
WEREWOLF P.I.
By Tim Myers
Werewolf PI
by Tim Myers
Copyright © 2010 by Tim Myers
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
Chapter 1
It was late afternoon when the couple walked hesitantly into my office, and it didn't take my heightened senses as a werewolf to realize that they were scared out of their wits being in Dogtown, a name the locals and the cops called our part of the city. As a private detective, I couldn't afford a place on Prince Avenue in the downtown district near the courthouse where some of my competitors worked, and even if I had the money, I knew I wouldn't be welcome there. Whether I liked it or not, I was right where I belonged, among my brothers and sisters of the Wolf. Being a werewolf meant that there were built‑in prejudices against me in the outside world, but I hadn't chosen the freak chromosome that had made me what I was. If I was honest about it, I would have to admit that I liked the way things were just fine. There are definite advantages to being able to shift into something more than I normally am; something primal, something dangerous, and in many ways, something superior. It's all a matter of controlling the shift, and brothers and sisters of the Wolf learn to do it early in their existence, or risk being sent away to New Pitcairn, a small island off the coast of Australia where escape is impossible, and redemption nonexistent.
"May I help you?" I asked as I studied her shoes and his suit. An ex girlfriend had once taught me the difference between Jimmie Choos and PayMore knockoffs, and I could see the man's suit was Armani. He was at least twenty years older than his companion, but it was pretty clear she was the reason they were in my office, ten miles and a dozen social levels below their comfort zone. It looked like I'd be eating better than my usual budget takeout if I could land them as clients, so I was on my best behavior.
The woman nudged her escort gently, and he finally spoke. He must have been in good shape a dozen years ago, but he hadn't taken care of himself, and his weight was something he couldn't hide with expensive tailoring. There were streaks of gray in his hair, and a puffiness in his features. "You're Trask."
It wasn't a question, but I answered it anyway. "Guilty as charged. And you are?"
He paused, and she obviously got tired of waiting for him to reply. Her hair was blonde, and while time had ravaged her companion, she looked like she hadn't gained an ounce since high school. I would have been willing to bet she'd been a cheerleader, but I doubted she'd appreciate the question, so I kept that one to myself. When she spoke, her voice was calm and full of the power of people used to being listened to, and obeyed. "I'm Stephanie Granger, and this is my husband, Thomas. We need your help."
"That's why I'm here. Would you like a seat?" I was as charming as I knew how to be, driven by my checking account balance, which was dipping perilously close to double digits.
"Thank you," she said as she took the best chair I had, leaving her husband to fend for himself. He didn't take the other client chair though.
Instead, he stood over me and stared for at least a minute before he said, "You're really a..."
I didn't let him finish. "Private detective? That's what it says on the door, and I have cards to match, if you'd like one." I tried grinning at him, but the expression on his face made me kill it instantly. Most folks outside of Dogtown found my teeth a little too disturbing. It didn't file them like some of my compatriots do, but I have some pretty sharp canines hidden from the world most of the time.
"That's not what I meant," he said.
His wife shook her head. "Thomas, just ask him."
"We heard that you're a werewolf." He spat the words out at me as if they were poison.
I leaned back in my chair, trying not to lose my temper. I couldn't afford to, at least not without more justification than I had so far. "Some of us prefer the term lycanthrope, but werewolf's fine with me. There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm not going to transform right here. Believe it or not, we don't spend a lot of time shifted in wolf form, no matter what you might have heard."
Thomas Granger looked outside my window as the day started creeping into twilight. "Isn't there supposed to be a full moon tonight?"
I smiled again, not caring if I showed my glistening teeth. There was no warmth or amusement in my expression. I wasn't a big fan of bigots, if they were potential clients or not. "You've been watching too many Lon Chaney movies. The pull of the moon isn't what changes us. We have control over that ourselves. If you have any silver bullets on you though, I'd appreciate it if you didn't test that particular theory out on me."
Stephanie looked up at her husband. "For goodness sake, Thomas, sit down. You're making a fool of yourself. Do it now."
It was a command, not a request, and he reluctantly obeyed.
I gave her my full attention, since it was pretty clear the decision to hire me or not was hers. "Mrs. Granger, I doubt you came all the way down here to this part of town just to slum it and see how the other half lives. How can I help you?"
She nodded. "It's our daughter, Jennifer. She's run off, and we need you to find her. Mr. Trask, our child may be seventeen, but she's still our baby girl in our eyes, and we're afraid she's gotten herself into a situation she can't get herself out of."
"No offense, but there are plenty of private detectives in your part of town. What made you choose me?"
She didn't want to tell me-it was clear enough in her eyes-but she really didn't have much choice. Mrs. Granger was trying to find the right words when her husband spoke for her again. "Jenny ran off with one of your kind. We need you to track her down and bring our daughter back home to us, no matter what it takes."
That got my attention. Werewolves exist on a kind of permanent probation, and if what she was telling me was true, another werewolf had just violated it, and had done it in a big way. In the eyes of the law, their daughter was still a minor, and that made it grounds for banishment for him. If the slightest bit of harm came to the girl while she was with him, he'd be executed. I couldn't think of anything or anyone worth risking New Pitcairn or worse, if death was indeed the poorer of the two. Either he had lost control, or she had some kind of powerful hold on him. No matter the reason, this guy was going to be dangerous. I'd once lost a friend, James Evans, who'd gone over the edge. A woman named Amanda-one of our kind, ironically enough-had broken his heart, and instead of getting drunk, James had gone berserk, shifting to his wolf form in the middle of downtown at dead noon. If I'd been there, maybe I could have stopped him. Or maybe not. But at least I would have tried. James had torn up a lot of property, and that would have gotten him a pretty severe punishment, but what sealed his fate was the injury to one of the cops trying to subdue him. It wasn't much more than a few scratches across the man's forearm, but it had drawn blood, and the way the law had been written, that was enough. James had been trying to free himself from the silver nets they'd thrown on him, and he'd taken a swipe with his claws out of frustration. The authorities showed his execution on special big screens mounted all over Dogtown, and sometimes I could still hear his screams at night. The part about cruel and unusual didn't apply to me or my people, and the executioners had taken their sweet time killing him.
"What's this man's name?" I asked the Grangers.
"Harkins," Stephanie said, as if she were uttering a curse. "I don't know his first name."
"It's Matthew," I said softly.
"You know him?" Thomas Granger asked.
"We've met." It was a great deal more than that, but I wasn't going to get into it with these people. Most of the residents of Dogtown had believed that Harkins would be the next one to go over the edge for the past six or seven years, but somehow he'd managed to hold on, covering his shifting rages and the havoc that he'd reaped while he'd been zoned. That's what some of our people called shifting, zoning to another state of being as the transformation kicked in. I'd been zoned more myself than the law would have liked, but I'd learned to cover my tracks too, though I'd never killed any innocents while I'd been shifting. There was an edge, a fine element of control, that was tough to master, but it kept the rational part of me in charge, and not the killing wolf baying in frustration, trying to get out.
Harkins and I had a few run-ins in the past, and once he'd shifted on me in the middle of an argument, going for my throat while I was still in human form. If it weren't for my quirky ability to shift quicker than just about anyone else-including Harkins-he would have ripped my esophagus out, and there wouldn't have been anything I could do to stop him. As it was, he'd latched onto mostly fur, but I'd been hoarse for a week from the impact of that single strike to my neck.
"Can you bring our baby back home to us?" Stephanie Granger asked, the hope impossible to miss in her gaze.
"I'll do my best," I said.
"What if that's not good enough?" Thomas Granger asked, with more than a hint of disdain in his words.
"If I can't do it, then there's nobody in Dogtown able to get her back," I answered flatly, biting my anger down.
Stephanie looked at me for a few seconds, then commanded her husband, "Pay him."
"I'm not satisfied yet," Thomas Granger said.
She didn't say a word, but the look she gave him was more than eloquent enough to motivate him to do as he was told. Granger didn't even question my fee, or my daily expenses-and I'd doubled them both on the spot, just because he'd pissed me off. I like to think of it as my jackass tax, assessed whenever someone behaves accordingly. I took the check from him, folded it once, then put it in my sparse wallet. I'd have to deposit it soon and draw out some cash. The places I was going to have to go in search of their daughter didn't take checks or credit cards, and money would buy information.
"I want to see her room, and then I'll need a recent picture of her."
Stephanie Granger stood, and her husband and I followed her out into the hallway.
"Don't you need to lock up?" Stephanie asked as she paused outside my door.
"No, I'm good," I said.
"You trust your people that much?" Thomas Granger asked, looking at me with open contempt.
I didn't want to tell him that there was nothing in my office worth stealing. Instead, while his wife was looking away, I shifted, just a little. It wasn't enough for anyone but the most observant watcher to see from more than ten feet away, but it was still enough to get me arrested for illegal shifting. I showed Thomas Granger my open grin, checking to make sure his wife didn't see me as I elongated my teeth and phased my blue eyes to glowing green. The bridge of my nose loosened for just a second, and I flashed a muzzle of teeth at him. As quickly as I'd shifted into my wolf phase, I shifted back to normal just as Stephanie Granger looked over at me.
The shift might not have been long, but it had been effective. Thomas Granger's Armani suit was going to need to be dry‑cleaned before he wore it again.
I'd made my point. He'd hired my talents and abilities to find his daughter, but he hadn't bought himself a trained dog, and if there had been any doubt in his mind before, it was gone now.
There was a midnight black Hummer limousine parked in front of my building, and I suddenly understood why the Grangers had risked a visit to Dogtown. Leaning against the vehicle was a well built man over six and a half feet tall. He had a machine gun clutched in his hands, held with the touch of somebody who knew how to use it. The guy would have been arrested going around like that in any other part of the city, but in a way, he fit right into my little neighborhood. In the growing shadows across the street, I saw two dark shapes fade into the background, intently watching us, but nobody made a move in our direction. I'd joked with Thomas Granger earlier about silver bullets, but I knew that a shot in the heart would kill one of us just as easily as it would kill one of the norms, what we called folks untouched by the gene that had turned us into wolves.
But was their guardian using the right ammunition? A regular barrage of bullets would slow us down, and maybe that was all he was after. Either way, I wasn't about to ask. The chauffeur/bodyguard went into full attack readiness the second we stepped out onto the sidewalk. Not everyone in Dogtown was a werewolf, but enough were to wager that the two watching us made the cut. Not that I'd have to bet. They couldn't have been any easier to spot if they'd been sporting glow-in-the-dark nametags. They wore the miracle rayon jumpsuits that allowed us to transform without disrobing, outfits that shifted with us, in and out of werewolf form. My heightened senses included a more pronounced sense of smell, and while the Grangers had no idea they were there-let alone that there were werewolves stalking potential prey-I knew exactly how much trouble we were in if they decided to strike. The bodyguard, no matter how good he was in the outside world, wouldn't be of much help, and I was in no mood to take two of my brethren on for this group. Still, I had the feeling that the guard knew more about the likelihood for trouble than he was letting on. The Grangers got into the car, and then I slid in beside them. Ten seconds later, the driver got in up front and took off at a pretty fast clip. Maybe he'd had a better sense of potential trouble than I'd given him credit for.
Ignoring my new employers for the moment, I leaned forward and asked, "Spot them both?"
He nodded. "Five meters away, one on each side of the doorway across from us. Werewolves, both of them."
"What gave them away?" It was more than just idle curiosity. There were many times in my occupation when I had to walk among the innocents, and I couldn't do my job if they could tell I was a shifter.
He shrugged. "Half a dozen different things about them."
"For instance."
He saw I wasn't going to let up. "They were both standing there one second, and the next they'd faded back into the dark, like they were made of smoke or something." He frowned, and I spotted it in the rearview mirror.
"Anything else?" There was something he wasn't telling me.
After a long moment's hesitation, he said, "If I said I could smell them, you wouldn't believe me."
"You might be surprised."
He looked at me in the mirror a second more, then said, "You wouldn't be, though, would you?"
All during our conversation, the Grangers sat there silently, as if they were afraid to move or utter a single word.
"No points for that guess," I said. "Look where we just came from."
He sniffed the air, then said, "I wasn't guessing."
I nodded. "If you're that good, why don't you hunt Jennifer and her boyfriend down yourself?"
Mrs. Granger stiffened beside me. "Don't call him that. Ever. He's a monster, and not just because of his chromosomes."
I shrugged. "My question stands."
Thomas Granger said, "We can't spare him. Emmitt has too many other responsibilities with the family."
Like protecting your precious hide, I thought. For once, I kept it to myself. Still, it surprised me that Mrs. Granger hadn't insisted on it despite her husband's protests.
Emmitt finally answered himself, but only after Mrs. Granger nodded slightly with her permission. "I got clipped in the leg a few years ago, and it hasn't been right since. I can't move like I used to." He gave me the confession like it cost him money.
"What happened?"
He tilted his head. "Nothing worth mentioning."
The car finally came to a stop, and I looked out to see that we'd pulled in front of a stone and steel protected property, with barbed wire lacing the top of the perimeter fence. Emmitt hit a remote control button on the dash, and the gate vanished straight down into the pavement, allowing us to pass. As the rear bumper passed by, the gate came back up with a smooth and fast motion. The process was quick enough to deter any but the boldest interloper.
After driving up a long and twisting road, we came to the house. It was a mansion, bigger than I'd ever been in before, and I found myself wishing I'd trebled my fees instead of just doubling them. Too bad there was no chance of getting any more out of Thomas Granger now; my shifting demonstration had seen to that. I still didn't regret it. He needed to know up front that, while he'd bought my time and my best effort, he hadn't bought me.
We went inside, and Stephanie Granger said, "Jennifer's room is this way."
Her husband excused himself and left the two of us alone. Once he was gone, she turned to me with amusement in her gaze. "What did you do to my husband? I've never seen him so cowed."
I tried my best look of innocence on her. "Me? I don't know what you're talking about."
"I think you do."
I wasn't about to admit what I'd done. She'd probably want a demonstration of her own, and I wasn't going to risk it again. Seeing that I wasn't going to let her in on what had happened, she opened the door and led me into her daughter's room.
It had been quite a while since I'd been in a seventeen year old's bedroom, and this still wasn't what I'd been expecting. It could have been a generic guest room for all the personality it had, a decorating scheme straight from a magazine with no individual imprint on it at all. There were no posters on the walls, no books on the nightstand, not even a study desk. "Are you sure you've got the right room? It's a big house, I'm sure it's easy to get confused."
She looked around. "It is rather austere, isn't it?"
Like a prison cell, I thought. "She must be a minimalist. I can respect that." I turned to Mrs. Granger and said, "I need a recent photograph of her, remember? Something I can make copies of, if you've got it."
She nodded, then started to leave the room. When she saw I wasn't following along behind her, she stopped. "Aren't you coming?"
"I thought I'd look around while you were gone."
She frowned, so I added, "I won't take anything without telling you first, okay?"
"Fine," she said, though her expression said it was anything but. "I'll be right back."
The second she was gone, I started tossing the room for something, anything that might tell me where the girl had gone. It was a quick but thorough search, and the yield was absolutely zero. I was about to turn back to the hallway when a scrap of paper caught my eye at the edge of the bed. It looked like a vacuum cleaner had nudged it under there instead of picking it up. I straightened the paper out and saw that a telephone number was scrawled on it, hastily scribbled as if it had been written in the dark. It was something, though what I couldn't say until I dialed it. Most likely it would be a number for takeout Chinese food, but it might be something important, and until I found out, I was going to keep it to myself. I shoved it into my pocket as Mrs. Granger returned. "What was that?" she asked.
"Used gum. I got tired of it pretty fast. Would you like some?" I don't know what I would have done if she'd said yes, but I was saved the trouble of lying when she declined the offer.
"Here's the picture you asked for," she said as she handed it to me.
I studied it and saw a slim teenaged brunette with obvious signs of gleaming metal braces on her teeth. Unfortunately for her, she'd inherited her father's looks, and not her mother's. I tapped the picture. "Would you mind telling me what your daughter is like?"
"Why on earth would that matter?" Mrs. Granger asked.
"Given the sparseness of her room, I was hoping you could help me get a handle on her personality. I don't have much of an idea of who she hangs out with, what she does, anything that might tell me where to start looking for her."
Stephanie Granger looked around the room a few moments, as if seeing it all for the first time. "I don't know, at least not anymore. We've drifted apart the last few years. I can't even tell you the last time I was in here. It's dreadful, isn't it?"
I had a hunch her husband wouldn't be any better. "Does Jennifer have a best friend? Someone she might confide in?"
"No, there's no one. She always was one to keep to herself. She's an odd child, I know that, even though I love with all my heart, I'm not blind to her quirks."
This was getting ridiculous. "How about Emmitt? Does he know her very well?"
"There's no need to speak with him," she said. "He never had any contact with Jennifer at all."
Except for the photograph and the errant telephone number, the house was one big, dry hole. I wasn't going to have any luck tracking Jennifer down, but that didn't leave me stymied. If she was with Harkins, when I found him, she wouldn't be far away.
"I'll take off, then. Can Emmitt give me a ride back to my office?"
"I'm sorry, but he's out running another errand for me. You may use the telephone to call a cab, if you'd like." Obviously, she'd never tried to get a cab to go into Dogtown. It didn't matter if it was noon or midnight, the chances would both be the same: zero.
"No thanks. I'll use my cell phone and call a friend. She can pick me up at the gate, if I can get out."
"Buzz me when you get there. I can release it from here. Find her, Mr. Trask."
"I'll do my best."
"I expect to hear from you soon."
I shrugged. "That would be nice, but I'm not going to check in unless I've got something to tell you. If you hear from her first, let me know."
"Of course," she said, then dismissed me with a wave of her hand.
As I walked out of the house and toward the gate, I called my friend Belle Gray for a ride. Belle was short for Belladonna. She was a slim woman in her early thirties with one eye that matched her last name, and she had a full mane of jet black hair. We'd known each other for years. There'd never been anything romantic between us, and in my opinion, that made our friendship stronger.
She answered on the fifth ring. "Hey. I need a ride."
"Yeah? I need a thousand bucks myself. I'm not your chauffeur," she said. "Drive yourself."
It was all I could do to keep from feeling all warm and fuzzy from her tone of voice. "I can't, my car's at the office and I'm in the city. I can pay for your gas if you can wait until I go to the bank."
She laughed. "You're hopeless, aren't you? Where exactly in the city are you?"
I gave her the address, and she whistled into the phone. "What are you doing there, applying to be a pet?"
"Not funny," I said, her joke stinging me a little. Belle didn't understand or accept my line of work, and she especially didn't get why I ever helped norms. But she supported me anyway, and that was all I could ask of a friendship. "Can you come or not?"
"Be there in twenty minutes."
I thought about using my waiting time productively, like interviewing the neighbors, but there were gates at every driveway, and I finally decided to just sit at the curb until Belle arrived. I pulled out the number on the paper, dialed it, and was surprised to hear the bartender from the Wolfbane answer, identifying the place.
I hung up on him, wondering what rich little Jennifer Granger was doing with the telephone number to one of the seediest bars in Dogtown on a slip of paper in her room.
I was still wondering what it meant twenty minutes later when, good to her word, Belle pulled up in a beater that had more Bondo patches than paint, but it ran like a charm.
"Hop in."
I did as she directed, and she took off before I even shut my door. "In a hurry?"
"I hate being on this side of town after dark."
I looked to see if she was kidding, but her bad eye was toward me, and I couldn't tell. I don't know why I call it a bad eye. It's gone, torn out when a set of claws slashed her before we met. She always wore a black silk patch over it, and the scars had faded somewhat, but it was unsettling if you weren't expecting it. Belle had never told a soul who'd slashed her, and most folks had tired of asking. I figured she realized that if she ever wanted to talk about it, she'd know where I was.
"Where to?" she asked as we reentered Dogtown. "Are we going to your office first?"
"No, I'll pick my car up later." I needed to find out what Jennifer's connection to Harkins was, and how the bar fit into it all.
"Let's go to the Wolfbane," I said.
"It's about time you bought me a drink," she said as she turned toward the bar.
"That would be pleasure. This is business."
"What business is that?"
"I'm looking for Matthew Harkins," I said.
Belle jerked the car to a stop, nearly putting me through the windshield. "Get out."
"What? You're kidding me. Come on, Belle."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" She nudged my chest with a knife blade that hadn't been in her hand a second before. It wouldn't kill me, but it wouldn't be a joy to take, either.
I got out, and she locked the door and rolled down the window part of the way.
As I leaned forward, she said softly, "If you're going to kill yourself, I'm not going to help you do it. Do you understand?"
"I'm on a case. Harkins has abducted a norm girl, and she's underage. The faster I find them, the better off everybody in Dogtown is going to be. That's a good enough reason to go looking for him, isn't it?"
Before I could answer, she drove off, nearly taking my left arm with her.
There was just one thing left I could do. I started walking toward the Wolfbane, in search of a rogue werewolf and a young girl in over her head.
Chapter 2
"Trask, you're not welcome here," the bartender told me as I walked into the Wolfbane. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, but I didn't need my vision to identify the voice.
"Fox, is that any way to greet an old friend?"
He was holding a baseball bat, thumping it against his free hand as he spoke. There were other folks in the bar, but I couldn't take my gaze off Fox just yet. We had a score to settle, and if I didn't take care of him first, I was going to get a shot, and not the kind I needed.
"I paid for the damage. I don't see what the big deal is," I said as I looked around the place. There were mismatched tables and chairs scattered out on the concrete floors, and the barstools had been old when Fox had installed them. He believed that customers came to the Wolfbane to drink and not to socialize, and with the damage done to the place every week, he was probably smart not to invest too much in his décor.
"You're not serious," Fox said. "How about breaking a customer's arm? Did you pay for that?"
"Tommy Grace didn't want to tell me something I needed to know, so I had to persuade him a little stronger than I usually like. Any problem I have is with him. I thought you and I were good."
"Yeah, well you thought wrong."
"What's it going to take to make things right?" I had the last of my cash in my pocket-since I hadn't taken care of the check yet-and I put the money on the bar between us. "Will that take care of it?"
He reached for it, and the cash disappeared into his pocket. Fox shrugged. "I guess so."
"Good."
I hadn't had time to ask him about Jennifer Granger and Matthew Harkins yet, so I was about to when I noticed Fox's glance go over my shoulder. Someone was approaching me from behind. I caught sight of the image in the mirror behind the bar, and saw that it was Tommy Grace himself. From the way Fox looked at me, I figured we were good, at least for the moment. I hoped so, anyway, because I was about to turn my back on him.
I put a hand on Tommy's chest. "Slow down before somebody gets hurt."
"Get your grubby paw off me. If I hadn't been drunk, you never would have got the drop on me before. Want to try it now, when I'm stone sober and ready for you?"
"I don't want to fight you, Tommy. There's no beef between us. Just leave it alone."
Tommy looked around the bar and laughed. "Do you hear that? He's not a wolf. He's more like a Chihuahua." The crowd rustled softly as he turned back to me. "Go home, little doggie. We don't want you here."
There were a few uncomfortable laughs in the bar, but most folks were sitting there quietly, waiting for something else to happen.
I might have let it slide, but Tommy was making me look bad in front of a lot of people, and I couldn't afford to let anybody in Dogtown think I was slowing down a step, or I'd be putting down challenges all the time, and I'd quit fighting for the sake of the battle years before.
I'd controlled my thirst for blood, but apparently Tommy hadn't.
"Take it outside," Fox warned. "I won't have you fighting in my bar again."
If he'd nudged me in the back with that baseball bat, I would have made him eat it, but since he didn't, I decided to let him live.
I turned to Tommy. "Do we really have to do this?"
"I've been dreaming about taking you down, Trask. You're mine."
I just shook my head. "Let's get it over with, then."
Tommy followed me toward the door, but before we could even get outside, I could feel him shifting behind me. He really did want me, if he was willing to zone so he could jump me before I had a chance to react.
Without thought, without preordination, I let the part of me chained in my heart out, and before Tommy's claws could crush the back of my skull in, I shifted to full phase, something not many brethren of mine could do in ten seconds, let alone the scant second it took me.
