Skye's Trail

The coyote songs never stopped, nor did the animals scatter until she was almost upon them. Their yellow eyes glowed and disappeared, glowed and disappeared. Even when movement and song finally stopped, she knew they were close, watching, waiting, calculating. They were wary but not afraid. Tourists with their careless eating habits and generosity had taught the animals to associate food with humans. There might yet be something for them here. So they stayed near but out of sight.

A whimper came from somewhere above Skye and she spotted the child nestled high in a tree, arms and legs wrapped around the trunk. "Can you climb down?" she asked, her voice gentle, soothing.

The child's voice quivered, "No."

"I'll come get you then."

The limbs were close together but many of them were not strong enough to take Skye's weight. It hindered her progress, slowed it, but didn't deter her. As soon as her body was even with Callie's, she told the little girl, "I'm going to help you turn around. Then I want you to wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist. Can you do that, Callie?"

"Yes."

"Okay, let's do it. Your mom and dad are really anxious for you to get back home."

Skye eased the little girl away from the tree and somehow managed to breathe even as the child locked her arms around her neck in a stranglehold. "Easy now. We'll be down on the ground in a minute."

The child clutched harder. "Dogs. Bad dogs," she whimpered.

"Coyotes. They helped me find you. Now it's okay. They won't bother you."

As soon as Skye's feet touched the ground she knelt. Callie continued to cling, not wanting to release her hold. The child was shaking, cool to the touch even in the mild night air. Skye untied the jacket she'd secured at her waist before leaving the apartment. After she wrapped it around Callie, she asked, "Can you eat something, Callie?"

"Thirsty."

"Okay." There was plenty of water in the camelback. She moved the mouthpiece to the child's mouth. "Suck on this."

Callie drank for a long time.

"I've got something that's banana-flavored and something that's chocolate-flavored. Which one do you want?"

"'Nana."

Skye got out the power bar and peeled back the wrapper. While Callie ate, Skye pulled the radio off her belt, turned it on, and pressed the button to transmit. "This is Skye checking in."

"Where the hell are you!" Captain Rivera was back on scene.

"I've got the child. She's okay."

Rico came on, "You've got her?"

"Wrapped in a jacket right in front of me. She had a big drink of water. Now she's working on a power bar."

Through the radio, Skye could hear a cheer go up.

Rico asked, "Any idea where you are?"

"I'm closer to the road than to where you are. I'll backtrack and go out where Callie came in. Are her parents on site?"

"No. We finally got them to go back to their hotel. We'll send a car to pick them up."

"Good. I'll keep the radio on."

"You do that," Rivera barked.

Any number of responses flashed through Skye's mind. She didn't allow herself to voice any of them.

The child's trail was long and unorganized and often difficult to follow. Callie had been lost and panicky as she'd crashed over and through the terrain.

The closer they got to the road, the easier it was to hear the cars. The traffic had increased since the grim discovery and Callie's rescue.

The little girl had stopped shivering. Now she clung to Skye's back, more asleep than awake.

They kept moving. The trail led out of a thick grove of trees and up a steep incline. Skye could hear a car approaching. She saw its headlights in the distance as she crested the incline and found herself along the road. Automatically she reached for the radio. "I'm on the road. Do you have a cruiser heading back toward town?"

Caldwell jumped in with a familiar order. "Stay put. Hold while I get the captain."

Skye gritted her teeth. She was tired, battling physical and mental exhaustion. It had been a long night. And now she could see the first hint of light at the edges of dark sky.

Before the radio came to life again, Skye had her answer. The car in the distance turned on its flashing lights and siren. The sound cut across the night air and woke Callie with a start.

Rico's deep rich voice came over the radio, "A cruiser is heading back toward town. Do you see it?"

"Yes. It's coming our way."

"Good. Callie's parents are in it. Did you locate her entry point?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll be there in a few minutes."

The cruiser picked up speed and closed the distance in record time. It screeched to a halt in front of where Skye and Callie waited along the road. Within a second, they were engulfed in arms.

"Callie, thank God, oh God, my baby is safe." The woman's grip was strong with emotion. The man's was just slightly less fierce.

Skye stepped away from the hugging as soon as the little girl released her hold and was wrapped in her parents' arms.

A young female cop stood grinning next to the patrol car. "We've been cruising back and forth waiting for you to come out. The timing was almost perfect."

Skye laughed. Happy despite the grisly find earlier. A child lived. Many searches didn't end so well.

Sirens blared in the distance. Skye could see two cars coming their way fast. She moved away from the young cop and the reunited family. Once again she allowed herself to become wolfen.

They'd all been here. The five, the niece, the child. Skye could almost picture it. The rental car had pulled into the turnout at the side of the road. The niece may have already picked up the two strangers, or maybe this is where they joined her. Brittany left the rental car, walked to another spot, where another car had parked. The child hadn't been with her.

