Secret Worlds (151 page)

“The troublemakers?” I said, Wolfie’s words making me laugh despite myself. It was hard to imagine blood-thirsty werewolves like Milo being described by such a childish term. “Hit man” would be more appropriate, or maybe “murderer in training.” On the other hand, I did see Wolfie’s point, which had been aptly illustrated by the dissipation of tension within the pool room once I made my way home.

“How about this?” Wolfie bargained. “I take everyone from Haven between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, and you get the yahoos in exchange.”

“Kids? Seriously? You want me to run this pack of wolves with the help of kids?” I retorted, only half kidding.

“You don’t need any help at all, sweetheart,” Wolfie answered, his mind clearly beginning to turn to other topics as his hands made their way over my body. “I’m leaving you with the yahoos because I’m sick of them.”

“Some alpha you are,” I growled, but the heat in my words had less to do with Wolfie’s bargain and more to do with his hands, which made me shiver as they slipped over my skin and, yup, slid down below the waist. My wolf and I arched into his touch, and this time I really do think we purred.

Epilogue

I half expected the Haven werewolves to rise up in revolt after Wolfie and the majority of his pack hit the road with Haven’s young adults in tow, but the remainder of the community instead came to me with heads bowed starting that first morning. They needed advice on this problem, help with that problem, and I found my hands full just getting the village back into shape.

In an effort to keep the yahoos out of trouble (and to lighten my own load), I kept Wolfie’s loaned helpers running so ragged with errands from the first day that they didn’t have time to get into mischief. Cricket fed their voluminous appetites, which seemed to give my stepmother something to worry about other than the fact that her husband’s wolf appeared to have completely taken over his human side. My father spent most of his time hunting rabbits in the woods now, and when he came to the back door to check on his mate, I couldn’t see any hint of the man I’d known in the canine’s eyes. But that absence was almost a blessing—it seemed that the ruthlessness of Crazy Wilder had been within the man, not in the wolf.

Like the yahoos, I stayed too busy to worry over anything that wasn’t directly in front of me over the next few weeks. Despite my full hours, I expected the ache in my stomach to reappear when Wolfie slammed his pickup truck door and sped off, but I seemed to have finally accepted that the young alpha wasn’t walking out of my life permanently—he was just living somewhere else for a while. It also helped that my wolf and I were able to trade off responsibilities, and I often let her simple canine brain take over when exhaustion was threatening to turn me melancholy.

On one crisp winter day, the wolf had treated us to a run on four paws, and I was smiling when I stepped back into my clothes in the foyer of my family home, smelling stew bubbling in the kitchen and hearing the yahoos chattering away at the kitchen table. But I smelled something else too—leaf mold and pine needles and a hint of peppermint … .

I whirled, hoping that the scent meant Wolfie had come to visit, even though I knew that wasn’t true. Instead of my mate, a young woman in her late teens stood uncomfortably in the formal sitting room that no one ever used. I couldn’t quite imagine Cricket parking a visitor there, but my wolf could see that the stranger’s canine half was skittish and ready to bolt, so I immediately understood how this girl might feel more comfortable alone than in the midst of the revelry clamoring forth from the kitchen.

The girl looked me up and down, sniffing the air with a human nose much like I would in wolf form, then she silently extended the hands that had been hugging a book to her chest. Her offering was the new Patricia Briggs novel that I’d left in that bookstore so long ago, and even without bringing the paper to my nose, I knew the pages smelled of Wolfie. Although I should have been welcoming my visitor, I couldn’t resist opening the cover of the book instead to see if my mate had written anything inside.

He had. “The whole pack misses you, but I miss you more,” Wolfie had penned with a firm hand, then he’d signed his name with a muddy paw print. “P.S.,” the inscription continued. “I’m sending you trouble. But you can handle it.”

The leaf mold and pine needle aroma was strong on the pages of the book, but that wasn’t the primary source of the odor I’d picked up on as soon as I came in the door. My wolf pushed to the fore and reported that the young woman smelled nearly identical to our mate, with the addition of a minty overtone. Did that mean she was Wolfie’s relative? Heaven forbid—his daughter?

