First Sight: The Rune Sight Chronicles Read online

“I thought you were going to laugh at me for believing in this kinda thing. These mountains… sometimes you see strange things you can’t explain…”

  She bounced the three bullets in her palm, then checked the back of them and grunted. She pulled her service pistol out, dropped her mag, emptied the chamber and then put the three silver bullets on top of her mag before racking the slide and holstering her gun. When in Indian country…

  “Can you help me, then?” she asked. “And uh… if this turns out to be a big prank… can you not spread this around town?”

  “You can trust me,” I assured her, wondering if I was telling her the truth.

  Chapter Four

  I drove my Jeep down the gravel drive, following Cindy’s squad car. We stopped off at her house, where we both parked on the side of the gravel drive. It was a habit, as her place was downhill and in the winter time and well into early summer, snow and ice weren’t unheard of, making the drive out a literal pain in the ass. Smoke came up from one of the chimneys and I grinned. If her mom was home, we’d have to play that awkward game where she pretended I was her boyfriend so she wouldn’t have to listen to her mom harp on her so much. When she was having a bad day, we both went along with it to keep her from becoming depressed as she realized how much she’d forgotten.

  “Got everything you need?” she asked as I got out of my Jeep.

  I grabbed a canteen, clipped it to my belt and looked out at the Raines’ property. They had almost one hundred and fifty acres fenced in. Most of what they ran were goats and sheep, but before Cindy’s dad had died, he’d started getting cows. Finding one that had basically adopted her, she’d kept it when the cows were ready to go to slaughter. She’d justified it to her mom by telling her that Betsy was going to be breeding stock so they could use her as milker someday. That day kept not happening, so she had a pet cow. The lush green fields were only broken up by rocky outcroppings and, at the bottom of the hill, I could see the guest house where Cindy lived.

  She’d moved back home to take care of her parents when her dad had gotten sick, but her mom had rallied after her father’s death and had been working on getting back into the world again. Her father’s cancer had left the both of them homebound for long stretches of time, and I was sure there was more than a little bit of sadness and anger to overcome afterwards. Still, the back of the property’s fencing butted up against the side of the mountain where it rose another few hundred feet. It was breathtaking to me; I still hadn’t gotten used to the raw beauty of the area.

  I scanned the futures as far as I could, and couldn’t really come up with anything else. Then a thought struck, and I opened my back door. I dug through a crate I kept back there, full of tools and junk, to come up with half a dozen large cable ties. I rolled them up and stuck them in my back pocket. Cindy didn’t say anything, but opened the front gate and we both walked through, with her closing it behind me.

  “You get many calls today?” I asked her.

  “No, it’s quiet. I’m taking a long lunch, but I’m working a double. One of the deputies called in, and Lorna’s on dispatch. She’s probably playing her thousandth game of solitaire on the computer.”

  “So, you’re not in a rush to go somewhere?”

  “Naw. I’m curious myself, and I hope the blasted dogs haven’t messed up the tracks any worse than they had this morning. My mom’s lab got skunked a couple days ago and can’t go inside yet.”

  I winced. That was pretty bad, smelled like burning garbage up close, don’t ask how I knew.

  “I’ll follow you,” I told her.

  Cindy nodded and I tried to keep my eyes from wandering as we made our way down the asphalt driveway. I searched the futures where I made a snarky comment about how her butt looked and tried not to laugh out loud as I saw many of the responses she had, most of them insulting. She turned when she heard me bite back a snort and saw me still grinning.

  “What’s the joke?” she asked, pausing so I could catch up, and I fell in beside her.

  “Obviously we’ve both been alone in the middle of nowhere too long. We’re going on a hunt for Bigfoot,” I said, still snickering, though that wasn’t the reason for my humorous mood.

  “Yeah, sounds crazy. I don’t even know if it’s whatever, it was its blood. I knew it wasn’t Betsy’s, and the dogs are all ok too.”

  “Ok, show me where it started.”

