Matias Kivela’s funeral was well-attended, filling the stone confines of Saint Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church and packing the pews to the point where a small line of overflow participants began lining the side aisles. Suze and I arrived half an hour before the scheduled start, but we would’ve been relegated to the cheap seats had it not been for Suze’s kitsune chutzpah. She marched us straight up the center aisle to a pew that was just behind the ones set aside for family use. It was full, but she leaned down and said, sounding exactly like the bulky bodyguard in a mob film, “Mr. Scott appreciates you making room for him.” I stood back and attempted to look entitled.
Reluctantly, everyone in the pew shifted over, making just enough room for the two of us to wedge ourselves in. Suze upped her glare, and after a little muttering, a few of the younger sitters collected their belongings and left for other, less desirable seating. Those who were left slid farther down, so that when Suze and I sat, now we had room to spread out.
“Not sure that was necessary,” I muttered to Suzume as she unwrapped her scarf and pulled off her gloves. After our interlude the night before, I’d expected things to be different—instead, she had arrived on my doorstep in completely appropriate funeral wear and a chipper bounciness that pretty much defied me to make things awkward.
“Of course it was,” she scolded me with a grin. “You’re Madeline Scott’s kid—you don’t get squished up against some grandma bear. Also”—she nodded to our left—“tell me that this isn’t a good observation post.”
I followed her gaze. On the other side of the aisle and just two rows up was the full Kivela family. Dahlia was standing, looking tired but completely composed, and speaking with an ever-shifting circle of people.
“Looks like someone is settling into the leadership spot,” I whispered to Suze.
“Check out momma bear,” she muttered back.
I craned my head—Ilona Kivela wasn’t crying, but she definitely was in a different emotional place than her daughter. She looked like a bomb-blast victim, pressed up against the shoulder of her son and rocking slightly.
“Maybe she realized that we snagged the knife, and she’s had a few sleepless nights?”
Suze was frowning, though. “Not sure. That doesn’t look nervous. Looks more like she’s trying to hold off a full throwing-herself-on-the-casket breakdown. And look at the way Gil’s keeping close to her. Did your brother say anything about Ilona having some kind of acting background?”
“I didn’t actually get a chance to talk with him,” I admitted. Then Gil Kivela swung his head around and met my eyes, making me have to work hard to avoid slinking down into the pew. That was a person who was definitely not happy with me, but in addition to his mother, he was also pinned down by the four-year-old girl sitting on his lap. Beside him was the guy from the wedding picture, who had his hands full wrangling Dahlia’s younger daughter.
“Someone just spotted us,” Suze said.
“Yeah, Gil looks like he’s trying to force-choke me with his brain,” I noted.
Suzume’s elbow dug into my side. “Not him—the karhu’s daughter.”
I pulled my eyes away from Gil’s glare of death, and realized that Suze was right—Carmen Kivela, looking extremely fragile and breakable in a black dress and matching cardigan that emphasized her pale skin and hair, had gotten out of the family pew and was making her way over to us. As she got closer, I could see the redness of her eyes and nose, but she was managing to keep it together.
“Thank you for coming to honor my father,” she said to me when she reached us. Her chin wobbled a little. “It would’ve meant a lot to him that the Scotts sent a representative.”
It was an awkward moment, but I winced and went with that explanation. “Matias Kivela was a valuable ally,” I said gravely, “and he will be missed.”
“Dahlia seems to be stepping into his shoes very smoothly, though,” Suze said, fishing around.
It worked, and I noticed how Carmen’s cheeks flushed—the curse of the Finnish complexion, because there was clearly no hiding it. “She hasn’t even cried,” Carmen said, and there was a hard layer of anger in her voice. The young bear clearly heard it, and immediately moved to cover it, “Of course, she has so much to do, I’m sure she just hasn’t had time. It’s hard to be the one in charge—my father was always saying that the karhu had to be strong for everyone.”
I nodded toward the pew. “Your aunt looks pretty distraught. Were she and your father close?”
Carmen nodded, looking puzzled. “Of course. Aunt Ilona and my dad were almost inseparable. For a while they were even talking about Aunt Ilona selling her place and moving in with us. You know, I wasn’t going to be living there forever, and that way they could keep each other company.”
“And why didn’t that plan go through?” Suze asked.
“Because of Dahlia, of course. After Parker was killed, Aunt Ilona moved in with Dahlia to help with Anni and Linnea.”
“Wait—who was killed?” I asked.
“You didn’t know about Parker?” Carmen sounded utterly gobsmacked, her jaw dropping. “How could you not know?”
“Save the pearl clutching and just tell us,” Suze said, annoyed.
Carmen’s eyes were still round with shock, but she leaned closer and dropped her voice. “Parker was Dahlia’s husband. They got married right out of college, and Dahlia had Anni, then Linnea. Her job with the family business brought in more money, so Parker took care of the kids. I guess he got sick of it, or maybe sick of Dahlia, ’cuz things got pretty rough right after Linnea was born, and last year they separated.” She paused, and looked at us, clearly expecting a bigger reaction to that latest bit.
