Monster (Blood Trails Book 2) Read online

  Monster

  Blood Trails, Book 2

  Jennifer Blackstream

  Skeleton Key Publishing

  Contents

  Copyright

  Summary

  Also by Jennifer Blackstream

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Next Book

  From the Author

  Other Books by Jennifer Blackstream

  Did you find a typo?

  Ahoy, ebook pirates!

  MONSTER

  A Blood Trails Novel, Book 2

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  JENNIFER BLACKSTREAM

  Website

  Mailing List

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  Monster

  ©Copyright Jennifer Blackstream 2017, Skeleton Key Publishing

  Edited by 720 Editing

  Cover Art by Yocla Designs © Copyright 2017

  This is a work fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form without the written permission of the author. You may not circulate this book in any format. Thank you for respecting the hard work of all people involved with the creation of this ebook.

  USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Blackstream continues her thrilling urban fantasy series with more magic, mayhem, and murder…

  Still recovering from the political and personal consequences of her last case, Shade Renard is in no shape for a visit from her mentor. But when the most powerful witch in existence offers you a chance at an unqualified, unlimited favor, you take it.

  To collect, Shade must find out who—or what—killed a human in one of Cleveland’s peaceful metro parks. The challenge? The lead suspect is a cop found with the victim’s blood all over him. The complication? He’s a werewolf. As are several of the park rangers. And they’re not happy Shade is on the case.

  Success means a favor from Baba Yaga. Failure means Shade will have to quit her private investigative career—forever.

  Favors are never free.

  ALSO BY JENNIFER BLACKSTREAM

  Join my mailing list to be alerted when new titles are released.

  Urban Fantasy

  Blood Trails Series

  Deadline

  Monster

  Book #3 (Sept 2018)

  Paranormal Romance

  Blood Prince Series

  Before Midnight

  One Bite

  Golden Stair

  Divine Scales

  Beautiful Salvation

  Bonus Novel: The Pirate’s Witch

  Blood Realm Series:

  All for a Rose

  Blue Voodoo

  The Archer

  Bear With Me

  Stolen Wish

  Join my mailing list to be alerted when new titles are released.

  Short stories are not listed here, but can be found on my website here.

  “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

  ― Joseph Conrad

  Chapter 1

  “I have come to make you a deal.”

  That sentence, delivered in the craggy voice of my mentor, Mother Hazel, was the only warning I got. I glanced up from my crowded to-do list in time to see a grey and brown blur fall toward my desk. A cry of protest bubbled up my throat as I threw out a hand to catch it, but I was too slow. The heavy object landed with an ominous thud.

  “Hey!”

  I snatched up the cumbersome circlet of metal and leather with one hand and drew a finger over the mahogany surface with the other. My new desk for my new office. A symbol of my dedication to my fresh start in the private investigation industry. The grand piece of furniture had been too expensive, a ridiculous luxury that embarrassed me only slightly less than it pleased me. And now it had a large groove in it where the metal stud on whatever it was the old crone had dropped had bit into the smooth wood.

  It mirrored my relationship with my waiting mentor to perfection.

  Twin locks of grey hair fell to either side of Mother Hazel’s face, brushing the floor as she tilted her head. An arched, bushy eyebrow was her sole acknowledgment of my distress. She straightened her short, stout frame and pointed at the object that had caused the blunt force trauma to my furniture. “Do you know what that is?”

  “Nothing fragile, I hope,” I muttered.

  Mother Hazel met my gaze without a hint of humor. “Sarcasm is unnecessary. Can you identify it, or can’t you?”

  If I’d thought saying no would make her leave, I’d have said it. But even though I wasn’t Mother Hazel’s apprentice anymore, hadn’t been for three years, I’d been her apprentice long enough that this trivial identification challenge was as familiar a routine as my morning coffee. And I knew she wasn’t going anywhere until I jumped through her hoops.

  Resigned to my fate, I studied the object. It was a brown leather collar, decorated with five iron studs spaced down its length at equal distances. The leather yielded when I folded it, the entire length well worn and soft. Too small to fit around any human’s waist. Not a belt, then. “It’s a collar.” I squinted at the inner lining. What I’d dismissed as random scratches weren’t scratches at all. “There are runes carved into it.”

  Mother Hazel offered no encouragement, no premature confirmation. Par for the course.

  I concentrated on the symbols, pushing out with my magic. At the first brush of my power, the symbols burst into vibrant golden light.

  “An abjuration spell.” I licked my lips, and I could almost taste the magic, could almost see it glittering like a gold chain within the leather casing. “It’s a suppression collar.” I rolled the energy around my mind again, prodding at it with my senses. There were threads of silver wrapped deep inside the golden bonds. “And a tracking spell.”

  “You’re describing the pieces, but what is the whole?” Mother Hazel pressed.

