Chapter Seventeen

The sun was still up when we landed in Fairbanks. On the flight, Niko and Davor reminded me that this was going to be difficult to adjust to. There were only a few hours when the sun was considered down, with sunsets near midnight and sunrises around three in the morning. I just glanced at the times to get an idea.

"We're hunting during the light, no way around it," I said, actually grateful for it.

"I think the cover of the dark would have been nice, but oh well," Niko said as he threw his bag over his shoulder.

I knew Niko didn't hold on to the events from the Black Forest the way I was. If he was thinking about the unnatural night we had dealt with while Rainer was hunting for him with Dirk as his bait, it wasn't bothering him at all. I could still remember the moment the sunrise washed over Landon and me, everything I hoped and dreamed for as we fought for our lives.

I was glad for this unusual daytime. It was at least natural, and it was light. I would take light over endless, creeping shadows any day.

We didn't have to rent a vehicle yet because right as we landed, I could identify the BSA agents who knew we were on our way. I had sent word through Beth that we wanted to see everything they had cleaned up from the campsite. It was easy enough to coordinate in two days.

"Agents. You're going to be our ride, right?" I looked over the two men, each wearing the crisp suits that most agents did when they had something work-related going on.

"We are…" One looked at Davor.

"He's here to help Niko and me," I explained, aiming for happy and bright. "That's really all you need to know."

"Miss Leon?—"

"That's all you need to know, agent," I repeated calmly. They looked at each other, and I could see them wondering if they would get promoted or a raise if they dug into who our mysterious friend was. It would at least give them a better evaluation when that time of year came around. They had to decide if those potential benefits meant making a stink with me, though. I couldn't read their minds, and their scents weren't proving useful, so we would all have to wait and see.

"All right. Come with us. We shouldn't be out here for too long. There are half a dozen werewolves working at the airport."

"There always are," Niko muttered with a chuckle.

Davor trailed us quietly, his shoulders slumped as he tried to be smaller. He wasn't much shorter than Niko, whose wiry, lanky, rockstar-like frame made him feel taller than he was. He was just about six feet, only a little taller than Davor, but that lanky frame compared to Davor's more proportional one made it seem more different than it was. Davor's shrinking was accompanied by the scent of cautiousness. He didn't like where we were, so I picked up the pace once I saw the large SUV they brought, wanting to get Davor out of the public area.

"How far are we?" I asked as I tossed my things into the back and helped Niko arrange everything so it would fit.

"Ten minutes."

"Great." The sooner we were done in Fairbanks, the sooner we could get on the trail properly. I had to sit in the middle of the backseat and was grateful neither of the guys was as big as Jabari or Hasan, or even Landon and Dirk. It still wasn't comfortable, but that's what I got for not sending word there would be three of us. It was also the fault of the BSA, thinking only Niko and I would be coming without attempting to confirm that.

Assumptions and all that. There's a saying about this about being assholes. It's only for ten minutes… until we have to come back.

Once we arrived, we were quickly escorted inside and taken to a storage room. The agents signed their names and added a list of us—Jacky Leon, Niko Brandt, and unidentified. I barely listened to the agents explain to Niko where we were going, what was kept there, and why. I knew when a door opened that we had reached the room with everything from the campsite.

I always forget how much someone can bleed…

"We've been trying to be careful about handling it since we know you have the need to get the right scents from?—"

"What we're looking for, you wouldn't be able to mask, but thank you for that consideration," Niko said, heading inside first. I let Davor through next, waiting a second before I looked at the agents.

"Turn off all recording and listening devices in the room if you don't want them broken."

I stepped inside, leaving them with that. Niko was staring at the first table while Davor pulled out that tiny laptop and a small box. He hit a button on the box, causing it to emit a weird white noise that gave me the urge to shake my head.

"That's to ruin their audio capture," Davor explained in the softest whisper, barely audible over the white noise.

"And the laptop is for?" I kept my volume matching his.

"Just note-taking," he said as he looked at the same things Niko was.

Before we could really get into it, an agent threw the door open.

"Turn that blasted thing off," the older gentleman snapped as he marched in. He reached for it, and Davor grabbed his wrist, holding it with ease.

