Bitten (Otherworld 1)

I moved away from his hand. "You can't. The scent was faint last night. It'll be worse now. You need my nose."

"I can try."

"No."

I stepped around the corner, hesitated, almost stopping, then propelled myself forward. When I saw the spot where the Explorer had been parked, I jerked my gaze away, but it was too late. My mind was already replaying the scene from the night before, me rushing forward, Clay calling my name and running after me. He'd realized what had happened before I had. That's why he'd been trying to stop me. I understood that now--not that his motive mattered at this moment. It was just a meaningless distraction that ran through my brain, preventing me from thinking of what had happened here last night.

During the day, the parking lot looked like a different place. People bustled from car to store and back again. Like the coffee shop, the lot was filled with working people, most in jeans, a few in suits, toting single grocery bags with tonight's dinner or extra milk or bread grabbed on the way home. No one paid attention to us as we crossed the lot to the back fence. The spot where we'd parked last night was empty, being too far from the store to get used on any but the busiest shopping days.

I stood on the right side, where the passenger door of the Explorer had been. Closing my eyes, I inhaled. The scent of Logan filled my head. My knees buckled. Clay grabbed my elbow. I steadied myself, then sniffed again, trying to block Logan's scent. It didn't work. His lingering odor shoved aside all less familiar scents. With my eyes closed, I could imagine him standing in front of me, close enough to touch. I opened my eyes. The bright light of day chased the fantasy back to the shadows of my brain.

"I'm--" I started. "I'm having some trouble."

"It's here," Clay said. "Faint, but I'm picking up something. Hold on a sec and I'll see if I can grab it."

He paced to the left, shook his head, then came back and started again in another direction. On his second round of the compass points, he turned to me.

"Got it," he said. "Entrance trail is east, but the mutt exited here."

There was nothing in a scent that could tell even the best tracker whether someone was coming or going. Clay knew the difference because the approaching trail would also carry traces of Logan's smell, though he didn't mention this.

"Come over here and try," he said.

Once I got away from the parking spot, I relaxed. Clay stood near a minivan. I walked to him and sniffed the air. Yes, the scent was there. An unfamiliar werewolf. The trail led across the parking lot, away from the grocery store and toward Jack's Hunting and Hardware. From there, it ran along the sidewalk heading west, then circled back toward the main street, where we followed it to the downtown core. If that sounds quick and easy, it wasn't. A straight walk from point A to point B would have taken fifteen minutes. We spent over an hour, constantly missing the trail, looping back, finding where the mutt had turned a corner, and starting again. Once or twice I lost the scent completely. Trailing as humans made it even more difficult, not only because I couldn't smell as well, but because I couldn't exactly put my nose to the ground and sniff the mutt out. Well, I could, but such actions are frowned upon in polite society and often lead to a complimentary ride to the nearest psychiatric ward. Even the sight of someone on a street corner twitching her nose or pacing in a circle raised eyebrows. So I had to be discreet. Even if I could convince Clay to wait until nightfall, we couldn't change into wolves. After everything that had happened in Bear Valley, that wouldn't be a challenge, it'd be suicide.

Downtown Bear Valley closed at five, allowing employees to make it home for dinner and ignoring the fact that the average person worked until five and needed to shop afterward. This oversight may have explained the vacancy rate that had spread through the core like a cancer, affecting one shop, then its neighbors, and their neighbors, until the block looked like a massive advertisement for Bear Valley Realty. By the time we got back downtown, it was past seven and even the most dedicated shelf stockers had left for the evening. The streets were bare. The town seemed to have shut down for a collective dinner hour. I was able to be less cautious with my sniffing and we covered the next half mile in twenty minutes. The trail stopped at a Burger King that had been ostracized from its fast-food buddies on the other side of town. Here the mutt had presumably stopped to refuel. After another twenty minutes of circling and retracing my steps, I picked up the trail again. Ten minutes later we were standing in the parking lot of the Big Bear Motor Lodge.

"Well, this was a no-brainer," I muttered as we looked out over the collection of pickup trucks and ten-year-old sedans. "Two hotels in town. He's staying at one. Duh."

"Hey, you're the one who insisted we start from the grocery store."

"I didn't hear you suggesting anything else."

"It's called survival, darling. I know when to keep my mouth shut."

"Since when have--" I stopped, noticing a woman standing in her hotel room doorway, making no effort to hide her eavesdropping. It's always nice to know you can provide entertainment when the afternoon soaps are over.

I walked behind a pickup truck and squinted up at the two-story building. "How many rooms by your count?"

"Thirty-eight," Clay said without missing a beat. "Nineteen each up and down. A main-floor entry for the bottom. A lobby entrance and emergency exit for the second floor."

"If it were me, I'd take a room on the first floor," I said. "Direct room access. Easier to come and go at all hours."

"But the second floor has balconies, darling. And a hell of a view."

I looked across the road into a vacant lot filled with overgrown weeds, crumbling concrete blocks, and enough litter to kee

p a Scout troop busy for an entire Earth Day.

"First floor," I said. "I'll start. Go hide somewhere."

"Uh-uh. We've played this game before. I hide. You never seek. I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but I'm beginning to sense a pattern."

"Go."

Clay grinned, grabbed me around the waist, and kissed me, then ducked out of the way before I could retaliate. While it was nice to see his mood had improved, it would be even nicer if it didn't take the prospect of murder and mayhem to improve it. Over the past couple hours of tracking, the old resentment that had resurfaced in the coffee shop had faded into my subconscious, where it would wait, like a wound that never healed over, only needing a bump or prod to reignite the pain. We had work to do and I had to deal with Clay to do it. For Logan's sake, I couldn't afford to be distracted by my own problems. If I dwelled on my anger with Clay every second I was forced to spend in his company, I'd have turned into a bitter, waspish harpy long ago. Of course, some might argue that I'd crossed that threshold years ago, but that wasn't the point.

While Clay went off to find a suitable waiting place, I scanned the area for props. Near a corrosion-encrusted Chevy Impala I spotted a sheet of paper. It was a receipt for a new car stereo, which I hoped hadn't gone into the Impala, or the owner had spent more money on the sound system than on the car. I brushed a wet leaf from the corner of the sheet, flattened it, then folded it in half and headed for the sidewalk connecting the doors of the main-floor rooms. Starting by the emergency exit, I walked slowly down the sidewalk, pretending to study the sheet of paper and allowing for generous sniffing pauses in front of each door. The eavesdropping woman had gone back into her room. Two people came out of a room near the end, but they ignored the young woman having such difficulty finding the room number written on her scrap of paper. People make special allowances for the mental capacity of blonds.