It was hard as hell, but I had to leave Rikki while she was still working the ferry. It was especially hard when I knew she had something important to tell me. But I needed to get ready for my shift. After my talk with Walt I was going nuts with worry thinking about Rikki alone on the river with no one to watch over her, so I'd headed straight to the underworld. I had become an obsessive fool about the woman, and I didn't give a fuck. I was going to have to own up to the fact that my heart wasn't made of iron after all. At least not where Rikki was concerned.

I'd heard Wilder, Flint and Stryker fire up their motorcycles an hour earlier, no doubt to head over to the Sins for a beer before work. It was always easier to face the prospect of a long shift in Wynter with a few drops of beer floating in the veins.

I changed into my buckskins, pulled a shirt on over my holster and headed outside to my bike. I was working without my horse tonight, which was perfect. That way I had an excuse to ride to the river. I'd leave Barq in the paddock, and with any luck, I'd catch Rikki alone for a quick talk.

It was just before midnight, and while the mountain road was naturally dark and desolate at this hour, it seemed just a little too quiet. Normally, the nocturnal animals were still moving about, skittering through trees and cooing their night sounds. It was an eerie quiet, like the kind that falls over the forest in the dead of winter. Only it was a mild summer night.

I leaned down over my handlebars and twisted the throttle to pick up my speed. As I breathed in, the usual pine scent was tainted with motorcycle exhaust. Wilder and the guys had left a good hour earlier, so it wasn't from their bikes. And the other local clubs came from town, not from the coast.

I poured on the speed and headed around the final curve where the Seven Sins loomed into view. The back end of the parking lot was lined with five huge bikers, each one straddling a motorcycle. The glow of my headlights illuminated their Masters of Mayhem cuts. My three pack mates stood in the parking lot facing them down.

My bike popped off both tires as I jumped over the dip that creased the road in front of the parking lot entrance. All heads turned my direction. Jemma was standing in front of the bar with her rifle clutched in her hands.

My tires screeched to a halt as I parked. I climbed off, lumbered across the asphalt and stood next to Stryker. Waves of heat rolled off of him. It seemed the only thing keeping all of them from shifting into wolf form was the cluster of terrified, curious and human bar patrons watching through the front window.

The Mayhem members were wearing bandanas across their faces, but each one had the same cold, dead expression.

"They look like fucking zombies," I muttered from the side of my mouth to Stryker.

"Yep. And they don't say much."

"Drugs?"

"Something powerful, that's for damn sure."

The guy who was front and center on the line up had a row of ugly looking X-shaped scars all the way up the side of his forearm. The biker on the end had pure white hair to go with his glassy stare. The colorless long hair made him look extra fucking creepy.

"We need you to turn the bikes around," Flint said "and don't come back."

"I'm calling the police," Jemma shouted from the front step of the bar.

Flint didn't look back, but he waved a hand to tell her no. Wilder looked over at him, and Stryker and I shot each other puzzled glances. Flint must have had a reason for not calling the police. He knew the cops were looking for Mayhem in connection with Kay's murder.

"You boys don't tell us what to do." The muffled words came from the white-haired guy on the end. His eyes were crossed badly and he had a jagged scar running across his forehead as if someone had cut the brain from his flat skull. But goofy as he looked, with eyes going every direction, his massive hands with knuckles the size of golf balls, left no question that he could pound the pulp out of someone without much effort.

"Yeah, this ain't your territory," the guy with the scarred forearm snarled. As he spoke, his bandana slipped, exposing the broad bridge of a crooked nose. He reached up to push the bandana back in place. The X's on his arm ran all the way to his elbow and the fallen disguise revealed that his right ear had been chopped off. All that remained were a few jagged chunks of flesh. This guy was one mangled asshole.

Wilder stepped forward. We instinctively moved with him. "What do you mean territory? This is our town, not yours. In fact, just where the hell is your town?"

A laugh that sounded like bones breaking rumbled out from the guy with the chopped off ear. "They want to know what town we're from." The rest of his club joined in on the joke, which apparently required some insider information to be understood.

Without warning, the bike on the end fired up and the rest followed. The four of us stood there shoulder to shoulder, waiting until they rode well out of sight.

Jemma joined us, looking frazzled and still holding her phone. "Flint, why the hell didn't you let me call the police? They killed Kay. I'll call them right now."

"No," Flint said sharply, catching all of our attention.

"What's up?" Stryker asked him. "Or is it because they don't look quite human?"

"Oh, they're human." Flint glanced back to make sure none of the patrons had wandered outside. "Or at least they used to be. Did you hear the way the cross eyed guy said the word boys? They know who we are. And now we know who they are too."

"All right, Einstein," Wilder said impatiently. "Enough with the cryptic words. We've got to get to work. Spill what that magical brain of yours has already figured out."

"I'm sure you saw the line of X's on that big guy's arm."

"The guy missing an ear?" I asked. "Yeah, looked like he cut those marks himself."

Flint motioned for us to follow him farther out toward the road and away from the bar. "Back in the nineteenth century, there was a little town on the coast of the Carolinas that was terrorized by a serial killer. The papers nicknamed him Cannibal."

Stryker spoke up. "Right. Because he ate his victims, and he carved an X in his arm after each kill."

"Yeah. And when the police were getting closer, he decided to make himself look like a victim. He cut off his ear and left it in his house. Then he disappeared. They finally caught the guy sitting naked in the forest surrounded by body parts and chewing on an arm like a piece of corn. He's been in Vapour's realm since his execution by hanging. I could see the rope marks on his neck when he turned his head."

"Wait," Wilder spoke up, "the guy with the white hair and the scar across his head—he was that whack job who was holed up in an asylum at the turn of the twentieth century. He went on a killing spree in the hospital. Took out half the staff with their own medical instruments."

"Yep," Flint nodded. "That scar was left over from a botched up lobotomy. The doctors thought it would help his violent tendencies. Instead it made him even more psycho. He's been in Vapour's realm since the police shot him dead."

Jemma lowered the rifle. "Well . . . shit."

"You can say that again." Stryker pulled out his phone. "I'm going to remind Willow not to leave the house at night and to double lock the damn doors. She still thinks she's living up in her remote cabin, never needing to worry about locked doors."

I thought about everything Walt had told me. This was all starting to add up. Only my buddies were missing a key piece of information.

"What do you think is going on?" Wilder asked Flint.

Flint shook his head. "No clue. Hey, Max, remember that slow moving wraith we cornered, only it turned out not to be a wraith at all?"

I nodded. "And then he turned right into the flames as if he knew he had no choice except to disappear because we had him surrounded."

"He had the same cold, dead eyes as the Mayhem creeps," Flint said.

"He sure did. And I think I know what's going on, but I can't tell you yet. I need to clear it with someone else first. They are trusting me to keep a secret, and I don't want to betray them."

Wilder stepped closer to me and looked more than a little pissed. "What the fuck are you talking about, Max? Your loyalty is to us."

"I know. That will never change. I'm going to fill you in just as soon as I can."