Chapter Eleven

“You really need to learn to loosen up.” Conan chuckled as he held his arms out to the open sky. The night was cool as dawn approached. They walked down the street where a few people milled around. No one was in a hurry to get anywhere. It could be that her senses were dulled having caught the backdraft of the cigarette he’d lit just before they left. Either way, the fresh air was doing her some good.

Raven watched Conan sober up just long enough for them to hail a cab. Getting into the car, she wondered why she hadn’t paid closer attention to when Michy brought her to The Grant. She didn’t want to admit that she needed Conan’s help. She didn’t want to admit that she’d had Ivan in her grasp and let him go. But when she was there, he didn’t smell of anything. There weren’t any humans around him. There weren’t any faint traces of blood.

When the cab pulled up to the building, Conan hopped out almost as if he’d forgotten she was with him. Raven hurried behind as he practically raced to the door. He glanced at her over his shoulder as he placed his palm on a plate beside the entry. It lit up a luminescent green while it scanned him, before unlocking the door and having it slide open.

Looking around, the place was practically empty. There was the same servant who escorted her and Michy up before. He and Conan exchanged simple head nods, but she kept her hand on the butt of her blade. She didn’t want to be paranoid, but she had a feeling she was about to use it.

The elevator doors opened into the condo. The magnificent view was blocked by nearly 20-foot tall curtains, black enough to block the glare of the rising sun. Alan was waiting for them. He had an exhausted look in his eyes, and the entire place was silent. The only wolf she scented other than Conan’s, was Ivan’s.

“No one else here?” Raven’s eyes wouldn’t stop searching through empty spaces and doorways, as she stood in the entryway to his living space.

“Just me.” He yawned.

It was in that moment that the smallest scent of blood wafted into her nose. Did that come from his mouth?

Ivan folded his arms across his bare chest. The only thing he had on was a tiny pair of boxers that only accentuated how skinny he truly was…gaunt…ghostlike. She couldn’t stand a skinny wolf. At least with Conan, he had a decent amount of muscle on his body. Ivan was just unappealing to her in every way.

“I see you two have come back for some more?” He broke into her thoughts. “I noticed you had a great time when you smoked together, but here’s the issue…and Conan could have told you this before you made the trip…I’m out. No more.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Conan practically barked.

“When’s the last time you checked your phone Lover Boy?” Ivan mocked. “Regardless of your ability to keep tabs on my supply, I don’t have any more so thank you for coming. I’m sorry you came all this way. You saw yourself in, you can see yourself out. I’m going back to bed.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” Raven called out to him before he turned to walk away.

“Oh, and what has brought you to my abode once again?”

“There seems to be some discrepancies about your participation in the disappearances of these women. Are you aware that your cooperation is necessary by order of the Council? By neglecting to do so, you give me permission to exercise whatever justice is deemed necessary by my training as an Enforcer.”

“Calm down, calm down.” He rolled his eyes. “I need you both to relax. Why in the hell would you bring him here when he’s coming down? You need to get him back into his cave to wait it out.”

Raven glanced over to Conan who was standing silently, but his hand was stroking his arm subtly as his eyes were studying every inch of the space, undoubtedly hoping to spot something he could smoke. When he noticed their eyes were on him, he turned away immediately and headed to the window, where the curtains were drawn.

“Let’s not worry about him. We need to talk,” she told him.

“I can’t tell you much about the disappearances,” he said nervously, his glance continued to shift back and forth from her to Conan.

“Tell me what you do know,” she demanded.

“A few of the women that may or may not have vanished weren’t all woman, you know? They had a few beasts roaming around inside them. Leave it to Alan and The Barstow to just let anyone inside their walls. Fucking sluts,” he scoffed.

“We’re not here to talk about Alan. Tell me about the women!”

“Why aren’t you interested in him? It’s his club! It’s his fault that these girls come out to party and don’t make it home. It’s his fault they come to me for their drug-induced fantasies and when they can’t get enough they come back for more. I can’t keep the supply they need so they get handsy!”

“What does that mean? Handsy?”

“I’ll tell you what it means,” Conan jumped in, charging toward them. “It means that handsy little twat decided to frisk me when I said she couldn’t get another pull from my cig. I wasn’t giving her one of her own, and Ivan was nowhere to be seen! When I turned her away, she started changing.”

“I’m glad you’ve joined the conversation, but what was she turning into? I didn’t hear anything other than her gasps for air.” Raven took a step back from them both. The wild-eyed glare on Conan’s face made her nervous.

“Who knows?” Ivan shrugged. “Lion, tiger, bear…oh my! Seriously, it doesn’t matter. We have a right to defend ourselves, both in our world and in theirs. We did nothing wrong in taking care of our attacker.”

“Well, I didn’t do much of anything,” Conan volunteered. “I think she was just as high. The same way I black out is probably the same way she got turned up and on. Like we said, she was very handsy.”

“Fine, barring her against the others, why leave her body for Devon to clean up? What about the others? They all weren’t handsy were they?”

