Tomorrow Never Dies (Moonlight 3)

Chapter 30-Looking Back

I'd slept with no nightmares for the first night in weeks. When I'd mentioned it to Michael, he'd said the exact same thing. It gave me hope that perhaps forming a pack between the two of us would be enough. I had a feeling it might not last forever but at least for now it was a small win.

Michael, Lauchie and myself were seated in my bedroom. Lauchie had received the data back from the samples overnight and we were all determined to find out whether they matched with anything. Right now, Lauchie and Michael's brows were furrowed in frustration as they scrolled through numerous files that had come up as a result.

"This sounds close." Lauchie nods, bringing up a file on screen. Michael nods quickly and I lean over closer so I can see the screen properly. The file was from years ago, I did a quick calculation realising it had to be from at least fifty years ago. It detailed a pack that the hunters had struggled for months to find. In the end the hunters established that they were hidden using a special herb and a type of rock crushed together that was then scattered around the packs border. Using its magical properties, it would only allow member of the pack or people allowed by the packs Alpha to enter.

"The sample matches too, look." Michael said pointing towards the screen.

I nod, "Mei would've had access to this information too. It's possible she read this and worked out what she would need to use."

"You could be onto something there, Luke." Lauchie nods.

"So, it is kind of magic though?" Michael frowns, "Not witches but just a certain mixture of rocks and herbs. If this is anything like the file, then it explains everything. It's like Mei or someone else has been letting us in when they want us to." Michael paused, his eyes turning to me, "It might even explain how you made it in that day. Mei wanted you to follow Ash. Maybe she wanted to see what you'd do."

Michael's words hung in the air for a moment. I'd possibility made it in to talk to her yesterday as well. The similarities were alarming.

"In any case, how did the hunters find this pack anyway? There must've been some other way they managed to get in." Michael frowned.

Lauchie scrolled down the page. He was an incredibly fast reader, his eyes scanning quickly along the words. "Um well it says here that they simply drew the wolves out from the border by trapping one of the members. Uh..." He paused, Michael and I nodded to him to continue, "Then they killed them. Every single one."

A shiver went down my spine. Lauchie's cheeks flushed with red and he looked like he was going to be sick. There was a glimmer of almost guilt in his eyes. The three of us knew that something like that would've happened not all that long ago. I realised with a twisting stomach that could've been our fate. Not that long ago it would've been crazy to think that hunters would be in the same room as werewolves let alone working together or even friends.

"In any case. You guys look at it." Lauchie nodded, passing the laptop over to us, "Maybe you'll find something in it that I can't."

Michael and I nodded, taking control over the laptop. The information on the event was rather detailed for the time. It had dozens of old black and white photographs of each of the pack members and information about all of them. They were of mixed ages, some were only teenagers while other were much older and, in their twenties, or thirties.

Michael made us stop on one of them though. It was a girl, named Beth Anne who looked to be about our age or a few years older. I wondered what had made him stop when I saw something written underneath where it detailed her links to this other pack.

Former member of the Hood pack.

"Do you think that it's of some relation to Calum?" I asked, knowing that he shared the same last name and that the hunters sometimes referred to us as that.