"Then turn off the surveillance." Davor was calm, but I saw his werecat eyes now, the light green seen in a lot of house cats. "And don't touch my things."

"Oh, you're another one of those f?—"

"Excuse me?" I leaned over, making sure the older agent saw me, something rising up in me, knowing my eyes had turned gold. "Hi, I'm Jacky Leon. I'm the werecat representative to humanity. I'm the one the BSA leaked to the public a few years ago. That's my brother Niko across the table, and this is another brother of mine who would like to maintain his privacy right now. We're focused on a very serious case, so we're going to need you to step out of the room and leave us in peace. If you don't turn off the surveillance, we'll go ahead and get rid of it ourselves. Take your pick."

"You would destroy government property?—"

"I'm so sorry." One of the younger agents who'd picked us up came running into the room. "I'm so sorry. Buck, please. Leave them. We were just about to head into the security office and tell you that this room's monitoring needed to be disabled while they're here. They need to talk about sensitive topics."

"We follow those sorts of orders?"

"In matters of national security, yes!" the younger agent seemed a bit desperate. I looked at Davor, gesturing for him to let me take control of the agent. There were things I could get away with that he couldn't, not if he wanted the BSA to respect that we weren't going to mess around with keeping Davor's privacy. He pushed the older agent's hand at me, making him cuss. I grabbed it and proceeded to pull the older man out with ease as he fought uselessly.

"How fucking dare you!" he roared as I gently pushed him into the opposite wall once we were out of the evidence room.

"There's always at least one like you," I said, rolling my eyes as I turned away. "Follow orders and keep your job. We're not going to be here very long."

"I'll let you know the moment everything is disabled and will make sure it stays that way. We can't turn off the hall's cameras, however."

"That's good. You'll know when we're done," I said, smiling as I went back inside and stood beside Davor. "Good work, and thanks for letting me take it from there."

"No problem. They know you, not me. It's better that you toe the line about what you can do to them."

"Exactly. Niko, what the hell? Didn't want to step in at all to help?"

"You two had it covered," Niko said, waving between us. "I didn't need to get involved."

I almost argued with that but decided against it.

"Yeah, that's a good point," I said, clicking my tongue.

He only chuckled. We waited until the young agent came back and gave us the all-clear that we were safe to discuss the sensitive matters at hand.

"Anyone caught the smell of the werecat yet?" Niko asked, looking at the items on the first table again.

I finally paid attention to what my nose was telling me, leaning down to get closer to the debris left from the attack. I had been hit with the strong scent of blood the moment the door had been opened, but I hadn't begun trying to decipher all the scents in the room yet. I knew to ignore the humans' scents, looking only for the werecat. Davor, Niko, and I hadn't been in the room long enough to contaminate any items.

"It's not on everything but… the tent here, and a lot of the clothing has it," Davor murmured.

"Yeah, it's there," I said, confirming.

"That's what I noticed too. So, the werecat spent the most time getting into the tent, shredding through it, shredding the people… Everything else was knocked around and collateral damage."

"Male?" I guessed, paying close attention to the scent. "It seems… masculine, but I could be off."

"I wish I could confirm that, but we have the bias of already thinking it's male. We know what it smells like, though, and that's really all we needed." Niko began walking, freely picking up things from other tables. "They had a lot of good gear."

"A bear-proof cooler," Davor pointed out as he walked his own route around the room. I picked a different direction.

"They took a laptop camping," I said, shaking my head as I touched the destroyed electronic. "To work on the road or maybe download movies in the quiet hours."

"I don't see the point, and I like computers," Davor replied, coming toward me. "You go camping to get into nature. Not everyone needs to do it from scratch. Having good equipment is a good safety measure for humans, but a laptop? How is that disconnecting? If it was work-related, how did they get an internet connection?"

"Wifi hotspot," I reminded him. "My phone can do it."

"I believe your phone would need service," Davor countered.

"When we're out there, we'll check if we have service, but the couple isn't our concern, you two." Niko kept walking away. "Let's talk about what we see about the werecat. Maybe we can find hairs, a piece of claw. Anything like that could be useful."

