Silver Collar.

By Gill McKnight.

Synopsis.

Luc Garoul is outlawed and out of control. The Garouls have set their best hunters after her before she self-destructs and takes the whole pack with her. But will they reach her in time? A more sinister predator has Luc in her crosshairs-a hunter as cunning and unforgiving as her prey.

Twenty years ago, Emily Johnston's father drowned in the Silverthread River, and no one in the town of Lost Creek believes it was an accident. For years, Emily has been spying on the Garouls. She has some ideas of her own as to what they really are. Now her chance has come. A lone Garoul has crossed her path, and Emily is determined to avenge her father. Emily is a strong and skilled hunter. And she has a silver collar.

Acknowledgments.

With love and grat.i.tude to Cate, Cindy K, Jove, and Jo, without whose help and enthusiasm this book would have been done in half the time.

And to my Eds-Cindy, of the infinite deadlines, and Stacia, the immovable object, always wonderful people to work with. Thank you.

Dedication.

For Louis, with love, Mum x.

Chapter One.

Luc Garoul squatted under the crab apple tree and watched the lights in the single story farmhouse go out one by one. First the kitchen light, then the living room. She waited until only a yellow oblong of light from a bedroom window poured out onto the yard. With a sigh, she settled in for a little longer. She needed the adults to be sound asleep.

Her stomach gurgled with hunger. She inserted a claw into her wet, bubbling nostril and examined the mucus she withdrew. It was clotted green and streaked with blood. Not good. Her head felt thick and her left ear buzzed with fluid gathering on her eardrum.

She poked at the gutted carca.s.s beside her. She hated domestic cat meat; it was stringy and foul tasting. She had slit this one open out of boredom. Good thing she hadn't gorged on it despite her hunger; its kidneys were rancid. Surprising, as it was a young cat, no more than a kitten really. She flicked the little bell on its collar making it tinkle and hoped it was a much-loved pet.

The bedroom light went out. Luc blinked in the darkness, her perfect night vision adjusting at once to the pitch-dark. Heavy cloud blanked out the stars and the sky hung low and foreboding over the fields. This farm grew wheat, hay, and sunflowers. No animal husbandry at all. That was very disappointing. She was on the run, hunted and famished, and she begrudged the farmer his lack of livestock. It would have been so much easier to pick off a calf or pig than go to all this trouble. Her ears flattened and she growled in discontent. She didn't have time to sit around waiting as her hunger and bitterness grew. She stood and stretched out her cramped muscles. It had been a long wait.

Her keen hearing picked out the dogs prowling back and forth in their run. There were two of them, young and unsure, whimpering in agitation. Earlier, when they were out with the farmer, she had slipped into their run and urinated on their bedding. Now they were cowed by her predator's scent and could do no more than whine in misery all night.

Luc trod through the family vegetable garden. Her huge paws flattened the leafy heads of beet and potato. She knew which window she wanted. She had been watching it all evening. The pink curtains were pulled tight. A picture of a pony was stuck to the gla.s.s pane beside a spangled wind chime. She needed that window to open just a crack. Enough to let her claws slide under the sill and force it all the way up. She lifted the collar and tinkled the little bell.

Meow. She mimicked a cat to perfection. Meow.

She sank to her haunches under the window and waited. A second later, a bedside lamp suffused the room with a soft pink glow. Luc smacked her lips in satisfaction.

"Tinker? Is that you?" a little girl's sleep-filled voice called out. "Tinker?"

Luc shrunk into the shadows and listened as small, clumsy fingers fumbled with the window latch.

"Tinker? You're a naughty kitty. You know you're not allowed out after dark."

The hinges squeaked as the window opened. Luc reached out. She knew what to do. A single fore claw to pierce the throat and rip apart the vocal cords. The rest of her claws would hook her muted victim under the chin, up into her mouth cavity. Then Luc would drag the child out by her face.

Her father should have kept livestock.

The air thrummed. It rasped around her like a harsh breath. Luc fell to the ground, instinct throwing her onto her belly. Wooden splinters blasted over her. Inches above her head, an arrow shaft sat embedded in the house's cedar siding.

