Eileen Wilks - 08.5 Humon Error by Eileen Wilks

Author:Eileen Wilks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-07-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Benedict ducked under the crime scene tape and started down.

As he had told the sheriff, some kinds of thinking didn’t come easily for him when he was wolf. But this puzzle would need both sides of him, so he made the effort to hold on to words and concepts he knew mattered. It helped that this Change, unlike the one earlier, had been intentional.

He did not like relying on humans for backup. They were scent blind all the time and literally blind on a dark night. Which this was. The moon might be nearly full, but most of her light was trapped by the low hanging clouds. But you worked with what you had, and so far the only scents he was picking up on the path were human, with faint traces of other animals raccoon, rabbit, mice, fox. The wind was from the southeast and steady, blocked somewhat by the brush and trees, but what reached him brought no warnings.

It was an easy descent on four feet. The two legged ones following him were slow, but he was in no hurry. Their slowness was good for Arjenie, who was in the middle of the pack. The sheriff had arranged it that way, which earned the man some points with Benedict. Clay Delacroix brought up the rear.

Being human, the ones behind him needed flashlights, mage light, and words to make their way down the side of the draw. Most of their speech was to the point Watch out for that branch or There’s a big step down here. Twice Porter asked Arjenie how she was doing, which must have annoyed her. She’d said she’d let them know if she needed help. Was the man unable to take her at her word because she was female, or did he treat everyone with a physical impairment like a child?

The path leveled as abruptly as it had begun. Ahead was flat, gravelly ground tufted with grass a cul de sac, he saw as he stepped forward. Rocky outcroppings that had refused to erode at the same rate as their brethren flanked either side of the flat, sandy area where the body had been found, spinning the creek in a wide curve around them. The water of that creek was smooth, dark, and almost silent.

The two men standing near that water were silent, too. And armed. And wearing uniforms. One of them aimed a flashlight at him, blinding him but not totally. He saw it when the other man raised his rifle.

“Dammit, Rick,” the first man said, “don’t shoot him. That’s the lupus the sheriff told us was coming.”

If he knew that, why was he still shining that damn light in Benedict’s eyes?

“Yeah, but ”

Benedict decided they weren’t going to shoot and moved out of that annoying flashlight beam. And stopped, his lip lifting in a snarl and his hackles lifting not at the men. At the stink faint but unmistakable. He lifted his nose to be sure of the direction, then approached the bad smelling place.

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