Page 50 of Asher

Hilda runs back in, waving several small items of clothing and a pillowcase. “I brought everything that hasn’t been washed yet,” she says breathlessly, thrusting them toward me. I lift the whole lot to my nose and inhale deeply, and the concentrated scent is like a punch. My olfactory senses do their thing, sorting and filing all the scent markers, and then I exhale and go to the front door, snagging my coat from the rack before letting myself out into the cold night.

I slog in a circle around the snowy front yard while Asher and Zac hold everyone back at the door. There are a lot of fresh scents here, with so many people having come and gone in the past hour. It’s frustrating, and my brain is overwhelmed and confused. I’m so used to just ignoring or even actively trying to block out smells that I can’t process this.

On the verge of giving up, I turn back to the house… and see all the scared, hopeful faces watching me. Unbidden, Isaac’s face that day he bumped his head rises in my mind’s eye. He was distressed then, and he’s probably distressed now. Cold, alone, and scared out there in the snowy dark.

There’s no way I’m giving up. I can do this. Hellhounds have the best sense of sme—

That’sit. I don’t know why my brain is working so slowly tonight, but I’m glad it’s catching up. I shift into my canid form, and instantly the scents are a hundred times clearer. It’s also easier to process them in this form.

There are a lot of traces of Isaac here in the yard, most of them older, but here…

Inhaling deeply, I let my instincts take over. It’s definitely from today. Someone with training could say how many hours old it is, but I just know it’s today. I shift back and call, “Did he come out this way before he went missing? That you know of?”

“No,” Asher’s uncle Hal calls back, voice shaky with hope. “We went to the store this morning, but we teleported. Otherwise, he’s been inside all day.”

I nod, shift again, then take a few steps forward, following the scent through the gate. It’s muddled there by all the people who’ve come through since, but when I turn my head to the left, I get a stronger waft. So I go left.

Then stop. I have his scent. I need to stoptryingand get this done so we can bring him home. I go back into the yard and shift back to biped. “Grab what we need. I’ve got it.”

There’s an outburst of excited sound, then bodies scramble every which way. Asher comes down the steps to me. “I’ll grab your gloves and hat. Give me those, too. Will you need them?” He nods to the tiny shirts and pillowcase still in my hands.

I look down at them, only now realizing how cold my hands are without gloves. I’m not even sure where I left them—usually I put them in my coat pocket, but they’re not there. “I don’t know. Maybe—could you put them in a bag or something?” I rack my brain for any details of scent tracking I might have been told over the years. “In a plastic bag. A Ziploc one if you can find it.” That will protect the scent.

“I’ll find one,” he assures me, then leans in for a kiss. “Thank you.”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” I remind him, not wanting to get hopes up. There’s every chance I’ll lose the trail, especially if it keeps snowing.

“You’ve given us a direction. We weren’t even sure if he’d gone out the front door or the back,” he points out. “You’ve done a lot, and I bet you’re going to do a lot more.” He kisses me again, and I take a second to just bask in it—not only the kiss itself, but the accompanying approval and appreciation. The unflinching respect I get from Asher is nice. Other people respect me too, but with Asher, I can count on it. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll support me.

When we’re not so preoccupied, I should probably give that some deeper thought.

People start pouring out of the house, and Asher goes to grab what we’ll need. Zac comes to stand with me. “I’m going to keep everyone behind you, with just me and Asher with you,” he says. He sounds weirdly focused and professional, but I guess he’s the most obvious choice to be in charge of a search party in the mountains, since he spends so much time there and is the unofficial village ranger. “I’ve managed to convince most people to stay here, but we need a good-sized group in case we run into problems.” The set of his mouth turns grim, and I try not to think about the kind of problems we could run into in the snow-laden mountains at night. “We have a two-hour time limit,” he continues. “I can’t justify having people out in these conditions after that.” His voice cracks on the last word, and I know it will kill him if he has to make the decision to leave Isaac out there.

“I’ll move as fast as I can,” I promise. “I’m going to be in hellhound form—is that okay?”

He thinks about it. “That may slow us down. We don’t have snowshoes for dogs—we’ve never needed them. The snowshoes will already slow us down. I wish we could teleport, but there’s too much ground to cover out there and no way to know where we’re going.”

Fuck. A tiny eddy of panic rises in me. Can I follow the trail in biped form?

I push it down.Let’s just see how it goes.I can follow the trail through the village easily enough, since Zoe cleared the roads. When the snowdrifts start piling up, I can decide which form is faster.

Asher comes out, the last to leave the house, and hands me my gloves and hat. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

Asher

Garrett leadsus quickly and without hesitation through the village, and I try to tamp down my hope. If this doesn’t work out, I can’t show him my disappointment. He’ll already be wrecked and blaming himself—I won’t add to that burden.

But we seem to be off to a good start. I glance over my shoulder to the rest of our search party, lagging about fifteen feet behind. Zac might not have to use his search and rescue skills too often, and I don’t think he’s worked with scent-tracking canines since he did his training, but he remembers what’s needed. He laid down the law with our relatives, only letting those of us with SAR training who swore we could control our emotions come along. Grandmother snapped at him, and he banned her from coming. A lot of people underestimate Zac because he’s so easygoing and disappears outdoors a lot, but if anyone can get Isaac home safely, it’ll be him.

We reach the edge of the village, and Garrett doesn’t pause, plunging into the snow without hesitation. Zac was concerned about this, and I was too, but we failed to take into account that we’re following Isaac’s trail, and he has little legs and no snowshoes. He’s taken the easiest path, and Garrett has no problem following him in canid form—if anything, it seems like it might be easier for him because his weight’s distributed over four feet instead of two. Whatever the reason, Zac and I exchange a glance of relief and pick up our pace to keep up.

After twenty or so more minutes, Zac says, “Hold up a minute,” and pauses. We’re in the woods now, which has made things simpler because the trees provide a lot of shelter. “Garrett, is the trail still strong? Still leading in a straight line?”

Whoa. I hadn’t noticed that, and as Garrett huffs and nods emphatically, I look back toward the village. It’s too far and too dark for me to be able to see it, but in the light of our torches, I can see that the tracks we’ve left are almost in a straight line. There’s some minor veering around trees and the like, but Isaac definitely wasn’t wandering aimlessly.

“Is he going somewhere?” I ask. “What’s even out this way?” If I remember right, we’ll start climbing within the next hundred or so feet, and then the trees start thinning. Surely he’ll turn off before the tree line.

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