Eventually footsteps approached and the door opened, revealing a tall, brown wolf with a pinched face and hawklike nose. "Yes?"
"Mr. Habbsheen? Riley Jenson from the Directorate." I showed him my ID then slid it back into my pocket. "I need to talk to you and your wife about your son."
"Our son is dead."
He tried to close the door on us, but I slapped a hand against it and stopped him. "Mr. Habbsheen, as a guardian I don't need a search warrant, and I will force my way into this house if you refuse to cooperate."
Anger flared deep in his brown eyes and for a moment the threat of it filled the air. It was a threat that drew a deep rumbling growl from behind me. Kye wasn't appreciating the response. And I know who'd I'd be putting money on in any fight that arose.
Not that it would. Habbsheen's gaze went from me to Kye and back again, then he visibly forced himself to relax.
"I guess you'd better come in, then." He opened the door wider. "First door on the left."
The house smelled musty, a scent that was both wolf and aged air. And it was cold-icy cold.
Maybe to stop the kid's flesh from rotting too quickly?
My nostrils flared as I drew in the deeper aromas of the house. Underneath the dust and cooking scents, there was another.
Dead flesh.
He was here all right.
I glanced at Kye. You smell him?
Yes.
He stopped slightly behind me, the warmth of his strong body flowing across my back like a fire, heating me more than was wise given the situation. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to let him accompany me.
"What is this all about, Ms. Jenson?" Habbsheen was propped in the doorway and basically blocked our exit.
"As I said, we're here about your son."
"Our son is dead. What possible interest can he have to the Directorate?"
"Your son may be dead, but we've reason to believe he has been raised from the grave."
He didn't blink, didn't react in any normal way. But then, I wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know. "No one can raise the dead, Ms. Jenson."
"Certain sorcerers can."
"Magic doesn't exist."
"As vampires and werewolves don't exist?" I gave him a polite smile. "Mr. Habbsheen, the body you harbor is not your son. It is simply reanimated flesh that remains in control of the person who raised it."
"Ms. Jenson, I told you. Our son is not here."
"Oh, I agree, your son isn't here. However, his reanimated flesh is. We can smell him," I added softly.
"And what if he is?" Tension rolled across his shoulders and crossed arms, and again the scent of his anger flowed around his. "He's done no harm. We've done no harm."
Kye didn't respond to the growing threat in Habbsheen's stance, and yet I felt the tension in him rise. Felt his readiness to move.
"That thing you're protecting murdered a teenager last night. It slashed her throat then sucked the blood from her body."
The blood seemed to flow from his face. "Rob wouldn't do that."
"Rob probably wouldn't have. But as I've said, that's not Rob down there. Not anymore."
His mouth tightened. "I don't believe you. Get out."
"I'm afraid we can't leave without Rob's body."
"And I can't let you leave with it."
I didn't have the chance to reply, because Kye was suddenly past me, launching himself bodily at the other man. The two of them crashed into the far wall of the hallway, denting the plaster and sending a white puff of debris into the air.
"Go," Kye said, as he grappled with the other man.
I jumped over them, avoiding Habbsheen's flailing arms and running down the hallway, following the aroma of decay. It led me through a kitchen and on into a laundry. The scent of female sharpened abruptly, seemingly surrounding me even though there was no one but me in the room. I reached for the back door, but at the last moment became aware of air stirring, and of something approaching the back of my head.
Fast.
I dropped hard, jarring my knees on the tiled floor. The axe aimed at my head embedded itself into the wall instead, the force behind the blow enough that the whole metal head buried itself deep into the plaster.
I swung around, sweeping out with a leg, knocking the woman off her feet. She screamed as she went down, but it was a sound filled with fury rather than pain.
I grabbed her legs, pinning them under mine, but her arms were another thing. She screamed and bit and flailed like a mad thing, her blue eyes wide and without any sense.
A wolf protecting her cub, whatever the cost.
"Damn it," I yelled, as her nails raked my arms. "It's not your son down there. You buried him. It's just flesh that resembles him. Nothing more, nothing less."
She didn't say anything, just kept on fighting.
I avoided another blow, then drew back my fist and hit her hard. Not enough to truly hurt her, but enough to knock her out.
When her body went limp, I blew out a breath and studied the shadows out of which she'd come. A small trapdoor led down into deeper darkness-and it was here that the aroma of decay was coming from.
Just to make sure she couldn't get up to any more mischief while I was investigating, I grabbed a shirt from the nearby washing basket and tore it into thick strips-lots and lots of strips that would be hard to tear as a whole-using those to tie both her hands and feet. Then I stepped over her trussed body and ducked through the trapdoor, walking cautiously down the short flight of stairs.
It was a small cellar area. Shelving lined one wall, stacked with dusty wine bottles, many of which looked older than me. In the middle of the room sat a small table and several chairs, and on this, wineglasses and a tub of old corks. In the far corner was a bed, and on this lay the zombie.
I walked across. He was dressed, his clothes freshly ironed and smelling a whole lot cleaner than he did. His skin had a waxy, marblelike appearance, and his veins were so close to the surface I could trace them with my fingertips. Not that I actually wanted to.
I stepped closer and studied his hands. There were more obvious signs of his death here. His fingertips were black, and the rot was spreading down his remaining fingers, threads of darkness that suggested to anyone paying attention that things were not what they seemed when it came to this wolf.
That and his eyes. There was no life in the filmy blue of his eyes. No understanding, no intelligence. Just a blank emptiness as he stared up at the ceiling.
I hesitated, then carefully reached out telepathically. Nothing but emptiness and the shadows of death.
I shuddered and dug my phone out of my pocket to call the Directorate. "Sal?" I said when her face came online. "I found our zombie. You want to get some of the magi out here? They might be able to trace back the magic used to raise him or something." And give him a proper ending, rather than the beheading I'd have to do if I took care of him. And I didn't think his parents would appreciate that. "Roughly how long will it be before someone gets here?"
"Give us half an hour."
"Thanks, Sal."
She hung up. I shoved my phone away and looked around as noise vibrated above me.
"Fucking hell," Habbsheen shouted. "What have you done to my wife?"
"Nothing, Mr. Habbsheen," I said, not bothering to raise my voice. He'd hear me no matter where he was in the house. "She's merely knocked out. Although technically, I should arrest her ass for trying to kill a guardian."
And if I wanted to get really technical, I could have just killed her. She was interfering in Directorate business-had actually tried to bash me over the head with an axe-and given she wasn't human, the law didn't give her the same sort of protection and rights that humans got. Sad, but true. But Jack preferred an arrest over a kill in these sorts of situations, and I sure as hell wasn't about to argue.