Chapter One

'5th of November 1987. Detective Reynolds Scotland bound.'

It's the scary little details that will get a person killed. Woven within the seedy fabric of those little details are the warning signs that blood will be split. Some of it may even have the drool trickle from my fangs. Yet, I hear the echoes of the pain to come. The dying of the light from another victim's eyes. Too many of the little things have ended this way.

The Chancellor and his corrupt band of political misfits and masked minions thought they had every detail covered. They hid in the shadows pulling at the strings of chaos. Chancellor danced a merry tune, as he invited me in carrying a lung full of LSD flirting with my senses. He bragged that he knew what I was long before I arrived on his doorstep. Before chuckling through his overpriced coffee he had been several moves ahead. One such move was coating my cup in wolfsbane. A chess master on the verge of checkmate. Or so he thought.

Dinkley hedged his bets that I wouldn't recognise the liquorice sweetness from being sprayed as I edged my way through the forest. The substance tickled its debilitating way into my pores through my fingertips. Yet Dinkley hadn't anticipated us turning the tables. I wasn't another pawn to be swept aside by the Westminster cover-up machine. The girls were born into this dark world innocent but got snatched from the cradle of normality and made into killers. I owed them peace or the closest semblance the criminal justice would allow.

Selene cornered him in the tunnels under his lavish house that led to another. The same cobbled darkness from my vision. With the rest of 'the black widow,' subdued, Selene had resigned to her fate, not before Dinkley lost his head. Skittled across the dirty grey cobbles toward my feet like a cat dishing out a pigeon present. Selene had her revenge and left me with a bitter aftertaste. Different to the one from saving a friend. We had won but at a great cost. Who was that young woman at the warehouse? Was she my sister? We had the same 'pack' symbol with mine flashing as I approached her body.

She had been dead for at least a week. The smoke and mirrors left me with another 'dot' to figure out. Her claws and fangs were still on show which made me think she could've gone down fighting. Why dangle the carrot? A warning perhaps? The note wanted us to hush everything up, but so far that hasn't happened and former coroner Mr Nicholls sang like a strangulated canary. Not that it stopped ADI Locke from summoning his POLSA buddies to rip through every dark and dingey hideout the murdering scumbags used to hide their secrets.

By the time we were anywhere near putting the case to bed, I had one more request. To check off another detail from 'Etherington,' Sadly, Locke wouldn't let me visit Melanie who had so far refused to talk about what she'd done. Not a word uttered in interview just a stomach churning smile. Melanie got remanded pending the 'i's dotted' and T's crossed' while Jack remained in a coma.

Locke claimed the bosses above blocked our enquiries after she began displaying 'mentally unstable,' behaviour. Those were the exact stonewalling words. Enhancing my fear over her a get-out-of-jail-free card. She had to have one lined up.

Now, Twenty-four hours on, and some semblance of sleep I got my chance for some goddam rest. On the Aberdeenshire coast and to the east of Fyvie, there's a little fishing village called Cruden Bay. Looked nice enough in a magazine lying around in the canteen. A selling point was the spiel on village history. Apparently, it was the site of a battle in which the Scots under king Malcolm II defeated the Danes.

That and being so far away from London without having to fly. I wasn't born with wings so tyres on the tarmac all the way. But my favourite of all was the paragraph detailing how in the 19th century Cruden Bay was the holiday haunt of Bram Stoker, the Irish author of Dracula. A little on the nose with me being a werewolf but figured it would be a nice change of pace. Stoker used the spooky ruins of Slain Castle, which drapes murkily down from the headland to inspire his vision of Count Dracula's Castle. Yet, it's also what Ellena wanted. Who was I to deny a golden haired princess that fills the air with coconut as she drifts past.

If her book pile taught me anything, it was her penchant for the creepy. Whether I should be flattered or offended I didn't know. Only her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when I mentioned it. At first, I half-arsed a joke that we should get away somewhere so there's peace and a chance we wouldn't be disturbed by a murder and we could have some quality time together. Ellena dived in head-first, and I thought, why the hell, not? After all, what could go wrong in Scotland? Twofold really, as I could connect with 'mother' and see if she knew anything else of my past and the symbol on my wrist.

I've held off getting in touch since 'Ethan' but my memories have steadily crept into order and there are still many unanswered questions. We were on the M1 with traffic flowing. Nothing but open road and sunshine in the distance with the best part of several hours still to go. The world was calm and not for the first time in a long while I felt peace and rest wasn't far away.

Then why, as we passed a black Mercedes sprinter van, did I feel my neck hairs fly to attention? Ellena smiled, the wind whipping through her open window bringing the stink of diesel and a shower of sunlight that painted Ellena's smooth ivory skin. Every glance in her direction filled me with joy and I was on the verge of a second chance I never imagined would come again. I had donated a lot of my thoughts and energy over the last five years to the memory of Helen. That's all she became. A memory. A brutal reminder of what I lost. Instead of focusing on what could be in front. The ornate fear that I would be betraying her, dishonouring our vows ate me up.

In reality, Helen and our baby boy were murdered by my foster brother Ethan Conrad, who had pretended to be Charlie Masters all the years I knew him. He knew my secrets before I did and used them to snuff out the lights in my wife's eyes. Five years on, closure was mine and I felt perhaps I could lower the guard. Ellena had embraced both sides of me without hesitation. Flaws and all. No waiver, no turn of her head when my fangs were out full. Her secrets, on the other hand, I was still unchaining the cupboard that kept them hidden.