I was still there as my body changed, but I wasn't in total control, at least not with the tamed part of my mind. It was like watching myself on stage from the wings. I knew what was happening, but I couldn't stop it at that point if I'd wanted to. I'd let the beast out too quickly to control. We don't become wolves, and we don't stay men and women when we shift. Instead, we become something between the two, something strong, and quick, and deadly.
I knocked his taloned paw away from its arc toward my eyes and drove one clenched paw into his gut, driving him off his feet and back into the bar. If I'd wanted to hurt him badly, I would have left my claws exposed so that the spikes would have been driven straight into his stomach, but I was still hoping I wouldn't have to teach him that hard a lesson.
Tommy managed to right himself, drawing on energy reserves he could ill afford to tap. I could see it in his eyes, a spike of real fear, as he stood to face me again.
Would he act on his trepidation, or would Tommy try to brave his way through and attack again?
As he leapt for my throat, there wasn't much doubt I was going to have to hurt him, and seriously, to get him to stop.
Keeping my paws tightly clenched, I started battering him, shifting punches from his stomach to his head to his barrel chest at will. He managed to stay on his feet through most of the pounding, but he couldn't ward off my blows. Taking aim, I drove my fist into his gut shooting for a spot three feet behind him, and he finally went down.
I looked around, still in my fully shift form. We can talk while we're shifting, something most norms don't realize, but it's more guttural than actual enunciation. "Anybody else?" I asked as I glared at everyone standing around us.
There were no takers, so the fight was over, at least for tonight. Harnessing the beast inside is a lot tougher than letting it go free, and it seemed like every time I had to do it, it got a little harder than the time before. With a long, low breath, I got the beast within me back under control and felt my body shift back to normal.
Belle was by my side as soon as the transition was complete. "Let's get you out of here."
"I'm not ready to go anywhere yet," I said. "You left me out in the street, remember?" My hormones were still running high, and I wasn't in any mood to be pampered.
"You proved your point," she said as she gestured at Tommy, who was now getting help from some of his friends. "Unless you want Round Two with reinforcements, we need to take off."
I glanced around, but I couldn't see Harkins, or any of his friends, for that matter. I'd have to talk to Fox later. Belle was right. Evidently Tommy wasn't finished with me, no matter how bad a beating he'd just taken.
Belle handed me a bar towel. "Use this."
"What for?" I asked as I took it from her. "He never touched me."
Belle dipped a hand to my shoulder, then showed it to me. "What's this, catsup? He clipped you at one point, unless you did that to yourself."
Evidently Tommy had managed to get one good shot in, and he hadn't pulled in his claws for the blow. My shoulder hadn't been hurting until I saw that blood, but as the adrenaline died, there was pain I hadn't even been aware of. Shifting takes energy, but not as much as healing does. It was going to be hours before I was ready for combat again.
I was lucky my friend had come along when she had.
I let Belle lead me out as my shoulder started to throb with pain, and by the time we got to the car, I was feeling disoriented.
That's when I knew that it was no ordinary slash. I'd been hit a dozen times from other werewolves in the past, but never with this much throbbing.
"Something's wrong," I said.
Belle didn't even look over at me as she drove us away from there. "Do you mean besides you getting blood on my carpet?"
I shook my head. "Take me to Bailey."
Belle's disgust for my friend was plain to see. "You don't need him."
"Just do it," I said, and then I passed out.
I woke up in familiar surroundings, though they weren't my own. It took me a second to realize that I was in Bailey's bedroom, a small nook in the corner of his lab. Bailey Hope was one of us, a brother of the Wolf, but he mixed freely with the norms, something few of rest of us could do. Bailey taught at the university-lycanthropy, of course-and in his spare time, he strove to find something to nullify the mutation's curse we lived under. It made him an outcast in our world as well, but he was my best friend, and I'd fight to the death to protect him.
The bedroom door opened, and Bailey came in, his hair a mess and his lab coat stained with a dozen different concoctions. Bailey was years older than me, maybe even enough to be my father's age. His wasn't the typical build for werewolves, at least not for most of the men I knew, who were big and swarthy. Bailey's physique was slight, and he barely reached five and a half feet tall. Most folks found it curious we were so close, but he understood me, what drove me, and we found our own common ground. Friendships don't come in standard sizes, at least not for me.
He grinned as he saw my eyes were open. "Good, you're awake. How's the shoulder?"
I gingerly touched the bandage covering the wound. "It's stiff, but the pain's nearly gone. What happened?"
"Young Tommy used some nasty stuff on you. His claws must have been covered with it. You're lucky he didn't hit a vein, or you wouldn't be lying here right now."
"I didn't know he wanted me dead," I said. "At least not that way. Tearing out my throat, sure, that I'd buy, but not poison."
"Don't flatter yourself. I doubt Tommy could have come up with even one of the bugs you had in you, let alone all twelve. Someone wanted you dead, and they weren't afraid of a little overkill. Just be glad I've got access to the antibodies I dosed you with. You've got a pretty powerful enemy out there somewhere, Jacob."
"That just doesn't make sense," I said. I knew Tommy was angry with me. I could easily imagine him jumping me at night with three or four of his thug friends, but infecting my bloodstream with tainted claws just didn't match his style.
"That's what I told him," Belle said as she joined us. "I think it's time Tommy and I had a little talk about where he got the stuff he used on you."
I could smell the shift start in her, a subtle change in the air around us. "Stop it," I shouted.
Belle hovered on the edge, then after a second, she shifted back to her human state. "Why shouldn't I?"
"It's my fight, not yours," I said. "I'll handle Tommy myself."
I started to get up, but my head started swimming. Bailey put a hand on my good shoulder and eased me back down.
He said, "Don't take this too lightly. You need to sleep this off. I got as many drugs into you as I could, but your system still took a hit. If you didn't have the recovery speed you do, I never would have believed how fast you've bounced back so far, but you can't afford to push it."
"He's right," Belle said. "It'll wait until morning. You'll be stronger then."
"Are you staying here with me until then?" I asked her.
"I'm not your wet nurse, and I'm not your lover, so no, I'm not sleeping with you tonight." She winked, then added, "Nice try, though. You've been trying to get me into the sack for years, but I'm not giving it up that easily."
She was trying to kid me out of it, but I wasn't going to let her. "Leave it alone," I said. "I'll deal with him tomorrow, and if I find out you've confronted him, we're going to have a real problem."
"I haven't been afraid of you in years," she said as she shrugged, then walked out the door.
I grabbed my friend's arm. "Bailey, you've got to keep her from doing anything crazy."
He laughed. "Like I'd have a chance going up against her. Do you honestly think I can keep her from doing anything she wants to do? Don't worry, Belle can take care of herself."
"That's what I thought too, and it didn't work out too well for me tonight, did it?"
"Go to sleep, Jacob. We'll talk more in the morning."
I wanted to protest, but as I tried to push myself up off the table, I fell back, and before my head hit the examining table I was lying on, I was out.
I just hoped Belle would take my advice and wait for me to recover so I could handle Tommy myself.
But I wasn't going to hold my breath.
"You should have let me cook," I said the next morning as Bailey and I sat down to breakfast.
"Nonsense. I didn't mind."
I pushed the runny eggs around on my plate and nudged the burned bacon with the tines of my fork. "No, I mean, really, you should have let me cook."
He looked down at his plate, then smiled at me. "Maybe you're right. I've got more eggs and bacon in the fridge, if you want to take a stab at it."
I didn't need any more coaxing than that. My shoulder was still sore-and I could feel the scabs on the slashes where Tommy had hit me had started to heal-but I was a thousand times better than I'd been the night before. One of the benefits of being a brother of the Wolf is the ability to heal quickly, and if I'd had any doubts that Bailey had been telling the truth, the results this morning would have confirmed that Tommy had poisoned me with that single swipe of his claws. I should have been completely healed by now, and the lingering scabs were testament enough that the hit hadn't been an ordinary werewolf attack.
I said, "I'll cook, if you clear these dishes."
I cracked six eggs into a bowl, added some milk, salt and pepper, then tossed the mix into the skillet. The bacon was precooked, so I wasn't sure how good it was going to be, but I had to use what Bailey had on hand.
As soon as it was nuked in the microwave, I crumbled the bacon and added it the mix. My makeshift omelet was just starting to come together when I asked, "By any chance, do you have any onions or green peppers?"
He laughed. "What do you think this is, a grocery store? I've got some cheese."
"Grab it for me," I said as I stirred the contents.
He handed me a couple of pieces of cheese wrapped in cellophane. At least I think it was cheese.
"Do you actually eat this stuff?"
Bailey said, "If it weren't for grilled cheese sandwiches, I would starve to death a long time ago."
I broke off a piece of the yellow slice, tasted it, and was surprised that it was decent. After tearing it up, I added the cheese pieces to the mix, and in a few minutes, I plated our breakfasts.
Bailey took a bite, and I watched as he smiled. "I don't get it. You had the same ingredients I did, but these two meals taste nothing alike."
"There's a lesson in democracy for you," I said as I took a bite myself. It wasn't perfect, but it would do until something better came along.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm talking about the idea that everybody-everybody but us, that is-should have the same power with every vote. Some people are more qualified than others to judge who would do the best job, just like I'm better at making eggs than you. As things stand out there, you only need three qualifications to vote: the right birthday, a pulse, and the lack of the lycanthrope gene. It wouldn't break my heart to see the whole system collapse. Maybe if we had to start over, we could get things right this time."
As he took another bite, Bailey asked, "You're an anarchist at heart, aren't you?"
I nodded. "Sometimes I have trouble believing that you're not. We're treated worse than any second-class citizen in history ever has been. They don't enslave us, just because they can't control us. We have no rights, not even the ASPCA cares about us, and yet you go happily along with a system that keeps us caged."
He shrugged. "Nobody owns me, and I know no one owns you. We're free to go wherever we want."
"We deserve a hand in our own fate as much as any of the norms do."
He put a hand on my good shoulder. "I agree with you, Jacob. We just choose to employ different methods. I believe we can make revolutionize within the system in place."
I took another bite. "Good luck with that. Let me know how it goes."
"Let's talk about something more pleasant, shall we? Have you had any prospects for work lately? Is there someone out there who needs saving?"
"I got a job yesterday," I admitted.
That piqued his interest. Bailey loved to hear about my work, and often threatened to come along with me on a job sometime. Even with some of the horror stories I'd shared with him, he still seemed to be under the delusion that it was all somehow controlled with predestination, as if things would work out somehow. I knew better. I'd come close enough to dying more times than I cared to think about. I understood the dangers of my job, and in a way, that was why I kept doing it. I needed a function, some usefulness to the world to justify the space I took up.
Bailey asked softly, "Tell me about it."
"Matthew Harkins took off with a norm, and she's underage, to boot. I've got to find the girl before something even worse happens to her than what she's probably already faced. Her parents are expecting a miracle."
Bailey looked concerned by the image. "And what are you anticipating?"
I frowned. "The longer it takes me to find them, the more I expect to discover her body, or what's left of her after Harkins gets finished with her."
Bailey shook his head. "Harkins is one of the bad ones." It was a statement, not a question, and I wondered if my friend had run into Harkins before. Dogtown wasn't that big, but it was no small town. That was another myth the norms held onto, that every werewolf knew his entire clan.
I said, "I'm not a fan of New Pitcairn, but if there were any of our people who deserved a one way ticket there, Harkins is the one."
Bailey finished his share of breakfast, then said, "I just realized something, Jacob. For an anarchist, you seem to spend an awful lot of time trying to save the world."
I grabbed the dirty dishes, testing the strength in my shoulder. It was getting better, and by noon I should be back to full strength. And they call lycanthropy a curse.
"There you're wrong. I'm not trying to save the world, I'm just trying to save a young girl who's in trouble."
My friend shook his head. "So, you're in the retail end of it instead of the wholesale sector, but the outcome is the same, even if you have to do it one soul at a time."
The door to Bailey's kitchen opened, and to my surprise, Belle walked in. There was an air of sadness about her, as if she'd just lost something dear to her.
"What's wrong?" I said, not even waiting for her to say a word. "Something happened, didn't it?"
"Tommy Grace is dead. Somebody ripped his throat out, and the way the Dogtown cops are talking, they're pretty sure you're the one who did it."
"That's ridiculous," Bailey said. "Jacob was here all night."
I shrugged. "Do you think they're going to believe either one of us? As an alibi, you aren't going to do me much good. Besides, you went into your bedroom at midnight. I could have had time to kill Tommy and get back here before you even knew I was gone." I smiled at Belle. "If you'd taken me up on my offer last night, I wouldn't be in a jam right now."
"No, but then we would have had a whole other set of problems, wouldn't we? What are you going to do?"
I grabbed my jacket. "There's not much I can do. I'm going to turn myself in."
Belle put a hand on my sour shoulder, and to my credit, I didn't wince from the contact. It was nearly healed, and that was a good thing. I was going to need all I had if things got any uglier, and I was pretty sure that was exactly where they were heading.
She said, "Be serious for a second. They'll lock you up in a cage and forget about you."
"Most of them might, but I'm going to call Dalton." Detective Frank Dalton worked the Dogtown beat, and though he wasn't one of us-that was against about a hundred city, state and federal laws-he understood that 'werewolf' and 'bad' didn't necessarily go hand in hand. We had a history, and I was counting on that to mean something.
Belle shook her head. "He's still a norm. Don't put too much faith in him."
"Right now he's all I've got," I said as I reached for my jacket. It had a little blood on it from the night before, but it wouldn't be the first coat I owned that sported it.
"Thanks for taking care of me," I told Bailey.
"Hey, if you cook breakfast for me every day, that cot is yours on a permanent basis."
Belle looked at Bailey and said, "Aren't you even going to try to stop him? You're his friend, you have to talk some sense into him."
Bailey shook his head. "I wouldn't have any more luck with Jacob than I did with you last night. You're both grown ups, do as you please. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to work."
After he was gone, she turned to me and said, "He's a heartless bastard, isn't he?"
"Aren't we all?"
She started to follow me out the door.
I put a hand up and asked Belle, "Where do you think you're going?"
"You haven't fully healed yet, and don't try to tell me you have. I saw you bite back the pain when I hit your shoulder a few minutes ago."
So she'd been testing me all along. "It's just a little tender, but most of the pain is gone. I appreciate the offer, but I have to do this on my own. Thanks for caring, though."
Belle shook her head. "You don't understand. It's not that I care. There just aren't that many people I can tolerate, and usually you're one of them."
"Stop or I'm going to tear up," I said.
"Bite your tail," she said, a common werewolf insult among our people.
"I'd rather bite yours," I said.
She let that pass. "I can't talk you out of this, can I?"
I stared hard at her a few seconds. "Belle, if I'm going to do find Jennifer Granger, I have to be able to move around Dogtown, and the cops are looking for me, I'm not going to be able to do that. I can't find anybody if I'm holed up somewhere ducking the police."
She nodded. "You could always give them their money back and forget about the whole thing."
I shook my head. "You know me better than that. What's the real reason behind the way you're acting?"
Belle sighed, then said, "I'm going to be gone a few days. I'd get out of it if I could, but I'm kind of committed. Can you manage to survive without me until I get back?"
"I can't make any promises, but I'll give it my best shot," I said.
Once she was gone, I got out my cell phone and dialed Dalton's number. It was time to straighten this mess about Tommy out with the police, if I could.
"I'd like to report a crime," I said when I finally got Dalton on the line. It had taken some finessing to do it, but then I was good at working the system when I had to. I had a case to work on, but what I'd told Belle was the truth. I couldn't do my job if I was ducking the police, so it made sense to get it cleared up first before I found myself in jail.
It was pretty obvious he recognized my voice by the way he responded. "Yeah? You should probably just look the other way. Sorry, the jail's full. Some days the bad guys win."
"I hear you're looking for me," I said as I looked out one of the windows of Bailey's place. It was a combination house and laboratory, and it wasn't in the best section of town, even in our little sector. The windows were protected with heavy gauge steel wire to keep the bad elements out, and I kept scanning the street outside as I spoke. I was always looking out for someone who might want to do me harm. I'd made a lot of enemies over the years-in Dogtown and downtown-and I'd grown accustomed to being aware of what was going on around me. It had kept me alive more than once. The street was empty at the moment, but I knew that could change in a heartbeat.
Dalton said, "Yeah, I understand you ripped another mutt's throat out. Shame on you, Trask, you should know better than doing that, especially when there are witnesses around."
I let the 'mutt' comment slide, though I didn't care for the slur. Then again, it wasn't the best time to teach Dalton a lesson in manners or political correctness.
"Would it help my cause if I told you that I was in bed last night with a cocktail of drugs that knocked me out?"
Dalton snapped, "Are you telling me you're a druggie now, too?"
"I got hurt," I said. "Bailey medicated me, and I was down all night."
Dalton sighed heavily. "Your friend better watch his step. Last I heard, he didn't have a vet's license."
That was enough. "Listen, are you trying to piss me off, or is just a natural gift? That's two jabs in two minutes. I'm pretty sure you know that we don't like being called mutts, and the vet crack was over the line."
"I didn't know you were so sensitive," Dalton said.
"That makes us even. I didn't know you were such a jerk."
There was a pause on the line, and I thought I'd lost him, when he said, "Yeah, you're right. I was out of line. This murder's got somebody's attention higher up the food chain, and the chief is acting like it's my fault."
"So you gave him me? Didn't you at least think to ask my side of things before you put the word out to arrest me?"
"You were seen in a public altercation with the murder victim an hour before he was killed. Who do you think we're going to look at, his mom?"
"Bailey can swear I was here most of the night," I said, "But I could have slipped out. I didn't, but I could have."
Dalton laughed. "That's the first thing you've said that makes me think you might be telling the truth."
"Why do you say that?"
"If you'd actually done it, I'd like to think that you'd be smart enough to have twenty witnesses swearing you were with them all night, so I'm inclined to believe you didn't do it."
"Thanks, I think," I said. "Is it enough to make you lose your interest in me?"
"No chance. Let me talk to Bailey, and I'll get back to you. Did anybody else see you there last night?"
"An hour after the fight? Belladonna was here with us."
"Okay, I'll talk to her, too." He paused, then asked, "Are you working on anything right now?"
"Why do you ask?"
He said, "If you're as innocent as you claim, somebody went to a lot of trouble to frame you for this. I'm just curious if you've pissed anybody off lately."
"How much time do you have?" I asked. "I can make you a list, but I'm not sure I've got enough paper and ink."
"Yeah, that's what I figured, but I had to ask. Is there anything else?"
"You should have your lab guys test Tommy's fingernails for foreign substances, but make sure they wear gloves first. If nobody cleaned him up, there are some nasty bugs hiding on his nails."
"Thanks, I'll let them know. One more thing, Trask."
"What is it?"
"Watch your back," he said. "I'll get the word out, but you know how jumpy some of my guys are when there's a bloodthirsty wolf on the loose."
"Just make sure they know I'm not the one they're after," I said as I hung up. I had considered telling Dalton about Harkins, but decided to keep the fact that there might be a real rogue wolf on the loose to myself. I wasn't milking my clients for a fee I wasn't going to earn, and I wasn't trying to grab the glory of bringing him down for myself, but no matter how I felt about Harkins, all I had was the girl's parents' word that he'd taken her, and I wasn't about to turn him over to the cops until I knew that for sure. Blood is thicker than water, and that's even truer when the blood has our shared mutation. Not that I wouldn't hang him high myself if it turned out that what the Grangers had told me was true, but I'd learned long ago that clients never told me the entire truth, at least not up front.
I had to find Harkins and young Jennifer and find out what was going on myself before I dragged Dalton into it.
It was time to start digging a little digger into Harkins and his life. I had a feeling that at least that much of what the parents had told me was true; if I turned up the werewolf, I had a feeling that the girl wouldn't be far off.
Chapter 3
"I need to find Harkins," I told Fox when I walked back into the Wolfbane half an hour later. It was just after ten in the morning, and as hard as it was for me to believe, there were already a few patrons there having their first drink of the day.
He backed up against the mirror behind the bar and stared at me carefully. "Listen, about last night. I didn't mean anything by what I said to you. I just didn't want the place busted up again."
I saw Fox's hand go under the bar, and I had a feeling he wasn't reaching for a baseball bat this time. There were residents of Dogtown who dealt in the black-market trade of silver bullets, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Fox was one of them. I wasn't even sure I blamed him. Werewolves, just like everyone else, could turn mean when they were drunk, and the threat of being put down might be enough, or the application of threat, if the implication didn't work. I had a handful of silver bullets myself. It would take something pretty bad to make me use them, but it would have been foolish not to cover my bases and protect myself any way I could.
"I'm not here for payback," I said as I put my hand in my pocket, lightly touching my own piece. There weren't any silver bullets in it, but I was a good enough shot to put somebody down, at least long enough to get them to pay attention to what I was saying.
"Then why are you reaching for your gun?"
"I just didn't want you to think I was going to stand here and let you shoot me." I put my hands out where he could see them. "Now it's you're your turn."
He stared at me a few seconds, then put both hands on the bar in front of him. Good. It looked like we were going to trust each other, at least for now.
"Do you know where Matthew Harkins might be?"
Fox shot his gaze down to the bar. "I don't need trouble from him any more than I do from you."
"If you help me, it won't get back to him," I said. I was used to the rampant paranoia in Dogtown. A lot of times it felt like the old Wild West must have, with every man for himself and death always a heartbeat away. "Not unless you cross me."
Fox looked like he wanted to throw me out, but he knew-rightly so-that he couldn't do it without an armed squad. "Listen," I said, trying a little charm instead of brawn. "Point me in the right direction, and I'm out of here. It's as easy as that."
Fox shook his head. "It's never as easy as that."
I pulled out the piece of paper I'd recovered from Jennifer Granger's bedroom and waved it in the air at him.
He asked, "What's that?"
"I found your phone number in a norm girl's bedroom. You mind telling me how she came to get it? Or should I turn it over to Dalton and let him ask you?"
Fox bit his lip. "I heard you two weren't on the best of terms at the moment."
"We made up."
"You expect me to believe that?"
I took my cell phone out of my pocket slowly. "Why don't I call him and we'll find out."
"Put that away," he said without a hint of anger in his voice. "She called here a few times for him. I didn't think anything about it, you know? I'm not involved in whatever he's up to, and that's the truth."
"Yeah, you're as innocent as a spring lamb. Come on, point me in the right direction, Fox. Let's just keep this between the two of us."
He stared at the bar for a few seconds longer, then reluctantly said, "Try Sue Ellen Logan. She's been going out with him lately."
I knew Sue Ellen. We'd gone to school together, and she was probably more than even Harkins could handle.
"Thanks. That wasn't so tough, was it?"
"I kept my part of the deal, now it's time for you to keep yours and get the hell out of my bar."
I smiled at him, then walked out into the morning air. It was time to visit Sue Ellen and see what she knew about Harkins and the norm girl.
Sue Ellen Logan was working at a bail bondsman's office, though they didn't have any customers when I walked in. A cigarette hung off one lip, and it was pretty clear someone had given her a pretty purple bruise under one eye. Sue Ellen had been pleasantly curved in high school, but too many fast food meals and not enough exercise had turned it into flab. Her faded blonde hair reminded me of spent hay, brittle and old.
"Get out," she said the second I came in through the door.
"Be nice. Is that any way to treat an old friend?" I asked. "How do you know I'm not here to see your boss?"
"He's not here," she said.
I stared past her. "The light's on in his office."
"Don't bother, that's strictly for show. He sleeping one off in bed," she said.
"Yours, no doubt."
That shot struck home, I could tell by the way her nostrils flared. "You always were a charmer, Sue Ellen. Who laid the bruise on you?"
Her hand went to the spot. "Clumsy me, I walked into a door."
"Was Harkins holding it at the time, by any chance?"
She shook her head. "I know you think you're bad, Trask, but he's the real thing. Drop this."
"I don't know, I'm pretty tough, too. What does Harkins think about you sleeping with your boss?"
She finished the cigarette and lit another off the stub. "He threw me out, so I doubt he cares much one way or the other."
"I'll give you this, it didn't take you long to bounce back, did it?"
"Bite my tail," she said, but there was no sting in the insult. "You're not getting anything out of me, so there's no use trying."
"Gee, and to think we used to be such good friends," I said.
"Funny, that's not how I remember it at all. You always thought you were too good for me in school."
"I never said that, Sue Ellen. I just never thought we'd be a good match. What do you know, it turns out I was right. Where's Harkins?"
