Chastel and Michel?"

"The Beast was hurt." Charles avoided saying the names of the dead, usually. Referring to them by a nickname was apparently okay. "Michel... is much less dominant than your Tom. His heart is in the right place, but he is no warrior. Otherwise, the Beast would have killed him long since. Where were the rest of the French wolves?"

"At an all-night LAN party."

"A LAN party?" Anna sort of knew what that was. "Isn't that where geeks meet up and play the same game together on a lot of computers?"

Angus nodded. "Alan thought it might be interesting-let them get their aggression out without actually killing anyone." He paused. "And no one actually did-not there, anyway. Anyway, he and a few members of his family, several of my pack, and... I think one of the Spaniards took it upon themselves to arrange a LAN party with some first-person shooter game."

"Who would know that there would only be two wolves here?" Anna asked.

"Anyone who read the sign-up sheets-which are on our semiprivate site on the Internet. That means all of my pack and any of the wolves who came to the conference and took time to check out the welcome materials we provided."

"Assuming our vampires are working for one of us," mused Charles, "they would have known."

"If it's the vampires, they're moving awfully fast," Anna observed. She realized that they were all trying to avoid moving forward, into the house, closer to the smell of blood. "Tom, Moira, and I were attacked the day before yesterday, Sunny yesterday, and Chastel later last night." She didn't want to see it, to go near the evidence of all that pain and death. She thought that maybe the others were fighting exactly the opposite battle.

"Assassins with multiple targets taking them out as fast as they can," suggested Angus. "Strike before the enemy has a chance to pull their pants up and fire back. Busy as little bees."

"The question is, what are they doing? And why?" Charles sounded thoughtful, as if he were talking about a game of chess instead of discussing murder in a pleasant little sitting room that reeked of death. "And is Dana a part of this? Or is she a separate matter altogether?"

He looked at Anna. "You can stay here."

"But you want me to come." She knew she was right, and it surprised her.

"You bring different eyes," he said. "Angus and I-we can decipher the battle. You tell us about the person. Who we are hunting for and what that person is trying to accomplish." He gave her a tight smile. "You see things, why people do things. Vampires who act like wolves. I want you to stay here, but I'm afraid we might need you in there."

She took a deep breath. "Okay. But if I throw up, I'll blame you."

"Granted."

She bent to retie her tennis shoe and caught a glimpse of Angus's face. "He is very protective," she told him. "In a very Nietzschean 'that which does not kill us makes us stronger' sort of way. At least there won't be twenty feet of snow here."

Charles laughed.

No one was smiling when they walked into the room.

Blood soaked the carpet, and the walls were sprayed with it. It was getting old; in a few hours it would start to smell rotten. The walls looked brown rather than red. She didn't look at the two piles of meat and bone and body parts yet. One small step at a time. What did all the blood tell her?