Luc lurched forward in a hunched run. She zigzagged past the vegetable garden into the cover of the orchard. She didn't need to look back to see the arrow barb glinting in the pink bedroom light. She knew it was there, and she knew it was silver. She heard the sting of it whistling toward her. Now all she could do was run. Run from the arrow, run from the hunter on the other end of the crossbow- Luc jerked awake, her legs scrabbling in the dirt, running at full force even as the dream disintegrated around her. She blinked and finally stilled. Her heart pounded in a sickening, irregular rhythm. She was flat on her back. Overhead, stars shone with sharp-edged indifference. The night was frigid and unforgiving, at its blackest with dawn a long way off.

She was in human form, naked, and shaking with cold and shock. Pine needles p.r.i.c.kled her back and matted in her hair. Her chest heaved, and she coughed up thick wads of phlegm. She was ill and frightened, and the dream had terrified her.

Luc's coughing eased and she sucked in chill mountain air. It was too dark to move on, and anyway, there was no point while she was in her human skin. Nauseous and shivering, she curled up into a miserable ball and hoped sleep would soon reclaim her. She didn't care if she never woke up. Let the forest have her bones.

The hinges squeaked as the window opened.

"Tinker? Is that you?" the child said. Luc lunged. She dragged the little girl out onto the gra.s.s, and saw it was Mouse- Luc bolted upright, shaking violently. She had killed her daughter! Wild-eyed, she glanced about her. Sweat trickled down her chest. Another nightmare.

Daylight crept across the pewter sky, and birds began to chorus as the nocturnal world melted away. Luc sat stock-still and listened. She heard her heart thump, and the drum of steady rainfall. The patter of rain on leaves was lulling, but the relentless chill in her bones gave her no peace. Luc stood up stiffly, exhausted and unsure what to do next. She had to keep moving. She had to find food and keep warm. Nightmares plagued her, destroying her sleep. She could find no rest. Her dream felt ominous, and it rattled her. What did it mean? Was Mouse safe? She had done the best she could for her, but it was hard to walk away and leave her at Little Dip. They had not been as close as Luc would have liked, but then, she had engineered it that way. Her sister, Ren, had raised the child. Good ol' capable Ren, as solid as a tree stump. The cub might die of boredom, but at least she'd be well fed.

Luc gazed at the rising sun with its weak, watery halo. The Garouls would come after her soon. She had to head north as fast as possible. Her only ally was the rain; at least it would help dull her scent.

She sank onto her hands and knees and willed the change. She had a better chance of escape if she was wolven. Did she have enough strength to force it? It was a no-win situation. It took all her reserves to mutate to Were form, but the odds of survival against this virus were better as a beast. Luna only knew how long she could maintain the stronger physique. The downside was that her Were body burned up fuel, and she had little enough of that left. She needed a kill, and soon. She needed to feed.

Her dream still disorientated her. Why had she killed Mouse? Did it signify an ending? Luc wished she understood these things and forcibly pushed the dream away. Thinking about Mouse made her heartsick. She didn't need that on top of everything else. Her life was collapsing around her leaving her hollowed out and rudderless. North was the only compa.s.s point, the only bolt-hole left. A bone cracked in her hand, and her vertebrae popped one at a time. She fell belly first onto the pine needles, twisting with the pain as raindrops spotted her back. The change was agonizing, slow, and ragged. Not clean, and certainly not pretty. She used to glory in it, powering through her transformation in mere minutes. Now she felt flayed alive. Her bones creaked and cracked, muscles bunched and heaved and ground their way into wolven form. As a werewolf, she felt underpowered and weaker than she did in human shape, but her Were body would be better able to keep the virus in check. The unfortunate side effect of this was that her appet.i.te grew alongside her physique, and she was ravenous. She hoped she had the strength to kill.

Luc rose to her full height of almost eight feet and sniffed the damp air. It was full of possibilities. All she needed was luck...and some easy, careless, half-dead prey. She padded through the undergrowth on her huge clawed feet, crushing everything in her path. Trees swayed and blurred before her. Her ears rang dully, and sweat p.r.i.c.kled uncomfortably under her fur. Her tongue lolled from her muzzle, and she used it to wipe her snout clean.