“And . . . the metsän kunigas don’t believe in divorce?” I asked. Well, we were standing in a Lutheran church, so apparently I was learning a lot about the bear culture today.
Carmen couldn’t control a snort, “If both spouses are metsän kunigas, we don’t give a shit. But Dahlia and Gil both married humans.”
I could feel my stomach drop a little, and I carefully avoided looking at Suze. “And the human spouses know? About, you know . . .” I looked for a way to explain.
Carmen spared me the phrasing difficulties. “Of course,” she said. “How can anyone keep a secret like that from a spouse? And with kids? You’d have to be crazy to try that.” She shook her head. “Well, Parker swore that he’d keep his mouth shut, said that he’d never do anything that would put his own kids in danger, but my dad said that we couldn’t risk it. My dad thought that Parker might start trying to use the secret as a way to get leverage during the divorce—custody of the girls, maybe more alimony from Dahlia, stuff like that. Dahlia promised that he wouldn’t, and she even said that she’d try to reconcile with Parker if it came down to it, but Dad said that it wasn’t her call, and so he killed Parker.” From Carmen’s face, she knew she was dropping a bombshell on us, and there was just a hint of enjoyment in her eyes.
“How did Dahlia react to that?” I asked, looking over again at Dahlia and her very, very dry eyes.
“She wouldn’t even talk to Dad for six months,” Carmen said. “And they work at the same company, so that says something. Aunt Ilona was the one who finally patched things up, but it was still really tense.”
“But Matias still wanted to make her the heir?” Suze asked.
“He announced it a month ago,” the bear explained, but from the press of her mouth, this was clearly not a happy memory. “It was just a precaution, you know. I mean, he was in good health. But he said that it was important to just get a name out there in case something happened, and he said that I was too young right now.” Carmen’s jaw clenched. “But Dad would’ve lived another twenty years, easy. Dahlia was the heir now, but that would’ve changed in another five years.”
“Carmen,” I asked carefully, “your cousins think that this was the Ad-hene. But who do you think killed your father?”
She paused, and a series of emotions passed quickly across her face, too many for me to identify. People were starting to settle into their seats, and the service was about to begin. But she leaned forward, quickly, her face intense, and said, “Maybe it was the Ad-hene. They’re dangerous, and Gil thinks that they probably blame us for the fact that the Scotts figured out what they were doing in the Lincoln Woods, and for their punishment. But it’s just—” The minister was walking up to the podium, and I could hear Gil Kivela hissing Carmen’s name urgently. She leaned close to me, and whispered, “It happened now, and Dahlia got everything.” Then she broke off and hurried back to her pew.
I looked over at Suze, who raised her eyebrows very significantly. The first hymn was announced, and as everyone stood, I muttered to her, “Well, that changes things a bit.” She nodded grimly, and her dark eyes were narrowed. For the rest of the funeral, she kept that steely focus on the family pew.
When the funeral was finally over, the pallbearers lifted the coffin and headed down the aisle, followed closely by the family. Dahlia’s face was completely blank the whole time, but her arms were wrapped around her mother, who had broken down completely into high, anguished wails. Carmen walked on Ilona’s other side, tears trickling down her cheeks while she helped support her aunt. Behind them were Gil and his husband, each carrying one of Dahlia’s daughters. But Gil’s eyes were locked on me, and he leaned over to whisper something to his spouse, and then passed the little girl over so that now the husband was carrying both. With a quick kiss, he left his husband and the funeral party, heading straight to me with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball.
I braced myself as he got right up in my personal space and wrapped one huge hand in the lapel of my suit jacket. “We need to talk,” he growled.
“Oh, I very much agree,” I said.
We ended up in the corner of the church, by the stone baptismal font, as everyone else continued to stream out the doors. It was a good thing too, because Gil was definitely not able to whisper, and frankly, even his attempts to keep to an inside voice were of middling success.
“What the hell are you playing around with?” he snarled at me, and it was very easy at that moment to picture Gil in his bear form. “None of us have heard a thing from you about the state of this investigation since you left my uncle’s house. There’s been no activity near Underhill, no indication that you’ve caught whichever Ad-hene did this. Do you at least have a name?”
I glared right back at Gil, keeping my voice as cool as possible. “Actually,” I said, “given the information we’ve turned up, we are fairly sure at this point that the Ad-hene had nothing to do with your uncle’s murder. Right now we feel that it was probably one of the metsän kunigas.”
“You’re insane,” Gil snapped, shoving a hand into his hair and gripping tightly, as if that were all he could do to keep from punching me right in the face. “Or you’re completely incompetent.”
“Assume I’m competent for a minute here, and why don’t you give me some background. Your sister was married to a human—how exactly does that work?”
Gil looked flummoxed at the shift in direction. “Parker? What the hell does Parker have to do with this? He’s dead. That’s your suspect? A dead man?”
“Indulge us for a moment, Gil,” Suze said, watching him carefully.
