Animal Attraction (25 page)

With that last threat, Tattingail stormed
off, not looking back. For their part, Lana and Taylor slowly
backed down the path that led to the car. I knew they were
uncomfortable turning their backs to the preacher, though he had
already disappeared in the opposite direction.

I called out, “I’ll follow him, Lana. I’ll
make sure he’s gone.”

She nodded, her mascara-clotted eyes wide.
“Thanks for watching our backs, Brandilynn. And for whatever you
did to bring him out in the open.”

I set off, running after the sounds of
Tattingail’s stomping feet. I soon caught up to him. He stormed
through the brush, weaving this way and that as he headed
northwest. He muttered under his breath. I occasionally caught a
word like ‘abominations’ or ‘soulless’.

“Pot calling the kettle black,” I told him. I
didn’t know why I kept insulting him when he couldn’t hear me. It
made me feel better though.

We were about a mile from where he’d
confronted Taylor and Lana when we came up to a chainlink fence.
Tattingail paused to look back the way he’d come. I guess he was
making sure he hadn’t been followed. Satisfied he was alone, he
scaled the fence with some difficulty and kept going.

Pretty sure he wasn’t going to go back and
use my friends for target practice, I roamed a little way along the
fence. I hadn’t gone more than fifty feet when I saw a sign
attached to it. It read ‘Fulton Falls Country Club – Private
Property’.

I’d seen enough. I ‘ported back to where I’d
left Taylor and Lana.

They were still there, standing a few yards
from where the shifter’s body had ended up. They had their heads
bent close together, short dark hair and long blond curls. They
seemed to be looking at something Taylor held. Was the watch
finally telling her something?

I hurried over. “What’s up? Did Taylor get a
trace?”

Lana looked slightly to my left. She heard
me, usually in bursts like a radio fading in and out. She couldn’t
see me at all.

As usual, she’d picked up enough to figure
out the gist of my communication. “I saw this shining through the
pine straw. The police missed it somehow.”

Taylor held up a gold chain, the heavier kind
that a man might wear. Hanging off of it was a circle of gold. A
wedding band.

Taylor said, “It’s inscribed with the
victim’s name David, a woman’s name of Amy, and a date.”

I felt a stab of hurt on the behalf of the
dead shifter’s family. Of course he would have worn his wedding
band on a necklace. Werehogs’ fingers fused together in pairs,
giving their hands the appearance of cloven hooves.

Hope surged. “Taylor, can you track anything
from that?”

Lana nodded. “She was saying the same thing
when you started talking to me.”

Taylor clenched the ring tightly in her fist.
She closed her eyes. For a few seconds she had no reaction. Then
her face tightened in a rictus of horror.

“Panic. Terror. Pain. He’d been shot and he
was trying to get away. Bleeding out. Weakening. His wife’s name on
his lips. He tells her he’s sorry and falls.”

“Which direction did he run from?” I
asked.

Lana passed on the question. Her eyes still
squeezed closed, Taylor pivoted on her sneakered heel. She faced
the direction Tattingail had gone. Her eyes popped open. “That
way.”

Lana pursed her lips worriedly. “The way that
nutjob went? Tell me we don’t have to follow.”

Taylor patted her shoulder. “You know we
do.”

I hurried to reassure them. “The Tats went
straight to the country club’s property. He’s gone, probably afraid
of being caught now that you know he was out here illegally.”

Lana nibbled on her lower lip and nodded. She
told Taylor, “Brandilynn says the coast is clear.”

Taylor was already tracking. “Keep an eye out
for that idiot, Brandilynn. He’s vindictive enough to bring his
high-and-mighty friends out to chase us away.”

I agreed. I kept a few steps ahead of Taylor,
listening and looking for any sign of trouble. Since I suspected we
would end up at the fence bordering the club’s lands, I followed
the trail Tattingail had taken.

Taylor paused at the point where Deputy
Charlie had lost the dead man’s scent. She stood still for a few
minutes and confirmed the cop’s suspicions. “David stopped and ran
all over the place, trying to throw them off his trail. He’d gotten
out of their territory. He had to confuse them long enough for him
to get to the road. He knew it was bad. He was starting to lose a
lot of blood. Shifting from animal to man without conscious thought
... he knows it means he’s about to die.”