She'd gone barely half a mile and was already exhausted when she smelled it, faint at first through the dampness of the day and the goo in her nostrils. Then the scent came again, fresher, stronger. She staggered on, lengthening her pace, eager now. A small clearing opened up, and there it was, a skinned rabbit, slick and pink in the fine misty rain. It hung from a wire from a cottonwood limb.

Trap. Her mind snapped around the word. She raised her snout to the air. It was useless; she could barely smell the raw flesh, never mind any nearby humans. She circled the clearing with leaden feet. She used to be so fast, so clever. She used to be dangerous. Now she was nothing more than a lump of granite thumping through the forest, waiting for the inevitable. If the virus didn't gut her, the Garouls soon would.

She hunkered down and thought about the rabbit. Her careful examination detected no b.o.o.by traps or ambush. The immediate area was clear. So the bait itself had to be poisoned, and that confused her. That was not the Garoul way. She shuffled closer, always alert. Nothing happened. Inches from the rabbit, she gave a cautious sniff. Nothing. No poison that she could smell, but could she trust her blunted senses? Her stomach growled; she hadn't eaten in two days. Even small game managed to elude her in this weakened state. She sniffed again. She poked out her tongue and pressed the tip against the rabbit's cold, wet flank. Rainwater moistened the flesh. She licked it clean using the flat of her tongue. Poison? She still couldn't tell. A low growl reverberated in her throat and she lunged. In a flash, her teeth sank into the stringy meat and tore it away from the wire. She swallowed it in one gulp.

Luc sank to the ground, resting on her heels, and waited for the cramps to start. She wondered which organs would fail first, the liver or the kidneys? She supposed it depended on what type of poison she had gorged. But nothing happened. An hour pa.s.sed. Her fur sequined with raindrops and she flicked them from her ears impatiently. Her belly growled, only slightly appeased with the meal. She needed more food, much more if she was to become strong enough. The gray morning shadows changed shape and lengthened, and still nothing happened. There was no poison.

Luc stood on shaky legs and moved on, surprised to still be alive. Half a mile away, she came across the second rabbit. She went through the same circling routine and found no traps. It confused her. Was she being drawn in? Perhaps the bait was not for her; perhaps the hunter sought other prey, but she didn't understand his method of hunting. She was certain now that this was not Garoul; this was some other hunter. But what was he up to? Luc shrugged and crunched on splintered rabbit bones. What did she know of mankind? She only knew wolven ways. That was all she had ever needed.

With more meat in her belly, she felt better. Attuned to the taste and smell of it, it was easier to pick up a third meal when its gamy scent carried in on the sodden breeze. She turned toward it without thinking. She was following blindly but didn't care. The weak daylight hurt her eyes, her snout poured mucus, and her throat and chest burned. Every muscle in her body hurt. Deep down, she knew she was dying so she might as well quit this world with a full belly. Without care or consideration, she stumbled on toward another clearing and another free meal.

Chapter Two.

Oh, Silver. n.o.blest of metals.

Native of earth yet ruled by Luna.

Bringer of death immortalized in our hearts.

Venus on my left side. Saturn to my right.

Mars before me, Jupiter behind me...

The translation spun away from her, melting back into a language more ancient than the Minoan empire. Emily sat back and sighed. She was too tired. She had labored all weekend to wrestle these lines from the page, and what the h.e.l.l were they? A song? A poem? Probably another of their G.o.dd.a.m.n awful recipes.

This was the oldest of all her source books and the most relevant. A treasure unearthed from a run-down auction house in Ma.r.s.eilles. She had thought France was as good a place as any to start, but had never imagined a bounty like this falling into her hands. Luck had smiled on her that day. The battered book was easily affordable for her American dollars, if only because it was so vandalized. The botanical plates had been ripped out at some earlier date leaving a stack of loose leaves and torn binding threads. She would have liked to have seen the plates. She'd heard the ill.u.s.trations in these books were remarkable, but the text with all its serpentine encoding was all she really needed.