  Cindy was a superb tracker in her own right, but one of my tricks, because of my sight, was tracking. I could look into the future in which I found tracks of what I was looking for, then go that way. I could repeat this trick all day long and so far, I’d never gotten lost nor failed to find what I was looking for. When she showed me what she thought of as the track, I had to frown. It wasn’t anything like I’d ever seen before. It was too big to be any of the Weres I’d run into over the years. That was when I saw the smear of blood in the dirt and in the remnants of the early summer snow that had fallen overnight. I reached down and pulled a few blades of grass loose. The air had dried the small droplet out. I held it up and sniffed. It was unremarkable, but it was part of the entire persona I played out in front of her.

  A retired big game hunting guide; not an unusual thing to be, out in the wilds of Utah.

  “Is that weird?” she asked, putting her foot by the track that had been left in the soft dirt on the edge of her driveway.

  “It is; let’s go before the grass dries out and I have a hard time finding where it went,” I told her, knowing she would come with me, but wishing she wouldn’t when I realized that what we were dealing with did indeed intersect with my old life.

  “It’s when it crosses the fence that I lose the trail,” she told me softly.

  “Well, I’ll track, you watch my butt. I don’t want to be some kind of snack food for a mutated bear.”

  “Oh wow, now you’ve really got me thinking. I know this is all wrong for a bear, but do you think…?”

  It could have been anything, and that was exactly what I told her. She seemed satisfied, and fell in behind me slowly. When we’d tracked her downed elk last year, I’d had her walking behind me with a rifle. My concentration was so absolute, I often tuned out everything else behind me. She hadn’t believed me till she had talked to me, and when I didn’t respond, she’d realized how focused I was. The focus now was the same as it had been then. It was twofold: I was focusing on the occasional blood trail, and the grass that had been flattened by something with bigger feet than I’d ever seen before.

  I could tell something had been injured and running. The footprints were almost six feet apart. Something with long legs had been moving, and in a hurry. I kept using my sight to see what would happen if I stepped off the obvious tracks, in case they were laid as a distraction, but in the futures, I couldn’t see myself finding anything. Instead of doing that, I searched the futures for a distracting print that was meant to lead me astray. I found nothing. Instead, I kept focusing on the tracks I could find and follow, noting the drops of blood here and there.

  When I reached the fence, I put my hands between the barbs on the barbwire fence and pushed down and then went over it one leg at a time. I dropped my focus and held the wire down as Cindy easily stepped over, putting one hand on my shoulder for balance. I searched the futures where I acted impulsively and grinned at the shocked look on her face and decided not to act impulsively. I didn’t want that kind of relationship with her, though I was starting to think she might, someday.

  “Thanks,” she said, letting me go.

  “No problem,” I said, and turned.

  I started scanning for prints again and found a set of wolf prints right away. They were not the large prints I’d followed before, but there was a small drop of blood on the bottom of a blade of grass. I was about to mention that when Cindy’s radio crackled.

  “Sheriff, I have a car accident out on the main road by the highway. Ambulance has already been dispatched.”

  “On my way,” Cindy said and looked at me que
stioningly.

  “Go ahead,” I told her and pushed down on the barbed wire again.

  “Thanks. Let me know, and stop in town. I’ll make good on my promise. Mom’s doing the baking at Shirley’s today.”

  “I will,” I told her and helped her over the fence, secretly glad she was heading out back to town.

  I didn’t watch as she left, instead I searched the futures where I found another large footprint and came up empty. Next, I searched the futures in which I found wolf prints with the same blood trail. After a moment, I found it was related to the track I’d found already. With a sigh, I started walking up the mountain. I realized I should have gotten the silver bullets back from Cindy, but I’d forgotten till now, and I was sure she had too. I was pretty sure what I was dealing with, and the last time I’d fought a Were, I’d ended up a bloody mess.

  Within a hundred yards of climbing, the blood trail stopped. I knew why. The werewolf had shifted to wolf form, to start the healing process, once it had leapt the fence. It must have been in its hybrid form, part wolf, part human, when it had left its tracks. Now it was running on four legs, and I still had no idea what had hurt it or why. I started moving slower, making sure to scan the futures for me being attacked, and mostly coming up with nothing. Mostly.

