Believe by Glynis Rankin (best short books to read txt) 📕

shared his bed; none made him feel this sense of knowing.  

They watched the heavy laden stretcher being rolled out the house.

  “Damn, two murders.” Rocco frowned. “We got to call Dante.”

“And tell him what? We don’t have any idea what’s happened. The murderer might be human for all we know." In the days he'd walked as a human, he'd been an dispassionate teenager. Then fate played its hand. In all this time, he's yet to find a mate, that one person that'd make him feel complete.

Xavier eyes turned to Rocco. If he’s honest, he'd envied his friend of his relationship.

Rocco places a comforting hand on Xavier’s shoulder. “Don’t we Xavier.”

  He wasn’t going to let this opportunity get away. He shook off Rocco’s hand. “She's mine!”

Rocco stared at him bewildered. “She’s not your mate Xavier!" His voice stern, "She’s a new-formed at best, a Rouge at worst.”

 He reared up to fight, but caught sight of a tall red man leading a young girl out of the house.

That's her, she's beautiful, he thought, sandy haired and tall, but not as tall as the man.  

“Xavier, we got to report this to Dante. He might’ve sent an assassin to handle this by now.”

When Xavier spoke again, his voice was calmer. “We didn’t know if she did this.” He tried to convince himself, but panic course through his veins.  She’s no match for one of Dante’s assassins.

The big red man led the girl to a police cruiser parked in the drive. She looked gaunt, but walked beside officer indignant, with a regal air of an Alpha queen. 

“Dante might’ve sent an assassin to handle this already.” Rocco said.

Calmer, Xavier spoke. “No one knows if she's the killer.” But panic course through his veins, the girl's no match for one of Dante’s assassins. "Besides, if she's new she's untaught, a victim like the dead."

"You know that doesn't matter."

 But it must, he thought, inhaling her essence.

"They're going to put her down." Rocco proclaimed watching the man place the girl inside the police car.

 Not if I can help it. Xavier made the decision to protect her at any cost.

 

                                               **

 

The pair were engrossed with the events across the street and would've missed the dog sniffing in their direction if it wasn't for their heighten physiological capacity to smell a threat. 

 “We got to go.” Rocco stood to leave just as the sound of a helicopter hovered overhead.

“Shit!”  He turned to run back into the underbrush.

 Xavier stood too, but stared one last time at the dark cruiser, before following his friend.

“There he is!” someone yelled, dogs barking. “Follow him boy.”

 Xavier increased his speed. No man or dog could outrun a wolf, but the German Shepard on his tail gave it his all. He thought they'd make a clean escaped, but he heard sounds up ahead. The police had laid a trap.

The pair ripped through the brushwood, leaving a trail the police couldn’t follow, but not their dogs.

“Jump!” Rocco said, realizing the truth too.

“We can’t change now, it’s too late.” The first rule of a Werewolf was to never let a mundane see you change. Although, the cops weren't close enough to see them change. The sudden appearance of two large wolves would draw suspension. “We got to split up!”

 “Shit! I should’ve never followed you in here.”

Xavier didn't catch the whiff of Rocco’s fear, but his disgust. He knew his friend hated the woodlands, but running deeper in the woods was the only way out. At least one of them would get away. 

“Fuck!”

Xavier waited until they were near the thickest of the vegetation.   “Now!”

They broke away. Rocco went left, and he went right.  

           

Chapter Fourteen

“Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Robert Robe, ending the autopsy of Tom Elton.” Rode snapped off his bloody rubber gloves.

“Do you want to get started on the woman now doctor?”  His lab clerk asked. Steve Fina stood at the large black counter weighing Elton’s brain on a scale.

Robe went to the big red contamination ben. He flipped the lid open with his foot pulled off his gown and threw it inside. “No, let’s get started on her tomorrow.”

“It’s already tomorrow sir.”

Robe looked at the clock on the wall over his office. It was two o’clock in the morning, he’d work through the night. I'm getting too old for these long nights.

 “Have her ready for me this evening.”

“You don’t want the day shift to handle it?” They usually handled any leftover corpse from the nightshift.

“No, I want to finish this case up myself.”

Steve nodded. After storing Tom Elton’s brain, he went to wrap corpse's remains. “Well you send the report over to Detective Wash tonight Doctor?”

Robe stood over the large sink washing his hands. “Yes, once I look over a few things.”

Steve nodded again while continuing to clean up after the doctor. He didn’t notice the strain on Rode’s face.

Robe looked at the digital recording device before heading to his office.

Once inside, he took a seat at his clutter-free desk,unsure how to process. It’s an issue of disclosure, he thought.

