Bigfoot Confidential

Book 2: Jericho James

by Jasmine Kuliasha

Genres: Humorous Fantasy; Romantic Fantasy; Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

Jericho James is back for another hilarious and spicy cryptid romcom! 

Supernatural Investigator Jericho James has a problem, and it's not the latest case she's working. Jericho can't shake the feeling that she's being watched. By the trees. Which is honestly not as improbable as the Bigfoot sightings reported in the area. After all, not every legend is real.

But there is something hidden in the woods. Something big, something strong, something…incredibly sexy. And Jericho vows to find it before it finds her.

Something BIG is coming September 2026.

 

Release date: September 15, 2026

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 352

Sample

The cow was definitely dead, despite all evidence to the contrary. It was sitting up, for one.

“Rigor mortis,” the officer said. The name tag sewn above a denim-blue chest pocket read G. ROBERTS in big block print. An expression of lazy indifference was plastered across his face, completely at odds with the horrifying scene in front of us.

I nodded, also taking in the creature. Its glassy brown eyes stared blankly ahead as it sat on its haunches, more like a golden retriever and less like a cow. Its head was cocked to one side like a dog with its tongue lolling out. Except… I leaned in closer. Ew. There was no tongue.

“Been removed,” Roberts offered.

I turned, shading my eyes against the afternoon sun. “By who?” I asked.

Officer Roberts crossed his arms over his chest and raised a thin eyebrow. “You’re Jericho James—isn’t that what you’re here to tell me?”

I flashed a smile, tucking strands of silver-white hair behind my ear. “Of course.”

A second officer stepped over the crest of a hill beside us, his lean frame and flat-brimmed hat silhouetted in the bright light. A thick black mustache stood out against the brown of his skin, and seemed to tilt upward when he shot me a half smile. Sheriff Francisco Villa, the man who’d hired me for this case. “Give it a rest, Greg. Let the woman do her job,” he called.

Roberts shook his head. “It’s clearly the work of pranksters. I don’t know why we had to hire outside help.”

Villa chuckled humorlessly. “Pranksters didn’t do this. You didn’t tell her what else was missing, did you?”

Roberts looked down, then at the cow, then back at his black shoes, not quite hidden in the long green grass. “No,” he muttered.

Villa sighed, turning back to me. “Blood. They’ve all been completely drained of blood.”

My eyes widened. “They? There’s more than one like this?”

Villa cocked his head to the side and motioned for me to follow. I fell in line behind him, my eyes sweeping over the grassy field around us. A split-rail wood fence lined the edge by the road, where my red VW Beetle was parked beside a white SUV with a Washington State Police badge emblazoned on its driver door. We waded through the sea of knee-high green grass away from the cars and the road, over the hill.

When meat is labeled “grass-fed beef,” this is the kind of place it comes from, I mused, cresting the hill. The grass swept down into a valley below, where part of the cattle herd stood. Trees dotted the perimeter of the valley, mostly towering pines whose pointed tips were easily recognizable from any distance. But closer to us were a handful of trees with peeling, almost shaggy, russet bark. Villa said they were red cedar, and the warm woody scent permeated the air. As long as I kept upwind from the deceased cow.

As if trained to my thoughts, the wind, which had steadily been blowing away from us, changed direction. The grass in the valley undulated beneath it dreamily, like waves in an emerald ocean. The cows’ dark bodies were eerily still. I would have thought at least one would be walking, or mooing, or chewing grass, or any other activity my brain lumped in with “cow things.” Then the breeze hit me. Along with the smell. I gagged.

“That’s the rest of them,” Villa said, then pulled his bandana over his nose.

About twenty dead cows in a bizarre state of rigor mortis dotted the field.

My knees threatened to buckle beneath me as the smell sank into every pore. I swallowed, then made my way down the hill on shaking legs.

“Tongues?” I asked.

“Removed,” Villa responded, coming up behind me.

“Blood?”

“Drained.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck.”

I’d reached the nearest cow. Like the one by the road, its tongueless mouth hung open. I leaned closer, resisting the urge to gag. “The eyes are gone, too.”

Villa laced his thumbs through his belt loops, beside the holster for his gun. His coffee-brown eyes flicked from me to the cow, and his throat bobbed. “Yep. On about half of ’em.”

