Blood Ties: The First (A Bane Pack Novel)

Conor and Kendra had been driving for about twenty-five minutes enveloped in an uncomfortable silence. She was still in shock, her mind refusing to process the insanity of everything that just happened. She stared out the window blankly most of the time, but every now and then her eyes would drift to the back, to the canvas tarp that Merle’s body (your father’s body! her mind yelled) was wrapped in. Then she would start to cry again. Too much had happened and she didn‘t know if she could ever bring herself back to who she‘d been. Conor didn‘t talk either, but his face held a look of quiet rage.

She felt swallowed by the riot of emotions still flooding through her. She tried to control them, to sweep them out of her mind like so much garbage, but they were persistent. She found her eyes traveling back to the tarp again and again. She already missed him. She missed the comfort of his presence. She missed his laugh and his personality.

She tore her eyes away from the back of the Jeep, wiping a hand across them. Then she turned to Conor.

“What happened back there? What were those…those…things?” she asked, finally breaking the silence. She felt tired and worn out.

“You’ve had enough shock for one day I think,” he responded.

She felt a surge of anger hit her. Her eyes narrowed and Conor saw them flash with cold, amber fire at him.

“Don’t do that,” she told him. “I’m not a child. Tell me what the hell is going on. I need to know I’m not crazy. You need to explain.”

He glanced at her and saw that her anger was gone, replaced with desperate need. He broke down.

“You’re not crazy,” he said. “It was real.”

“So Merle really changed into that…wolf?” she asked, hesitatingly. In her mind, she saw a brief flash of the massive grey beast. She had to suppress a shudder. “How did he do it?”

“Because he was a werewolf,” Conor replied. There was no joking around to his voice. She could tell that he was being completely serious.

Kendra opened her mouth to speak, couldn’t find the words, and then shut it again. Her mind whirled with that one simple fact. Werewolf. Fear bubbled in her like an icy wave as she really thought about what that meant. Things clicked into place. Her enhanced senses, speed, strength and reflexes. The changes to her physical appearance. Her nearly animalistic behavior.

“Since he was a werewolf, that makes me a…a…werewolf too?” she asked, her voice stuttering and dying out. All the old horror movies flashed across her mind. She saw herself in them, a mindless predator that killed anything in its path. “I don’t want to be that!” Her voice was shrill, nearly a scream. “I don’t want to be a killer.”

“We’re not killers,” Conor snarled. His voice was full of fury and rage. His eyes were glowing a strange amber color and he was growling. “We’re not mindless beasts either.”

She shrunk away from him, pressing herself up as close to her door as she could get. When he saw her, cowering as far away from him as she could get, a look of embarrassment crossed his features and his eyes first dimmed and then returned to their usual brown color. He looked at her with genuine concern.

“I’m sorry,” he told her and she relaxed a bit. “That’s a touchy subject with a lot of us.”

She decided then that the awkward silence wasn’t so bad and retreated into it. She wrapped herself in that silence like it was an impenetrable shield. It seemed like a much better idea than listening to a madman’s explanations. Werewolves? Yeah, right. There was no such thing as werewolves. They were Hollywood movie monsters, nothing more.

Except Merle did change. And then there was the other one. He had to have been a werewolf too.

Stop it! she yelled at herself.

But she couldn’t stop. She wanted to. She just couldn’t. Tendrils of dread flew around her stomach the more she realized the truth of what Conor told her. It got so bad that she had to force herself to take several deep, calming breaths to avert a full blown panic attack.

Sometime later, Conor came to a hidden drive and turned onto it. A minute or two after that, he stopped in front of a stout gate of wrought iron anchored to two ten foot high brick walls. Conor got out of the car and headed up to the gate. She could see him talking into a monitor embedded into the brick wall. He gestured at the gate one last time and then ran back to the Jeep. As soon as he was back behind the wheel, the big gates opened up. He drove the car through and continued down a long road with stately trees lining either side. Each tree was lit up by its own little spotlight and the overall effect was actually quite breathtaking. Soon after the trees were behind them, Conor pulled into a circular drive with a beautiful fountain at its center.

Kendra stared ahead, a slight gasp coming out of her. Her fear was swallowed up by the massive, looming structure in front of her. It was a huge and sprawling mansion, a Châteauesque-style building with abundant towers, spires and steeply pitched roofs.