The sheer shock of this conversation seemed to have knocked Gil away from the desire to commit violence against me, and he blinked his brown eyes a few times. When he started talking, he sounded almost reasonable, albeit flummuxed. “We’re not like the ghouls or the witches, and we can produce viable offspring with humans. We have to be careful about it, since if more than one generation in a row marries a human, then the children start having problems. Partial shifting only, uncontrolled shifting, and eventually it’s possible to breed the shifting out completely. There are plenty of Finns who could trace back to a bear ancestor without having any of the traits themselves. So if one generation marries a human, then the next generation has to marry a metsän kunigas. That can happen pretty normally, but it’s important to keep the gene pool from getting stagnant, so a lot of times there are arranged marriages between different bear communities. Sometimes the marriages work out, and the couple stays together. Sometimes they don’t, and they separate once each partner has a daughter to bring back to their communities, with any sons staying with the mother. My mom was one of those—my dad was from Mexico, and as soon as my little sister was born, he took her back with him, and we haven’t had any contact since then. But because of that marriage, Dahlia got free choice in her partner—human or metsän kunigas. She married her college sweetheart.” A little smile tugged at his mouth, the first I’d ever seen from Gil. “So did I, but I hope things turn out a lot better with me and Kevin than what Dahlia had with Parker.” Almost immediately, though, the soft look on his face disappeared as the storm clouds of being pissed off with me rolled back in. “Why the hell is this news to you? Why the hell is a Scott who doesn’t even know the first thing about us investigating? This is so goddamn typical—the moment we need the Scotts for something other than just taking our money, the only competent one is too busy dating to stop by and help out.”
My temper sparked—not from the insult to me, but at the suggestion that somehow Chivalry was off having fun and ignoring his job. The image of my brother as I’d last seen him, wrapped around a table, barely holding himself together, flooded my brain, and I got right in Gil Kivela’s face. “So how did Dahlia feel when Matias killed her husband, Gil?”
“How do you think she felt?” he snapped, not backing down by an inch. “Parker was being an asshole, but the last thing Dahlia needed in the middle of the destruction of her marriage was to feel responsible for the murder of the father of her children. She argued like hell—” Then Gil broke off, his face suddenly changing, looking at us in near wonder as he realized the direction that we were actually heading. That didn’t last long, and he crossed his arms, stuffing each fist up into his armpit as if that were the only way that he could prevent himself from punching me. It was a good thing that the church was empty, because he was yelling now. “What the hell are you implying about my sister? How dare you even suggest that? Instead of throwing around these kinds of lazy accusations, you need to be following the actual trail—”
I cut him off. “We did follow that trail, Gil. The murder weapon was in your sister’s house.”
“Then someone planted it there,” Gil said immediately, without even blinking. “Probably a Neighbor trying to cover their tracks, and hoping that some asshole vampire will be stupid enough—”
He broke off when a young guy in his late teens, wearing an awkward expression and a suit that he’d either borrowed in haste or outgrown recently, hurried up the aisle, waving one arm. “Gil,” he called, “Dahlia sent me to get you. The funeral procession can’t leave until you get into the main car.”
“Fine,” Gil snapped. Then he turned back to me, his face set with dislike. The young guy was hovering at his elbow, clearly wanting to tug, but just as clearly unsure that that would go over well. Mostly his hands just fluttered with indecision. But there was no such uncertainty from Gil, who poked one huge finger in my chest, hard. “You go to those goddamn woods. Whatever the Ad-hene and the Neighbors are doing that they had to kill my uncle, it’s in Lincoln. I know it is.” With that, they turned and left—Gil a barely contained block of rage, and the young guy practically falling over himself at his heels, a lanky muddle of adolescent physical misery.
“Some interesting dynamics,” Suze said, watching them leave. “The more we’re hearing about Dahlia, the more I think she had a lot of motive to kill Matias.”
I looked over at her, raising my eyebrows. While I’d been Gil’s focus, she’d been observing closely. “Gil didn’t even blink when we told him about the murder weapon. Think Dahlia confessed to him?”
“I don’t know.” Suze shook her head, her mouth tight. “That felt knee-jerk to me. I don’t think he knew about the knife being in Dahlia’s house. He didn’t even consider for a second that what you said could be true. It was just one more strike against the Ad-hene for him.”
“It’s all pointing at Dahlia,” I noted. “Her brother might believe in her, but her cousin was right in that Matias’s death works out pretty well for her—she gets the top job and revenge at the same time.”
“I think we should check the woods,” Suzume said unexpectedly. I turned and stared at her, and she shrugged. “The whole family is going to be tied up in funeral shit for the rest of the day. If we hit the Lincoln Woods, I can sniff in the areas around Matias’s and Dahlia’s houses, see if I can get a whiff of any Ad-hene activity.”
“Suze, do you really think it’s possible?”
“I’m not as quick to take Lilah’s word as exoneration as you are,” she said. “A full Ad-hene might’ve been able to hide their scent at Matias’s house from my nose. And given the state of that laundry room, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to scent an Ad-hene if they were only there briefly and were careful about what they touched. We know that there are Ad-hene unaccounted for down in Underhill.” She shrugged. “Plus, if we do the sweep and come up with nothing, that’s one more nail in Dahlia’s coffin.”
I considered it, and I had to admit that there were some valid points in her argument. “Are we completely eliminating Ilona from the suspect list?” I asked.
