Forbidden (11 page)

We tried to get more out of Jaggerman, but he started spouting bullshit about just doing as he was told. He knew nothing about the body under the tree except that he’d been told to retrieve it. He knew nothing about Morgan except that he’d been told to lie if anyone asked about him.

Jess wanted to interrogate him properly. Offer concessions in return for information. We didn’t have time for that. We left her with him, handcuffed to a tree, and took off.

•

We didn’t get within a hundred feet of the cave before we found at least a half-dozen sets of footprints, tramping through the new snow to the cave. We slowed down. The sun had set, so it was dark enough for us to creep around unseen, but the wind had died and the forest had gone so still that even our footsteps crunching in the snow echoed. We started walking in the other prints, which helped a little.

As we drew close, though, it became increasingly apparent there was no need for stealth. The cave was dark and silent. We crept close enough to inhale near the bushes blocking the entrance. I could detect scents, but they were coming from the ground, nothing lingering in the air.

Clay pushed through. I tensed for a shout from inside, but I knew it wouldn’t come. In that small enclosed space, even breathing would echo enough to hear.

“Empty,” Clay called back.

I went in. There were fresh marks on the floor and walls. Fresh blood. Not enough to be worrying, but I definitely smelled Morgan. Coach Hanlon, too, along with a few scents I didn’t recognize. All male.

The strongest odor wasn’t from a living thing. The cave stunk of a mishmash of scents that reminded me of Paige’s teas. She made some for healing, some for protection, and some just for sleeping. I thought I detected a note from the sleeping brews. There was more, though. A lot more.

“Psilocybin mushrooms,” Clay said.

When I glanced over to see him crouched behind me, he said, “Hallucinogens.”

“You smell that?”

He lifted a couple of pieces from the floor. “See and smell.”

I didn’t joke about how he knew what they were. The only way we can get Clay to take pain meds before being stitched up is if Jeremy threatens to leave him unstitched. He’s not being a “feel-no-pain” tough guy; he just doesn’t like anything messing with his brain. Going out drinking with Clay means getting a couple of beers, maybe a scotch or brandy. He’d know what the mushrooms were because they were used in Central American religious rituals.

“I smell something like sleeping brew, too,” I said. “That implies sedatives. But sedatives plus hallucinogens?”

“Drowsiness could accelerate hallucinations. Doesn’t matter. Point is, Morgan was here and now he’s not. We have a trail to follow.”

•

Following that trail was easy. In fact, if I hadn’t been so intent on
listening
for someone in the cave, I’d have noticed the footprints in the snow, leading away from it.

I did look for signs that someone—like Morgan—had been carried or dragged away. I didn’t see any. Had they sedated him and led him away? You’d think if they used hallucinogens, there would be some sign of that.

Admittedly, I’m about as straight edge as Clay when it comes to drugs. I’m fine with the legit type, but as screwed up as my teen years were, I’d never resorted to pharmacological or alcoholic escape routes. I wasn’t a genius like Clay, but I was a straight-A student, and I’d grown up thinking that my brain was my only ticket out of that crappy life. So I’d do nothing to mess with that. But from what I’d imagine, a guy on hallucinogens wouldn’t just trudge along with the group. We did see occasional signs of resistance—a deep print or scuffle—but they were no different than the ones we’d noticed on the path to the cave.

We tracked the group into the forest. Deep into it, to the point where even the moon wasn’t much help, barely piercing the thick tree cover. That’s when my cell phone rang. It was Jess—at least according to my caller ID. The reception was crappy and her voice kept cutting out. I caught a few words like football and ritual.

“You mean the football coach?” I said. “He’s conducting a ritual?” I’d already figured that part out.

“Drugged…” she said. “Night…”

Yep, figured that out, too.

“What are they doing?” I said. “Who are we up against and what do they have planned?”

Static.

“Can you text me the details?” I said.

Silence. I checked my phone. The signal had disappeared. It came back at one bar for a second, then vanished again. I typed a text message repeating my request and sent it.

We’d been walking as I’d talked, and I’d kept my voice as low as I could. When I stopped speaking, though, we picked up voices. Faint ones, distant enough that we didn’t need to worry about how much noise we made. We picked up our pace and strained to listen as we jogged toward them.