She looked at it a second longer, her mouth agape in open amazement.

“Is this is your mansion?” she asked, turning to look at Conor.

“Not exactly,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

Kendra frowned slightly, but didn’t bother arguing with him. She was exhausted, drained both physically and emotionally. It was hard enough to get out of the car, let alone fight with Conor. She followed him up the wide stairs to the mansion’s front doors. He opened them with no hesitation and disappeared inside. She followed after him, taking a minute to ask herself what she was getting into first.

It was dark inside and she had to wait a second for her eyes to adjust. It didn’t take nearly as long as it should’ve. The darkness seemed to brighten steadily, the world coming into sharp, contrasting focus.

Something suddenly screamed a warning at her and Kendra’s arm lashed out, grabbing hold of Conor’s shirt. She tugged him back so that he stood next to her.

He turned to look at her, confused.

“What are…,” he started to ask.

Kendra hissed at him to shut up. He growled and clenched his fist but complied. She sniffed, her nostrils wide. Scents poured into her, each one categorized and filed away in her mind. One scent, however, struck a note of terror inside her and, she realized, was what triggered her alarm. It was the powerful, musky odor of some kind of big animal.

Correction, animals!

| | | | |

“Jenna!” she heard Felix scream a warning, but it was way too late. The she-wolf was already through the door and bounding forward, teeth bared in a horrifying snarl. A huge growl burst from it, loud enough to hurt her ears. She stumbled back, clawing her way through her apartment’s front hallway as fast as she could, trying to put some distance between herself and the monster coming for her.

Dimly, she saw Felix in the background, coming through the door, a look of fear, mixed with grim determination on his face. She was extremely glad that he was there.

She looked back at the giant wolf coming down the hallway. It was padding slowly toward her now, playing with her. She thought she could even see a half-crazed smile on its canine mouth. A torrent of things sped through her mind, but it was all swallowed by a single thought.

Survive.

She was sliding past the bar attached to the kitchenette. She stopped there and waited for the monster, her heart beating a rapid rhythm in her chest.

Like war drums, she thought to herself.

She watched it carefully.

Just a few more seconds. She thought to herself, rather calmly.

The wolf hesitated slightly and cocked its head to one side, glancing at its prey with open curiosity. By all accounts, the human girl should be frightened to near immobility. But she wasn’t. The she-wolf didn’t know how to handle prey that didn’t behave like it should. It seemed to shrug off its worries though and continued toward Jenna, gaining speed again.

“Come get me, bitch!” Jenna shouted with a voice full of strength and power. She slammed a fist down on the side panel beneath the bar’s counter, triggering a hidden release. It popped open to reveal a slew of weaponry. All of it was deadly, and all of it was made from pure silver. She grabbed the first thing within easy reach, a fully loaded crossbow. She had it out and aimed in the blink of an eye, but the wolf was faster. In the time it took her to grab the crossbow, the wolf had already lunged, its mouth gaping hugely. Jenna pulled the trigger, but she knew it was useless now. Even if she managed to kill the thing in mid-air, its momentum alone was going to carry it into her and crush her to the floor.

The thing howled with pain. Jenna heard a faint sizzling sound. A burnt-hair smell invaded her apartment.

She was right. The wolf was still coming at her, a bolt lodged in its right shoulder. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the impact.

A sudden gust of wind ripped through her apartment from no apparent source. It smashed into the wolf with enough force to break bones and send it crashing through a wall. The noise was horrifyingly loud. There were a few more crashes and then things settled down. Jenna listened for the wolf but there was only silence.

“Sorry,” Felix said as he stepped fully into the apartment.

Jenna looked up at him. He still had a hand thrust forward and beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. Around his out-thrust hand was a mini-cyclone.

“I’m still new at this.” He smiled shyly at her.

“Well next time, let’s try to make it a little less close. The damn thing nearly ripped my head off,” Jenna responded teasingly, a small half-smile on her lips.

She winked at Felix, tossed the crossbow, and grabbed a pair of silver short swords from the open panel still sticking out from the bar. She whirled them both and then climbed through the hole the wolf made in the wall. A cloud of dust still clogged the air.

The hole led into the apartment’s roomy spare bedroom. She glanced around. Most of the furniture inside was shattered. The bed in there had been pulverized and looked like the most likely spot the enormous wolf had crash landed. Both night stands were totaled, and the dresser on the opposite wall was splintered, most of its drawers lying broken on the floor.