All five with the tainted blood had stood here. Only two had gone to or come from where the rental car was parked. Skye went back to where Callie's steps had disappeared down the steep slope. There was the stench of foul blood several feet away from where the child had been-as though the strangers had started to pursue her but given up after a short distance.

Skye turned back as the unmarked car squealed to a halt behind the first cruiser. Caldwell and Rico climbed out. The captain got out of the next vehicle. "Anything?" he barked at Skye, careful to avoid meeting her eyes. From experience, she knew that he was anxious for her to be gone.

Skye doubted the police would find anything here. But she told them what she suspected anyway. When she was done, Rivera said, "Caldwell will follow up for report purposes. You're free to go. The department thanks you for your help. Caldwell."

The detective opened the back door of the unmarked. A clear sign that Skye was to get in.

"I'll ride along," Rico said. He shot an angry look at his superior officer. If Rivera noticed it, he let it pass.

Skye slipped into the car, not bothered by the captain's attitude. Cops were a complication she didn't need. She'd just as soon not get into bed with them.

Her body tightened in argument as her eyes studied Rico. With one exception. She'd make an exception for him. But even as she admitted it to herself, she doubted that he'd ever cross the line to be with her. He was a cop and she was...a lot of things.

"The department owes you," Rico said as Caldwell started the engine and pulled back onto the road. Despite trying to clamp down on his anger, he couldn't keep the hostility from his voice at the way she'd been dismissed. A child was alive because of her. A murder scene was discovered.

Skye half-smiled. "Think the department will pay if I send a bill?"

Some of the tension left Rico. He laughed. "No. Rivera has been bitching about budget cuts all week."

She slipped the radio off her belt and handed it to him. Their fingers touched briefly and flashed icy heat up Rico's arm. His eyes locked on hers. He could swear he saw a flame deep in their centers.

"Don't want to get charged with theft of departmental property then." Her voice was lazy, soft, amused. It was like velvet against sensitive skin. To Rico it was a siren call that had his cock hardening. Frustration rippled through him. This was why Rivera had ordered Cia to drive Skye home.

Carajo! He'd see her all the way to her apartment and finish this. He'd take her as soon as they got out of sight. To hell with what Caldwell might think. To hell with what the captain might say. He was on personal time now.

Caldwell hit the brake and swerved just enough to break the contact between Rico and Skye. He sent her a dark look. Her lips tightened into that disapproving line he was growing to hate. "Sorry, something ran out in front of the car," she muttered then turned her attention to Skye. "The crew at the murder site found a pentagram carved in a tree near the circle. What do you know about that kind of thing?" Her voice made it clear that she thought Skye had more than a passing acquaintance with black magic.

Skye shivered even though it was warm in the car. She leaned her head back against the seat. Whatever had transpired in the woods last night was dark and evil, something to be avoided. "They drained her of blood. Probably in the circle."

"Shit," Rico muttered. "Shit."

Caldwell whipped her head around. "How do you know that?"

Skye shrugged and didn't attempt an answer. She said, "What do you know about the niece, Rico?"

"Not much," he answered. "Just that Brittany was having some family problems."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Typical stuff. My take on it is teenage rebellion. That your take on it, Cia?"

"Yes. Black clothes. Black fingernails and lipstick. Multiple body piercings-nose, ear, tongue, probably more but that was enough to make me lose my appetite."

Skye laughed, which earned her a dark look from the detective. "Drugs?"

"Not that anyone knows about," Rico answered.

"Friends out here in Vegas?"

"Again, not that anybody knows about. Her parents are supposed to be going through her e-mails to see if she'd made any connections."

Skye looked at Rico. "You have a picture?"

"Yeah." He pulled the visor down, retrieved a picture and passed it to Skye.

She studied the punked-out kid who favored black even for her body jewelry. Brittany looked like a hundred other kids that Skye had seen in ghettos and high-end clubs alike. Lost, searching, sometimes heartbreakingly hopeless. "Okay if I keep this?"

"No," Caldwell said instantly.

"Keep it," Rico said at the same time.

"It's an ongoing police investigation, stay out of it," Caldwell managed through gritted teeth.

"I'll make a note of that," Skye said.

"You'd better."

Rico started to chide the other detective then thought about the last case and wondered if he'd done the right thing in letting Skye keep the picture. "You'll pass on anything you come across, right?"

"Of course. Always." Amusement rippled through her voice.

Rico tensed, sexual frustration making him edgy. He almost asked her to return the picture. Almost.

The radio in the unmarked came to life. Rivera's voice barked out an order for Rico to get back to the station as soon as the civilian was dropped off.

