The Alpha's Lunar Bond

~“Meet me at the cafe on 5th north at 3pm tomorrow, and I’ll tell you everything I know about the murders.”

I watched Ezra stuff his phone back into his pocket and dug my claws into the earth. So he was going to the humans, was he? Well, that couldn’t happen. As soon as he had his back to me, I launched out of the trees and sunk my teeth into his neck. They passed easily through the skin and muscle, filling my mouth with warm blood.

He attempted to pull free and fur began sprouting from his knuckles. Before he could shift, I wrenched my head back and ripped his jugular. Blood sprayed the meticulously-mowed lawn. For a moment I glanced at the farmhouse at the other end of the property, but the lights were out.

Satisfied I wouldn’t be seen, I allowed my wolf to fade back to humanity. A sliced throat and a stabbed heart ensured the job was done. With that, I was one step closer to fulfilling the prophecy.

***

I pulled into the parking lot of the address I’d been given, and was pleasantly surprised to find a nice, stone building there to greet me. Perhaps my crappy apartment had set me up to believe I’d work in a crappy office building too, but I would guess this high-rise was less than five years old.

The inside was just as nice. Glass doors opened into a large lobby with white marble floors and floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere. I spotted the elevator directly across the room from the entrance and hurried toward it. I’d left half an hour earlier than I thought I’d need, but traffic made me only ten minutes early. Melville wasn’t very big, but a car accident managed to back everything up. Apparently every single person worked in the same two blocks at the same time. The elevator barely made a sound as it conveyed me up to the fifth floor.

I stepped out onto a pleasant blue-grey carpet and followed the signs for Suite 5A. A metal placard reading ~The Melville Times~ announced I’d reached the correct place, so I rang the doorbell and waited.

The door was made of glass, so I saw the freckle-faced man coming. He wasn’t very tall, maybe 5’11”, and sported curly red hair that would make Shirley Temple jealous. He pressed a button next to the door and pushed it open, greeting me with a smile. “Hello, how can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Clara. The new journalist?” I extended my hand, and the man brightened.

“Oh! Welcome! I’m Jason. Come on inside. Mr. Perkins is waiting for you in his office.” Jason shook my hand and I couldn’t help but notice how strong his grip was. He practically dragged me inside, but his enthusiasm kept me from being offended.

The office seemed to consist of 4 rooms: a break room which we passed through to reach the rest of the space, an office, a conference room, and one large room broken into cubicles. Jason marched me right up to the office door and knocked, while I did my best not to panic. Something about being dragged right to the boss’s office made my lizard brain think we were already getting fired.

Because that made any kind of sense.

I rolled my eyes at myself and straightened my spine to assert my dominance. Over what, I didn’t know, but I did it anyway.

Mr. Perkins was a large man with a smattering of grey hair and a handlebar moustache. “The newbie is here, sir!” Jason chirped and stepped behind me. I maintained my dominant posture and walked up to meet him at his desk. He stood and shook my hand, then shooed Jason away.

“Barnabas Perkins,” he introduced himself. “You must be Clara Parks. I know I assigned you to interview Ezra Howard this afternoon with Jason as an introduction to the job, but circumstances have changed. Jason will be working on that project alone, and I’ll bring over your new assignment shortly. Here’s your badge and intake paperwork; don’t lose the badge. It gets you through our security door, and also works as your press badge in the field.”

I accepted the folder and white name tag with my photo on it. I hated the headshot that I’d sent in with my resume, but I never imagined it would end up on a badge! I resolved to get that replaced someday, but nodded my understanding.

Mr. Perkins dismissed me and I walked back into the large room. For a moment I felt a bit lost, but then I located Jason’s curls over the top of one of the cubicles. I made a beeline for him and stood next to his desk. “So, uh. The boss says he took me off the Ezra interview.”

Jason leaned back in his chair and stifled a sigh. “Unfortunately,” he grumbled, but then brightened, “but that means you don’t have to deal with it! Also, we don’t really have assigned desks, but everyone has their favorites. You’re welcome to take the one next to me. Nobody ever sits there.”

“Because you’re annoying?” I teased, but to my surprise, Jason began to laugh.

“Because I’m annoying,” he agreed. “But I swear I shower regularly and I don’t bring tuna sandwiches for lunch. So there could be worse people to sit next to?”