But there was no wolf.

Jenna instantly tensed up, scanning the room. Felix walked inside a second later and stood behind her.

“Where’s the werewolf?” he asked, his voice cracking with fear.

“I don’t know,” Jenna replied.

She held her swords lightly in both hands, blades parallel with her legs. She took a few steps forward, putting her directly in front of the closet. The minute she was, the door exploded outward, splinters of wood flying through the air.

Jenna jerked her face back, covering it with an arm.

The wolf crashed into her with all the force of a stampeding rhino and smashed her to the floor. She felt her right arm explode in pain, the bone giving out with an audible crack. The sword in that arm went flying out of her hand, but she managed to slash at the thing’s face with the other one before those huge jaws could snap shut on her throat. She heard the sizzling sound again, like meat frying on a hot skillet. The smell of burning fur once again invaded her nostrils. The wolf howled with pain and rage.

Jenna slashed at it again, but it nimbly dodged the attack. Its head flashed forward and all she could see was its sharp teeth. She tried again to slice at it with the sword, but it was ready for that now. It swatted the blade away with one of its ridiculously huge paws, taking away her last remaining weapon and leaving her defenseless.

Jenna struggled to get away from it, but it had her legs pinned to the ground and she couldn’t really move. Her broken arm throbbed and her good one wasn’t strong enough to help her get out of this mess.

“Felix!” she screamed. “A little help here!”

The wolf seemed to leer at her for a second and then it went in for the kill. Jenna shut her eyes. She didn’t need to see what was about to happen. A couple seconds went by and nothing did, so she tentatively opened them again. The wolf’s face was literally an inch away from hers. It was struggling madly to get at her, its jaws flashing and snapping on empty air. No matter what it did, though, it couldn’t get past… whatever it was that was keeping it away from her.

She glanced past the wolf and saw Felix standing there with his face set into a mask of concentration. He had one hand stretched toward them, fingers splayed but slightly crooked. In between the wolf and herself was a disk of condensed air about three feet in diameter. Every time the wolf came at her, it hit the disk and rebounded off like it was super-durable glass. Felix shouted loudly, his open hand suddenly clenching into a white-knuckled fist. The disk started to expand and warp. It lurched hesitatingly through the air to cover the wolf, molding and flowing over it like Saran wrap.

As the wolf realized what was going on, it went berserk. It shook its giant head, trying to throw off the super-condensed air Felix was continuing to wrap it in. It broke more stuff in its useless efforts.

Jenna backed away as soon as the thing had gotten off her legs and was now on the opposite side of the room. She had her arm cradled against her stomach, trying to ignore the burning pain pulsing from it. Her back was to the wall and her legs were lying in front of her.

She slowly managed to stand up but wobbled slightly as a bout of dizziness hit her. After it passed, she collected her swords. Her right arm hung uselessly, but her left was still whole and strong. She walked cautiously over to Felix, giving the struggling wolf a wide berth.

“How long can you keep that up?” she asked, almost conversationally. She sounded like she was chatting him up at the grocery store.

“I’m already starting to get weaker,” Felix gasped. She could see him breathing hard, and his left eye was starting to look a little bloodshot.

Damn that thing is tough, she thought. She knew Felix was a beginner in the whole magic biz, but he was extremely strong for a newbie. If he was having that much trouble, then the bitch-wolf had a ton of strength herself.

Probably blood-crazed, she thought to herself. They’re always stupid strong when they’re blood-crazed.

She stalked toward the werewolf struggling against the binding Felix had it under. It was shifting now between the wolf and the woman she’d been at the start of this whole thing, only pale and naked. Her clothes were still at the front door in a careless, shredded heap.

“Hurry!” Felix shouted, his scream trailing into something that almost sounded like pain.

Jenna ran toward the wolf but before she could reach it, Felix’s binding suddenly shattered apart.

Jenna dove forward, sensing that her opportunity was about to evaporate. She slashed a sword through the air in a long, silvery arc. The woman shifted again, but howled in pain as Jenna’s sword found its mark. The wolf whirled on her so fast, she couldn’t do anything about it. It lashed out with a huge paw and knocked her through the air. She crashed into the wall with a horrifying thud. She didn’t get back up.