"I'm not telling you anything. Now get out."
"I'm not going anywhere to find out where he is."
She reached a hand into the top drawer of her desk, but I'd been waiting for it since I'd walked in. I pulled my gun out in one fluid motion and had it pointing at her nose before she could blink.
"That might not be the best idea you've ever had in your life," I said. "Let's see your hands."
She put one of them on the desk, but not the one going for the gun.
I gestured with my gun. "Now let's see the other one."
I saw her tense for just a second, so I dove to one side as a bullet screamed through the air where I'd just been standing. She tried to get the gun out of the drawer for another shot, but my hand was on hers by then, and she couldn't move.
"Let go of the gun, or I'll break your hand," I said.
She reluctantly did as I ordered, and I pulled the gun out of the drawer. "Sue Ellen, that was probably the dumbest thing you've ever done in your life, and I'm willing to bet you had to go pretty far to top some of the stunts you've pulled in the past."
The cigarette had dropped out of her mouth when I'd grabbed her, and it was smoldering in the folds of her dress. "You might want to put yourself out."
She started beating the material of her dress with her hands, so I reached over and grabbed a glass of water, then poured it in her lap. "That ought to cool you off."
I'll give her credit, she didn't say a word.
I had both guns out, one in each hand, and I felt like a real gunslinger as I stared down at her.
"Tell me where Harkins is."
"What are you going to do, shoot me?"
"If you piss me off enough. After all, you tried to shoot me first."
She smiled, and it had a feral look to it. "I know better. You would have done it when I tried to shoot you if you were going to do it at all."
I sighed as I slipped both guns back, mine in its holster and hers in my pocket. "I always was a softie. It'll probably be my downfall someday. Just not today."
"Are you going to keep my gun? Give it back?"
"Why, so you can try again? Forget it."
"I need it for protection. It was Marty's idea, and it's his piece."
"You'll just have to tell him how you lost it." Had she lost her mind? She might take another shot at me someday, it might even be today, but it wasn't going to be with the gun in my pocket.
I put a hand on her shoulder, and let loose a little of the beast. My hand converted into a razor-tipped paw, and the nails dug through her dress into her shoulder. "Why did you try to kill me?"
"I wasn't aiming for you. I was just trying to scare you off."
There was an edge to her voice, and I could sense that she was dancing on the edge of hysteria. I didn't feel all that big and brave intimidating her with force, but I didn't have much choice. She was lucky she wasn't dead. I knew too many brothers of the Wolf who would have ripped out her throat for what she'd done, or at least tried to do.
"I don't scare that easily," I said softly.
"Go ahead, kill me. You'll just save Harkins the trouble."
"Is he really worth dying for?" I said as I dug my claws in deeper.
"There's dying, and then there's dying," she said, the resignation heavy in her voice. "You both might kill me, but at least I know it will be clean with you. Harkins will make it last a long time."
I felt her shudder under my touch, and I pulled my claws back and changed my hand to human form. It was tough controlling bits and pieces of me like that, but I'd been practicing, and I was finally starting to get pretty good at it. Most of my kind don't bother, but I found it useful in my line of work when I needed to remind someone that I wasn't always the sweet guy I seemed to be on the outside.
She felt the pressure ease, and I saw her tense again. "If you're going to do it, get it over with, would you? All I ask is that you make it a clean kill."
I walked to the door. "The way I see it, we're even. You took a shot at me, and I scratched you a little. You might want to have somebody take a look at that." The shoulder of her dress was quickly clotting with blood. My claws must have gone in a little deeper than I'd meant. That was thing about control. There was always a little room for improvement.
She pressed her hand to her shoulder. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." There was a look on her face that was tough for me to figure at first, but then I recognized it as relief. Sue Ellen really had thought I was going to kill her. That's probably why she'd been willing to take a shot at me. She'd been pushed around by too many men too many times, and it was just my dumb luck to come along when she'd finally reached her limit.
I started to walk out when she said, "Trask, if you tell Harkins how you heard about this place, he'll kill me, but I might know where he is."
"Are you sure you want to risk it?"
She managed a slight smile. "Hey, life's a crapshoot anyway, isn't it? He's got a hideout over on Jagged Road. It's an abandoned house, but he's fixed up a place in the basement. Don't go there by yourself, though. He'll kill you if you walk in there alone."
"Don't forget, I'm as strong as three ordinary werewolves," I said, trying out a smile of my own.
"Then you'd better take four of your friends. Harkins isn't anybody you want to mess with, not anymore."
"Why? What's changed?"
"Ask your friend Bailey."
That surprised me. "What's Bailey got to do with any of this?"
"I've said too much already. Just talk to him before you tackle Harkins."
"Thanks for the tip," I said.
Once I was outside, I called Bailey on my cell phone. "Hey, I need to talk to you."
"I thought that's what we were doing."
"Enough chatter. I need some information."
"Jacob, you know me. I'll tell you what I can."
I paused, wondering how to word it. "Is there something you didn't mention to me this morning when we were talking about Harkins?"
"Why? What have you heard?"
Enough of dodging the question. "Bailey, you're my best friend. I expect to have to strong-arm witnesses to get the truth, but not you."
He sighed, then said, "It's too complicated to discuss over the telephone. Maybe you'd better come back to my lab."
"I'll be there in ten minutes."
As I drove back to Bailey's, I wondered what he hadn't told me over breakfast. He'd reacted when I'd mentioned Harkins' name, but I'd assumed it was because he'd heard of the man. Was there more to it than that, though? Was he somehow tied in with the man I was hunting? If he was, why had he kept information to himself? It wasn't like him. Normally I couldn't get him to shut up.
He met me at the door. "I'm sorry, Jacob. I should have said something earlier this morning."
"You think?" I asked as I brushed in past him.
"I just didn't want you to think badly of me. I never dreamed you'd find out, especially not so quickly. Who told you what happened?"
"I keep my sources confidential."
He looked startled. "Even from me?"
"Especially from you, at least right now. Talk to me."
Bailey frowned and rubbed his chin. "I didn't think it would matter. I told him no, and that should have been that. I still can't believe it."
"Gee, I feel a lot better now. That explains everything."
He looked at me with hope clearly displayed in his gaze. "It does?"
"Of course not, you jackass. All I know is that you've got some kind of tie to Harkins that you didn't want me to know about. Start from the beginning, and tell me everything you know, no matter how trivial it might seem to you."
He nodded. "I'm sorry, Jacob, I should have told you everything when it happened."
I was getting tired of this dance. "You're right, you should have, but this is your second chance."
"Come into my lab. There's something I need to show you first." I knew better than to push him. Bailey would have to tell me in his own sweet time, or I'd never get it all out of him, no matter how hard I pressed.
We walked back to his workspace, and Bailey pointed to his desk. "I got my files out after you called. You know I've been working on a blocking agent for lycanthropy, right?"
"All of Dogtown knows that," I said, impatient for a lecture, but realizing it was the only way Bailey was going to tell me anything.
"I thought I was onto something, but I wasn't ready to run any trials until I'd done more testing. Harkins heard about it from my loudmouthed lab assistant, and he showed up on my doorstep one night last week demanding a sample."
"Hang on a second," I said as I paced the room. "He wanted you to kill the werewolf in him?" From everything I knew of the man, that just didn't make sense.
"No, I'm afraid that's not what the blockers I developed did. I did some work with blood samples, and it turned out to enhance the mutation instead of quell it."
It took me a second to grasp what Bailey was saying. "Are you telling me you turned him into some kind of superwolf?" I couldn't imagine Harkins being any more dangerous than he already was, but I was starting to see how wrong I could be.
"Yes, I know, it was a wrong turn. I refused his request when he came to the lab, and honestly, I was expecting violence, but he just smiled and left. The next day, I realized why. My assistant, Kyle Porter, was gone, and so was the entire vial of the serum. I've been trying to find Kyle, to stop him from doing anything foolish, but I haven't had any luck so far. I'm afraid he might have already sold it to Harkins." He paused, bit his lip, then said, "There's something else, too."
"This just keeps getting better and better. What is it?"
Bailey looked as though he wanted to cry as he admitted, "The concoction you were hit with probably came from my lab. I don't doubt that Kyle made it up from some of my testing samples, so in a way, I'm responsible for you being poisoned. I'm so sorry, Jacob."
If he was expecting a free pass, he'd come to the wrong man. "Bailey, did you ever think to come to me with this? I might have been able to stop this before it turned bad. For a smart guy, sometimes you can be a real idiot."
"I know," he said, hanging his head low. "I thought I could handle it on my own."
"Well, it looks like you were wrong, doesn't it?" I reached into my pocket and retrieved the gun I'd taken from Sue Ellen. I put it in his hands. "You don't have a gun, do you?"
He tried to give it back to me, and when I refused, he dropped it on his desk. "You know I don't, and I don't want one now."
"Yes, you do. I can't watch over you all the time, and Harkins might be back for more serum. Is it permanent, or does it wear off after a while?"
"It wears off, eventually."
"I don't suppose you know how long it takes, do you?"
He frowned. "No, I'm not sure. My studies were interrupted before I could conclude my testing."
As I headed for the door, Bailey asked, "You're not going after him, are you? If Harkins took some of the serum, he could be extremely dangerous."
"That's what I've got to find out first then, isn't it? Write Kyle Porter's address down on a piece of paper for me. I need to talk to him before I keep looking for Harkins. I've got to know what I'm going up against."
"I'm sorry, Jacob," Bailey said as he did what I asked and handed me the slip of paper.
"So am I. I just hope I can fix it."
I didn't need a score-sheet to know what must have happened when I found Dalton at the address Bailey had just given me for Kyle Porter.
There was no sense hiding my presence. I approached Dalton and said, "I don't even need to ask, do I? Kyle Porter's dead, isn't he?"
Dalton nodded. "His landlord called in. What are you doing here?"
It was time to lie to Dalton again. I didn't want him-or any of the police force-to start patrolling Dogtown looking for some kind of super wolf on a homicide tear. "He was Bailey's assistant, and when Porter didn't show up for work, Bailey asked me to look in on him."
Dalton accepted it, but I had to remember to bring Bailey up to speed on my story. If there was one thing I knew about Dalton, it was that he was thorough.
He explained, "The kid was late with his rent, and the landlord was looking for some other kind of payment in the apartment when he found the body. It's pretty nasty, even for Dogtown."
"Was his throat ripped out?"
Dalton shook his head. "I don't even know how to describe it. Come on, you might as well see this for yourself."
I followed him into the apartment, past a few cops who looked like they wanted to put me down on the spot. It wasn't like the attitude wasn't something I wasn't used to. Most norms felt that way about my kind.
Inside, the kitchen looked normal enough, with a half eaten bowl of cereal still sitting on the table. That was where normalcy ended, though. In the bedroom, I saw what was left of Bailey's former lab assistant. His head had been raggedly torn from his torso, and the jagged edges of the wound were clear enough to see from across the room. The killer hadn't stopped there, though. Arms and legs were thrown around like broken tree limbs in a storm. Whoever had done it hadn't just wanted Kyle dead; he'd wanted to make some kind of statement.
"He's crazy," I said.
Dalton nodded. "You know who did this, don't you?"
"I have an idea."
"Well, don't just stand there. Who's at the top of your list?"
Should I lie, or tell him the truth? Keeping Harkins' identity secret had been one thing when all I had were suspicions, but this bloodshed suddenly made it very real. "If I had to guess, I'd say Matthew Harkins did it."
Dalton nodded. "That's my guess, too."
His answer shocked me. "How'd you know about him?"
The detective shook his head. "Believe it or not, I do actual real police work around here now and then. I've heard the rumors around Dogtown about him being on some kind of warpath. You're after Harkins too, aren't you?"
I nodded. There wasn't any reason for confidentiality now. If Jennifer Granger was still alive, it would be a miracle on the order of parting the Red Sea. I had a feeling I was looking for her body now, and her killer.
Dalton frowned at me. "You could have told me that this morning."
"I could have told you a lot of things, but I didn't think it was prudent," I said.
"So why decide to tell me know?"
I gestured around the apartment. "It's escalated to something I don't feel good about keeping quiet. There's something else you should know. Harkins is tougher than you think. He's on something." I couldn't give Bailey and his magic elixir up, but I couldn't send Dalton after him blind, either. There had to be a fine line there somewhere, and I was adamant about dancing across it.
Dalton rubbed his forehead gently. "What's he on, horse tranqs?" It had become a common way to get high in our part of town-getting doped up on horse tranquilizers-and a werewolf was twice as tough to subdue when he was stoned.
"Something worse," I said.
"It sounds like you've got some inside information," Dalton said.
"I'm just guessing, from something I heard. You should be careful if you run into him."
He stared at me, then must have realized that was all he was going to get. "Anything else you decide you want to share, you've got my number. Now take off. I've got work to do."
After I left the crime scene, I realized I hadn't said a word about my client, or why I was hunting Harkins myself. It wasn't that hard a decision to keep it from the detective. If Dalton found out a werewolf had abducted a norm and brought her to Dogtown, the full weight of the police force would fall on us, and they wouldn't care who got crushed. I had to keep looking for Harkins on my own, and Sue Ellen had given me a place I could check.
But first, it was time to get some reinforcements, then go see if I could track Harkins down in his lair. I had a pair of friends I called on whenever I got in over my head, and if I ever needed backup, this was it.
I found Jim Valentine first. We'd grown up together, and I'd watched him endure the double whammy of being born February 14th and inheriting the surname Valentine from his old man. Kids stopped joking about his name in the seventh grade when he grew six inches and put on fifty pounds. Nobody made fun of his birthday or his last name anymore.
He was at the gym, a place he'd hung out in since high school. It was a mix of the old style gymnasium with free weights and barbells, but the owner had added some of the universal machines, but we never used them. Jim owned a couple of businesses around town; I was his best friend and even I didn't know everything he was into. The only office I knew he had was on the weight bench. I worked out there, too whenever I got the chance, but Jim was sculpted into his peak shape. He was working the free weights, lifting the equivalent of a small car over his head with ease, while a gallery of onlookers watched. As always, his thick brown hair was perfectly in place, something he really prided himself on.
I waited until his workout was finished, then grabbed a clean towel from the stack and tossed it to him, not that he needed it. He hadn't even broken out into a sweat during his routine, and I wondered how much of it had been for his audience, and how much for the training.
"I didn't realize you were doing matinees now," I said.
He smiled. "Nobody likes free weights anymore. It's all belts and pulleys. When you actually lift something over your head, people tend to notice."
"Some people actually believe that you can still get a good workout that way," I said. "I don't mean me, but some people think it's true."
"Yeah," he said as he flexed his biceps, "but you can't impress a crowd that way. What's up? I hear you're in your usual jam around town."
"Word gets around fast in Dogtown, doesn't it?"
He shrugged. "I know a few cops, and when your name comes up in anything official, they give me a call. So, did you finally get sick of his whining and whack Tommy Grace?"
"I didn't, but it seems that somebody else took care of it for me."
He shrugged. "You had reason enough yourself, so I wouldn't have held it against you." That was Jim, a natural born pragmatist.
I hated asking, so it was best just to blurt it out. "I need your help."
He smiled. "Can I take a shower first, or can't this wait?"
I nodded. "Yeah, if you need to, go right ahead, but you might get your hands dirty on this one."
Jim shrugged. "So, no shower, then. Let me throw on some clothes and I'm ready."
"Don't you want to know what it's about first?"
He shook his head. "I don't need to. You want my help, you've got it. You've asked me, what, four times in our lives to help you out? I've leaned on you at least thirty, so I figure whatever it is, I'm in."
I'd hesitated telling him who else I was asking, since Jim and Bowen didn't get along. "There's going to be three of us," I said softly.
Jim looked like he wanted to spit. "You sure the two of us can't handle it? We don't need your thug friend around."
I would have loved to defend Bowen, but Jim was right. He was a thug at times-a werewolf who crossed the line more than he had any right to survive-but the two of us had formed a mutual trust, though there wasn't a great deal of friendship to it. Still, we needed all the manpower we could get. "Yeah, I'm afraid we do. Can you two get along until this is over?"
"I won't start anything if he doesn't."
"That's good enough for me," I said.
Jim got dressed, then met me out front.
At my car, I asked, "Do you have a gun, or do you need to borrow one?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so it's that kind of favor, is it?"
"Yeah. You can back out if you want to. I won't think any less of you."
He shook his head. "You won't, but I will. I think I've got something that should work." He went to the trunk of his Cadillac and rooted around in it for a minute. I saw him tuck a 9 mm into his jacket as he straightened up. "Let's go. You drive. I don't want your buddy in my car."
"Jim, you said you'd be nice."
"Hey, he's not here yet, is he?" Jim looked around. "Where is he, anyway?"
"We have to go get him, but I've got a pretty good idea where he is."
Jim didn't look pleased by the news. "Great. Now we have to go slumming. Let's get this over with. I can't wait to hear what's so bad you need both of us."
As we got into my car, I said, "I can tell you know, if you want."
He waved a hand in the air. "No, save your breath. You'll just have to go over it all again when we pick your buddy up."
I parked in front of Jasmine's, the restaurant Bowen's sister owned. She was his only real tie to the world, and if something ever happened to her, I wouldn't want to be the one who had to answer to Bowen for it. His presence there gave her a modicum of protection that even the mobbed-up werewolves wouldn't violate. Bowen was bad, and everyone in Dogtown knew it.
He had light blond hair, an oddity among brothers of the Wolf, and some folks said that was part of what gave him such a deadly air. Most of us hid our scars, but Bowen's were proudly on display. He'd been in enough fights to kill a dozen werewolves-in both his forms-but no one had managed to bring him down yet, and I hoped they never did.
"Want some coffee?" he said when he saw me walk in.
"I'm in some trouble, and I need your help."
He nodded. "No coffee, then." Bowen called out to his sister Jasmine, "I'll be back."
She was an attractive woman without her brother's unusual coloring, but you could see the resemblance between them. Jasmine's gaze was guarded, as if she'd been hurt by one too many men. Her thick brown hair went nearly to her waist, and it was always pulled carefully back into one long ponytail.
She looked at me, then back at him. "Be careful."
"I always am."
Before we got to the door, I said softly, "Jim Valentine is with me. I need you both for this."
He nodded. "Then it must be bad. Don't worry, I'll play nice."
The two men nodded to each other as Bowen slipped into the back seat of my car. I didn't even have to ask him if he was armed. Under his jacket, I knew he was carrying more hardware than a gun shop. I hoped we didn't need it, but I would have been crazy not to bring him along with us. Harkins alone would have been a handful, but hopped up on Bailey's serum, who knew if we had enough firepower, even now?
It was time to explain what we were going to do. "We're going into an abandoned house after Matthew Harkins. He kidnapped a norm girl, and she's underage. Her folks hired me to find her, so it would be a good thing if we could save her while we're here."
"If she's with Harkins, she's already dead," Bowen said.
"You don't know that," Jim said.
"No, but I know Harkins."
"There's something else," I said. "He's juiced up on some kind of drug Bailey was working on."
That got Bowen's attention. "What kind of drug?"
"It turned him into some kind of superwerewolf," I said.
Jim tensed beside me, but Bowen just laughed. "That explains the three of us for one werewolf." He reached a hand forward to Jim and said, "How about a truce until we finish this business for your friend?"
Jim thought about it longer than I would have liked, but Bowen kept his hand out and Jim finally shook it.
"Good, glad we got that settled. Now, what's the plan?" Bowen asked.
"We go in with our guns drawn, and bring him down if we have to."
Bowen laughed. "Oh, we're going to have to, you can count on that."
Jim just nodded. I felt a little bad involving them, but I'd seen what Harkins had done to Bailey's assistant, and I needed them both with me when I tackled someone capable of that kind of atrocity.
I parked behind an abandoned store a block from the address Sue Ellen had given me. "We go the rest of the way on foot."
As the three of us got out, I looked around. We were in the worst part of the worst section of Dogtown, and I doubted a cop had been within a mile of the place in twenty years. It was an area where the only law was that of the jungle. It was eat or be eaten, and I wasn't planning on being on anyone's menu today. A light mist was falling, and the sky was full of gloom. Though it was barely past two in the afternoon, there was murkiness to the air that made it feel closer to midnight. I'd come up with a thousand plans on the way over, but in the end, I decided that the best approach was the direct one. We'd come in through the front, our guns drawn, ready to deal with whatever we found.
We were finally there, and there were no sounds of anyone inside. Bowen asked softly, "Do we shift now, or wait until we get into close quarters? I've got silver chambered up. How about you two?"
I nodded, then asked Jim, "Do you?"
"No, I didn't know what kind of party I was being invited to. Don't worry about me."
I handed him my gun. "Take this."
"What are you going to use?"
I shifted before he finished his sentence, letting the beast within come out as much as I dared. It was dangerous shifting like that in broad daylight, and I could have been arrested for that alone, but I wasn't about to send my friends into what could be an ambush without giving us every chance to succeed.
My reason started to fade as the beast took over. Jim started to go in first, but Bowen put a hand on his arm. He knew, better than most, that the werewolf in me had a better chance than either one of them did.
The door was locked, but a solid push with my good shoulder broke the lock. I was on all fours now, lean and sinewy, with teeth made for ripping and claws designed for slashing throats.
And it was a good thing for all of us that I was in my werewolf form when we broke in.
Before I got through the door, a weight slammed against me, and I could feel a set of fangs closing in on my throat.
Chapter 4
There was more than one werewolf waiting for us, but I didn't know immediately just how many were lurking in the shadows. As I fought with the one facing me, I could sense Jim and Bowen coming through the door behind me. I growled a warning, but that was all I could manage. I had my hands full with this wolf. He was trying for a quick kill, and I was doing everything in my power to stop him. As we battled, I realized that there had been three of them waiting for us, and I was very glad I'd gotten help before charging into the house. I couldn't tell if Harkins was one of the other wolves or not, but he wasn't the one I was facing.
I twisted in the air a split second before his teeth closed in on my throat, and kept the rotation extended until I was facing him again.
It appeared that Sue Ellen had set me up, and if I'd gone in there alone, they would have never found all the pieces of me. I've been used to being the quickest wolf around most of my life, but I'd met my match in this adversary. He was just as fast as me, if not faster, and if I didn't come up with a way to put him down-and fast-this was going to be my last fight. My opponent didn't wait to circle me as was our custom. He didn't even hesitate as he launched himself at my throat again. It was clear he had murder on his mind, and I was going to use that to my advantage. I'd trained a part of my brain to keep hold whenever I shifted, and it was something no one else could do, at least not that I knew of. There wasn't time to think yet, though. I was too busy saving my own life.
I shot one paw into the air as my attacker flew at me, and I managed to knock him off course from my throat, though he did hit the shoulder I was still nursing. I felt stabs of pain as he went past, and the blood began flowing freely again. I just hoped he didn't have tainted claws, or I was going to need Bailey again, and soon.
The wound gave me an idea. Though it hurt to kneel, I did just that, favoring the shoulder he'd just hit. Was that a gleam in his eye as he watched me? I struggled upward, feigning more injury than I felt. If I could get him focused on my bad shoulder, I might have a chance to finish this. All around me, I could hear sounds of struggle, and I knew my friends needed me. But first, I had to take care of the werewolf trying to kill me. I showed him my bloody shoulder again, and just as I'd hoped, he threw himself toward me, his teeth open for a finishing blow. The second he was in the air, I rolled onto my back and shoved all four paws upward, with claws extended. He saw the trap too late, and I could see a hint of panic in his eyes as he fought to throw himself off course, but there wasn't time to react.
I gutted him, slashing as he approached. He was hurt, maybe even dead, after I was finished with him. The wolf in me wanted to end him, to rip out his throat and howl with bloodlust, but the man in me knew I had friends in trouble. I looked around and saw that Bowen was wrestling with a monstrous wolf twice his size, but I could tell he was holding his own.
Jim was another story altogether. He was pinned in a corner, a paw holding him to the floor. It looked as though his opponent was playing with him before he killed him, batting him with his claws enough to draw blood from a dozen places, but not enough to kill him outright. I threw myself in the air, and as I landed on the wolf's back, I could hear something snap inside him. He crumbled to the ground like a sack of bones. Jim tried to get up, but he couldn't manage it.
