He shot me a questioning look. "Greg tried to kill you."
"He couldn"t help himself," I explained. "The shifters aren"t used to having no alpha."
"But Esther isn"t trying to kill people, is she?"
"Of course not. Esther"s never been like the other shifters."
He fell silent for a moment before saying, "There was a funeral. It was quiet and rushed and better than he deserved. What he did to those shifter women was unforgiveable, no matter how his accomplices try to sugarcoat it."
"What happens to the shifters who helped him?" I asked.
"They will be imprisoned until their new alpha arrives and decides what to do with them."
"And if he"s like Mac?"
"Then he won"t get the option to decide."
"What about the women?"
"Many of them are in the clinic. Some are too feral to be taken care of in a normal hospital."
I felt apprehensive. "Where are they being taken care of?"
"Somewhere safer," he said. "The doctors caring for them are hopeful that the next alpha will be capable of bringing them to their senses before the babies are born."
I shivered. "The whole situation is sick."
"It"s opened the channels to something we didn"t know how to address," he said. "The shifters may be out of control, but some have come to us with names. We"re weeding out the monsters in the pack, and we will have justice."
The coldness in his tone chilled me. What kind of justice would he have wrought on me when he found out what I had done to him? The average person didn"t want to wake up to a mouthful of blood. n.o.body but a vampire wanted a mouthful of tainted blood.
When we arrived at the courtroom, a handful of protesters were waiting outside, holding up signs telling us we should exterminate the werewolves and the shifters before the end of days befell us.
Terry was guarding the door. He nodded at us. "Go right on in."
"Demon." An old woman spat at me. "You"re as bad as those murderous animals."
I recoiled from her hatred. I had ended the lives of many creatures in the war. Perhaps I really was the same as every bloodthirsty being I professed to hate. Except I didn"t hunt down the innocent, and I certainly didn"t wake up every day wanting to hurt anyone. So why let this woman make me feel less than anyone else? I"d had enough of that as a child. Something inside of me cracked. What happened to me being strong?
"That"s enough out of you," Terry said. "Don"t have me move you on again."
But I held the woman"s gaze as her companions cheered. "How are you any better? Spreading your hate and bitterness into the world because an ego the size of a mountain is telling you you"re always right. At least I"ve saved lives. At least I"ve helped people. What have you ever done?" I turned my back on the group and marched into the courtroom.
"Media training would help you ignore those types," Phoenix said as he followed me.
"Maybe ignoring them lets them get away with being ma.s.sive p.r.i.c.ks," I snapped.
"Or perhaps all they want is attention, someone to listen to their worries."
I gritted my teeth and took a seat at the front of the room. For a change, the Senate was already waiting, even Daimhn. She must have hurried to make it so soon after dark. A shiver ran down my back when the doors opened one last time. I didn"t have to look to know that Regis was behind me. Who the h.e.l.l keeps calling this guy?
Phoenix obviously agreed. He glared at the Senate. "This is a closed meeting."
"The paragons have a right to attend," Layla said apologetically.
"Unless there"s something you"d prefer to keep secret," Regis said in a smug tone.
"On the contrary," Phoenix said, his demeanour completely shifting. "I have good news."
Daimhn let a little sound escape that might have been relief. "What have you found?"
"You all know we were attacked by an unidentified being," Phoenix began.
"You were in hospital, I believe," Regis called out. "You must be very confused. Besides," he continued, "just because a werewolf attacked a creature who fought back in its escape doesn"t mean that creature is responsible for any of the murders."
I turned in my seat to give him a disgusted look. "Are you kidding me?"
Regis gestured toward me. "I thought this was a closed meeting. Why is the defected nephal always here?"
"Ava may be tainted, but she"s my witness," Phoenix said. "May I continue, or are you planning on interrupting every sentence? This could go on all night."
"Go on," Regis said, waving his hand as though he were the b.l.o.o.d.y queen.
"He is right," James said. "Just because you got in the way of a fight between a werewolf and something else doesn"t make the werewolves innocent."
Phoenix flexed his fingers. "I"ll start at the beginning then. We have searched all of the known crime scenes and come to some conclusions based on what we discovered. We found bones with strong bite marks on the farm with the missing cattle, and those marks do not resemble those made by werewolves. In that same location, we also found a patch of hair and skin that does not belong to a werewolf."
"It could belong to a cow," Daimhn said. "What of it?"
"The hair was a good match to that of the creature who almost killed me."
"That puts the creature at the farm," Callista said. "Killing cows isn"t quite the same crime as killing humans."
"Both murders happened in closed, tight locations that a werewolf would never attack in. And both bodies were dragged to a more-open s.p.a.ce afterward." Phoenix beckoned me forward. "My testimony of the attack may be easily dismissed, but Ava Delaney was there, too. She saw everything, and she delved into the belongings of an ancient hag to put a face to the name. Show them the book."
I handed the book to Willow, who grimaced. "It"s a wendigo," I explained. "Dangerous and violent, it can"t stop killing because it never feels satisfied. If it doesn"t have a master, then it"s all the more dangerous." I watched the expressions of the Senate turn to horror and revulsion as they pa.s.sed the book along. "They"re supposed to have been exterminated, but this is what attacked us, and this is a better candidate for the deaths than any werewolf I"ve ever seen. No matter what you think of the werewolves, we need to organise a search for this wendigo before anything worse happens."
I looked back to see the paragon"s reaction, but Regis was already gone.
