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Trekking back into the woodland, Katana pondered over her options. Her father was giving her a new case yet according to Jacques, the werewolf wasn’t dead. What was she supposed to do?
The thought of ringing her dad and explaining that the werewolf was still alive wasn’t something she particularly wanted to do.
Altair picked his way through the trees, following Jacques’ lead as Katana lost herself to her only options; calling her dad, being shouted at and told to come home, or not calling her dad and finding something new and ground-breaking.
Katana grinned. She had a lot of ground to cover to catch up with her brothers and be held in the same high regard as they were.
Brogan, her eldest brother, had been specifically asked for by the Met. Whilst she carried the required happiness for her sibling’s success, she also harboured a deep seated jealousy—after all, that could have been her if her father hadn’t held her back for so many years.
Jacques stopped and turned to her, sighing. “May I suggest an inspection of the crime scene?”
“For what reason, Jacques? Dad is sending me a new case.”
“You and I both know that you’re not going to call your dad and tell him about the latest developments and we also both know that you’re not going to leave this alone now.”
Katana lifted an eyebrow. “Really? And what makes you so sure of that?”
“Because I know you. You’re like a damn terrier on a trouser leg when you get an idea in your head.”
“I have no ideas in my head.”
“Yes, you do. And they all involve images of grandeur and sticking two fingers up to all the males in your family.”
Katana laughed. “Ok, guilty as charged. Lead the way.”
“Before I do,” said Jacques, taking a couple of steps towards her. “Can I just say I warned you not to.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“If you pull at this thread, Katana, it’s going to unravel a whole load of dirt you really wish you didn’t know.”
When Katana registered exactly what he was meaning by this, she dismounted and walked over to him, her shoulders squared and her hands on her hips. “Are you telling me you know things that I don’t?”
Jacques dropped his eye contact to the floor. After a few seconds, he said, “There are a lot of things you don’t know. I’m merely warning you that if you chase after them, you will probably end up very lonely.”
Katana’s mouth dropped wide open. “What are you talking about?”
“I just need to say that when this all meets its sticky end—which it will—your life will never be the same again.”
“Why am I going to be lonely, Jacques? Am I that unlikeable?”
“No. But you’ll see. You’ll have to make choices you never would have considered.”
“Right. And you now expect me to not pull at this thread and leave everything alone?”
“Not at all.”
Katana narrowed her eyes at him whilst pondering over their conversation.
Jacques wasn’t stupid by any stretch of the imagination. The intellectual conversations the pair of them enjoyed were one of the main reasons Katana loved him so much. However, his philosophical turn today only peaked her interest and curiosity, not dissuaded it.
“What are you up to? What are you trying to get me to do?”
“I’m saying nothing more,” he said, finally looking up at her. His brown eyes were swathed in sadness. “I’m just telling you your options and what the result of each of them will be.”
“Why me, Jacques? Why not Brogan or Ethan?”
The white wolf sighed and sat down. “Because they’re nothing but miniature Malaceia’s. They don’t have the brain power to think outside the box. To put it simply, they’re soldiers—they follow their orders and get the job done with no questions asked. You have always asked questions. Why do you really think your father held you back for so long?”
A lightbulb went off in Katana’s mind. Slowly, the jigsaw puzzle started piecing together.
The chauvinistic way of their business had always been a key contender for her failure, but with the world becoming more modern and catering more for female equality, Katana had only ever viewed her success as a female hunter as something to strive for; not something that her own father would fear and use against her.
With everything about this case now ringing alarm bells and the odd phone call with her father this morning, Katana knew Jacques was right—her father hadn’t put her out in the field because he knew she would succeed, he’d put her out here to scare her into going home and popping out babies.
“So what do I do about the new case he’s sending me on?” Katana said, already feeling conspiratorial.
“Call Erica.”
Katana gasped. “What?”
“Call your hacker friend and tell her to hack into the mainframe system. Tell her to do whatever she needs to in order to put your tracker in the region of the next case.”
Rubbing at the back of her neck, Katana traced her fingertips over her colourful tattoo.
Only around 6 inches high, it was a cartoon drawing of a blonde-haired girl in a blue dress covered over with a red riding hood. Two huge blue eyes dominated her round face with a dark expression oozing from their depths.
All the hunters carried them. The ink had been specially mixed by their coven of witches to include tracking abilities. It effectively acted as a microchip without the cold metal actually being in their body.
“I don’t know if that can work, can it? I mean, technology and magic—there is no crossover between them, is there?”
Jacques snorted. “Ask me that in a week’s time.”
Eyeing him with suspicion, Katana pulled her phone out of her pocket just as it pinged with an email from Sophia. “My new case details are here,” she mumbled, scrolling through her last dialled list without even looking at the email. Hitting ‘Erica,’ she turned her back to Jacques as she listened to the rings baying for her best friend’s attention.
“Tell me you want me to hack your dad’s computer,” Erica said, answering on the fifth ring. Her voice was laced with pleading.
“Yeah...why?”
“He’s gone mental in the lab this morning. I mean he literally burst through the door—busted it clean off its hinges—grabbed Gregory by the scruff of the neck and dragged him upstairs. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying but I heard him mention your name and something about ash.”
“Ash?” Katana immediately thought of Ashley, her newly acquired handsome stalker-stranger. “What do you know about him?”
“Who?”
“Ashley.”
“Who the hell is Ashley?”
Katana took a moment to explain the odd situation. “Ashley is his name. It must have been him they were talking about.” Katana paused. “But I didn’t tell Dad his name—I didn’t even know his name until an hour ago. Maybe it was the fact I said the werewolf’s body had burned to a pile of ash.”
“Whatever, chick. If you want me on that computer, I’m on it.”
“Yeah, I need you to do me a favour though. Sophia has just emailed me through a new case.”
“You want me to relocate your tracker?”
“Will you quit the weird psychic stuff. It’s freaking me out.”
Erica laughed. “Sorry. I can’t help it. Mum’s teaching me to expand my thoughts or whatever. We came to yours this morning to give your mum my shielding papers for my exam and I could see what happened like a movie right in front of my eyes. It was fascinating.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Katana said, laughing. “Let me know what you find.”
“Sure thing.”
“Oh, and Erica?”
“Yeah, chick?”
“Be careful.”