Diana woke a little after 7:00 a.m. to find the house empty. Seizing the opportunity, she moved quickly through the manor to dig for clues. Ever since the leader of her cryptid hunting group had shown her the crystal skull, she’d felt like she finally had a purpose in life. He had said there were records kept in the skull somehow, including details about a pack of werewolves living in the Cascade Mountains, north of Highway 2, just outside of Baring. She’d been given an alias and was introduced to the man who owned what they’d referred to as a cabin. She had worked quickly to convince the man who owned it that she was the perfect person to do a market analysis for real estate development, appealing to his charitable nature, after receiving a full bio from her team. Which was impressive, considering how little she knew about real estate before accepting this campaign. She was told she was chosen because she resembled a woman whose images were buried deep in the skull. The woman was important, somehow, and if she had an opportunity to pass as her, she might be able to fool them long enough to get access to their lair.
When she’d first learned his son was staying in the house, it worried her, but it was clear now that there was something going on here, right where she was staying, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. She wanted to report to her group that she’d found what they were looking for.
She quickly rifled through the drawers in the huge master bedroom, looking for anything that would tell her more about Carl. She had noticed earlier during her stay that the door handles, from outside, were all silver, and he never touched them. It could be a coincidence, or it could be a clue. What was she looking for? Fur? She had no idea, and everything in this room looked perfectly normal. Clothes, books, a razor… she made sure she put everything back exactly as she’d found it, then went to Jordan’s room.
The closet had shelves with very few clothes folded and stacked. Spare boots. The guitar. She moved to the nightstand and found the top drawer locked. There had to be something in there he was hiding. Pulling a small packet of tools from her back pocket, she sat beside the drawer and set her ear to it as she teased the rotating tumblers into motion, listening for the hollow sound that said they’d aligned. She thought she heard it, and tugged the drawer, but it was still locked. She tried again. After several false attempts, she heard a different snap, and when she tugged on the drawer, it slid right out. Inside, there was nothing but a handgun, a spare magazine, and several boxes of bullets. She was astonished to see that they were designed to explode on impact. With such bullets, this would be a wicked weapon. She wasn’t even sure explosive ammunition was legal for street use. What was Jordan worried about? Regular bullets would be sufficient for most intruders. He seemed to be expecting something more dangerous. She slid the drawer closed and rolled the tumblers to lock it.
From there, she went to the basement; the lab was the next obvious place to tour. She wanted to find out what was on the computer, and since Carl’s system upstairs had been password protected, but maybe the one downstairs was open for convenience. She listened at the front door, as she passed, unsure of how much time she had… or where Carl and Jordan were exactly. Perhaps an early morning workout session outside? Those two were obsessed with their physiques.
She stepped into the sterile, white room and stood in front of the computer, bumping the mouse to wake the computer up. Immediately she saw images that looked like cells, as viewed through a microscope. She had no idea what any of it meant, but that wasn’t what she was interested in anyway. She slid a nearby stool over and sat down while she looked through the files. There was a directory with a date from several months ago. In it were many images like the one on the screen when she arrived, along with spreadsheets with temperatures, weights, and other biometric details. She opened a document simply called “data,” and her jaw dropped as she saw that the date on the folder was shortly after the date specified as a wolf bite. It looked like Carl believed something happened when the wolf bit him. Further down the page, a journal entry about a visit from the game warden, noting that a local rancher believed his cow had been killed by a wolf. On another line, it stated there was a wolf present when he woke up in the morning, and the area he’d been in when he woke up. She opened the spreadsheet and checked the dates. Flurries of data, three nights a month, with a 28-day cycle. Every evening, around 6:00 p.m. until daylight-saving time shifted it to 7:00 p.m. The following day, there was less data in the morning, more as the time wore on. Problematic weight loss, most intense on the three days of the full moon.
“Damn,” She whispered. She checked the measurements, and confirmed both the weight and girth of the torso, arms, and legs all pointed to Carl being the subject. This was it, proof that Carl was being affected by the cycle of the moon, and it had started when he was bitten by a wolf. She pulled a USB drive out of her pocket and copied the entire directory onto it. There were others that would be able to get more knowledge from all of this. It might give them an edge in future hunts. This one was nearly over now.
She went back upstairs to get the gun out of Jordan’s nightstand. She might well need that if they figured out what she was really doing there. Jordan already seemed suspicious. She was glad she knew the three-digit code this time, having made note of it once she had the drawer open. She checked to see that the safety was on and grabbed the gun, along with a box of ammo, then slid the drawer closed, rolling the tumblers with her thumb to relock the drawer. Now, she was committed to action before he found out his gun was gone. She needed to call her clan, but first, while Jordan and Carl were still gone, she wanted to find out if there was any other information in the library. The last time she’d been in the room, she’d thought they were just two young men who were going to be underfoot while she tracked down the pack, but she knew better now. She wanted to see if there were any other journals, aside from what was on the computer, and, more importantly, records of other people, other werewolves. She had a chance to prove herself, and she wanted as much information as she could get her hands on. She obviously had one werewolf, right here, how many more could she find? There was supposed to be an entire pack in this area. Would they come to the house at some point, or was there a different location where they met?
Carl was clearly a werewolf. Was Jordan? It seemed unlikely, as there were no records matching Jordan’s weight and size; that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t one, though. And he was obviously involved. He was protecting Carl at a bare minimum. She rifled through the drawers of the desk, looking for notebooks, address books, anything. It looked like Carl kept everything on the computer. She should go back downstairs and check for names, phone numbers, addresses. She hadn’t thought to do that. She wished she had a bigger thumb drive.