Tanya Huff - Blood Trail (BLOOD SERIES)

Copyright 1992 by Tanya Huff.

All Rights Reserved. Cover art by John Jude Palencar. DAW Book Collectors No. 873.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as

"unsold and destroyed" to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this

"stripped book."

For DeVerne Jones,

who patiently answered hundreds of questions including a few it never occurred to me to ask.

With special thanks to Ken Sagara,

whose generosity was responsible for me

finishing this manuscript on time,

vision intact.

The three-quarter moon, hanging low in the night sky, turned even tamed and placid farmland into a mysterious landscape of silver light and shadows. Each blade of grass, toasted golden brown by two months of summer heat, had a thin black replica stretching out behind it. The bushes along the fence bottom, highways for those too timid to brave the open fields, rustled once and then were silent as some nocturnal creature went about its business.

Their summer-shorn fleece turned milky white by the moonlight, a large flock of sheep had settled for the night in one corner of the meadow. Except for the rhythmic motion of a number of jaws and the occasional flick of an ear or twitch of a lamb unable to be still for long, even in sleep, they appeared to be an outcropping of pale stone. An outcropping come suddenly to life as several heads rose at once, aristocratic noses pointed into the breeze.

They were obviously familiar with the creature that bounded over the fence and into the meadow, for although the ewes remained alert they watched it approach with mild curiosity rather than alarm.

The huge black beast paused to mark a fence post, then trotted a few steps into the field and sat down, gazing back at the sheep with a proprietary air. Something in its general outline, in the shape of its head, said wolf just as its coloring, its size, its breadth of chest, and the reaction of the flock said dog.

Convinced that all was as it should be, it began to lope along the edge of the fence bottom, plumed tail streaming behind it like a banner, moon-silvered highlights rippling through its thick fur with every movement. Picking up speed, it leapt a thistle - more for the sheer joy of leaping than because the thistle was in its way - and cut diagonally across the lower end of the pasture.

With no more warning than a distant cough, the gleaming black head exploded in a shower of blood and bone. The body, lifted off its feet by the impact, spasmed for a frenzied moment and then lay still.

Bleating in terror at the sudden blood scent, the sheep panicked, racing to the far end of the field and pressing in a huddled noisy mass against the fence. Fortunately, the direction they'd taken had moved them upwind, not down. When nothing further happened, they began to calm and a few of the older ewes moved themselves and their lambs out of the crowding and began to settle once again.

It was doubtful that the three animals who leapt the fence a short time later even noticed the sheep. Huge paws seeming to barely touch ground, they raced to the body. One of them, russet hackles high, started back along the slain animal's trail but a growl from the bigger of the two remaining called it back.

Three pointed muzzles lifted and the howl that lifted with them panicked the sheep yet again.

As the sound rose and fell, its primal cadences wiped out any remaining resemblance the three howling might have had to dogs.

Vicki hated August. It was the month in which Toronto proved what a world class city it had become; when the heat and humidity hung on to the car exhaust and the air in the concrete and glass canyon at Yonge and Bloor took on a yellowish-brown hue that left a bitter taste in the back of the throat; when every loose screw in the city decided to take a walk on the wild side and tempers were baked short. The police, in their navy blue pants and hats and heavy boots, hated August for both personal and professional reasons. Vicki had moved quickly out of uniform, and out of the force entirely a year ago, but she still hated August. In fact, as August was now forever linked with her leaving a job she'd loved, this least congenial of months had been blackened beyond redemption.

As she unlocked the door to her apartment, she tried not to smell herself. She'd spent the day, the last three days, working as an order picker in a small coffee processing factory up on Railside Drive. In the last month the company had been plagued with a number of equipment failures that the owners had finally come to realize were sabotage. Desperate - a small specialty company couldn't afford the downtime if they hoped to complete with the multinationals - the owners had hired Vicki to find out what was going on.

"And Vicki Nelson, private investigator, comes through again." She closed the door behind her and thankfully peeled off her damp T-shirt. She'd been able to pinpoint who was jamming the processing machines on her first day but even knowing that, it took her two further days to discover how and to gather enough evidence to bring charges. Tomorrow she'd go in, lay the report on Mr. Glassman's desk and never go near the place again.

Tonight, she wanted a shower, something to eat that didn't smell like coffee, and a long vapid evening spent sucking at the boob tube.

She kicked the filthy T-shirt into a corner as she peeled off her jeans. The only up side about the entire experience was that smelling as she did, she'd gotten a seat on the subway coming home and no one had tried to crowd her.

The hot water had just begun to pound the stink and stiffness away when the phone rang. And rang. She tried to ignore it, to let the shower drown it out, but had little success. She'd always been a compulsive phone answerer. Muttering under her breath, she turned the water off, quickly wrapped herself in towels, and raced for the receiver.

"Oh there you are, dear. What took you so long?"

"It's a very small apartment, Mom." Vicki sighed. She should have known. "Didn't it occur to you at about the seventh ring that maybe I wasn't going to answer the phone?"

"Of course not. I knew you were home or you'd have had your machine plugged in."

She never left her machine on when she was home. She considered it the ultimate in rudeness.

Maybe it was time to reconsider. The towel began to unwind and she made a grab for it - a second floor apartment was not high enough up for walking around in skin. "I was in the shower, Mom."

"Good, then I didn't get you away from anything important. I wanted to call you before I left work ..."

"So that the Life Sciences Department would pay for the call," Vicki added silently. Her mother had been working as a secretary at Queen's University in Kingston for longer than most of the tenured professors and she stretched job perks as far and as often as she could.

"... and find out when you had vacation this year so maybe we could spend some time together."

Right. Vicki loved her mother but more than three days in her company usually had her ready to commit matricide. "I don't get vacations anymore, Mom. I'm self-employed now and I have to take what jobs come my way. And besides, you were here in April."

"You were in the hospital, Vicki, it wasn't exactly a social visit."

The two vertical scars on her left wrist had faded to fine red lines against the pale skin. It looked like a suicide attempt and it had taken some extremely fancy footwork to avoid telling her mother how she'd actually gotten them. Being set up as a sacrifice for a demon by a sociopathic hacker was not something her mother would deal with well. "As soon as I get a free