  I put it down and reached out to straighten the long, gold-plated plaque with my name on it perched on the edge of the desk before folding my hands. “It’s a device to prevent a shifter from changing form. It will also allow someone to track the wearer the same as if you’d implanted a GPS chip.”

  A calculating gleam shone in my mentor’s eyes. In all the years I’d known her, that look had never boded well for me.

  “Yes.” She stepped closer, her protruding belly pressing against the desk. “It—”

  “That’s creepy,” interrupted a high-pitched voice.

  Mother Hazel and I turned in unison to see a pink pixie with thin gossamer wings pop her head over the top of the half-empty bookshelf in the corner. Peasblossom leaned her six-inch frame over the edge to peer down at the collar. “You had a nightmare about werewolves last night, and now she’s bringing you a werewolf collar. That must mean something. I told you, dreams that wake you up screaming are not something you should ignore. But do you listen? Noooo…”

  Mother Hazel’s gaze sharpened, pinning me to my seat. “You had a nightmare about a werewolf?”

  I shot Peasblossom a glare for the revelation, then gave my mentor my most reassuring smile. “It wasn’t a ni
ghtmare. It was just a strange dream.”

  “Was it a werewolf or a shifter? Be specific.”

  I gripped the padded arms of my leather chair—also new—then forced myself to relax. “It might have been a werewolf. I’m not sure. I remember a black beast.”

  Saying the words out loud brought the images back. For one vertigo-inducing second, I was back in the dream. My legs pumped as I ran, muscles burning in protest. Sweat poured from my forehead. Labored breathing strained my lungs, turning my chest into one giant bruise, and a cramp stabbed into my side, trying to force me to stop, to give up. The beast crashed through the forest behind me. Twigs snapped under heavy paws, and wildlife scattered with screeches of fear, feeding my own terror. With every thud of my heart, I could swear I felt its hot breath on my neck, getting closer, ready to pounce. It was coming. There was no escaping it. No getting away.

  I shivered and pulled my black fleece wrap tighter around me. It was spring, and the promise of a warm afternoon had made me forgo a hooded sweatshirt in favor of a simple long-sleeved black shirt over my usual multicolored leggings. I’d grabbed the wrap as an afterthought, a grudging concession to the chilly morning. Now I wished I’d brought both. I groped for the cup of coffee cooling in my oversized Batman mug, my hand shaking enough to throw off my aim, so I grabbed the mug holding my pens instead.

  Mother Hazel pointed at me with a long fingernail. “That’s what you get for making an enemy out of a dream sorceress.” A frown marred the corners of her mouth. “Did you send her an apology gift?”

  I released the pen mug and grabbed my coffee, spilling a few fat drops before I steadied myself to take a sip. It was still a few degrees too hot, but I didn’t care. I took a deep breath through my nose, letting the fragrance of a medium roast waft over my senses. Some of the tension seeped from my shoulders, and I settled back in my chair. “Yes, I sent an apology gift three days after our…misunderstanding. A statue of the god Morpheus carved from amethyst.” I took a sip of coffee, rolling it over my taste buds with a contented sigh. “I thought it was a well-chosen present, but apparently it was not sufficient for her to forgive my little indiscretion.”

  “You set one of her hotel rooms on fire.” Peasblossom propped her chin up on one hand. “That’s not a ‘little indiscretion.’ At least, you didn’t think so when I tried to roast s’mores on the stove.”

  “You caught a dish towel on fire, and nearly burned the house down.”

  Peasblossom’s wings flicked in annoyance. “At least my fire was an accident. You burned down Arianne’s hotel room on purpose!”

  “I set fire to my restraints to save my life! The bed was—” I held up a hand. “I’m not having this argument with you. You aren’t using the stove again, and that’s final.” I looked away from the fuming pixie to Mother Hazel. “I said I was sorry, and I sent her an apology gift. I can’t force her to forgive me.”

  “You made an enemy of a powerful sorceress because you insist on pursuing this…career of yours.”

  She said the word “career” the way a five-year-old would say “cooties,” complete with the slight wrinkling of her nose.

  “If you continue on the path you’ve chosen for yourself, you can expect more nightmares—and possibly much worse.”

  I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the headache forming there. We were meandering into familiar—and unpleasant—territory, so I opted to change the subject. “Can we talk about the deal you mentioned?”

  “We are.” She paced the room, casting a disapproving eye over my office’s unadorned grey walls and the spotted windows that made up the northernmost wall. “Last night, a young boy called the police from the Rocky River Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks. He said there was a dead body among the trees.”

  I straightened. “A body?”

  “Yes. Well, most of a body. A wolf found the corpse first, and there was a rather large amount of the man’s midsection missing.”

