Blood Trail

story. "Perhaps you'd better start at the beginning."

Two
    "At the beginning," Rose repeated, her tone turning the statement into a question. She sighed and pushed a shock of pale hair back off her face. "I guess it started when Silver got shot."

    "Silver?" Vicki asked. She had a feeling that if she didn't stay on top of this explanation it was going to get away from her pretty quickly.

    "Our aunt," Rose began but Peter cut in when he saw the look on Vicki's face.

    "We have two names," he explained. "One for each form." He laid a short-fingered hand against the tanned muscles of his chest. "This is Peter, but it was Storm who met you at the door. And, in her fur-form, Rose is called Cloud. It's easier than explaining to outsiders why all the farm dogs have the same names as members of the family."

    "I can imagine it must be," Vicki agreed, pleased that her earlier assumption about the names had been verified. "But doesn't it get a little confusing?"

    Peter shrugged. "Why should it? You have more than one name. You're Ms. Nelson to some people, Vicki to others, and you don't find it confusing."

    "Not usually, no." Vicki conceded the point. "So your aunt was shot in her .. uh, wolf form."

    Well, they were called werewolves so she supposed wolf was the preferred term. It certainly seemed more socially acceptable than dog. And just think, before Henry came into my life, I never used to worry about things like that ... She'd have to remember to thank him.

    "That's right." Peter nodded. "Our family owns a large sheep farm just north of London, Ontario ..."

    The pause dared her to comment but Vicki kept her expression politely interested and her mouth shut.

    "... and Silver was shot in the head when she was out checking the flock."

    "At night?"

    "Yes."

    "We thought about telling the police that someone had shot one of our dogs," Rose continued,
    "and at the time that's all we thought it was, some dickhead with a gun who had no way of knowing she was anything more. These things happen, people lose dogs all the time." Her voice broke on the last word and Peter butted his head against her knees. She threaded her fingers through his hair and went on. Touch appeared to be important to them Vicki noted.
    "But the last thing we need is police roaming around and asking questions, you know, seeing things, so the family decided to deal with it."

    Peter's lips drew back off his teeth; long and white, they were his least human feature.

    If "the family" had caught up to Silver's killer, Vicki realized, justice would have little to do with the law and the courts. A year ago she would have been appalled at the idea, but a year ago she'd had a badge and things had been a lot simpler. "So what did you tell people who asked where your Aunt Sylvia had gone."

    "We told them she'd finally decided to join Uncle Robert up in the Yukon. She always talked about doing it so no one was very surprised. Aunt Nadine - she was Aunt Sylvia's twin. ..."
    Rose swallowed again, hard, and Peter pressed closer. "Well, she stayed out of sight for a while. Twin bonds are pretty strong with our people and she kept having to howl. Anyway, Monday night, Ebon - Uncle Jason - was shot in the head while he was out checking on the ewes with fall lambs. No one heard anything and we couldn't find a scent anywhere near the body."

    "High velocity rifle, probably with a silencer and a scope," Vicki guessed. She frowned.
    "Sounds like quite a marksman; to hit a moving target at night. ..."

    "Monday was a full moon," Henry broke in. "There was plenty of light."

    "Wouldn't matter with a scope. And there wasn't a full moon the night Silver was killed." She shook her head. "A shot like that, two shots. ..."

    "That isn't all," Rose interrupted, tossing something across the room. "Father found this near the body."

    Vicki flailed at the air and the small lump of metal landed in her lap. Silently cursing her lack of depth perception, she dug around in the folds of her shorts and when she fished it out, stared down in puzzlement at what could only be - in spite of its squashed appearance - a silver bullet. She closed her teeth firmly on her instinctive response. Your uncle was killed by the Lone Ranger?

    Henry reached over her shoulder and plucked the dully gleaming object from her palm, holding it up to the light between finger and thumb. "A silver bullet," he explained, "is one of the traditional ways to kill a werewolf. The silver is a myth. The bullet alone