The Mountain's Shadow

story.”

“No, it’s not the end of the story.” Spells from various texts sprang to mind. Some required more than just words. That was what I had forgotten, the third way to create a lycanthrope—a curse. “What did you do to her?”

“Mind you, I wouldn’t have done it if I’d actually thought it would work. I don’t believe in hocus-pocus stuff. But when we had lunch and we ordered drinks, I said the words under my breath.”

“There’s no way a spell could have caused my friend to become a werewolf. There had to be something else. Did you inject her with something?”

He shook his head. “I’m not that kinky, Doctor.”

“Okay, that was a mental picture I didn’t need. But you did bite her?”

He only shrugged, but a satisfied look came across his face.

“Okay, ew again. Did you tell your bosses or whoever that you had succeeded with your spell?”

“Of course not. I didn’t know I had succeeded.”

“But they do now. And they have your son. What if they try to do it to him? You know he’s got the genetic predisposition: your brother and cousin are both werewolves. And there are your, ah, proclivities.”

“I’ve been trying not to think about that. You must be some sort of spirit-wench to keep bringing that up. My poor little boy.”

“I’m just trying to find my friend and my butler. And the rest of the children that have been taken.”

He looked at the desk, and before he could stop me, I jumped up and ran over to see what he’d been looking at. It was a topographical map of Crystal Pines and the surrounding areas, but it didn’t include the canyon Simon had told us about. The bottom of the map told me more than I ever needed to know about how Peter Bowman could be connected to all of it. When he grabbed my left wrist and jerked me away, tears stung my eyes, but I knew what I had clearly seen. In the bottom right corner of the map was a symbol—a howling wolf. In the bottom left corner, another one, a stylized H with a snake winding around the middle bar. Cabal Research and Hippocrates Pharmaceuticals, a match made in hell, a hell they’d created right here in the middle of the Ozark Mountains.

Peter twisted my arm behind my back, and I struggled against the pain that made dots swim in front of my eyes and threatened to overwhelm me into blackness. “Where is it?” he growled, his Scotch breath burning my ear. “Where is the cave? I stole these from the Town Hall today so I could find it, but there’s nothing on there.”

“Where’s the lab, you mean? That’s what it is, a research lab, and the genetically pure kids here are the rats. Except your son.” His grip relaxed a little. “Why did they steal your son, Peter? What do they need to blackmail you for? You work for them.”

He let me go, and I stumbled forward and hit my hip on the edge of the desk as I tried not to catch myself with my hurt arm, which throbbed again.

“They didn’t feel like I was pushing hard enough for the Town Hall to be destroyed.” He ran his hand through his hair again, and it fell in greasy strands around his face. “The plan was to mess up the demolition date so that it would be imploded before all the records were removed. They didn’t want anyone to be able to trace their motives for setting up here and make the genetic connection that you did. That’s why they fired you, you know. You were getting too close to the truth.” He reached in a drawer and pulled out a gun. “I suppose I should kill you now. You know too much.”

I held up my hands and backed away. “I know where your son is, Peter. And I’m the only one who’s going to be able to take you to him before they do something awful to him. Have you seen what happens to kids with CLS? They do all sorts of crazy things like climb out windows and run away in the middle of the night. He may do that one day, and then you’ll never hear the end of it from Marguerite. The worst part is that you won’t know until then what they may or may not have done to him.”

“Ah, so now I’m caught between two shrews, not just one. And once I find my son, what then? Will you have my sorry ass hauled off to jail?”

My mind worked quickly. The strands of the spider’s web had been there the whole time. Sometimes it’s hardest to see what’s right in front of you, especially when you find out the man you loved betrayed you. Now that I’d made the connection between Cabal, Hippocrates, and the lab in the woods I didn’t really need Peter Bowman except for one thing.

“I’ll make a deal with you.”

He chuckled and waved me to a chair with his gun. I sat down and crossed my legs, trying really hard not to look as nervous as I felt.

“I don’t really think you’re in a position to be making deals, Doctor Fisher.”

“Oh, but I think I am.” I drew on the insouciance that had gotten the sheriff to buy breakfast for me, the anger that caused me to confront Leo, the frustration that made me tell Iain off, and the pain that Robert’s revelations had left me with. I leaned forward. “I’ll take you to the cave in the woods. I’ll even help you rescue your son. But you have to promise to testify against Hippocrates and Cabal.”

He laughed, and it wasn’t pleasant. “How about this? You take me to my son, and I’ll think about whether to keep you alive or not after I find him.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but then shut it. Robert was still out there. So were Leo, Ron, Lonna and Gabriel. I may not be able to count on them to defend me, but it was a chance I had to take.

As if reading my thoughts, Peter smiled. “And if you think one of those mutt-men may come to your rescue, don’t worry.” He held out his hand and showed me what he held in his palm—silver bullets.

Chapter Nineteen

Our shoes made tracks in the dew on the grass, which was frosted by the gray early morning sunlight. The air smelled sharp, the chill settling into my skin. A mist rose from the ground and wreathed the trees in otherworldly fog, their branches held high in warning or fear at the creatures who roamed among their roots under the moon.

I paused. The light hadn’t made it into the woods yet, and shadows still twisted and undulated in the fog. I reminded myself the most lethal shadow walked behind me, his footprints in mine, his hand on the gun he held in the pocket of his navy jacket.

I found one of the deer paths my grandfather and I had explored when I was a child. When I stepped on the crunching rocks, the image of the trail came to my mind, and I walked forward with confidence. The path toward the river was gentler from this side of the mountain. The ground leveled off, although it still sloped toward the riverbank. I could hear the water, its soothing gurgle audible but faintly muted in the morning mist. The vapor hung heavily here, and I had to tread slowly so as not to lose the path or my footing, for as we got closer to the river, the rocky path turned to dirt, then to slippery mud.

“How much farther?” Peter hissed, his voice coming through the fog from somewhere behind me.

“Not too long,” I told him and wondered if I could make a run for it at this point.

“Don’t even think of trying to run,” he whispered after me. “I can still see you.”

Damn. I grabbed a tree trunk to keep from sliding the last few feet to the riverbank and thought I heard a twig snap nearby, but I couldn’t be sure. I moved away from the tree, and Peter came after me. He seemed to not be in danger of losing his footing, although his hiking boots were caked with mud.

“What now?”

I held my hand up, listening, but the noise of the rushing water filled my ears. “Follow me.”

We headed upstream, and I saw our footprints from the night before, mine and Iain’s, then Simon’s. Surely whoever was in the cave must have seen them, for there were more prints beside them, adult-sized boots and small paw prints. My heart skipped a beat, then rage welled up. They were using the children to hunt us! And I thought it had just been Robert. I worried for Iain’s safety, but there was nothing to be done for it now. He’d just have to take care of himself. As for Leo, I hoped he’d gotten the boy—and himself—somewhere secure.

We came to the fork in the river.

“All you have to do is follow that branch to the canyon,” I said.

“All we have to do,” he corrected me. “And how do we get across?”

“Carefully.” The footprints on the bank led us to a crossing point, a series of stones in the water. We stepped