  It was almost a half an hour later, with the summer sun peeking over the mountains, that I heard a hunting howl. I checked the future of me running to the summit, and found it didn’t matter if I walked or ran; I was close enough. Instead of expending energy, I walked for another thirty seconds, taking a long pull of my water. I could see a small trail of smoke coming up and the smell of cooking meat. In wolf form, Weres would eat their food raw, but everybody loves campfire cooked and smoked meat. My mouth watered as I crossed the top and saw a small hunters camp on a flat spot on the other side of the summit.

  A canvas tent had been erected and four human figures were sitting around the fire ring, a deer leg on a spit over the fire. A fifth figure was bound, laying on its side. I could hear muffled sounds as it struggled in wolf form. It had duct tape around its mouth to keep it from howling or yipping. One of the four figures, wearing black pants and a white cotton t shirt, raised his nose and sniffed when he saw me. His eyes opened slightly and, when one of the figures rose, he put his hand out and motioned for them to sit. I stood stock still and waited for all eyes to focus on me. Then I waited another thirty seconds and scanned the future.

  “Come and be welcome at our fire,” the Alpha said.

  I walked down slowly, wanting to check my pistol was still in easy reach, but knowing not to do it.

  “Thank you, Alpha. Long have I been aware of the pack’s presence, I do apologize for not making myself known and honoring you sooner. My apologies.”

  “It is fine, young mage,” the Alpha werewolf rumbled, his voice deeper than I had originally thought. “We, too, have been aware of your presence, but thought that, like many of your kind, you wished for peace and solitude after the hustle and bustle of the modern world.”

  “You are correct. May I sit at your fire and speak with you and the pack?” I asked, looking at the bound wolf and then the four of them.

  “You don’t have to be so formal with us,” he told me and I took my place on the opposite side of the fire from the bound form. I gave him another look, and then turned back to the Alpha.

  “I’m Carl, and this is Yolanda, my mate, her brother and my Beta David and the final with us, is young Rick.”

  Carl looked like he was of mixed heritage, a blend of Hispanic and Caucasian. His mate, Yolanda, had dark straight hair and a bronzed skin tone, as did her brother and the man they’d introduced as young Rick. The thing I’d learned from my mother about Weres, was that they were a very inclusive bunch. They were already hiding in plain sight, so they didn’t deal with the same social prejudices that mundane humans seemed to hold onto. They could be from all across the globe, or all from one area. It just depended on the Alpha, and the makeup of the pack.

  “I am Thomas Wright,” I said, using the name on my current set of papers, “and I’ve come from the Sheriff’s house, looking for whomever caused questions of the supernatural world to be spoken of by a mundane,” I told them, actually being truthful in my words and trying not to be as formal as my mother had taught me to be.

  “Then I think we all are on the same page,” Yolanda said, her accent funny.

  I pegged her as a Native American, though not from around here.

  “Is that the intruder?” I asked, and the four of them nodded.

  “A rogue Alpha, crossing through our accorded territory without permission,” Carl said blandly, using a belt knife to point at the wolf form.

  I winced. Rogue Alphas were usually put down when captured. They were those who usually lost challenges, and were forced out of their pack’s lands. Usually they were run down by every Alpha in every territory they crossed, till somebody put them in the ground. For good. It was like what I’d gone through, in a way; hunted by my own through no fault of my own. It was almost always a death sentence. It was only by hiding and trying to blend in that I’d been able to stay off the radar for so long. Well, until yesterday.

  “May I speak with the rogue?” I asked.

  Carl opened and closed his mouth as if to answer. Then the four of them leaned in together and spoke softly, in a language that sounded like Piute. Maybe I was wrong about where they were from, but I only knew enough to recognize the language, not enough to know what they were saying. After a moment, the whispers stopped and Yolanda looked up at me, her eyes shining bright as Carl started turning the spit.

