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“I don’t know.” She shrugged, then covered her eyes with her hand as tears slowly rolled down her face. Her voice throaty with tears, she added, “Whoever did it, I just want them dead.”
I swept the gaunt, lean woman into my arms and hugged her. She was so creative and nurturing in her restaurant; it was a shock to hear her talk so harshly. Grief was like that, though. It could make killers out of ordinary men and women. Heading back into the other room, I gave Marion a moment to compose herself. I motioned for everyone’s attention and glanced at Chase, who nodded for me to go ahead. He trusted us. We did our best not to abuse that trust.
“We have a situation that started back in October. Whether or not it relates to the bombing tonight, we’re not sure yet. But I think it best if we tell you about it in case the events spark off any connections…anything that might help us locate who killed your family members. Again, as Chief Johnson said, we’re sorry to have to put you through this tonight—we understand how hard it is. But the sooner we can gather clues, the sooner we can begin looking for the perpetrators.”
The word perpetrator felt odd on my tongue. To my mind, they were murderers, but the inflammatory tone of the word might further sidetrack the family members, who were reeling as it was.
Marion quietly joined us again. She slipped into her seat. I glanced at her, and she gave me a resigned look. I smiled at her and continued.
“Last October, some of you may remember hearing of several killings that happened among the werewolf community. We were investigating the case of several werewolves who were murdered—”
“I remember that,” the weredog said. “I’m Shane Creia. Thomas was my little brother. He was only a couple of years out of high school. He’s got a wife and twin boys.” He pinched his nose, the tears glistening in his eyes. “What kind of people do this?”
The other man—a werewolf—cleared his throat. I could tell his nerves were raw. Weres were readable; we were like open books at times thanks to our heightened body language. “Geraldo Tienes…Salvatore’s uncle. Word about the murders filtered down into Arizona, though there wasn’t much information released. Do you think those killings were connected with the explosion tonight?” He straightened, his nose twitching.
I nodded. “Right, we didn’t release a lot of information, and with good reason. We’re walking on treacherous ground here. There are things going on that we just can’t talk about right now. When those murders happened, we caught a number of the perps…but some got away. We think they may be back—not necessarily for their original reason, but to wreak revenge on the Supe Community. Maybe on Marion, or me or…who knows. The murders were connected with Wolf Briar—”
“Wolf Briar! Wolf Briar is loose in the community?” Geraldo’s eyes glittered with fear.
“Yeah, it is. We think we destroyed most of it, but we can’t be sure, so be cautious. And we know for a fact it was being made by a couple of sorcerers and a group of Koyanni.”
Doing my best to skirt the whole spirit seal–demonic invasion theme, I kept it to “sorcerers” and left out the Tregart part, then hashed the rest of the information together in a way that made sense.
“Koyanni?” Salvatore glanced up. “Who are they?”
I was about to defer to Marion, but Geraldo spoke up.
“Coyote scum, that’s who.” He pressed his lips together, the bridge of his nose turning unnaturally white.
“Oh, hell.” Claudia shifted in her seat. “Exo mentioned that he thought the Koyanni were in the area. He had trouble with them when he was on a special ops assignment for his unit, years ago, down in South America. He told me that they were a vicious breed of coyote shifters…” She turned to study Marion for a moment. “Does she know anything about this?” Shaking an accusing finger at the café owner, the werewolf slammed her chair back.
Marion slowly stood, meeting Claudia’s angry gaze. “Do not confuse me with the Lost Ones. They walk to their own vision, and any coyote shifter who follows the true path of the Great Trickster will have nothing to do with them. The Koyanni are dangerous and a tribe unto themselves. They left the old ways behind eons ago and are considered outcasts.”
Before fists—or fur—could fly, I stepped in. “Stop and sit down, both of you. Marion has nothing to do with the Koyanni. I see that you’re familiar with them, so for now we’ll forgo discussion of their past. Marion’s just as much a victim as the rest of you. Her sister was caught in the explosion.”
Claudia mumbled an apology and returned to her seat. Marion shrugged and slouched in her chair again.
Trying to ignore the scent of pheromones in the air—the energy was thick and volatile—I quickly laid out a highly edited version of what had happened last fall.
“What you need to know is this: Several Koyanni joined in with a couple of sorcerers to produce Wolf Briar. They were capturing werewolves from the area, beta males, and hyping them up on steroids in order to kill them, to harvest their pituitary glands and adrenals. We managed to put a stop to the operation and captured several of the main players, but the sorcerers—Van and Jaycee by name—got away. As did some of the Koyanni.”
“And you think they’re the ones who blew up the community hall?” Claudia bit her lip.
“The explosion was caused by a sorcerer with ingredients from Otherworld, as far as we can tell.” Chase cleared his throat. “Which means it’s going to be hard to trace. What we need from you—and I know this is asking a lot—is that you comb through every memory you have. We need any clues…anything that might be of help. Any strangers who your loved ones mentioned, anything that seemed off—I don’t care if it seems minute, it might be an important clue.”
Claudia frowned. “It’s so hard to think…”
I could feel the weariness flowing from her. She—and the others—were all close to breaking down. And when Weres broke down, it was never pretty. I motioned Chase to follow me. Meanwhile, Nerissa passed out coffee and cookies, speaking in soothing low tones while we slipped out of the room.
I leaned against the wall.
“Chase, we can’t push them. Trust me, unless you want a couple wolves, a coyote, and a dog in there—probably at each others’ throats since emotions are so heightened—then I advise you to let them think it over for the night. We’re not going to learn anything right now.”
He crossed his arms. “I’d like to fight you on this one, but I know you’re right. All right, we’ll give them the night, though I really want to get on top of this. But the fire marshal probably won’t be done until tomorrow anyway, and since we know it was a magical signature, we’re not going to be finding much in the way of typical evidence. Even if we do, I doubt if it will be useful.”
I nodded. “Give them the night and by tomorrow, they’ll be able to focus more. Right now the shock is playing havoc with their emotions.”
“I know, I know.” He shook his head, scuffing his foot on the floor. “I just don’t want to deal with the aftermath if the investigation takes us a while. The pressure’s going to be coming from all sides in the Supe Community to find out who did this. And what if we’re wrong and we find out some wacko hate group executed this whole rotten plan? We’re going to be looking at another whole can of worms.”