I crouched, eyeing the trampled blades of grass beneath the multitude of hooves. There weren’t any other prints to speak of. But maybe… I walked around the frozen herd, slowly pacing through the pasture. My sharp eyes scanned the vivid green for anything out of place. Nothing. I’d completed my circle. I knelt again, peering under the cows.

Sunlight caught the grass blades on the other side of the herd, limning them in orange. A mountain peak was visible in the distance beyond the crests of rolling hills. Aside from the droning buzz of gathering flies and the rotting stench from so many carcasses, it would have been a perfect July afternoon in the field.

“Where did the blood go?” I asked, standing. “I mean,” I interjected quickly, “did you find any evidence of it anywhere?”

Villa shook his head. “Not a drop. We’re totally stumped. You came recommended by others for the bizarre and unusual in the animal world, so here we are.”

Bizarre and unusual indeed. I chewed my lower lip thoughtfully.

Villa rocked back and forth on his feet for a moment before clearing his throat. “We need to tell people something so they don’t panic. The newspaper is breathing down my neck. The official word right now is wolves.”

I furrowed my brow. “This wasn’t wolves.”

He shrugged. “They’ve been known to eat tongues. Eyes too.”

“Maybe… but they didn’t do this.” I gestured to the bloodless herd.

Shifting his hands to his hips, he frowned. “All right. Then tell me something, James, something I can tell the papers.”

I shook my head, my loose hair swishing across my back, tickling my bare shoulders. The black tank top I wore was enough for the summer, even with the wind. I eyed the field again, rolling hills dotted with the deep evergreen of pine trees. A mountain loomed on the horizon. Mount Adams, I’d learned. This ranch was situated between two mountains, the other being St. Helens, whose blown-out crest wasn’t visible from this distance. To the north lay Mount Rainier, though I couldn’t see it from the dip in the valley.

I touched the nearest cow, swallowing my disgust. The dark skin was pulled taut over its bloated body, but there were wrinkles in the neck where its head was turned.

“Where was the blood drained from?”

“That’s the darndest thing—we can’t figure that out, either.”

I ran my fingers over the cow. Once I’d ridden a mechanical bull at a bar in Texas. It was as realistic as a mechanical bull could be, complete with an old cowhide stretched over the metal body. That’s what this cow felt like. Just cold and hard beneath its skin. A chill that had been building in my core spilled over, trickling through my limbs and spreading like rot. I shuddered.

“All right, expert.” I smelled Roberts’s cockiness before I saw him, and he said expert like I might say asshole. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Villa. “What’s your diagnosis? Aliens?”

I shook my head. “Though the surest sign of intelligent life elsewhere is undoubtedly the fact that they have not tried to contact us.”

Villa bit out a laugh.

“Vampires, then?” Roberts asked.

I ignored him, pressing my fingers into the folds in the cow’s neck.

“Forks is nowhere near here,” he continued, laughing at his own joke.

“There’s no such thing as vampires,” I said confidently, pushing my fingers farther in and prying the skin apart. There. Two divots, about a palm’s width apart. It looked like a bite. From fangs. From something bloodsucking, with fangs. I stepped back.

“There’s no such thing as vampires,” I repeated in a whisper.

“Well?” Roberts asked.

“I need to make a phone call,” I said.

“Jericho James. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Steven Night, head of the Werewolf Council of America, didn’t sound like it was a pleasure at all.

“Mr. Night. I need to confirm something with you.”

“Do it quickly, James.”

“Do vampires exist?”

The silence that followed was heavier than I would have liked, but I waited through it. My werewolf ex-boyfriend had told me they didn’t—couldn’t—exist, scientifically. He should know, I reasoned, since he was both (a) a supernatural being himself, and (b) a scientist. But an entire herd of cattle drained bloodless, with evidence of a fang bite?

“No,” Steven finally said. “But I don’t like that you’re asking me.” His voice was smooth but hard.

“I’m in Washington on a case, and—”

“DC?”

“No, state.” He didn’t respond to that, but I imagined his serious face nodding on the other end of the line. “Something really strange happened to a herd of cattle here.”

“I know,” he said.

“You know already?”

“It’s my business to know, Jericho. Historically, when things go wrong with livestock, do you know who’s the first to be blamed?”

I did know, because Villa had already mentioned it. The ready scapegoat for this crime if the real perpetrator wasn’t caught. “Wolves,” I whispered.

