Page 61 of Wolf Bane
“Ah.No need.Just a few questions.”I gestured for him to sit down.After another glare, he took up Celestine’s abandoned seat across from me.In the stretchy silence, a car door slammed and someone called out for Ellie.A screen door creaked.Vinnie just glowered.
“You’re not scaring me,” I said quietly.“I’m well aware of how most of the weres out here feel about me and there’s little to nothing I can do to change your minds.But I’m not afraid of you.”
Vinnie’s lips twitched.“Liar.I can smell it on you.”
“Maybe I should change deodorant then,” I said, plastering a serene smile on my face.“Now, just a few questions to follow-up regarding your UTI.”
Vinnie glowered but complied, answering with brusque efficiency.“We done here?”
“Almost.I have a report of your neighbor being bit by a dog.Your dog, specifically.Now I’m supposed to report this bite to the county…” I paused, the quiet heavy and dangerous.Because we both knew they didn’t have a dog.But he did have two kids.“The person in question is currently undergoing observation and treatment for the resulting… problems.I’d like to get a blood sample so we can rule out some things.”
Vinnie stiffened.“Robards is a liar,” he spat.“My kid didn’t bite him!”
“It was a dog.”
Vinnie straightened, holding his breath.The air felt like the moments before a thunderstorm: heavy, electric, still.
“I didn’t say it was your kid.It was a dog.Robards said it was a dog that bit him.And your mom gave him some painkiller after helping him clean the wound.”
Vinnie exhaled slowly, his eyes fixed firmly on me.
“Vinnie, which kid bit Mr.Robards?”
“You need to leave now,” Celestine said from the doorway behind me.“You’ve done what you came to do, haven’t you?Accused my grandchildren of harming some old man who needs to mind his own business.”
I rose to my feet, unwilling to take my eyes off Vinnie, but at the same time, desperately needing to keep Celestine in my line of sight.I didn’t need the were traits in my blood to let me know she was the more dangerous of the two.She took another step into the room, filling my peripheral vision as Vinnie stood across from me.The only way out was past Celestine, out the locked door and down the walkway.I was fast, but not faster than two true weres.And I was on the verge of answers—actually, I was pretty sure I had at least part of one.
“How’s Melly doing anyway?Any coughing, fever, uncontrollable shifting?”
Vinnie and Celestine didn’t move, didn’t change expressions.Both were watching, intent rather than wary.
I was fucked.
“They’re awfully quiet for kids playing outside.Are you sure they’re okay?”Even with my better-than-average-humans hearing, I couldn’t pick up even a stray giggle from outside.But I did feel the prickles of being stalked, being hunted.
Someone was moving in on me.
I could juke past Celestine, maybe make it to the front door before she was on me.Had they locked it?I couldn’t remember.The window was open but there was a screen in place.If I had to, I supposed throwing myself through was an option, but I’d seen enough internet fail videos to know how well shit like that worked out in real life.I’d probably end up just bouncing back into Vinnie’s waiting claws.Which, honestly, seems like it’d be par for the course for me.Stay still, I thought.Just stay still and wait.
“Mr.Robards is a kind old man,” Celestine said finally, her smile a bare twitch of the lips.He was likely only a year or two older than her, but their demeanor was entirely different.“It’s a shame he was bit, but as the saying goes, blood will out.”
“Gloves off then, huh?”
She smiled, giving me a thin-shouldered shrug.“Vinnie, check on the children.”
“Ma—”
“Make sure they’re playing nice with the neighbor’s little ones, please.Melly does get feisty lately.”Her smile was empty when she added, “It’s good for little ones to have friends.So important to build ties, isn’t it?”
Vinnie obeyed without another complaint, going just slow enough to intimidate as he crowded past me.His steps creaked down the hallway, and a moment or two later, the sound of a screen door cut through the quiet.Celestine didn’t move.
“Gloves off,” I repeated, and her smile grew just a fraction.
“Ethan Stone had the makings of a fine leader,” she said, swerving right when I was expecting a handbrake turn to the left.“But he forgot, or perhaps Clive never taught him, where his loyalty lies.With us.Not with humans.Not even with shifters, though there are some among us that are more forgiving for that failure.Shifters are not like us, Doctor Babin.Their ways may be similar, but they are a pale imitation of us.The few weres who pollute our community by bringing in shifter blood are rarely welcome.It’s strange to me that some clans welcome human pollution so freely.They trust humans.Just because we may look similar to them sometimes doesn’t mean we are the same,” she added with a snarl, eyes gleaming with hate.
“We can’t be so different, not if weres and humans are able to have children together,” I pointed out.Not if some latent gene in me was triggered so easily?
Celestine’s face wrinkled in disgust, teeth and pale gums bared.“I know what you are, Landry Babin.Don’t you ever wonder about your daddy?”