Then the voices went quiet. We slowed. A shot fired and we nearly dropped to the ground. Shouts followed. We froze, listening and straining to see.

Clay pointed and I picked up the faintest glimmer of a flashlight. Another shot sounded.

“There it is!” a man’s voice bellowed. “I saw it. A wolf or a bear. Did you see it, boys?”

Something crashed through the woods. More voices. Excited now. Cries of, “I saw it!” and, “Over there!” They stayed at least a couple hundred feet away, so I knew it wasn’t
us
they’d seen.

I looked at Clay.

“No idea, darling,” he whispered.

I carefully stepped from behind the tree and peered around. I could see flashlights waving about and hear more crashing through the undergrowth. Then Morgan’s scent slipped past on a breeze.

That snapped me back. It didn’t matter
what
they were doing, only that they had Morgan. I held onto his scent as I started forward, Clay at my side. We moved from tree to tree, all the while listening to the shouts and cries. There were other noises, too, as we got closer. Snarls and grunts. Human, though; I could tell by the tenor.

I lost Morgan’s scent once, but found it again and we began circling wide, staying away from the noise. Gradually, as we got closer, the two separated, the cacophony to my left, Morgan’s scent to my right. They weren’t far apart, just enough for us to creep in Morgan’s direction.

Finally, I knew where he was. In a cluster of trees. Staying in place, if his scent was right. I started motioning for Clay to go around, then stopped and told him to stay where he was. I’d circle. The noise was far to our left, so he didn’t argue.

I rounded the cluster of trees. I got just north of it when I heard the soft thump of feet running through the snow. I turned to see Morgan racing toward me. He was holding his hands in front of him and there was something pale against his mouth. Before I could say a word, he lunged and slammed into me. We both went down.

By the time Clay came running, I was sitting on the ground, pulling at the cord binding Morgan’s hands. It wasn’t easy. He kept struggling, his voice muffled against the gag. Clay grabbed him by the collar and I got his hands free. Morgan ripped off the duct tape over his mouth, hissing at the pain, then whispering, “Down!” to Clay, then to me, “Get down!”

As I motioned for us to move to the cluster of trees, dry branches crackled and snow crunched. A figure lurched into view. It was a teenage boy, staggering and stumbling. I shot to my feet.

“No!” Morgan said, but I was already running toward the boy.

He stopped and stared at me with unfocused eyes.

“It’s okay,” I whispered as I got close. “We’re—”

With a snarl, he swung something. I saw it coming and ducked just in time. It hit my shoulder, the blow barely penetrating my jacket. The boy pounced. He hit me full on. I staggered back and I would have been fine if I hadn’t slipped on something—a rock or a log—and lost my balance. I went down with him on top of me.

The boy snarled and tried to pin me by the shoulders. I saw a flash of teeth as his open mouth shot for my neck.

He’s trying to bite me.

I grabbed the boy and held him off. Then Clay was behind him, hands on his jacket, whipping him up in the air. As the boy hung there, he gnashed his teeth and spat and snarled like a wild beast. He swung something again. A club, I realized as I snatched it from him. A police baton.

Morgan slapped his duct tape over the kid’s mouth. The boy continued to struggle and growl.

“I think we know where those hallucinogens went,” Clay muttered.

“They’re drugged,” Morgan said. “They gave me something, too. A sedative, I think. Same as I had the first night I got here.”

“Are you okay?”

“Woozy. They underestimated the dose.” It took a lot to knock out a werewolf. “And I know what it is this time, so I can fight it.”

Holding the struggling boy, Clay looked toward the noises on our left. “How many are there?”

“Minus this one? The coach and four players.”

“Players?” I said. “Football?”

“It’s some kind of—”

At a noise to our left, Morgan stopped and we all looked over. Everything had gone quiet. I tried to pick up a scent, but the wind was blowing the wrong way. A twig cracked. Then snow squeaked underfoot. I pointed in the direction of the sounds.

“Circling us,” Clay said.

I took hold of the boy and sent Clay to investigate. Morgan followed. I glanced at the kid. Just a regular teenage boy. My height. Muscular. Wearing a team jacket.

A football player, Morgan had said. Why would the coach be drugging—?