She started moving again. Except for slight
deviations here and there, she mostly kept to Tattingail’s path. We
reached the fence.

Lana rolled her eyes. “That Tattingail.
Didn’t know he’d left the grounds, my foot. It couldn’t be more
clearly marked. He had to have climbed the darned fence too.”

Taylor moved along the fence a few paces and
stopped. I noticed her hand clenched around the ring tight enough
that her knuckles whitened. “He came from in there. He was shot
three times, about a quarter mile away. God, the pain!”

“Easy,” Lana whispered.

“I hear men yelling. They’re tracking him.
They’re going to find him. He thinks he’ll make for the road, get
home, get his wife and kids, grab what they can and go.”

She swung around and thrust the chain with
the ring at Lana. “Take it. I’m done.”

Lana did so, her expression sad as she tucked
the jewelry away in her coat pocket. “Are you all right?”

Taylor rubbed her face with her hands. “You’d
think after all these years of doing this, of looking for dead
bodies and finding out what happened to them I wouldn’t be affected
by it. Damn it. Damn it!”

“You’re a human being. Of course you’re
affected by it. But at least you can do something about it. Did you
happen to get a name? A sense of who shot that poor man?”

Taylor stared up at the sky, her eyes bright
with tears. “No. Just fear and pain. And a desperate hope to see
his wife and kids again.”

“That’s all right,” I said, my determination
to nail Tattingail stronger than ever. “You’ve confirmed a lot of
my suspicions. It may be enough to keep anyone else from
disappearing and dying.”

I was pretty sure I knew who was next up on
the list. My sister’s husband was being lined up for the kill.
Tattingail’s sick hunt had to be stopped.

* * * *

The first thing I did when I came out of the
coffin that night was call my sister. I got no answer, forcing me
to leave a voicemail.

“Mrs. Warner, this is Bran – uh, Patricia
Keith. I need you to call me as soon as possible. We must arrange
for me to speak to your husband soon.”

I hated leaving messages. I always stumbled
through them.

I weighed my next move. Tristan had decided
to take a little trip out to Atlanta to vet staff there and make
sure the Georgia general assembly was working on accommodations for
his night-only availability. No help there.

Gerald came in. “What’s this I hear about the
Tats hunting on county property?” he said by way of greeting.

He’d already spoken to Lana and got her side
of the story. I’d avoided telling her and Taylor that at one point,
Tattingail’s gun had been trained on them. I clued Gerald in on
that part, along with the hope that the would-be commissioner had
simply used his scope to spy.

His eyes went wide over my story. “You did
the right thing knocking the crap out of him,” Gerald breathed.
“Best to have not found out for sure one way or the other.”

“Yeah. Now I can pretend to think the best of
the dumb jerk ... which isn’t that good anyway.”

We continued to discuss the matter. Gerald
agreed with me that getting Ryan Warner to talk to us, if not the
cops, was the best bet at this point. Until Ashley called back, we
were left to cool our heels.

“I haven’t seen Dan since I got in,” I said.
“No doubt he’s either researching at the library or watching the
police to see if they’ve gotten any news.”

“The moment he knows something, he’ll be
buzzing in your ear,” Gerald said. He stretched his too-gorgeous
body. I felt casual lust. He sure was a hottie, that werepanther.
Maybe once I had my bloodthirsty urges under better control and
didn’t jump his bones anymore, he’d move on. After years of adoring
Patricia, it was time Gerald found a woman to love him as he
deserved. He was too good a guy to go through the world alone.

As if to thwart that day when he’d be free to
find his one true love, Wendy came into my office. With a bright
‘you can do it!’ smile she announced, “How about a flying lesson?
With Tristan out of town, I’ve got all night to work with you.”

I blew a raspberry at her.

It turned out Wendy had been a life coach in
her human days. While she didn’t exactly convince me I wanted to
make flying happen, she was motivating enough that Gerald joined in
with her in cheering me on. Double-teamed, I finally agreed.

We met up at the field where I’d gone down in
defeat so many times. Clothed once more in cheap, ready to
shred-wear I asked Wendy, “How much is Tristan paying you for
this?”