"Stay," I grunted as I turned to Bowen to help him, but he didn't need my aid. His own adversary was down as well, his neck snapped into an angle it had never been designed to take.
I nudged my original foe and saw that he was dead, so I shifted back, and my friends followed suit. Our jumpsuits were shredded in dozens of places, but they survived the combat as well.
There's a myth that when a werewolf dies, he suddenly transforms back to his man form, but it wasn't strictly true. Like most tales of folklore, there was a germ of truth in it, but the process took ten or fifteen minutes.
I helped Jim up and said, "Let's get out of here."
"Not yet," Bowen said. "We need to know who these jokers are."
"What does it matter? They're dead, and he needs help," I said.
Jim shook his head. "He's right. We have to know if one of these guys is Harkins. I'll be fine." I knew some of my friends in wolf form, but it was a difficult identification, even under the best circumstances.
"Fine, wait here. I'm going to go get the car. I'll be right back," I said.
I raced toward my car, fighting the urge to transform back into the wolf, but knowing the amount of energy it took, I wasn't sure I could do it. The fight had taken a lot out of me. Where had the three of them come from? They'd been stronger than any wolves I'd ever gone up against, and the odds were nearly impossible that there were three werewolves in all of Dogtown who were stronger than me and I didn't know. We're a pretty tight community, and I knew my enemies, as well as my friends.
I retrieved the car and pulled up to the front door of the house.
Bowen and Jim were staring at the three bodies as they finally finished their shifts. "That's Larry Wheel," I said as I recognized the one I'd been fighting.
Bowen nodded. "This is Pearson, and that one's Steiner. I don't get it. These three aren't that good, but they almost took us down."
"They had to have been juiced too," I said. "It's the only explanation."
Jim asked, "How much of this crap did Bailey make?"
"We need to find out, but first we have to get you to a hospital."
Bowen shook his head. "We can't take him there. They'll have to file reports, and do we really want your buddy Dalton knowing what we've been up to? When he finds these three bodies, the first thing he's going to do is look to see who got treatment for wounds."
"What do we do then?" I asked.
"Put him in the car. I'll be right there."
There was no arguing with Bowen when he was like that. I helped Jim into the backseat where he could lay down, and two minutes later, Bowen joined us.
I started to drive off when he put a hand on my arm. "Wait for it."
"For what?" I asked as flames started leaping from the house. "What did you do?"
"I didn't want anyone stumbling across what we'd done."
I yelled, "We didn't search the rest of the house. Jennifer Granger could still be in there."
"Relax, I checked the place while you were gone. There was no sign of her, or Harkins either. It was a trap all along. I doubt he was ever there."
"Sue Ellen has some explaining to do," I said coldly.
"What do you think her life expectancy is once Harkins finds out his little plan failed? He's going to do worse to her than we can even imagine."
I started driving toward the bail bondsman's office. "Sorry, Jim, but this will just take a second."
"I'm fine," he said, but I could hear the pain in his voice.
The office was closed, though the door read they should have been open for another two hours. Was Sue Ellen back in bed with her boss, or was she already dead? Either way, I had a friend who needed help, and I didn't know where to take him.
"Go to Jasmine's," Bowen said.
I thought he could have stayed with us until we figured something out, but he had helped me when I needed him, and I wasn't going to question him now. I pulled up in front of the restaurant, and he waved me off to the alley behind it.
Once we were there, I kept the car running and waited for him to get out. "Thanks for your help. We couldn't have done it without you."
He frowned at me. "Shut off the car, Trask. We're taking him inside."
"I'm not hungry," Jim protested. "I'm dying back here."
"You'll live," Bowen said as he looked over the back seat. "Jasmine will take care of you."
I expected Jim to protest, but when I looked back at him, I saw that he'd lost consciousness. I said, "We need to take him to the hospital. I'll deal with Dalton about it later."
"Jasmine should have been a doctor, but she was born with the wrong genes. She's studied at night for as long as I can remember. She can help him. Trust her."
I wasn't sure, but then I didn't think we had a lot of time. Bowen said, "Are we going to sit her debating it while your friend bleeds to death? Help me carry him inside."
I did as he asked, looking down at my Jim's wounds. Pearson had done a job on him, but it could have been worse. If he hadn't taken the time for a little sadistic pleasure, my friend would be dead.
We carried him inside and put him in a back bedroom I didn't even know existed. Jasmine joined us when she heard us come in. There was a healthy scowl on her face. "You can just take your friend somewhere else, Bowen. Do you hear me?"
"You wanted to be a doctor. So here's a chance to practice more of what you've been reading all these years."
She looked down at Jim. "What happened, did he run into a buzz saw?" Then she glanced at both of us. "All three of you need help."
Bowen said, "We'll heal on our own, but he's pretty messed up. Are you going to help him or not? If you don't do anything, we'll drag his body out back and throw it in the dumpster."
"Get out. Both of you," she said as she put a hand on each of our chests.
I wasn't about to let her throw me out. "Can you help him? He's my friend, and it's all my fault this happened. If you can't do anything for him, it's fine, but I've got to get him some care."
"I can do it," she said. "But not with an audience. Let me close the diner, then I'll get right to it."
She shoved us out the back. In the alley again, I asked, "Bowen, can she really help him?"
"Don't worry, Trask, I've seen her practically bring people back from the dead. Valentine's going to be okay."
"How about you?" For the first time, I noticed that one of his ears was bleeding. "Are you all right?"
"This?" he asked as his hand went to his ear. "It's nothing. Let's go talk to Bailey and see how much of this crazy juice is still out there. If there's going to be an army coming after us, I need to be ready for it."
"I appreciate the thought, but it's not your fight," I said. "You don't owe me anything."
Bowen shook his head. "I'm not doing it for you. This one's for me. Harkins set us up, and I'm pretty sure he knew you'd get me to help you. He probably didn't count on Valentine, and we would have had our hands full with three of them. This is personal now. Finding your guy has just become my number one priority. Who knows? When this is all over, maybe I can get Bailey to whip up some of that potion of his for me."
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I kept my mouth shut as we drove back to Bailey's lab. It was my third visit there in one day, and I was hoping this time, I'd get all the answers I was looking for.
He looked incredulous as we told him what had happened at the house. "Three of them, besides Harkins? Are you sure they were dosed, too?"
Bowen said, "Either one of us could have taken all three of these guys if they hadn't been hopped up on this juice of yours. Trust me, they were enhanced."
I asked, "Could they have made more of the stuff themselves? Your assistant might have set up a lab of his own."
Bailey said, "That didn't happen. Trust me, there's nobody in the world who could make this formula but me."
Bowen raised an eyebrow. "You have a pretty high opinion of yourself, don't you?"
"It's not arrogance," Bailey protested. "I came up with the technique purely by accident, and I doubt anyone else could follow the procedure, even using my equipment." He paused, then added, "The serum must be stronger than I thought."
"You have any more of it lying around?" Bowen asked innocently enough, but I knew there was a reason behind his question.
"No. It's all gone, and with what's been happening, I doubt I'll ever make any more."
"When this is all over, we can talk more about that," Bowen said.
Bailey looked at Bowen quizzically, then said, "I don't have any more serum, but I do have something that will help you both."
He handed Bowen a cup full of clear liquid, then gave me one as well.
"Is this as good as the stuff Harkins took?" Bowen asked as he drank the liquid. I sniffed mine before I tried it, smelling acetone and peppermint.
Bailey explained, "It's not the serum, or anything like it. It's a super vitamin I've been working on. It should help you heal much quicker than you normally would, even by werewolf standards."
Bowen looked disappointed, but I gulped mine down. My reserves had been tapped, and I could feel how sluggish I was becoming. If I was going to go up against Harkins and more of his minions, I needed to be at full strength. It tasted like battery acid, burning all the way down my gullet.
Bailey handed me a small bottle. "Here's some for Jim. He should take half now, and the rest in the morning."
I tried to give it to Bowen. "Would you mind seeing that your sister gets this?"
He shook his head. "I can't. There's somewhere I need to be."
"Is that the truth, or are you afraid of Jasmine?"
He laughed. "Maybe it's a little of both. Good luck with that."
After he was gone, Bailey said, "He seemed awfully interested in my serum."
"He wants some for himself."
Bailey's eyes widened. "Are you kidding me? He's one of the fastest wolves out there. Why would he want to be enhanced? There are risks to it I haven't even found yet. It's too dangerous."
"I don't think he's afraid of side effects. His sister might be the only thing in the world he's afraid of."
Bailey shook his head. "You have the oddest collection of friends, don't you?"
I slapped his shoulder. "I wouldn't be too judgmental. After all, you're on the list yourself."
Bailey hung his head low. "Even though I'm responsible for what's been happening?"
"It's not like you handed out free samples. Your assistant stole the serum and gave it to Harkins."
"But there wouldn't have been anything to steal if I hadn't come up with it in the first place."
I shrugged. "You can feel responsible for what's been happening if you want to, but I've got to get this to Jim." I stopped at the door and added, "You know what? I'm feeling better already." It was almost as if I could feel my wounds closing up and healing. "What was in that stuff?"
"At least I was able to do some good," Bailey said. "You're going to have a ferocious appetite, but that's the only side effect to the mix. Don't worry; I tested it on myself before I gave it to you and Bowen."
"And you think we're the ones who are brave."
I tapped on Jasmine's back door, clutching the container of super vitamin in my hand like it was the Holy Grail. I hoped it had the same affect on my friend that it had on me. I swear, I was feeling so good, it was all I could do not to whistle as I waited for her to answer. If it weren't for the driving hunger I was starting to feel, I was almost back to normal again.
"What do you want?" Jasmine snapped as she finally opened the door. "I'm busy."
"I brought some medicine for my friend."
She frowned at the bottle in my hand. "He's getting everything he needs from me."
Jasmine started to slam the door shut when I put my free hand on it. "It's not medicine. It's some kind of super vitamin for werewolves my friend made."
"Who's your friend?" she asked as she looked at the bottle suspiciously.
"Bailey Hope," I said.
Her expression softened. "Give it to me. I'll make sure he takes it."
"I want to see him," I said.
For a second, I thought she was going to phase into werewolf mode, and I could see why Bowen had joked about being afraid of her. It seemed there were more men who were werewolves than women, but the ladies made up for it with a viciousness and abandon in attack that made most men wary of angering one of the fairer sex.
"Please? He's my friend. I'm worried about him."
She stared hard at me, then the anger was gone. "Come on in, but be quiet. He's asleep."
I didn't want to say what I had to next, but there really wasn't any choice. "We have to wake him up then, and get half of this into him. Trust me, the stuff's like magic."
I pulled my jumpsuit aside and showed her the fading scars. Even with my lycanthrope healing powers, I'd never been able to heal that quickly.
She studied my chest a moment, then nodded. "Fine, come on in."
Jasmine disappeared inside, and I had to assume it was okay to follow her.
Jim was on the cot, but she'd gotten him out of his bloody jumpsuit and into a faded set of pajamas. The top was open, and I could see bandages covering his chest wounds. Through the white of the dressing, I could see droplets of blood welling up from beneath.
She took the bottle, measured half of the liquid out, then gently stroked Jim's forehead. It was an odd juxtaposition from the angry Jasmine I'd seen a few seconds ago. "Jim? Wake up. You need to take this. Jim. Jim."
He started to stir, and when his eyes opened, he glanced in my direction. There were no comments, no quips, just a quick flick of the head in my direction before he focused on Jasmine.
She held his head up and he managed to swallow the liquid. Jasmine said something to him I couldn't hear in a soothing voice, and Jim looked at me and said, "Thanks," before he fell back to sleep.
"Is that normal?" I asked.
"His body is healing. He needs the rest, and I gave him a potion earlier to help him sleep." She glanced at her patient, then led me out into the diner.
"I'm worried about him," I said.
"He lost some blood, and the damage was severe, but he's healing, and if that elixir is as good as you claim, he'll be fine soon. Right now he needs his rest."
"I hope so. I never should have put him in harm's way. He's a civilian."
"And my brother's not," Jasmine said flatly.
"Bowen's a lot of things, but he's not a rookie at fighting bad guys. I can't be telling you anything you don't know."
"I'm well aware of my brother's propensity for violence." She stared hard at me, then said, "There's something I've wondered about for years, but I never thought it was any business of mine, so I've kept my mouth shut. Now you are in my debt," she said as she looked back to where Jim was sleeping, "and I feel I have the right to ask."
"Go ahead. I'll tell you anything I can."
"You and my brother are an odd match. How did you get to be such good friends?"
The question startled me. "Are we? I never got that vibe from Bowen."
"Trust me, there are only two people my brother trusts with his life, and both of them are sitting at this table. On the face of it, you two are not that similar."
"We're not as different as you might think."
She laughed, and it was a sharp, brittle sound. "Trust me, Trask, I have no delusions about my brother. I know how hard Bowen is. But you help people as a private investigator, and my brother usually just hurts them."
"He is what he is," I said. "I've never seen him hurt someone who didn't deserve it."
"That's hardly noble, though, is it?"
I smiled. "If you think what I do is noble, you can't really know what I do. Sometimes I wonder if I do anybody any good at all."
"I don't think you give yourself enough credit. What are you working on now? Or can you tell me?"
"I didn't sign a nondisclosure agreement, if that's what you're asking. I'm looking for a girl who fell in with the wrong man. Her parents are worried about her, and from what I know, I think they have every reason in the world to be terrified."
"And so you're trying to bring her back to her family? Wouldn't you call that noble?"
"I guess. I try not to think about what I do. When somebody comes to me with a problem, I try to fix it, if I think it's something worthwhile."
"And you actually make a living doing it?"
I shrugged. "Some months I eat better than others, but at least I don't have any trouble sleeping at night."
She stared at her hands, then said, "I wonder if my brother can say the same thing."
"Why don't you ask him?"
She laughed again, but this one was genuine and full of spirit. "No, I think we'll leave that question unspoken between us." Jasmine stood, and I followed suit.
Instead of showing me to the door, though, she asked, "Are you hungry? I haven't had time to eat, and now that Mr. Valentine is sleeping, I find that I'm famished."
"Me, too," I said as my stomach rumbled in support of my claim. "Now, if only we knew a place that had food supplies and the equipment to prepare them."
"Follow me," she said as she led me back into her kitchen.
"I've got an idea," I said. "I'm a pretty decent cook. Why don't I wait on you tonight? It would have to be a good change of pace."
She shook her head. "I appreciate the offer, really I do, but nobody's going to cook in my kitchen but me. You can keep me company, though."
She pointed to a chair in one corner, and I took it. As she studied the open refrigerator, she asked, "Is there anything in particular you feel like eating?"
"I'll take the Chef's Choice," I said. Suddenly, I was hungry enough to eat the countertop. It had to be Bailey's super vitamins. I'd been torn up before and forced to mend, but I'd never been this famished.
There must have been something in the way I spoke. Jasmine hurried toward me. "Are you all right?"
"I'm suddenly starving," I admitted.
She nodded, and took an apple pie from under a glass dome. After grabbing a fork, she said, "Eat this. It will tide you over until I can make you something more substantial."
"I'm not going to eat an entire pie by myself," I said as I started in on it. Three minutes later, the whole thing, crumbs and all, was gone.
I wiped my mouth, then said, "I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry about that."
"Don't apologize. It has to have something to do with Bailey's magic vitamins. There's always a side effect to anything you add to your body. You're burning so many calories healing, I can't believe you lasted as long as you did. Let me guess, you're still hungry, aren't you?"
"I could eat a bite or two," I admitted. I was going to have to have a talk with Bailey. It was true he'd warned me I'd be hungry after taking the vitamins, but the man needed to work on his language skills. At the moment, I could eat an old bull, hoofs and horns to boot.
Jasmine said, "Let's keep this simple. Hamburgers, fries, onion rings, and Cokes. How many burgers can you eat? Should I make you three, or four?"
"Two should be plenty," I said.
"Three it is," she said as she slapped four large patties on the griddle, adding one for herself.
In no time at all our meal was ready, and we took a seat at one of the booths in front. She had blinds pulled down in the restaurant windows, so we could eat in peace without all of Dogtown watching us.
I had no trouble eating all three of my burgers, most of the onion rings and nearly all of the French fries as well.
When I looked up from my plate, Jasmine was smiling at me. "I like a man with an appetite."
"Trust me, I don't always eat like this."
"I know that." She studied me a second, then said, "After this, I can't keep calling you Trask, but that's the only way Bowen has ever referred to you. What's your first name?"
"It's Jacob," I said.
She nodded. "And never 'Jake', I'm willing to bet. So, Jacob, what happens now?"
I was a little confused by the question. "I don't know. What did you have in mind?"
"I don't mean doing something with me," she said, but I did catch the hint of a smile at my suggestion. "I'm talking about your case."
"I need to find Harkins, and it needs to be soon. There's a danger to nearly everything I do on this case, but I can't let that stop me."
"Don't worry. You'll find your missing girl," Jasmine said.
"I wish I had as much faith in me as you seem to," I answered.
She reached out and touched my hand, and I wondered what Bowen would think if he'd seen it. Jasmine was an attractive woman-not beautiful, but pretty-and I couldn't help wondering what it would be like to be with her, a woman with a great many more layers than the dates I usually had. Something passed between our eyes, something unspoken but powerful enough to shake me. There was an invitation there, but it came with a warning. Go down this path, it said, and your life might never be the same again.
I wasn't ready to make that kind of decision, especially not when it involved Bowen's sister.
I pulled my hand away and said, "I'd better get going. Thanks for everything. I'll check in on you tomorrow. Both of you."
She nodded, the acceptance clearly showing in her eyes. 'Maybe someday, but not here, not tonight', it said.
For now, it was enough.
I was still thinking about Jasmine when I got back to my apartment. I'd stayed with her much longer than I'd planned, and I was still playing with the possibilities in my mind when I noticed that my apartment door was partially open.
Without realizing it, I instantly went into full survival mode. I drew my pistol, then stepped through the doorway, wondering if I was walking into another one of Harkins' traps.
Chapter 5
My place was trashed, cushions shredded and furniture broken up, but on the plus side, I was alone. Had an intruder broken in looking for something, or was this tied in with my search for Harkins and Jennifer Granger? Was it another warning, or had Harkins come by to finish what his underlings had started?
Anywhere else but Dogtown, my first move would have been to call the police and report the vandalism. But I knew Dalton would just laugh at me if I called this in. I started sorting through my things, searching for anything worth salvaging, and making a pile out in the hallway for everything else.
There wasn't much I had to discard, but then again, I wasn't used to living at the Ritz.
It wasn't until I moved into the bedroom that I found the note. BUTT OUT. LAST WARNING. At least I knew this was tied into the case I was working on. For some reason, it made me feel a little better.
Maybe I was making more progress than I thought.
At least he hadn't trashed the bedroom, so I had a place to sleep. I did call Sue Ellen's number before I nodded off, but there was no answer. Either Harkins had gotten to her, or she'd taken off. Either way, I was on my own.
But I was too tired to look for anybody tonight.
It was time to get some rest so I'd be able to do my job come morning.
The telephone woke me the next morning, and I grunted out a greeting as I tried to come awake. With all I'd eaten the night before, I was shocked to hear my stomach grumbling. I didn't know what was in Bailey's vitamin mix, but whatever it was, it had an appetite I could barely keep up with.
Stephanie Granger was on the line, and she didn't sound all that pleased to be talking to me. She was yammering on and on about something, but I couldn't make it out through the fog in my head.
"Call me back in fifteen minutes," I snapped as I hung up on her. Some clients were like that, breathing down my neck every second, expecting me to report in at every opportunity. I didn't work like that, it was time the Grangers learned that.
Twelve minutes later, after I'd had a chance to get a cup of coffee, wolf down an entire loaf of cinnamon bread and six scrambled eggs-even running my head under the shower while the eggs were cooking-the phone rang again. I thought about ignoring it until the full fifteen minutes had elapsed, but then again, I had taken the Granger money, and so far, I hadn't had much luck tracking their daughter down.
"Hello," I said as cordially as I could manage.
"Mr. Trask, I expect to be treated with at least the barest level of respect whenever I telephone."
I tried to keep my voice even as I said, "Sorry, I was out late last night looking for your daughter. I figured that was more important than being nice and rested in the morning so I could be more courteous to you just in case you called unexpectedly."
She hesitated, then said, "Or course. You're right, I'm sorry for my tone. I'm just sick with worry. Have you found her yet?"
"No, but I'm making some progress." Was I? Even I wasn't sure. My results so far hadn't led to any actual knowledge of where the woman's daughter was, but I was close enough to make Harkins nervous if the break in and the set up were any indication, so that was a point in my favor.
She said impatiently, "I'm waiting. What exactly have you discovered?"
I took a deep breath, counted to seven until I could answer without snapping at her, then said, "There are a few things you should know about how I work. I don't file reports, and I don't give daily briefings. I'm looking for Jennifer with every resource I have, and time I spend on the phone with you is time I'm not looking for your daughter."
"But you were asleep when I called," she said petulantly.
"Yeah, and I eat every now and then, too. You want me to cut that out? Listen Mrs. Granger, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, but I'll let you know as soon as I've found her. That's all I can promise."
"It's not much, is it?"
"Some folks think it is. Whether it's enough or not is entirely up to you. Good bye, Mrs. Granger."
I didn't even wait for her to reply. What did she think she was getting for her money, a trained lap dog? I was looking for her daughter the best way I knew how, and if it wasn't good enough for the Granger family, then they could fire me. But until they did, I was going to go out into the world and start looking for their daughter again.
But not before I stopped in at Jasmine's to see how Jim Valentine was doing, and maybe have a word or two with Bowen's little sister while I was at it.
I was surprised the diner was open, since Jasmine was taking care of Jim, but what did I expect? She was doing this as a favor to me and Bowen, and I couldn't expect her world to stop just for us.
Jasmine smiled when she saw me, a level of warmth there that hadn't been present before. "He's better this morning."
"Can I see him?" I asked.
"Why don't you ask me yourself?" Jim responded from a booth.
I slid in across from him. "Should you be up?"
"I don't know what Bailey gave me, but I want to order more of it right now. The only problem is, I've been eating since I woke up."
Jasmine grinned. "He's been hungrier than you were last night."
One of the waitresses called out, "I've got an order waiting."
"I'm coming," she said. As she passed by, she patted my hand, something that Jim didn't miss.
"What happened last night?" he asked as he took another bite of pancake.
"I came by to give you Bailey's vitamin potion and we chatted for a few minutes. That's it."
He shook his head. "I saw the way she was looking at you. Come on, spill it."
"Well, you must honestly be feeling better if you're this nosy already. I'm not about to do anything with Bowen's sister, okay?"
Jim shrugged. "Why not? I thought you two were friends. Are you sure he'd mind if you were interested in his sister?"
I stole a piece of bacon from his place. With all I'd eaten, I was still feeling more than a little peckish. "Do you want to be the one to ask him for his blessing?"
"No thanks, I'm just healing up from the last time I got into an argument that wasn't any of my business." His expression grew serious. "Jacob, I never had the chance to thank you for bringing me here."
He rarely called me by my first name, and it was a sure indication that he was still shaken up by what had happened at the house the night before. "I'm the one who got you hurt in the first place. I never should have asked you to back me up in there."
"Why, because I got a little scratched up?" he asked. "If you need me, I'll be there. You'd do it for me. That's what friendship means."
"You're nuts, you know that?"
He smiled. "I've been called worse. Have you had any luck tracking Harkins down this morning?"
"I've been too busy worrying about you," I said.
"Then stop it right now. I could leave this minute if I wanted to, but Jasmine's promised me a big lunch if I take a nap, so I'm going to take advantage of the situation and catch up on some sleep. If you need me, though, I'm good to go right now."
"Take it easy, pal. The only thing I need from you is for you to get better."
"Like I said, I'm practically there."
Jasmine brought me a plate of pancakes that matched Jim's. "Here. Eat this."
"I already ate a big breakfast," I said. "Besides, I don't have time."
She stared down at me and said, " "Make time. You're not going anywhere until you've eaten these."
"Yes, ma'am," I said as I took a bite. Honestly, I couldn't believe it, but I was still hungry, whether it was a hangover from Bailey's dose of vitamins or from the energy the healing process was robbing from me.
