Alpha Omega 03 - Fair Game

talk.”
    “The unknown is scary,” Anna told him. “My orders were to come here, help you where we could—and try to make werewolves look good, to the FBI and to the public. How I carry it out is up to me. Hard to be friends with someone you think is scary.”
    “Your husband is scary—wolf or human,” said Leslie.
    Anna nodded her head. “He has to be. Regardless, Charles is one of the good guys.”
    Charles had changed completely back to human, and was wearing jeans, dark leather lace-up boots, and a plain gray tee. He stood up, eyes closed and muscles tight as he worked through the last debilitating cramps of the change. He flexed his fingers a couple of times, then looked straight at Anna.
    “Call Isaac. Tell him we need a boat and his other witch.” His voice was gravelly.
    “Okay.”
    He looked at Leslie. “Call your medical examiner. See if we can get some hair from Jacob. Skin would work, but hair would be easier on the rest of us.”
    “I’ll have to tell him why.”
    Charles raised a challenging brow. “I’ll tell you why, and you can come up with a good lie. One of the little water spirits told me that the boy was taken from an island and dropped into the harbor. She made sure he came to rest here, which was useful to us, but I think she did it because she didn’t want the black magic to linger in her water. That kind of magic can attract some nasty things. It occurred to me that if his body still had enough magical residue to get Caitlin the witch all excited, then his death site might still have enough for a real witch to locate it—if she has a bit of Jacob to orient with.”
    “Water spirits?” said Leslie, sounding dumbfounded.
    “That’s hisshaman heritage, not a werewolf talent,” Anna told her. “I can’t see them, either.”
    “I know the ME from my stint in Boston a few years back,” said Goldstein after a moment of silence. “I’ll talk to him. Maybe do a bit of blackmail if it comes down to it. And we can get a boat.”
    Charles shook his head. “No witch I know would be caught dead on an official boat with the FBI. It’ll have to be one of Isaac’s people.”
    “I’ll call Isaac—and then Beauclaire,” said Anna. “If we have a chance at finding his daughter, he’ll want to know.”
    “Witches and fairies don’t get along,” Charles warned her.
    “If his daughter’s fate rests in the hands of a witch, Beauclaire will bring her flowers and kiss her feet,” Anna told him with absolute certainty. “Besides, if we run into this horned lord, it might not be a bad idea to have a big bad fairy on your side—and the way he’s dropping information without worrying about it either means he’s crazy—or he’s a really big bad fairy.”
    Charles looked at her, then tipped his head. “I trust your judgment.”
    Anna looked at Leslie. “But let’s leave Cantrip out of it, okay? We’ll have werewolves, witches, and fae—we don’t need a hostile and frightened man who is as likely to take out allies as enemies.”
    “Besides, Heuter is a jerk,” Leslie said. “And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be stuck on a boat with him.”
    “Exactly.”
    CHARLES DIDN’T LIKE the ocean.
    He liked boating even less and despised the way the life jacket restricted his movement. The
Daciana
, the thirty-foot boat they were going out on, might be designed for offshore ocean fishing, but the center-console fishing boats like this one had never felt like they were really big enough to handle ocean weather.
    The boat was barely big enough to hold all of them: he and Anna, the two FBI agents, Malcolm (the owner of the boat), Isaac (who insisted on coming), Beauclaire, and Isaac’s witch (who was late). If they found Lizzie, they might have to tie her to the bow or make her swim for it. The only thing that would have made it worse was if the boat were handled by someone other than a wolf—it wasn’t only the witch who would have balked at a police or federal boat.
    “Charles,” said his mate, coming up behind him where he stood alone in the bow, which was somewhat isolated from the rest of the little boat. Malcolm and Isaac were muttering about courses and fiddling with the instruments packed in under the little central raised deck that provided the only protected area of the boat. Everyone else had chosen to wait on the docks until the witch arrived.
    He’d heard Anna approach, felt the slight sway of the boat. It had been easier to be with her