Daimhn pushed aside the book in disgust. "I don"t need to see it. I already know what a wendigo is. I just never imagined it possible for one to turn up here." She leaned forward. "We must eliminate this threat as soon as possible."
"How are we going to find one creature in an entire country?" James asked.
"Shay can organise a search," Phoenix said.
"But the logistics of it will-"
"We don"t have a choice," Daimhn said briskly. "My vampires will help."
"I don"t think that"s a great idea," I said.
She glared at me. "Are my people not good enough to help now?"
"It might get messy with the werewolves there."
"The vampires could guard the surrounding areas, make sure that innocents don"t wander onto the wrong path," Callista offered.
Daimhn relaxed in her seat, appeased.
"What if the creature flees?" Willow asked.
"We"ll make sure we keep it contained," Phoenix said a.s.suredly. "Based on the attacks, this creature"s lair must be close by. We"ve come up with an approximation of its territory, and with Shay"s recruits and the werewolves, we"ll have a better chance of tracking the animal down."
"I just have one question," Layla said. "Did it come through the book?"
"I"ve no idea," Phoenix said. "All I know is that it"s dangerous and fierce enough to fend off a werewolf. Every group who searches must be accompanied by a werewolf to have any chance at success, and there may not be enough werewolves at that. We"ll need to call in reinforcements from all over the country to take on this search."
Willow glanced at the others before nodding. "I"m sure we"re all agreed that this is our priority right now. We may never know how this creature arrived, but it"s up to us to remove it. If it"s as awful as this book makes it sound-"
"It"s worse," Daimhn interrupted.
Willow cleared her throat. "Well, we"ll just have to find it before it causes any more damage. We"ll send for help tonight, and by tomorrow night, we should be ready to start the search."
I heaved a sigh of relief. Finally, the Senate had agreed on something sensible. As the Senate left to make arrangements, I noticed that Daimhn was accompanied by the female half of her shifter bodyguards.
"Hey," I said. "Where"s the other one? I have a bone to pick with him after he tried to get Val kidnapped by Mac"s disgusting little breeding program."
Daimhn"s lips twitched. "She beat him up and dragged him to Shay to be arrested."
I looked at the shifter woman for the first time, a little impressed.
"My sister ran from the pack," she explained. "They found her in those barns."
"Oh. Well, then. Good job," I said.
"I acted as my father would have, had he been alive. He was the last true alpha, before the fraud came with his magic tricks. The pack will destroy itself unless a true alpha leads us."
"Right," I said slowly. "Let"s hope a new one shows up soon."
She nodded then escorted Daimhn out.
Phoenix was in the middle of a conversation with Callista, so I decided to head home. Terry was still outside, and, thankfully, the protesters were gone.
"Werewolves are off the hook, I take it," he said.
I shoved my hands deep in my pockets. "We"ve a new monster to track down. A wendigo. The Senate"s organising a ma.s.sive search."
"I had an uncle who used to tell us horror stories about wendigo. Nasty things. My family will be up for helping in the search."
I smiled at him. "Your family is a pack of daredevils."
"Nah, we just live to drive Ma crazy."
I walked down the road and ruminated on the night"s events. The werewolves seemed to be in the clear. And if the Senate called in bodies from around the country, then surely, we would easily track down a solitary wendigo.
Gooseb.u.mps rose on my skin as I heard a growl, but a car pulled up next to me before I could decide if it was a wendigo or my imagination.
"Don"t you want a lift?" Phoenix asked from the driver"s seat.
"I"m fine. I could do with some air after a stuffy Senate meeting."
He narrowed his eyes at me. I was about to ask him what he was staring at when I realised he was looking behind me. "Did you realise you were being stalked by a pair of shifters?"
I blew out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank G.o.d! I thought it was the b.l.o.o.d.y wendigo!"
Phoenix stepped out of the car and addressed the shifters. They wore hoodies that covered their faces, but the scent of the shift was strong in the air. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"Not Senate business," one of the shifters said in a suspiciously growly voice. Greg likely hadn"t been the only one having trouble controlling his shifts.
"You know what? I think I"ll take that lift after all," I said breezily. "Let"s go, Phoenix."
We got into the car and left the shifters behind. "What"s that all about?" he asked.
"I told you-I"m an enemy of the pack now. Their focus on killing me is the only thing stopping them from turning animal completely. They can"t reach me in the cul-de-sac."
"Why on earth would you walk home alone when you know they"re out there?"
"Compared to the wendigo, I"m so not scared of the shifters. I"m keeping their minds off Esther. It works out."
He shook his head in disbelief. "If you say so. Get some rest tonight. We"ll have a lot to do tomorrow."
Hunting a wendigo was going to take a lot more than just a good night"s sleep.
Chapter Eighteen.
The Senate had been working hard, and on the morning of the big search, television stations, radio stations, newspapers, and blogs all warned the country to stay indoors that night. A wild wendigo wouldn"t exactly browse blogs, but if it had a master, we had just informed it of our plan.
All kinds of people were offering their services to the Senate in the hopes of tracking down the wendigo, from the brethni and Moses"s crew to the older children in the home, like Noah and Ari. Of course, I had high hopes that the latter"s help would be politely refused.
Phoenix turned up earlier than I"d expected. "Are we starting early?" I asked at the door.
"Shay and others like him are setting the search up as we speak. You and I need to make a quick stop first."