Felix faced the wolf now, gulping noticeably. He waved a trembling hand in the air, causing a shimmering half-dome of the same super-condensed air to form. The wolf growled in rage and then ran full out, but not at them. It reached a big window on the opposite side of the room and jumped at it. There was a loud crash and then it was gone.

Felix let out a harsh breath of relief and ran to Jenna, checking to see if she still had a pulse. She did. It was strong so he knew she’d be okay. He got up and ran to the broken window next.

There was no sign of the werewolf.

His legs felt weak and rubbery and he almost collapsed to the ground.

Jenna starting to coming around and was groaning weakly. She reached up a hand and rubbed the back of her neck.

“Did we get it?” she asked, smiling somewhat. Felix shook his head and helped her up.

She stumbled slightly.

“Whoa,” he said, holding her steady. “Easy. You took a major hit to that hard head of yours.”

“I’m fine.” And she was. She was getting steadier so Felix let go of her.

“We got a problem, Jen.” He looked around the room pointedly. There didn’t seem to be anything left intact. Dust still hung in the air. Bits of jagged wood and warped metal littered the floor. Along with the giant hole, there was now a deep dent in the wall to the right of the closet with cracks radiating out from the middle.

“We’ll handle it,” she responded, easily enough.

“But if Kendra…,” he started to say, but Jenna cut him off.

“We’ll handle it,” she said again.

She walked into the kitchen, rather stiffly Felix noted, and grabbed the phone. She laid it on the counter and punched in the numbers with her left hand. She put it up to her ear and waited. A couple of rings later, someone picked up. She explained what happened in quick, short sentences. When she told the whole story, she said what she needed and hung up.

An hour later, there was a knock on the door. Jenna went and opened it, stifling a yawn. The vacancy the adrenaline left behind made her feel worn out and tired.

“Wait,” Felix said, grabbing hold of her trailing arm. She glanced back at him with one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised, but he didn’t explain himself. She saw his dark brown eyes flash electric blue for a split second and then he released her.

“Okay. It’s them. I just wanted to be sure.”

“Good thinking,” she told him, with a wink. He smiled with pleasure.

Jenna resumed her trek to the door and opened it. Her father stood in the hallway with John Price and Willie Stiles. John was a shorter guy, but built with a lot of muscle. His bald head gleamed in the overhead lights from the ceiling. Willie was tall, dark-skinned and built whipcord thin. He smiled at her, wide and inviting.

“Heard you had an uninvited stray,” he joked. “But don’t worry, we come with gifts.”

“Yeah?” she asked, joining in the joking. “What’d you bring the spoiled rich girl?’

“Little bit of this, little bit of that,” he responded. “You know how your daddy is.”

“Enough,” Elijah responded, his voice grim and rough.

She could see his anger, but buried beneath it was a deep worry that really seemed to take its toll on him. He looked a bit older than he should have, maybe even a little less distinguished as well.

“Daddy,” she said, giving him a hug. He returned it with thoughtless strength, holding onto her a little too long, as if to reassure himself that she was still there. She winced as her broken arm flared up with pain.

“How bad did it hurt you?” Elijah asked, his voice thick with worry and concern. He pulled away from her and looked her up and down, trying to see if she was hurt worse than she’d said on the phone.

“I’m fine. It’s just a broken arm. I‘ll get it taken care of later,” she responded. “Right now, we need to hurry. I don’t know when Kendra will be back.”

“We’ll get it taken care of now,” Elijah said, sternly. He turned to the two men beside him and nodded to John. “John, if you would, please?”

John didn’t say a word. He just bent down and picked up a black valise that had been up against the wall. Then he shot Jenna an inquisitive look.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Is this really necessary?” She turned a pouty, spoiled look on her father, but he was immune. He stared back at her with an impatient look on his face.

“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes.

John guided her into the bathroom. She sat down on the toilet.

“I want it known that I’m doing this under protest.”

“Duly noted,” John said dryly as he concentrated on her arm.

He moved a little closer to her, grabbed it with gentle fingers, and probed it. Midway up her forearm, she let out a yelp of pain.

“Sorry,” he said, offhandedly. He probed further and found the break. “Now this is the part that’s really going to hurt. Here take this.” He folded up a towel and handed it to her. “Bite down on it.”

Jenna put the towel in her mouth and John set the break. She screamed harshly, biting down on the rough fabric as hard as she could. The pain was much more intense than she’d thought it’d be.