I tore into the meal, and by the time I was finished, I was feeling like my old self again. I slipped a hundred under my plate as I stood.
Jim said, "Wow, that's some kind of tip."
"It's for more than just our meals," I said. "She'll understand."
He shook his head. "She might, and then again, it might just piss her off. Either way, I'm not going to be the one who explains it to her."
He stood beside me, and I asked, "Where do you think you are going?"
"Like I said, I've got a date with a cot. If you need me, you know where to find me. See you."
Jasmine approached before I could get out myself. She spied the hundred as I was edging for the door. "Jacob Trask, get back here this instant."
I grinned at her. "Sorry, I've got to go. There's work to be done."
"What's the meaning of this?" she asked as she shook the hundred in the air at me.
I lowered my voice and waited for her to approach. The last thing I wanted was word to get around Dogtown that I'd been seen with Bowen's sister. "It's for dinner last night, two breakfasts this morning, and his lunch," I said. "If you need more, let me know. I've got a paying client, so I'm flush right now. You'd better take advantage of it while you can."
"It's still too much."
"Then run me a tab if there's anything left," I said. "I'll be back."
She didn't look all that happy about it, but she slid the bill into her apron.
I took off while I had the chance. It was time to stir up some more trouble and see if I could track Harkins and the teenaged runaway down before something even worse happened to her.
If she was even still alive, which I was beginning to doubt.
There was one person in Dogtown who might have the connections to find out where Harkins was hiding, but I'd been hesitating to tap the source. The question alone would buy me buckets of grief that I didn't want to take, but I didn't have anywhere else to go. It was time to go see Melody Rage, attorney to most of the lowlifes in our section of the city, and the only woman on earth who also happened to be my ex wife.
"Hi, may I help you?"
Melody had a new receptionist, a blonde barely out of her teens who hadn't learned appropriate office attire yet, which was at least one plus for having to come there. Her skirt was six inches too short, and her blouse was a full size too small, not that I was complaining about either of her errors.
"I need to see your boss."
The blonde frowned at me as she stared at a sheet in front of her. "Do you have an appointment? I'm sorry, but I don't see your name."
"How can you tell if it's there or not? I didn't give you one."
She smiled at me, and I could see a little warmth come through. "Fair enough, but nobody's down for now, so I still don't have you on my list."
"Tell your boss that Trask is here to see her. I'm pretty sure she'll agree, out of curiosity, if nothing else." I wasn't sure at all, given our rocky relationship, both in and out of matrimony, but she was just about my last hope, and I couldn't afford to be too choosy.
"I'll check with her," the girl said. Instead of using the phone, she got up from behind her desk, and I enjoyed watching her long legs barely covered by that short skirt as she went to tell my ex that I was there.
She popped out ten seconds after she went in with a startled look on her face. "She'll see you now."
"Thanks," I said as I slipped past her.
I didn't realize I'd looked back at the girl as she retreated, but Melody must have caught some of my glance. "Still up to your old tricks, Trask? Shelly's young enough to be your daughter."
"I doubt that. I'm not that old."
Melody frowned. "You're not getting any younger though, are you?"
"None of us are," I said with a smile she didn't return.
Melody's eyes rolled skyward for just a second. "What do you want, Trask?"
"Can't I drop in on my ex wife for no reason, just to say hello?"
"You could, but you don't," she said. "It's severely out of character."
I'd lost about every verbal match I'd ever had with her, so it was time to eat my pride and tell her why I was there. "Okay, you're right. Melody, I need your help."
Her smile was real in return. "Did Dalton arrest you for the Tommy Grace murder? You must be desperate if you're coming to me. You really must learn to control that temper of yours. Did you really kill Tommy?"
"Apart from a good beating he deserved-which he survived just fine, by the way-I didn't hurt him. This is about something else entirely."
She picked up a pen and started wiggling it. "My, you've been busy, haven't you? What else has been happening?"
There was no way I was going to tell her about the fight Bowen, Jim and I had been in. I was hopeful that particular event never got back to the police, or anyone else in Dogtown who might want to exact a little revenge on a fallen friend.
"Believe it or not, I've got a job," I said.
"That's a nice change of pace for you, isn't it? I didn't know anyone else was willing to hire you but me."
That's how we'd met, and it was a cheap shop, even for Melody. I'd worked a few cases for her as a private investigator, and soon enough, we'd shared something else that was private. "Apart from our differences, I'm good at what I do, and you know it."
She showed the slightest bit of remorse. "You're right. That was uncalled for. I'm sorry about that."
I smiled at her. "Sorry enough to help me?"
She shrugged. "It depends on what you want."
"Matthew Harkins is on a rampage in Dogtown, and he's got a seventeen year old norm girl with him."
That caught her attention. "He must have a death wish. I couldn't even get him sentenced to New Pitcairn pulling a stunt like that."
"Is he a client of yours?" I asked. I knew Melody would never violate that trust if she was working for him.
She shrugged. "No, at least not at the moment. I wouldn't mind handling the case, though. There'd be some good publicity in it for me, and if Harkins made it to late night television with his execution, all of Dogtown would see me standing with him."
"Don't you think that might send the right message to potential clients?"
She laughed. "Don't be so sure. Any publicity is good publicity."
"I'll be sure to slip him one of your cards after I find him," I said, "but that's the problem. I don't have any idea where he is."
"Trask, seriously, why should I help you? It's not like we're still married."
"And whose fault is that?" I asked. "I wasn't the one sleeping with a colleague."
"Not that I could prove, anyway," she said. "I always had my suspicions about you and Belladonna."
I stood. "Forget it. I'm sorry I bothered you. I'll find him on my own."
"Sit down," she snapped. "You always were impatient. I never said I wouldn't help you. I just asked why I should."
"There's no reason I can think of," I said. "It doesn't sound like you'd do it for old times."
"I might surprise you," she said as she reached for her phone. "Go keep Shelly mesmerized with your charm, limited though it is, and I'll see what I can do."
"Thanks. I appreciate this."
"Don't thank me yet. I haven't done anything yet."
It appeared that I'd already seen the height of Shelly's social bantering skills, so I finally gave up on her and waited impatiently for Melody. My ex wife, no matter what her flaws might have been, knew just about everyone in our corner of the city, and if anybody could find Harkins and the missing girl, I'd put my money on her.
Ten minutes later, my ex came out of her office. "Sorry, I couldn't help you."
"Did you even try?" I asked.
"What can I say? It's just not your day."
She surprised me by giving me a hug. "Thanks for stopping by, Trask. It was good seeing you."
"Bye," I said. After I walked out of her office, I checked my pocket. I was sure Shelly hadn't seen the transaction, but while my ex wife had been hugging me, she'd slipped something into my pocket. I checked the note and saw the name of motel on the edge of the town named Barker's. It was a place that rented rooms by the day or by the hour. No doubt Melody was being overly melodramatic by slipping me the address like she had, but I knew she had a reputation to protect, and if the underbelly of Dogtown knew she'd ratted one of their own out, it might be tough getting new clients after that.
I drove to Barker's, and for a second I thought about calling Bowen, but in the end I decided to do this on my own. I didn't like to rely on my friend do much. I might regret not calling him, but I'd taken this job on my own, and I was going to see it through that way, unless there was no way to avoid putting my friends' lives at risk again.
I knocked on the door of #120, but there was no answer. I could bribe the maid to let me in, or even slip the clerk a twenty for the key, but I didn't want anyone to know I was there, just in case of what might happen.
On the off chance it was unlocked, I tried the knob, and was surprised when the door opened to my touch.
As I walked inside, one thing was certain. Whoever had been there was gone.
I searched through the trash and found enough clues to tell me that Harkins had been staying there with a woman, including wrappers from an array of feminine hygiene products. But had it been Jennifer? There was nothing that told me that for sure, or where they might have gone, even if she had been the woman with him.
I left the room as I'd found it and approached the clerk after all. Taking Jennifer's picture out of my pocket, I clipped a twenty to it before I handed it to him.
The young man behind the desk had a bad case of acne, and there was something about the way he smelled that reminded me of old people. Maybe it was just the office, but I had a feeling it was emanating from him.
"Have you seen her?" I asked as I slid the photograph across the desk.
"Nope, she's never been here," he said without looking up from his paperback.
"Look again," I said, letting a little of the wolf creep into my voice.
It got his attention.
He looked up at me, dog-eared the page he was on, then took the picture. The look of recognition in his eyes when he saw Jennifer's image was clear, but his response was not.
He slid the photograph carefully back to me, the bill still attached. "Sorry. I really haven't seen her."
I took the twenty off the picture and moved it toward him. "Are you sure?" I added its twin, but he still didn't reach for the bills.
"Positive."
He was shaking, the man was so clearly afraid.
"When did they leave?" I whispered.
He looked around the room, then said softly, "An hour ago."
"Was the girl all right?"
He barely nodded, then said, "Don't make me talk about him, okay?"
I gave him the money. "Thanks."
He left the bills lying there, and I turned to go. Harkins, before he'd been hopped up on Bailey's juice, had been scary enough. It was pretty obvious he was downright terrifying now. Not to me, though. I was hunting the hunter, and I was pretty sure he didn't like being on the run.
Too bad. I was going to track him down, and if I had to put a silver bullet in him to get the girl back, I was ready to do it. Brothers of the Wolf meant something, but not at the expense of someone innocent.
But in order to put Harkins down, I had to find him first.
I thought about calling Dalton to see if he'd heard anything else, but was I ready to bring even more heat on Harkins? That was the problem with living in Dogtown. Most of us tended to think that the police were the last resort, and not the first. Added to that was my experience as a private investigator, where I usually tried to step in where the police had failed, and it didn't leave a whole lot of faith in the boys in blue on my part. Dalton was the exception-at least he'd listen to me if I had something solid for proof-but I was nowhere near having that yet. I'd already mentioned Harkins to him once, and if I did it again, I knew he'd grow suspicious about what I was up to. The Grangers had chosen to come to me, not the police, and I had to respect that wish, even if it meant putting their daughter in further jeopardy. It was fine distinction, but I was used to skating it in my line of work.
When I got back to my apartment, everything changed with a single message on my answering machine.
"Mr. Trask, you need to come to the house. There's been a ransom demand, and the police are here." Stephanie Granger's voice sounded surprisingly calm, considering the message she was delivering.
I played it a third time, short and sweet, before I dialed the Granger's home number.
Stephanie answered, and as soon as I identified myself, another voice cut in, one I was all too familiar with.
Dalton said, "It's about time, Trask. Get your tail over here."
"Bring me up to speed first," I said.
"There's not much to tell. The Grangers just got a ransom demand for their daughter. I don't have to tell you about her, do I?"
"I'm sorry I didn't say anything before, but I was on a case," I explained.
"Save it, we'll discuss that later. Just get over here."
I wasn't about to come when he called, though. "Hang on, there's something you should know first. I know where they were staying, at least until this morning."
That got his attention. "Where?"
"Room 120 at the Barker Motel. It's over on 117th."
"I know where it is. Did you touch anything?"
"Of course I did, but I didn't disturb the scene. If you get somebody over there before they clean the room, you might be able to find something."
He hung up without a word, but I hadn't been expecting a thank-you. Dalton and I would have a confrontation about me keeping a kidnapping on his turf from him, but I'd deal with it later. We'd had some run-ins in the past, and I didn't expect the present or future to be that much different, but we always found a way to coexist when we needed to.
I got to the Granger house and found it swarming with cars. There must have been people from every branch of law enforcement-local, state, and federal-and I didn't doubt they were all there because of who the Grangers were. It's amazing what money can buy, especially when you had as much as the Grangers apparently did. I wondered how much fuss they would have made if it had been a werewolf teen kidnapped instead of a norm, but I knew the answer to that without even posing the question. The law was supposed to apply equally to everyone, but it fell so far short of that, it was tough believing anyone felt that way but me.
I was patted down at the door, but I knew it was coming, so I'd left my gun in the car. If they wanted to search that, they probably wouldn't be too pleased about me walking around with silver bullets in the chamber, but that was tough. I wasn't going up against an enhanced Harkins without some kind of backup, with either my friends or some of my arsenal.
Dalton found me before I could talk to the Grangers. "Thanks for sharing the tip. We got there in time to stop the maid from cleaning up."
"I've got a feeling you would have been fine for a few days. The place isn't exactly known for their pristine linen service. Did you find anything?"
"No," he said. "You sure nothing left there with you?"
"I'd offer to let you search me, but that would just piss both of us off. I didn't find anything. Is there a ransom note?"
He started to say something when a nice looking young man in a dark suit approached. "Detective, is this the man you were speaking with earlier?"
Dalton rolled his eyes, but only I could see it. "Yes, sir. This is Jacob Trask. Trask, this is Special Agent Mulberry, FBI."
"Wow, they brought out the big guns for this one," I said.
"Trask, kidnapping is a federal offense, one we take seriously at the bureau. I understand you've been withholding information from local law enforcement. You should be aware that we're urging them to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law."
"So much for the spirit of cooperation," I said. "If you're going to be like that, why should I help you do anything?"
He got right in my face, and I could smell the garlic he had in his pasta for lunch. If I'd been a vampire, it probably would have been more effective than a stake in the heart.
"Are you trying to be smart with me?"
"No, sir." I doubted it would be worth the effort, but I wasn't going to go out of my way trying to piss him off, either. I didn't want to admit it, but the guy could probably make my life pretty miserable if he set his mind to it, and I wanted to stay below his radar as much as I could.
"Good. Now tell me what you know so far."
I nodded. Sometimes it's easier to just roll over and get through it. If he wanted to, I knew he could lock me up in the deepest cell they had, and not even Melody would be able to get me out of it.
I said, "There's not much to tell. I just took the case two days ago." I shared what I knew, with the glaring exception of Bailey's super werewolf potion. There was no way I was dragging my friend into this, and if it meant that I'd go to jail at some point down the road because of it, I was more than willing to pay that price.
"That's it?" Mulberry asked.
"It's the best I could do," I said.
He frowned at me, then said, "The Grangers didn't get much for their money, did they?"
"I'm not finished yet, so it's too soon to say. Could I see the note?" I asked.
He'd already dismissed me in his mind, and looked surprised by my question. "That's none of your business. Now get out of here. You're not a part of this anymore. As of right now, you're fired."
It was time to make a stand. "You can't fire me, since you weren't the one who hired me."
He got within an inch of my face again. Had he missed the day in kindergarten when they talked about personal space? "I don't like you or your kind, do you understand me? If you ask me, New Pitcairn is better than any of you deserve. Now get out."
He turned back to one of his minions, and Dalton motioned me outside before I could snap back at the FBIer. I hadn't even seen the Grangers, and it didn't look like I was going to. I wish I could say that Mulberry's attitude was shocking, but I'd been facing his kind of racism all my life. It was all I could do not to zone into full werewolf phase and give him a demonstration of why it wasn't smart antagonizing someone who could rip your throat out.
Outside, Dalton said, "He's a real charmer, isn't he? Don't feel all alone, he's already jumped on my back about this mess, and I didn't even know about it until an hour ago."
I let that stand. I'd eaten enough crap in the last ten minutes than I liked to swallow, and it was pretty clear Dalton knew it. Werewolves aren't exactly known for our temper management skills.
I asked, "So, what did the note say?"
"I'm not allowed to tell you that," Dalton said. As he took out a cigarette and lit it, he added, "I can't tell you there wasn't a note, that it was a phone call. I'm not supposed to say the ransom demand was for two hundred thousand dollars, or that Harkins is calling back the Grangers any time with the details of the drop." He grinned at me, then added, "There's about all I'm not supposed to tell you."
"It's a shame you can't share," I said.
It appeared that Dalton didn't like being shoved out of the picture any more than I did, and that made us some kind of allies, at least for the moment, though I had no delusions we'd just become best friends.
"How long is it going to take Granger to come up with that kind of cash?"
Dalton flicked the ashes from his cigarette. "That's the odd part. If you can believe it, he likes to keep that much cash here all of the time. He told Mulberry when the world falls down around us, he's going to be ready for it."
"Did anybody point out to him that if civilization ended, all he'd have were pretty pieces of colored paper?"
Dalton shrugged. "It's his money. Well, technically it's hers, but he likes to act like he's the one in charge. He didn't have too many nice things to say about you."
"I'm shocked," I said, remembering how I'd showed him part of the beast inside me. I might regret my actions again and again, but he'd been a jack ass, and I'd slapped him down for it. "What did she say?"
"Mrs. Granger was surprisingly mute about you, as hard as that might be for you to believe."
I shook my head. "I must be losing my touch. The ladies usually really go for me."
Dalton was about to respond when one of the junior FBI agents poked his head out the door. "Get in here. Now."
Dalton was the one who looked like he wanted to snap the guy's neck now. It must have been going around. "I'm busy right now, but I'll be right in."
The junior agent shook his head. "I wasn't talking to you, Dalton. The kidnapper's on the phone, and he wants to talk to your werewolf friend."
Chapter 6
I thought about protesting that I'd just been fired, but I wanted to talk to Harkins as much as he apparently wanted to talk to me. I followed the agent inside, and Dalton was close on our heels.
Mulberry had his hand over the phone's mouthpiece when I approached him. "Keep him on the line as long as you can. We're tracing it."
I reached for his phone, but instead of surrendering it, he pointed toward one of the house phones. "Talk to him on that one."
I picked it up, took a deep breath, then said, "This is Trask."
"It's Harkins," he said. "You've been making quite a mess around town, haven't you?"
"Funny, and here I thought I was cleaning up after you. By the way, I like how you redecorated my place."
He chuckled. "I wasn't even sure you'd be able to tell I'd been there."
"We managed to get quite a bit of the litter you left hanging around." I was close to it now, but I didn't want to give any of the law enforcement folks there any idea what I'd done.
"I was wondering what happened to my friends."
He was pushing it, and he knew it. If Harkins admitted that Bowen, Jim and I had taken out his flunkies, I'd have an even tougher time getting out of that house after the phone call. Then again, I knew how deeply the aversion to any authority was in Dogtown. Harkins and I might be in direct opposition, but we were still Brothers of the Wolf, and that counted for something.
"Things happen," I said.
"Sometimes they happen to you."
I didn't care what Mulberry wanted, I was getting fed up with this. "Why did you want to talk to me? If you want to catch up on old times, I'll take you out to dinner. How's that sound?"
The FBI man scowled, but I didn't care.
"Quit screwing around, Trask. I want you to make the money drop," he said. "You know Dogtown."
"Do you think you can trust me just because we're both werewolves?" I asked. "That only cuts so far."
"I know it better than you do. You're the devil I know, though. I know what you're going to do before you do it."
"Don't flatter yourself."
I looked around the room, and caught a glimpse of Stephanie Granger in the hallway. She looked like she was falling apart. I had a sudden thought.
"Before I agree to do anything for you, I need to talk to Jennifer," I said. "Then we can talk about the money."
"You're not making the rules," Harkins snapped. "I am, and don't forget it."
"If you want me to help you get the money, I have to know that the girl is still alive."
There was a pause, then I heard a young woman's voice. It was soft and trembling. "This is Jennifer Granger."
"Hi, Jennifer. Your parents hired me to find you. Would you mind telling me your mother's maiden name?"
"It's Simmons. Why?"
"Simmons," I said, and watched Stephanie Granger nod in agreement.
"That's good. I just wanted to make sure you were who Harkins says you were."
She whispered, "Give him what he wants. Anything, do you hear me?"
Her voice cut out abruptly, and Harkins came back on the line. "The old railroad tracks at the overpass. Bring the money, and come alone. If anybody follows you, I'll kill her. If the money's not there in an hour, I'll kill her. If I get the smallest scent that something is wrong, I'll kill her."
"It sounds like you've got it all planned out," I said, but he'd already hung up.
I looked at Mulberry. "Did you get your trace?"
Mulberry glanced at one of his men, who frowned, then said, "He was somewhere in the lower section, but that was all we could get."
"It's called Dogtown," I said.
Mulberry waved it off. "That's it. You can go now."
"You don't need me for the drop?" I was surprised he hadn't taken Harkins' threats more seriously.
"I'm not about to trust you with two dollars, let alone two hundred thousand. For all I know, the two of you planned this whole thing out together."
I couldn't believe this asshole was going to jeopardize Jennifer Granger's life just because he didn't like me. "But that's the thing. You don't know. Ask him about me," I said as I pointed to Dalton.
Dalton nodded as he said, "You can trust him on this. I wouldn't exactly let him use me as a character reference, but he wouldn't be involved in this, not in a million years."
"That's your opinion," Mulberry said.
"Yeah, well, you know what they say about opinions. If it was me, I'd do as Harkins said. He didn't sound like he was messing around, at least from what I heard."
"It's not your decision to make though, is it," Mulberry said.
Stephanie Granger finally couldn't take it any more. "And it's not yours, either. If this monster wants things done a certain way, then we'll do just as he asks. I don't care about catching him. I just want my baby girl back."
Mulberry said, "Ma'am, I have to tell you that this whole thing might be a set-up. He," he said as he gestured to me, "could be in on it, too."
Stephanie shook her head. "You don't understand, do you? He's helping me. I won't believe he's a part of this."
It was a nice show of faith, and I nodded my thanks in her direction. She'd seen what no one else in the room had. I had promised her my best, and I was going to deliver it. It made me glad I'd taken the case, even with everything that had happened over the last two days.
Her husband came in behind her, and he could barely look at me. Mulberry treated him like an ally, though. "Mr. Granger, it's important that you convince your wife to work with us on this. We can have an agent here with this man's general description in an hour. There are too many risks involved with this to allow him to participate."
"I stand by my wife's decision," he said, and it must have cost him something dearly from the way he said it.
Mulberry stared at him for a few seconds, then snapped, "Fine. It's your daughter, and the money's yours." He turned to me. "I'm going to have somebody on your tail every second, so don't get any cute ideas about skipping out with the money yourself."
"I never skip," I said. "I might gallop or run, but no skipping. I promise."
He shook his head in disgust, then turned to Dalton. "You vouched for him, so if something goes wrong, you're taking the heat for it."
Dalton didn't look too concerned by the threat. "And if it goes right, who gets the credit?"
It was as if Mulberry hadn't even heard him. He turned to one of his own and said, "Get me the bag, and make sure the transponders are in it."
"Harkins isn't stupid," I said. "He's going to know you're tracking him."
"We've got one for him to find, and one buried in the money. I'm sure he's not all that clever."
"Why, because he's a werewolf?" I asked.
Mulberry shrugged, and I had to bite back the beast, no matter how much I wanted to let it loose and show him just how dangerous a game he was playing with me.
He grabbed my jumpsuit and pushed a small silver button into the fabric.
"What's that for?"
Mulberry said, "If you take off with the money, we'll track you down and hang you in the square in prime time. You got it? Don't screw this up."
"When you put it so nicely, how could I refuse?"
One of the FBI men came up with an overnight bag, and he handed it to his boss. Mulberry opened the zipper, and I saw the bills were inside before he closed it back up. He didn't want to release it to me-I could tell by the way his knuckles were white on the grip.
Finally, I said, "You'll have to let go, if I'm going to deliver it."
"I don't like this," he said, retaining his grip. Mulberry turned to the man who'd brought the bag. "Johnson. Go get into the back seat of his car. If he does anything the least bit suspicious, shoot him."
"Hang on a second," I protested. "How does he know what's suspicious? Are willing to take a chance that Harkins might find out what you're doing? He told me to come alone."
"And I'm not listening to a criminal, you got that? Either Johnson goes with you, or nobody goes."
"It's your funeral," I said, before I remembered the Grangers could hear me. It was an unfortunate choice of words, but I meant it.
It looked like Stephanie was about to protest when her husband said, "We have to trust the FBI, you see that, don't you?"
"But she's our only child," Stephanie said.
"That's why we have to do everything we can to get her back," her husband said.
Mulberry turned to his man. "Go."
Johnson nodded, then slipped out the front, no doubt to settle into the back seat of my car. I hadn't cleaned it out in while, and he was going to get some stains on that pretty suit of his, but I didn't care.
"I just want to repeat that this is a bad idea," I said.
Mulberry snapped, "The fact that you're not happy about it is just a bonus for me. My man will keep you from trying anything tricky. Just do as you're told."
I looked at Dalton, and while it was clear he wasn't any happier with the situation than I was, there was nothing he could do about it, either.