With a broad grin and a wink, she answered,
“Not enough if it’s anything like last time.”

How prescient her comment turned out to be.
After hours and hours that saw more of me crashing than flying, all
the optimism and teasing fled. Gerald looked resigned, Wendy seemed
ready to cry, and my arm was broken and useless again. We set the
bone – hurray for Gerald being a former EMT – and I chugged bottles
of BP9 to hasten the healing. As I swallowed coppery swill, no one
spoke.

I readied to call it quits once and for all.
I thought I’d proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that flight was not
going to be among my skills. For whatever reason, I wasn’t getting
it.

That reminded me of Arthur’s visit the night
before. What he had said about feeling the exaltation of the
‘deathsong’ had struck a chord at that time. Silly idea. I had to
face the fact I needed to buy a car. I tried to find some mote of
joy in that. My bank account in Patricia’s name would snag me a
BMW. Or did I want a Mercedes like Tristan’s? Oh, a Lexus would be
nice too. I could already smell the brand new leather seats. No, it
wouldn’t be so bad to drive instead of fly after all. I’d get a car
with enough gadgets to erase the disappointment I felt in
myself.

With a sense of guilty relief I tossed my
empty bottle into the trash bag we’d brought along. One more try
and I would tell Gerald and Wendy to throw in the towel. One more
attempt that would find me thumping down to the frost-hard ground.
After that I could change into my pretty clothes and bop on over to
the dealership. I don’t quit on much, but I saw no point in beating
a dead horse either. I could not fly. Period.

I stepped out into the middle of the field. I
eyeballed the magnolia tree at the edge of the churned ground. I’d
gotten close and personal with that thing far too many times. I
decided I might as well make my final doomed attempt count, to show
Wendy and Gerald that I had given it my best before giving up. I
would try one last time to fly around that awful tree.

I thought of the lovely music that came when
Patricia’s body gave me up each morning. Why shouldn’t I? I
wouldn’t fly any worse from taking Arthur’s advice.

A low tone filled my mind, the sweet memory
of the most gorgeous thing I’d ever heard. I thought of how it
swelled, like hundreds of distant voices rising together to sing.
But not quite the sound of singing ... it was as if some magical
instrument had been created that mixed the most beautiful soprano
aria with a heart-filled violin strain and tiny bells chiming. No,
even better than that. Again, how does one describe the
indescribable?

Thinking on that beautiful sound, I lifted
from the ground. I concentrated on how it made me feel every time I
heard it. There was always the sense of putting my feet on the
doorstep of home after a long and arduous journey. The best feeling
one could ever imagine, times one hundred.

“Exaltation,” I breathed. I rose high in the
air, floating more than flying. I set my sights on the magnolia
tree and continued to hear the music in my head. I drifted as if on
its trailing notes, almost seeing a path of light as it flew out
before me, beckoning me to follow. I sailed straight behind it,
losing myself in the bliss of its call. It soared and I soared with
it. When it arced around the tree at the end of the field, I
followed with barely a tremor.

I was doing it. I was flying. And I didn’t
want to stop.

The landscape of flattened field unfurled
beneath me. It seemed magical in the euphoric state I’d found, as
beautiful as the seashore or a mountain range. I flew and I flew,
going higher and higher. I knew freedom. I knew it in the body of a
vampire.

I don’t know how long I stayed up there,
swooping here and there, dancing with the breezes that ruffled my
short hair. It took a little while before I realized I wasn’t
alone. Wendy flew a few feet alongside me, grinning from ear to
ear.

“You’ve got it, Brandilynn! You’ve really got
it! How does it feel?”

“Amazing!” I shouted. “Next to sex, it’s the
best thing ever!”

Wendy laughed, a full-throated sound. She
zoomed off. I decided to chase after her. We dove and twisted in
the air. All the stuff Wendy did, I copied. I wasn’t as smooth as
her to be sure, but I wasn’t out of control either.

‘Porting as a ghost might have been the
fastest way to travel, but flying was much more fun. I loved it. I
had so much fun that I lost all track of time. It wasn’t until
Wendy and I zoomed over the cornfield again and we heard yelling
that I snapped out of my happy dream. I peered down to see Gerald
and Dan waving at me from the Mercury.