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“Is having it written down like that necessary?” asked David, looking at the contract that Morrison was showing. “The nature of the oath our packs swore would be enough.”

Morrison had the whole pack gathered at the dining table the day after the Pack swore on Father Wolf and their respective tribal totems with the Pure. He was showing off an official looking contract of their agreement with Talbot’s pack, and a map with their respective territory’s new borders.

The Old Man shrugged, “The protectorate likes dotting their ‘i’s and crossing their ‘t’s. And the new territory boundary lines will be something that they’ll want records of. They still haven’t stopped bitching at me for not telling them about us claiming Ely.”

He clapped his hands, “With that done, we got a few things to do. All of which need us to make a trip to Vegas.”

He gestured to the centre of the dining table, where all the rolled up donkey hide scrolls that Lucas managed to steal from the Pure were laid out. What he could steal Lucas had destroyed. “We gotta drop off those scrolls to the Protectorate so they can make copies and add them to the Protectorate archives.”

“Why not just have someone come here and pick them up instead?” asked Kaiden.

“That’s where the other two things we need to do come into play,” pointed out Morrison. He gestured behind him to the West, “We need to find out if the Protectorate has a pack for Alamo. It’s been sitting idle for too long. Can’t have the Pure claiming that after losing half of Caliente.”

“No one’s claimed it yet?” David asked, surprised. “I assumed they set someone up there after Mount Irish got locked down so they could start sealing the Wound.”

“No, not yet,” said Morrison with a shake of his head, “Speaking of which though, Metro has a lead on the Bale Hound. That’s the main thing we need to go there for.”

“Now,” he said, looking at the pack, “I need a couple volunteers for something.”

“What for?” asked Jesse.

“I need one more volunteer,” said Morrison.

Tsu’mara snorted with amusement, “Idiot.”

“Thank you,” Morrison said to Tsu’mara, making her swear under breath. “I need you two to stay behind to guard our territory. The rest of us will go to Vegas.”

“Except you,” he said, pointing at Colin. “Not having you cheat at the casinos again. Put on your hide and help them patrol.”

“Yes, Elder,” said Colin, crestfallen.

He pointed at Lucas, David, and Kaiden, "Grab what you need and let’s go.”

***

“It’s nice to be able to take the US93 without having to go around Caliente now,” said Lucas from the front passenger seat as they entered Vegas proper.

“The Pure are still watching, I’m sure,” said David. He looked out the window from the back seat of the truck as they passed into Nellis, a neighborhood at the northeast corner of the valley and built up around the Nellis Air Force Base. He recognised some of the landmarks from when he was a little kid. Most of what he remembered had changed, but some was still how he remembered. He knew from them that his old house was just a couple streets away.

He rubbed his arms with a shiver, a sudden chill overcoming him.

“More than likely,” said Lucas with an annoyed tone as he turned up the heater. “But they can’t try anything anymore. At least until they inevitably find a loophole.”

“Won’t take long,” sighed Kaiden. “This pact has more holes in it than a fucking fishing net.”

Morrison pulled away from Nellis, telling them, “We’re gonna meet with someone from Metro first, one of us, he has info for us on our little serial killer friend.”

After a while they pulled into a steakhouse, a Texas Roadhouse just off the I-15. It had only just opened, ready for Lunch customers.

They took their seats and Morrison sent a text to his contact while a waiter took their order.

“Medium rare T-bone,” said Lucas. He looked to Kaiden who shrugged and nodded. “Two medium rare T-bones.”

“Medium rare porterhouse,” said David when the waiter looked to him.

The waiter nodded and asked Morrison for his order.

“I want my steak rare,” answered Morrison. He took a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet and slid it discretely towards the water, “To the point that it’s almost raw and not legally allowed to serve it.”

The waiter pocketed the money without hesitation, “Of course, sir.”

As they waited a man entered the steak house. One that David saw before, but never properly met. He had seen him in Metro back when he did training with them after he joined Lincoln County’s Sheriff’s Department. He was in regular civilian clothes and had a sidearm open carry.

