Poor thing. He hadn't known her well enough to do more than feel sorry for her. No wonder Arthur was off. Oddly, the sympathy he felt for Arthur was far more sincere than any mourning he could do for Sunny.
He tried not to think about how much worse tonight could have been. Anna, they wanted to kidnap. Not kill.
Their taking her made him angry, so angry that not even killing three of them soothed him. Or Brother Wolf, either.
If they had killed her... he would have joined her. He paused, not having worked that out before. But it didn't particularly bother him. If she died, he would follow. Just as he would have followed her wherever they had planned on taking her had they succeeded. She was his and he hers.
"Charles?"
His phone rang. "I'll be right there. Angus is calling."
He opened the phone, "Yes?"
"Your Anna was spot on. About an hour ago-fifteen minutes after the cleanup crew left Chastel's place-we had police all over the place. Someone had called in a report of screaming, dogs howling, gunshots, and hell-all-knows else. They brought in luminol-the stuff that glows in the presence of blood. We owe Moira big-time because they found squat. The last witch we had could never have cleaned up that well. The police are still tearing the place apart-but they're being nicer about it."
"Trap sprung too late," said Charles-aware that Arthur had come out to listen.
"Yes." Angus paused. "And your scent? Moira found clothes in one of the... well, in the mess of body parts. As best we can figure, someone snitched the clothes you wore to the hunt, dragged them around the room, and dumped them."
"Deliberate."
"Absolutely. And not even the fae can pin it on you now. I know you left the hunting grounds in a completely different set of clothes."
"Good."
"On another interesting news front... that van? The local vampires who were doing the cleanup on it recognized the stick you poked through one of the bad guys. She called it a spellcatcher."
Charles frowned. "Spellcatcher?"
"Vampire hocus pocus, apparently. Very secret-the vampires here really don't want trouble with your father over this to tell us this much. Only a couple of vampires can make them-and they charge a lot for them. If our team of out-of-town vamps were hired guns, they were successful and expensive to be able to purchase such a thing. Apparently this stick can absorb up to four spells, and the person it's tuned to can use it to cast them, even if that person wouldn't normally be able to do magic."
"That would explain the shadows spell and the Look-Not-At-Me the vampires used when they attacked Anna the first time. And how they kidnapped Anna while we were both in the hotel room-they must have used the spellcatcher to put us out with a witch's sleep spell."
"The thing to remember is that it can only absorb spells given to it voluntarily by the spell caster. Means a wolf gave them the shadows spell and the Look-Not-At-Me."
"Confirming Anna's theory," Charles said. He was pacing. There were many things he did not like about cell phones-but not tangling himself up in cords was a definite benefit.
"Is Anna all right?"
"She'll be fine as soon as a few more chunks of lead fester out, and I get some locks picked so she doesn't have to explain her interesting choice in jewelry."
Arthur was leaning against the door frame of his treasure room, making no effort to pretend he wasn't listening.
"Good." Angus cleared his throat. "You did good, son."
The "son" made Charles smile. He was older than Angus by a few decades. "I think so. She's-she completes me."
"Tell her that," Angus advised humorously. "Women like to hear their men get all tongue-tied."
"I'll do that."
He shut the phone.
"Cleanup crew?" asked Arthur.
And Charles realized that there was a lot Arthur didn't know. "Chastel was killed last night in a particularly bloody fashion that required some quick action."
"Was it you who killed him?"
"No. Vampires."
"Ah." Arthur looked away. "Chastel. Odd to think of him being dead at last. It couldn't have happened to a better person." He looked back and gave Charles a broken smile. "And I guess it did, didn't it? Poor Sunny." He rubbed his face, hiding it for a minute. "Sorry. Sorry. So Chastel required a cleanup crew?"
Charles considered offering sympathy-and decided it wouldn't help. "Anna suggested that the murder was so bloody-especially given it was vampires who'd done it-"
"The vampires killed Chastel? You are sure?"
Charles nodded. "Ironic, considering how many wolves I know who would have loved to kill him."
"Who called the police? The vampires?"
Charles shrugged. "The timing is off. The police were meant to find the scene in all its glory." Maybe to keep his father from bringing the werewolves out. Maybe to keep the wolves away from the scene so whoever had tried to frame Charles for it would have an easier time. Without access to the murder site, the werewolves might never have determined how Charles's scent appeared in a place he'd never been. "But they gave us too much time. The police won't find anything now."
"I suppose not. Angus is remarkably efficient."
"And, I believe, his second's daytime job is with the police. Tom knows what they are looking for and how to keep them from finding it." Charles paused.
It occurred to him that he could see Arthur hiring someone to do his killing for him. But he dismissed his suspicion. Sunny had been killed. A wolf would never kill his own mate.