For a wildling, Wellesley seemed to be pretty well versed on who was who in the pack. No wonder Asil had put him at the top of their suspect pool.
The artist’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully at Asil. “You did know him before the witches got to him and took his leg and his memory. Who was he?”
Asil frowned, then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. It is highly unlikely that he’ll remember who he once was. No matter what Bran thinks. But the core of him is the same: he was the champion of underdogs. He would never facilitate an attack on someone vulnerable. No. It is not Sherwood. Besides, he only knew that Bran was gone while they were out rescuing Mercy. As far as I know, no one who is not pack knows Bran is still gone.”
This conversation was pretty weird even by werewolf standards. She wished she’d grabbed Asil and left when he had suggested it. The echo of “that girl in Tennessee” kept the hair on the back of her neck up and her wolf restless.
“It has to be someone,” said Wellesley. Then he paused. “Maybe not. What about some sort of electronic spyware? It could be something planted in the Marrok’s house—or even on a person who didn’t know about it. I’ve read about things that people swallow, and they listen to everything.” The artist had his face pointed back toward the corner of the room, so he didn’t see Asil’s thoughtful look. “Maybe I read about it,” Wellesley muttered. “Or maybe someone did that to me. I forget. Stupid.”
“Not stupid,” Asil disagreed. “There is still a bill out in Congress suggesting that all werewolves should be implanted with a tracking device, but it’s stalled because they can’t come up with one that survives a shift,” said Asil.
And part of the weirdness of this whole conversation had to be the way Asil mostly ignored Wellesley’s strange actions and talked to him as if they were having a normal interchange. Well, she could do that, too, if it was useful.
“As Charles demonstrated how technology explodes during a change,” said Anna.
Asil gave her an interested look.
“When we were working with CANTRIP and the FBI in Boston,” she clarified. “Charles said he didn’t think it would work, and he was happy to demonstrate.”
“Charles is witchborn,” said Wellesley dismissively. “He could blow up any technology he chose.” Then in that odd voice, the one that had spoken of killing young women, he said, “Witches are evil.”
Anna chose to continue to follow Asil’s lead and react only to the normal things Wellesley said. “If it helps anyone be less paranoid,” she said, “Charles told me that he was pretty sure that their device wouldn’t have worked even if he hadn’t helped it along. As for electronic spyware at the Marrok’s house—Charles does a sweep for them a couple times a week.”
She left the witchborn comment where it was. It was true. In this company, there was no profit in dwelling on it.
“Paranoid bastard,” said Asil, with something that sounded oddly like affection.
“He finds listening devices and cameras once in a while,” she told them. “Usually during the Changing moon in October, when we have so many strangers.”
“Werewolves bring spying devices?” asked Asil with soft interest.
Anna shook her head. “Not on purpose, we don’t think. So far it’s all been on werewolves who admit what they are to the world. The kinds of things Charles has found have been bugs on cars, clothing, or luggage.”
“Then why doesn’t the human world know about Aspen Creek?” asked Wellesley.
“They do,” Anna told him. “They don’t know about the Marrok, we don’t think. But they have known about Aspen Creek since the 1970s at least, probably earlier than that. A select group of ‘they.’ That was one of the things that drove Bran to bring the werewolves out into the open. Secrets are only useful as leverage as long as they are secrets.” That last sentence was an almost-direct quote from Bran.
“Then why doesn’t everyone know about Aspen Creek?” Wellesley asked, again.
“Bran doesn’t want the tourist trade,” Asil said. “And he’s managed to convince the people who do know that it would be a bad thing to bring out into the open.”
“The monsters need somewhere to run,” Anna said.
Wellesley rose easily to his feet. “Indeed,” he agreed.
“You made a valid point, Asil,” Anna said firmly. She wasn’t sure that Wellesley’s rising to his feet was anything good. Her wolf was beginning to get agitated. Which valid point had she been talking about? She grabbed one at random, jumping back twenty minutes of conversation to do it. “I mean, when you noted that you’d have done a better job of the mess at Hester’s. If the intent was to abduct Hester.”
“Interesting,” said Asil. “What other intent could they have had?”
“They could have wanted her dead—and muddied the waters of motivation by implying that it was a bigger operation than a simple assassination,” Wellesley offered. “Or they could have wanted Jonesy dead.”
“Or they could have wanted to know where all our lone wolves, our powerful and vulnerable damaged wolves are,” said Anna slowly. They asked about the wildlings, Jonesy’s note had said. Charles had told her that there were wolves out here that had dangerous knowledge—things other people would kill to know. “Surmising that we would have to go out and warn them.” It only made logical sense, as long as you knew enough about how the pack worked, how the wildlings worked to know that a phone call was probably not going to do the job.
“We weren’t followed,” said Asil.
“On NCIS, they use satellites and can pick out individuals in guerilla-troop ground movements,” Anna told him.
“What is this NCIS?” asked Asil.
“They also have a mass-spec that can look at a clump of mud off a shoe and tell Abby the cross street it came from with no error. And it only takes five minutes,” said Wellesley dryly. “Mass-specs don’t work like that.”
Apparently, Wellesley watched TV. And knew what a mass-spec was and how it worked. This conversation could not get more surreal.
Asil growled.
“It’s a TV show,” Anna told him. “About the Naval Criminal Investigative Unit. It’s a mix of mystery and military thriller.”
“A TV show,” Asil said, disdainfully.
Wellesley grinned, ducked his head, and raised a hand to high-five Anna.
There was a crystalline moment when she understood that this wasn’t a good idea. Wellesley clearly had some issues. All of the werewolves had a bit of multiple personality disorder—the human half and the wolf half sometimes existed in a state of conflict. Charles and Brother Wolf were a functional demonstration of how separate the wolf spirit and the human could be. But her mate and his wolf existed in harmony.
Wellesley and his wolf were not functional at all. Getting close enough to touch him when he had spent the last half hour switching back and forth between normal and creepy was stupid.
And still, she was the mate of Charles Cornick, who was second in the Marrok’s pack. If she let that friendly gesture hang, that would be quite a statement—one she did not want to make.