“That’s right. Without fail. Not even Weres, though you understand why we feel a deep kinship with Canis lupus. Inevitably, when the media creates a frenzy and the public goes on the offensive against wolves, our packs end up getting caught in the crosshairs.”

A dull feeling of unease began creeping into the pit of my stomach. “The sheriff here, he actually mentioned telling the newspaper it was wolves, just to get the press off his back,” I said.

“Listen to me very carefully, Jericho James. This is what we pay you for. Your objective here is to stop any word about wolves from getting to the press. Find who the actual culprit is. If the sheriff is already planning to blame the wolves… well, I can keep any story from running for a week. Unless another attack happens. So you need to work quickly, and quietly.”

I was already planning on doing both of those things, even without Steven’s little reminder that my lifestyle had changed drastically since being steadily employed by the Werewolf Council. The breeze shifted again, wafting the rotting stench of dead meat my way. I wrinkled my nose. “Of course.”

“There’s something else, too,” he began.

“And why am I dreading whatever you’re about to say?”

“There have been reports of unsanctioned pack activity in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, near Mount Adams.”

I’d passed a sign for Gifford Pinchot, on the way to the ranch. I glanced at the tree-lined horizon. I was probably looking at that very forest. “You don’t say.”

“I’d like you to check it out while you’re in the area. Locate the pack. The satellite phone I gave you also pings me back with your GPS coordinates, so I’ll know where you are. All you have to do is find the pack. Do not engage. I’m sending a Council representative as well, but she won’t be there for three days. Find them before she gets there. Until then, you’re on your own.”

On my own. Against a possible rogue werewolf pack and an unknown assailant. I leaned against my car, feeling the weight of Steven’s deadlines and request. Something gleamed through the window, the metal handle of my favorite accessory, shining in the afternoon sunlight. “Well, I’m not entirely on my own, Steven. I have this lovely axe to keep me company.”

Steven chuckled dryly on the other end. “I was going to ask about my axe. Take good care of her and she’ll take good care of you.”

“Will do.” That seemed as good of a goodbye as any with Steven, so I went to hang up the phone. Before my finger could press the red icon, he spoke again.

“James. Remember, you only have three days to find the pack before our Council member gets there, and seven to identify the cattle mutilator.”

“So why are we still talking?” I asked.

“Good point.” He hung up.

“And a goodbye to you, too,” I muttered to myself. I pocketed the phone in my tights, maneuvering around the gun I kept strapped to my right hip. The wind shifted again, a welcome respite from the smell. But it brought something new: a truck engine.

I waited by the road as an ancient, beat-up blue Isuzu pickup truck rumbled to a stop beside me a few minutes later. The door swung open with a heavy creak, revealing a leather-boot clad foot, followed by another. I watched as the rancher stepped all the way out, a forest-green flannel tucked into his worn denim jeans. He straightened an honest-to-God cowboy hat on his head and strode my way.

The sound of the truck must have brought the officers as well, because Roberts and Villa crested the hill at the same time.

“Arthur Kovacs,” said Villa, approaching. “This is our expert, Jericho James.”

Arthur—the cowboy—stuck out a hand, callused and stained black with motor oil. I shook it. “Ms. James. We don’t need an expert. Villa could’ve saved you the trip.”

“Oh?” I asked, raising a slender eyebrow.

“This was the work of wolves.”

Dammit. “I really don’t think—”

Arthur laughed, a deep-throated, hearty laugh that Roberts quickly joined in on. “I don’t need you to think, city girl. I know.”

The smell of his overconfidence hit me like a wave. I tossed my head back and laughed in response. Anger never worked with guys like this. But laughing at them? Pure kryptonite. “You’re funny, Arthur. I like you.”

His own laugh died in the wind, and the three men collectively stared at me. Villa’s mouth quirked in a small grin, and he nodded at me to continue.

“Come with me,” I said, leading the men to the golden retriever–cow. I pointed at the ground around the animal. “You can see where we stepped. The dirt itself is too hard, but the grass is down. Now look closer.” I knelt. “There are hoofprints from the cow in the soil, meaning at the time of the attack, the ground was wet enough to leave deep tracks.”

Arthur grunted as he squatted beside me. I caught his weathered blue eyes in my golden ones. “Show me the wolf tracks,” I said.

He shrugged. “They must have washed away. You said so yourself, the ground was wet. It rained the other night.”

“But it didn’t wash away the hoofprints?”

“Cows are heavier ’en wolves.”