  “What would you ask him, if you spoke to him?”

  “I would find out where he is from. I would ask why he was being careless near human dwellings and why he caused questions for the human Sheriff in this area.” I winced, realizing I was still being formal, and mentally kicked myself.

  They murmured back and forth again, and then Carl nodded his permission to me. I drew my pistol, which caused a couple of them to growl their displeasure when they smelled the silver, but I knew they were not going to jump me. The gun wasn’t for them, it was for my own protection. A hurt and bound rogue Alpha was dangerous, and I was about to cut him loose. The pack knew that, and that was why they hadn’t acted. They’d probably smelled my silver long before they’d seen me cross the summit of the mountain.

  I pulled out my Gerber and cut a patch loose from the edge of the wolf’s mouth. Foam leaked out from the side, though it wasn’t from rabies, more like the Were couldn’t breathe and perspire properly, like dogs, when they had their mouths muzzled so tightly.

  “Hold still, I am going to cut you loose to speak with you. Can you understand me?” I asked.

  The wolf thumped its tail once, both eyes turning to look at my face.

  “Ok, now, when I pull this tape off your muzzle, it’s going to hurt. You bite me, I’m gonna shoot you in the face. You let me help you, we got no problems.”

  Again, the tail thumped. I prayed I was doing the right thing, but I knew what it felt like to be hunted and run off. I’d spent my early years dealing with the fallout of that.

  “That one allows his wolf to control him, he does not have much human control,” Carl called over my shoulder.

  I nodded in understanding and shifted the gun to my left hand and started peeling the tape off. The wolf whimpered as I did so and as soon as the muzzle was off, it started gagging, and finally spat out a wad of green leafy material. I could smell it over the smell of wolf. It was wolfbane, something that kept a shift from happening. As the wolf spat and used its tongue to clean its mouth, I cut the tape that held each pair of legs together and pulled it loose. Freed, the wolf stood up on all fours and stood a little ways back from me.

  Then he shifted. Bones seemed to crack and, in a moment, a young man stood before me, wearing a ragged pair of shorts. He was a taller than me, probably a little over six feet. He wasn’t as dark skinned as Carl, so I knew he probabl
y wasn’t from their lineage. His body was heavy with muscle; cords of it seemed to ripple as he worked the kinks loose from his transformation and the effects of being tied up. He stood out though; his hair was worn longer than mine with streaks of brown mixed in with lighter colors, almost as if he had highlights. I’d seen this before, but not often.

  “He must be strong, to retain his clothing,” Yolanda muttered in English.

  “Hush woman,” Carl said.

  “Thank you, mage,” the young werewolf said, looking at me. “I heard you talking about me, and I want to tell my story.”

  “Go on,” I told him, switching the gun back to my right hand.

  With my sight, I didn’t have to really aim, it was almost impossible to miss, and after almost eighty years of practice, I was a decent shot with even my feet. Well, not really, big toes suck for pulling triggers.

  “I was driven out by my own pack before I was fully grown, to challenge my uncle - as was pack custom. I’ve been harried across half the mountains between Nebraska and southern Utah to here, only to be captured a short while ago. I’m still recovering from the dog that bit me, though I think I have it healed finally.”

  “You were bit by a dog?” I asked him.

  “Yes, I was crossing through the Irish woman’s property when her cow came over. Stupid animal. I had already eaten, but this large black dog came out of the dark. I didn’t want to hurt it. When it attacked, its collar burned my flesh,” he said, showing me the side under his arm. It was inflamed, and angry looking. “Who puts silver on a dog’s ID tag? I think that’s what it was, anyway.”

  “So, you shifted? Once you were burned by the silver?” I asked him.

  “Yes, into my hybrid form, to get away. It is one thing to kill a dog in self defense, but if it meant getting the law chasing me… I didn’t want that, not that it did any good,” he said, looking over at the pack.

  “You know the penalty for crossing into another Alpha’s territory?” I asked him softly.