Page 10 of Protection of the Pack

‘That would probably be sensible, though unless you cut yourself with it or ingest it the worst that will happen is that you’ll get a rash. But you don’t want someone grabbing your pretty silver necklace, ramming it down your throat and killing you by making you eat it.’ He seemed to be speaking from experience. He looked down at the ruined corpse. ‘I’m not sure if Mark Oates died from silver poisoning or blood loss. The pathologist will know.’

I wasn’t sure it mattered a whole lot. Mark was dead. Whether the cause was a silver weapon or the deep cuts that littered his body, his assailant’s intentions were clear.

I studied the body as clinically as I could. ‘Someone went a bit nuts. The eye-gouging thing makes it look personal.’

‘Yeah, it’s a violent way to go. Perhaps passion was involved, though the eye removal could have been symbolic. Maybe Mark saw something he shouldn’t have. The Other realm is a violent place,’ Steve pointed out.

I sighed. ‘Yeah. I’m beginning to realise that.’ It worried me; I’m not well-equipped for violence.

I am,Esme confirmed. Her words shouldn’t have reassured me, but they did.

‘As alpha, I’m supposed to take care of this shit, right?’

Steve slid me a sidelong glance. ‘Obviously, as an officer of the Connection I need to tell you that this is my investigation and you should stay away from it. But as your friend? If you want to survive as alpha, yeah, you need to take care of this shit. Get to the bottom of it, either with or without me. Find out who killed your wolf and do something about it. Either I can arrest them, or you can take them down.’

‘How is it that you don’t seem even slightly fazed by vigilante justice?’

He shrugged. ‘If you hadn’t noticed by now, the Other realm is a different kettle of fish.’

I haven’t noticed many fish,Esme commented, bemused.Why would you put them in a kettle? I know you like tea…

Trying not to giggle out loud, I briefly explained the idiom to her.

Steve was still talking. ‘With so many species co-existing with different moral frameworks, violence is to be expected. It’s reduced a lot since the Connection came into existence eighty-odd years ago, but it’s a dog-eat-dog realm and the strong survive. The Connection can’t stop that, even if it wanted to. Vigilante justice is par for the course.’

‘Great. I’ve stumbled into a world where Superman and Batman are A-okay with the authorities.’

‘It’s not Superman and Batman you need to worry about, it’s Lex Luthor and the Joker. Everything here is extreme. Life is under the magnifying glass – and everything here is larger than in Common life.’

Chapter 5

Ipacedthefloorimpatiently. ‘So how do I go about investigating murder? I’m an accountant. If you came to me with embezzlement, I’d be your girl – but murder? I don’t know where to start.’

‘You always start with the victim,’ Steve advised. ‘But honestly? I don’t want to use a cliché, but most murders are carried out by loved ones. The gouging out of the eyes thing could indicate passion – or just your regular torture. Either Mark Oates was into some dark stuff or his ex-wife got pissed off.’

‘Does Mark have an ex-wife?’

‘Luckily for you, Mark was a person of interest not too long ago so I’ve got a jump- start on this case. Mark has an ex-everything. Of all of your people, he’s going to be the toughest one to investigate. He had fingers in lots of pies and some of those pies weren’t all that savoury.’

‘Apple and cinnamon pie?’ I asked, tongue in cheek.

He slid me an amused glance. ‘Nothing so sweet, I’m afraid.’

‘So, unsavoury pies. What are we talking about? Sex, drugs, rock and roll?’

‘Drugs, yes.’

‘Crack cocaine, weed, steroids?’ Steroids I could believe; Mark had been a total beefcake and I wasn’t sure how much of it was natural and how much of it was werewolf. My body has undoubtedly strengthened since I turned, but I’m not exactly covered in rippling muscles.

‘By all accounts, Mark experimented with the drug named Boost. He was documented buying it a couple of months ago when we were investigating the drug cartel that was producing and selling it. Did you hear about Boost?’

Hear about it? Jess had been in the middle of the investigation and take down. Boost was a drug that temporarily boosted your Other powers and made you faster, stronger. It was the first drug that was designed specifically for the Others. The problem, besides the fact that it was illegal and highly addictive, was that it was also Russian roulette as to whether you got high or you died.

‘What was Mark doing with Boost?’ I asked. ‘Was he taking it or selling it?’

‘As far as we could tell, he was only a customer. We were investigating the drugs cartel and drug sales in the area when Jinx managed to get the whole organisation shut down.’

Most people in the Other know Jess by her nickname, but for me she’ll always be snot-nosed little Jessica Sharp who played unicorns with me in the playground.

---