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“Six. Six male wolves back here, different from the other two. And a female wolf.” He stared at me, and it didn’t take long for his meaning to sink in. “And I smell blood.”
Mercy had come for Grandmere, and she’d brought a whole new pack with her. She’d somehow managed to find another half-dozen wolves stupid enough to believe she was fit to lead them, and she’d manipulated them into helping kidnap an old woman and two other wolves.
The broken part of me wanted to sink to the floor and cry my eyes out, giving up all hope then and there. Mercy had what she’d come for. What would stop her from finishing Grandmere off once and for all?
If she wanted her dead, she would have killed her here.
My fingernails bit into the tender skin of my palms, and I fought against the urge to strike out at anything close to me. Hitting Desmond or Holden, or hell, even the bookshelf wasn’t going to make things any better.
Where was Lucas when I needed him?
“Can you track them?”
“Maybe?” Desmond answered uncertainly.
“Good.” I turned back towards the front door with Holden hot on my heels and Desmond trailing a few feet behind.
“What are you planning to do?” Holden asked, grabbing my arm and tugging me to a halt when I was almost to the car.
“I’m going to do what I came here to do,” I snapped.
“Which is?”
“I’m going to kill that bitch once and for all.”
Chapter Thirty
Desmond followed the scent trail to the edge of the woods bordering Grandmere’s property, but we hit our first roadblock when the rogue pack seemed to take her directly into the creek. We lost a good ten minutes prowling up and down the bank on both sides, trying to determine where they got back out of the water.
Eventually Holden smelled something in one of the metal culverts about a quarter mile down the creek.
Grandmere’s slipper.
The trail picked up again on the opposite side of the culvert, leading into a deeper part of the woods.
Growing up, this was a section of land I had refused to visit very often. The property belonged to the Syler family, who had gained notoriety in the late seventies in the worst possible way. Buck Syler, a bachelor in his mid-forties, had lived with his mother Luanne in the house. The other Syler kids had grown up and moved out, and Luanne’s husband Jeff had passed away, leaving only Buck and his mother on the property.
Buck was a slow kid who grew into a slow man, and the whole Syler farm fell into a state of terrible disrepair since neither Buck nor Luanne did anything to look after the place. Since they were off the grid and no one in Elmwood really had to see what a mess the place was, people didn’t tend to bother the Sylers, and no one did anything to help them, either.
As it turned out, Buck was in the habit of making drives. He would make the two-hour trek to Winnipeg, find a hooker, have his merry way with her, and when he was done, Buck would incapacitate the poor woman and ha
ul her all the way back to Elmwood. Normally the girls were still alive when he got them back to the barn.
They didn’t stay that way for long.
Over the course of seven years, Buck kidnapped and murdered seventy-eight prostitutes and fed their bodies to his pigs or buried them out in the unused fields.
In 1983, a group of teenagers who were hunting outside a designated area happened to find a human hand. They thought at first it belonged to a bear and brought it home as a trophy, but soon the grim reality became evident.
All this happened a decade before Grandmere brought me to Elmwood, and the town had done a lot in that time to shake the horrible memory of Buck Syler. Old Luanne, though, she still lived on the property until late last year when she finally kicked the bucket.
As far as I knew Buck was still alive and rotting in prison, having avoided the death penalty since Canada didn’t have one.
But technically he inherited the property since the other Syler children couldn’t find anyone willing to buy it, so no one quite knew what to do with it now.
The legend of the Syler farm was enough to spook me as a kid, especially knowing Luanne lived there. Considering what I was, I had no interest in wandering into a place that was sure to be haunted. Even when you’re used to being alone in the dark at night, the idea of ghosts can still get a bit spooky. They made me uneasy no matter how much strange stuff I’d experienced.
I had to admit, though, if Mercy wanted a nightmarish, off-the-grid hideout where she could take Grandmere and the wolves, the Syler farm was a perfect choice. I shuddered just thinking about setting foot on the blood-soaked property.