  My stomach rolled, and I pushed away the chocolate chip cookie I’d intended to have for breakfast. “Ohio doesn’t have wolves, not beyond those kept as pets by humans who don’t know better.” I looked at the collar, and the unease twisting my guts into knots grew heavier. “You think it was a werewolf.”

  “Perhaps. When the boy told the 911 operator about the condition of the body, the dispatcher notified the Wild Animal Task Force. Are you familiar with it?”

  I made a fist, resisting the urge to grab my laptop and do an internet search for wolves in Ohio in the wild hope that perhaps their numbers had exploded and we could blame the predation on a normal, run-of-the-mill grey wolf. Or maybe a coyote. It could have been a coyote. I could look up the bite radius…

  “Sort of,” I answered slowly. “The task force came about after some politician’s wife claimed she was bitten by a wolf while visiting a reservation in the Cleveland Metroparks system. Her husband seized the opportunity to declare a resurgence of wolves into Ohio from Michigan, and he demanded the city take measures to protect park visitors from any attacks like the one on his wife.” I shrugged. “The consensus among the rangers is it was a political ploy to win votes by painting himself as a guardian against the big, bad wolves. A classic motif for classic political grandstanding.”

  Mother Hazel snorted. “It was political, yes, but only because the mayor’s wife did not have the mental capacity to process the truth of what bit her. That was no wolf. It was a barghest.”

  My eyebrows shot up. Despite being a canid, a barghest resembled a wolf only at first glance. A closer inspection would reveal front limbs more congruent with human hands than paws and a snout resembling a vampire bat more than a canine. “I thought her mental health vacation was added drama for the papers. If she saw a barghest, I guess that team of private doctors wasn’t superfluous.”

  “Giving someone a bottle of medication to dull the mind until it can’t register fear is not helpful.” Mother Hazel’s voice thickened with disgust. “She’d have been better off seeing a witch.”

  I nodded, for once in complete agreement. “True. Though if she doesn’t believe in the Otherworld enough for her mind to process a barghest, then I suppose she never realized consulting a witch was an option.”

  “Too bad she didn’t see your lovely online advert,” Mother Hazel commented, meeting my eyes.

  Warning bells went off in my brain. I could feel the lecture on why I should stick to being the village witch instead of mucking about as a private investigator on the horizon.

  “All right,” I continued, a little too loudly, “so she was bit by a barghest and her husband created a task force to battle imaginary wolves. So what?”

  “The original members of the task force nearly died en masse, humans being unprepared to handle the likes of a barghest. However, there was one blessing to come out of the unfortunate situation. Liam Osbourne, the alpha of the Rocky River pack and the detective sergeant of the Cleveland Metropark Rangers, caught the ear of the horrified mayor. He recommended several officers who were ‘well suited’ to dealing with wild animals.”

  “Clever. Now they’ll notify him for any animal attacks—which would mean he gets the call if there are any incidents involving a werewolf.” I took another sip of my coffee, curling my fingers around the warm mug.

  “And that is what happened last night as soon as the boy mentioned predation. The operator called Sergeant Osbourne, and upon investigating, he found a werewolf in the woods. The beast had the victim’s blood on his face.”

  The spelled leather and metal seemed to throb in time with the story. My hands shook, and I put the coffee down before I could spill the rest of it. “And you want me to collar it?”

  Mother Hazel squinted at a spot on the front window. “Yes and no. I want you to find out what happened to Oliver Dale. Do you ever clean your windows?”

  “Oliver Dale being the victim?”

  She nodded, still eyeing the window.

  I frowned. If Sergeant Osbourne found the beast covered in the vic
tim’s blood, and the body bore obvious signs of predation, then it seemed like an open and shut case. So either she was toying with me…or there was more.

  She let me stew for another minute, before going on. “The shifter the detective sergeant found was a member of his own pack. It is my understanding this wolf was in good standing, a trusted man and beast. Liam does not believe he killed Oliver.”

  I clasped my hands and rested them on my stomach. “That’s a lot of trust, considering how he found him.”

  “Yes. It is a mark of Sergeant Osbourne’s character that he is proceeding in an objective manner. Despite his personal feelings for this wolf, he seems determined to maintain propriety.” She gestured at the enchanted metal and leather. “He called the Vanguard to request the collar.”

  I groped for my mug, suddenly desperate for caffeine. The Vanguard was the Otherworld’s version of Interpol, an organized hodgepodge of representatives who helped coordinate interspecies criminal investigations.

  “What operatives did the Vanguard assign to the case?” I held my breath as I waited for the answer. The Vanguard strove to be consistent and fair in its pursuit of justice, and there were measures in place to assure no one held too much power, or gathered enough clout to replace their own idea of justice with that of the organization. But no hierarchy could truly police itself. And, frankly, good or bad, members of the policing organization could be downright terrifying.