"From what you were saying, it focused on the tent and the victims. It was there to hunt or eliminate a perceived threat." Davor's tone turned clinical. "That's how we work. It might have been hungry and thought sleeping humans would make an easy meal."

"That does happen, no doubt." Niko picked up a torn shirt and dropped it when he was done sniffing it closely. It wasn't soaked in blood, only covered in dirt. It had probably been in one of the couple's bags.

"But the reports didn't note any signs of predation," Davor pointed out, knocking one of his own theories off the list.

"Yeah, I was going to get to that. It said the humans sustained fatal injuries, but nothing was… chewed on." I made a face, trying not to think about the idea of eating a human. I bit a lot of things in my time but never consciously considered swallowing any of the pieces.

"So, it was eliminating a perceived threat. That means it's a fairly recent Last Change."

I looked at Niko once again, frowning.

"Can you explain that?"

"Absolutely. A werecat who will eat anything and everything that is meat is generally not just in the Last Change but totally feral, with no remnants of whatever came before. All of them will kill anything, but most don't stop to eat everything. Only the ones that have been like that for too long."

"That's the one Niko and Jabari went after together, so he's seen it and would know what to look for," Davor explained. "Back then, humans were more spread out, so werecats, and even some werewolves, could remain undetected for a long period of time. We would hear about them when they started leaving entire herds of cattle decimated in a few short weeks, or rural farming families would go missing. They have to maintain the calorie intake we normally do."

"Or higher," Niko commented.

"Or higher," Davor repeated in agreement, giving a nod to Niko.

"Would it just keep killing everything it sees? Would it go into a village and just… I thought that's what happened." I had heard stories. That was why we were doing this now before this werecat could get to any major population, even if it was just twenty people.

"Definitely, but not every time." Niko shrugged, a casual gesture that made me a little uncomfortable with my brother. "They're unique creatures, just like we all are before the Last Change. If you dropped one in without it having a chance to prepare and people started screaming? That would definitely drive it into a killing spree. If it happened in the middle of nowhere and was naturally a loner to begin with? It would only go looking for trouble if it scared off all its potential food sources. A violent predator like a werecat in the Last Change scares off everything in the nearby area. Nothing to hunt causes it to move."

"And if it only needs the sustenance of a single human-sized carcass, that won't stop it from killing the entire family just for breathing too close to it," Davor continued for Niko. "Which is the out-of-control part. They're always hyper aggressive, but it varies in degrees for what might trigger that aggression. Getting near it will always trigger it to attack. Always. However, it's not driven by getting some high score kill count like one can do in a video game or anything."

"It wants what any animal wants. Security and a food source. It eliminates threats to its security and in doing so, probably also kills the rivals of its food source… and when it's truly feral, turns them into the food source as well." Niko kept looking through things, stepping away to sniff around more.

"Werewolves are normally the troublesome moon cursed in populated areas, like the stories we've all heard, since they create populated areas with their large amounts of human families. That was before they went public, so it's even more likely now," Davor said, crossing his arms. He didn't seem interested in looking through anything else. "Werecats… the potential is still there and still devastating, but because we're often very secluded and many don't even know where a werecat may or may not live, there's that large unknown factor. Werewolves can identify our territory, but many supernatural species either can't or don't recognize it when they feel it. So, they go out into the woods or up in the mountains, and the werecat recognizes the threat and destroys them before they have a chance."

"We're really lucky to know about this in such a rural area," Niko said, a bit loud from across the room once again as he leaned in close to something. "Better a few hikers who could have been killed by a bear than a small fishing community or a family near a village." He straightened up. "I'm done. I have a good idea of the scent."

"Anything else that you find interesting?" I asked as we walked to the door.

"No, I was mostly dragging this out to piss off the humans," Niko said, smiling mischievously. "Plus, you had questions, and it's better to answer questions when you have them than to ask you to remember them for later."

I looked back as we stepped out, looking at what remained of two human lives and a vacation they were on. A tragedy that I knew deep down I needed to stop from occurring a second time.

With that thought, I hit my brother in the gut with the back of my hand.

"We're not here to waste time to be petty," I hissed low enough for the humans to miss.

Niko said nothing, but the shift in his expression and rising anger in his scent said everything he didn't.