I chuckled and sat down at the empty desk, which held a computer, a box of tissues, and a container of pens. “Why did the boss kick me off the project? He was happy to let me interview Ezra with you when he called me at 7AM. While I was still sleeping.”

“Because Ezra is dead. It’s gone from ‘take the newbie to interview this guy who may or may not know anything’ to ‘go interview the man who found a body.’”

I stared at Jason, waiting for him to crack a smile and tell me he was joking. But he didn’t, and my eyes widened. “Seriously? I thought you just spoke to him on the phone an hour ago!”

“I was probably the last person to talk to him. He was found dead at the edge of the woods on the north side of town at 8:05AM. Apparently his body was pretty messed up, like he’d been attacked by a wolf or something. But half the cuts were more like knife wounds than animal wounds, so it’s being treated as a murder. Fourth one this year. People are starting to talk about a possible serial killer with really big pet dogs. So instead of interviewing Ezra, I’m going to go interview the guy that found him.”

I shuddered, unable to keep myself from imagining what that corpse must have looked like. “That’s terrible. And I’m guessing all four bodies have turned up the same way?”

He nodded. “Sure have, all in the same area. Though here’s the strange part: Up until now, they’ve all been women between 25 and 30 years old. They don’t seem to have any physical similarities, per say, so the police are having a hard time putting together a victim profile.”

“I ~would~ move to a tiny town in the middle of probably the biggest story in their history,” I muttered, and Jason began to laugh.

“It’s not ~that~ small! We have a Walmart?”

Before I could ask for more information, Mr. Perkins ambled over. He had a manila folder and a look that immediately set me on edge. What kind of bottom-of-the-totem-pole job was I in for? “Good morning, boss man.”

He nodded in acknowledgement and sat on the corner of my desk, much to my annoyance. I restrained myself from reminding him that desks are for computers, not butts, and pasted a smile on my face. “Here to give me my first big assignment, since my fifteen years of prior experience aren’t enough to do a tandem interview on the original case?”

He ignored my attitude and handed me the folder. It was light, and if I didn’t see the white corner of a page sticking out, I would have assumed it was empty. “I don’t know if I’d call it a ‘big’ assignment, but it’s your first test here. Everything you need to know is in the folder, and I expect the first draft of the article by Friday.”

I did my best not to growl at Perkins, flipped open the folder, and began scanning the page. “Artist Elias Franke” it said at the top, bold and simple. An artist? He really was starting me on Baby’s First Interview…But I gave him a small salute and closed the folder. “Can do. Anything I should know before I start?” I picked up the notepad and pen next to my computer, eager to show him I was serious. I could handle real jobs. I’d handled plenty of them. I didn’t need ‘tests.’

“Not much. The guy is elusive and lives in a cabin about an hour into the woods. I’d suggest scheduling your interview during the daytime, or in town if you can coax him out.” Mr. Perkins smirked and stood, finally removing his nasty butt from my desk. I was distracted enough with thoughts of Clorox wipes that it took me a moment to process what he’d said.

Elias lived in the woods? ~The~ woods? Where ~all the women were turning up dead?~ If I didn’t so desperately need this job, I would have tossed the folder back at him and demanded that someone else do the interview. Suddenly I realized that I hadn’t actually been given the baby job; I’d been given the one nobody else wanted, because I’m the newbie.

Great.

As it was, I didn’t have a choice. So I pulled on my big girl pants and gave the boss a thumbs-up. “During the day. Will do. The last thing I need is to end up the next wolf or serial killer attack victim.”

“It’s the last thing we need, too,” Mr. Perkins replied. “I don’t want to have to hire ~another~ new reporter. Now get on it.”

The boss returned to his office, and I spent an hour looking up this guy’s art. I would be lying if I didn’t admit it was stunning. The way he painted light rivaled some of the bigger names like Thomas Kinkade and Charles Burchfield. But instead of waterfalls, quaint little towns, and lighthouses, all of Elias’ art featured moonlit forests and predatory eyes.

“Wow. This guy really likes his wolves,” I muttered, apparently loud enough that Jason heard me.

He swiveled around in his chair and glanced at my computer screen. “We all saw that spotlight coming up on the schedule and hoped anyone else would get it.”

“Why? Is there something wrong with him?”

Jason shook his head. “No, not really. He’s weird, but that’s artists for you. Last year we’d all have clamored to get the easy assignment. But-”

“But now that there might be a serial killer in the woods, nobody wants to risk it. You don’t think this Franke dude is the serial killer, do you?”