Caldwell visibly relaxed. Rico wanted to howl with frustration. Even for the fuck of his life he couldn't disobey a direct order. Unwillingly, he glanced back at Skye. Her mouth turned up in the half-smile that made him want to take her down to the floor and shove his tongue past her lips while his cock tunneled in and out of her cunt. He wanted to ride her so hard that the only smile she'd give him was soft and contented, not challenging or amused.

Fuck. Why couldn't he fall for one of the "nice" girls that his parents were always inviting over for dinner? Or at least one of the women who liked to hang out in cop bars and put out for guys wearing badges? Why'd his dick crave this particular woman?

Skye had them stop the car several blocks away from her apartment. "It makes the neighbors nervous when they see too many cop cars coming and going," she said as she gracefully slid from the unmarked.

"I'll contact you later today," Caldwell said, "for the report."

"Give me at least twelve hours to sleep."

Caldwell nodded, anxious to get away from Skye...anxious to get Rico away from her.

Skye's eyes met Rico's and darkened slightly. "See you around," she said before shutting the door and heading down the street.

He watched as she walked away. He wanted to follow her home and fuck her, then curl up around her body and sleep for twenty-four hours.

Shit. He couldn't take much more of this.

* * * * *

Skye rolled her shoulders in an effort to relax and let the events of the night fade. Even though she was physically tired, her body was tense, edgy.

She was changing. There was an underlying discontent now, a craving that hadn't been there before.

If she were like other women then she'd say it was her biological clock ticking. But she wasn't like other women. And it wasn't the urge to have children that made her restless, it was the urge to take a mate-or rather, two mates.

Skye wondered again about her origins. But she didn't attempt to search within herself. She'd long since learned that any attempt to explore the dark well of forgotten past sent shards of excruciating pain through her mind.

There were only vague, emotional memories of a happy time spent with a mother and two fathers, followed by the wrenching agony of separation, then later, the driving need to survive.

She'd had a computer hacker retrieve her records from the social services department. But there was nothing that she didn't already remember-she'd been found in a ghetto of Los Angeles at the age of five, a silent child with no history, no name.

Until she'd discovered the ability to hypnotize and sink into a self-induced state of being other, any attempt at speech had caused a sharp skull-piercing pain to rip through her mind.

She could speak now without the threat of pain but she still couldn't retrieve the memories. It hadn't mattered for a long time but now she feared that it soon would.

Her body was changing, making demands that her mind argued would be dangerous to her survival.

It had gotten worse since seeing Rico again. And that couldn't be a good sign.

For either of them.

A city bus passed and disappeared around the corner. A dark blue Yukon with tinted windows trailed behind it. Even out of sight, she could follow the progress of the bus. Its brakes squealed in the early morning air as it rolled to a stop. The engine strained when it accelerated again.

Skye rounded the same corner a few minutes later and had only an instant to take in the scene in front of her and react to it. The blue Yukon was alongside the curb. A man had his arm around a woman's neck, his hand over her mouth as he pulled her toward the car. She struggled wildly but without effect-he was three times her size, large and well-muscled.

Without hesitation Skye pulled the knife from its sheath on her leg. The man never saw her coming, only felt the sharp, excruciating pain as a blade cut deeply along his rib cage. He bellowed in rage and released the woman.

Skye crouched, completely focused on the man, ready for his charge. He took a step forward then stopped when the woman he'd been trying to abduct began screaming. Panic replaced the anger. He hesitated only a second longer then jumped into the Yukon. Its driver gunned the engine and took off. The car fishtailed around the corner. There was no time to get a license plate number.

The woman stopped screaming but couldn't seem to take her eyes off the bloody knife in Skye's hand. Skye slipped it back in its sheath as she said, "You okay?"

The woman nodded but she looked like the next loud noise would send her screaming down the street. "Angry boyfriend?" Skye asked.

"No. I didn't know him. I didn't know either of them."

Skye hated to ask, hated to lose the knife again, hated to think about being hauled into the police station for questioning but she offered anyway. "I live close to here. You can come in and call the cops."

The woman shook her head. "No. Please. No cops. I'll tell my boyfriend about it tonight."

Skye shrugged and felt a sliver of amusement creep in. Maybe for some women telling their boyfriends was enough. It wouldn't be for her. "Suit yourself."

When Skye started to walk away, the woman stopped her with a tentative touch on the arm. "Are you Skye Delano?"

Skye studied the woman for a long moment. She was small, petite, delicate, with short black hair and skin so pale it suggested that she didn't see the daylight very often. "Why do you want to know?"

The woman's free hand lifted to her necklace in a nervous gesture. "I was going to try and catch you at home. That's why I took the bus. I need your help. My sister's missing."

"And you are?"

"Haley Warren."

"Let's go to my apartment. You can tell me about your sister over coffee."