I looked back up at the young woman, who seemed to be restraining herself from bolting with an effort. “I’m the trouble,” she admitted, her eyes on her feet, which were already turned toward the door. Despite her submissive gesture, I had a feeling she was right about her self assessment, and I already had plenty of problems to contend with. But Wolfie had sent her, and my heart went out to the skittish young werewolf, so I put out my hands to capture hers before she could flee.

“Welcome, Trouble,” I greeted her. “I’m Terra.”

Don’t miss book two in the Wolf Rampant series:
Pack Princess

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QKQZJAY/
.

Aimee Easterling has been spoiled by four dogs, has spoiled six cats, and has largely been ignored by two guinea pigs, four turtles, a cockatiel, and a slew of fish during her thirty-some year life. Studying biology and working as a naturalist have both informed her writing, but she’s quite willing to let reality slide in favor of a good story. When not writing, she loves to read and always keeps books by Robin McKinley, Patricia Briggs, and Elizabeth Peters on her shelf. She is currently hard at work writing her next novel. Visit her at wetknee.com/aimee.

I have no home on earth and none below, not with the living, not with the breathless dead.
—
Antigone
, Sophocles

The alarm clock went off like a duck being strangled with a telephone cord. I always tried and failed to remember to buy a new one. Groaning, I lurched onto my side and slapped at the device until it went silent. Sunlight streamed in, golden and annoying, through a gap in the dingy grey curtains of the window across from the bed. I threw the comforter over my head and lay there with my face pressed into the mattress, breathing in the faint smell of fabric softener and fried chicken. I really did need to wash these sheets.

After about a minute, I reluctantly climbed out from underneath the blanket and stumbled towards the closet to find my white button up shirt and short black skirt. My shift at the restaurant would start in half an hour. Colton would kick my ass if I was late again.

After wriggling into my work clothes, I wandered into the kitchen and began the nearly involuntary process of making coffee. Once it was brewing, I retreated to the bathroom. As I brushed my teeth, I read the list of the names and addresses I’d taped to the vanity mirror: Linda, Ming-Na, and Ron. I only worked a five-hour shift today so I should have been able to take care of all three of them. After I finished brushing my teeth, I swept my hair up into something that vaguely resembled a bun and took a deep breath before staring into my reflection for a brief analysis.

To be frank, I looked like shit. The skin beneath my eyes was dark with circles since I hadn’t gotten a decent amount of sleep in about two years, my complexion that had once been a rich brown was now a sickly brown-paper-bag color, and my weight had dropped significantly from lack of decent meals. Lord knows how I managed to keep my job looking like this. Cue the makeup—some foundation to cover up the spots and black eyeliner to further divert attention from my unhealthy pallor. A dash of lip gloss and
voila
, I was once again presentable for public consumption.

My gaze fell across the list again. I sighed. “Ninety-six down, four to go.”

I snatched the Post-It off the mirror and grabbed my flats on the way to the kitchen where my coffee was ready. When I got to the kitchen, I shrieked in surprise.

My favorite forest-green coffee mug was already out and filled with coffee.

I glanced to my right and my left, letting my eyes sweep across the small room carefully. Nothing. Not a soul.

It took a moment for me to calm down enough to tiptoe around the apartment and check the closet, the bathroom, and even underneath my bed, for any signs of an intruder. Nothing had been moved and there were no signs of entry. I took a deep breath and walked back into the kitchen, sniffing the coffee for any signs of irregularity but I could smell nothing except for the enticing aroma.

I put enough sugar and cream in to turn the dark brown a rich caramel color and sipped away my exhaustion. Maybe I’d poured the coffee without thinking and forgot. It was early and my brain hadn’t kick-started yet. I grabbed a Nutra-Grain bar from the cabinet, my keys, and headed out the door, giving one last salute to the worn, leather-bound book sitting on top of my refrigerator. After all, I needed all the luck I could get today.

