Low Midnight

Chapter 13

FURY GRABBED Cormac, with an urge to race over, yank the rifle out of the guy’s hands and beat him over the head with it until his skull caved in. Then keep going. He didn’t do that, because that was likely to get him shot. A quick assessment—the shots hadn’t gotten her. Kitty was still running, quickly disappearing into the trees. The gunman kept shooting anyway, wasting bullets.

Ben was going to kill him for getting her into this.

How were we supposed to know it was a skinwalker, not a werewolf? My God. Even Amelia sounded breathless.

Cormac wasn’t so sure Ben would understand. If the roles had been reversed, he’d be inclined to break the other’s neck for putting Kitty in danger. Kitty wouldn’t even be able to stop him. Fortunately, Ben was a lot more rational than that. He’d at least wait for an explanation. He might not ever talk to Cormac again after, but he’d listen to the excuses first.

In the end, he recognized the gunman, which kept Cormac from murdering the guy straight off. Thickset, bearded, in a green canvas jacket and faded jeans. Jess Nolan, of course. Cormac tipped his head back, looking heavenward in a vague prayer, then stood, held up his arms and the flares in a show of peace, and called out. “Hey!”

His eyes buggy with shock, Nolan swung the rifle around, but lowered it when he saw Cormac. He squinted like he didn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Bennett? Cormac Bennett, is that you?”

Cormac hadn’t thought he was famous until the last few days. He’d had a reputation years ago, but he figured it wouldn’t have survived his time in prison plus a couple of years of mostly staying out of trouble. Oh well.

“Jess Nolan,” he said by way of reply. A statement as well as an expression of annoyance.

Nolan’s laugh was nervous, like he was pretending to be happy to see him, and trying to ignore what had just happened. Tucking the rifle under his arm, he came over, holding his hand out like he expected Cormac to shake it. Cormac had his hands full of road flare and didn’t move.

“What are you doing out here, Bennett?” He tried to sound casual, but kept looking back into the trees. Trying to decide which was the bigger threat, Cormac or the werewolf he’d just seen go tearing off.

Cormac took a pointed look at the torn grass and bloodied ground where the fight had taken place, as well as the abandoned-looking shed and mine entrance. “Just out for a walk with a friend. You’re a little jumpy with that gun, you think?”

His nervous smile dropped. “Friend—you don’t mean that wolf?”

“I do. I figure that’s why you’re out here—just you and a wolf, out for a walk?”

“Sure. I guess.” He was standing between Cormac and the shed. Guarding it.

“You want to tell me about the skinwalker?”

“The what?” he said flatly. Cormac wasn’t buying the dumb act.

“You’ve got some jumpy Navajo wizard working for you patrolling the place, right? Maybe getting in fights?”

“How do you know about that shit?”

Cormac gave him a look; his patience was gone. “I’m not interested in your stash, Nolan. I’m going to go track my friend down now, and I’d appreciate it if you called off your buddy before she gets to him.” And so Cormac didn’t have to keep looking over his shoulder.

“Your friend? A werewolf. I thought you hunted down werewolves.”

Yeah, so did he. His father’s memory chastised him yet again. “Yeah, well, there was this girl. What the hell you doing out here that you need muscle like that? What is it Layne thinks you’re doing out here?”

“Layne sent you?”

“I’m out here on my own, but yeah, I’ve talked to him, and I want to know what the hell’s got the two of you so worked up.”

“Layne’s crazy,” Nolan said. “Paranoid. I’m trying to stay out of his way, but he keeps thinking I’m moving in on him, but I’m not, I swear. I mean, I might have hassled him a little, but that’s it. You go tell him I’m not moving in.”

“He thinks you have a werewolf working for you.”

“No, that’s just Eddie.”

Eddie the skinwalker. Shit. “So, you still keeping a stash out here? Is that it? What are you planning on doing with it?”

Flustered now, Nolan looked like he was thinking of denying it. But then he shook his head. His hands might have been shaking. “You’re right, I’m keeping the stash up, and Eddie’s helping me keep an eye on the place. I got a right to it. You can’t have it back.”

“I don’t want it back. You keep it. Shit, have fun with it.”

“Trust me, when the Feds come around to take everyone’s guns, I’ll have the fallback. I’ll sell the whole thing off on the black market and make an absolute shit-ton of money.”

“Yeah, you and the thousand other guys in the state who are thinking the same thing.” Cormac was just pushing the guy’s buttons now. Hard to resist—he kept getting redder.

“Why aren’t you carrying?” Nolan shot back. “You gone soft?”

“Naw, I just got tired of people mistaking me for someone like you.”

Nolan raised the rifle again with rigid arms, stiff hands, and a furious glare. Even as close as he was, the guy was angry enough to miss Cormac if he actually fired. But Cormac put up his arms again and tried not to smirk too hard.