I continued, ignoring him. “There are no wolf tracks anywhere around the herd below, either. Or prints of any other kind, besides the cows’. Not one. No scat, not even a hair.” We stood together, and I wiped my palms against my black tights.

“Wolves are uncanny like that,” Arthur’s low voice grumbled. “There’s a pack out in the woods.” He nodded toward the trees on the horizon. “They’ve been worrying some of the folks in the area. Opening doors. Stealing food.”

“Now, Arthur”—Sheriff Villa stepped forward, one hand up in a placating gesture—“I told you we’ve been looking into that, and it seems to be the work of some hoodlums. Human hoodlums, I might add.”

Arthur crossed his arms, shaking his head. “I know what I know, Sheriff. No disrespect to you. It’s the wolves. Crazy Dave saw them last night—”

“And no disrespect to Dave, but there’s a reason even you call him crazy. He sees a lot of things, Arthur,” said Sheriff Villa smoothly.

The rancher shook his head again. “That he does, but I believe him about this.”

The thing is, Arthur was probably right. As was Crazy Dave. But if a rogue pack of werewolves was so indiscriminate as to leave evidence behind that was both wolf and human… Steven was right to be concerned.

“Either way,” I said, bringing the attention of the men back to me. “This was not the work of wolves. Unless they suddenly sprouted wings and started sucking blood.”

Roberts lifted his hands, wagging his fingers. “Ooh, sounds like a vampire bat. Hope you had your rabies shots.” His face split in a wide, unkind grin. “I’ll call the papers, boss.”

“I think you’ll find they’ll be waiting for more evidence before they run the story,” I said.

Sheriff Villa frowned. “I don’t know about all that. But you and I will keep in touch. You have my cell number. Let me know if you need anything, James.”

I nodded at the men, and we parted ways.

My rearview mirror already displayed the dust cloud from the truck and the squad car as I sank into the driver’s seat of my VW. I kept watching as the dust slowly dissipated, the other cars long gone.

Roberts was an annoying jerk, but I couldn’t fault him. I was just as disbelieving last year. Before meeting werewolves. Before dying. Before getting brought back to life with a Serum developed from the lycanthropy virus that amplified my senses and made me faster and stronger. Hello, glow-up.

He also wasn’t totally wrong about at least one thing. I started the engine, ready for the two-hour drive back to Washington’s Vancouver, and to the library.

It was time to research vampire bats.

No sooner had the car engine grumbled to life when my phone buzzed with GPS coordinates and the message Check here first, courtesy of one Steven Night. I’d been planning on heading straight to the Vancouver Community Library to supplement any information Dr. Google could provide, but…

I plugged Steven’s numbers into my maps app, eyes catching on my nail polish as I did: I Moss Ask You a Question, a deep and delicious shade of bluey green. I’d picked it on purpose for this trip, thinking the color would match the Washington forest aesthetic. With all the pine trees in the area, I’d thought correctly.

The map updated, and I was instantly glad that I hadn’t hightailed it back to Vancouver. And for Steven’s prompt communication, which saved me a lengthy drive back to the city, plus more time to return and drive even farther north to the forest. Not all heroes wear capes.

Roughly twenty minutes later, I arrived at the base of Mount Adams, coming to a stop near a worn wooden sign, carved neatly with the words: WILLIAMS MINE TRAILHEAD. I parked in the small lot, thankful that mine was the only car. I didn’t know what I expected to find, but if there was an errant Were-pack somewhere, everything would be easier without human witnesses.

My hot-pink tennis shoes stepped lightly onto the dirt of the parking lot, the brightest splash of color I wore. I’d read somewhere that women spend an average of four days per year picking out what to wear. After that, I’d ditched everything but black; shoes and nail polish excepted. Don’t get me wrong, I love color, but four days is a lot of time to get back just by streamlining your wardrobe.

Today’s ensemble consisted of a black tank top and black tights. A loose black bomber jacket sat crumpled in the passenger’s seat of the car. Summer had just begun in Washington, which meant it was still in the sixty-degree range in the mornings. This would have been far too cold for my Florida-girl blood pre-Serum-boost, but now I found I could get away with a tank top anytime besides the winter. Which certainly saved room in packing. But still, better to be prepared.

