Into the Light (The Admiral's Elite Book 2) by HK Savage Read Free Book Online Page B

he filled her in. “We might be able to find it during the daylight hours if we can find its den.”
     
    “Okay. Then when Ryan and Gabrielle get back, we’ll all sit down and figure out how to find it and then we’ll kill it.”
     
     
     
    Chapter 7
     
    The wolves hadn’t had any luck finding the windigo. Gabrielle, according to a reliable source, was in a foul mood and had gone directly to bed leaving Ryan alone to knock on their door at sunrise the next morning. The slamming door woke Becca just before Ryan’s knock. The exhausted Ryan took Michael’s revelation in stride.
     
    “That explains the smell. It was worse than a vamp.” He wasn’t too tired to take a cheap shot. “Like you, except all decayed and unwashed.”
     
    “You found it?” Becca was getting a drink of water from the bathroom sink and popped her head out around the door.
     
    He was shaking his shaggy auburn hair. The werewolves’ hair continued to grow. Their bodies were alive versus their undead counterparts. “No, but I think it just wanders aimlessly all night. The stink was everywhere; we couldn’t follow it. We went in circles all night.”
     
    Becca felt her heart stutter. “Could there be more than one?”
     
    “No,” Michael sounded certain.
     
    “Just ‘no’?” Becca asked, curious. “How can you be so sure?”
     
    “Because there would have been more bodies,” he answered without wavering.
     
    Becca wasn’t put off by his direct response. She’d grown up with direct. A therapist would have something brilliant to say about Michael’s similarities to her father. To which she had a smart comeback, her father didn’t drink blood. “So where did it come from? Why is it striking now ?”
     
    “They are a winter borne creature, migrating at the end of the season and going into torpor during the warm months.”
     
    “So we have to catch it before spring or it’s gone until next year?”
     
    “I’ve never run across one of these things.” Ryan yawned, removing himself from the conversation. “This is Mike’s forte.”
     
    “We have to check in with the local police. See if there’s something in the files that might give us some history.” Michael’s hand dropped to his pocket. “There’s something not quite right here. The attacks aren’t sloppy like they should be. They’re too random and far apart to be just one acting alone.”
     
    The water got stuck in her throat and Becca temporarily lost the ability to swallow. “I thought these things were like zombies.”
     
    “You said there was only one.” Ryan ran a hand through his hair, leaving it gripping the back of his head. One hand remained propped on his hip, pushing his back forward, and he stopped stretching.
     
    Becca put down her glass and pressed her point. “You know, brain dead versions of vampires wandering through the woods taking the occasional victim. You mean someone can use these things? Like some sort of attack dog?”
     
    “ Anything can be conditioned to follow simple commands.” Michael was already dialing his phone. “Even a brain dead zombie vampire,” he told her without the slightest hint of levity.
     
    Ryan, on the other hand, guffawed loudly, offering no apology when Michael cut him an impatient scowl. “I’m sorry Mike, that just sounded too funny. Thanks, I needed that after a whole night of pissed off Gabs.”
     
    Becca caught the strain in his voice and got annoyed for the millionth time with Gabrielle. The woman was an absolute bitch, how Ryan managed to like her even some of the time astounded her. Thinking the double meaning of the term brought a titter bubbling up. Immediately she bit her lip to kill the grin that went with it and Michael withheld the glare she imagined was coming.
     
    Holding his phone up as an explanation, he made his way past where Ryan leaned by the door, and closed it behind him.
     
    Instead of returning to his room for the sleep his body was screaming for as evidenced