I was beating my head against the wall, and nothing was going to change.
"Then I guess I'd better get going."
I drove toward the railroad tracks in Dogtown with Agent Johnson lying down in the back seat.
I asked, "Do you want to ride up front with me until we get closer to the drop? I doubt Harkins has anybody watching my car yet."
"No thanks. I've got my orders."
"And you always carry them out, don't you?"
That didn't get a response, but it was okay. I didn't feel much like talking anyway. The bag with the money was beside me, and I touched it lightly. What made Harkins ask for two hundred thousand? Why not five hundred thousand, or an even million? With the house I'd just been in, it was hard to imagine Stephanie Granger couldn't afford whatever price he named to get her daughter back. I'd have to ask Harkins when I found him. In a way it was funny. All the running around I'd been doing looking for him, and he'd made the invitation for us to meet face to face himself.
Now if I only survived it. I had no illusions that Harkins would play fair. Once he had the money, what would keep him from attacking me? I couldn't count on Johnson for my safety. He might be properly trained by the FBI, but I doubted he'd had much experience fighting hopped up werewolves. I'd only done it once myself, and it had been more than enough.
"We're getting close," I said as the sky seemed to darken. Whether it was just my mood or not, I couldn't honestly say.
Johnson didn't answer, and I was about to make a crack about his conversation skills when my cell phone rang.
"Don't answer that," the FBI man in back said. "You need to stay focused on what you've been instructed to do."
"Sorry, but I don't work for you," I said as I flipped the telephone open.
It was a good thing I answered, because Harkins was on the other end of the line. "That's a good boy, Trask. Do as I say, and I might let you live."
"Sorry I can't make you the same offer, Harkins," I said so Johnson could hear who I was talking to.
"We'll see how much smack you can talk with your throat ripped out," he said.
He was as charming as ever. "Enough small talk. Where do I need to drop the money so the Grangers can get their daughter back?"
"Come down by the trestle and we'll make the switch," he said. There was a pause, and then his voice got angry. "Wait a second. What are you trying to pull, Trask?"
Had he spotted Johnson already? "What are you talking about? I've got the money right here, every dollar of it. I'm doing this just like you told me to."
"Someone's in the car with you, asshole."
I glanced at the FBI agent in the backseat. How could Harkins know I had a passenger with me?
"I'm all alone."
"Don't lie to me; I can hear him breathing. I told you to come alone!" As he said it, the connection cut off and a split second later, a bullet punched through my windshield. If I hadn't been expecting Harkins to try something, it would have caught me dead square in the forehead, but I ducked at the last second. I did an evasive turn, and tore out of there before he got another chance at me.
"What just happened?" Johnson screamed.
"He knew you were here," I snapped as I sped away. "Don't lay this on me. I did everything you people told me to, and I almost got shot because of it."
"We never made the drop," Johnson yelled. "What am I going to tell Mulberry?"
"Tell him he screwed up," I said.
In a candid moment, Johnson said, "Yeah, I don't think that's going to go over too well."
"I'll back you up. It's not your fault," I said. With Bailey's elixir, I had to wonder if Harkins had enhanced hearing as well as his other senses and abilities. It had made him into a super werewolf, but what else was it doing to him? What were the long term effects of the potion, or did it really matter? The way Harkins was going, I didn't expect him to have much a life expectancy. Maybe that was it. The potion took away caution and prudence, along with everything else it gave its recipients.
I heard Johnson talking to his boss on his phone as I drove back to the Granger mansion, but I tuned most of it out. We all had our own set of problems, and mine hadn't gotten any easier with the new complications.
Mulberry was waiting for us outside the house with a crowd gathered around him. The second I stepped out of my car, he said, "Cuff him."
I started to shift into full werewolf form without thinking, then fought the beast back into its cage. It was time to be circumspect, not give him another excuse to ship me off to New Pitcairn.
"He didn't do anything wrong," Johnson said, surprising me by jumping to my defense.
"He tipped Harkins off that you were with him," Mulberry said.
I couldn't believe it, but Johnson was actually defending me. "Harkins heard me. I don't know how he did it, but he knew I was there. You can't blame Trask."
Mulberry got up in his face. "I can blame whoever I want to, and if you don't step down this instant, you're going to be cuffed right along side him."
That shut Johnson up.
"Now do as I say. Put the cuffs on him and stick him in the back of my car," Mulberry ordered one of his men as Stephanie Granger walked outside.
"What's going on here?"
"I'm taking Trask in for questioning. Harkins knew he had one of my men in the car with him. This guy had to have tipped him off somehow."
Stephanie's face turned red. "So you're going to arrest him on a suspicion?"
As the handcuffs bit into my wrists, I said, "There's something you should understand. There are two sets of rules; one for norms like you, and another for my kind."
"Shut up before I muzzle you, wolf boy," Mulberry yelled.
"Let him go," Stephanie said softly.
Mulberry's head snapped around as he looked at her. "Pardon me? I'm sorry, but you're not in any position to give me orders. I'm in charge of this situation. It's my decision, and I say he goes with me."
She shook her head. "You're the one who doesn't understand. Call your supervisor." Stephanie handed him her cell. "Here, you can use my phone."
He ignored the offer, then said, "Excuse me a second," as he walked out of earshot and made the call.
Two minutes later, he was back. "Take the cuffs off him and let him go."
"But, sir, you said..."
"I know what I said, and I know what I'm telling you right now. Let him go."
The junior agent did as he was told, and Mulberry asked Stephanie, "Is there anything else you require from me?"
"No, you and your men can go," she said.
"Let's move out," Mulberry said loudly, being careful not to make eye contact with me or my employer.
Johnson shrugged when our gazes met, and I could see he was suppressing a smile. I couldn't believe it, but in three minutes, they were all packed up and gone, including Dalton.
Stephanie waited until the last car was off the property, then turned to me and said, "I bought you forty eight hours, but after that, I'm going to have to take you off the case and turn it back over to them."
I rubbed my wrists where they'd chafed under the cuffs. "I don't know how you did it, and I'm not sure I want to know. The FBI isn't known for giving up and walking away."
"Let's just say a friend of friend owed me a favor, and leave it at that. Two days, Mr. Trask. After that, I can't promise you anything."
"I'll find her," I said. I hesitated at the door of my car, then turned back to her. "Can I ask you something?"
"I may or may not answer, but go ahead."
I chose my words carefully as I asked, "Why didn't you get your friend to find your daughter instead of me?"
She thought about it a second, then said, "It's a fair question. I went to him first, but he told me I'd be better off getting someone who knew Dogtown and its residents. Are you offended you weren't my first choice?"
"No, ma'am. I'm just glad I made the list." I got into my car-its windshield starred like a sunburst from the bullet hole-and drove back to Dogtown.
I was sure Harkins would be gone from his spot under the trestle, but maybe he'd left me a clue to his whereabouts, whether he meant to or not.
I was walking up and down the tracks near the aborted drop-off point looking for something that might help-a shell casing, a wrapper, even a map to where Harkins was now-when I saw a figure looming in the shadows. Taking my gun out of my jacket, I thumbed off the safety and moved forward.
"Are you going to shoot me, or is that just your way of saying you missed me?" Belle stepped out of the shadows.
I put my gun away. "What are you doing here?"
"I just got back into town, and the first thing I hear is somebody's taking shots at you. I told you stay out of trouble before I left, Trask. That's the problem with you men, you just don't listen."
"How'd you find out what happened so fast?"
She laughed. "This is Dogtown. Everybody knows everyone else's business, you know that. I'm glad I didn't find your body when I came down here. I was halfway expecting it."
"That makes two of us," I said. "Did you find anything else while you were hiding in the shadows, something that might help me find them?"
She shook her head. "There aren't any clues here, at least none that I could find. What happens now?"
I glanced at my watch. "I'm not really sure. I need to check on Jim. We got in a bit of a scuffle while you were gone, but he's healing nicely."
"You boys need a fulltime chaperone," she said. "Who looks out for you when I'm gone?"
"Evidently nobody," I said. "You want a ride?"
"That'd be nice. My car's at my place, so you can chauffeur me around for a change of pace."
As I headed toward Jasmine's, Belle said, "Hey, where are you going? Jim's place is back there."
"He's not home," I explained. "Bowen and I took him to his sister's diner, and she's been taking care of him."
Belle said, "I didn't realize Bowen was such a Good Samaritan, or his sister, either."
"Jim was hurt helping me, and Bowen was with us, too. That gave him a stake in Jim's healing, and his sister's pretty amazing. Taking care of Jim, that is."
Bell smiled at me. "There's more to it than that, though, isn't there? What else is going on between you and his little sis?"
Had she picked up on some kind of vibe already? "What? You're crazy. Bowen's already threatened to kill me if I do anything with Jasmine. I'm good, but I'm not sure I'm good enough to take him on and win, and to tell you the truth, I hope I never find out. Jasmine's off limits, there's no debate about that."
I could tell Belle wasn't buying my explanation, but at least she kept her doubts to herself.
When we walked into the diner, Jasmine's smile when she saw me quickly disappeared the second she realized that Belle was with me.
"He's not here," she said flatly when I looked around for my friend.
"What happened? Did he get worse?" I couldn't handle it if something happened to Jim while he was helping me.
She shook her head. "That's not it. He's fine, and we were both driving each other nuts, so I sent him away."
"You did a good thing, taking care of him like that," Belle told Jasmine.
She didn't answer, just shrugging instead in reply.
"Do you have any idea where he went?" I asked.
Jasmine looked at me harshly. "I helped him heal, I didn't take him to raise. Now if you'll both excuse me, I've got customers to wait on," she said as she turned her back on us both.
"Thanks again," I said as we left, but Jasmine didn't even acknowledge me.
We were outside in front of the diner when I said, "I wonder what got into her?"
"You don't know? You honestly didn't see it?"
"See what?" I asked as we got back into my car. "I didn't see anything."
"Some private detective you are. You can spot a clue from a hundred yards, but you can't see a woman interested in you from an inch away."
"What are babbling on about now? You're not talking about Jasmine, are you? How many times do I have to tell you? Nothing happened between us."
"Nothing you know about," Belle said. "But I saw her face when she saw you, and then I watched her eyes go dead when she spotted me behind you. You'd better do something about that before it gets ugly."
"How can I deal with something I don't understand?" I asked. "You and I are friends, and that's it. I can't keep anybody from jumping to the wrong conclusions about us."
"No, but you can clear things up when there's a misunderstanding. Do you want to go back in and explain it to her? I don't mind waiting out here."
"There's nothing to explain," I said as I drove to Jim's place.
"Sometimes I think you're a cut above the other men around here," Belle said.
"Thanks. I appreciate that."
"I'm not talking about right now, you idiot. Just sometimes."
"Wow, I can feel the love," I said.
She snorted. "I don't know how, I'm not giving any."
We got to Jim's apartment, but he wasn't there. Belle asked, "Any other bright ideas?"
"Let's try Bailey. Maybe Jim's hitting him up for more of those super vitamins."
"If he is, I want some myself. It sounds like some kind of miracle drug."
"It's good, but the miracle drug is what Harkins is hopped up on now, and believe me, you don't want any part of that."
"Why not? I could stand being a super werewolf."
I shook my head. "You're dangerous enough to the world just as you are. I'm not sure any of us would survive an enhanced version of you."
"Yeah, you're probably right," she said.
When we got to Bailey's, I had a sudden, sick feeling in my gut that something was wrong inside. I pulled my gun out and asked, "Is there any chance you'll wait out here until I see what's going on?"
"When are you going to stop treating me like some kind of girlie girl?" Belle asked. "If there's going to be a fight, I want in on it. I'm already pissed I missed the one where Jim got hurt."
"Doesn't that tell you something right there? Jim was wounded trying to help me."
"So, I'll be more careful than he was." Belle looked at me with disgust, then asked, "Now, are we going to go inside, or are we going to have a debate club meeting about it? I'm ready if you are."
And without waiting for me, Belle charged the door. There was nothing I could do but follow along behind her, cursing my friend's rashness with each step, and hoping that whatever, or whoever, was waiting for us on the other side of that door wasn't going to try to kill us.
Chapter 7
"Don't shoot," Jim said as he held up his hands and smiled when we burst into the room. "I wasn't doing anything, I promise."
"Where's Bailey?" I asked as I put my gun back. Had I really felt there was a problem outside, or were my senses wound a little too tightly? I had to admit, the near-miss shot Harkins had taken at me had shaken me, and I wondered if it was going to keep clouding my judgment. I had to be ready for an attack at any time, but I also had to have a gut feeling when things were safe. I'd wear myself out if I jumped at every shadow, and if I didn't stay fresh, I'd lose the slightest bit of edge I had.
"I'm right here," he said as he came out of his lab with a small beaker. "I made another batch of super vitamin, and Jim wanted a shot of it."
"Aren't you worried about giving him too much? He looks healed to me, and we don't know if there are any long term worries with that stuff yet, do we?"
Jim laughed. "Don't worry, I'm not going to get addicted. I just needed one last boost to get me over the hump." He hefted the beaker, then killed it in one swallow. "See? No harm, no foul. What have you two been up to?"
Before I could answer, Belle said, "Let's see, our friend Trask here was shot at by a rogue werewolf and then almost locked up in jail for being who he is."
"In other words, a pretty typical day, then," Jim said. His color had come back almost immediately, and if I didn't know better, I could swear he was whistling under his breath. Maybe the stuff was addictive after all.
Bailey turned to Belle. "How rude of me. Would you like a bit yourself? It's perfectly harmless."
"No, I'm good," she said. "But give some to Trask if you made extra. He's kind of on edge."
"I'm fine," I said. I'd already had a dose of the stuff, and I wasn't sure I wanted any more of it. The appetite it had given me had been ferocious, and I didn't like feeling that out of control.
"Are you hungry yet, Jim?" I asked.
"No, but I will be in two minutes."
"Then let's get you something to eat," Bailey said. "Why don't we all have dinner together?"
Belle said, "No offense, but I've eaten your cooking, and I'd rather go hungry."
"How could I take offense to something like that? I was thinking more along the lines of sending Jacob out for takeout at the Chinese restaurant down the block."
"Sounds good. I'll pick up a little bit of everything," I said.
Belle asked, "You want some company?"
I shook my head. "No, I think I'll be safe walking around Dogtown by myself. It's not even dark yet."
"Fine, go get your tail singed, see if I care."
I grinned at her. "Oh, you care, all right, I know you do. You can't help yourself."
"I don't, but I know somebody who does."
Jim saw Belle's grin and asked, "Is this a private joke, or can anyone jump in?"
Before Belle could say anything, I said, "It's nothing. I'll be right back."
Bailey reached for his wallet, but I said, "Put your money away. Tonight it's my treat."
"In that case, I'd rather have steak," Belle said.
"You can call it whatever you want, but it's still going to be Chinese."
I bought enough food for eight people, and with Jim's hyperactive appetite, I just hoped it was enough.
"Delivery boy," I said when I walked back into Bailey's place.
They were ready for me. Instead of eating in his small living space, they'd arranged a buffet table on one of Bailey's workbenches, and an odd assortment of chairs and stools were gathered around it.
"Why don't you put it all down in the middle and we'll fight over it," Jim said.
Belle looked at all of the bags. "Are we expecting anybody else?"
"I think we can handle it," I said, though looking at the array of food displayed, I wasn't sure anymore.
As we dished up our plates, Belle said, "I've been giving Harkins some thought today."
"He's kind of been on my mind, too," I said as I scooped out some rice.
"He's got to be in Dogtown, right?" she asked.
"Not necessarily. There are seedy places in the city besides where we live, and he could be holed up in any one of them. I've got a hunch he's not staying in the same place two nights in a row."
Jim said, "Sure, but what's he doing for money? Harkins has always been a hand-to-mouth kind of guy. Can he afford to keep staying in motels? I don't care how cheap they are, the bills still add up."
I thought about it, then said, "Maybe Jennifer had some money when he took her."
Belle replied, "I've been thinking about that, too. How sure are we he actually kidnapped her? I know it looks like that now," she said as she waved a fork in the air, "But her parents claimed they were dating. Maybe they were planning to run away together from the very beginning, and she wanted to take the money with them."
"It's a possibility I've played with," I admitted.
Bailey shook his head. "What would a norm teenaged girl see in a man like Harkins? One look at the guy should cause alarms and sirens to go off for anybody who's the least bit sane."
"Trust me, some girls like bad boys," Belle said.
"Are you one of them?" I asked, then took another bite.
She grinned, showing elongated canines. "No, I figure I'm bad enough for both of us, so that never bothered me. You should know, we've been around each other all our lives."
"Yeah, but I was never crazy enough to date you."
"You never had the balls," Belle said.
Jim snorted. "Do me a favor. Go someplace else if you're going to stroll down memory lane, would you? I'm trying to eat here."
His plate was heaped with food for the second time, and he was digging in with no signs of wavering.
"I can't imagine anything putting you off your feed tonight," I said.
Bailey replied, "I admit that it's an unexpected side affect of the vitamin combination I came up with. I'll have to see what I can do to correct that."
Between bites, Jim said, "It makes perfect sense to me. I'm asking my body to heal ten times faster than it's used to. That's bound to burn up calories, for the effort and the raw materials. It's made me whole again." Then in a voice almost too soft to hear, he added, "at least on the outside."
Jim was quiet again, and his fork faltered over his plate, even though it was loaded with a bite. My friend had been near death in that abandoned house, and he knew it. Jim had always prided himself on being able to take care of himself, and being played with like a child-with his life in the balance-had broken something inside him. I could see it in his eyes.
I patted him gently on the back. "You'll bounce back. I promise."
"I don't see how," he said, his voice croaking out barely above a whisper. "Excuse me."
He left the room, and I was relieved to see that he went to the bathroom and not the front door.
After a moment's silence, Belle asked, "Was it really that bad?"
I nodded. "He has to come to terms with what happened. Until he does, I'm afraid Jim's not going to be the same guy we're used to."
Bailey looked as though he wanted to cry. "And it's all my fault."
I snapped, "Really? I didn't see your claws at his throat, but maybe I missed something. I was busy dealing with a superwolf myself."
Bailey snapped out, "You know what I mean. Without my potion, those three werewolves wouldn't have had the strength to take you all on."
I wasn't about to let him get away with that. "Did you pour it down their throats?"
"No, of course not." He looked at me with a glint of anger in his eyes. "Why are you being such an asshole about this?"
I pointed toward the bathroom. "He gets to lick his wounds, he paid the admission price, but you don't. You created something in your lab, and your assistant stole it from you. After that, nothing that's happened is your fault. Grow up, Bailey. This is the real world, not some safe, enclosed haven built just for you where nobody ever gets hurt."
Belle touched me lightly on the arm. "Hey, take it easy on him."
I jerked it away. "Stay out of this, Belle. It's none of your business."
I was lashing out at them all, and I knew it, but I couldn't stop myself. Jim's current condition was the fault of someone in that room, but it wasn't Bailey's. I was the one who'd drug my friend to that house, and I was the one who'd watched his torment. If anybody had the right to wallow in self recriminations, it was me, and if I couldn't do it, I was damn sure Bailey wasn't going to, either.
After a few seconds, Bailey said, "You're right, of course. It's hard to realize there are ramifications to everything we do. My mistake was not guarding my samples better, and I've taken steps to see that it never happens again. Thanks for setting me straight, Jacob."
That seemed to infuriate Belle. "You're going to let him get away with that? He's not God, you know. The great Jacob Trask makes mistakes, too."
I nodded. "I make them all the time. I just hope none of them ever cause my friends to get hurt again."
Belle looked surprised by the admission, as if she'd been expecting me to put up a fight. When I caved in and showed her my weaknesses, it caught her off guard. "Fat chance. You're a walking hazard sign all by yourself."
"What can I say? It's a gift."
Jim came back in and looked around the room. "Why did everybody stop eating?"
I smiled. "Because we don't have an endless pit to fill like you do. You'd better watch yourself, if you keep eating like this, your jumpsuit isn't going to fit anymore."
He patted his stomach. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? I haven't gained an ounce. Bailey, I think you've created a werewolf diet pill. Eat all you want and burn it all up."
"I think I'll stick to my research in the lab," he said, "and leave the rest to Madison Avenue."
"More like Stink Pot Road," Belle said, naming a particularly odious section of Dogtown where the norms processed their raw sewage.
After the food was gone, we batted around some ideas of where Harkins might be hiding, but we couldn't come up with anywhere that had more merits than anyplace else.
We were still debating it when there was a heavy knock at the door.
I said, "I'll get it," as I thumbed back the safety on my gun and approached it.
I eased it back on when I realized our visitor was Bowen, but as I studied the hard expression on his face, I began to regret the decision to put my weapon away. It appeared that my friend was looking for blood about something, and only mine would do.
I held the door open for him and said, "What's wrong? Come on in and we'll talk about it."
"I don't think so. I need you to step outside."
Belle called out, "Trask, is something wrong?"
"Everything's fine," I called back over my shoulder. "I'll be right back."
I stepped out into the cool night air with Bowen, and in the shadows of the street light, I could see why so much of Dogtown was afraid of him. He wasn't sculpted like Jim, but there was a quality to him nonetheless that looked dangerous, even if he was just standing there at full rest. It took me a second to figure about what it reminded me of, and I realized it was his ready and sudden potential for violence. He was like a spring coiled tightly and poised to explode at any second.
Finally, Bowen said, "I shouldn't have to tell you this, but I don't have much choice. When my sister's unhappy, I'm unhappy. I've told you a thousand times to stay the hell away from her, but you wouldn't listen to me, would you?"
Was he going to try something with me? I watched as his fists bunched up, then released. It was pretty clear that Bowen was fighting the impulse to zone into phase, and if there was anybody in Dogtown who was as fast as me, it was Bowen. Maybe, just maybe, he was a shade faster.
"I don't know what you think is going on," I said as I surveyed the street, "but nothing happened between Jasmine and me. We talked for a while last night, but that's it. I swear."
Bowen said, "It was enough. She saw you come in with Belle tonight and it crushed her."
"Belle and I are just friends," I said.
"You know that, and so do I, but my sister thinks otherwise. You need to make this right, Trask. There's a lot at stake."
I couldn't believe I was even having this conversation. "What am I supposed to do, just walk up to her and tell her that Belle and I aren't involved?"
Bowen nodded. "And then you tell Jasmine you can't see her, and you'd better come up with something good, something that won't make her cry any more."
I'd once seen him stare down four werewolves bigger than he was-with no backup but me-and he hadn't even flinched. Right now, though, he looked like he was ready to go off on me. "Bowen, this isn't like you."
He nodded sadly. "Don't you think I realize that? When it comes to the rest of the world, I don't mind the dirtiest job-if I think it needs to be done-but my sister's heart is something else altogether."
"You can't keep shielding her forever," I said softly. "She has the right to a life of her own."
"Hers has been hard enough without you adding to it. Let's go."
I couldn't believe how fast this was going bad. "You mean right now? I don't even know what I'm going to say to her."
"You'll think of something on the way," Bowen said. "You're quick like that."
"Just let me tell them I'm leaving," I said.
Bowen nodded, and I stuck my head back in through the door. "Bowen and I have something to take care of." As Belle started to get up, I said, "We're good. Stay here and enjoy the company."
"I want to come with you," she said.
"Believe me when I say that's exactly what you shouldn't do, as much as I usually love your company."
She scowled at me. "You're going after Harkins, aren't you? Bowen found him."
"Not even close," I said. "This is something personal between the two of us."
Bailey asked, "Are you coming back tonight?"
"I'm not sure how long it's going to take. In case I don't make it back, I'll touch base tomorrow."
I left them a little bewildered, but how could I explain what I was going to attempt without sounding like a fool?
As I stepped back outside, Bowen asked, "You come up with anything yet?"
"No, but I've got four blocks until we get to the diner, so there's no pressure. Let's walk, okay?"
"You're not stalling, are you?" he said with no laughter at all.
"Maybe just a little," I admitted. If I was being honest with him, I didn't have a clue what I was going to say to his sister, especially with her brother looming over us.
By the time we got Jasmine's, I still hadn't come up with anything. Maybe I'd hatch a plan at the last second. Sometimes it worked, but just sometimes.