The text borrowed from several ancient languages to hide its true nature. Each runic squiggle was part of a code she hadn't managed to decipher...yet. It didn't help that the content alluded to some ancient, pseudo-scientific art. She had interpreted signifiers for the planets, the elements, as well as other compound metals and was certain the art was alchemy. Silver lay at the core of whatever she was translating. She had seen the sign for it on nearly every page. Silver was a religion to these monsters. They sang to it, worshiped it, and they were afraid of it. And that's what kept her returning again and again to this ripped up, water-stained old book, wasting night after night trying to unlock its secrets. In the end, she knew it would be worth every torturous second. Know thine enemy. And by G.o.d, she could see right through this one.

Emily sat back and rubbed her dry, stinging eyes. Her back ached; she had been hunched over her desk for hours. Her watch read ten forty-seven. Was it really that late? She stared dolefully at the book lying open before her. As usual, she had lost all track of time once she cracked open its leather cover. It was worth it though. The old book oozed mystery and magic...and clues. They rose into the air like dust motes and danced before her tired eyes. Bit by bit, she was dismantling its secrets.

The leather covers creaked as she closed the L'Almanach Garoul, 1882. On the spine, the gilt embossed t.i.tle was all but worn away. The black cover boards were shabby, but the ornate decoration of moon phases still showed. The eternal moon cycle lay etched along the edges, a crescent moon blooming full, and falling back to a golden sickle. All were beautifully rendered despite the age of the book. It was a masterpiece of craftsmanship. But it was the embellishment in the center of the cover that always drew her curiosity.

She gently touched the indentation and traced the dips and swirls of the tooled paw print. It was ma.s.sive. The longest claw tips splayed over the edges of the book, and it was a big book. Emily had tried to research the markings. It was of no known animal that she could identify. Either it was an artist's fancy tooled onto the leather for decoration, or it belonged to an animal as yet uncatalogued. She had a good idea which one it was, and it wasn't any artist's fancy.

There was a tap at the door.

"You awake?"

She pulled her hand away as if contaminated. "Yeah, come through," she said, though the door was already opening. She shoved the almanac under some papers.

"Brought you tea, Em." Her uncle Norman came into the room, his concentration fully on the cup and saucer in his trembling hand. "It's late. Hadn't you better be thinking about bed?" He was always clucking over her.

"Thanks." She rose to take the cup from him, guilty that she had left him alone in front of the television. What was the point of visiting him if she skulked in her bedroom all evening studying her musty old books? Except she didn't want him to see what she was reading. He wouldn't understand and would only get upset. "You should have called me to come down. I had no idea it was so late."

"Reckoned you must be busy." He peered past her to the cluttered desk he'd handmade for her too many years ago. It looked diminutive under the stack of books she'd brought with her. She was relieved she'd hidden the almanac.

"You'll wear your eyes out in this light," he said and gave a sniff that could have been disdain or indifference; she was never sure which. Her uncle only held with books if the studying of them promised a decent job, like medicine or law, professions he understood. Her father had been a schoolteacher, and to Norm, that was the pinnacle of success. Everything else, he viewed with suspicion, and Emily supposed she hadn't helped any by returning from college as a scientist, of all things. Worse still, a doctor of something that sounded newfangled and faddy to Norm. In a science he probably suspected diverted good funding money from the real important stuff.

Genomics. She researched genetic mapping. She had explained what she did to him a hundred times, but he was still baffled. However, the fact that she had a doctorate, and his living room wall was filled with her certificates and graduation photographs made him proud. None of his buddies had anyone half as smart as Emily in their families.

Her success was the compromise between her need to get away and his need to worry for her. His savings had gone to making her the professional she was today in a science he was half afraid of. His money, and the small insurance policy left by her father, had given her the education she needed to escape this backwater town.

Emily suppressed a smile; she could read his huffy att.i.tude like the back of a matchbox, all small print and rattling, with an occasional flare-up. Her uncle Norm was a grumpy old malcontent. He hated the modern world and most things in it, except her. He had supported her all her life, and she loved him for it.

"Stay and talk," she said.

"Nah, early start tomorrow. My bones want bed." Already, he was turning away, shaking his head. "Oh, it was the widow woman," he added and looked back at her expectantly.

"What?"

"The widow woman. Lived next door," he explained further. She looked at him blankly. His face closed and his gaze darted away in embarra.s.sment. "In that thing we were watching. The detective thing. It was her killed the boy."

