Greg got out his phone and started dialling, probably ringing someone in the brethren camp to find out a local gargoyle leader. I grimaced. Greg was born and raised brethren who, to all intents and purposes, were dragon groupies. He’s spent his whole life at the beck and call of the dragon Prime Elite, Emory, who is dating my best friend, Jess. Emory is a great guy, but it’s still a sore point that Greg’s loyalties may be somewhat divided between the pack and the brethren. I rebuked myself for my erstwhile thoughts. Someone was dead.Focus.
The night was cool, but luckily it wasn’t wet. I stripped off my clothes and left them neatly folded in a pile a few feet away from the corpse. I turned my attention inward and let the pleasure of the shift roll over me as we transformed from two legs to four, then shifted to the passenger seat as Esme took front and centre.
Esme is my wolf. Every werewolf has a human and a wolf sharing the same skin, and at any time one of us can be in control of our physical body, whether it be on two legs or four. The majority of human werewolves struggle to keep control of their physical body in a constant battle with their wolf. I am able to pipe – to speak to animals – because I was stabbed with a magical dagger, so I can speak to Esme in a way that no other human werewolf can. Early in our relationship, we reached a truce. I control our body when we’re on two legs, and she controls our body when we’re on four legs. It works for us.
Esme is my sister from another mister. She may well be a wolf but her sense of justice and her own moral compass is strong. Her moral compass often doesn’t align with mine, but somehow we muddle through together.
Transformed onto four legs, we suddenly had the benefit of a wolf’s night vision. A wolf’s ability to see in the dark is superior to almost any animal on the earth. Let me tell you, wolves can see several times better than humans at night; it’s like a huge light has been switched on, and suddenly I can see almost as well as I can in the daylight hours.
The caveat is that wolves can’t see as much colour as humans. Most colours are leached away, leaving vast shades of grey and black – fifty shades of grey, you might say. Only a few prominent colours stick out, like yellow and blue.
Luckily our noses are second to none, so Esme and I put ours to the ground and started to investigate the scent of the dead gargoyle. The foul stench of rotting flesh assaulted our nose and my stomach roiled. If I’d been in control I would have been vomiting, but Esme was in charge and she was made of sterner stuff. Nonetheless, we swallowed a time or two.
For the first time, I wished for a particular vanilla candle that obscured our sense of smell.That is disgusting.
It is not pleasant.Esme agreed. She focused on the body, discarding the smell of putrefaction and searching for any lingering clues about who or what had done the deed.
We smelled wood. It wasn’t especially helpful as we weren’t far from the woods around our land. I felt excitement thrum through Esme as she mentally rifled through the other scents, discarding those from the other werewolves that lived at the mansion.
She was momentarily distracted by the aroma of a hare who had coursed across our grounds, and I pulled her back to the task at hand. Chastened, she focused again on the gargoyle. We followed its smell across our land all the way to the entrance to our drive. And there we found – the site of their ingress. They had used bolt cutters to cut through the chain-link fence that surrounds the grounds. I made a mental note to arrange for repairs.
We ducked through the hole. The undergrowth was thick on the other side but trampled brush and nettles showed their trail clearly. We followed it all the way to the road, where the gargoyle’s scent stopped abruptly.
We were both disappointed. We’d hoped against hope it would be easier than that. Alas, no dice. The gargoyle had been transported in a vehicle and the scent of the diesel engine was all that remained. Esme half-heartedly continued down the road, but in a few paces the scent was swallowed up by all the other vehicles that had travelled on the road that day. We couldn’t differentiate between who had travelled before or after the dumping. Dammit.
We turned tail and headed back inside the fence.
Let’s do a perimeter check,Esme suggested. She was unsettled that our lands had been accessed once again by a third party. Not too long ago, some werewolves had trespassed onto our grounds, leapt onto a balcony and gained access to our residents’ rooms. Mark Oates had been tortured and killed, and later on Archie Samuel was also attacked. Since then, we’d put in various security measures but none of the cameras we’d placed around the grounds had captured the latest intruders. There was a fine line between securing the property and invading the privacy of the residents who lived there, but we’d have to revisit the issue.
Yes,I agreed.Let’s go.
We spent the next forty minutes exploring the outer reaches of the estate. By the end of our patrol, we were both reassured that there were no other holes in the perimeter fencing. We were about to return to meet Greg when we heard the front gates of our driveway open. We turned swiftly and headed to the drive to investigate who had arrived.
We didn’t recognise the black car that rolled up the gates, but it wasn’t being stealthy, and the gates must have been buzzed open by someone operating our security hub. Whoever they were, the intruders were visitors.
We trotted nosily behind their car. They pulled up outside of the mansion and were met by Greg.
Gargoyles.
Chapter 2
Therewerefiveofthe shadow-painted creatures, three males and two females. They were dressed in some sort of loincloth, and the females had an extra strip of fabric tied around their breasts for modesty. The cool air didn’t seem to faze them.
They kept extending their wings behind them and giving a little shake before folding them down once more. They looked agitated and unsettled, which was hardly surprising since presumably they were coming to identify whose bloody mess was on our lawn. They carried a black body bag between them, a grim reminder of what they were there for.
Greg followed at a discreet distance behind them with Archie and Liam. Greg doesn’t like to be outnumbered; he isn’t the type to bring a spoon to a knife fight.
I recognised one of the gargoyles: it was the one with whom I’d hidden from the vampyrs.
I shifted into my human form as Esme relinquished her hold over our body. I was completely naked, but I’m less self-conscious about it than I once was.
I saw the squat gargoyle’s eyes light up in recognition. ‘Hello, lovey,’ he greeted me.
‘Hello again,’ I responded. ‘I’m sorry about the circumstances.’
‘Did you kill our fucker?’
I blinked. ‘No.’