Chapter Nineteen

We were quiet for too long, looking around as we let the reality of the situation settle in. Davor eventually opened up his case, grabbing the satellite phone.

"Hey, Jabari," he said in a whisper. Loud enough for us to hear, the whisper was meant to keep from disturbing our thoughts and the world around us.

"What's the news?"

"We're inclined to believe we have a rogue on the run," Davor answered, his words tired and worried.

Jabari's curse was loud enough to make a little bird jump and fly off the branch above me, giving a cry to warn other animals.

"Okay. We're still looking into the situation with that one Russian werecat who lives in the state, but I'll pass this along. Maybe someone hasn't heard from a rogue friend or family member recently. Do you think there's enough time for us to head toward you to help?"

"Probably not. We're at the initial campsite where the humans were killed. We have its scent, but there's no way of knowing where it's heading. We're behind as well. Once we know more, I'll reach out again. Maybe once we know something more, there could be a case to try to herd it into a trap with family, but this area is too expansive, and we don't know enough about its movements yet."

"You let us know once you have an idea, and we'll drop everything to help if you need us. A fucking rogue. Damn it."

"Talk to you soon, brother."

"You too, Davor. Be safe. Same goes for Niko and Jacky. I better not hear about any of you doing something stupid after this. If it gets too dangerous, don't think this is something to throw your life away for. Just pull back and get our damn help."

"Love you too, Jabari," I said, chuckling softly, knowing if the phone could pick it up, he certainly did.

"Love you too, little sister," he said, almost petulantly, after an annoyed snort.

"Go pass along the update. We'll be smart," Niko added as he came closer to us again.

A couple more pleasantries were exchanged, then Davor hung up. He packed the satellite phone back away and locked the case.

"There was probably more we could have talked about, but this case has a built-in battery that will die if we're not smart," he explained. "I have a battery for our phones, though. It's solar-powered. Let me know if you want to use it."

"I'm keeping mine off," Niko said, shrugging. "Emergency phone. You have that, so you can probably do the same."

"It's not like my phone will be particularly useful. If we find ourselves in a bad spot in a fight, I probably won't even have thumbs," I reminded them.

"You can do that now if it will make you feel comfortable," Niko said.

"No, I'm fine. If we start catching a stronger scent, I'll definitely do it before it's too late, but not yet."

"Since we're tracking a rogue, I'm going to give some advice now. We all know to stay downwind of our prey. We need to make sure we're not the prey, so when the wind changes, make sure to pay attention to the scents you can catch in it. Any hint of that werecat on the changing breeze, and we all need to know. Some rogues follow patterns, a cycle of areas they migrate around to. When they enter the Last Change, it's not impossible that they stay on it out of habit. They will deviate, but often for a short time then correct back to it."

"Which is why I told Jabari we don't know enough about its movements yet. Like if I wanted to catch Mischa, I know her patterns. She's old enough to have a few, but I know them. I can catch her on the trail or in a town when she can't avoid me." Davor smiled, almost mischievously, at me. "Now, I don't want to be in Hisao's shoes right now, but I could track her faster than him, and he knows her better than anyone. But I would get ahead of her instead of being a step behind her."

"Does he know that?" I asked.

"Absolutely. Everyone calls him the Assassin, which I will never be, though he's come to me for information on his targets before… and for good reason. He's a hunter, and I'm a trapper, and the fundamental differences in how we approach things help us lend a hand to each other."

"So, with your help, he would have already caught up to Mischa and gotten her to stop running around long enough to talk to someone," I said, thinking about this as it pertained to our situation. "Just like if we track this rogue for long enough, you'll be able to get us ahead of it or into a place we could easily corner it."

"Yeah, I could, but Mischa is the last supernatural I would ever want to pin in a trap she can't get out of through non-violent means. She'd chew her own leg off without hesitation, if you know what I mean."

I certainly did.

"Beyond that, Davor has had hundreds of years knowing Mischa and learning her habits. We don't have that time," Niko pointed out. He looked around and finally dropped his bag. "As morbid as it is, perhaps we should rest here for a few hours and let everyone's legs recover."

"I'm not opposed. It would be good to wait a little while for Jabari to reach out now that he knows what we do." Davor got comfortable, leaning against a thin tree and crossing his feet.

I had nothing to argue against it. Was it morbid to rest where two people had died? Certainly. Was I going to throw a fit after walking for five to six hours? Even though my anxiety about needing to find the werecat running around was high, I was grateful for the ability to rest while we still felt like we had a chance. At least I wasn't going to be running around, trying to avoid the monster lurking in the shadows. The sun would never fall here, not at this time of year. There weren't enough shadows for my mind to play tricks on me.

"We need to set up a watch. I'll take the middle spot because I can manage with the split sleep. Jacky, you can go first. Wake me up, then close your eyes for a couple of hours. Davor, you'll be last. I'll wake you up and try to get a bit more rest before we go."

I nodded, remaining alert as they closed their eyes. We didn't bring sleeping bags or blankets, but sleeping on the ground wasn't the end of the world. I was certain they were both asleep within a few minutes and did my time on watch.

