Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega 4)

And when she said the last word, no more than a whisper, an entire shelf of children’s games fell off the bookcase they’d been on with a crash.

About an hour and a half later, Charles belted himself back in the Chevy and waited for Marsden to drive. But they just sat there with the engine running for a little.

“How did you know?” Marsden said.

“I’m a werewolf,” he told Marsden. “I know about all sorts of things. Wizards, humans who can manipulate the physical world, aren’t common, but they happen.”

“Frightening for her,” said Leeds. “To find out that when you get mad things fly around. Do you think the woman you recommended her foster mother talk to might help her?” He sounded like he knew all about being alone with funky powers.

“I wouldn’t have given her the name if I didn’t.” Charles wondered what Leeds’s fae blood had left him with as a legacy. But as long as he wasn’t stealing children, Charles didn’t care. He considered that for a moment, but he could smell Leeds’s fae blood quite clearly and it bore no resemblance to whatever had bespelled Chelsea or stolen the child.

“Fourteen,” said Marsden. He swore with feeling. “Whoever was watching out for her should have been shot.” He paused. “That baby’s father died—did you catch that? Hit by a car in a freak accident.”

“I hope it was her,” said Leeds, then, almost contradicting himself, “and I hope she never knows it.”

“That was powerful,” Marsden said. “What you did in there, Charles.” He rubbed the steering wheel. “It should have been absurd—you know. But it was powerful.”

“He is a dominant werewolf,” said Leeds. “When he submitted himself to her will … of course it was powerful. What if she had asked you to kill her parents? The ones who abandoned her, abandoned her twice, by my accounting.”

“Her name was sorrow,” said Charles. “All she needed was for someone to hear her so she could mourn.”

“But what if?”

He didn’t owe Leeds that answer, especially since Brother Wolf was insulted that he would ask.

Still.

“What do you think?” Charles said softly.

After a moment, Marsden drove away from the curb. “Could you tell me the address of the next one, Leeds?”

The next one was another girl, Helena, age thirteen. Her parents and counselor insisted on staying for the interview. They also answered every question Marsden or Leeds asked Helena. The upshot was that they, parents and counselor, were certain that she was possessed by a demon.

“Meth,” said Charles quietly into Marsden’s ear.

Marsden extracted them quickly.

“We need help,” said the counselor. “You folks are supposed to know how to deal with this.”

Marsden frowned at them. “Meth isn’t demon possession. You change her friends and get her into a rehab program. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.” He glanced at the parents. “You should also get her a better counselor.”

The third child, another girl, Iris, was five. Her single-parent father, who introduced himself as Trent Carter, was over his head and looked it. Knew it, according to the notes the counselor had given them.

The girl’s mother had committed suicide when she was only a toddler. Her father, in sweatshirt and jeans, looked exhausted and underweight. The little girl was dressed in a similar outfit, but in pink, and she had her hair up in lopsided pigtails.

Charles let Marsden and Leeds question both parent and child without saying anything at all. The little girl was happy to talk to them, even though she bowed her head shyly when they asked her a direct question. Eventually, she showed them bruises on her wrists and legs and told them she was clumsy and fell down stairs. Her father paled and looked away.

When Marsden finally looked at Charles, he shook his head. She wasn’t fae. Not what they were looking for at all.

Reluctantly, the Cantrip agents left the pair sitting on opposite sides of the room.

“Damn,” said Marsden. “Did you see those bruises? We got referred by a counselor, right? Why didn’t they get that girl out of there?”

Leeds looked at Charles. “Why aren’t you angry? I mean, when that first girl came in … the ethereal temperature of the room dropped into the subarctic zone.”

“Sometimes,” Charles said, “anger, though I am well acquainted with both it and its useful cousin vengeance, is not the appropriate response.”

Marsden opened his mouth and Charles said, “Where to next?”

He got in the car and shut the door. After a pause both agents did the same. They drove sedately away from Iris and her father.

“And that, gentlemen, is an actual demon possession,” Charles said once they were well on their way.

“The man?” asked Marsden. “That’s why he hurt his daughter?” As if he couldn’t imagine anyone hurting his own daughter otherwise.

Charles hadn’t wanted to like either of these men, though he deemed them useful and perhaps necessary for his hunt. The other Cantrip agents he had dealt with … But these men were decent people.

“The fingerprints on the bruises were too small,” said Leeds suddenly. “Those bruises, she did them to herself. I thought there was something off about her.” He paused. “Is there something we can do for them? Do you know someone you can send them to for help?”

“I’ll look into it,” Charles promised.

“Okay, then,” said Marsden. “This next one is a boy, a teenager, and he’s a long shot. He fits neither our profile nor our neighborhood. But the counselor for this one is quite insistent that there is a problem…”

“Well, yes,” said Dr. Vaughn’s mother mildly. “Sid’s great-grandfather or some such. His human wife had just died and the whole family was concerned about him; he wasn’t eating or drinking. We thought that his Alpha might just put him out of his misery. So Sid drove over to his house in his squad car, told him he was coming home with him. And when Archie turned into a wolf to discourage him, Sid said, ‘Fine. Be a wolf. But you are coming home with me.’”

She looked at Anna. “He just loved our kids, Archie did. Let Alex’s older sister dress him in whatever pink and frilly thing she wanted. Pulled a wagon for the kids and saved my Alex’s life, I think. He was cantankerous as a human, but he was the best dog this family ever had.”