“Take it easy,” Cormac said. “I’m not here for you or your stash, I just came to see if anyone was still out here. I’ll be glad to leave just as soon as I track down my friend. You want to maybe help me out, maybe try to find your guy before he gets torn up?”

“There’s no way anything can hurt Eddie, not when he’s all wolfed out like that.”

“You ever actually meet a real-live werewolf? Or just Eddie’s version of one?” He didn’t answer, which meant no. “Let’s go save your friend’s ass.”

Turning his back on Nolan and his rifle, he found a bare spot of dirt to set the flares on until they burned out, then gathered up Kitty’s clothes, torn and probably useless as they were, to set them on the Jeep’s passenger seat for when she came back. Pulled the blanket out of his emergency kit, along with a canteen of water, and started walking. Footsteps crunching on gravel indicated Nolan was following.

Truth was, he didn’t think Kitty would actually kill the guy. She was certainly capable of it, but right now, she was angry, not homicidal.

“Bennett, what are you doing hanging out with a werewolf?” Nolan, still trailing, demanded. Cormac didn’t feel the need to answer. “I know your rep, your dad’s rep. You kill werewolves.”

Cormac ignored him.

The two wolves left a clear trail, tearing through underbrush and kicking up soil. Nolan was muttering the whole time and Cormac almost told him to shut up so he could listen for the wolves up ahead. Then he figured, why bother? Kitty wasn’t going to stop and wait. Eventually, she’d have to bed down, and that was when he’d be likely to find her. His goal was to keep the skinwalker away from her when she did. He’d need Nolan for that.

“You never told me how you got mixed up with a skinwalker,” Cormac prompted, looking over his shoulder at the lagging Nolan.

“Nothing to tell. We’re just a couple guys with a business.”

“He’s Navajo?”

“Half Navajo—how’d you know that, you haven’t even seen him. I mean, not really seen him, as a human.”

“Just knew it.” Really, half of the trick to seeming omniscient was paying attention.

“So are you back in the business? You disappeared for a while there—a couple of the guys thought you were dead, you know? But if somebody really was having a werewolf problem—”

“No,” he said. “I’m not back in the business.”

He heard something up ahead and held out his arm to get Nolan to stop and be quiet. It was snarling, the tearing of underbrush in a scuffle. He crept forward as if he were hunting, watching for that flash of movement.

With her supernatural strength and animal instincts, Kitty had overtaken the skinwalker, forcing him to engage her in a crowded stand of pines. The two animals circled, taking swipes at each other and dodging. Kitty was easy to spot—pure wolf, her muzzle wrinkled back to show a snout full of teeth, ears flat to her head, hackles making her appear twice as large. The other one—he snarled, snapped, growled, showed teeth, and sprang out of reach of Kitty’s claws easy enough. But he wasn’t a wolf. His tail was loose, its position undetermined, his ears were up like radar dishes, and he bounced like a dog. His red eyes were visible as glowing points.

The skinwalker had managed to keep out of her way this long, but unless he got lucky, she’d eventually pin him. Cormac had no idea if the guy’s magic would protect him from the bite of a werewolf, but he was pretty sure Kitty wouldn’t want to find out. She’d feel responsible for the guy if she infected him. Cormac would just as soon she killed the bastard.

“Kitty!” he called.

Nolan stared at him. “Its name is Kitty?”

Cormac just glared. Her ears came up for a split second, but she never let her attention waver from her enemy. “Kitty, we got this, back the hell off!”

Nolan took the cue. “Eddie! Get out of there! Just leave it!”

The growling dropped off; the two creatures put a fraction more space between them. But they continued circling, heads down and muscles tensed.

“I’m not breaking up that fight,” Nolan declared.

Cormac’s hand itched for a gun. He could fire it into the woods to get their attention. Kitty wasn’t going to break off until the other wolf showed some sign of submission. But he wasn’t really a wolf, and so it wasn’t likely to happen.

“Nolan, tell him to drop his gaze and his tail.”

“What?”

“He needs to break eye contact, get his tail down so she’ll leave him alone. Do it!”

“Eddie! You heard him. He knows what he’s talking about, do what he says, okay?”

The scraggly wolf turned and looked at Nolan, and Cormac swore he could read the animal’s expression: What, seriously? Disbelief and frustration. But he gave a shake, dropped his gaze, and let his tail fall. If not a show of submission, it at least said that he wasn’t going to put up any more fight.

In response, Kitty backed up a step. Her gaze fell, her tail relaxed. Her fur was still sticking straight up—she wasn’t going to trust the guy if she could help it. The standoff continued, since neither one of them was going to walk away.

“Kitty, it’s okay. I got this.” Her ear flicked, but otherwise she didn’t move. “Go sleep it off. Please,” he said.

