Taken - Skinwalker Book 3

Chapter 8

Lights attracted their attention, disrupting Sierra's thoughts and causing the group to veer off the path to join up with their team mates.

"Hi, Devon, you guys find anything...?" the skinwalker's words trailed off as they got close enough to see what was going on.

Kalko and Geoffrey were fighting a scooter out from under a tangle of coarse brush.

"Yeah, we just hit the jackpot – big time," Devon replied.

Sierra watched the werecat continue to search the brush for... something. She couldn't guess what, seeing as they'd already found the scooter.

"Ow! Bloody fist!" Kalko cursed, apparently so caught up in the retrieval that he hadn't even noticed their arrival.

Sierra grimaced guiltily and watched him struggle violently to free the vesper, despite his injured hand.

"So you found Lena's bike?" she mused.

"We found more than her motorcycle," Karina replied.

The werewolf looked utterly exhausted and oddly wary.

"We found a whole bunch of different scents. Lena definitely didn't just skip town," the vilkacis elaborated.

The men finally hoisted the motorbike back onto its wheels and started checking it over.

"It's still got fuel, Graeme commented. "But the key is still turned over in the ignition. That's strange..."

"It's not that strange if she stalled it when she crashed it," Geoffrey surmised. "The front light's completely broken – it must have happened in the crash, though I don't see much other damage."

Jocelyn's brother also looked absolutely bedraggled.

"If the headlight was knocked out and the engine stalled, then the battery is probably still fine," Kal guessed. "If Lena was okay, even if she blacked out for a while, she could have got back on and started it again. It's got such little damage that it's almost like she ran off the road, lost momentum and then finally just toppled over. The light must have hit a branch of something along the way," he postulated.

The nanaue turned the key to the 'off' position, then twisted it back on again. The engine turned over a few times without too much difficulty, but black smoke billowed out the exhaust for a bit. Another turn would probably have resulted in the vehicle spluttering to life again, but Kal opted to leave it off.

"Devon, Karina – are you two sure that you can't smell her blood anywhere?" he asked.

Devon nodded. "No blood – not here and not anywhere else we've looked tonight," he concurred.

The group fell eerily silent as they contemplated what that meant.

"Well that's good, isn't it?" Sierra asked. "No blood mean's that she's probably still alive, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it is a good thing," Callum replied, "but it changes the stakes a little. You see, most hunters are a bit like religious fanatics – they hunt to kill, as if they believe that they need to rid the planet of were-kind. They're bigoted bastards, but at least they're upfront about it. The kills are quick and efficient, mainly because they fear us. They're a pretty superstitious lot."

"So... what does that mean for Lena then?" Sierra asked, confused.

"It means that we're not dealing with conventional hunters," Kalko concluded. "They may not even be hunters at all – they might be traders... or worse. If they've captured her, there's no telling why. She could be imprisoned as a hunting trophy, sold on the black market for a number of reasons, and even possibly used for scientific research..."