Chapter 35: Cormac

“Don’t do anything stupid with ‘er,” Tara told Cormac at dawn the next day. He could hardly look her in the face so she talked at him whether he was listening or not. “Don’t let ‘er risk ‘erself or ‘er life for any of us.”

“I thought ya liked the idea of me gettin’ another mate,” Cormac responded in a poised growl.

“I do but I don’t want to see another person die.”

Noises of Isabelle stirring awake and lifting herself out of bed travelled to the kitchen. Cormac wasn’t sure if his stomach was knotting in excitement to see her or disappointment at not having just a few more moments alone with Tara so he could work up the nerve to match her sharp gaze and tell her that it was too late for him to turn Isabelle away; that her scent was lodged in his nose, entwining itself through his very gray matter.

There was no reason for Tara to say anymore. Every thought in her head radiated around her in wordless waves of energy. Both of them were nervous about what was unfolding, and it would have been bad enough if their pack were the only people involved. Too much was happening, and Cormac was beginning to think that he was over his head. If Isabelle had asked him what he thought she should do, he’d have no answer except what he had told her the night before.

“Run,” he had said as they discussed probing deeper and what danger that might entail. “If I tell you to run, don’t argue with me. Don’t try to be tough. Just run.”

Listening to her airy sniffles and morning cough as she rousted herself from sleep, Cormac doubted that the advice had stuck.

He had vivid dreams the night before, visions of tangled flesh and eager mouths closing over excited body parts. It ended when the warmth was yanked out of his arms and slaughtered in front of him. The last thing he remembered before he woke up was Isabelle’s face bright and animated in a wordless scream, her hands clamped over a slash in her throat.

Isabelle’s footsteps preceded her. She entered the kitchen, a somber smile across her lips. “Good morning.”

Cormac nodded a greeting as Tara handed Isabelle a cup of coffee before excusing herself and leaving the two of them alone.

“Ya sure ya wanna do this?” Cormac asked, watching as she took a sip and her eyes became backlit. “It’s gonna be dangerous.”

“I’m a reporter, Cormac. I’m used to following dangerous stories.”

But this danger was so much more immediate. These weren’t mean mugging union busters, bitter city officials ready to slander her, humans with an attitude and a chip on their shoulder equipped with words and gossip in their arsenal. These were animals. In some cases, Cormac knew these were monsters.

They started the day up at the cave he had taken her the first day, and let her ask anything she wanted, answering each question as well as he could. Too many of them caused him to shrug, muttering about how he didn’t know. Every time he did, he saw Isabelle get more frustrated.

“You would think you’d have some understanding of where you came from,” she told him as she sank into the damp dark of the cave, her eyes blending in except for the clear whites that levitated outside of her face.

“I don’t know anything, Isabelle,” he said, drawn along behind her like a charmed snake. “All I know is that I’m here.”

Inside the cave there was a pungent smell of a stranger’s urine. It seared into Cormac’s nostrils, and he almost gagged. This wasn’t just an animal marking its territory; this was a shifter, and it was done with malicious intent. Cormac’s vision went cloudy. His head felt momentarily detached from his body.

“What’s the matter, Cormac?”

“You smell that?”

Isabelle lifted her nose in the air and inhaled. “Smells like piss.”

“Yeah. Shifter piss.”

“You think people did this on purpose? To instigate you guys or something?”

Cormac nodded. “Most of the packs keep out of each other’s way but it’s a big state, and some of them get the urge to see what trouble they can stir up.” He sniffed again, covering his mouth to fight the gag reflex. “Something tells me whoever did this ain’t playin’ around.”

Cormac could hardly stand to be near the cave as the smell drifted on the air and followed him, taunted him. In the truck, his face burned with embarrassment; he hoped Isabelle didn’t notice.

“Do you have any leads on which pack might have done that?” she asked as they headed down the mountains and towards a town.

“I got some idea,” he answered, darkly. “I’m headin’ to a man who might tell us.”

They sailed through a small city center then out the other side and back into the wild wastelands of the uninhabited desert. After a few miles, they reached a rundown looking house sitting in a sea of red sand nothing. Out front, hunched over in a wheelchair, was an old man who looked frail and weather beaten, his dark skin leathered from the merciless sun. When Cormac pulled into the crude driveway, the man lifted his head.