Morrison stood up to shake the man’s hand, “Boys, this is Sergeant Eric Norborn from Metro. One of you silly Iron Masters.”

“Yeah, Red Wolf was the most appealing to me,” said Eric with a laugh. “But I’m sure your pack knows all about the tribe.”

“Unfortunately,” said David before hissing in pain as both Kaiden and Lucas kicked him in the shins.

Eric rolled his eyes as he took a seat. He looked to Morrison and said, “So your friend up North tried performing his act here on the Strip. Bosses aren’t happy about it at all.”

He pulled a USB out of his pocket and gave it to Morrison, “This has all the case files of this latest attack. Have they filled you in on it?”

“Nope,” said Morrison.

“Great,” said the sergeant, stretching his arms above his head, “Last Friday night a man wearing a baggy hoodie was caught on camera placing portable loudspeakers in the parking lot of the T-Mobile arena while a concert was ongoing. Security quickly noticed and started collecting the loudspeakers.”

“The Bale Hound?” asked Lucas.

“Got away before Metro could detain him.” answered Eric. He continued, “The loudspeaker each had an old school ipod set to play on full volume shortly after the concert ended. The single track on the ipods was the sound of repeated gunshots. Metro’s treating this as a felony-level prank, not quite wanting to use the ‘T-word’, but acknowledging that had it been successful, it would’ve caused a huge panic. No media outlet has been told of the security breach, and it’s been kept entirely internal for now.”

He leaned in, lowering his voice, “What the normal Brass don’t know is that had the attack gone off, it would have been a lot worse than just a panic in the parking lot.”

“I’m sure you all remember the Mandalay Bay shooting?” he asked the pack who all nodded solemnly. They all remembered the shooting a few years back at the country music festival, just a stone's throw away from the T-Mobile arena.

Eric continued, saying, “The packs in the area did a good job keeping that shooting from opening a Wound, but it created a lot of polluted resonance. So if that attack went off like the Bale Hound wanted, it would’ve dug up that resonance and opened a Wound. A big one too, the biggest we’ve had to deal with and that’s saying something.”

The pack stirred uncomfortably in their chairs. Not only was the Bale Hound reopening old Wounds, but also attempting to create whole new ones.

“So our bosses are quite pissed,” said Eric. “They want this ritualist’s head on a platter as you can imagine.”

“Yeah, I can see why,” said Lucas. “Though I assume the Protectorate has plenty more info given the surveillance in the city.”

“Yep,” said Eric. He pointed at where Morrison pocketed the USB. “That’s what’s on the USB. Plenty of camera footage. Stolen licence plate on the vehicle. His movement suggests injury to the torso and back. No face shots unfortunately. Seems he was fairly competent at not looking at any cameras.”

“What do we know about his appearance?” asked David, unintentionally mentally slipping into his role as a deputy.

Eric smirked, looking a bit proud at the pup in front of him, and answered, “He’s white, in his late 30s, approximately average build, below average height. While we don’t have any face shots, we did get a better look - at what he was wearing from a couple different camera angles. Underneath that hoodie, he had what appeared to be a tanned animal hide. Part of it slipped out from under the hoodie for several frames and was visible. The footage also identified tattoos on the backs of both of his hands. It wasn’t visible enough to read, but enough to identify words like ‘Urfarah’ and ‘Hisil’, so this was very much legit spirit magic and not some generic ‘tribal’ ink.”

“It’s all on the USB,” assured Eric.

The steaks arrived and their conversation ceased. They all wolfed out on their lunch, to the shock and disgust of all the other patrons at the Pack’s utter lack of table manners.

“One last thing, Morrison,” said Eric as he wiped his face. “The Council wants to speak privately with you.”

Morrison scowled at the news.

Eric continued, “Don’t worry. They know about your pickiness about who you meet. It’s just the leadership.”

Morrison set down his cutlery, “Ah fuck. What do they want?”

Eric shrugged, “Didn’t tell me. I’m just the messenger here.”

Morrison sighed, “Fine. I guess I’ll see what those fucks want.”