Speaking of, I shouldered a matching black backpack that housed my satellite phone, and patted my hips: The small gun on my right and knife on my left were both secure in their holsters. My fingers drifted to my silvery-white hair, another gift from the Serum. The pale strands shone silver in the sunlight, and like the moon in the dark. A nice juxtaposition from my eyes, which always glowed golden like a wolf’s. My fingers connected with two bobby pins that sat snugly behind my ear. I didn’t expect to pick any locks in the forest, but last time I was in the woods I ended up in a mystery house where my lock-picking skills came in very handy indeed. So again, better to be prepared.

The midday sun hung just above Mount Adams like the star on a Christmas tree. Adams’s peak was snowcapped even in the summer, and the breeze from the mountain was chillier than I expected at this elevation. I grabbed the bomber jacket, shrugging it on but rolling up the sleeves, finally setting off on the trail.

The shadows of looming trees poured over the thin dirt path, enveloping me in dim lighting despite the afternoon hour. A sense of déjà vu quickly settled over my skin, clinging stubbornly like plastic wrap. I rubbed at my arms, trying to ease the suffocating sensation.

The last time I’d been in a forest was… last year. On the case in Maine that changed my life. I’d had plenty of cases since then, but none that brought me into the woods. It wasn’t on purpose, I told myself. I certainly wasn’t worried that what happened once might happen again.

I looked up. Pine trees towered over either side of the trail, packed comfortably beside another tree—with peeling, almost hairy-looking bark—blending together in a sea of evergreen. Red cedar, I recalled from Villa. I closed my eyes; the pine mingled with the snowmelt scent from the mountain, and I imagined the fresh air washing over my skin, seeping into my pores and clearing my mind. You’ve got this. You’re Jericho James.

I pulled up my phone again, checking the GPS location. The point Steven sent was about two miles off the trail. Easy-peasy. I straightened my pack and turned off the trail, deeper into the woods. The hike was uneventful, pleasant, even. Before long the trees opened up to a small, grassy clearing. I was at the spot.

So was the body.

I grimaced, my eyes traveling over the deep slashes that raked the elk’s side, reducing the tawny-brown fur to fleshy ribbons. Bite marks marred the poor creature’s neck, including an area where its throat was cleanly ripped out. I gagged.

Normal wolves didn’t hunt like that. They ate to survive, leaving carcasses picked clean. Wolves never mauled animals for fun.

But a rogue pack of werewolves might.

Or would they? I thought about the mutated beasts I’d fought last year; they’d do this. But they weren’t real werewolves. Not anymore. I had a hard time imagining any real pack—rogue or not—would commit this kind of carnage.

I knelt, peering over the bright green grass that dusted the clearing. There were indentations all around the carcass—tracks—though none were clean enough for an identification based solely on the prints. Besides, none looked close enough to either wolf or human to make a strong guess one way or the other.

I called Steven, grateful for the sat phone, and relayed what I saw.

“What are the measurements?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“The elk,” he said tiredly.

I paused, eyeing the animal at my feet. I wasn’t taking the dead creature dress shopping.

A heavy sigh answered my silence, and then, “The distance between individual claw marks. As well as the bite radius on the animal.” He sounded severely put out. “If the cattle you saw this morning are any indication, something else is clearly in these woods, Ms. James. While I have reason to believe an errant pack is there as well, I need you to be my eyes. You need to make absolutely certain of what you’re seeing. So I repeat. What are the measurements?”

My initial instinct was to be sassy at his tone (he heavy-sighed at me?), but I bit it back and dug around in my backpack instead. Damn. After all my talk of being prepared… “I don’t have a tape measure, but eyeballing it I’d say the claw marks are each three inches apart, about the length of my pointer finger. And the bite radius is in-line with other Weres’ jaws I’ve seen.” Lord knows I’d seen plenty of those. I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, eyeing the elk with pity.

“I’d love to leave it at that, James, but the Council needs to cover its tracks.”

Any other time I’d laugh at a wolf-track pun, but I stayed silent, waiting for the head of the Council to continue.

“Basing things on your… eyeballs and fingers is not enough. Please return after obtaining appropriate measuring tools.”

I nodded, phone pressed against my ear. “Sure thing.” The drive was annoying, yes, but the area was frankly gorgeous. And this is what I was getting paid for, after all. I pressed a button on the phone and tossed it back into the pack before turning to the carnage to take some photos.

And immediately stopped. Something had shifted in the trees beyond my view.

Goose bumps pricked at . . .