Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella Read online

  Lycanthropy Files Boxset, Books 1-3

  Cecilia Dominic

  Volume One

  Contents

  Volume 1

  The Mountain’s Shadow

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Volume 2

  Long Shadows

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Volume 3

  Blood’s Shadow

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Volume 4

  A Million Shadows

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  FREE Book!

  About the Author

  Also by Cecilia Dominic

  Foreword

  Thank you for picking up The Mountain’s Shadow!

  I hope you enjoy this tale of medical mysteries, murder, and mischievous werewolves. Look at the back of the book for a chance to sign up for my newsletter list, and as a thank-you gift, I’ll send you a copy of Perchance to Dream, the prequel short story for my new Dream Weavers and Truth Seekers urban fantasy series.

  Thanks again, and happy reading!

  Cecilia

  To all who have the courage to make their own stories better and especially to my own Scottish lion, who has supported and encouraged me to follow my dreams.

  The Mountain’s Shadow

  Copyright © 2017 by Cecilia Dominic

  ISBN: 978-1-945074-11-0

  All rights reserved.

  First edition: 2013

  Edited by Holly Atkinson

  Cover art by Kiersten Fay

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  1

  The two letters arrived the same day.

  I expected the first: my official termination letter from Cabal Industries. Having it in my hands, smoothing the creases, and looking at the stark black print—Bookman Old Style font—on twenty-five pound cotton-bond paper, Robert’s favorite for official business, made my heart thud. The company had been sold, and my lab—with all my data and backups—had been immolated in a fire. The destruction of the lab and the expense of rebuilding my research program during a difficult merger were the given reasons for my being fired, and no, I wouldn’t forgive the pun. The company’s symbol, the black silhouette of a wolf howling against a full yellow moon, cried out for me. “Unfair! Unfair!”

  The second letter held more promise. This one came on plain computer paper with a name on top in block letters: Lawrence Galbraith, Attorney-At-Law. Two hours later, I stood in front of a two-story yellow brick building off Markham Street, just west of downtown Little Rock. A sign in the second-floor window read, “For Rent: Commercial Space.” Mr. Galbraith didn’t have a secretary, but a bell rang when I opened the door. After five minutes, I wasn’t so sure he’d heard me and began the internal argument of whether I should knock on the heavy oak door that separated the sparse waiting room from what I imagined to be the plush inner sanctum. I made up my mind and walked to the door, but when I raised my fist, I heard a male voice from inside.

  “That’s bullshit, Galbraith!”

  “Mr. Bowman, please keep your voice down.” This second one I recognized from the telephone. I had spoken with him earlier. “Doctor Fisher is in the waiting room.”

  “I don’t give a damn about Doctor Fisher.” He sneered my name. “Look, that land is ours by right, and I don’t care if the old man never changed his will. And to bring that overgrown—”

  “How Mr. Landover felt about you during his life is irrelevant if it is not on paper.” Galbraith spoke over him. “I’m sorry, Leonard. You and the others may have to find other grounds for your sport.”

  Leonard’s next statement came out as a cross between a hiss and a whine. “It’s not sport, Lawrence, and you know it. You’re the only one who can help us.”

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  I jumped back from the door just before this Leonard person burst through it like a ball of energy—dark energy. With his olive skin, dark wavy hair, and brooding black eyes, he would earn a second look from most women. I barely got a first one as he snarled at me and stalked out of the office. The bell on the door jangled with the force of his exit.

  “Doctor Fisher, I hope Mr. Bowman didn’t disturb you.” Lawrence Galbraith looked down his aquiline nose at me and pursed his thin lips. With his mane of gray hair and simple black suit with a long jacket over a white shirt, no tie, he could have stepped out of a mid-twentieth-century movie about an undertaker.

  “He certainly seemed upset about something.” I wanted him to say more about what this brooding young man wanted with my grandfather’s estate, but he evaded the implied question.

  “Most of my clients are, Doctor Fisher. If they’re not disturbed about something, they’re dead. Otherwise they wouldn’t need a lawyer.” He held out a chair and scooted it under me as I sat.

  “I understand. Now about my grandfather’s estate?”

  I expected him to do the lawyer thing and pull out a file bursting with paper and tell me to look through it and see if I had any questions. Instead, he sat back a
nd steepled his fingers.

  “I knew your grandfather quite well, Doctor Fisher. He was very proud of Wolfsbane Manor.” He studied me through narrowed eyes. “You visited there quite often as a child, yes?”

  “I spent my summers there.”

  “And your twin brother?”

  I looked away. For some reason, I always felt guilty whenever someone asked about my brother. “Andrew never knew my grandfather – he died too young. My mother didn’t have the guts to visit my grandfather again until after my parents started fighting. Apparently he and my father didn’t get along.”

  “He spoke to me about the rift, how it broke his heart to lose his only daughter. He told me you were a lot like your mother.”

  I couldn’t catch the rude noise before it escaped. “I don’t think so.” When I thought about my mother, I remembered the gentle hands that so quickly turned hard when she slapped me. I hadn’t spoken to her since I had gotten my first assistantship in graduate school and no longer needed her financial support.

  He ignored my comment and asked, “How much do you know about your grandfather’s estate?”

  The memories tumbled through my brain so fast I almost couldn’t keep up with them. “It’s up in the mountains and used to be really far away from everything. It took forever to drive there on winding mountain roads. There’s a stream that bubbles up from underground near the top of the hill where the house is, and it goes to a river.”

  “Anything else?”

  I thought back and tried to untangle murky threads of childhood memory. “The house is huge, old-fashioned, with a ballroom and a mural on the ceiling. I don’t know what my grandfather did to earn his money, but he seemed to have a lot of it and was careful spending it.”