“How many women do you think have disappeared?” Conan asked.

“According to the records that were given to me, it’s about six.”

“Well, I can only account for the two I just told you about,” Conan admitted. “They’re not exactly going to flag human authorities.”

“WHO CARES?!” Ivan snapped.

“What?” Raven and Conan turned to him in surprise.

“Who cares if a few bags of flesh turn up missing! The world is better off without them. They come into our clubs, mingling with our brethren like it’s all okay. They don’t deserve to be around us! Conan tell her! You agree with me! Forget it! It doesn’t matter because those useless forms of feeble life don’t matter! Alan should have never let them get comfortable! Now they’ll come in and take over or worse, they’ll try to experiment and exterminate us! They…” Ivan’s voice trailed off after his rant.

Raven could feel the anger building. Her wolf was begging to come out and she was more than ready to let her do so. Even though Ivan talked as if he couldn’t hear her, she spoke to him anyway, “Ivan Grant, by the power vested in me as an Enforcer of the Council…I declare you guilty for the disappearances and murders of six women within the city of Stromport. I declare you guilty of intent to incite a war between the brethren and the humans. I declare you guilty for distribution of an illegal substance that endangers the lives of your brethren and those around them. By this declaration of guilt that has been assessed by your own words and validation, I sentence you to death by wolf.”

Raven waited for Ivan to react but he didn’t. He was still ranting and raving about the mixing of the species and how it shouldn’t be tolerated. She didn’t care. She didn’t have a position on the matter one way or the other. She simply wanted to get this over with.

The prickliness of fur growing into her face as her blonde hair morphed and changed into a light shade of brown, made her twist and turn her neck uncomfortably. Her fangs protruded from her gums as the bones in her face broke and restructured themselves into a snout. Her hearing intensified, along with her sight and sense of smell. As her voluminous tail grew, it gave her extra balance and a chance to steady herself as her hind legs changed. Hunched over until her hands hit the floor, she watched her fingers turn into paws with sharp claws scraping against the marble floors.

The slick of the material made her hesitant, but still, she set her hind legs firmly behind her before springing after Ivan. He took off running around the space with Conan backing off to a corner or empty room. Raven was too busy chasing the cowardly Barstow-wannabe around to pay attention. Snarling and growling, she practically slid across the floor as she rounded a corner and sped after Ivan down a hallway. He tried closing a door but he wasn’t fast enough as she pounced, pushing the door open. The door knocked Ivan in the face, causing his nose to bleed.

“Shit!” he cursed, pinching the bridge to get the blood to stop. He held his hand up to keep Raven at bay. “Please. I’m not as responsible as you think for this. I’ll tell you everything else. Please just let me-”

Raven’s wolf didn’t care for his explanations or excuses as she lunged at him, grabbing his jugular between her jaws. He attempted to shift, but she assumed he was high because it wouldn’t happen. There were moments where she could feel his strength, but they were fleeting. He couldn’t master his change and somehow it made sense that Conan couldn’t be responsible. If those cigarettes stopped his wolf from shifting completely, there was no way he’d slaughter those women and make it home without an ounce of blood on him.

Ivan’s inability took the thrill out of her kill. She shook him like a rag doll until she felt the bones in his neck snap. The audible pop as his spine severed in different spaces down his back was the only satisfying thing she’d gotten out of the execution.

Raven changed back only to find a complete mess on her hands. The room, her body, her hair…it was all covered in Ivan’s blood. The stench of his poisoned flesh would be enough to make anyone gag. They weren’t in the wilderness, where the odor would dissipate. They weren’t amongst the trees where she could torch the body. They were in a heavily populated metropolitan area.

FUCK!

She didn’t think this through. She should have taken him out of Stromport. She couldn’t even leave the building covered in blood. She had to dispose of the body. All Raven could do was shake her head as the scope of her job just increased tenfold.

“What now mighty Enforcer?” Conan asked from the doorway with a smile on his face and a cigarette in his mouth.

She patted down her bra and shorts-clad body wishing she had one of her own. “Any regular ones around?”

“You can take this. Ivan wasn’t lying when he said he was out of the good stuff,” he said, holding out the smoldering cigarette to her.

Raven sniffed the air around it. It smelled like her own brand, so she took it. The long, slow drag was soothing to her as she glanced around the room. There wasn’t anything special about it. It was simple black walls with black marble tile. There was a bed centered against the back wall but that was it. Now the floors were muddied with Ivan’s blood. She had no desire to clean them.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked her.

“I want to clean the blood off me. Usually I’m about waist deep in a stream or lake but seeing as I’m here.” She motioned around them.

“Yeah, I get it. Why don’t you shower in the guest bathroom? I’ve used it plenty of times. I can call Devon and Shana to have them, or a crew come clean up the mess,” he suggested.

Raven looked to him and then to Ivan’s body. “If this building is outfitted just like The Barstow, there’s an incinerator on the premises right?”

“Probably.” Conan shrugged.

“Fine, I’ll figure it out, but in the meantime, just point me in the direction of the cleaning supplies.”