BloodStone: Ice (Book 1)(Completed)

Chapter 20

Phillipe watched Cella lean casually against the fence. She was looking at her map while the two werewolves walked the edges of the fence surrounding the front of the park. They had smelled something they could only refer to as foul earlier, on the other side of the park and they were now trying to see if they could smell it here as well. The hunter, Linden was walking with the Peter farther down while Manuel focused on the area near her. The youngest hunter, Max, who Phillipe reckoned was probably about twenty two at most, was supposed to be watching Manuel, but he wouldn't stop staring at Cella. Phillipe headed over to them as the young man began to speak to her.

"So what happened to your face?" She turned and looked at him. Phillipe watched the hunter suck in his breath at her smile. He wanted to groan in annoyance, but she was obviously watching for his reactions out of the corner of her eye.

"A twenty foot tall mud demon hit me with a tree." From the tone of her voice there was no way to tell if she was joking, but her eyes were definitely impish.

"No way." Obviously Max thought she was joking.

"Technically it was only part of a tree Cella." Phillipe joined them now. Manuel had come to stand by her as well.

"Well, that's true. It ripped the top half of the tree off and threw that at me." She shrugged and smiled again then looked down at her map. The young hunter finally pulled his jaw up. She grabbed the top of the fence rail and vaulted over it. He was about to join her when he noticed the other pair walking quickly back down the street. Suddenly she was back over the fence cursing under her breath. He looked at her, about to ask what was wrong when she threw a handful off dirt on the ground.

"Something's living in there. Quite a few somethings actually. We'll have to search the whole park. The water is positively disgusted at the invasion. If we go slow enough I can probably find where it's sleeping, but its not likely that it's there right now. It doesn't feel like it."

"And we just spotted a fresh kill at the end of the block." Linden began. "We didn't go into the park though. You said to go in as a group." She pointed the hunter down the street.

"Show me." She turned to Manuel. "So I'd guess that what you're smelling is either vampire, ghoul, or fresh death. We might have to take a trip to the morgue tonight so you can smell some of the other bodies." The other werewolf wrinkled his nose.

"I don't know about that. Manuel might do it, but not me. That smell is absolutely gross. I've smelled four day old dead cattle who've been rotting in the summer heat, and they smelled better than this."

"Yuck." She blanched. "If it's that bad, I wouldn't volunteer for it either. Never mind."

They followed the hunter as he led them to the end of the block. He pointed into the park. There, half hidden under a bush were a pair of legs. At first Phillipe thought it might just be a sleeping homeless person, but then he noticed the hand laying off to the side. It was clutched into the dirt as if trying to grab something. The person had died fighting. Ella motioned them all over the fence before she hauled herself over as well. She kept the werewolves close to her, sending Phillipe and Linden forward, keeping Max slightly behind.

The body was about fifty feet into the park, but they crept from tree to bush so carefully that it took a few moments for them to reach it. The night was completely still, and Phillipe found himself impressed with the werewolves ability to be just as silent as the hunters. He wondered if it was part of their blood, or just something natural in the men themselves. They all crouched low and halted a few feet away from the body, allowing Cella to draw in closest. Phillipe went with her, not stopping his eyes from scanning the surroundings. She touched her fingers to the ground next to the foot extending out from under the bush. Her body trembled for a brief moment. A movement he was sure no one else had seen, and he hoped it was not from something she was reading in the earth.