The office had exploded while they were gone. Every square inch was covered in a layer of white fluff, the tattered remains of Mike's bed laying in a heap in the center of the room. Alex brushed the stuffing off his chair. Other than the temperature, it was hard to tell the office from outside where snow was starting to collect on the ground.
"I can understand your frustration, Mike," Alex said. "Things are a bit...complicated this time."
Jamie surveyed the damage and turned to leave.
"Where do you think you're going?" Alex asked.
"Back to my desk."
Alex glanced at the wolf laying in the center of the destruction, head on his front paws, pouting. It was nice to have a normal partner again. "There's an extra desk here. That is, if you're interested in seeing this through."
"What do we do now?" Jamie asked, her voice bright.
"Paperwork."
"Oh." Her voice fell.
"Then we go kick some lycan butt."
Mike barked his approval of the second portion of the plan.
Alex rummaged through the desk drawers looking for the form he needed. It wasn't often that he licensed Shifters to stay in the city limits. A hazardous animal permit should do. They were wolves after all.
In the hour since they’d left the Shifter and her pups, nearly an inch of snow had accumulated. Alex knocked on the door again. No answer. He frowned, feelings of dread starting to build in his stomach. They'd told the woman to be ready to move.
Motioning Jamie back, Alex placed one hand on the gun in his holster and then kicked the door. The door shuttered but held, not easily intimidated. Alex's frown deepened as Jamie giggled behind him.
"Did you try the doorknob?" she asked, reaching around and twisting the handle. The door swung in without any resistance.
"I was going to try that next," Alex grumbled as he stepped into the house. He half expected teeth and fur to rush him the second he stepped foot over the threshold, but the house was silent. He kept his hand on his gun just in case.
The window in the living room was shattered, pieces of glass crunching under foot as Alex made his way through the room. Empty. Unless it was spectral, nothing else was present on the first floor at least. Alex considered the air around him. He had failed his spiritualism exam at the Academy.
"Mike," he whispered into his radio.
Alex crept up the stairs. The house was as silent as a crypt. Alex shivered, drawing his gun from its holster. Maybe it was.
Alex used his foot to push open the door where they'd cornered the woman earlier. The body of a black wolf lay in the center of the room. Blood soaked into the carpet around her and intestines trailed from a gaping wound in her abdomen. Alex knelt next to the body and covered the wolf's dull eyes with his hand. They never closed their eyes. He slipped the silver necklace over hear head.
"So much for being safe," Jamie said, turning away so that she didn't have to look at the body any longer.
Mike padded into the room and Jamie raised her gun instinctively.
"Whoa!" Alex said, jumping up and grabbing at Jamie's arm. "It's just Mike."
"How do you know?" Jamie asked, her voice and hand trembling.
"I know." Mike had been his partner since he'd started on the force. Granted the guy had only been trapped in this form for a couple years, but Alex would recognize him anywhere. "Plus, the bullet proof vest tends to give it away."
"I can't believe they make bullet proof vests for dogs," Jamie said, holstering her gun.
"Dogs need protection too," Alex argued. "They may have plenty of teeth but they need to get close enough to use them."
Mike grinned at Jamie, showing off his pearly whites, then walked over to the dead wolf. He buried his nose in the wolf's fur and took deep breaths as if he was trying to inhale the essence of what had happened to her.
"The pups are missing," Alex said.
"Maybe they're hiding."
Alex glanced around the room. A twin mattress lay on the floor in the corner with a tangle of thrift store blankets on top that had been twisted into a cozy nest. An assortment of toys was scattered over the floor--cars and wooden puzzles mixed in with rope and squeaky toys that had been designed for four-legged children. "Maybe."
The rest of the house was just as bare. The master bedroom had a slightly larger mattress on the floor and a couple cardboard boxes of neatly folded clothes against one wall. The bathroom had a stack of freshly laundered towels and a selection of travel size toiletries hidden away under the sink. Downstairs a threadbare couch that had seen better days dominated the living room facing a bulky square television of a style Alex was pretty sure hadn't been in vogue since the early ‘90s. The kitchen was spotless but the glasses and plates in the dish drainer were all mismatched.
Everything was neat and tidy, but disposable. Alex had no doubt that the family could have run and left all this behind with only a moment's notice. He frowned at the empty cabinets. What a crappy way to have to raise your kids.
"No pups," Jamie said, walking into the kitchen.
"Mike have any luck?" Alex asked.
"I don't think so but I don't speak dog."
Alex opened the refrigerator, finding only a few Tupperware containers full of food and a half empty gallon of milk. No pups. He shut the refrigerator door. "Before we get any deeper into this, you realize Mike's a wolf, right?"
"So I've heard."
"Are you okay with that? I mean, I've had a while to get used to the idea, but you're still new to all of this."
Jamie shrugged. "Is there a reason I shouldn't be okay with it?"
"It's just...a lot of people...." Alex shook his head, smiling. He wished Mike could have been in the kitchen to hear that. The rest of the department tried to be discrete, but he'd heard all their whispered complaints about the powers that be allowing Mike to stay on the force and he was pretty sure Mike had heard them all as well. "Never mind."
"What do we do now?"
"Bag up the remains," Alex said.
"I meant about the pups."
"I know you meant about the pups. Bag up the wolf first."
While Jamie headed out after one of the big contractor bags that he kept on the truck for the more morbid of his duties, Alex retraced his steps through the house. He found the other necklace tucked away inside a pillow case in the master bedroom and slipped it into his pocket. Jamie had already loaded the wolf's remains into the back of the truck when he came back downstairs. Mike was pacing back and forth in the living room, nose to the ground and a low growl humming deep in his chest.
"You'll get glass in your paws," Alex warned. He motioned to the broken window. Mike ignored him.
"How are we going to find the pups?"
"We have two options that I can think of. The Mages are pretty good at finding things."
"Finding spells take too long," Jamie said. "Tonight’s the full moon. What's option number two?"
"Know anything about ranch sorting?"
"No."
"Well, you're about to learn then. We’re going to go see a man about a horse.”