She dropped her head, paced in a circle a couple of times, looking them all over as if trying to make a decision. Finally, she loped off, weaving between trees, down a rise, and out of sight, looking at home in the forest, as natural as breathing. He sighed, frustrated at how politeness always seemed to work on her, even in her wolf form, like she was some kind of schoolteacher.

Nolan let out a heavy breath he’d been holding. “Jesus Christ, I thought we were all dead.”

Which showed he didn’t know anything about werewolves. Her posture had been angry, but defensive. In the meantime, the other wolf seemed to hunch its shoulders, cocking its head, wriggling itself into a seated position, propped up on its hind legs. Then, a human hand reached out from under the mass of fur, grabbed hold of a now-lifeless tuft of skin near its neck, and pulled. Cormac had confronted skinwalkers before, but he’d never seen one shift back to human like this.

The skin came off, and a twenty-something man, naked, stood tall in the wolf’s place, holding the wolf hide in front of him to shield his privates. He had deeply tanned skin, short black hair, and a lopsided grin, like he was waiting for someone to laugh at his joke.

Nolan cleared this throat. “Uh, Bennett? This is Eddie. Eddie, Cormac Bennett.”

Cormac said, “You know, I don’t care who the hell you are or what the hell you’re getting up to out here. I’m gonna go after my friend, hike back to my Jeep, and leave you to it.”

He turned to march off, but Eddie moved to intercept him. Not saying a word, not caring that he was stark naked except for a mangy-looking, tattered wolf skin. He still had a predator’s look in his eye, like he was waiting for a chance to pounce.

So it was going to go like this, was it?

Nolan said, “First, you tell me when Layne’s planning on moving in. You say he didn’t send you, but why else would you be out here?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” Cormac said, again making to step around Eddie, who again moved to block. This was going to get old real quick. He looked the guy straight on, meeting his gaze. “Who’d you kill to get this power?”

The guy’s smile turned toothy. “Huh. Smart guy, are you?”

Cormac tugged at the arrowhead charm to make sure it showed over his T-shirt. “Move.”

Eddie didn’t move. But he wasn’t smiling anymore. Cormac’s awareness had gone sharp, his skin prickling and the air going still, the way it did before a fight or at the critical moment of a hunt, right before he fired a shot. Eddie was in front of him, unhappy but unable to do anything because the charm worked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nolan moving up behind him, but his rifle was tucked under his arm, hanging at his side. He was complacent, because he had Eddie to do his dirty work.

At least they weren’t going after Kitty.

“Eddie, you going to lay this fucker out or what?” he said. Probably not as casually as he wanted. All he had to do was take another step closer …

“Can’t,” Eddie said. “He’s protected.”

“What?”

“Because I know what I’m doing,” Cormac said, and dropped his gear to swing back into Nolan with an elbow in the solar plexus. He followed with a right hook that made the guy stumble and drop the rifle entirely. Then Nolan surprised him by taking a swing back. He didn’t seem capable. Cormac dodged, but the blow caught him on the cheek, rattled his head. Didn’t matter, he ignored it and grabbed Nolan’s shirt, threw him to the ground, and kicked him in the gut, just to get it over with. The whole time, Eddie didn’t make a move. He frowned, though, shuddering in place like he desperately wanted to go for blood.

Nolan writhed a moment, letting loose a collection of the usual curses while pawing around for his dropped weapon. As tempting as it would be to also kick the man in the groin while he was down, Cormac resisted. He found the rifle, popped open the chamber and unloaded it, scattering the bullets into the underbrush and throwing away the weapon. He collected the blanket and canteen and set off. This time, Eddie didn’t move to block his way.

He was maybe thirty feet away when Nolan found the rifle, grabbed extra bullets from his pocket, loaded it, and collected himself enough to be able to aim, Cormac saw when he glanced over his shoulder. He kept walking. The shot never came.

Cormac turned, walking back a few steps as he called, “What, you too chicken to shoot?”

Nolan snarled and called back, “You ain’t worth the bullet!”

Well, that was something.

After that, Eddie and Nolan had some kind of argument, Cormac couldn’t hear about what. They stalked off—and not in the direction of the shed. They must have had a car parked somewhere. A car and a mission. He wondered if he ought to call Layne, give him a heads-up.

You are going to have to watch your back.

Sure, but no more so than usual. The fact that Eddie couldn’t touch him had freaked Nolan out—the guy didn’t know what else Cormac could do and wasn’t going to take a chance on provoking him. If he tried to retaliate by, say, slashing the Jeep’s tires, Cormac might come back and magically blow up the whole site. Never mind whether or not he actually could.

Why do people make things so difficult?

The thing was, you just had to make sure you had a way to carve a path right through other people’s difficulties.

So glad we’re having success with that lately.

Ghosts—or disembodied spirits—shouldn’t be allowed to use sarcasm.