Low Midnight

Chapter 11

ROGUE WEREWOLF. Add another mystery to the list. He was starting to lose track.

I’m taking notes for you. Amelia’s wryness made him think she was joking.

Heading back north after dusk, he stopped for gas station coffee. He had a feeling he was going to need a lot of coffee over the next few days. Jess Nolan, another blast from the past. He wondered if Ben had kept track of any of that crowd and knew what they were up to? But asking would involve telling Ben what he was up to.

Layne hadn’t told him anything more about his operation and Cormac didn’t ask, because that was how these things worked. He didn’t need to know how many heavies Layne had working for him, whether they were staying in the house with him, or what their plans were. The less he knew, the better, because nobody would point to him as a witness and think he needed to be taken out—or called on to testify. Staying out of a courtroom for the rest of his life was a fine goal.

Ben complicated things when he called while Cormac was driving back north.

“You checking up on me?” Cormac said.

“Just seeing how you’re doing.” The casual statement was laden with subtext, a mountain of concern and curiosity.

“I got a piece of paper, that’s the only thing that’s changed between last week and this week.”

“Funny thing how a piece of paper can make a difference. Ask me how I felt when I signed the marriage license. Humor me, Cormac—how are you?”

I might have taken on a job hunting a werewolf.… “I’m fine. Following up a couple of leads on this thing down in Manitou. It’s gotten complicated.”

“Complicated how? Anything I can do to help?”

“I’m trying to solve a hundred-year-old murder, and it looks like the guy left a few loose ends. It’s just complicated. I’m fine.”

“You say that enough, I may start to believe you.”

He sighed. “What do you want me to say, Ben? That I’m thirty-seven years old, and since I didn’t expect to live past thirty I’m not sure what to do with myself but I’m just going on the best I can?” That was more words than he usually said when he wasn’t explaining something. He felt suddenly tired.

He didn’t know if Ben was going to answer with something serious or flippant. He hoped flippant, because Cormac wasn’t much up for serious.

“I guess that makes you just like everyone else, huh?” Ben said after a pause.

“I guess so.”

A long silence while Ben waited for him to say more, when he knew very well that Cormac wasn’t going to say anything.

“Be careful,” Ben said finally. “Call me if I can help.”

Cormac hung up.

He hit the south end of Colorado Springs and exited the interstate at Highway 24 to head into the foothills. He’d seen Kuzniak’s old claim during daylight hours. Now it was time to see it at midnight. See if any ghosts came wandering out.

The moon was half full. He always knew the moon’s phase, had paid close attention since he was a kid and his father started taking him hunting. His father always bought almanacs that marked the phases and circled the nights of the full moon with a thick black marker, because he almost always went hunting then. You kept track of the moon long enough, you could almost start to feel it. You always knew where to look for it, and knew if it was going to be just a smidge past full, or a sliver of new, hanging like a smile in the western sky. He still kept track, partly because it was habit and partly because of Ben and Kitty. He wanted to know when they were going out, on full moon nights.

He had a small flashlight to light his way up the path, so he wouldn’t trip on rocks or tree roots. Mostly, he kept the light turned down and his gaze up, to preserve his night vision as well as he could. Moving carefully in the dark, he made slow progress. When he reached the plateau, he shut off the flashlight and put it in his pocket.

In the moonlight and nighttime shadows, the plateau looked wider, more barren. Like the scrub oak and pines were figures, creatures rising up from the ground and peering at him suspiciously.

He felt that prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck—the feeling that something odd was going on. But did it really come from something being off, or from his knowledge that something had happened here back in the day? That creeping feeling didn’t provide any detail.

“You’re a ghost,” he said out loud. “You know any spells that find ghosts?”

Technically, I’m not a ghost. I’m merely disembodied.

He chuckled. “Semantics.”

Do be polite, won’t you?

“I gotta say, I wish Crane’s ghost would just show up and tell us what happened.” Then he could ditch Layne, skip the werewolf hunt, and go back to just worrying about the book of shadows and Roman. Like that wasn’t enough.

Crane may not have known what happened to him. It’s likely he was struck dead before even realizing that his spell had failed and Kuzniak had killed him.

