Night Broken
Page 26

Second door on the left, she said.
The door was closed, and I opened it because it was less likely to take damage if it was me than if it was Adam. Werewolves break things like doorknobs. As soon as I opened it, the smell of urine and musk quadrupled. I glanced inside. It looked as though a giant dog had torn the room to bits, piled everything up in the middle of the bed, and peed all over it. Which might have been exactly what happened.
I shut the door quickly. Belay that plan, I said. Well find you some clothes at Honeys.
Its not fun watching someones life get ripped to bits. Lucia didnt ask what Id seen in the roomher nose, human as it was, could smell it, too. She just raised her chin and turned around.
Gary kept his eyes down, careful not to make eye contact with me or Adam, and led the way back through the house. I wondered what I would have seen in his eyes if hed let me look. Because he wouldnt have hidden his eyes just to avoid offending someone; coyotes dont run that way.
As soon as we were all outside, Adam surged to the front of our little parade. He rounded the end of the house, where the gate to the back had been ripped off and thrown to the side. The rest of the fence was a thick hedge, so it was impossible to see what was in the backyard until we were right on top of it.
Gary made a noise, but Lucia just walked into the middle of the bloody mess in her backyard and knelt beside her big white Amstaff and closed the dead dogs eyes.
There were ten chain-link kennels in the yard, taking up exactly half the space. Each had a doghouse with an extended roof that gave the dogs outdoor space and still had some protection from the weather. The other half of the yard was lawn, mowed to golf-course neatness.
It must have been neat and tidy, even pretty, before someone had killed all the dogs and left. The gates of eight of the kennels had been ripped off their hinges and thrown willy-nilly. Some of them could have been rehung with new hinges, but some of them were badly damaged. One had been crumpled into a ball.
In front of the kennels, eight dogs lay on their sides, each with a single deep wound that had laid open their necks. I recognized the dog that had put his head on my knee and blinked back tears.
I hate it when the dog dies at the end, said Gary, his voice tight. He slapped the chain-link wall of a kennel. I tore up my copy of Old Yeller and threw it away.
Lucia didnt flinch at the noise, just rubbed her dead dogs uncropped ears.
Adam gave me a sharp look, like there was something I wasnt seeing. I looked again and drew in a breath. The dogs were laid out, staged just like the women Guayota had killed. But this staging wasnt for us, there was a formality here, each dog in front of its kennel.
Innocent sacrifices.
I called Kyles number.
What? he asked. The foggy connection told me that he was on his Bluetooth connection and driving. He should have already been at Honeys.
Did the Canary Islanders sacrifice dogs to Guayota? I asked. And why arent you already at Honeys? The dead dogs and the state of Lucias bedroom made me sharper than I should have been.
First, said Kyle grumpily, we are very nearly at Honeys. Wed have left sooner if I hadnt had to figuratively hold the hands of one of my clients whose soon-to-be-ex wife called and said she was sorry for all the times she slept with other people and couldnt they reconsider their marriage. The answer to that one is no, by the way, because she darn near drove him to suicide once, and hes a good man and deserves better.
Okay, I said. What about the dogs?
I know they used to sacrifice goats to Achamn, he said. One of the guided tours we took mentioned it. I dont know anything more.
Thank you, I said. Ill see you both when we get to Honeys.
I looked at the dead dogs again. They still looked like sacrifices to me. Witches drew power from pain and suffering, but also from death. Gary had said that Guayota needed a source of power. There had been dead dogs among the bodies Id discovered out in Finley, too. But I didnt think Guayota had made sacrifices to himself.
I wasnt going to say it in front of Lucia, but I was pretty sure that what had killed the dogs had not been Guayota. Guayota could have killed them, could have twisted the gates off their hinges. But there was a possessive sort of territoriality in the destruction of Lucia and Joels bedroomwhatever had done it had been marking his territory. And none of the dogs had put up a fight.
Maybe Guayota could control dogs the way hed controlled the tibicena in my garage. But if he were going to kill something, I didnt think hed use a bladehed have used fire.
I mouthed Joel to Adam because no one else was looking at my face. His muzzle dropped, then rose in a nod. He agreed. Guayota had been here, there was no disguising his scent, but Joel had killed the dogs and desecrated his own house.
It was Adam who noticed that one of the two remaining kennels was occupied. He drew my attention to the kennel on the end, with an empty kennel between it and the dead dogs. I put my hand on the latch, and something growled from inside the doghouse.
Dont open that, said Lucia, her voice sounding hoarse as if shed been crying, though her cheeks were dry. Cookie is not very friendly with humans yet.
I pulled my hand back.
Cookie, come, she said. Good girl.
The dog in the doghouse didnt come, though she moved around, and her growl increased in volume and general unhappiness.
I suppose that for people who dont turn into a coyote, growls might all be the same. But not for me. This growl said, Im scared and willing to kill you because I think you are going to hurt me.
I raised an eyebrow at Adam. He whined softly, telling the dog that no one here was going to hurt her. It might have been more convincing without all of the dead dogs.
We need to get out of here, Laughingdog said, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. If he comes back, he might just finish the job.
He looked at me, and I saw that he was frightened and wanted nothing more than to leave us here and never come back. It wasnt cowardice, any more than the dog hiding in the doghouse was a coward.
This was an expression brought on by experiencean understanding that said bad things happened, and the best way to survive was to leave as quickly as possible. I dont know what his life had taught him to bring on that look, but I could tell he was holding on by a fingernail.
Cant leave any innocents behind, I told him. That would be wrong. And even if it werent wrong, it would be dumb. I think that the deaths of these dogs gave Guayota power. No sense leaving him another dog to kill.