Suze snorted. “Hell no. The woman could be the next Meryl Streep, for all I know. Dahlia has a good motive, but Ilona could’ve done it. Her brother trusted her? Well, then that would explain how he was cracked over the back of the head with that rock before the knifing started.”
“Well, that visual is enough to make me hope that it ends up being the Ad-hene,” I noted. “Into the woods we go.”
“We’re going to have to make a stopover for a wardrobe change,” Suze said. “These heels were not made for spelunking.”
* * *
After a quick lunch and a clothing swap, Suze and I were heading toward the Lincoln Woods State Park. Thanks to a map check, we’d figured out which parking area was the closest to where the bears lived, so the neatly graveled lot with a helpful wooden sign enumerating all of the important rules of park usage (mainly revolving around our trash, and how we needed to carry it out with us) was different from the one that we’d used during our last, very climactic trip to the Lincoln Woods.
I looked up uneasily at the sky as I turned the Fiesta off. The day had begun overcast, and the weather had not improved over the last few hours. Heavy gray clouds loomed overheard, and I was very grimly aware that my parka was merely water resistant.
Beside me, Suze was rustling around in the duffel bag at her feet. She emerged with a brown paper bag, which she passed to me. “Hey, got you a present.”
That probably should’ve set my heart pounding a bit after the events of last night, but I’d hung around with Suze for a while now, and I knew to regard her gifts with significant caution. I reached carefully into the bag and withdrew a long, white aerosol can. I read the label and turned to Suze with a distinctly unamused expression. “Bear spray?” I asked flatly. According to the label, it was Sabre Frontiersman Bear Attack Deterrent, and the container actually felt like a miniature fire extinguisher.
She nodded, looking affronted at my lack of enthusiasm. “Fuck yeah, Fort. There are actual black bear sightings in Lincoln, and I don’t think all of them are the metsän kunigas. Besides, if we happen to bump into an Ad-hene, I bet that stuff would screw them over pretty well too. That shit is effective.”
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Suze, when have you been spraying this stuff?”
Her eyes widened innocently. “Me? I would never abuse a product as serious as this.” Then she leaned in, and she grinned. “But just between the two of us, I nailed a kobold with this stuff full-on once, and it actually passed out.”
I shook my head, but attached the accompanying hip holster to my belt. My bag with the Ithaca and my Colt would be staying in the trunk today. I had zero desire to end up chatting with a member of the state forestry service about firearms that I technically did not have a license for, plus, as Suze had pointed out, the Ad-hene looked very thoroughly inhuman, and so spent their days safely tucked away in Underhill, where no one would catch a look or, worse yet, a picture.
While I stood with my back to the car, Suze slipped out of her clothes and into something a bit fluffier. When I heard a high yap, I turned around to see a black fox eyeing me from the passenger seat of the Fiesta, her tail whipping excitedly from side to side. I opened the door to let her hop out, reflecting as I did just how much Suze’s full winter coat made her look like a walking plushie toy. It was one of those bone-cold days, and she actually looked a lot more comfortable than I did. I grabbed the park map, and we headed into the woods.
What followed was a three-hour reminder of why I hated outdoor sports, particularly hiking. November wasn’t exactly the ideal time for a walk through the woods to begin with, but Suze’s need to hunt for Ad-hene activity took us well off the hiking trails. We went down inclines, back up inclines, picking our way over loose rocks and piles of dead leaves. There were little streams throughout the area, which meant that we also spent a lot of time balancing on moss-covered rocks, and my boots quickly became soaked. I stepped in three separate piles of rabbit poop, which Suze seemed completely incapable of avoiding, and the bare trees around us lent an extremely creepy air to the woods that was not helped by the incessant croaking of crows that found either my presence or Suze’s (or both) extremely upsetting.
The whole time we were walking, Suze’s nose was stuck close to the ground as she zigged and zagged, hunting for a trail, but she never gave me that classic pointer dog’s pose that she usually struck when she found what she was looking for. We passed within sight of the back of Matias’s and Dahlia’s houses, but we found absolutely nothing except confirmation that the beauty of nature was all a crock of marketing shit.
We’d just finished picking our way around a few fallen trees near the back of Dahlia’s house, making me fervently hope that we were truly past tick season, when Suze looked up at me and gave a small huff of disappointment.
“Nothing?” I asked, knowing what the answer was. I rubbed the back of my sleeve over my forehead—it was cold, but we’d been walking enough that I’d managed to build up a sweat.
Which was right when there was a crack of thunder, and the rain started falling.
* * *
The rain meant the end of any scent trails that Suze might’ve been able to pick up, even if any trails had been there in the first place, which I was now very sincerely doubting. Both of us were quickly soaked, Suze looking particularly sad as all of her puffy fur became drenched and stuck to the sides of her little body. Even her whiskers looked wet. My parka did the best it could to resist the rain, but my saturated socks squished with every step I took, and I could feel a line of water leaking down the back of my collar.