“That’s who we’re here to see?” Isabelle asked, studying the man as he rolled his way towards the truck.

“That’s him,” Cormac told her. “Name’s Lee, and he’s seen a thing or two around here.”

Lee was fast to speak, bursting out about how happy he was to see somebody other than his own reflection. He barely gave Isabelle a chance to introduce herself, and even after she did, he continued on with his tirade of gratitude.

“Ya were always a good kid,” he said to Cormac, a similar inflection in his voice as Tara’s. “Now ya out ‘ere checkin’ in on me when those bastards in my pack can’t even be bothered to call.”

“We’re here for a reason, Lee.” Cormac signaled to Isabelle to help roll the old man at least to the shade of the rickety porch. “Let’s have a chat.”

Lee didn’t look up to a chat but he nodded as Isabelle delicately pushed him along the ground pockmarked with rocks, animal holes, deep grooves worn by the tread of his tires instead of his own two feet.

“Ain’t seen you lookin’ like that since Maxine’s funeral,” Lee told him, patting his pockets for some unknown object.

“That easy to figure out somethin’ is wrong, huh?”

Lee produced a pack of cigarettes from under his body weight, nodding gravely as he settled one into his mouth. “Those eyes give ya away, kid,” he said, inhaling and exhaling in what seemed like one fluid motion. “It’s why you could never get away with lyin’.”

Cormac crouched down, bringing himself to Lee’s level in the shade. Isabelle’s hand was still affixed to the handle of the wheelchair. She had become so motionless that she appeared not to be living, a sudden statue struck silent by what she was observing. Cormac had to remind himself that not only was everything she was learning completely new to her but also that there were concerns brewing that she sensed and didn’t understand. The grasp he had on what was occurring was tenuous at best; for her, it must have seemed like a constant shifting world where the ground under her feet was never stable.

“We got a problem, Lee,” Cormac said. “It’s worse than that, though. We got a problem and we don’t even know just what it is.”

He wasn’t sure where the story started. Did it start with Isabelle getting there and snapping the unfortunate picture of poor Clint in his half-form? Did it start further back when Tara heard what she thought was coyotes sniffing around the chickens and Cormac caught the scent of an unfamiliar pack on the wind? For some reason, Cormac started with the cave reeking of unwelcome urine.

“And Isabelle here went down to Gus’s yesterday, and he went more than a little strange on her.” Cormac coughed lightly. “But we both know the reason for that.”

“‘Ow much does she know?” Lee asked, jutting his thumb towards Isabelle.

“A lot. Enough.”

“Does she know Gus is a shifter too?”

“I didn’t,” Isabelle jumped in, her voice hesitant. “But I figured it out.”

Lee turned his torso towards her as if his neck was too stiff to move independently. “Did Gus tell ya ‘bout the man ‘e knew in Denver?”

Cormac and Isabelle exchanged looks. “Denver?” she repeated, hushed and surprised and worried.

“She’s from Denver, Lee,” Cormac said. “Her boss sent her here on an assignment.”

“I see.”

Lee puffed on his cigarette, grave and gray despite the dark tanned color of his face. Isabelle crouched down alongside him, and Cormac studied the whole scene before him. The air felt suddenly thin; his vision went soft again.

“Is the man from Denver named Wes?” Isabelle asked, and Lee nodded.

“Gus knew ‘im from years back when he lived out ‘ere.” He made a hacking noise and released a wad of tar and phlegm from his throat. “Wes ran with a pack around ‘ere from time to time. Fell in love as often as ‘e got beaten up. Ladies never stuck with ‘im though. Most shifters, they don’t leave ‘ome easily.”

Isabelle uprighted herself so quickly that Cormac had to take a step backwards. “Are you telling me that Wes is a shifter?”

“I don’t know if ‘e was a shifter or is a shifter or what there is to know ‘bout im,” Lee told her with an air of nonchalance that can only come with living as hard as he had. “All I know is that ‘e spent a lot of time ‘anging around packs of ‘em, and most normal ‘umans don’t do nothin’ like that.” His eyes moved from her to Cormac. “You both get it.”

