Fair Game

‘Yeah,’ Leslie agreed. ‘He’s seen some blood somewhere.’ And the thing that had been bothering her about the pair of werewolves coalesced. ‘The girl who is his wife, she looks so sweet she ought to be attracting honeybees. I

‘You think she was faking it?’

Leslie shook her head.‘No. Not really. But both of the werewolves looked at photos of dead bodies and didn’t bat an eyelash. Granted we didn’t show the bad ones in full color, but the old police black-and-whites are pretty nasty.’

‘You think they’ve spent some time looking at dead bodies,’ Nick said. ‘You think they’re killers.’

She nodded.‘Him, yes. He has that

that look. You have it. A lot of the armed forces guys have it. I think he could have killed us all and not given it another thought. As for her

’ She frowned, trying to get a better handle on it. ‘Have you ever worked with Lee Je

Nick frowned.‘Yes.’

‘He’s pretty unremarkable. I like him a lot, and so does everyone else who’s worked with him. And the reason they send him into the prisons with the scum of the earth and the crazies is because they like him, too. They fall all over themselves to give him whatever information he asks for.’

Nick raised his chin and his face went still.‘Right. She’s like that?’

Leslie nodded.‘Her husband didn’t say more than two or three words, but he dominated the room. The only one not intimidated was Craig – and he just wasn’t looking. I’d bet Charles Smith is an Alpha of some pack we don’t know about.’

‘Intimidating.’

She nodded again.‘He was playing muscle, I think. But she didn’t treat him that way.’ Why did she think that? ‘He came in late with coffee for all of us – she’d sent him out so she could explain to us how to make the matter easier for him.’

‘To keep everyone safe?’

Leslie shook her head.‘She said so, but I got the distinct impression she was a lot more worried about him than she was any of us. It was the standard stuff – don’t meet his eyes if you can help it. No aggressive moves. The only new thing was that we weren’t supposed to try to touch her at all. I expected a wild-eyed maniac, and the man who came in was tight, controlled, and at ease. He looked like he conducted meetings with the federal government every day of his life.’

‘And that made you think he was ru

‘No. That’s not all of it. Body language said she respected him and deferred to his judgment. She was in front, but he was more than just backup.’

‘So do we invite them in?’

‘She pointed out that our killer took out werewolves. Taking out werewolves, I gather and surmise, is akin to taking out a SEAL team. This UNSUB has been hunting fae and coming out – as far as we know – unscathed. Do we have a choice?’

‘The FBI has some fae on payroll. We have a choice. You met them and you’re damn near the best agent I have for reading people. What do you think?’

Leslie sighed loudly.‘I like her. I told you. And he is

competent – he’s got that air. The one that says, “I’ve seen a lot and made it out alive.” They won’t cost us anything, so the budget will be happy. But’ – she held up a finger – ‘he’s not going to take orders.’

Nick nodded his head and did his finger-hand-talk thing for a good half minute before blowing out a breath of air.‘There’s a couple of people at the BAU who are familiar with the Big Game Hunter. I’ll give them a call and see what the profilers say might happen to our killer if the media knows we have werewolves hunting him. You and Craig can pick up information on werewolves as you work with them. Let me think about implications for the rest of today, and if nothing strikes me as too stupid, I’ll give you a go tomorrow.’

5

After a hard day of being a tourist, A

‘Courage’ was not the right word. Fortitude.

After a deep breath, Charles stepped in front of the bathroom mirror. It was one of those full-length things that women used to use to make sure their ankles weren’t showing below their skirts and now used to make sure, he assumed, that their underwear showed only when they wanted it to.

And he was trying to distract himself by looking at the mirror rather than looking at the image it held.

Charles couldn’t see them if he turned his head to look behind himself, but in the mirror the spirits who haunted him were as clear, as three-dimensional, as they were when they were still alive. They had stayed away all day while he and A

As soon as she slept, they returned.

We see her, they said.Does she see you? Does she know what you are? Murderer, killer, death bringer. We will show her and she’ll run from you. But she can’t run far enough to be safe.

Hollow-eyed and cadaverously thin, they stared at him, meeting his eyes in a way that no one except A

Charles could smell them. Not the odor of rotting meat precisely, but something close, the sweet, sickly smell that some flowers produce to attract flies and other carrion-feeding bugs. The smell penetrated his skin. Like the ghosts in the mirror, the scent was a reflection, not the real thing.

And he heard them.

Why? they asked.Why did you kill us? He knew they weren’t interested in the answers, not really.

The first time he’d seen them, when he’d first started this job for his father, he’d tried answering them, though he’d known better. He’d been certain that if he hit upon just the right thing to say, they would go away. But explaining things to the dead never works. They don’t hear the way the living doand words have little effect. The questions were for him, but not for him to answer – and talking to them just gave them more strength.

Guilt attracted them.His guilt– it kept them from moving on to where they belonged. There should have been something else that could have been done for them. That there had not been didn’t make him feel any differently about it.

They had been protecting a child and lost control of their anger. Charles knew, as any werewolf did, all about losing control. There had been a pedophile stalking children in the pack’s territory, and they’d been sent out to hunt him down. That was exactly what they had done. Then they botched the job beyond repair. In another time, they’d have been punished, but not killed.

And now they haunted him. That Charles could not release them was a second burden to bear, a second debt he owed to them.

His grandfather– his mother’s father – had taught him it was so, and his very long life had given him no reason to doubt it.

Dave Mason, the dead man nearest Charles, the last of the Mi