I confirmed Safia as the big-cat who had followed the werewolves when they hunted on Beast’s territory. The one who watched them kill without killing any deer herself. I should have parsed her scent when I met her and shook her hand, but with all the vamp-and were-smells in the ballroom, I’d missed it.
Safia had seen the wolves hunt before I’d met them in Booger’s Scoot. It was unlikely she had happened upon the hunt; therefore, she had been . . . invited to watch? I found a plastic bag with Safia’s clothes at the bottom of the tray. With my teeth, I tore a hole in the bag and sniffed with short, hard breaths. On her dress, I scented the wolf-bitch. Safia had known the wolves. Known and not told Kemnebi; I didn’t think his disgust upon first seeing and smelling the wolves had been feigned.
I trailed my nose down her limbs, scenting nail polish remover and polish, the henna of her tattoos, and oddly, a pine and floral scent that was Gee. I snuffed. What had Safia been doing with the Mercy Blade? Curious. I smelled dozens of other scents on her hands, where she had greeted guests at the party the night she died.
Kemnebi’s scent was all over her, everywhere, the scent of his skin cells caught under her nails and his semen strong between her legs. The bloodhound nose was giving me information I really didn’t need or want.
Over everything was the scent of Katie. The whacked-out vamp had come upon the were-cat within an hour after death, according to the coroner, and had savaged her, searching for blood. There were punctures at chest, groin, and elbow, and she had licked the body free of spilled blood, Katie’s vamp saliva strong on the girl where she had ripped open Safia’s abdomen and sucked her descending aorta dry. Thanks to the timetable and the video footage, Katie wouldn’t be accused of murder, but she had drunk dead blood. And Leo had drunk from her.
Beast sent me an image of a young, dead buck, days old, kept safe in a tree for when she got hungry again. And then a vision of steaks bought in a store, wrapped in plastic. Days old. Okay. Got it, I thought at her. I eat old meat. But still . . . Ick. So far, I wasn’t liking the things I learned while in bloodhound form. They were too personal, too intimate. Deep inside, Beast sniffed with a self-satisfied air.
I was about to stop when I found one final scent. Around her mouth, as if she had kissed him just before she died, I smelled Rick. Pretty boy Rick LaFleur. My breath stopped, suspended. Had he been at the party where she died? No. Had he been there, I would have smelled Rick, even in my human form. I was certain. Well . . . almost certain.
I heard voices down the hall and quickly tried to raise the tray. It moved, but far too slowly. Panic thudded into my chest with my heartbeat and I looked around for a place to hide, my dim eyesight a disability and my keen sense of smell no help at all. I could sit under a desk, but even there my feet, tail, and haunches would be visible. Better places were nada. Zilch. So I raced to the door and pressed my side against the wall, hoping the sight of the refrigerator open and the body pulled out to knee level would distract them from me. Two people entered. I couldn’t see much from the glare through the open door, but from the smells that pushed into the room with them, one was female, ovulating, wore way too much stinky perfume, hair spray, gel, and body lotion, and one was a male who smoked. A lot. They stopped just inside the opening, the door braced open.
“Did you leave the were-cat’s unit open?” the woman asked.
“No. I looked my fill when we unloaded her.”
“Maybe she’s starting to stink. Do you smell that?”
“Smells like wet dog. My roommate’s dog has this skin condition and it stinks like that.”
They moved into the room and I scooted out the door as it closed, whipping my tail up and out of the way of the door. I followed my own scent up the hall and back outside, narrowly missing two techs who were standing in front of a vending area, dropping coins and zipping dollar bills into machines that stank of sugar and rancid fats. I had no idea how humans could eat that stuff.
I came to under the shadow of a house, the smell of fried chicken and grease the strongest scent to my nose. The world was brighter, louder, but dull and void, and I sniffed instinctively as if to restore the scent smorgasbord. Nothing happened and shock hit me like a fist. It was like being sighted and waking up blind, and I was head-blind, scent-blind. Bloodhounds had a different view of the world from humans or even big-cats. They could experience and know so much more about the world than we ever could. And then I remembered the smell of Rick on Safia’s body. He had kissed her. Soon before she died.
Though I was starving from the calorie loss of shifting, I didn’t raid the saddlebags yet. I stood, pulled the pack off my neck, and dressed in my jeans, tee, and boots. I felt immensely better fully clothed—a strictly human reaction that Beast had never understood. After putting the remaining gnawed bones into the torn chicken bucket, I ate half a bag of Snickers bars and washed them down with bottled water, adding the wrappers to the garbage.
Stomach no longer cramping from hunger, I pushed Bitsa out into the street and looked up at the sky. With Beast’s time sense, I judged that it was an hour from dawn. If Molly was here, I would have changed back to bloodhound and had her walk me on a leash around vamp HQ to discover what smells I might find, but that wasn’t going to happen.
Frustrated, I kicked Bitsa alive and scooted down Martin Luther King Boulevard, away from the coroner’s morgue. Every time I discovered something new, it seemed to push me further from any possible unifying truth. I had a lot of thinking to do.