  “He was immensely careful. Consequently, his estate, with house and property and all, is worth five hundred million dollars.” He ignored my astonishment and continued, “I told him he had plenty to share between you and your mother, but he insisted the bulk of it go to you. Something about your research.”

  “He didn’t even know what I did. Really, Mr. Galbraith, we didn’t speak at all.” It seemed impossible he could have kept up with my career from someplace so remote.

  “Ah, but he followed your career quite closely.”

  “He did? He never contacted me beyond the occasional birthday card, especially after I stopped going up there when I was in high school.”

  “Yes, he did. He was a researcher in his own right.”

  “Is there anything in there for Mother?” Guilt welled up like it was my fault he left everything to me.

  “A small annuity to keep her comfortable until she passes on.” He waved my concern away with one hand. “It won’t dent your fortune overmuch.”

  “What am I supposed to do with all that money?”

  “Whatever you want. I think you will find enough up there in the hills to keep you busy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His gray eyebrows met over his nose and gave him such an ominous expression I wondered if he practiced it. “Have you ever heard of the Landover curse?”

  “The what?” This was new. But then a memory tickled the back of my brain, whispered conversations outside the room where my brother and I slept in twin beds about something wrong with Mother’s side of the family.

  Something about the set of Galbraith’s mouth made me wonder if he mocked me. “If it pops up, you’ll know. It supposedly skips a generation.”

  “What is ‘it’?”

  “You probably have nothing to worry about, Doctor Fisher. I recommend you go and claim your property as soon as you can. I can help you with arrangements to break your lease and move your things from Memphis.”

  “Okay. No, wait, what? I can’t just move.” My head was in a fog, still worried about the curse. What was the curse? Insanity? Some weird genetic disease? And underneath all his assurances, Galbraith seemed worried. A little line had appeared between his brows.

  “…will arrange to have movers pack and ship your apartment’s contents to the Manor,” he was saying as he picked up the telephone.

  “Whoa, wait a second.” I held up my hands. “This is too much right now. I can’t just break my lease, pick up, and go.”

  “I understand.” He reached across the table and patted my hand. “You need a little while to absorb all of this. But I assure you, it is imperative you move up there and take possession of the property.”

  My eyes blurred with tears. “I don’t even know how my grandfather died.”

  Galbraith rubbed his temples. “I was afraid you would ask.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know, either.”

  When I arrived at Bistro, a little French place in West Little Rock, my head was still spinning. The key to Wolfsbane Manor was nestled in my purse between my cell phone and my wallet on a keychain that read in bright pink letters, “So NOT a morning person.” After some argument – which I obviously lost – I had handed over the apartment keys to Galbraith, who assured me he would take care of everything and I could expect my belongings in a few days’ time. I’d objected to the hastiness of the move, but I may as well have been talking to the stone lions outside the manor’s door.

  Lonna, my best friend, had arrived before me and sat in a booth along the wall. When she saw me, she waved with one of her long, tanned arms, which looked particularly dark in the white sleeveless top she wore.

  “Somebody’s been to the tanning booth,” I teased as we hugged. I only came up to her shoulder, but I smelled the orange and coconut conditioner she used in her long, dark hair.

  “It’s my guilty indulgence. I figure, with this job, it’ll be a miracle if skin cancer kills me first.” Even though she meant it as a joke, there was something serious in her topaz-colored eyes. A private-investigator-turned-social worker with the Department of Family and Child Services, she didn’t have an easy job.

  I slid into the booth across from her and picked up a menu. “What’s going on over there?”

  “Just the typical bureaucratic bullshit. Not all that interesting, so you go first. You said earlier you had big news.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but she interrupted me.

  “Oh, and how’s Robert? You guys haven’t come over in a while.”

  “We’re not together anymore.” It hurt to remember our little road trips from Memphis to recruit research participants from the Little Rock pediatricians’ offices.

  “Did his wife find out?”

  “Worse. I got fired, so no more excuses to see each other.”

  “Ouch! When?”

  “I got the letter today. I kept hoping there would be some sort of appeal or something, but no dice. I didn’t want to tell you until it became official.” The fact Robert hadn’t even stood up for me hurt the most.

  “I wish I could understand you, Joanie. How could you not tell me?”

  “You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to understand.”

  She didn’t fall for the guilt trip. “So was that the big news?”

  “No, I also found out today I inherited my grandfather’s estate, so I’ve got the dinner check.”

  “Congratulations, but not so fast there, Fisher.” She gave me a stern look over the menu. “Let’s tackle one thing at a time. You got fired. Tell me more.”

  “It was after the lab caught fire. They still don’t know what started it.” For a second I thought I could feel the heat and smell the smoke from the blaze. Sweat jumped to my forehead, and I had to take a sip of water. This was why I hadn’t spoken to her about it in detail before—the memory made me panic.

  “I’m sorry, Joanie.” She reached across the table and put a hand on my arm. “You don’t really have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  I smiled at her implied question. “But details are important? You’re such a private detective.”

  She grinned. “How else are you going to figure out what happened?”

  “Good point, al
though it’s not like it matters now.” I took a deep breath. “One night about a month ago, I was compiling data, pediatric charts, in our statistical spreadsheet…” Just talking about it brought me back. “I was checking to make sure the information in the files converted into the correct columns in the spreadsheet when I heard my car alarm go off. I jumped down, really annoyed because I was on the cusp of running the first analysis, and my lab coat caught on the stool. Really caught. Like the corner of it had gotten stuck in the middle joint where you adjust the height and then twisted in there. I was tugging at it when the smoke alarm went off. When I opened the lab door, the hallway was in flames.” The squeeze of Lonna’s fingers brought me back to the restaurant, and I blinked to clear the after-images, which still came to my vision when I talked too much about it.