He looked at the pack and told them, “I’m gonna go deal with this myself.”

“I can drive you to the headquarters as soon as I’m done,” offered Eric. “That way the pups can take the car.”

Morrison nodded and told the pack, “We’re done here. Do whatever you want but meet me back in Pioche first thing in the morning.”

The pack lingered in their seats.

“GO!” Snapped Morrison and the Pack all scrambled from their seats, all three of them tripping over each other trying to quickly leave.

They got in the truck, with David at the wheel.

As they were driving off to find something to do, David took an unexpected turn towards a residential section of the Nellis area. It was a lot more built up than what he remembered as a kid. But he still recognised the streets.

“Do you know where you’re going?” asked Lucas when he noticed them turn into the residential area. He pointed back up the road, “The freeway entrance is back that way.”

“My old house is here,” said David, reading the street signs and taking the turns he remembered his father always taking whenever they came back home after going out

Lucas rolled his eyes and laughed, “If we’re gonna do sightseeing, why not a casino?”.

David ignored him, too busy looking at the houses as he finally turned down his home street. Most of the houses were from the mid-90s and run down. There hadn’t been a major development in a while. A number of the houses had signs saying they were for sale by the bank. It wasn’t the best neighbourhood economically. A family being torn apart in their own home would do that to a community.

They pulled up in front of the former Lupo residence. David was white knuckle gripping the steering wheel as he looked at his old home. It hadn’t been maintained since his family died with only minimal refurbishment from the bank that put it up for sale. Haphazardly repainted exterior and new cacti planted in the yard that have long since died.

They got out of the truck and made their way to the front door. There was a heavy digital lockbox on the front doorknob, probably placed by the bank.

David knelt down and whispered a command to the lockbox in the First Tongue, stirring its nascent spirit awake. He asked for the code for the lockbox after which it promptly fell back into its slumber. David input the code and the lockbox popped open, dropping the key into his hand. He unlocked the front door and pushed it open. The inside of the house was dusty, and disheveled from not being lived in.

He stood rooted in the doorway, unable to bring himself to go inside.

“Not gonna go in?” asked Lucas from behind David.

“I haven’t been in the house since before my family died,” said David in a trembling voice.

“Before?” asked Lucas.

“The police wouldn’t let me back inside the house,” answered David.

“I’d hope so,” said Kaiden. “It’d be fucked up for the cops to let a little kid inside the house to see his family’s remains.”

He put a hand on David’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s in the past, not the present. It can’t hurt you anymore.”

David nodded and finally made his way inside. The inside was completely empty. It was completely unlike how David remembered. The carpets were different, littered with outlines of furniture from some failed open house the bank had in an attempt to sell it. The walls were repainted a plain, ugly beige instead of the warm yellows that he remembered.

It was completely empty.

“Where are the squatters?” asked David, his voice echoing in the empty living room. “It doesn’t even look like it was turned into a crackhouse.”

Lucas pointed over his shoulder with his thumb back to the front door, “The place is owned by the bank. They’d be paying for security alarms.”

“Never stopped me when I lived on the streets,” said David, turning to go to his old room.

There was nothing about his room that reminded him that it was his asides from its location. All the drawings and paintings he made as a kid that were plastered all over the wall were gone. Likely tossed in the rubbish by the real estate agent. His small cupboard that he hoarded all his pencils and crayons was gone. The walls repainted the same ugly beige as the living room. All of it. Gone. He felt his gut twist at the sight.

“My room used to be blue,” was all he was able to bring himself to say. His voice small, and full of grief.

His breath misted out of his mouth in a cloud as the temperature of the room spiked down. An impossibility for midday of a Vegas June.

Immediately on guard, his and Lucas’ eyes flashed gold as they looked past the Gauntlet.

They saw nothing in David’s room but it was then that they noticed the smell. Even though sixteen years had passed, the house still reeked of Death and Fear resonance.

The trio traced back their steps into the living room where two spirits. A raven and a shadow on the wall. Death and fear spirits. But they were only minor spirits, and weak too. The crow was ragged, its feathers dull and patchy. And the fear spirit was so insubstantial it was almost impossible to see.