The map, now also wet, was stuffed into my pocket, and I was very grateful that Suze had a better sense of direction than I did, since I was sure that I would never have been able to find my way back to the car on my own. The rain eventually started lightening as we walked, settling down to a sullen and periodic drizzle, but the wind picked up, blowing straight into our faces and sending the temperature dropping. Adding to the fun, the sun was now getting lower in the sky, and in the extending twilight I would’ve been really screwed had my eyesight not been significantly sharper than a human’s.
“When we accuse Dahlia of murdering her uncle,” I muttered to Suze as the parking area finally came into sight, “she is also going to have to pay for this miserable afternoon.” Suze gave a grumbling yip of full agreement, and paused to shake her coat, spraying my pants with water. Had I not already been soaked, I might’ve been pissed, but it seemed a bit unreasonable to fuss.
We were halfway to the car, the gravel of the lot crunching under my boots, when Suze suddenly froze, her ears pricking fully up and her tail lashing. I was spinning around before my brain even fully registered what was going on, and then it was a good thing that my instincts were running my body, since my brain nearly shut down in shock at the sight of the full-size black bear just stepping out of the woods and onto the gravel. The moment my eyes locked onto it, and it knew that I’d seen it, it gave up all attempts at sneaking and broke into a full run toward me, its mouth open to reveal an extremely terrifying set of teeth.
Bears were typically presented as slow and meandering, but now I suddenly discovered that bears could move really fast when they wanted to, and this one was barreling down on us with clear intent. Adrenaline pounded through me, and I ripped the bear spray off my belt. One hand snapped off the safety cord, one tiny sliver of my brain registered that the wind was at my back, and then I pointed it and hit the button as hard as I could. The bear was only five feet away from me, and the blast took it right in the face—now the bear made a sound, a full-throated roar of rage as it stopped in its tracks and started rubbing its face with those dangerously clawed paws.
I didn’t wait around to observe further, instead spinning around, yelling, “Car, car, car!” and sprinting to the Fiesta with Suze right at my heels. I was shoving my hand into my wet pants pocket as we went, scrabbling desperately for my keys, and I yanked them out with so much force that I could hear my jeans pocket rip. I most certainly did not give a shit, since behind me I could still hear the bear bellowing, and I shoved the key into the Fiesta, the terror of breaking the key off in the lock the only thing that slowed me down long enough to turn it carefully. The moment it released, I yanked the door fully open, and Suze bounced straight in on four feet, landing in the driver seat and then immediately hopping into the backseat, her shape changing into a human even as she went. The moment she was off the driver seat, I was slamming into it, yanking the door closed as fast as I could.
“Shotgun?” Suze yelled from the back. “Tell me you packed the fucking shotgun.”
“It’s in the goddamn trunk!” I yelled, never regretting basic gun safety so much as I did at that moment, my hand shaking so hard that it took me three tries to get the key into the ignition. In front of me, the bear was still rubbing at its face with its paws, but I was horribly aware that its movements didn’t seem quite as frantic as they had a moment ago. In the back, Suze had hit the release button that allowed her to fold one of the seats down flat, and also opened access to the trunk. She was reaching her arm into it and yanking, clearly trying to catch my gun duffel and get it into the main car.
I turned the ignition, and the Fiesta stalled out. I screamed an obscenity that I normally pretended that I didn’t know. In front of me, the bear had apparently shaken off the effects of the spray, and was now breathing heavily and staring straight at me with pain-squinted eyes. Behind me, Suze was still rifling through the trunk. I turned the key again, and this time the ignition caught. As the engine slowly rumbled to life, the bear growled and started coming toward the car, moving fast.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” I muttered as I automatically threw the car into reverse and started backing up quickly. The bear was between us and the tiny gap in the trees that was the entrance and exit to the lot from the main road, and I was deeply and horribly aware that the fine craftsmen at the Ford company had built the Fiesta for fuel economy and not with the intention of withstanding a concentrated bear attack. Behind me, Suze was cursing loudly and inventively, and in front of me, the bear had just broken into a run, heading straight toward us. I could see the gleam of its teeth and the heavy muscle under its black fur.
My hands gripped the steering wheel convulsively as I ran out of room to back up. Then it occurred to me—the Fiesta might not have been designed to keep bears out, but it was a one-and-a-half-ton potential weapon. Not allowing myself to think this through any further, I yelled at Suze to brace herself. The bear was charging when I slammed the accelerator straight to the floor, shifting through the gears desperately to keep the Fiesta from stalling out. Gravel flew everywhere as the wheels spun, and the Fiesta kicked forward with everything it had. The bear saw what I was doing, and I could see it try to stop itself, but the gravel slid under its paws as its momentum continued pulling it forward, and I plowed the front of the Fiesta straight into the bear at twenty-five miles per hour.
The impact was incredible, rattling through the car and sending my head smacking into my deployed air bag, which puffed out with enough speed to prevent me from dashing my face against the windshield, since I had not been wearing my seat belt. The bear was completely draped over the crumpled remnants of the Fiesta’s front end, which bowed around its body as the bear blinked up at me, stunned. There was a long minute of complete silence as we stared at each other, and it crossed my mind that the bear looked rather freaked-out all of a sudden.