Bowen stayed back in the shadows as we neared the diner. "Aren't you coming?"
"No, she doesn't need to know I made you come here tonight by force."
I stopped. "Let's get something straight. You didn't make me do anything I wasn't willing to do myself. I'm not afraid of you, Bowen. You might be able to take me, but then again, I might just surprise you. Either way, I don't mind finding out if you don't."
He was quiet for nearly a minute, then said, "I'm sorry. I don't know what's going on in my head. You're a good man, I know that more than most, but when it comes to Jasmine, I kind of lose all sense of what's right and wrong, you know?"
"That's why I'm here," I said. "I value your friendship, if that's what we are to each other. Sometimes I'm not so sure."
"I've always got your back," he said.
"And I've got yours."
He paused, then asked softly, "Do you really think you could take me?"
"Maybe not after all that Chinese takeout I just ate," I said, trying to add a smile that failed. "But catch me on a good day, and who knows?"
"If you think I'm tough, wait until you go in there." He gestured inside, and I could see Jasmine sitting at one the booths, her back to us.
"So, that's the real reason you're not going in. You're afraid of your sister."
Bowen just laughed. "You would be too, if you had any idea what you were going up against. See you around."
I turned toward the diner, then back to Bowen, but he was already gone.
It appeared that I was going into the lioness's den alone and unarmed.
I just hoped I survived it.
When I tapped on the front door, Jasmine looked up, and I could see that she'd been crying.
"Go away. We're closed," she said as she dabbed at tears in her eyes.
"I don't want something to eat," I snapped. Knowing that wasn't the right tone of voice I needed, I added, "We need to talk."
She hesitated, then finally got up and opened the door. "I'm not much in the mood to talk."
I brushed past her. "Then you can just sit there and listen, and I'll do the talking."
She glared at me a second, then locked the door behind us. "Fine, but make it quick. I'm tired. It's been a long day."
Jasmine slipped into the end booth, and I sat across from her. "I hear you're pissed at me."
"Did Bowen tell you that?"
"No, a little bird whispered it in my ear. Of course he told me. I'm here to straighten some things out." Bowen had asked me to keep his name out of the conversation, but I hadn't made any promises. It was going to be hard enough dealing with this without bringing his name up.
"Don't bother," she said as she stood. "You can just get your ass out of that seat and leave."
I didn't budge, didn't even glance up at her, though I could feel the heat from her glare. "I'm not finished."
"You think you're not finished? Mister, you don't have any idea how finished you are."
She disappeared, and I watched her go into the kitchen. When she came back, she had a butcher knife that was a foot long. "You want to rethink that stance now?"
"I'm beginning to think that might be the prudent thing to do," I said. "But no, I'm staying."
Jasmine said, "I'm not messing with you, Trask. I know how to use this."
"There's no doubt in my mind that you do," I said. "But you're not going to bully me into doing anything I don't want to do any more than your brother could."
"He got you here, didn't he?"
I shook my head. "I came because I like you, and I don't want there to be any confusion about where I stand. I told Bowen that, and now I'm telling you."
She slammed the tip of the knife down into the tabletop, missing my fingers by at least an inch. To my credit, I didn't flinch, though in hindsight, it might have been the smart thing to do.
Jasmine stared at me, and I matched her glare.
Finally, she said, "You think you're tough."
"I have my moments. Now, if we're done playing mummbly peg, maybe we can talk."
She pulled the knife out of the table, then said, "You've earned two minutes. Use them wisely."
"Okay, let's get this out of the way first. Belladonna and I are friends, just friends, but if we were full blown lovers, it shouldn't make you cry. You and I had a nice chat last night, but that was it. I don't owe you anything, but I'd like you to be my friend. If that's too tough, we can forget it and I can leave right now." I glanced at my watch. "There, I did it in less than sixty seconds. What do you want to talk about with the minute we've got left?"
She started crying again, and I did the only thing I could think of. I stood, wrapped my arms around her, and held her until the sobbing finally stopped.
I pulled away and said, "Come on, I can imagine what a disappointment it must be not having me to yourself, but the tears won't change my mind."
She started laughing, maybe a little too loudly for my taste, though it was the result I'd been hoping for. Sometimes, the ridiculous is the only option left to defuse a bad situation.
"I'm not crying for you," she said as she wiped an errant tear. "I'm upset about how foolish I've been."
"Hey, it's okay to fall for my charms. It's happened more times than I could count."
She smiled at me. "Try."
"Okay, let's see, there was Mrs. Rosenthal from the third grade, and then Shelly Matthews. Now that I think about it, that was the third grade, too. Hey, I had quite a year back then." I pretended to count, then said, "All told, it's well over four. Maybe five if I pushed the definition a little."
"So you're a real heartbreaker," Jasmine said.
"I've had my moments in the past," I said. "Are we all right?"
"Yeah, we're fine. Let me buy you a cup of coffee. It's the least I can do after almost taking a few of your fingers off with my knife."
I was tired, it was late and I'd had a big day, but it was an offer I couldn't really refuse. I had to cement my friendship with Jasmine tonight, or it might never happen.
"Coffee sounds great," I said.
I followed her into the kitchen, and she poured two cups. Instead of going back up front, we stayed there and took our seats from last night. Jasmine was comfortable there, fully in her element, and it made her softer somehow, though I knew there was a steel edge just below the surface that could rip through anything that got in her way.
She took a sip, then Jasmine said, "You can't blame me for what I was thinking. I couldn't help wondering about you and Belle."
"Not that it matters, but nothing's ever happened between us," I said as I took a sip of coffee.
"I've got a feeling she wouldn't mind being with you, though," Jasmine laughed.
"Belle? No, there's no way we could ever make it work as lovers. Friendship is just fine with me."
"Maybe I'm wrong," she said, then added with a grin, "but I don't think so."
It was time to change the subject. "Let's talk about you. What's your history with men like?"
She frowned and stirred her coffee with a finger. "I've had my heart broken a few times."
"Did Bowen kill them both?"
I'd been joking, but she looked as if she was ready to cry again. "No, just the one."
"What happened?" I knew Bowen was territorial when it came to his sister, but I didn't think he was capable of murder because of it.
"Greg hit me, just once, but I popped him in the head with a skillet, so I figured we were even. I didn't want to tell my brother, but he guessed what had happened the second he saw me. Bowen was furious, but I never thought he'd kill Greg. My brother went to the Wolfbane looking for him, something I'm sure my ex boyfriend was expecting. He was phased, and if Bowen hadn't been worked up into a lather himself, he wouldn't have had a chance. Greg tried to kill him, three different people saw it, and Bowen didn't have much choice. It was a bad situation that got worse really fast."
"I'm sorry," I said. What else could I really add?
Jasmine frowned softly. "Do you want to know the funny thing about it? He was worried how I'd take it. I don't think killing Greg ever weighed too that heavily on his mind." As she started to tear up, she said, "I thought I was over it, but I guess it will never heal. Would you do me a favor and just hold me?"
I couldn't say no, so I stood as she did, and Jasmine melted into my arms. As her crying softened, I noticed a shift in the tenseness of her body as I held her. When she looked up at me, still fully in my embrace, she kissed me without warning.
I should have stopped her. I should have run out of that place as fast as I could, even if I had to break the door down to do it.
There were a thousand things I should have done, but I didn't manage a single one of them.
Instead, I kissed her back.
Chapter 8
"Wow," she said an hour later as were curled up on the same cot Jim had used for his recovery.
I kissed the top of her head. "Wow, right back at you."
"How did that happen?" she asked softly.
"I can give you a detailed description of most of it if you'd like, but I'm pretty sure I blacked out at one point, so I can't be entirely sure."
She nudged my chest. "I don't mean the lovemaking. I'm talking about how we got here in bed together."
"One kiss led to another, I guess. What I want to know is, what are we going to tell your brother?"
She frowned, and I noticed that her nose crinkled when she did it. "I vote we don't say anything. This evening he warned me to stay away from you, and three hours later we're in bed together. I don't know about you, but I don't think he's going to be too pleased about it."
That certainly got my attention. "Wait a second. He warned you about me? What did he say?"
She paused a second, then said, "Let me think. If I remember correctly, he said you were a good guy, but you weren't boyfriend material. He said you'd get bored with me soon enough and break my heart." She stretched and got on top of me as brushes of her hair lightly touching my cheek. "Is all of that true?"
"The man knows what he's talking about," I said. "I'd deny any of it if I could, believe me."
"Are you bored yet?"
I shook my head as I felt the weight of her breasts on my chest. "No, not yet."
"Good. Then we're all right."
I held her shoulders and pushed her up. "You need to listen to me. Let's be serious for one second. Bowen was right. I'm no good at relationships. It's not going to work. I can't be your boyfriend."
"That's good, because I don't want you as one. Despite what my brother thinks, I'm a grown woman, and I can handle my life without any of his help."
"Then what does that make us?" I asked.
"I'd say we're special friends now, wouldn't you?"
I looked deep into her eyes. "I don't want to be the cause of any more of your tears."
She kissed the tip of my nose lightly. "You can't break my heart if I don't let you, okay? I have no expectations about you at all, all right?"
"That's what I like, a woman who believes in setting a low bar," I said.
She laughed, and started to roll off me.
I grabbed her and said, "Hey, where are you going?"
"I thought we were finished," she said.
"We are, at least when it comes to talking."
I got home at three AM, half expecting to find Bowen waiting in the shadows for me. I hoped I hadn't irrevocably destroyed our friendship, but I hadn't had much choice. There are times I think with my brain, and times I think with my heart, and tonight, I hadn't been using either one. It was complicated, but I wasn't about to make it any more than it had to be by involving Bowen. For now, Jasmine and I had agreed to keep what had happened between us. I wasn't sure what was going to happen next, but I didn't need to know tonight.
All I needed was sleep, and sweet dreams of brown haired girls with eyes as big as the stars.
I woke up with a smile, but when I thought about Bowen, it quickly vanished. It wasn't as if I'd just slept with his wife, if he'd had one. As a matter of fact, I'd probably done something worse in his mind.
But all of that was going to have to be put on hold for now. I'd deal with it when I had to, and not a minute before. Jasmine, and whatever had developed between us last night, would have to wait, too. With the ransom drop off botched, I wasn't sure what Harkins would do next, but I had to be prepared for the worst scenario.
That meant visiting Scabber McGee first thing and restocking my supply of silver bullets, a product that was highly illegal in Dogtown, and one I liked to keep in good supply.
I found Scabber sitting at a desk in his laundry mat reading the city's main paper. The place was dirty, and not another soul was there. I couldn't imagine washing clothes, or anything else, there.
"Keeping up with the times, McGee?" I said as I joined him and took a seat across from his desk.
We'd known each other for years, and while I wouldn't say we were friends, the slim, older man with barely a hair on his head had always been cordial to me.
"Hello, Trask."
His words were flat, but his eyes were full of fear.
"What happened?" I asked softly.
"Nothing. Not a thing. Everything's fine," he said as he kept glancing outside through the plate glass windows.
I smiled as I replied, "You're lying to me. Is there somebody watching you right now?"
"You mean like the cops? I wish. No, it's a lot worse than that."
"Hey, if you're in a jam, maybe I can help. Tell me how we can fix it."
McGee snorted. "Dammit Trask, why do you have to be such a decent guy? It just makes things a thousand times tougher than they have to be." He took a deep breath, then said, "I can't sell you any silver bullets. Not today, not tomorrow. I don't know when."
"What's wrong with my money?" I asked softly. This wasn't like McGee, passing up the chance to make some serious change, and it wasn't because of the high price of silver. The bullets he made in back were strictly contraband, and if the authorities found out he was producing them, they'd take away his business, his house, everything he owned, and lock him up. I didn't understand why the authorities cared. Werewolves used silver bullets to kill each other, and from the establishment's point of view, the government should have been handing them out on street corners like lollypops. Whether they were willing to admit it or not, they wanted to eradicate the werewolf problem-as they liked to think of our population-and what better way than let us do it ourselves?
Scabber said, "He'll kill me for even talking to you, let alone telling you this, but Harkins was here fifteen minutes ago. Hell, for all I know he's still watching the place. You have to leave here empty-handed, or I'm a dead man."
"Was he alone?"
Scabber's eyes glazed over. "He didn't need back-up, trust me. You should have seen his eyes. He's hopped up on something, that much is clear, and he's got a hair trigger now like I've never seen before.
"How about his arm? Was it bandaged?" I had to find out if I'd hit him, or if it just been a case of wishful thinking.
Scabber nodded. "It was trussed up, and from the way he was scowling, I had to think it was giving him some trouble. How did you know?"
"I put a silver bullet in him, and he's walking around Dogtown like he owns the place."
Scabber's face went ashen. "He's that tough with silver in him? I'm sorry, Trask, I can't help you."
"It's okay," I said as I started to get up.
I was halfway to the door when McGee called out. "Hang on. Come over here a second."
I shook my head. "I told you, we're cool. I understand the situation you're in, and I don't want to make it any worse for you."
"Would you just do what I ask and drag your ass back over here? This won't take a second."
I walked over to him, curious about what he wanted after brushing me off.
I didn't sit down this time. "What is it? Do you want my blessing to screw me when I need you the most? Fine, you've got it. I forgive you, for whatever that's worth."
"You always were a pain in the ass, Trask," he said.
"Hey, I thought that was just part of my charm."
"You would, but you'd be wrong." He lowered his voice, though there was no one in the deserted place. If he had to depend on the laundry to make a living, he would have been out of business a long time ago.
"Trask, I could get killed for doing this, but I'm not going to let Harkins tell me how to run my business."
"I don't want to put you in bind. I'll be fine."
He shook his head. "Send your friend Bowen in and I'll sell him enough for both of you."
"I can't do that," I said. I wasn't in any hurry to see Bowen, especially to ask him any favors.
"You're determined to do this the hard way, aren't you?"
"I can't do anything about it," I said.
"Meet me out back in two minutes."
"What?" He'd said it so softly I'd barely been able to hear him.
"In the alley. I'll see you there," he said. "Now get the hell out. I said I couldn't help you." The last bit was shouted, though for whose benefit I had no idea.
"Screw you too, McGee." I said.
I walked outside, made sure no one was watching me, then darted into the alley.
Scabber was waiting for me. "That was a nice touch, yelling back at me. Good acting."
"Who said I was acting?"
He shook his head. "Always with the attitude, aren't you?"
He shoved something in my hands.
I didn't even have to look at it to know I'd just gotten a new supply of bullets. "What's this?"
"Your ammo," he said. "I just didn't want to do it in front of God and everybody."
"What do I owe you?" I asked as I reached for my wallet.
"I'll tell you what. Use one of them on Harkins, and this batch is on the house."
McGee hadn't given anything away in his life. "You must really want him dead. I'm surprised, I'd think he'd be good for business."
"That kind of business I don't need."
"Thanks," I said as I saluted him.
"There's one thing, Trask. Don't spread it around that I'm giving out free samples."
"I wouldn't dream of it," I said as I tucked my package into my jumpsuit pocket.
It felt good, having enough ammo now to take on an army of werewolves. I was probably going to need every bullet for Harkins. Who knew if the silver would even work on him in his hopped up state? I had to try, even if I thought I might fail. Would I have taken the job from the Grangers if I'd known it would lead me to this? Probably, even though their fee was looking a little meager when I thought about what I was going to have to do. The main thing was getting Jennifer away from Harkins, and if that meant putting the rogue werewolf down, I'd do it. I'd agreed to help Stephanie Granger find her daughter. I surely wasn't doing it for her husband.
But where should I look? I'd already visited the only motel within shouting distance of Dogtown, and I doubted Harkins would be comfortable enough to leave our area, not with a hostage hidden away somewhere. He had to be at somebody's house, but he did he even have any friends he could stay with? That wasn't the right question. Was there anybody in Dogtown willing to risk New Pitcairn for him? How about Sue Ellen? I'd never managed to contact her after our conversation. Did that mean Harkins had gotten to her after his trap had failed, or was she hiding from him before he got the chance? I needed to find her. If she was afraid enough to hide, she might just tell me something that would help me find her ex boyfriend before he found her.
Marty, her overweight boyfriend and employer, was sitting at Sue Ellen's desk when I walked in. The man had more hair than a gorilla, and I wondered if you could even tell when he phased into the Wolf.
He didn't look all that happy to see me, which was a real plus. That gave me an edge, one I was going to exploit if I could.
"Man, receptionists in Dogtown just keep getting uglier and uglier, don't they?" I said as I stood over him.
"What do you want?"
I saw his hand reach for the drawer, and I had my piece out before he could get hold of his. "I've seen that trick before, remember? Or didn't Sue Ellen tell you she took a shot at me already? Let's see your hands, Marty, or today might just be your last."
"Easy," he said as he brought his hands out of the desk. "I just wanted some chewing gum."
"So, if I check that drawer, are you telling me I'm not going to find a gun? Do you really want to stick with that story?"
"Sure there's a gun there, but I've got my chewing gum in there too. GO ahead and look."
"Thanks, I will," I said with a smile as I pulled Marty's chair back hard enough to slam his head against the back wall. I opened the drawer, pulled out the gun hidden there, then grabbed the chewing gum and tossed it to him. "There you go."
"Are you going to keep that one, too?" he asked as he stared at me. "It cost me a hundred bucks."
I looked at the piece, emptied the bullets, then slid it back in the drawer. "You got robbed. It's not worth fifty."
"What are you gonna do? Everybody tries to cheat you in this end of town."
"Where's Sue Ellen? She's not home curled up in your bed, is she? Harkins will find her there, you can bet on it."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Marty said, the sweat starting to bead up on his forehead. "She's taking a little time off, that's all. It's got nothing to do with Harkins."
"Even you aren't stupid enough to think that," I said. "Once he takes care of his pressing business, you're a bigger fool than you seem to be if you think he's just going to leave your girlfriend free to talk to anybody about what she nearly helped him do."
"That's her business. Like I said, it's got nothing to do with me," Marty insisted.
"You think Harkins believes that? You're as good as dead, Marty. It's in your best interest to help me find him, before he finds you or Sue Ellen. Think about it. Go ahead, take your time. I'll give you one minute."
He frowned at me. "Could you put that gun away? It's making it hard for me to think."
I shrugged, and slipped it back into my pocket. I had a holster for it that partially concealed it under my jumpsuit, but it wasn't comfortable, and shifting with it on would have just shredded it.
That was why there so many jumpsuits in Dogtown. They were perfect for zoning in and out of phase. It was also a sign of being a bad ass, and they weren't worn lightly. It meant you were a target, and you had to be tough enough to deal with whatever came your way if you were willing to wear a bull's eye on your back.
"Tick, tick, tick, Marty," I said as I looked at his clock. "What's it going to be? Are you going to give me Sue Ellen, or does Harkins get her first instead?"
He shrugged, then scribbled something down on a piece of paper. "This is a building I own. Nobody knows about it, and I've got her stashed away there until this Harkins thing is dealt with."
I took the paper and tapped it to my nose. "If this is another setup, I'm coming back to deal with you."
"It's not. I swear it on my mother's grave."
"Come on, Marty, everybody knows you don't have a mother. You crawled out of the sewer with the rest of the rats."
I thought about getting back-up as I walked out of Marty's office. It would be good to have Bowen-even with our current situation-or Jim by my side. For that matter, I could take Belladonna and feel better about the situation.
But if I showed up at Sue Ellen's with an army, I doubted I'd get a word out of her.
No, I'd have to do this alone.
"Sue Ellen, you might as well open the door. If I have to break it down, Marty's going to take it out of your pay, and you know it."
I'd been knocking for three minutes, but so far, I hadn't heard a sound inside the apartment. Marty owned a real dump, and it proved to me that Sue Ellen was truly afraid for her life if she was willing to stay there.
Finally, I heard movement inside. The door unlocked, and slowly slid open.
"What do you want?"
Sue Ellen wasn't at her best, not by a long shot. Her right eye sported a fresh bruise, and her dress was torn. "What happened, you and Marty have a fight?"
"Something like that," she said. Her eyes were wild with fear, and they kept glancing toward the back bedroom.
"Is Harkins here?" I asked softly.
She nodded, but wouldn't say a word.
"You should dump Marty. He's nothing but a bum, and he's no good for you," I said. Should I shift into my wolf phase, or use the silver bullets in my gun? If I killed Harkins outright, I might never find where he had Jennifer stashed, and she could die from starvation as easily as by his hand. The problem with that was, if that happened I would be responsible for her death, and not Harkins. I could always aim for his arm or leg. The silver bullet had to go into his heart, or close enough not to matter. The real question was, could I take him on while he was shifted into his super wolf phase? The internal debate lasted a split second, and I knew I couldn't go up against him in werewolf form, not unless it was my last choice. It would be like volunteering to die, and I wasn't ready for that.
I walked softly to the back of the apartment, my gun drawn. I motioned for Sue Ellen to say something, but she just stood there, mute and frozen in place. She was so terrified, she didn't even try to get away.
My hand was on the doorknob when wood exploded in front of me. Harkins was fully phased into werewolf mode, and I took a shot at him as I fell backwards. I'd made the right decision. If I'd tried to match him in werewolf phase, he would have slaughtered me.
I wasn't sure if the bullet hit him or not as I picked myself up, ready to shoot again.
But instead of staying and finishing me off when I was down, he'd fled the apartment.
I looked down at the bloody mess where Sue Ellen had been standing, and knew she should have run when she'd had the chance. Harkins had taken a quick swipe at her on the way out, and he'd cut her throat with savage precision. There wasn't anything I could do for her.
I moved quickly out into the hallway, following the trail of his blood. Either I'd hit him with my shot, or the blood on the hallway floor belonged to Sue Ellen.
I hoped Harkins would bleed to death, but it wasn't anything I could count on.
It was time to finish the job.
I never would have thought it was possible for a werewolf to get away that fast with a silver bullet lodged anywhere in him. While a shot to the arm or leg wasn't lethal, it was extremely painful, debilitating to any werewolf I'd ever known. And yet Harkins had managed to flee with a silver bullet in him. I replayed the scene as I searched for him, and I was certain my shot had caught him in the arm. So why wasn't he writhing in the street in pain? What kind of monster had Bailey created with the serum?
I caught another sign of blood farther away than it had any right to be. How was he doing it? The trail ended, or at least I lost it, two blocks away. Had he shifted back, or was Harkins waiting for me somewhere in the shadows? The next shot would be straight for the heart. It was the only way I had an even chance of putting him down, and if it meant that Jennifer Granger had to die somewhere hungry and alone, then that was how it had to be. Sometimes the good of a town outweighed one person's survival, and I knew if Harkins kept up his rampage, he'd manage to bring all of Dogtown down with him.
There was something I'd been considering, something rash and dangerous and not at all sure of success, but a possibility I had to explore nonetheless.
If I was going to go up against Harkins, I needed to be enhanced as well. That meant Bailey had to recreate his magic elixir, and then I had to dose myself with it.
Only then would I be strong enough to take on this super wolf Harkins had become.
"I'm not doing it-I can't-so don't ask me again," Bailey said as he paced around his lab.
"You have to," I said. "You're the reason he's become this killing machine, and we have to put him down. I'm not sure I can do it without your help. You've got to give me the same serum he took."
"Don't ask me to, Jacob," he said. I'd known him forever, but I'd never seen my friend this agitated. "I honestly can't do it."
"Bailey, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. I need you to do this, or I might die," I said, laying the brutality of the situation out for him.
"Don't. That's not fair. It could kill you, don't you see that?"
I shook my head. "That doesn't wash. It didn't kill Harkins. What makes you think it will hurt me?"
He stood within an inch of my face. "How do you know it's not killing him, even as we speak? I don't know that for sure, and I'm the one who made it. There's no way to know what's going to happen to him in the long term."
Why was he fighting me? "Can we really afford to wait until he's got bodies stacked up all over Dogtown? Can you live with that on your conscience?"
He slumped down onto a chair, and I knew I'd gone too far. I'd come as close to breaking him as the thugs had come to destroying Jim, only I was doing it in the guise of friendship. What a guy I'd turned out to be.
"Jacob, I destroyed it, and I won't try to recreate the formula. It's gone forever. I'm sorry, but I've caused enough harm. I couldn't make more now if I wanted to, not if our lives depended on it."