The first things I noticed about Linda were that she was small, blonde, and probably about seven years old. Her cheeks were still round and pink with baby fat that she hadn’t grown out of yet and her dress was bright orange with yellow flowers dotted down the length of it. The look would have been complete with a pair of white or black Mary Janes but since she didn’t have any feet, it was impossible. Linda was, after all, a ghost.

“What’s your name?”

I paused, having been lost in my thoughts after analyzing her appearance. “Jordan.”

She smiled, seeming interested. “Isn’t that a boy’s name?”

I resisted the urge to wince. She was just a kid, and a dead one at that, so she didn’t know any better. “Yeah, I get that a lot. Mind if I ask you a couple questions?”

“Sure.”

“What’s the last thing you remember before you ended up here?” I asked the little spirit in my sweetest voice. Linda glanced up from the dandelion she had been attempting to pick up, surprised that her small hand phased right through it.

“Um, I don’t know. Mom, she told me to sit next to my brother on the log by the lake. My brother kept poking me so I got up. The water was really pretty that day,” she added with another bright smile.

I nodded, scribbling her comments down on my ragged notepad. “What did you do after that?”

“I saw a frog and I wanted to catch it to bring it back to Mommy. My mean old brother told me to come back. I bet he thought I couldn’t catch it. So I tried my best to catch ‘im, but he was really fast. Then I woke up over there.” She pointed to the tall oak tree a few feet from where we stood by the lake, where police tape had been stretched across the bank.

“Is there anything you want to tell your mother or your brother?”

The little girl nodded. I suppressed a sigh. This meant I’d have to get the address of the family, and the police were pretty stingy with those sorts of details. Maybe I could find another way to get her to see them. The funeral, perhaps. Much easier to access and far less suspicious to look for.

“Can you remember your last name?”

Linda’s face scrunched in thought. “Nu-uh.”

Great. No last name. This case was going to take even longer than I thought and I was already short on time. Three days left to deadline.

I took a deep breath, dispelling the disturbing thought. “Okay, I’ll tell you what—why don’t you go play on the playground until I come back and then we can go see Mommy. Does that sound good?”

She beamed. “Mom’ll be so proud that I caught that frog. Bye, Jordan!”

The ghost scampered off for the abandoned playground, which was off-limits until the investigation was over. I stuffed my notepad in my grey duster and shoved my hands in my pockets, walking in the opposite direction. The park was only a block or two away from the nearest newsstand, where I might be able to find the child’s last name. What a loss, though. The kid was so cute she could put little orphan Annie to shame.

I paid a few dollars to a man at a newsstand and collected a handful of papers, searching through the obituaries one by one for her name. It wasn’t until the very last one that I found a matching picture:
Linda Margaret Hamilton, age 7, died August 5th, 2010. Loving daughter, wonderful sister, and family jewel that will never be forgotten. Funeral services held Sunday, August 8th at Wm. J. Rockefeller Funeral Home, Inc., 165 Columbia Turnpike, Rensselaer, N.Y at 6:00PM.

Good news for me. I could get her there and be home before any of my shows came on. The wind picked up around me so I buttoned up my duster, heading back in the direction of the park where I had left her. Surely no one in Albany, New York would think it odd to see a black girl in shades talking to a jungle gym. Normal people couldn’t see ghosts. They were lucky that way. Ghosts are terrible nuisances once you notice them because they are always on the look out for someone to help them. As far as I knew, there weren’t others like me. To put it mildly, my situation was decidedly unique.

“Linda?”

When I turned, I discovered the new ghost had achieved a limited amount of solidity. She was hanging from the monkey bars. When I called her, she hopped off of them without hesitation. My hands shot out to catch her out of reflex, but she slipped right through them, sending a cold shock up my spine. I hated the tingly feeling of dead souls against my skin.

“Yep?”

“I’m going to come back on Sunday afternoon and take you to Mommy. Is that okay?”

She nodded. “Are ya gonna come visit before then?”

I winced. “Well, I am a little busy, but I’ll come see you if I can. Be good, alright?”

“Okay!” She giggled and started back on her climbing, blissfully unaware of anything else. At least the dead had that going for them. She was just a ghost child so she retained her early behavior. Other ghosts I’d met weren’t nearly this cheerful.