Every now and then Ellena has let slip a fragment of herself that would be used to paint a picture. Only, much like my 'dots' it seems we're painting by numbers and Ellena would only bare her soul to me when she was truly ready. Ellena has intelligence and skills in abundance with beauty to match. I hoped the journey to Scotland wasn't me dropping my guard too soon. That kiss sent sparks flying and every ounce of closeness so far has felt right. Ethan left a nasty scar in my mind. Once bitten twice shy and the many analogies that could fit my thoughts as I chalked up the prickled spine to nerves.

Ellena sunk into her seat, soaking up the sumptuous sunshine. Until I caught a sudden glimmer of grey. A shadow quickly loomed overhead. Cream material grew a blanket of stinking black. The smell of salty seawater cut through the diesel breeze. This was another echo moment. The windows quickly dissipated along with the seats. Ellena gradually changed too. The pale and gold became dirty black and mottled grey. My tiny hairs became needles as the echo grew louder. Jagged rocks wrapped around us with a layer of darkness. We were in a cave, and Ellena was in a crumpled heap amongst a canvas of uneven stone and puddles. Thankfully no blood.

Stalactites slunk down from the ceiling, needles in a patch of black. My chest tightened with every breath. The air pulled in was salty layered in death. My neck needles rocked back and forth as I tried to grasp what the hell was going on. Ellena's eyes were jet black and she didn't move and then came death. I saw where the sickly, stale putrid smell came from. Coffins stacked, uneven floor to narrow eroded ceiling. Old and bundled in a heap. Had to be at least a hundred years maybe more. All lids were closed or as near as, ornately carved with floral decorations and a large cross on top. Details that had my throat turning to dust.

I tried using my other eyes but they wouldn't come. Sense of smell was weakened too. Much like what happened with the bestiary. This time it's Ellena and me in a cave riddled with coffins that were full of the dead. Ellena had a heartbeat but not much else. Shallower than normal. Supernatural senses weren't needed to tell me, we were in a whole lot of bad. I looked and saw not much else until a sprinkle of glimmers across the far left wall brought my attention to another echo of bone itching eerie.

Coffins that wreaked of the dead were one thing but carved into the stone was a daunting message. 'Only the dead rest,' Wind whistled, death rode shotgun and my skin trembled at the thought of what any of it meant. And what happened or was going to Ellena? I couldn't move anywhere. An unwilling passenger to whatever this was. Vision, a premonition or an echo of the little details that could get us killed.

My gaze locked into Ellena's black pools when I heard a familiar snapping. Bone was breaking. Ellena's right arm twitched first, then left. Her body flipped upside down before the stomach-churning moment. Her neck broke bouncing a cringe around in the darkness, and Ellena's head clicked clockwise to the rhythm of a 'seconds' hand on a clock. Her mouth stretched wide, wider than I could imagine. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have minded that view. Only, black slime oozed past her lips, Ellena had long pointed fangs. Nothing like mine. These looked thinner and sharper.

Snapping step after snapping step Ellena strode toward me. I froze. Nowhere to go. No wolf skills to call on. Nobody to help. A coffin lid creaked through a shard of light in the background of mouldy black, allowing, snaking boney fingers to splitter through the crack. Ellena jolted her head forward, her jaw rocking lower. Her fangs could pierce my arm and then some.

'Secrets and the dead are trapped within the rocks. The key will set them free and the dead rest no more,' Ellena curdled over and over. My blood ran cold as the shivers rippled through my bones. Ellena snapped forward, and my eyes bounced across the details. They scared the shit out of me.

As close as Ellena came, death came too and I was wrapped in fear and sweat. We were amidst some scarily different until the jagged rocks slowly faded. The message slipped away like a bad dream taking the coffins with it. The rest crumbled into a movie reel filled with all my whiskey resorting, nightmare hits. Ellena reappeared back in her chair, face etched with shock, in time for me to swerve sharply right, narrowly avoiding a forty-foot trailer lorry.

"What the hell Georgie? Are you ok? Your eyes...Ghostly again," Ellena stammered with a gulp juddering in her throat. Relief spread through my body, and yet I still felt unease. My hackle was alive and that made me second guess if we were doing the right thing.

"It...happened again. We were in a cave full of coffins and you looked like death. Fangs and all," I said, recalling everything I saw.

"A cave? Fangs? What wolf ones? Not that bad," Ellena smiled in her comforting way, yet it did feel all sorts of bad.

"You said, Secrets and the dead are trapped within the rocks. The key will set them free and the dead rest no more. That was after a message on the cave wall. 'Only the dead rest,' it was bloody crazy," I said, as I watched Ellena's mouth fall open and her body sinks into the seat. The cogs spun. Her hands fiddled restlessly with an assortment of brochures for what to do in 'Scotland' having planned ahead.

I couldn't tell if Ellena wrestled with regret, her heart was calm. Yet, we'd just been given a reminder that there's no escaping what goes bump in the night. Would it be these details that could get us killed? I wasn't sure. Woven within those little things I saw further death. It smelt old and the coffins matched. The echo was loud enough to make my skin crawl. We could only hope it had been my mind manifesting details from the magazine. Unfortunately, the 'dots' were bathed in eerie. Whether darkness was down the road, only time would tell. Ellena and I knew enough from what's happened to understand the devil is in the details.