"Relax," I ordered before Jessie and Leigh could threaten me again. "I'm not going to flip out and start eating the populace."
At least for another few days.
"You can make more," Damien pressed. "Can't you?"
"Sure."
As soon as Edward handed over the formula.
I'd planned to send Damien some of the serum before the next full moon. The item had been on my to-do list. Along with a whole bunch of other things I couldn't quite remember.
I stood and crossed to the window, peering at the second floor of the antiques store. A light was on inside, but no shadows moved beyond the curtains.
"Maybe I should see if they're okay."
"Why wouldn't they be?"
I turned at Jessie's words. "You've never told me why you came to Fairhaven."
The four of them exchanged glances. I was getting really sick of being on the outside looking in. I should have been used to it by now, but I wasn't.
"What?" I demanded.
"We're not exactly sure," Damien said.
Leigh shushed him, and I shot her a glare. "If the compound wasn't toast, you'd be sending me a report.
You never had a problem with that before."
"Before, you weren't one of them."
"I was. You just didn't know it."
Leigh's fingers curled into fists. "I can't believe you let your hair down and run naked in the woods once a month."
"It isn't as if I have a choice." I didn't want to talk about my affliction - with her or anyone else. "Can we move on? What's happening here?"
Silence reigned for several ticks of the clock before Will spread his hands. "People are disappearing."
I wanted to say "Same old, same old," but that wouldn't be helpful, would it?
"Who called Edward?" I asked instead.
"The sheriff."
"Bodies in the woods? Mangled? Eaten?"
"Not this time."
"What, then, this time?"
"People go missing," Leigh chimed in. "There's blood but no bodies."
"We thought the victims were shifting more quickly than usual," Will said. "Maybe some new kind of spell."
"Instant werewolf." Jessie made the motions of a drum roll with her hands. "Presto changeo."
My hand went to the talisman in my pocket. Uh-oh. I opened my mouth to explain, and Will jumped in.
"But there hasn't been an increase in the wolf population to account for the vanishing citizens. Damien says there aren't any werewolves here at all, except for him."
"No werewolves?" I glanced at Damien.
He shook his head. "No wolves of any kind."
"There are wolves all over this part of the state."
"Except in Fairhaven," he said.
"The only reason for no wolves in a place like this would be werewolves," I murmured. "They don't like one another."
"Exactly," Damien agreed. "So what does it mean if there's neither one?"
I had no idea, but I doubted it meant anything good.
"No one's seen any wolves," Leigh continued, "but the forest is full of crows."
Crows and wolves work together in nature. Wolves tolerated the birds, even let them feed off their kills.
In return, many naturalists believe crows fly ahead of the packs, leading them to prey. The behavior transfers to werewolves. Where there's a lot of one, there's a lot of the other.
My own fascination with the large, black scavengers had begun in childhood. While many people used them for target practice, I'd drawn pictures of crows over and over again. When I got older, I began to collect figurines, paintings, stuffed animals - like the one Nic had found on my desk. Heckle and Jeckle had been my favorite cartoon.
No wonder Edward had kept such a close eye on me.
"When I'm out in the woods," Damien murmured. "I sense... I'm not sure. It's as if something's coming, or maybe just left. I feel watched even when I'm certain nothing's there."
I'd say he was paranoid, except I'd felt something, too.
"What were you shooting at when I got here?"
"Shadows," Jessie muttered. "We're all spooked."
Which wasn't like them. Werewolf hunters were the least spookable creatures on earth. They had to be.
She saw my expression, must have read my mind. "I can kill anything I see. But what am I supposed to do when I know it's there, but it isn't?"
I had no answer for that.
"Axe you sufficiently brought up to speed, Elise?"
Edward's voice from the doorway made me gasp and spin around. "I hate when you sneak up on me."
That he could was amazing in itself. I had the hearing of a wolf.
I glanced past Edward, searching for Nic, my mind already scrambling for a way to explain our discussion of disappearing bodies. But my boss was alone, and that made me more nervous.
"What did you do with him?"
"Who?"
"You know damn well who!"
His eyes narrowed, and I swallowed the rest of the angry words that threatened to spill off my tongue.
They'd get me nowhere.
"Where is Agent Franklin, sir?"
"Where do you think?"
My heart skipped, then lunged into my throat. "You didn't."
"That depends on what you think I did."
"You can't go around killing FBI agents."
He frowned. "Why would I do that?"
"Because your answer to every problem is to shoot it?"
"It has always worked well for me."
I couldn't just stand around while Nic might be dead or dying. I started for the door, and Edward yanked me back. "Relax. He is safe."
He dropped my arm immediately, surreptitiously rubbing his fingers against his black pants. Though I'd been expecting it, Edward's typical reaction to being anywhere near me hurt more than usual.
The only man who had ever touched me gently, willingly, was Nic - and he didn't know what I was.
Seeing him again made me long for what I didn't, and couldn't, have.
"By safe you mean - "
"Alive," Edward snapped. "I am not completely senile. Yet."
" Yet being the operative word," Jessie muttered.
I tensed, anticipating an explosion of German obscenities. Instead, Edward smirked, winked, and the two of them chuckled. I stifled my childish jealousy. He would never care for me the way he cared for Jessie or Leigh, and I'd better get used to it.
Edward glanced at the Fitzgeralds. "I thought I sent you two... elsewhere."
"We wanted to hear the story of why your second in command turns furry every month."
The last flicker of humor fled his eyes as he glanced at me. "You told them everything?"
Not everything. There were certain secrets only Edward and I could ever know.