John yanked her arm again. An explosion of pain and sensation rippled up her entire body. She couldn’t take it anymore so she blacked out.

About half an hour later, she groaned weakly as she opened her eyes. She felt her arm pulsing with steady pain. Felix was there, along with her father. They both stood over her with concerned looks on their faces. She was in her room now. On her bed. Her father sat down next to her and gave her a couple of pain pills and a cup of water. She popped the pills into her mouth and chomped on them, chasing the gritty, foul tasting stuff down with the water.

“John said they’ll help,” Elijah told her, his voice soft. “He also said your arm is going to be in that cast for six weeks.”

She looked down and found it there, an ungainly heavy thing encasing her lower arm. And it was pink.

“I’m gonna kill him,” Jenna snarled. “He knows I hate pink.”

She propped herself up on her good arm and swung her legs off the bed. Both men tried to get her to lie down again, but she made them leave her alone. Felix didn’t last long under her stare. He folded within a second. Her father lasted longer but he eventually backed down too.

“How long was I out?” she asked. She felt groggy and her legs were a little unstable.

“About half an hour,” Felix told her.

“You really should lie back down. Get some more rest,” Elijah said. He was worried that she was pushing herself too hard and that whoever attacked her would come back to finish the job. “We’ll finish up the rest of the work.”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” she said, trying to push past them, but they blocked her way. She looked to Felix for help, but he was stubbornly looking at everything else but her. He was scared of her father and didn’t like confronting him. She looked to Elijah instead. “Let me out. I can still help.”

“You’re not going anywhere but back in bed,” Elijah replied. He folded his arms across his broad chest and glared at her. It was a formidable, intimidating stare and Jenna wavered beneath it like she always did. She learned early on in life that keeping on Elijah Bishop’s good side was generally the best course of action.

“Dad,” she pleaded, throwing a little pout into her voice.

Elijah’s eyes narrowed further and his bushy grey eyebrows furrowed together. Jenna kept at it for a good five minutes, trying to break down her father’s defenses, before she finally surrendered. She let out a frustrated sigh and climbed back into bed. Felix watched the encounter, feeling increasingly awkward, like he’d just walked in on Jenna naked.

“Get some rest,” Elijah repeated. “I’m going to post some men to stand watch in case the werewolf comes back.”

“That’s not…,” Jenna started but Elijah interrupted her.

“Get some rest and stop arguing with me. That thing nearly killed you.” He left without another word, shutting the door behind him with a note of finality.

She turned to Felix.

“Let’s go,” she told him. She grabbed her phone, then went to a safe in the back of her closet. Felix watched her pull out a pistol and put a clip in it loaded with silver bullets. He looked at her with a mixture of revulsion and fear.

“We can’t. Your dad said--”

“Forget about what he said. That thing had Kendra’s purse, Felix.”

“I know, but after everything you’ve seen her do, after all the changes, you don’t really believe she’s still human. Do you?”

“It doesn’t matter and I won’t let it matter,” she responded as she remembered the events of that morning. Jenna’s heart had nearly broken when she’d seen the changes Kendra had went through. There had been no question that they had gotten to her, but Jenna refused to believe her best friend would become a monster. She believed, with everything inside her, that she could still help her. “Whatever she is now, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s still Kendra. We have to find her.”

“What about the apartment? What if we find her and they’re still here?” Felix asked. He was trying to be the voice of reason in a situation where reason was being overruled.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, I want to find Kendra and make sure she’s all right,” Jenna said. “Can you do that for me or not?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve never tried to track something that wasn’t human.”

Jenna thought about that for a moment.

“What if you had a link? Would that help?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Felix responded. “The magic might be able to use it if it’s a really recent link, or it might not work because she’s changed too much.”

“It’s worth a shot,” she replied, thinking. A second later, she looked up at Felix. “Go into her room, discreetly, and grab the small stuffed bear on her bed. It’s a worn out, ratty thing that she’s had since she was little. It was a gift from her grandfather before he died. If that’s not enough of a link to her, changed or not, then nothing I have here will work.”

Felix grumbled, but did what she asked. He crept out of Jenna’s room, glancing furtively to make sure he wasn’t being watched, and quickly walked over to Kendra’s. Thankfully, the two were nearly side-by-side, and he was inside before anyone saw him.

