Ritual of the Broken (Haunted Hearts)

Chapter 15

Chapter

Fifteen

A drian transitioned from his man-wolf. The change was fluid, from paws in the grass to human feet. That’s how it was with born werewolves. The change still caused some pain, much worse the first few times it happened when the body wasn’t conditioned to accept the fact that it was a being of two instead of one. But after that, the change moved quickly and the pain was more easily ignored.

He blinked, adjusting to his human vision and searching for Ollie. “Are you okay?” Adrian asked, his voice hoarse from the transformation. Adrenaline still pumped from the battle with the dark entity, but he was calming down.

Ollie appeared disheveled but otherwise unhurt. He gave a half-smile. “I’m good,” he responded, brushing a hand through his hair .

Adrian sighed his relief. But there was anger just bubbling beneath the surface. He wanted to put both hands on the man’s shoulders and ask him what the hell he was thinking, vanishing like that. But he kept it locked down.

“You’re not okay,” Ollie said as he stepped closer to Adrian and reached out a hand toward his chest.

For the first time, Adrian felt the sting of the wound across his pecs, a cut that still leaked a little blood. Another gash on his arm from when he hit a grave marker had already knit together.

“It’ll be fine,” Adrian said, wiping at it with his hand and smearing a little blood. “I heal fast.”

A playful glint sparkled in Ollie’s eyes as his gaze traveled even farther down. He gestured toward Adrian with a tilted head, “You might want to note, though... you’re naked.”

Adrian looked down, momentarily surprised, then laughed softly. “Yeah,” he said, not the least bit fazed by his nudity. Being what he was, he had many times found himself in a similar position after a hasty transformation. “I’m a werewolf,” he quipped, trying to brush off the awkwardness. “It happens.”

Ollie smirked, stepping back and letting his gaze wander unabashedly over Adrian’s form. There was an undertone of appreciation in his look, and Adrian felt a sudden warmth spread across his face and chest. Not from embarrassment, but from an unexpected surge of attraction. He straightened, tightened his stomach, and turned ever so slightly.

“Not that I mind,” Ollie continued, his voice taking on a more serious note. Sirens wailed in the distance. “But I suspect we’re going to have company before too long.”

Their little showdown with the malevolent creature would not have gone unnoticed. Ollie was right. They didn’t have a lot of time, and him standing naked where the police were going to find a dead woman would cause way too many questions.

“I’ll be right back,” Adrian said. The familiar warmth of transformation enveloped him again, once again becoming his wolf. This time, he noticed a slight burning sensation across his chest. But he ignored it.

The wolf form offered more than just strength and agility. Adrian’s heightened senses as a wolf would help him locate his discarded clothes quicker. He zeroed in on the familiar bouquet of his clothing after following his own scent trail, a mix of leather and the light, earthy cologne he always wore that didn’t bother his sensitive nose. He was fine going without any cologne, but guys seemed to compliment him more when he wore it. So, he sucked it up. Part of him wondered what Ollie might think of it…

Clothes gathered in his jaws, he shifted back to human form behind a tall gravestone for a semblance of privacy, quickly dressing as the night truly settled in to cover him even more .

When he stepped out from behind the stone, fully dressed, he hurried back to where he left Ollie. Adrian found him kneeling down next to the lifeless form of Eleanor Barnes. Guilt bubbled in his gut from the jovial moment he had before with Ollie, all while a dead woman lay several yards away.

“She went by Ellie,” Ollie said, holding up a broken chain with a pendant dangling from it in cursive letters. “In my vision, I thought this was a cross. But turns out it was her name.”

He placed a hand on Ollie’s shoulder. Their immediate danger might be over, but this was undoubtedly just the beginning of a more significant confrontation. For now, though, there was comfort in their newfound connection. They’d been in battle together now, and that forged something between them. It was the way of wolves. Fight side by side against a common enemy, and trust blossoms. And it sure didn’t hurt that brief, unexpected spark of attraction.

“You tried to save her,” Adrian said to Ollie.

“Yeah, but it wasn’t enough,” he replied, standing. “I failed.”

Adrian gave Ollie a slight turn so he faced him. “You didn’t fail.”