Shes not coming out, Lucia said. She stood up. We got her three days ago. Humane Society got her because her owners neighbors turned him in for beating on his dog. She laughed, a sad, broken sound, as she looked down on her dog. I ranted for an hour after I saw her. Swore that if I could hit a button and destroy the human race, Id do it in a heartbeat. You know what my Joel said? He said, Nia, most people are good people. Take this dog. A lot of good people worked to save her. People noticed, they called the police. The police brought in the Humane Society, and they took herrisked getting bitten so that she could have a better life. Lots of people working to undo the work of one bastard. You know what that means? Lots more good people out there than bad.
It also means bad peoples works are stronger than good peoples, murmured Gary, but he spoke quietly. I dont think Lucia heard him.
While the people were talking, Adam had been talking, too. The dog, Cookie, had quieted, her growls becoming whines. I figured that Laughingdog had been right about needing to get out of here and that Adam had done enough to make it possible. I opened the cage and snagged a lead and collar from a hook on the front of the cage.
I sat down on the ground in front of the doghouse. Okay, Adam. Get her to come out.
He whined at her again and ended with something as close to a bark as werewolves get. She crawled out of the doghouse, and I found myself whining in sympathy.
She wasnt ever going to win any dog shows, wouldnt have even before someone had hit her hard enough to blind her on one side. She was a mutt. The German shepherd was pretty obvious in the shape of her head, but there was something else that gave her a heavier body. Malamute maybe. Maybe even some wolf.
She carried her head canted because of the blind eye, trying to see out of one eye and get the information shed gotten out of both. Her tail was down, not quite tucked, and she uttered little anxious growls until she saw me. Then she barked and drew her lips back from her teeth.
I stayed where I was.
I could see when her nose first cued her in that there was something odd about me. She froze, the snarls dying in her throat. Thats when Adam moved in and touched her nose with his.
It wasnt anything a real wolf or a human could have done. He used pack magic and let her feel the weight of his authority and the protection he represented. She leaned against him and sighed.
I stood up, slipped the collar on her and the lead, and she gave me no trouble, though she tried not to look at me more than she had to. Adam stayed with her. I looked at Gary, then down at Lucia, and he nodded, took her arm, and helped her to her feet.
We left the dogs bodies because we did not have time to bury them, though it felt to me as though we should have done something. But in times of war, the care of the dead is outweighed by the need for survival.
I opened the back door of the SUV, and Adam jumped in, followed by the dog. I released her leash as soon as she was in but watched to make sure it didnt snag anywhere until she settled. Adam hopped over the seat and lay down in the luggage compartment. The battered dog followed him and curled up on the opposite side of the SUV. She put her head down with a sigh, and I shut the door.
Gary had taken Lucia to her car. He held out his hand, and she put her keys in it with the same sort of sigh of surrender that Cookie had given.
He looked at me. Well follow you.
Because Lucia was occupied opening the door, I mouthed Do you have a license? at him.
He just gave me a wink and a sly smile and got behind the wheel of Lucias car.
9
Honeys house was farther out than Adams and mine. It was maybe a little bit bigger.
There is something to the clich that the older immortal creatures are wealthy. Not always, certainly. Warren was almost two hundred years old, and when I met him he was working at a Stop and Rob without two thin dimes to rub together. I didnt know how old Honey waswed never been that friendlybut Peter had had at least a couple of centuries, maybe more, and hed accumulated real wealth. Hed worked as a plumber for the past twenty or thirty years, and that hadnt hurt anything, either.
Honey had sold the business after his death and was talking about going back to school. She didnt need a job for money, but she needed something to dosomething more than random trips to visit prisons with me.
I pulled into her driveway, where there were already five or six cars including Kyles new Jag in the parking area in the front, so I drove around behind the house and parked by the pasture in back. Peter had been a cavalry officer, and hed kept his love of horses. There were two of them inside the fence. One had raised its head to watch me park, but the other one kept its head down, ripping up grass as fast as it could.
I let Adam and Cookie out, catching her leash as she exited. She looked more exhausted than aggressive now, and she waited by my side as Gary pulled in beside me. Adam gave me a look and hopped back into the SUV. Hed gotten out so that Cookie would, but he intended to change shape back to human before he went into the house.
Lucia was looking as though shed reached the end of her rope, so I decided to leave Adam to it.
Come on inside, I told them. Adam will join us in a minute.
Honeys house was stucco, as most upscale houses in the Tri-Cities are. In the dark, it looked white, but I knew that it was a pale shade of gray set off with dark gray trim. The rear-porch lights were on, so I led our procession to the back door into a mudroom.
I kicked off my shoes, and so did Lucia, who was only wearing sandals. She looked like a good, strong wind would blow her over. The dog was subdued, and I hoped shed stay that way until Adam got through changing.
Both of you stay here just a moment and take this. I handed the leash to Lucia. Ill go find Honey and see if she doesnt have a room to put you in. No sense in throwing you to the wolves tonight.
Joel is never coming back. Her voice was stark.
Too early to tell, Gary said. It doesnt look good, but saying its over before it actually is will make certain the outcome.
It sounded like he had matters in hand, so I went in search of Honey. I started toward the living room but heard noise upstairs; it sounded like cheering.
The whole upper floor of Honeys house was one room. She and Peter had used it for parties, but one wall was set up with a projection screen so it could be used as a theater. From the sounds I was hearing, she must have set up a movie or something I didnt hear a sound track or anything but the voices of various pack members saying things likelook at that jump, exactly as much effort as necessary and not an inch too high and triple tap, double tap, and hop.