The woman offered a tentative smile along with a nod of acceptance and they traveled the short distance to Skye's apartment. There was only one room, with a tiny bathroom carved out of a wall. It was spartan, a place to sleep and eat, but not to live.

"How are you at making coffee?" Skye asked.

Haley smiled. "I've been a bartender, waitress, and short-order cook. Does that qualify me to make coffee for you?"

Skye laughed and felt at ease with her unexpected guest. She'd long ago learned to trust her instincts. "That'll do it. If you don't mind making some, I'd appreciate it. I've been running through the woods all night. I'd like to hit the shower before we talk."

"No problem. Take your time."

"Thanks. Coffee beans are in the freezer. Grinder is next to the coffeemaker." Skye waved her hand in the direction of the kitchen-or what served as the kitchen-a couple of appliances behind an L-shaped counter in one corner of the apartment.

She bypassed the sofa and chair, moved over next to the queen-size bed at the far end of the apartment, snagged some fresh clothes from the dresser before disappearing into the stamp-sized bathroom.

If she'd been alone she would have luxuriated in the hot stream of water then crashed. But those options weren't available to her now. So she took a quick shower, pulled on her clothes and went out to the couch.

A steaming cup of coffee waited for her on an end table, along with sugar and a small container of half-and-half. "You must have been one hell of a waitress," Skye said.

Haley's smile was quick and infectious. "I always made good tips." Then her smile faltered. "I don't know what you charge to look for a missing person, probably more than most waitresses can afford. I just want you to know, whatever you charge I can pay it. My boyfriend gives me money whenever I need it." She nervously touched the pendant on her necklace.

It was old and quite beautiful, the stone in the middle a deep, dark red. For an instant Skye felt pulled toward it-almost like a hypnotist's medallion. But then the sensation faded.

"Go ahead and tell me about your missing sister."

"Where do you want me to begin?"

"How long has she been missing?"

"Two months."

"Did you report it to the police?"

"No." Haley bit down on her lip. "Kyle, my boyfriend, has been looking for her." She began twisting the pendant.

Remembering her visitor's earlier reluctance to call the police, Skye said, "And he doesn't want you to call the cops?"

"It's not like they'd do much anyway." Haley's voice was defensive. But then something inside her seemed to collapse. "You might as well know all of it. Jen is eighteen. My parents live in Florida. She came out here about four months ago. She was hanging out with a friend, Amy Weldon, some hotshot senator's daughter. They were doing the club scene. At first I thought, okay, let her get it out of her system. I mean, I was like that when I was her age-fake IDs, hitting the bars, maybe saying yes to guys I should have said no to. It gets old after a while, especially if you don't have any money. And I knew Jen didn't have any money. I knew her friend Amy had to be paying for everything. So I thought she'd get tired of it and cut Jen loose." Haley stopped and looked at Skye for encouragement to continue.

Skye said, "Only she didn't."

"No, finally I said something to Jen about it. How could she mooch off her friend like that? She got pissed and said it wasn't my business but she'd tell me anyway. Amy's grandfather left her a pile of money and as soon as she turned nineteen she was going to be rolling in it, so Amy didn't care if she cleaned out her checking account now. She was going to be nineteen in a couple of weeks."

"Did your parents know Jen was out here?"

Haley looked like she was going to cry. "Yes. But they're real old-fashioned. I mean, real old-fashioned. They read the Bible every night. They go to church more than they go anyplace else. Vegas is Sin City to them. They won't step foot in it and they don't want to have anything to do with Jen or me until we repent and come back home on our own.

"I didn't blame Jen for not wanting to go back. But the more I saw her with Amy, the more worried I got. I thought maybe if Jen went back home, even for a little while, she'd chill out, find a different friend. So I called my parents and begged them to come out here and get her but they just started preaching about hell and damnation and repenting before my soul was lost for good. And then a week later Jen disappeared."

"And you don't think she left town?"

"No. She loved Vegas. And she would have told me if she was leaving."

"Have you talked to the friend?"

"Not since right after Jen disappeared. Amy was totally creepy about it."

"Why did you worry about Jen and Amy being together?"

"Have you ever been to a nightclub called Fangs?" Haley asked.

"No."

"Amy and Jen hung out there. It's for the Goth crowd. You know, Gothic. Vampires. That kind of thing. They were at the club every night. It was okay at first. I mean, that's the club Kyle and I go to. But then they started to get more and more into the scene. Finally Kyle fixed it so the bouncers wouldn't let Amy and Jen in anymore. He told me to stay away from them." Haley was twisting the pendant continuously now. "He's really protective of me."

Skye let the last comment pass. "Why did he want you to stay away from them?"

"Because Amy was really, really into the occult. And Jen started getting into it too."