“Poor guy, yeah?” He kicked at a rock and kept looking over his shoulder. His breath fogged, but he didn’t see anything unusual.

I have no sympathy for him, I’m afraid. He was meddling.

“Any ideas?”

I know we found signs of magic, but that just means spells were cast here. I don’t think there are any ghosts, Cormac. Not of any distinct beings. Only the ghost of magic. A strong trace of magic, to last more than a hundred years.

“You’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”

Indeed. If we want to know more it would be useful to have a medium here, Amelia said. A good one whom we can trust.

“Kitty knows one, but she’s on the West Coast, I think.”

Ah yes, the young lady on television. Do you suppose the people on her show would be interested in this?

“We don’t have time to get them involved. We have to keep an eye on Layne and Kuzniak before they blow something up.”

Then we’d best get to work.

He arrived back in Denver around three in the morning and slept.

CORMAC DIDN’T want Ben listening in on this conversation, so he called Kitty at work. She had her radio show on Friday nights, but during the week she kept office hours at the KNOB studios, prepping for the show or cleaning up after it.

“Hey, what’s up?” she answered after a couple of rings.

“You know of any lone werewolves causing trouble down south of Cañon City, around Walsenburg maybe?”

“Not since I holed up down there,” she said. He could almost hear her brow furrowing as she thought about it. “I know of a couple of guys who move around the high country and the Western Slope—one of them works the ski resorts, but he’s stable. He’d call me if he was having problems. That’s right on the south edge of our territory, we don’t go looking there very often, but I haven’t heard about any problems.”

This didn’t surprise him. A werewolf working for a criminal element would necessarily keep a low profile.

“I’ve heard some rumors. Friend of a friend kind of thing.”

“You think there’s a rogue wolf out there? Do we need to check it out?”

He took a deep breath. “As a matter of fact, I could use your help on this.”

“Of course, all you had to do was ask. I’m sure Ben can take the time—”

“Actually, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Ben about this.”

Her tone became brusque. He smiled at the familiarity of it. “What, you think I’m not going to tell him? How am I supposed to explain my heading out to the other side of the state? ‘Oh, I don’t know honey, I thought I’d go shopping in La Veta for the hell of it.’”

“He’s been getting kind of … protective.”

“That’s how he is. I’m not going to lie to him. And what exactly are you trying to hide from him? You didn’t take a contract to hunt down this werewolf, did you?”

He couldn’t come up with a sensible response to that in time for it to make a difference, so the long pause turned into an answer.

“Cormac, you didn’t,” she declared, with a deep sense of betrayal.

“No, I didn’t,” he huffed, frustrated. “Not exactly.”

“That’s not helping!”

“This whole thing with trying to solve the mystery with Crane and Kuzniak has gotten complicated. It turns out whatever went on out there back in the day, whatever Kuzniak was doing and whatever magic those guys used up there might still be around. I’ve got a lead—but I’ve been told they’ve got a werewolf working for them, and I’m looking for confirmation. I just need to check it out. You feel like taking a drive?”

“You’re hunting a werewolf and you want me to help?”

She was deliberately being thick about this, he knew that. Best thing to do was not take the bait. “Norville, every single one of my guns is still in the storage locker, and don’t think I haven’t noticed that Ben hasn’t given me back the key. I’m just going for a drive, and I could use your help. Your opinion.” Best way to handle Kitty was to appeal to her vast altruism. It was one of the most charming things about her, but it got her into trouble more often than not. He was fully aware he was getting her into trouble with this. He kept on, because he was confident she could handle it.

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You’ve been told there’s a werewolf involved, but you don’t believe it’s true, and you want me to check it out. Sniff around, as it were.”

“Right. Simple.”

“And you want me to help, but not tell Ben, is that it?”

“I can’t tell you what to do,” he shot back. So yes, Ben would find out. He hoped Anderson Layne’s name would stay out of it, because Ben would definitely remember Layne. Cormac would deal with that later.

“Just what exactly are you getting mixed up in?” Now she was curious.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Some things about you haven’t changed at all, you know that?”

He did. He tried not to think about it.