Then the bear started moving, extricating itself slowly and with clear pain from the crumpled metal surrounding it, and I realized that this wasn’t over yet. Then there was sudden movement behind me, and Suze shoved my gun duffel into the front seat. My hands started flying, and I pulled the zipper open so fast that it tore, but I kept ripping it, and then I yanked the Ithaca .37 sawed-off shotgun out and broke it across my lap while my other hand snatched out the box of shells. I was moving as fast as I’d ever moved before, popping the box open and spilling the shells out into my hand, but Suze had already stuck her own hand into the bag and hauled out my Colt .45, which I kept loaded in the bag. She’d always professed herself more of a knife fan than a gun person, but today she was clearly willing to make an exception, and she thumbed off the safety, popped open her door, and started firing.
The first shot went wild—she was doing too much, and she was still clearly physically shaken up from being tossed around in the crash. But that was more than enough for the bear, and it turned and started running for the woods. It was limping badly, its chest and face covered in blood, and Suze managed to land a few shots in its furry butt as it went. It flinched upon each impact, but kept going—bears had a thick layer of fat that made it difficult for most bullets to penetrate deeply. I had the Ithaca fully loaded, but when the bear hit the tree line and kept going, I just let the shotgun drop down onto my lap while the events of the last minutes caught up to me and I started hyperventilating. Suze collapsed into the backseat, panting hard as well, and I noticed, in a horribly, horribly inappropriate moment, that she was still completely naked. I pulled my eyes forward with an effort.
“Holy fucking shit, Suze,” I gasped out. “What the fuck just happened?”
“That was an ambush,” she said, reaching over and dropping the empty Colt onto the bag. “The wind was in our faces when we came into the parking lot, so I couldn’t smell it. It waited until we were halfway to the car before it started coming toward us—that’s when I heard movement.”
“That was a metsän kunigas, right?” I asked.
“No doubt about it—a normal bear would’ve run after you sprayed it. Plus, all those normal bears should be hibernating right now!”
“Why did it wait for us to get close to the car? It let us get by it before it attacked us!” I glanced back at Suze, meeting her eyes, and felt my stomach sink. “It had a plan.”
“One that we disrupted by not getting eaten,” she said grimly.
“I am stating for the record that I don’t like this,” I gritted as I reached over, stuffed another clip into the Colt, and tucked it into my pants. Suze slid back into her fox form, and we cautiously got out of the car. I held the Ithaca carefully with both sweaty hands—even for a bear, this wasn’t a gun to mess around with. Next to me, Suze had her nose pressed to the gravel and was snuffling loudly. The damp fur along her back was standing completely on end, showing that at least she was as terrified right now as I was. I wanted nothing more than to get back in the Fiesta and find out if it could still drive. The ignition was somehow still running, albeit with several extremely concerning rattles, so the impact hadn’t completely demolished the engine.
Suze led us back to the spot where we’d exited the woods, and when her ears pricked up, I knew that she’d caught the scent that she wanted. Then her ears swiveled around like alert little radar dishes, listening for any hint that the bear wasn’t completely gone, and she moved very slowly and cautiously, with me right behind, keeping my Ithaca raised and ready the whole time.
The scent led us to a small outcropping of rocks and fallen trees with a clear eyeline to the parking lot and the Fiesta, along with the broken path in and out, but that offered good cover for anything hiding. And waiting there was a small, red plastic bucket, the kind that little kids played with at the beach. There was even a price tag still hanging off the handle. We both stared. Then I reached over and grabbed it. There was something inside—a sealed gallon-size Ziploc bag, with some light blue fabric inside. I opened the bag carefully and withdrew a woman’s button-up shirt. I leaned down and let Suze shove her eager black nose into the folds of the shirt. She inhaled deeply, and her tail whipped suddenly in surprise.
Something moved near us, a flash of black, and we both jumped apart, me swinging the gun desperately and her baring her sharp teeth. A crow scolded us loudly from a tree, spreading its black wings and cawing. I shuddered with relief, but that was definitely enough of a reminder. Stuffing everything back into the bucket, I slung it over my arm, and we hightailed it back to the car.
Even in the long and lengthening shadows, the Fiesta was in bad shape. The front bumper hung down, barely still attached, while the hood was crumpled back. My left headlight was completely shattered, and the right one drooped drunkenly. The engine continued to groan dangerously, and I could smell burned oil in the air.
However, it didn’t even merit discussion, because this was the last place in the world that I was willing to wait for a tow truck. The Fiesta was still running, and I needed to try to limp it home. I reached forward and tapped on my hazard lights (in small mercies, the Fiesta’s back end was still completely intact), tucked the deployed air bag as much out of the way as possible, then carefully let off the emergency brake, massaged the clutch, and eased onto the accelerator. The sounds that the engine made were horrible, but the car faithfully responded and rolled forward. “I’m sorry, old girl,” I said, patting the dash and feeling guilt ripple through me. “You’re a good car, and you don’t deserve this. You deserve a ride of honor on a flatbed truck straight to the nearest mechanic.”
In the passenger seat, Suze had returned to human form and was busily yanking clothing back on at near-warp speed. It was, after all, still the middle of November. “Stop anthropomorphizing your car, Fort,” she grumbled, struggling into her shirt.