"Oh. Yeah," she answered, feeling ashamed. This was the TV cop program they had been watching hours ago. Before she went upstairs to use the bathroom and never came down again. Before a thought struck her, and she had to come and crack open a book to make sure of some detail or other. Before she had fallen down that rabbit hole an open book always provided, and abandoned him completely. Her heart sank. She had been selfish and she had hurt him. Her visits home were rare, and he looked forward to them so much, and here she was, not giving him even half the time she should.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Norm. I got sidetracked." She flailed her hand limply toward the stacked desk.

"I know. I know. You got work to do. But remember, this is supposed to be a vacation. You need to get out, get fresh air." As ever, he loved an opportunity to scold and fuss. But only a little. He always let her have her own way. Again, she damped down a smile. He was lucky she'd been such a levelheaded, timorous teenager; Lord knew how he would have coped had she been headstrong and wild.

"I'm going hiking again tomorrow," she said to appease him.

"You been trapping?" he asked eagerly. Emily suspected he hunted vicariously through her these days. He had declared several years ago he was too old to go dragging around the woods after vermin, but his interest in it never failed.

"Yeah." She took a sip of her tea. It was too sweet. He never got it right. "I might have some rabbit for the freezer."

"Don't go near that valley." He glowered at her ominously.

"I won't," she said in all honesty. I don't think I have to.

He grunted, pleased. "Night, Em. Sweet dreams."

"You, too, Uncle Norm," she said and watched him leave.

She sat back down at her desk, balancing her cup on the last inch of s.p.a.ce, and checked over her scrawled notes. More hours pa.s.sed. Rain rattled hard on the window and broke her concentration. Emily yawned and stretched, studying her skinny midriff reflected in the windowpane. She needed to stop and get some sleep. She was neglecting herself. She should eat better and get some of that fresh air she'd promised her uncle she would. Well, she definitely would be doing that later...today? Was it really that late? In a few hours, she'd be out there, making the rounds and checking on her lures, carrying on with her experiment. She'd told Uncle Norm she was going hiking. Hiking was a nice word for what she had in mind.

From her bedroom window, rivulets of rain distorted the buildings of Lost Creek, weaving their misshapen outlines into one another. She could make out the local gas station, closed because everyone used the mall these days. Next door was Gilroy's Hardware, still limping along because needles and buckets and twine were not worth the ride over to Covington, the nearest big town. Beside Gilroy's stood the pharmacy, and next to that more empty storefronts. This was the lot of backwater towns in hard times. Main Street was practically a mausoleum.

Beyond the rooftops, from her second floor window over Johnston's General Store, she could make out the ghostly sway of poplar trees. Their slender crowns quivered under the onslaught of rain. Hundreds of trees, thousands, tens of thousands, running away from the edge of town and down into the valley as far as the eye could see. All the way down to Little Dip, to the people who claimed ownership of all the land hereabouts. People? More like animals. The gla.s.s reflected her bitter grimace.

Emily slid open the desk drawer and lifted out a cloth bundle. She set it on the desk and unwrapped the black silk. It pooled around a bright circular ornament. Emily lifted the large silver collar; it glimmered sharply in the lamplight. She regarded it from all angles with reverence, but not for its beauty or expense. It had cost her nearly two months' salary to have it made. Thank goodness it had to be silver and not gold or she'd never have afforded it.

It was a plain thing, no decoration whatsoever, yet its curve and bevel held a simplistic elegance she supposed was beautiful. The silver shone, sometimes sharp as a knife, sometimes soft like a good luck charm. She hoped it was both those things; she needed both. She was unsure of the dimensions so had erred toward oversize. The lock was delicately intricate, and the key was on a long chain around her neck. It nestled close to her heart. If she'd interpreted the almanac correctly, this was a very powerful weapon. A werewolf wearing a silver collar was as powerless and placid as a newborn pup. She set the collar back onto its bed of silk and gazed out at the trees and the black hills beyond.

"I'll get you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And if I don't kill you first, I'm going to shackle you and sell you for millions," she swore to her nighttime reflection. It looked back at her, dark and distorted by the rain.

Chapter Three.