Page 24 of Wind with a Chance of Wolfsbane

Reggie paled more.

“Hey, take it easy,” said Leo. “He’s not suggesting it to be a dick. He’s looking at this from all angles, like you should be. I get that you and I are new to working with one another, but you’re kind of legendary in the organization. We’ve all heard about you. Not once in all the chatter has it ever come up that you’re hot-headed and unable to do your job. No. You’re cited as one of the best. The best wouldn’t overlook other possible theories or threaten to kill someone who dared to bring up other options.”

The man was right.

Something was seriously wrong.

Jonathan glanced at his hand, and his claws receded, leaving no sign they were ever there. He lifted his chin in Reggie’s direction. “My apologies.”

“Uh, it’s fine,” said Reggie. “I don’t really think two young girls are evil or anything, but something is off about all this. Could they have been unwilling and unknowing pawns?”

Jonathan opened his mouth to object but stopped. Could they?

The Murray line of slayers had once been seen as royalty in some respects among the hunter community. They’d been the gold standard. One that other lines tried to strive to meet. They were second only to the Van Helsing line.

After Alvin’s death, it had appeared to explode from the inside out, splitting into two houses, one sane but small and the other run by a manic, power-hungry individual. Two brothers, Simon and Ashley, or “Ash,” ran the sane one. The other was run by a psychopath—Helen Murray.

“From the look on his face, it’s a definite maybe,” said one of the other men.

“Shit,” breathed another. “If so, this just got a lot more complicated.”

Leo sighed. “It was already a lot more complicated. I didn’t get to finish telling you everything my informant told me.”

That caught Jonathan’s attention. “What else did they say?”

“It gets much worse,” said Leo.

“Of course it does,” said another man.

“The curator who had been assigned to Helen Murray’s crew is missing,” said Leo. “No one can find him. The curators themselves are starting to question if he’s even alive. From what I was told, they’re close to bringing in outside help—which would be us or someone we have no control over. Someone who might be as understanding and levelheaded as us.”

“Why haven’t we been told of this before?” asked another Van Helsing, his attention on Jonathan. “Wouldn’t the curators want us to have a heads-up?”

Jonathan let out a long, annoyed breath. “Unless they can prove something is wrong and that the Murray line can’t be trusted, bringing a claim like that to us would be bad. Really bad. It could basically turn factions against factions. And it would tie their hands on getting help from non-sanctioned slayer lines. Making us aware puts the issue on our radar.”

“But they’d have raised the issue with the other Murray line, right? The non-crazy line?” asked Reggie.

Jonathan nodded. “Yes. For sure.”

“Why wouldn’t the other Murray line come to us then?” asked another Van Helsing. “It would help them get ahead of this.”

“Because the Murrays will keep this as close to the vest as possible until they know all the facts. Doesn’t matter if they’ve had infighting or if they’re two factions operating under the same banner. We’re all outsiders, and this is something they’ll do their best to keep in-house. Same as we’d do if it were the Van Helsings.”

The men in the room shared knowing looks. A few whispered amongst themselves about how they’d have already hunted the rot out of the Van Helsing line, but Jonathan ignored them, his thoughts trailing off to the young woman from two weeks ago.

Was Reggie onto something? Was she somehow involved in the mess that was happening in the area? If so, how? He stood by his comment that she and her sister weren’t supernaturals, and they certainly hadn’t come across as slayers or hunters to him in any way.

He could still feel the young girl’s fear. Worry for her had clawed at his gut for weeks now. He kept telling himself that she’d been fine and had gotten off safely, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

That she wasstillin danger.

It shouldn’t have mattered much to him, but it did. He just wasn’t sure why. In his life, he’d met hundreds of thousands of people. Most were forgettable. She wasn’t. Hell, she was haunting his dreams.

Find her, his wolf pushed.

He shook his head and noticed Leo watching him.

Jonathan attempted to play off his movements and actions, knowing he looked as if he was losing it.

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