They were starving. Deprived of the essence that was created when David’s family was slaughtered. If they didn’t find a new feeding ground, they’d soon die.

“It smells like a haunted house,” said Lucas.

David wanted to deny it, but he knew Lucas was right. There was no other possibility. As a Bone Shadow he should have known instantly.

“You ever check to see if your parents left behind ghosts?” asked Lucas.

David shook his head, “I said before that I was never let back in here.”

Lucas shook his head, “We can’t see ghosts without a Shadow Gift. We’re gonna have to do this the old fashioned way and look for cold spots.”

They searched around the house, but apart from the temperature from David’s room, which had returned to normal, they couldn’t find any other sign of a ghostly presence in the house.

The only thing that came close was the living room. It was cool, but not supernaturally so.

David tilted his head, earring a faint rush of air. He followed it to its source, the sliding door to the back yard.

It was a sliding glass door, poorly fitted after needing to be replaced after the original was destroyed sixteen years prior. The lazy fitting let a constant, whistling draught of air through the cracks.

He reached for the door but stopped. His hand trembled. He could hear the original door shattering. A concerned voice was trying to get David’s attention but all hear was his mother’s terrified scream being cut off with the wet crunch of bone and tearing of flesh.

No matter how much he breathed, it wasn’t enough. He dropped to his knees, covering his ears as he tried to block out the sound of his father’s gunshots and the sounds of his father’s body being torn apart.

The voice was back again, more insistent. Its owner held his face, still talking to him.

“It’s in the past, David. What you’re seeing and hearing isn’t happening,” it said. One of the hands softly slapped his cheek, “This is. Focus on this feeling. My voice. The here and now.”

It was Kaiden's voice realised David. Kaiden was never there when his family died.

“Stay with me,” said Kaiden, slapping David’s face more firmly.

Still hyperventilating, David came to. He was on his knees near the back door of his old home. Kaiden was crouched down in front of him.

He looked down and noticed his arms. They were covered in thick, hair-like black fur and his hands were clawed. He had almost fell to Kuruth having shifted to Dalu as he fell to Wasu-Im, the soft rage that preceded Basu-Im, the hard rage.

A hand rested on David’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. It was Lucas’

“I’ll take it you had a flashback?” asked Lucas.

David groaned in discomfort as he shifted back down to Hishu. He pointed a shaky finger at the door, “It came through the door here.”

Lucas looked around the living room, “This is probably the room where your family was…”

He couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence.

David shook his head, “Just Mom and Dad.”

“So you were outside,” said Lucas, looking outside where David was pointing. “I thought you were with your brother when you talked about it.”

He undid the lock on the door and went into the backyard. It was an empty dirt yard with a concrete landing. It hadn’t been maintained and was overrun with weeds.

David and Kaiden followed him out into the backyard.

David pointed to a dead spot in the middle of the yard where weeds refused to grow. “That’s where we were playing catch.”

Lucas looked at the dead spot from the landing, “It’s weird that this one left a trace but not the others.”

He looked around, “Maybe there’s some way to contact what’s still lingering here.”

He asked Kaiden, “You think the Wal-Mart would have Ouija boards?”

“It’s a major metropolitan area. Someone’s bound to have one,” answered Kaiden. “Won’t work though. You need a proper communing rite for a ghost. It requires a powerful ghost, or a really insistent one, to be able to communicate with you without a rite. And if that’s the case, we’d have bigger things to worry about.”

While the two were discussing how to commune with the ghost lingering at the house, David set about wandering the yard for his baseball. He knew it should still be there in the backyard where he dropped it after he returned to Vegas four months ago when his First Change was triggered.

He felt a strange tugging in his gut, pulling him towards the dead spot in the centre of the yard.

It was there that he found the baseball, peeking out of the weeds. Its leather was dry and cracked, and the stitching, once red but now a sun bleached pink, was frayed but still largely intact.

He picked it up, brushing the dirt and dust off of it. The corner of his mouth twitch in a ghost of a smile as he remembered all the times he played catch with his brother.

