I watched them go, the cool mountain breeze even colder as it blew over the blood covering my naked body. I shivered a little, but not from the wind. I shivered because of the coldness in Jessica’s words, at the icy pick she’d just stabbed into my heart.
I don’t know what I should have expected from her. Outpourings of love for a wolf who could only masquerade as a human?
“You’re a fucking freak, man!” Wyatt nearly screamed from behind me, his voice hoarse and terrified. “You’re all fucking freaks! What the fuck do you want? What do you want from me?”
I spun back on him. “I want you to leave Jessica Long alone,” I growled, my hands balling into fists by my side. I took a step towards him.
“Leave her alone?” he whined. “I told you, I just barely fucking met the lady! I offered her a fair fucking deal on the place, didn’t I? What’s the deal? This shit was about you, man!”
His words knocked me back a step, and I shifted my weight back onto my heel, the rocks stabbing uncomfortably into my feet. “What?” I growled.
“I ain’t done nothing to her! I swear!”
“The turtle?” I prompted. “The calls?”
He shook his head violently. “What the fuck are you talking about, man? We ain’t done any of that shit! I just found out my crazy Uncle Blake left me that fucking thing!”
“Why the hell were you up here, then?” I asked. “And who called her earlier, told her to just take the deal?”
“We were up here for you, jackass! The guys asked me what happened, so I told them some guy sucker punched me–”
“You mean you fucking lied,” I corrected him, my knuckles popping. “That was a fair fight, and you fucking know it.”
He nodded. “I know, man, I fucking know. But, I gotta save face, Murdoch. If I’d known I was going to end up in a fucking creature feature, I would have lied and said I shot the guy who hit me!”
“Well, if you didn’t make all those threats, then who the fuck did?” I asked, advancing towards him.
He cringed back from me, his hands coming up to his face. “I told you,” he whined, “I don’t fucking know about any of that, Murdoch!”
This was pathetic. Without his mask of a big bad biker, or his gun and his goons, this was all just pathetic. “Well, even if you’re not the one stalking her, I still want you out of her life. Leave her out of your money laundering scheme! And I want you to stay the fuck away from Enchanted Rock, or even this part of the state. This is no-man’s land for Skull and Bonesmen. You hear me?”
He nodded fervently, his eyes big as saucers. “Got it, dude! Whatever you say! We’re ghosts, man, we’re fucking ghosts after this. You won’t ever hear a peep from us, not as long as I live.”
“You take your men,” I said, leaning down close to his face so he could smell his men’s blood on me, “living and dead, and you fucking leave. You ever whisper a word of this to anyone, ever, I’ll fucking hunt you down, Wyatt Axelrod.” I leaned in close to his neck, sniffed sharply like the wolf I could transform into. “I got your scent, Wyatt. I got your scent, and that means I can track you anywhere, anyplace. Don’t believe me, you just fucking try and break your word.”
“I believe you!” he said, nodding, his eyes still full of terror, the smell of fear still washing out all my senses. “Lightning fucking strike me down, Murdoch, I fucking believe you!”
I was lying, of course. I couldn’t track him. Not like that, at least, where I could sense him from anywhere or anyplace. Now, if he were upwind from me? Absolutely.
“Good,” I growled right in his face, careful to grin cruelly and show him bloody teeth. I straightened up, suddenly very aware of how naked I was, and backed away from him. I turned to leave and find my clothes that had been tossed aside on the gravel.
In front of me, the seven or so surviving bikers had been herded together by my partners, who were still in their wolf forms. Blood covered their snouts and their paws, and they paced in a wide circle. When one of the bikers thought he’d get smart and step out of bounds, one of my pack mates would immediately snap at their ankles, corralling them back in place.
The smell of blood seemed to coat everything. This wasn’t what I’d wanted. There was nothing here to celebrate. But, just like Wyatt had to wear a tough guy face to maintain respect, I needed to do the same to keep their fear as high as possible. And, believe me, there was plenty of fear in that circle. So much fear you bottle it and make a perfume. Name it Eau de Pants Shit. I set my shoulders back, walked into the middle of the crowd of men. I looked them all in the eye, individually.
They all backed away from me as far as they dared to, for fear of getting an ankle snapped by one of my partners. Maybe because I was covered in blood, maybe because I had confidence, maybe because I was bare-ass naked.
“I’ve talked to your boss already,” I said, still standing there in the buff. “I gave him a deal. You walk out of here alive, and you never come back to the Rock. Ever. We know your smell and we know what you look like. We’ll find you. That’s a promise. The only reason you’re leaving tonight is that we don’t want to dig a dozen graves. You understand?”
The men cowered away, not wanting to meet my gaze. But, even as there eyes were planted earthward, they nodded emphatically.
They wouldn’t be coming back. They’d all go home, drink a bottle of whiskey a piece, trying to forget tonight. They might mumble about it to each other, when no one else was around, but they’d never tell a living soul. Who’d believe them? Whoever they told would just make a bad crack about too much trucker speed, or a bad trip. I crouched down and scooped up my clothes, then walked right back out of the circle and began to put them back on. As I pulled my shirt down over my head, Lacy came walking up out of the cabin’s shadowy lee.
“Richard?” she asked. “Jessica okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, trying not to think about her parting words to me. “I think so. For now. But I don’t think we’re any closer. Wyatt’s swearing up and down he had nothing to do with this.”
Behind me, my buddies broke away from the circle, and let the bikers begin to collect their dead and pile everyone into the Suburbans. Anytime they’d step out of line, though, one of my pack mates would let out a low, menacing growl and send them scurrying back and away from the cabin.
“Nothing?” Lacy asked.
“That video,” I said. “You showed it to Jess, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah, of course.”
“Nothing from that?”
“Said she didn’t recognize the woman in the video.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and began to fiddle with it. “Want to look it over?”
I nodded, and she slapped the phone in my hand. I hit play and watched the short clip. “It’s a woman,” I said, surprised, and thought out loud. “It has to be a woman she knows. Someone close to her, wanting to scare her. What other explanation is there?” I paused and thought back to all the conversations I’d had with Jessica over the last day and a half. Something clicked.
“Earlier tonight,” I said, frowning. “Jessica said something about Sheila, about how she wanted her to take the deal with the art gallery.”
“Do you think it’s her? Isn’t she her friend?”
I frowned. “I don’t know for sure. Almost any woman in Enchanted Rock could be that woman in the video. But there’s only one woman who’s been involved in this biker thing from the get go. And, right now, she’s with Jessica.”