Demon Accords 10: Rogues Read Online Free PDF Page A

she spoke.
     
    Buck glanced at Shorty and then waved her onward.  She slipped past them with nimble steps that took her quickly into the woods.  Suddenly, the group of armed men found themselves having to hustle to catch up.  Despite their longer strides, she moved with a fluid grace that was deceptively fast.
     
    Lisa ignored the others behind her, all of her exceptional senses trained on the woods around her.  She could smell the blood ahead and the taint of something else, a scent that was very familiar to her.  A male werewolf had marked trees somewhere up ahead, the urine smell strong.
     
    She came upon the stand and took in the scene quickly, the clotted blood sprayed over half the clearing, the air almost overpowering with the scent of torn bowel, rank urine, and rotting blood.  After a moment, she moved off to the right side of the clearing just as the men came up behind her.
     
    “He stalked in here and waited, staying downwind,” she said, studying the brushy area behind the stand.
     
    “How did you know to go there?” Warden Sounder asked, suspicious.
     
    “Just told you. I know predators. The wind comes from the west and northwest.  Mammalian predators almost always stalk into the wind.  Ground is too hard for tracks, but I see little wisps of brown fur on that pinecone.  You might want to collect that,” she suggested to Sergeant Thompson.  “Just so, you know… when you turn that over to a lab and it won’t classify as a known species, it’ll automatically get bumped up to the feds and they will classify it as werewolf.  Then you’ll have either FBI or DOAA or both.”
     
    “DOAA?” Buck asked.
     
    “Directorate of Anomalous Activity… federal monster hunters,” she answered.
     
    “How can you be certain it’s a werewolf?” Warden Sounder asked, a little exasperated.  His dog, Brady, sat next to him, nose sniffing and ears listening nervously.
     
    Because I can smell it, she thought.
     
    “Because it stalked this man, tore him apart with excessive force, and didn’t eat him.  Because I can see indents in the ground where it dug its claws in to leap, and the pattern is canine—four claws, symmetrical structure.  Yet the spread of the claws is bigger than your hand, so not a regular wolf.  Much bigger then any wild wolf,” she said. “And over there, in that big spray of blood, you can see where four big paws blocked the spray.  Look at the distance between all four paws.  What’s that—seven feet from front to back, three, maybe three-and-a-half side-to-side straddle?”
     
    “Ah, your narrative is off,” Buck Thompson said.
     
    She frowned at him.  He spoke before she could dispute him.  “Autopsy indicates the heart is missing.  So it may have, in fact, eaten part of him,” he said.
     
    Oh no, she thought.
     
    “What?” Shorty asked, alarmed at the look on her face.
     
    “That’s bad. Killing a human is very bad.  Eating one is an abomination.  Immediate death sentence. Who was the victim?” she asked.
     
    “Wait—death sentence?  What are you talking about?” Buck asked, not liking talk of executions.
     
    “Weres and vampires have always been among us.  They police themselves, always have.  Mainly it was to avoid detection.  But now the cat is out of the bag and their leadership is worried about incidents.  That’s to be avoided at all costs.  The history of predators who prey on humans has not been very kind to those predators. That’s why there are so many fewer lions, tigers, bears, and wolves than there used to be. The only ones to get away without extermination have been either humans themselves, domestic dogs, or supernaturals who have, until recently, managed to stay hidden.  Stirring up base fears will only lead to witch hunts,” she said, mentally cringing as she said the last two words.
     
    “You’re saying that other werewolves will kill this one for hunting and eating a human?” Shorty asked.
     
    “Pretty