Karen Whiddon - One Eye Open

Brenna froze, sensation overwhelming her. The interior of this place smelled strongly of fear, of blood and death, like a hunt gone brutally wrong. She wanted to cover her nose, so nauseated did the scent make her. The odor of evil hung in the air so strongly she thought she might be sick. More than anything, she wanted to break away, lunge for the door and run. But she was a huntress, strong not weak. Though her sense of smell was ten times more powerful than a human’s, she would force herself to stay.

She breathed, though each lung full of air felt cloying, full of decay and hate. She swallowed, tasted bile and concentrated on not being weak. Nothing, not the hunting rituals of the Pack, nor any of the limited television shows she watched, had ever prepared her for the carnage here.

Mindless savagery. Hate. Pure evil.

It felt surreal and simultaneously more real than any experience had ever felt. She despised every minute, wishing she were somewhere, anywhere, else.

Three sheet-covered bodies lay in front of the long, paneled counter. One man, probably the coroner, knelt beside the nearest one, making notes. Quiet sobbing came from a group of people clustered in the back.

“Tellers and other customers, most likely,” Carson told her, sotto voce. “The ones who survived to tell their stories to the police.”

Heart in her throat, Brenna managed a nod, trying to hide her trembling. Though hunters by nature, her people did not believe in mindless violence or senseless slaughter.

Two uniformed locals intercepted them.

“DEA,” Carson said again, touching the brim of his cap. They looked at Brenna, eyed her jacket and relaxed their stances. One, a younger man, met her gaze and blanched. Some humans always reacted so to one of the Pack.

“Where’s the FBI?” the shorter of the two officers asked, his tone disapproving. At Carson’s shrug, he grimaced and moved aside to allow them access to the witnesses.

Striding across the room as if they belonged, they moved into the edge of the group surrounding the survivors.

Then she smelled it, mingled with the acrid, coppery scent of blood. His scent—faint, but definitely Alex. She felt an instant of panic. Was he hurt? She nearly turned to Carson, then, remembering he was not like her, glanced casually around the room instead.

There. A faded jean jacket lay crumpled on the floor next to the wall, splattered with blood. It carried her brother’s scent. She would have to inspect it, smell it better and touch the cloth before she could determine if the blood belonged to him.

Carson’s hand on her shoulder kept her in place.

An older, heavyset woman, bright spots of color high on her pale cheeks, talked quietly. “The leader was a tall man, built like a wrestler or something. Muscular, and he liked to show those muscles off, I think. Despite the weather, he didn’t wear a shirt or coat, only a black leather vest. And jeans.”

The officer taking notes nodded. “Any other distinguishing characteristics, ma’am?”

“His hair was long—longer than mine. Oh—and he had a tattoo.”

Carson looked at Brenna. She knew he was thinking of Alex’s birthmark, shaped like a wolf.

“Tattoo?” she asked, keeping her voice professionally level. “What did it look like?”

Eyes wide, the woman waved one plump beringed hand. “Oh, it was very intricate, some sort of curly snake thing, evil looking, that wrapped all the way up his arm.”

Not Alex’s birthmark. With an effort, Brenna kept her relief from showing on her face.

“Hades’ Claws.” One of the troopers muttered to another. “It’s their mark.”

Carson gave Brenna a narrow-eyed look, and she saw that he already knew about this tattoo. Again she wanted to open her mouth, to tell him Alex would never defile himself like that, but too many others surrounded them, so she held her silence.

“Eye color? Hair color?”

Ah, now was the important part. Brenna held her breath.

The woman didn’t hesitate. “Dark eyes. Brown, I think. And that hair, why it was so inky black it didn’t reflect the light. It had to be dyed.”

Another officer had begun to question two more tellers, who responded with similar answers to the first. Carson watched and listened, intent on their answers.

Brenna had heard enough. Glancing around the brightly lit interior of the bank, she wondered at the creepy feel of it, as though the room had taken on a texture both clean and sharp, yet tainted and foul. She ran her hand along the faux wood surface of a desk, the smoothness an odd contrast to the rough menace that still hung in the air.

Moving as unobtrusively as possible, she went to the jacket and lifted it, resisting the urge to bury her nose in the cloth and breathe in the familiar scent. Carson made no move to stop her, though she could feel his watchful gaze boring into her back. Instead she held the coat a few feet away, inhaled deeply and breathed.

Another’s smell tainted the material, mingling with and overriding her brother’s. This other man, a human who had left the sharp smell of anger and fear embedded in the fabric, had worn it recently. Though it might once have belonged to Alex, someone else had worn it here. With a quiet sigh, she let it fall back to the floor and turned to rejoin Carson.

Something else…Teasing her sensitive nose, the scent came strong, alive instead of dead. Not human nor of the Pack. She stopped before reaching Carson, carefully looking around. A high-pitched whimper from under a nearby desk caught her attention. Crouching down to peer underneath, she let her breath out in a quiet hiss. A tiny black puppy of mixed heritage, eyes huge and frightened, stared up at her from the floor, shaking.

Here, then, was something she understood, one in many ways closer to her kind than the myriad assortment of humans inside this place. Still kneeling, Brenna held out her hand, letting the small creature absorb her scent before she reached out to stroke the softness of his midnight-colored fur, noticing the contrast of his white paws.

Touching the animal, Brenna felt a sensation of noise and terror. She shivered with the aftershocks of what the small creature had experienced and even now still felt. This young dog had been with his human companion when he died. Glancing at the sheeted bodies, she received a brief image of love, burst apart by a single gunshot to the head. The noise, the blood, the hatred, had terrified this young animal. Grieving and fearful, he was alone now.

Without a second thought, Brenna scooped him up in her arms. “I will be your protector now, small one,” she promised, whispering the ancient words that had always bound her people to their animal companions.

“Has anyone viewed the tapes?” Carson asked the nearest officer.

“Not yet.” The cop indicated another man, a plainclothes detective from the looks of him. “We were waiting for him.”

“He’s here, let’s go,” Carson barked.

The other two men conferred, then moved toward a darkened back office. Carson signaled Brenna to follow. Head held high, she did, the pup cradled in her arms, trying to burrow under her jacket.

“Where’d that dog come from?” one of the local officers asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

She lifted her chin to reply. “He was under the desk. I think he might have belonged to one of the victims.”

The officer gave her a skeptical frown. “Do they allow pets in here?”

“Who cares?” the detective snapped. “Let’s go.”

With the lights dimmed, they had already set up the equipment to play the security tape.

“Ready?” At the collective nod, he hit Play. Grainy images began to move on the monitor as the horrifyingly brutal robbery was reenacted in black-and-white.