He quietly shut the door behind him and glanced around. Darkness had settled outside and Kendra’s room was pitch black. He raised his hand and concentrated for a moment. A small ball of pure, blue energy hovered about an inch above his palm. It gave everything in the room a faint, blue-white tint.

“Where are you?” he murmured to himself.

He couldn’t find the damned stuffed bear.

Jenna said it was on the bed, right? he asked himself, trying to remember. He was pretty sure that’s what she’d said.

He went over to it and looked around, tossing aside shirts and pants in his efforts to find the bear.

He was growing increasingly nervous the longer he was in there. The footsteps from out in the living room sounded like they were right in front of the door.

There it is!

He saw it now, a teddy bear about as tall as a paperback novel that looked like it had seen better days. One of its button eyes had fallen off and been replaced by another one that was both larger and marbled brown and white instead of black. The stitching it had for a mouth was starting to unravel and there was a split seam in the back with white, cottony fluff coming out of it.

Felix grabbed it and held it tightly in his hand. Then he moved away from the bed and back to the room’s door. He let his little ball of energy die out and opened the door a crack.

Willie was standing on the opposite side of the living room, helping to repair the giant hole in the wall. He could just make out Elijah and John in the room beyond as they walked past it, working to clean up all the damaged furniture.

Silently, Felix crept out of Kendra’s room and back into Jenna’s. Her eyes went to his the moment he shut the door behind him.

“Did you find it?” she asked, impatiently.

“Yeah,” he responded, holding up the stuffed animal so she could see it. “What if this doesn’t work?”

“We’ll worry about that later. First, you need to get us out of here.” She went up to him and grabbed his hand with her good one. She was wasting no time. “Let’s go.”

Felix wanted to argue more. He wanted her to rest, but he’d been working with her long enough to know that when Jenna Bishop set her mind to something, he could either go along with it or get flattened by her stubbornness.

“Your dad’s going to kill us,” Felix said, giving one more nervous glance at the door. He tried not to contemplate what Elijah would do to him for disobeying. He gave one final, pleading look to Jenna but there was no way she was backing down.

He sighed miserably.

When Jenna was ready, he tightened his grip on her hand.

“Does it hurt?” he heard her ask, her voice uncharacteristically nervous.

“It’s uncomfortable, but you get used to it,” he answered.

Felix focused his mind, letting the magic take hold. When he was ready, he released it with a murmured, unrecognizable word, something archaic and old. There was an abrupt, wrenching cyclone of wind. Jenna felt her entire body narrow and compact on itself, like she was being sucked violently into a black hole. She screamed with no voice, her hand tightly wrapped around Felix’s. She wasn’t sure how long she could take the overwhelming sensations, when, all of a sudden, they were standing in the alley behind her apartment building.

“Okay,” Jenna said, breathless. “That was, awesome!”

“Yeah. Magic. Really cool,” Felix replied, sarcastically. “Where to next?”

Jenna pulled out her phone and dialed Kendra’s number. Like she thought, it went straight to her voicemail. She put it back in her pocket.

“I didn’t think she would answer, but it was worth a shot. We go to plan B. I need you to use the bear and track her.”

“I’m not promising anything,” Felix told her.

Jenna nodded and gestured at him to hurry up.

Felix sighed again, feeling like he had no control over anything. It felt like his life had suddenly become a steep hill and he was riding a bike down it at speeds that made it impossible for him to control the ride.

He brought the bear up to his face and concentrated. Again, he felt his magic rise up. It started in his belly and radiated out from there until it was too intense to control. He focused on what he needed and then let the magic flow out of him and into the bear. It glowed bright blue and then started to pulse. Each pulse radiated out of it like a ripple in a pond. Felix could feel each one as they searched the city. He felt them as they passed through buildings, touching each human life. But none of them were Kendra. The pulses flickered and then died out as they reached the edge of their range. He opened his eyes and looked up at Jenna.

“Sorry, no good. She’s either not in the city, changed too much, or she’s--”

“Don’t say it,” Jenna nearly shouted. “She’s not dead.”

“That’s a possibility. Or, my magic just can’t track a werewolf,” Felix stated. Jenna narrowed her eyes at him. “What do we do now?”

She walked down the alley, her pink cast bright and gaudy. She looked back at him.

“We find her, Felix. And then we make the ones that took her pay.”