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“What’d you do to this guy?”
“He was alive,” Caelan replied.
“With a belly full of maggots?”
“Infested, but alive.”
I glanced dubiously toward the deputy’s body. “We aren’t knifing Cho in the head to make sure he doesn’t zombify, are we?”
“Don’t be silly, Miss Davins. You still have one bullet.”
I blanched. “We’re not though, right?”
Ahead, sagged against a trunk as if he'd been KO'd in a boxing ring, rested the corpse of Cho Beom-Seok. Warmth had fled his skin, leaving an alabaster mask of open brown eyes and lips twisted into a sneer. In the dark there was more to imagine than visualize, but my eyes were adjusting. Didn’t take long for the tattered shadow of his throat to become recognizable flesh; bared to the night and glazed with arterial blood were glands, muscles and his mutilated trachea.
My stomach clenched. In the next instant I was one tree over vomiting.
The sheriff wiped his hands on the hem of Cho’s shirt and held my hair. “Can you help carry him out of sight?” he asked when my guts couldn't force anything more. “We’ll proceed through the backyard, stopping to retrieve my clothes and keys. With your permission, I’ll pull onto the lawn and we can load him in the bed.”
“You can’t do it yourself?”
“My shoulder won’t be proper for another hour,” he said with raised eyebrows.
“Sorry again,” I muttered.
“It’s alright.” Following my horrified gaze, the sheriff tipped Cho’s chin over the gaping wound. “Won’t judge you for taking a trot indoors.”
“I’m good,” I claimed, even though I wasn’t. “Ready when you are.”
Caelan tucked the gun into Cho’s pants and supported the dead man’s shoulders. Together we removed the man from the weeds and laid him flat before my stomach again went rogue.
“Do you have designated morticians?” I asked when I’d regained enough digestive fortitude to straighten.
“Morticians and morgues and graveyards.”
“Oh my,” I added, present but drifting further from reality at the sight of Cho’s throaty grin burbling secrets to the moon.
“Werewolves are a prime example of the concept veritas mortis. Truth of death. Or ‘truth in death.’” Caelan's nose wrinkled. “Never was a student for Latin. Give ‘em a couple hours and he'll have fur sprouting out his ears. It’ll take more than the pair of us to carry him then.”
“So his pelt goes to next of kin?”
“Indeed.”
“Ew.” I shivered. “Keeping your father’s or brother’s or grandfather’s skin? That’s disgusting.”
“People have been doing funny things with flesh and bone for centuries. Many consider it a respectful tradition to burn or dispose of the pelt in a natural location the wolf was known to have loved in life, but no, not everyone takes it upon themselves to skin. Cremation, burial, research donation—our requests are no different than a human’s, mostly.” With a grunt, he lifted the front half of the body. “Cho was a high potential candidate for a future sheriff’s position. Eagar to learn, ambitious, but trainable. Good man, for one of my lot. His half-brother works the Montana packs.”
“So Cho wanted to follow in his brother’s paw prints?”
The sheriff nodded at the bloody impression in the brush. “Don’t much matter now. His hopes and dreams are feeding the weeds. Grab his legs there.”
Legs were heavy. I never thought about legs being heavy, but as I hoisted them they weighed quite a lot, especially against the worsening pain in my thigh. The truck wasn't far, but seemed leagues across a grass sea.
“So silver really is kryptonite to werewolves?” I asked.
The sheriff froze, head turned toward the woods. I lost my grip and had to regather Cho’s legs. Frogs peeped in fading numbers.
Caelan picked up the pace. “Being a hidden people, we don’t often correct assumptions. That being said, silver, the right silver, keeps werefolk safe.”
