LITMIR.BIZ

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killed his brother. It was her fault. All witches were alike. They had to be burned. Burned…

      Feeling his hands clutched in fists, he unwound them. The pressure in his head hurt. He had to get himself cool. Hold back. Wait…

      Hunters needed to be patient. Wolves needed to be patient.

      Pressing the fingers of his left hand to his forehead, he rubbed hard. He was afraid he would be noticed by the young couple but their words were growing more and more heated. They couldn’t see past their own stupid problems.

      He closed his eyes. A tremor ran through him. The pounding in his head felt like a growing beat throughout his whole body. Oh, how he wanted her. The witch. He was going to make her pay for what she’d done. He was going to mount her over and over again and then he was going to burn her. That’s what it took to destroy a true witch. Burning. Sending them back to hell. Their birthplace. He’d killed before but she…she was the one he hated most. He’d almost lost her, but then had found her again.

      The bus came and the couple climbed on board. He moved away, shading his face in the afternoon shadows, his hair covered by a watchcap, his shoulders hunched. On the side of the hospital where the laurel bushes grew high, he crouched into a corner. Several younger nurses walked toward their cars. He watched them in their pastel green pants and tunics, their crepe-soled shoes, pretending to be so clean. So tidy.

      But it was all a lie.

      He stared and stared.

      They were all like her. Soulless. Seductive. Raging inside with Satan’s fire.

      One of the nurses unlocked a champagne-colored Honda three cars down from his. For a moment he saw her ringed by a fiery areola. A witch. Not as powerful as the one who lay in the hospital; no one was, any longer. Not since that first mother-witch. But this one was a witch, nonetheless, hiding herself in her clean clothes when he could smell the rotted flesh underneath.

      The stench filled his head and he turned and walked quickly to his own car. He would follow her. Find her. Cut her down. Make her shriek and beg.

      Hunger transformed his face into an urgent mask of desire.

      He was the wolf again.

      And wolves killed witches.

      Chapter Three

      Will stepped out of Gemma’s room, then stopped in the hall outside and looked back through the still open, handicap-sized doorway. In his line of vision was a chair, the end of the bed and the window drapes. He couldn’t quite see the hump of Gemma LaPorte’s feet, nor was there anything he could view that gave a hint of who she was and why she’d ended up at Laurelton General.

      Someone wasn’t playing straight with him. Gemma LaPorte wasn’t playing straight with him.

      “Officer?” a young nurse asked him, and he turned to give her his attention. “Um, Billy’s waiting for you in the ER? The EMT who saw her come in? Nurse Penny told me to make sure you knew.”

      “Thanks.”

      Will headed toward the stairway. Laurelton General was stair-stepped down the north face of a bluff, its levels ranging from two below street level with windows that only faced north, to three above. Will pressed the down button to take him from four to three, which was street level, then he walked briskly down a wide hallway that angled toward the south end and the ER.

      The place was quiet at five p.m., but he doubted it would be for long. It was early October under a full moon. The old superstition about behavior changes at the time of a full moon seemed to hold true. Bad behavior, and just plain odd behavior, prevailed. If anything weird was going to happen, it most certainly did beneath a full moon, and teenagers especially seemed to be affected, at least in Will’s experience. They drove too fast and drank and smoked things they shouldn’t, not giving a damn what the adults thought.

      Live fast and die young.

      Will’s brother had lived by that credo…and died by it as well. Sophomore year, home from college for Thanksgiving, and a wild, drunken party at a friend’s parents’ house had resulted in Dylan’s jumping off the roof into the pool. His leap to the water had fallen short, landing him on the cement apron surrounding the pool.

      A year younger, Will had been dinking around through his freshman year when Dylan’s death occurred. It had stunned him hard and eventually helped turn his interest to first law, then criminology. Barely out of school, Will had taken a position with the Winslow County Sheriff’s Department as little more than a gofer. He’d meant for it to be short term. He’d had bigger plans. Law school. A master’s program. Something far away from his widowed mother, whose grip on reality loosened after Dylan’s death. But Will hadn’t been able to leave either her or Laurelton. Years went by, and he ended up staying way longer than he would have ever credited.

      He also ended up in a relationship with Dylan’s ex-girlfriend, Shari, which was detrimental to both of them. It only took six months for Will to realize it was a huge mistake; it took eight years to convince Shari of the same. To this day she sometimes showed up unexpectedly at his small, ranch-style house on the outskirts of Laurelton, to throw a scene and collapse into racking sobs. Neither Shari nor his mother had moved past Dylan’s death. For years, Will had unknowingly enabled their behavior. These days, he avoided Shari at all costs, and his mom’s descent into dementia had necessitated hiring a live-in caretaker for her. In some ways it felt to Will like he was slowly waking from a long sleep. He liked his job but he was itching to move on.

      He needed something to happen. Something.

      His cell buzzed and he glanced at the LCD: Barb Gillette, his partner, a transfer from Clackamas County. Will grimaced as he answered. She had a thing for him. He knew it; she didn’t try to hide it. And yes, they’d even spent a few nights out together, though not recently. It was a fine balance for Will as he wanted to keep their working relationship on an even keel, while Barb constantly fought to take it to another level.

      It was all probably going to come to a head. Some ugly, future, unavoidable scene. Ah, well.

      “Tanninger,” he answered shortly.

      “Hey, handsome. What’s the verdict? She the mad pedophile-rammer?”

      “Maybe.”

      “Don’t tell me. She stares at you with big doe eyes and swears she’s innocent.”

      He grunted.

      “Seriously, do you think she did it?” Barb asked.

      “Too early to tell. Definitely a lot of signs point to that direction, but she doesn’t remember the accident.”

      “Convenient.”

      Will thought about Gemma LaPorte and wondered. There was a lot more going on with her than she was letting him see. He finished his call with Barb, clicked off, then pulled a small notebook from his pocket. Flipping it open, he entered the gray-and-green-striped ER waiting room, with its club chairs backed against the walls and nestled in front of the windows to the parking lot. Billy Mendes was the EMT who had seen Gemma LaPorte walk unaided into the ER area. Will had left word that he wanted to speak to anyone who might have witnessed that inauspicious event and Billy had finally gotten the message and let the hospital know.

      “I”m looking for Billy Mendes,” Will said to a rather doubtful looking aide holding a clipboard. “He’s an EMT who has information for the sheriff’s department.”

      “Oh.” She chewed on her lip, furrowed her brow and gazed down at her clipboard. “I don’t think he’s here.”

      “I was just told he was waiting for me.”

      “Really? Huh…” She glanced behind her to an officious-looking woman in hospital garb. “Lorraine, is Billy still here?”

      “He left.”

      “Um…there’s a policeman…er…sheriff’s guy here for him…?”

      Lorraine

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