“No such thing as a coincidence in our world,” Cormac said, sagely. “No room for coincidences.”

“You close with this man from Denver?” Lee asked her.

“Not particularly. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that he hates me.”

Lee crossed his arms over his shrunken barrel chest. “That would be my guess too if ‘e sent ya out ‘ere to poke your nose into us shifters. It don’t end well for ‘umans that find out ‘bout us.”

The statement made the hot, dry atmosphere ice. Cormac could tell Isabelle fought a shudder that ran through her. When her eyes landed on him, he averted his gaze sharply, hoping there was something in the distance that was interesting enough to warrant him looking away from her.

“We won’t let nothin’ happen to ya,” Cormac reminded her despite the fact that he couldn’t hold eye contact to save either of their lives.

“I know you’ll try,” she answered calmly, and Cormac heard the tightness that was spawned from doubt. Doubt and fear and the fast-moving urge to take flight, to get the hell out of dodge while she still had that option. All their options were narrowing rapidly. If this strange pack was roaming their land and someone had been sent to expose them then it was anybody’s guess what was being put into play.

Getting back into the truck, Cormac noticed Isabelle’s dark eyes riveted to Lee who sat smoking in the shade. “He seems so frightened and so calm all at once,” Isabelle said. Lee lifted a hand in farewell; she returned the gesture. “Does he not think he’s in danger?”

“Lee don’t have much left,” Cormac replied, putting the truck in reverse.

“He’s not scared of being exposed or dying?”

Cormac put the truck in gear then paused before driving off. He followed her sights to Lee under the awning, now a formless shadow and a moving cherry of a cigarette. “Everyone’s pretty much forgotten about Lee. But, hey-” he tapped his fingers against Isabelle’s shoulder- “remember you’re gonna run when I say, right?”

Isabelle turned her face slowly to him as if she couldn’t stand to look away from Lee. Her eyes were distant, glassy. “Right.”

Cormac raised a hand as the truck caught the gear and lurched forward. Isabelle kept gazing straight ahead in a silence that made him nervous. About halfway home, he took a sharp right onto a rocky incline that could hardly be called a road. Isabelle gripped into the seat; he saw her swallowing.

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a spot over here that’s technically another pack’s turf.”

He waited for her to object, to mention what a reckless and dangerous idea this was. For Isabelle, this was an adventure right on schedule. Cormac sighed and pulled off to the side of the road.

“Is this it?” Isabelle asked, her hand on the door handle.

“No, Isabelle. The more I think ‘bout how-”

His voice curdled in his throat at the sight of a low-slung truck coming the opposite direction. When Isabelle saw it, she drew in a deep breath and released her hand from the door.

“Who’s that?”

“Just do what I say, alright?”

Cormac pulled her close into him, burying their faces together as the truck rolled past them in a creep. He kept the most identifiable parts of him covered, his hands shielding Isabelle’s in the same manner. Even though he was pretty sure anyone after the two of them knew what she looked like.

From somewhere beyond the confines of his car, Cormac caught a hint of that alien odor, the urine in the cave. The scent he had noticed before when he stalked the coyote out into the hills. He knew the smell of the other packs in the area, and that was not one of theirs.

The truck seemed to slow further down, just about stopping then speeding up again. Cormac released Isabelle from his hold. She sat back against the seat, her fingers touched to her lips.

“Ah, shit,” Cormac muttered, slamming his open fist against the wheel of the truck. “They’re watching us.”

“What?”

“That smell from the cave? I just smelled it again.” He glanced in the rearview mirror but the other truck was already out of sight. “Maybe it’s someone who knows your boss and maybe they’re working with a pack from around here. Whoever it is, they’re following us.”

Isabelle was silent. Cormac wanted to touch her, to comfort her, to tell her that he had a plan and an idea and a way to deal with this whole mess but he had none of that.

“I’m sorry I started this,” Isabelle said softly as they sped toward the horizon, toward the ranch, towards their territory. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m sorry too, Isabelle.” Cormac shifted into high gear. “But as the saying goes: it is what it is.”