She was trembling. Angel could have been a model, she was so tall and lithe, with rich black skin and a halo of black hair that curled down her back. She was human, although her half-brother was a wolf shifter. His father had vanished before he was even out of the womb. Angel was psychic, and her precognitive flashes were usually right on the money. And that had me worried for DJ.
“How far is it from here to their house? What’s the route?” Given that DJ was almost always good to his word, I doubted that he had stopped off anywhere along the way home.
“Sarah lives over on 151st Street. Sometimes DJ takes a shortcut to get home through UnderLake Park, but he knows I don’t like it when he does. He usually avoids it, but now and then when he’s in a hurry, he’ll cut through there. Sarah doesn’t know which way he decided to go. She was busy in the kitchen when he left.”
I could hear the fear in her voice. The UnderLake District was bad. But UnderLake Park? It was a whole different level of dangerous. Heavily wooded, it had once been the home of an order of monks that had long since left, leaving the monastery still there, crumbling and haunted. Over the years the park had been renamed, but no amount of changing the name could alter the fact that there had been a lot of violence and disappearances there. Anybody who lived in the Seattle area had heard of it.
“Why don’t I go check it out? You stay here in case he comes home.”
“Thank you.” A grateful smile spread across her face. “I called the police, but you know how they are. Until it’s dark, they won’t even consider looking for him. If he were two years old, they might get their asses in gear, but they think every black kid able to talk is mixed up with a gang.”
The police were overburdened, underfunded, and overwhelmed. They were also—for the most part—corrupt. Oh, they responded to homicides, vicious attacks, and burglaries, the latter mainly at wealthy estates. Over the years, you’d think things would have changed for the better in terms of racial tension. But the world only seemed to get worse and that tension had extended into the Crypto community. The cops were bought and paid for by rich humans, the vampires, and the Fae.
“Do you know what he was wearing?” If he was trapped or hurt in a hard-to-reach area, it would help to know if he was wearing bright clothing.
“If I remember right, he was wearing a red hoodie and a pair of blue jeans. I don’t remember what color T-shirt. I wish I had told him to take his bike, but it’s still on the porch so he must have walked over there yesterday.”
“Why would he take the shortcut?”
“If he’s tired, or he thinks he’s late, he’ll sometimes cut through there. If he had taken his bike he probably would have taken the long way.” She bit her lip. “I’m afraid.”
I took Angel’s hand and gave it a long squeeze. “We’re going to find him. We don’t know that he took the shortcut, but I’ll check it out. Meanwhile, you make yourself some tea and try to calm down. Don’t borrow trouble.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “It’s just that… Since Mama died, DJ and I are all that’s left. You know? My father’s dead, and DJ’s father vanished the minute he found out Mama was pregnant. Any aunts or uncles we have are back east, and we don’t have much to do with them. Or rather, they don’t have much to do with us. Mama’s sister, Maria, was pissed as hell when she found out that DJ was Wulfine.”
“About that—how much control does he have over his shifting? If something scared him, could he have changed shape? Does he have trouble transforming back? Should I be looking for a young wolf as well?”
Angel considered the question, then gave me a short shrug. “He’s still getting the techniques down for shifting. He can shift at will, though he’s shaky about it. The full moon still makes him shift. I take him out to the country a couple times a month so he can practice and run around in his wolf form without any worries. It always takes him a while to transform back. So I can’t give you an answer. I suppose it could be possible.”
I stood up, glancing around the tidy living room. The cottage was small, with two bedrooms, a living room–dining room, a bathroom, and a kitchen, but every surface sparkled, and what little clutter there was belonged to DJ. Angel had done her best to turn it into a home, and to make a safe place for DJ to grow up in.
“I’ll find him. I’ll do everything I can.” I gave her a hug.
She dashed away a tear. “Bring him home, please,” she whispered. “Bring my brother home.”
AS I HEADED back to my car, I pulled out my phone.
“Search UnderLake Park history.”
I figured it might be a good idea to get a better idea of just exactly what I was dealing with. Even though I knew the park was dangerous, I didn’t know all the specifics.
“Which city should I search?” the search engine asked.
“The UnderLake District, near Kirkland, Washington.”
Seconds later, a string of search links popped up on my screen. I noticed one of them was a news article and tapped on it first. I slid into the driver’s seat, glancing over the site. It was a local pseudo-news site, more touristy than anything but not clickbait.
The UnderLake Park, which borders UnderLake, Washington, and Kirkland, Washington, sprawls across five hundred acres. Part of the land was originally donated to the city by a monastery when it closed its doors. An additional fifty acres adjacent to the park was donated to the city by Trina Castle.
Ms. Castle inherited the Castle Hall estate when her mother and father were brutally murdered in their home. Police found blood everywhere, but no bodies. John and Vera Castle were never found, but DNA samples verified that the blood belonged to them, and the medical examiner stated that with the amount of blood found at the scene, there was virtually no chance either one could still be alive. No motive was ever discovered, although many theories were proposed, and the bodies have never surfaced.
Castle Hall sat empty for several years until Trina Castle donated the estate to the city, claiming she couldn’t bear to live there. The old mansion still stands on the grounds, half a mile from the crumbling monastery, abandoned and in a state of disrepair. City officials have repeatedly discussed razing it, but nothing has ever been done. There are claims that the mansion is haunted, and amateur ghost hunters have visited the estate numerous times. The Castle Hall estate was established in 1920, passed down through the Castle family until the disappearance of John and Vera Castle in 1998.
Over the years since then, five unsolved murders—all gruesome—have happened within proximity to the Castle Hall estate, and numerous reports of missing persons have been logged within UnderLake Park as a whole. Speculation abounds about the possibility of a serial killer but has been repeatedly denied by the police.
I blinked. I knew the park was dangerous, but had no clue of its bloody history. I pulled up my maps app and traced the route that led through the shortcut. Angel watched from the front porch as I eased out of her driveway and headed toward the trailhead.
The entrance to the park was wide and broad, marked by long cedar logs to which the UnderLake Park signs were attached. I turned onto the paved drive and immediately felt the shift in energy. The park was a tangle of old growth, mostly fir and cedar, their trunks massive with moss dripping from their branches. The branches formed a canopy over the road, entwining over the narrow road. Two cars could go abreast, barely, and there were no shoulders on which to turn off if you had car trouble. Over the years, the forest had thickened and a riot of vegetation flourished, spreading out to surround the tree trunks and cover the ground.