“The Fiesta saved us from a bear attack today,” I said severely. “You will never bad-mouth this car again.”
“Fine.” She finally got the hem of her shirt pulled all the way down, and I glanced over. I couldn’t help but notice that she had not bothered to put on her underwear, which was still lying on the floor of the passenger seat. After noting that small, yet salient fact, I forced my brain back on target.
“What did you smell on that shirt, Suze?” I asked. “I know that way you flip your tail. It was something important.”
Leaning down, she started yanking on her socks as the Fiesta finally made it back to the main road, and I tentatively accelerated to fifteen miles per hour. “That was Dahlia’s shirt,” she grunted as she started putting her shoes back on. “And thanks to that plastic bag, all it was going to ever smell like was Dahlia. That bucket was new, too new to pick up any defining house smells or anything other than what was probably a CVS and the fifty people who likely handled it there.”
“Frame job,” I said, the pieces coming together. “Someone is setting Dahlia up to take the fall for killing the karhu.”
“We were meant to find that knife in Dahlia’s house,” Suze agreed. “Wasn’t Dahlia. Probably wasn’t even Ilona. Someone stuck that knife there for us to find.” She started wiggling into her sweater. “How much stronger is your sister’s nose than yours?”
“What?” I eased the Fiesta onto Route 147, creeping along and watching as other cars passed me, their drivers shooting incredulous looks at us.
“You smelled the blood on that knife when I couldn’t pick up anything except the diapers. It was put there for a vampire to find. Now, Chivalry is mourning his dead wife. Usually he’s the one who would investigate a murder in this territory. But he can’t right now—that leaves you or Prudence.”
I followed where she was going, slapping my forehead with one hand. “Someone killed Matias now for a reason. If Prudence was investigating, she would’ve found that knife and just killed Dahlia and Ilona on the assumption that one of them was the murderer!”
“Exactly. But Prudence didn’t get the job—you did. And you found the knife, but you didn’t point to a suspect.”
“Which must’ve completely frazzled the person doing this setup, since they must’ve assumed that we missed the knife. Until we went to the funeral today and told one of the metsän kunigas that we had found it.”
“That same guy who seemed awfully fixated on us checking out the woods today.”
“Gil,” I said grimly. I was really looking forward to shooting him. “I thought I saw a pair of balls on that bear.”
But Suze shook her head. “That wasn’t Gil that attacked us. I’ve gotten a few good, close whiffs whenever we talked to him, and that wasn’t him.”
“So we’ve got more than one—shit!”
The Fiesta’s horrible rattles had suddenly gotten much louder, and the heat sensor had just whipped right up to the highest possible marking. It was hard to tell in the dark, with only one barely functioning headlight, but I realized that there was smoke billowing out of what was left of my hood.
I pulled the Fiesta hard into the breakdown lane and tumbled out of the car. The smoke was now dense and black, billowing out of the front as I scrambled out, ran to my trunk, and started hunting for my fire extinguisher. On the other side, Suze was also out, and she set to work immediately, grabbing stuff out of the car (starting first with the duffel bag that contained the Ithaca and the Colt) and tossing it into the grass, well away from the Fiesta. Everything in the trunk was still all tumbled around from the bear-ramming impact, and everything that wasn’t the extinguisher I threw out over my shoulder. Finally I laid my hand on that blessed red canister, and ran back to the front of the Fiesta. Flames were licking out from it now, and the heat was incredible. With my hood already pushed back from the crash, I just aimed the nozzle at the engine and deployed.
There was a tiny hiss, and about a teaspoon of foam emerged. I stood there, stunned, for a second. The extinguisher had been in the car when I bought it, and had probably been waiting twenty years for its heroic moment to arrive—and now had completely failed.
Suze grabbed my arm and yanked me backward as the fire spread, until we were standing on the dead grass beside the road, surrounded by the pile of all the stuff that she’d pulled out of the car. She had her phone against her ear and was discussing the situation with the fire department, but I knew that they weren’t going to get here in time, and there was nothing to do but watch as my faithful Ford Fiesta died in a pyre.
* * *
Hours later, after talking to the fire department, and the police department, and after watching the steaming remains of the Fiesta be hauled away to the dump, then waiting for Dan to drive over and pick us up, I lay prone on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling and mourning my car. The police had definitely taken notice of the crumpled front end. We’d explained by lying, claiming that we’d hit a deer near the state park area, and after the deer had run off into the woods, we’d tried to limp the car home.
My hair was still wet—it had taken two straight shampoos in the shower to get rid of the scent of burning metal, plastic, rubber, and oil. I’d thrown my clothing and Suze’s into the wash along with a double dose of detergent, and was hoping that it took care of the odor. I heard the pipes stop rattling—Suzume must’ve finally finished with her own shower.
There was a scuffing at the door, and I was sitting and aiming the Colt all in one motion. I waited, frozen, as the door opened to reveal Dan. He glanced at the gun I was currently pointing at him, and raised his eyebrows. I tucked it back onto the coffee table, where it sat next to the Ithaca. Both were fully loaded.
