Kelley Armstrong - Otherworld Chills

Vanessa watched his back in silence as he tracked. He considered Changing to wolf form, but the trail was clear enough.

Too clear? That was the question.

Had Malcolm laid this trail for someone to follow? The only person who could follow it was a werewolf, and Malcolm wouldn’t suspect that one of the Pack had sent Tina after him. Werewolves didn’t hire outsiders to do their dirty work. He’d presume Tina was from the Nasts, so he just hadn’t worried about hiding his scent trail. Still, Nick kept an eye—and an ear—on his surroundings.

Eventually the trail led to an empty building, abandoned so long that it was impossible to tell what it had been. Maybe a small factory or even a school—a two-story rectangular box without a window left intact.

Nick glanced around the neighborhood. Not really a neighborhood so much as a piece of land with buildings on it, some homes, some commercial, some occupied, some not. At this hour, it was silent. He took one last listen and then led Vanessa through a doorway.

Inside, the only light came from the moon shining through broken windows.

“Can you see?” Nick whispered to Vanessa.

“Not well.”

He gave her credit for admitting it. “Stay close. If you can’t see me in front of you, let me know. I’d rather not use flashlights if we can help it.”

“If I need to, I have this.” She lifted her fingers and they started to glow.

“Then use it,” he whispered. “Better than tripping in the dark and making noise.”

“I know.”

There was no annoyance in her voice, but he murmured an apology nonetheless.

Even inside, Nick couldn’t tell what purpose the building had once served. Anything that could leave a hint had been stripped. It was all empty rooms. Well, not really empty—there was plenty of junk, but most of it seemed to have been brought in by squatters over the years.

Now, though, he could hear no signs of life. When he passed one room, he caught the scent of a corpse. A recent one. Human. Male. He smelled blood, too.

As they passed the room, Vanessa lit up her fingers and waved them inside, illuminating a corpse, sitting up, throat ripped out.

“Werewolf?” she whispered.

Nick didn’t answer right away. It was a classic werewolf kill, which made him slow to reply. It’s not easy to tear out someone’s throat when you’re in human form, so there was a moment where he wondered if it could be an animal’s work. But then he caught the scent, and when he moved closer, he found a few dark hairs caught in the man’s ripped flesh. Wolf fur. Malcolm had Changed form and cleared the building, scaring out those who would run and killing those who wouldn’t.

When Nick told Vanessa, she gazed down at the body. Not horrified but disgusted. Thoughtful too, before she turned to him and said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

She nodded at the body and then waved around the building, and he knew what she meant. Sorry that she’d thought he was exaggerating. Sorry that she’d underestimated Malcolm.

“Let’s find Tina,” he said.

She nodded and followed him out of the room.

They found a second body. A girl. Maybe seventeen. A street kid. She lay on her back, long sleeves ripped as if she’d tried to protect her throat as the wolf leapt on her. That death hit harder, and it took a moment to move on. When they did, Nick heard the whisper of fabric on concrete, so faint he thought he’d imagined it until he made Vanessa stop moving and he caught the noise again. It sounded like something being dragged across the concrete floor.

He followed the sound. They were on the second floor and the noise seemed to come from the middle. When he approached, his arm shot out to stop Vanessa. He motioned for her to light her fingers. She did and looked around. Ahead, part of the floor was missing, and they could see down to the first level … where a body lay in the middle of the room.

“Tina,” Vanessa whispered.

Nick caught her before she could move closer to the hole. She leaned and strained to see better.

Tina lay on her stomach. Drag marks led to a blood pool ten feet behind her.

“Is she …?” Vanessa asked.

He was about to say he couldn’t tell when Tina moved, one arm slowly reaching out as she propelled herself forward. That was the sound he’d heard—Tina dragging herself toward the door.

Vanessa exhaled. She started forward, but this time caught herself.

“It’s a trap, isn’t it?” Vanessa whispered.

Nick nodded.

“But we can’t leave.” She straightened. “I have an agent down. That’s my priority, above my own safety.”

She looked over, as if expecting him to argue. He didn’t. If it was a Pack brother, he’d do the same. He waved her back to the hall, where they could come up with a plan.

Leaving Tina was one of the hardest things Vanessa had ever done. Even if she knew she wasn’t abandoning her, that’s what it felt like. Her agent—her friend—was lying in her own blood, badly injured, and Vanessa had walked away.

She’d screwed up here worse than she ever had before. It didn’t matter if Rhys had refused to let Nick take over. It didn’t matter if Vanessa had warned Tina off and called Jayne in to assist. She did not accept excuses from her team and she would not make excuses for herself. Whatever had happened to Tina—whatever was happening now—it was Vanessa’s fault.

Nick stayed upstairs to stand watch over Tina and to avoid spreading his scent through the building. She had to struggle to factor scent into the equation. It required a bigger mental leap than she would have imagined. A werewolf could track his prey, no matter where she ran. A werewolf could smell someone nearby, even if they were silent and hidden. A werewolf could recognize another by scent. Thinking that way was as normal for them as using her built-in flashlight was for her.

Rhys had a werewolf on the team, and Vanessa had prided herself on thinking she knew all about them because she’d once spearheaded a huge operation with him. Now she realized that was as ridiculous as saying you understand another culture because you have one casual friend from it.

As she continued across the first floor, she didn’t detect anyone else around. She kept her gun in one hand, the fingers on her free hand lit, not just for light but to jump-start her powers if Malcolm leapt at her from the shadows. That’s what he seemed to have done to Tina. Werewolves didn’t use guns—even the one on Rhys’s team balked at it. According to the Nast file, Malcolm had refused to use anything but fist and fang. They’d send him out with a gun or blade, only to find he’d left it behind, as if even carrying a weapon spoke of weakness.

So Vanessa kept moving, as quickly as she dared, poised for attack. As she turned a corner, she heard a scratching sound. She wheeled, her back to the wall, gun ready.

She continued, inching along the wall now, struggling to check her speed. The sound grew louder. Vanessa moved to the open doorway and stopped.

There was Tina, sprawled on the floor, a few feet farther from that puddle of blood. One arm was outstretched to drag herself along, but only her fingers moved, scratching the concrete floor as if her strength was gone and she was too far into shock to realize the futility of it. Vanessa gripped the wooden doorjamb so hard she smelled smoke. She only gripped harder, struggling not to race into the room.

That’s what he wants. You see her there, dying, and run to her .

Now came the time for faith. To trust that a man she barely knew would watch her from above.

She walked forward with her gun out, fingers blazing, knowing that was still not enough to save her from Malcolm. Only Nick could do that. She had to walk into the middle of that floor, an open target.