With how quiet everything had fallen, I was the one spooked when a bear wandered by. It sniffed the air between us, only twenty feet away from me, and stared me down for a moment. If I had been a human, the ordeal would have been terrifying, but it snorted air out of its nose and kept walking, angling away from us entirely. As with the horses Carey loved, people's pets, and prey animals all over the world, the bear recognized the predator it was looking at. It made the choice not to disturb me or the others it would have known were with me.

But my heart was still racing long after it was gone, my anxiety only driven upwards.

It's not dark. This isn't the Black Forest. He's not hunting us this time. There's no fae lurking in the dark. No monsters in the shadows.

I repeated that on a loop in my mind until my heart slowed down, but I knew it would only take another little spook to bring it all back. I could remember it all so clearly, and while I had staggered out of that forest alive, it had been with a cost. A cost that I hadn't quite reconciled with before heading home. I wasn't sure if my anxiety and fear were driven by how dangerous Rainer had been or if I was just too wounded from having to kill Fenris, and that made everything ten times worse, but the events that unfolded in that damn place had left a wound that was having a painful hard time healing.

I counted the minutes until I could wake up Niko, shaking him rougher than he deserved.

"It's your turn," I said, swallowed. He frowned as he sat up, studying me.

"You're pale," he whispered.

"Am I?"

"Yeah," he said, his concern so clear that it made me uncomfortable.

"We've had a few long days, and I saw a bear," I said, playing it off. "They're surprisingly quiet, and it spooked me, but it never came that close to us. It moved on after a short stare down, recognizing we weren't any threat to it if it didn't try to be a threat to us." There were no lies, so I was grateful to see Niko relax and accept what I was using as an excuse.

"That's good. Lie down and get that nap in. Hopefully, a little rest will make you less jumpy," Niko said.

I did just that, using my bag as a pillow. Short naps in the wilderness weren't fun, but they weren't terrible, either. It wasn't raining, though there was a bit of a chill in the air now that I was settled down. I didn't realize I was tired until I closed my eyes, and a yawn broke out.

A dreamless sleep must have been exactly what I needed because it felt like a blink of an eye before, suddenly, I was being gently shaken by Davor.

"Time to get up and start tracking," he said with a sympathetic smile.

"Yup, yup," I groaned as I pushed up and got to my feet. I brushed off the debris that had gotten stuck to me with one hand as I rubbed my eyes with the other. Davor stepped back, pulled his bag up, and swung it onto his back. I looked around as I grabbed my own and pulled it on. "Where's Niko?"

"He just left, wanting to make sure we're following the right path out of here. We know the werecat took that U-turn where we picked up its scent, but he's checking one more time to see if there's a potential second trail we might be missing."

"You and he were saying it will use tricks to throw people off its path, right? Worried about something like that?"

"Truthfully, I'm not. It'll have left other evidence of what direction it was going. I'm certain the scent trail going south is the correct one. Niko just wants to make sure. He shouldn't be long because all evidence points to something rather interesting."

"Really?"

"The werecat used the same path to the campsite and away from the campsite. It did enough damage to the vegetation and terrain that it still hasn't recovered. It had to have been moving quickly. While it was probably quiet enough not to wake the humans, we would have known it was coming from much farther out. It would have been loud to us." He gave a boyish smile, light dancing in his eyes as though he was excited. "The evidence is light now, but I've been tracking like this for a long time. I needed to know where all the game trails were if I wanted my traps to work."

Something clicked for me.

"This is why you love working on security technologies," I said, chuckling a little as I put it together. "You don't want to risk anything by being in the area or spooking. You get data on the target, and you set up a way to trap the target while never having to be there. A snare for a rabbit or a camera to record a thief. They're the same thing to you."

"They are," he agreed, that boyish smile turning sheepish. "I also am the reason our father spies so well."

"No… you?" Blinking, I realized I should have put that together sooner, but for some reason, it had never crossed my mind. I knew Hasan had spies out there, but I never put much thought into them.

"Me. He has a lot of contacts we've never met, certainly, but I've equipped them without ever meeting them. I don't have access to what they learned because it all goes straight to him, and it protects their identities from the family since they're his spies as a Tribunal Member. Listening devices, hidden cameras, trackers… you name it, and I've probably developed something for Father and the family."

"Do you know where his spies might be?" I asked, crossing my arms, curious in the way any kid would be about their parent's job, if they were interested at all. I could hear Niko approaching, knowing we would be off soon, but Davor was the one who was certain of what trail to follow, so I decided to keep the conversation going.

"Ha, I've gotten some hints, but nothing I can draw any reasonable conclusion from."

"So, you never tried very hard," I teased.

"Exactly." Davor's sheepishness turned into a smirk.

"Thank goodness. I don't want to see how angry Hasan would be if we suddenly started playing games by catching out his information gatherers," Niko said as he reappeared. "Well, Davor, you were right. It's the only scent in and out."

"Then let's get moving and track this thing down." Davor took the lead this time, and I followed, trusting Davor without questioning anything for probably the first time since I had met him.