Robe knew he had to send Wash a copy of his findings, but he also knew the detective wouldn’t understand the implications of the report. He could disclose his findings to cover entities under the protected health information act without authorization from the detective in charge. But he's never gone over a detective’s head to contact the FBI.

After twenty years on the job, Robe was at a crossroad in his career. “I’m too old for this!”

Robe sent the report to Wash; then reached for the phone.  He waited just a heartbeat before someone pick up.

“You have reached the office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” a lovely female voice said. “How may I direct your call?”

“I need to speak with someone from ISBI.” Robe chimed with apprehension.

“Just a moment, sir, may I ask who you are?”

“I’m Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Robert Rode, calling from Memphis Tennessee.”

“Thank you, sir, and the nature of this call?”

“I believe we have a Werewolf running loose in the city.”

 

                                            ***   

  

 Aged trees and thick shrubbery engraved the gardens and grounds, helping to secure the Chapman manor.  The roses and daisy covered most of the yard and bordered the two-story house, outbuildings and woods of the estate. But there were dandelions sprouting up on lumps of dirt scattered across the  gardens.

The dense night mist clung to the large brown wolf as he emerged from the darken woods.  Big Boi growled low, raising his hackles in anger at the sound of a ringing phone.  He strode over to a grassy knoll to lie down, licking the remains of blood from his huge maw and paws.

For most werewolves the transformation process is painful.  Despite his pain, Big Boi lay in a heap, motionless as if asleep. His thick fur matted  held gobs of blood that gripped at his human skin like a dejected lover, but he never yelled out. The sounds of bones cracking and setting were loud enough to drown out the ringing phone. Moments later, Dr. Dylan Chapman lay naked in the wet grass covered in discarded blood.

The phone continued to ring. He sighed. “What now?”

He hated any interruptions of his nightly hunts, tonight had been especially pleasing. Dylan stood on human legs. His strong, lean muscles, wet with mist, blood, and sweat, glistened in the moonlight as he walked over to the courtyard.

Dylan stepped down the dusty stairs from the garden to the patio. He looked at the clothes, folded neatly on a chair, but didn’t reach for them. Instead, he took a seat and reached for the phone.  “ Yeah.” 

“ Still tending to your garden?” asked the voice on the other end.

Dylan touched one of the red roses in the expensive eighteenth  century  vase on the table. They had withered under the harshness of the sun.

 “Sargent Powers, this must be important if you’re calling me?” Dylan put his feet up in another chair and brought the vase of roses closer to him.  He smelled one.  Roses were his mother’s favorite.  As a child, he’d planted the Heirloom around the estate. When summer came, he delighted in walking the grounds with her and seeing her smile.  He grabbed one of the large spray bottles and squirted the roses until they glistened in the rays of the moonlight.

His garden had all the earmarks of a man dedicated to the profession. Dylan Chapman was no gardener,  unless you counted the mounds of dirt scattered around the yard that hide evidence of his hunts.  

Dr. Dylan Chapman had been a doctor once, concerned with promoting human health. Until that night in 1876 when he tried to help a stranger.  It had taken years, but Dylan finally surrendered to his wolf and its Blood Hunger.  A century later, Big Boi is an insidious monster.

“This is Pack business.”  He heard the revulsion in Powers voice.

“Do tell.” Dylan smelled anther rose.

“Burgot needs your expertise in a matter.” Powers tried to make his voice sound indifferent.

Dylan smiled. Powers was loyal to a fault. There wasn’t any love lost between him and Dante, but as a Pack brother,  he tried to remain civil. But to follow the Alpha’s  led blindly, like some trained dog, he couldn’t do.  “Give me the specifics and I’ll see what I can do.”

"It's a young girl,"  Powers informed the assassin. “I’m sure you don’t have any problems with that?”

“ A kid!” Excited, Dylan got to his feet,  knocking over the vase. " I thought Dante said we didn’t do kids?"

"This is a special case, you up for a hunt?"

Dylan smile widened.   He felt the sharp, painful edge of a transformation, forming, as his canines protruded through his gums.   "Of course, tell the Alpha it'll be my pleasure to do his bidding."

Chapter Fifteen

“Breaking News! As we reported earlier, the victims of the double homicide on Beechnut in the middle-class neighborhood in the Lincoln Park area are Nell and Tom Elton both thirty two. They were murdered in their home this evening…”

Psychologist Tyrell Rogers reached over and turned off the radio. He’d parked his Civic in the pay parking lot across the street from the Criminal Justice Building, but sat to listen to the broadcast. The report revealed nothing new. He stared across the street at the building that's abuzz with activity, even at this late hour.

 It'd been a long, exhausting day. Although this was one of his rare days off at the hospital,