A shot fired. Clay grabbed Morgan and knocked him down. I did the same with the boy. When he kept struggling, I dragged him over and tied his hands with the cord they’d used on Morgan. I peered over at Morgan and Clay. They were still on the ground, crawling backward toward us.

“One shooter,” Clay murmured when he was close enough. “Over there.” He pointed to where he’d been heading.

“It’s the coach,” Morgan whispered. “The kids have clubs. The coach has a rifle. He was shooting at me to get me to run.”

“Hunting you?” I said.

He nodded. I’d seen something like that before, years ago, a guy who’d captured and hunted supernaturals.

“Does he know what you are?” I whispered.

Morgan shook his head. “I don’t think so. He kept talking about wolves and bears and predators, but he didn’t seem to get the connection.”

“Any sign of magic?”

“It’s definitely some sort of ritual. That’s what they were doing in the cave. The coach brought the kids there. He kept me outside, so they couldn’t see me, but I could hear enough to figure out what was going on. He gave them something to drink. It sounded like they’d done it before—no one asked what was going on. Then he started leading them in some kind of vision quest. All this mumbo-jumbo about how they were mighty hunters and—”

My phone vibrated. It didn’t ring, but the vibration sounded so loud that I hit Ignore.

“The police chief?” Morgan said, leaning over.

I nodded. “I’m going to text her the coordinates and—”

A shot whizzed past.

“Boys!” a voice yelled. “Over here. I’ve got it cornered.”

It
. Why did they keep saying…? Didn’t matter, as Clay would say. I started to prairie-dog-pop from the bushes, but he pushed me down and did it for me. He pointed and mouthed, “Hundred feet.”

Damn, Hanlon was close. Unlike the kids, he was obviously good at sneaking through the forest. Our whispers must have been carrying more than we thought. Judging by that shot, he knew exactly where we were.

I signaled a plan. Morgan was to stay where he was—he might protest that he felt fine, but he’d been drugged. Clay and I set out.

I went north, Clay south. Hanlon kept shouting for the boys, which made him very easy to track. He wasn’t moving anyway. Just standing there, yelling. We crept in until we could see each other on either side of Hanlon. Then Clay charged.

As Clay took Hanlon down, I heard Morgan shout. Then I caught the snarl and snap and pound of a running pack. Clay pinned Hanlon as Morgan raced over.

“They’re—” he started.

The boys appeared. Four of them, running together, howling, waving their batons.

“Get it, boys!” Hanlon shouted. “It’s the bear. Get it!”

The first one charged Morgan. I caught a whiff of the boy’s scent and recognized him as the vandal who’d slashed our tires and broken into our rooms. Morgan tried to swing around to face him, but he was feeling the effects of that sedative and stumbled. I swooped in and grabbed the kid by the arm. I threw him back with the others.

“It’s a pack,” Hanlon yelled. “You stumbled into a pack of bears. Kill them! Before they attack!”

The boys rushed us. I kicked one away. Morgan body-slammed another.

“We’re not bears,” I said. “We’re people.
Look
harder.
Listen.
”

The sound of my voice made them hesitate. That’s why Hanlon gagged Morgan—so nothing would disrupt the illusion. They hung there, clutching their cudgels, eyes struggling to focus.

“You’ve been drugged,” I said. “You’re confused. But we’re talking. That means we’re people. Just like you.”

“No!” Hanlon yelled. “They’re monsters. That’s what we’ve been hunting. I thought it was bears, but it’s monsters. Look over there.” He pointed at the fifth boy, the one we’d bound and gagged, stumbling toward them. “It’s Bryan. They caught him and they were going to kill him, just like they killed Ricky. You remember what happened to Ricky? The bear got him. We were hunting and it—”

Clay slammed Hanlon’s face into the snow.

“Thank you,” I said. “Now, boys, you’re confused. You know you are. But we’re here to help. You’re from Westwood, New York. You’re on the football—”

A hiss of pain behind me. I turned to see Hanlon with a knife. He must have pulled it from his pocket. He’d surprised Clay by slashing at him. Clay let go just long enough for Hanlon to rise. Clay grabbed the back of his jacket, but Hanlon was wrenching down the zipper as I raced over.

Hanlon got free of his jacket and started to run. We went after him. The boys went after him, too. They barreled past me, shoving me aside. I thought they were running with him. Then I saw their faces and heard their snarls and realized what they saw—running prey.