When Ollie tried to glance back at Ellie again, Adrian moved himself to keep Ollie’s attention focused on him. This was something told to homicide detectives, and he needed Ollie to understand it now. “I mean it. You didn’t fail. This isn’t on you. All you can do is try to be the force to stop it. You did that. But sometimes, we don’t have that kind of power.” Now he did look back at Ellie, still keeping a comforting hand on Ollie’s shoulder. “There are elements at work here that are out of our control.”

Ollie nodded. The way he stared at Ellie, though, said he hadn’t quite accepted it yet.

Just then, the red and blue light of a squad car danced over the tombstones. A River Grove police vehicle drove slowly through the cemetery, shining its light to see between the shadowy graves. “Try to find out if she has any sort of direct connection to Zachary O’Brien,” Adrian told Ollie. “I’ll handle them.”

“How do you expect me to do that?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one with all the magic crystals and pig’s blood.”

Ollie turned back to Ellie. “Well, I’m fresh out of pig’s blood.” He gave Adrian a look. “But I’ll see what I can turn up.”

Adrian hurried toward the squad car, waving them down and holding his badge in one hand so they could see. “Detective Adrian Keller, CPD Homicide,” he said to the officer as he got out of the car. “We got a body over here.”

The officer looked at the badge, then back to Adrian. “You got called in on it?”

“No.” Adrian shook his head. “Me and a friend were here visiting a grave of a lost buddy, and we found her.” He hated lying to fellow officers, but the real explanation wouldn’t work.

“Call it in,” the first officer said to his partner. He turned back to Adrian. “Show me.”

Adrian led the officer toward where Ellie Barnes lay dead. From their approach, he could see Ollie still bent over, his back to them. He hoped he was able to get whatever he could from her body. He didn’t even know what to expect.

But to his surprise, he found Ollie kneeling next to Ellie Barnes, giving her chest compressions.

The officer hurried over next to Ollie. “Is she alive?”

“I don’t know,” Ollie said. His voice sounded out of breath, distraught. “I couldn’t just leave her there. I had to try.”

With the walkie attached to his shoulder, the officer called for an ambulance. He moved over to Ollie as he did so. “Out of the way. I’ll take over.”

Ollie got to his feet. When he met Adrian’s questioning gaze, he gave a little shrug. It made Adrian have to hide a small half-grin. Ollie was good. He almost had Adrian fooled, too.

After a moment, the officer stood up. “There’s no pulse,” he said, telling them what they already knew.

“Are you sure?” Ollie asked.

“I’m sure.” The officer gave Ollie a sympathetic look. “You did all you could.”

They hung around long enough to give a statement to the River Grove units that followed. They didn’t force them to stay too long, and Adrian’s badge offered a kind of shield that meant what he had to say carried more weight. There were no visible wounds on Ellie Barnes, and Adrian figured it would quickly be ruled natural causes. But technically, it was an unattended death, meaning there would be a cursory investigation.

“Did you get any information?” Adrian asked Ollie as they walked away.

He held up his phone. “I got a picture of her driver’s license, her library card, an old student ID, and an insurance card. Oh, and she was a math teacher at DRW College Prep in North Lawndale. And before you ask, I put it all back just the way I found it.”

They already had her address from dispatch, but at least it didn’t hurt to verify it next to her ID. “Nothing else?” Adrian asked.

“Well, I sure didn’t try to call her spirit to ask it questions. That didn’t go over well last time. But other than that, she’s magically inert. A regular mortal. Nothing stood out about her that I could read.”

“Except that she’s experienced a lot of tragedy.”

Ollie glanced over at him as they walked. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I don’t know. Just putting thoughts together.” They emerged onto the street again and turned in the direction of where they parked the car. “It’s weak, but it’s possibly a connection. Zachary O’Brien was a recovering drug addict who experienced his own tragedy. Eleanor Barnes faced the tragedy of her losses. What if that’s the connection? ”

“It’s a stretch. But it’s not unheard of. Some magic works with resonance.”

They reached Adrian’s car. “Let’s go to Eleanor Barnes’s apartment to see if we can find another one of those runes. But we need to get there before the River Grove police do.”