He reared his hand back and then gave the ball a lazy toss. Just like he would as he was a kid.

The ball arced through the air, and when it reached the dead spot, it froze in the air. It then sailed back towards David, who caught it, his face pale from shock.

Kaiden saw it and uttered, “Oh boy.”

“Michael,” whispered David, terrified.

In response to his name, there was a flicker. For a fraction of a second there was a person standing where the ball stopped mid-air. A teenaged boy, no older than sixteen, with shaggy black hair and olive skin. The family resemblance was undeniable.

“Oh shit,” said Lucas, shocked. He said to David, “I’ve seen him before. He’s been following you around the Den.”

Kaiden slowly turned to Lucas, with an annoyed look. “You saw this and didn’t bring it up because?”

“It was Colin’s idea,” answered Lucas. “He thought it’d upset David if he was wrong.”

He shrugged, “He had reason to believe that David was being haunted. I didn’t know who it was. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Colin knew or at least suspected.”

Kaiden shook his head and sighed, “Anyone else keeping secrets we don’t know about?”

“How do you feel about mage in-laws?” asked Lucas.

Lucas was tackled to the ground by David before Kaiden could get in a reply. They rolled around in the dirt before David managed to get on top, his hands around Lucas’ throat.

“You knew?!” snarled David, his hands tightening around Lucas’ throat. “You knew my brother was still around and didn’t fucking tell me?!”

Lucas’ hand shifted to Dalu and gave David’s face a savage slash, tearing bone-deep gashes across his face. David yowled in pain and fell off his packmate.

“You were in an insane asylum!” snapped Lucas, picking himself up from the ground. “I thought it was from that. Weird shit tends to follow people home from those places. You never showed us a picture of him. Of any of your family.”

“He looks like me!” David snapped back, pointing harshly at where Michael had briefly appeared.

Lucas pinched his index finger and thumb together, “That one little flicker was more than Colin and I have seen before . It’s always been stuff out of the corner of our eyes and cold spots.”

When David tackled Lucas, Kaiden only gave an exasperated sigh. He turned away, leaving his packmates to their juvenile fighting, and went to investigate the dead spot and the rest of the yard.

Every tribe had their secrets. Some were shared with other tribes in the protectorate in the spirit of cooperation, but many were still held close to their chest. The Bone Shadows, with their association with death, held a great many secrets pertaining to it. With what Kaiden was taught of them when he was inducted into the tribe told him that ghosts were tethered to objects called Anchors. A representation of the person in their life. They held mystic power tied to the very being of the ghost and kept them stable. A ghost straying too far from their anchors caused them to quickly bleed Essence before discorporating, causing their destruction.

It was clear to Kaiden that David himself was an Anchor. Which was rare, but it happens. The house was obviously one too. The place the ghost lived in life was always one. He went over to where David dropped the baseball when he attacked his packmate. David told them several times how often they played catch with each other.

He picked up the old, worn baseball. He felt a tug on his lupine senses. An almost magnetic pull from the ball to the dead spot where they last saw Michael’s ghost. He would’ve missed it if it weren’t for his Uratha senses.

He squinted at the dead spot. He could almost see a faint shimmer of sorts.

He muttered under his breath in the First Tongue. Invoking different ritual phrases from different seance techniques that the Bone Shadows taught him. But none of them worked. He hadn’t performed them before, so he couldn’t get the inflections right.

He turned back to his two quarrelling packmates. He gave a harsh whistle to catch David’s attention, stopping them from leaping at Lucas again.

Kaiden pointed at the shimmer, “He’s still here.”

David got up and cautiously made his way to the shimmer Kaiden pointed out. He reached a hand out to try and touch his brother. His fingertips hit something solid. It was ice cold but felt like someone’s chest.

He let out a shuddering breath. A breath that was from both grief, and relief.

He snatched his hand out and grabbed his brother, pulling him into a tight embrace. It burned, it was so cold, but the pain was nothing compared to the relief of finally being able to hug his brother again.