“I just checked on your laundry,” Dan said. “All done, and the worst of the funk is out. I tossed everything into the dryer, so Suze will at least have something to wear tomorrow when you guys head out.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Listen, some bears might come and try to murder us in the night, so you might want to go crash at Jaison’s.”
Dan looked remarkably calm about my statement, and simply crossed over to the fridge to take out the ice cream. He set it on the counter, then removed two bowls and commenced scooping. “Fort,” he said, “firstly, I knew that rooming with you was going to entail a certain level of being in the shit.”
“You did?”
He paused in the act of scooping ice cream, and gave me a very level stare. “Your last roommate got murdered, Fort. Exactly how dumb do you think I am?”
“Sorry,” I apologized meekly. “Continue.”
“Like I said, I knew this kind of thing might come up. At least you wash your dishes and clean the bathroom when it’s your week, so it’s not the end of the world. And as for Jaison, the guy lives with his grandma. That’s not a morning-after walk of shame that I want to experience.”
I winced, then nodded in understanding, and watched as my roommate re-covered the ice cream and put it away. “I’m sorry your car died,” Dan said, and handed me one of the bowls.
“It was a really good car.” Ice cream seemed small solace for losing my car, but it was certainly better than nothing. I ate a bite.
Dan paused, and seemed to be considering my statement.
“It was,” I defended. “It rammed a fully grown werebear in defense of our lives.”
“At least it died in battle, then,” Dan noted. “Gloriously, even. And then got a full Viking funeral.”
“There is that,” I acknowledged.
Suze walked into the room. Her hair was still wet from the shower, and she was wearing my Doctor Who T-shirt, which hit her around midthigh, and apparently nothing else. I looked at her and blinked a few times, feeling my brain shudder to a full stop. It completely tented her in a swath of Dalek-emblazoned fabric, covering her arms down to the elbow, and I knew that logically I’d seen her in outfits that showed more skin (and, technically, that I’d also actually seen her naked multiple times pre- and post-shifting), but somehow this just seemed naked-er. And really sexy.
“So, what are we talking about?” she asked.
“How I’m going straight to bed, and you kids have fun catching a killer tomorrow,” Dan said, clearly able to read a room. He grabbed his ice cream and retreated.
“Watch out for bear assassins climbing up the fire escape,” Suze called after him, and he gave a wave of acknowledgment before closing his door firmly behind him. She looked over at me and gave a small smile. “Subtle of him.”
“Screw subtle—he just won best roommate of the year,” I said, watching her closely.
At that, she grinned widely, and sauntered over to the couch before tucking in beside me comfortably and reaching over to confiscate my ice cream. I let her have it, enjoying the feeling of her soft body pressed against my side. Until that moment, I’d felt ready to conk out and sleep for a week, but with her here, I decided that plan could wait a bit.
“So, are we all set for tomorrow?” she asked, snuggling close and spooning some ice cream into her mouth.
I watched as she swiped her tongue over her bottom lip. “We catch a few hours of sleep, then wait until Kivela Mutual Insurance is open for the day. We head down there and corner Gil at work, with lots of superior firepower, and beat a confession out of him,” I recited, then paused. “Not that I want to move right now, or possibly ever again, but are you sure it’s not a good idea to do it tonight?”
She shook her head, her wet hair flicking me with water droplets. “He sent that bear after us, but right now he doesn’t know that we know he’s trying to frame Dahlia, so he won’t be trying to run. We wait, and then we can get him when we’re surrounded by other bears, rather than at his house where we won’t have backup.”
I nodded. “Okay, seems like it would work.” I looked down at her, feeling my pulse pound in my ears, then said slowly, feeling the heaviness of the possibilities in the room, “So now we just go to sleep.”
Suzume’s eyelids dropped down slowly, nearly shutting, and she gave a very slow nod. “That’s the plan.” Her voice was low and throaty. She stood up smoothly, then handed me back the now-empty bowl. “Guess we should head to bed, then.” She turned and strolled into my bedroom. I stared for a long second, then hurried to rinse out the bowl and set it in the drying rack. I ran my hands over my hair, wishing that it wasn’t drying in weird little shapes and cowlicks, but definitely not willing to make a pit stop in the bathroom to make a styling attempt. I breathed experimentally into my palm, but all I could smell was chocolate ice cream, which I believed would count rather firmly in my favor. I carefully straightened my T-shirt and adjusted my sweatpants, and followed Suze into my bedroom.
She was lying naked on my bed.
Well, naked except for her fur. The black fox wagged the snow-white tip of her tail in greeting.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the foxy look of amusement on her face. I walked over and leaned down to rub the soft fur behind her ears, watching as her fluffy tail twitched with enjoyment.
“Trickster,” I whispered affectionately, then turned off the light and slid under the covers. After a moment, I felt her get up, turn around a few times, then settle down again, this time with her furry body pressed against my arm. In the soft glow coming through my window from the streetlights, I could see the prick of her furry ears and the glint of her eyes, and I knew that she would be on guard in case bear assassins actually did break through the door. Feeling safe and comforted, I slipped into a dreamless sleep.