I sat down beside him, stunned by his admission. "They just might. Are you sure you can't find the formula again?"
"I'm certain. The process was too complicated to memorize, and if I tried to recreate it, I'd have more chance of killing you than making you into some kind of superwolf."
I nodded. There was nothing more to say. "Then I'll just have to go up against him on my own." I stood, then said, "For the record, I don't blame you for destroying it. I just wish you'd done it before Harkins got his hands on it."
"You can't even imagine how much I wish that as well," he said. "I'm sorry."
"So am I."
That option, my last chance, was gone. I was going to have to figure out where to go now.
Then I realized I had another lead I hadn't followed up on yet. If Harkins was walking around with a silver bullet still in him, he had to get it out, and soon. There was only one doctor in Dogtown I knew who could do it, and if I hurried, I might be able to catch him before Harkins had a chance to.
"I haven't seen him," Doc Jenkins said when I walked into his back alley clinic.
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you, doc?" I asked as I looked around for any sign that Harkins had been there.
"I don't get involved with the politics of Dogtown. I'm just here to help whoever needs it."
His hands were shaking as he ran them through his white hair, but that was more the status quo than otherwise. Doc had been a raging alcoholic for most of his professional life in the city, and they'd taken away his license to practice medicine when he'd killed a man with his shaking hands. He couldn't bear to live without his work, though, so he'd moved to Dogtown and opened up shop among us. No one cared that he didn't have a permit to practice medicine. He helped whenever he could, and that made him bulletproof in out part of the world.
"Have you pulled silver bullets out of anyone lately?" I asked.
"Just a corpse or two. I haven't met the wolf yet who could take the hit and survive it."
I frowned at him. "You haven't seen Harkins, then."
"Nonsense. I've treated Matthew for years. I know what he is, what he's like, but I can't refuse to help him when he comes to me. I can assure you, he's no different than you."
"I can't even begin to tell you how many ways you're wrong," I said. "Let me ask you something. How hard is it to dig a bullet out of somebody?"
He thought about it for a second, then said, "It mostly depends on where the bullet ends up."
"Let's say he took a hit in the arm."
Doc paused, then said, "Without seeing the wound, it's hard to say, but chances are, it shouldn't be that difficult. It takes a relatively steady hand, but it can be accomplished by the layman, if he's motivated enough. The stitches can be done by any seamstress, if he's not squeamish about sewing skin together. There's a danger from infection, but it can be combated. I'd say it's highly possible someone with a strong stomach could do it, but why would Matthew take the risk? He knows I'd help him, just as I'd help you, Jacob."
"He doesn't want to get you involved," I said. "That's clear enough. Don't worry, I'll find him."
"Be careful," Doc said as I walked out. "Matthew can be a bit unpredictable."
"Doc, you have no idea," I said as I walked out.
Great, another dead end. I didn't have any more idea where Stephanie Granger was than I had on the day I took the job, or started hunting the rogue werewolf who'd kidnapped her.
As pressing as that was, suddenly it wasn't my main concern anymore, though.
Bowen was standing in front of me, and there was a scowl on his face that spoke volumes. "Trask, we need to talk."
At that moment, I would have rather faced Harkins with my bare hands.
Chapter 9
"What's going on?" I asked, hoping he hadn't talked to Jasmine yet.
"We need to talk about my sister," he said.
So much for my hopes. "What about her?"
Bowen stared hard me for a few seconds, then asked, "What happened last night?"
What could I say to him? It was a direct question that deserved an honest answer. I was trying to formulate my reply when he said, "You chickened out, didn't you? You didn't talk to her at all. What happened, did you lose your nerve? You've got to resolve this, Trask. I mean it. If my sister's unhappy, then I'm unhappy, and I make whoever's responsible miserable. I thought we went over this last night."
"Believe me, we discussed it a lot more than I was comfortable with, and despite your strong-arming tactics, I talked to sister after you left."
He nodded. "What did she say?"
"Do we really need to have this conversation right now, in front of everybody?"
Bowen and I both looked around the deserted alley. He said, "Nobody's here but you and me."
"Not that we can see," I said. "I found Harkins since I saw you."
That got his attention. "Is he dead?"
"No, but I shot him with a silver bullet. I hit him in the arm, but he got away." I took a deep breath, then finished, "He got away, Bowen, did you hear me?"
He shrugged. "We knew he was hopped up. Listen, we need to forget about morals and ethics or we're going to get killed. Bailey's got to make more of this potion of us so one of us can take it."
"I already asked him to do it this morning," I admitted. "He said he couldn't."
"Let me talk to him. I bet I can change his mind."
He started to go, but I didn't want Bowen going after Bailey. I put a hand on his chest to stop him. "I didn't say he wouldn't, I said he couldn't. He destroyed the formula. It's gone forever."
Bowen stared at me. "Do you really believe him? I know he's your friend and all, but you've got to realize that there's a chance he could be lying to you."
"He hasn't yet, not as long as I've known him. If Bailey says it's gone, then it's gone."
Bowen spat on the ground. "What an idiot. He has no idea what he's destroyed."
"I think he does," I said. "I'm going to have to take Harkins on just the way I am."
"Don't sweat it. You've got something he doesn't have."
"What's that?"
"Me. From now on, you don't go anywhere or do anything without me. I've got your back."
How long would he feel that way after he found out what had happened between Jasmine and me? I felt terrible not telling him about last night, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, and not just because I needed him now more than I ever had in my life. If I'd managed to destroy our friendship over a woman, any woman, then I was no better than the poor fools I mocked all of the time. But then I realized that I couldn't keep silent either. There was no way I could let this secret stay between us. He had a right to know, and if it put my life in danger, it was no more than I deserved.
There was no way to soften it, so I said, "There's something you need to know. I slept with your sister last night. Twice."
His eyes went dead as I said it. Before he could do anything, I added, "We didn't plan it, it just happened. I wouldn't hurt you or Jasmine for the world, you know that. It just happened."
"You still did it, knowing how I felt."
I nodded. "That's the only thing I'm sorry about. I feel like I betrayed you."
"That's because you did."
And then he walked away.
Great. I'd managed to screw things up royally between us, but there was nothing I could do about that at the moment. Bowen would either forgive me, or he wouldn't, but I felt relieved clearing the air between us.
How he handled the truth was up to him now.
I had a rogue werewolf to track down, and hopefully the young norm girl he'd kidnapped was still alive, waiting for me to rescue her.
I just prayed I was up to the job.
"Hey, Trask, you got a second?"
I looked up from the hallway of my office and saw Willie Kyle hiding in a doorway.
"What's going on, Willie? I don't have time to mess with you today." Willie was more of a weasel than a werewolf, and there wasn't a single noble thing about him. He survived from hand to mouth, stealing when he could, working when there was no other alternative.
"You paying for tips about Harkins? I heard you were looking for him."
This guy was a colossal pest, but I couldn't dismiss him without hearing what he had to say first. "Willie, do you have something, or are you just trying to cadge money out of me? If this isn't on the level, there's not a sewer deep enough for you to hide in. I'll find you, and you know it."
"It's real," he said as he looked up and down the corridor. "How long you think I'm going to live if Harkins finds out I talked to you? Can we go inside? I'm getting jumpy out here."
I unlocked my office door, and Willie scampered in. His hair was going gray, and if he lost another pound he'd be hard to see. It had to be a rough life he led, but I didn't waste any pity on him. Willie chose to live the way he did.
"What have you got?"
"How much we talking about?" he said, barely able to keep from rubbing his hands together. "It's got to be good, or I'm keeping what I know to myself."
I stood over him, and let some of the beast inside loose. It wasn't much, but Willie needed a reminder who he was dealing with, either in human form, or wolf.
When I shifted back, he said, "Come on, Trask, it creeps me out when you do that. I wouldn't stiff you on this. You can trust me."
"I trust you as far as I can throw you out my window. We're on the second floor, but I think I can clear the sidewalk and put you in the middle of traffic. If the fall doesn't get you, I'm betting a car will."
"Why do you have to get all nasty like that?" he said, pulling himself back away from my immediate grasp. "I came to you, remember?"
"I remember. How much do you want?"
"A grand," he said, then he saw the look in my eyes, "but for you, I'll take five hundred, and a favor."
"What's the favor?"
Willie smiled, and he looked more like a ferret than ever. "I don't know yet, but I'll think of something."
I opened the window, studied Willie for a second, then said, "The wind's in my favor. I might be able to get you to the other side of the street if I put my back into it. At least you'd have a chance surviving that." I looked at him and said, "Five hundred, but no favors. It's the best offer you're going to get out of me, and in two minutes, it starts going down."
Willie was mad, but then so was I. He said, "What's to keep me from taking what I know to the police? I'm sure they'd like to know where Harkins is too."
"Enough to pay you? I doubt it, but why don't you try? There's the door, or would you rather take the express way down?"
He shook his head. "Fine, you win. Five hundred."
"Agreed. Two fifty now, and two fifty after I find him."
Willie got up. "No way. All up front, or it's no deal."
That surprised me. "Why the change? We've always broken your payment in two before."
He looked at me, then said, "You want the truth? I'm not so sure you'll live through this, and then where am I? I'll tell you where, I'm out half my money."
I had to laugh. It had taken guts to say that to my face. I reached into my wallet and pulled out five bills, all hundreds. I was glad I'd found to go by the bank. Cash spoke around Dogtown, and folks tended to listen to what it had to say.
He reached for the money, but I pulled it away.
"First you tell me where he is."
Willie frowned, then nodded. "He's in the basement of the Claremont, and he's got some girl with him. I'm not sure she's there because she wants to be, you know? What did I tell you, is that worth five hundred or not?"
"It is if he's still there," I said as I handed him the money. "If you warn him I'm coming for him, you're dead."
He made the bills disappear, then said, "You kidding me? If he thinks I told you anything, you are the least of my worries. See you around, Trask. Maybe."
"I'll outlive you," I said.
"I'd take that bet, but how would I collect?"
After he was gone, I thought about calling Bowen or Jim for backup, but I couldn't bring myself to make either call. Jim had come too close to dying the last time I'd dragged him into my mess, and I wasn't sure if Bowen would help me or not. The way he felt about me right now, I might have to worry about him too, and that was one werewolf too many for my taste.
As I reloaded my gun and put extra silver bullets in my pocket, I realized that one problem might take care of itself. If I didn't make it out of my confrontation with Harkins, I wouldn't have to worry about Bowen or Jasmine again.
I was reaching for the door handle when it opened.
It was Dalton, one of the last people I wanted to talk to at the moment.
"Got a second?" he asked.
I tried to hide my impatience. "For you? I've got all day. What's up?"
He pulled out a notebook. "Do you happen to know anything about a homicide at 125 Belmont?" It was the address where I'd found Sue Ellen and Harkins.
"Man, it's getting so Dogtown's not safe to walk around in anymore. Who got killed this time?"
Dalton frowned. "You're getting better at lying to me, I'll give you that. Talk to me, Trask."
"I don't know what you want to hear," I said. "I haven't killed anybody in days."
I delivered it as a joke, but it was true, though just barely.
"Why should I believe you?" Dalton asked.
"Here's a thought. Maybe it's because I'm telling the truth. Who died?"
"Sue Ellen Logan. She worked for Marty the Face. You know her?"
"We went to school together," I said.
"Seen her lately?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did. She used to date Matthew Harkins, and I asked her where I might find him a few days ago."
Dalton sat behind my desk and put his feet up. "And did she give you any ideas?"
I shook my head. "No, unfortunately, Sue Ellen wasn't very helpful."
He stared at me, then finally said, "Now I can't tell when you're lying or not. You're involved in this up to your chin, Trask, I can feel it in my bones. Why won't you come clean with me?"
"What happens in Dogtown stays in Dogtown," I said.
"Except when it doesn't. Did you know the FBI put a tail on you?"
"I figured they might." As a matter of fact, I didn't. Had someone been following me around Dogtown? How much had they seen? Was Dalton here to talk, as he claimed, or was he going to arrest me?
I said, "Since I didn't do anything, I don't have to worry, do I?"
Dalton laughed. "No, the feds are gone. They lasted ten minutes in Dogtown before they were asked to leave by some of your rowdier citizens. When the junior agents tried to show their IDs, one of your buddies started to eat it. I don't think you'll have to worry about the FBI, but that doesn't mean you don't have to worry about me. I'm not afraid of a dog bite or two."
"Maybe you should be," I said.
"Is that a threat, Jacob? Has it come to that?"
I bit my lip, then said, "Not me, I actually like you most of the time, but there are some bad wolves roaming the streets these days, and I'm trying to cage one of them up."
He slapped a hand down hard on the desk. "What do you think I'm doing? Where is Harkins? Is the girl dead?"
"I don't know anything," I said.
"Wow, the Grangers are getting their money's worth with you, aren't they? I'm surprised they didn't fire you when you blew the drop-off."
I shrugged. "He wanted to, she didn't. Since it's all her money, she won," I said. "I've got till midnight to find Jennifer Granger, and then I'm fired. Nothing like a little pressure, is there?"
"You must not be feeling any of it."
"Why do you say that?" I asked as I looked out my window.
"You're in here, instead of out there somewhere looking for the girl."
"Sometimes you find something by not looking for it."
"You should be a master at that, then," Dalton said.
He stood, then closed his notebook. "It appears I won't be getting any assistance from you on this case, so I'm leaving."
"Aw, don't go away mad," I said.
"Just go away, right?" Dalton shook his head. "Are you sure you can handle this by yourself?"
"No, but I don't have much choice. It's got to be wolf to wolf, you know?"
He frowned. "No, I don't have a clue. Then again, my blood's pure."
"It's just your heart that's muddy," I said.
The cop shrugged. "Maybe it is. For what it's worth, I personally don't care if you bury this guy on Main Street, okay? If there's any way I can do it, I'll look the other way, so you won't get jammed up because of me."
"Thanks. That's something, anyway."
"It's the best I can do," he said.
I waited until he was gone, then looked out my window. As Dalton got into a waiting squad car, he saluted me with two fingers.
I saluted back, then locked up my place and headed for the Claremont. It was time to put this bad wolf down, or die trying.
Belle was sitting on the passenger side of my car when I walked outside.
"Can I help you with something?" I asked as I slid onto the driver's seat.
"Let's go for a ride," she said.
"There's somewhere I kind of need to be right now," I said.
"This can't wait," she said. I knew better than to argue with Belle, even with Harkins waiting. Besides, what were the odds he'd be there during the day? Then again, I might be able to free Jennifer if her captor was gone.
"It's going to have to," I said. "I can give you two minutes, but then I've got to go."
"Fine," she said. "You are a complete and total idiot. It's amazing you manage to get yourself dressed every day. If you were any dumber, you'd be dangerous to society and yourself."
I nodded. "Got it. See, I was right. That didn't take long, did it?"
She scowled. "Trask, don't you want to know why I'm mad at you?"
"I'm sure I deserve it, whatever it is, but I'm in a hurry, so you need to get out."
Belle shook her head. "I could live to be a thousand and never understand you."
"Right back at you, babe."
She started to get out, then said, "No, I won't do it. I won't stand by and watch you throw everything away."
This was getting old fast. "What exactly am I supposed to be throwing away?"
"Your friendship with Bowen is worth a thousand Jasmines," she said. "I honestly can't believe you're too stupid to realize it."
"Maybe I made a mistake last night, and maybe I didn't, but our friendship doesn't make it your business. Belle, you mean a lot to me, but if you don't get out of this car in the next ten seconds, I'm going to shoot you with a silver bullet right between the eyes."
She started to say something, then looked into my steady gaze. "You would, wouldn't you?"
"Five seconds left," I said. We both knew I was bluffing, but her words had stung, and I wasn't in the mood to hear anything else, especially when I had a dragon to slay.
With a second to spare, Belle got out of my car and slammed the door. "This isn't finished, Trask."
"It is for now," I said and drove toward the Claremont.
It was an old building that had once been a fine hotel, before the werewolves had taken over this section of the city. Now it was a boarding house for our kind, run down until barely a glimmer remained of its one time glory. Nobody lived in the basement, as far as I knew, and I'd been in there dozens of times over the years. It was for storage, dark and damp, not a place even a werewolf would choose to live if there were any other options.
I parked down the block, checked my gun for the tenth time, then grabbed a heavy-duty flashlight from under the seat.
My hands were sweating as I walked inside, and I hesitated a few moments until I could get my focus. Harkins was wounded, but that didn't mean he still wasn't dangerous. He was probably more treacherous now than he had been before. He knew he was going to be put down if he was caught; there was no hope of a sentence to New Pitcairn for him.
With nothing to lose, it made him fearless, and Bailey's serum had no doubt enhanced that as well.
When my hands steadied, I opened the door. With my darkened flashlight in one hand and my gun in the other, I walked softly down the stairs, not sure what I would find at the bottom.
I waited until my eyes adjusted to the dark, then slowly crept down the last of the steps to the basement floor. There were no lights anywhere, and I couldn't hear a sound besides the dripping of a water pipe and the scurrying of rats. It took a great deal of control, but I shifted my hearing into phase, and the werewolf in me fought to gain complete control. Like a whip, I used my mind to keep it in the shadows, allowing only a part of it free.
There was no one there.
I turned on my flashlight and searched for a switch. When I found it, the basement lit in faded illumination. There weren't enough bulbs to let me see anything clearly, but it was pretty obvious that someone was using the space. I found a pallet of blankets and clothes in a dry corner, and there were spent bags that had held food from DeMarco's. A squalid bathroom was still working, but I couldn't imagine anyone growing up in the Granger estate using it.
Unlike the motel room I'd found earlier, there were dozens of signs that this nest hadn't been abandoned. Unless I was wrong, Harkins and Jennifer would be back.
But where could he have taken her? I looked among the things near the bed, and I found a telephone book opened to the business section. A page had been torn out of it, and I wrote down the missing page number so I could trace it back at my office.
It was pretty clear why Harkins had been after the Granger money. He was living on the edge of poverty, and forcing Jennifer Granger to endure it as well.
I had a few options, and I wasn't quite sure which one to follow. I could wait there, lying in ambush for Harkins to return. I could call Dalton and let him take care of the entire mess of the rogue wolf and his captive. Or I could try to find Harkins myself before he did any more harm.
I've waited a thousand hours in my job as a private investigator, and I've come up with a dozen dodges on how to pass the time, but waiting wasn't what was called for here. While I was hiding, lurking in the shadows, Harkins could be on another killing spree. I couldn't live with myself if that happened. Logically, I knew I should call Dalton and turn it over to him. He had the manpower, and the firing force to bring Harkins down, and he could do it better than I could.
But at what price? Would he be as careful about Jennifer as I would, or would bringing down the rogue werewolf be all that mattered to him? Could I afford to take that chance? Maybe I was overreacting, but I'd agreed to save Jennifer Granger, and that didn't mean calling the police when things got tough.
The choice was clear.
This was something I had to do myself.
I was going to bring the wolf down and safe the girl.
Or die trying.
I got back to my office and pulled out the telephone directory. The missing page had a dozen listings for pawn shops, both inside Dogtown and in the norm part of the city. I didn't have a photograph of Harkins, but maybe he was dragging Jennifer around with him. By now, he had to have some kind of hold over her, and I didn't doubt she'd do whatever he ordered her to.
I hit the shops in Dogtown first. I had no luck at the first three places, but at the fourth one, my luck changed.
A skinny, gray haired woman was behind the counter, and the second I walked in, there was a scowl on her face.
"I don't want any trouble with you," she said.
"How do you know I'm not a customer?"
She shook her head. "You're armed, and you don't look like you're on your last dime. I've got a gun under the counter aimed right at your heart, and don't mistake my aim or my intentions. It's loaded with enough silver to put you down."
"I don't want any trouble. I'm just looking for someone," I said. "I'm going to reach my hand into my pocket and get her picture."
"Do it slowly," she ordered, and I gladly complied. The old bird would probably just as soon pop me as put up with me, and I didn't want to give her any reasons to act on her instincts.
I retrieved the photo and held it out to her. The woman squinted at it, then said, "I can't see that far away."
"I'll bring it closer then," I said.
"Just watch yourself."
I approached slowly, the photo held out in front of me like some kind of shield.
When I was two feet away, she barked, "Stop right there. That's close enough."
She studied the picture, then said, "Why do you want her?"
"She's been kidnapped," I said.
The woman looked surprised by that news. "She didn't look kidnapped to me."
"So she was here. Was a man with her?"
I described Harkins, but the woman shook her head. "No, she was alone."
Why hadn't she called for help, if Harkins wasn't right behind her? It was too soon for her to have a Stockholm syndrome fixation for him, wasn't it? It was hard to imagine anyone falling for Harkins, especially a captive of his. "What did she hock?"
The woman pointed to a gold necklace in the case. It was priced at two hundred dollars.
"Can I see it?"
She scowled at me. "Are you going to buy it, or are you just wasting my time?"
"I don't have enough cash on me," I said. "Do you take personal checks?"
"Do I look stupid to you? Cash only."
There was a branch of my bank around the corner. "I'll be right back."
I went inside, since we didn't have many ATMs in Dogtown. After getting a few hundred dollars out of my account, I came back to the pawnshop.
The necklace was now priced at five hundred.
"Hey, you can't do that. We had a deal."
She shook her head. "I didn't shake on it. Prices are subject to change without notice," she repeated, tapping the sign above her register.
"If you're going to be that way, you can keep it," I said. "The cops might want it as evidence, and then you're out what you paid for it."
I was nearly out the door when she said, "Four hundred."
"Sorry, I've just got two."
"Fine, break an old woman's spirit. I'll take three."
I looked at her carefully. "Do I look like I'm haggling? I've got two hundred. That's it."
"You'll be back," she said.
"I don't think so."
I was out on the sidewalk when I heard a tap on the window. She was openly scowling at me as she held two fingers in the air.
I nodded and went back inside. After I bought the necklace, I moved on to other pawnshops and found they'd made more stops, jettisoning bits of Jennifer's jewelry along the way. Pawnbrokers aren't exactly fonts of information on good days, but I did see a pattern. Harkins was in need of cash. That botched kidnapping demand was hurting him enough to risk being caught outside with his captive.
He probably had enough money to last another week or two, but I had a sharper deadline. If I didn't find her by midnight, I was off the case, and my chance of saving Jennifer-and earning my fee-would both be gone.
Chapter 10
"Jacob, come by the diner as soon as you get this. It's important." The message was on my office answering machine, and there was no mistaking Jasmine's voice. I didn't exactly have time to deal with my personal life, but I owed her a call.
"Hey, I just got your message," I said when I called her.
"Thanks for calling me back. We need to talk," Jasmine said. "Bowen was just here."
"Sorry, I should have given you a heads-up," I said. "I told him about us."
"I know, that's why I called you. Can you come by?"
"I'm looking for Jennifer Granger, and I think I have a lead," I said. "Can it wait?"
"It won't take long, I promise, but I need to see you right now."
I'd exhausted my list of pawnshops, but I had no way of knowing if Harkins and Jennifer would be on their way back to the basement of the Claremont, or if they had already taken off for somewhere new, now that they had some money in their pockets.
I said, "I'll come by later, but I can't, not right now."
"As soon as you can, then," she said, and hung up.
Whatever Jasmine wanted to talk about, I doubted that it was a conversation I wanted to have.
But it would have to wait. I was going werewolf hunting.
To my relief, no one was in the basement when I got back, so I decided to settle in at a place I could get the drop on Harkins without him realizing I was there until it was too late. As I waited in the shadows, I thought about what I was doing the night before with Jasmine, remembering every curve of her body and each sigh from her mouth. It was a pleasant way to spend my time as I waited on Harkins and his hostage to reappear.
I was just replaying a particularly delicious moment when I heard the door open above.
Someone was coming downstairs.
The voices were muted, and I couldn't afford to phase just yet to hear them distinctly. I knew I had a better chance with my silver bullets than I did with my own speed.
I could see the area they'd staged as a bedroom, and watched as Harkins and Jennifer Granger came into view. It was the first time I'd seen her in real life, and she barely looked like her photograph. It was a wonder any of the pawnbrokers had recognized her. Being with Harkins had changed her somehow, taken away her soft, young girlish edges and replaced them with etched lines and an expression decades older. Harkins was in human form, so I was starting to believe I might get out of this alive.
I waited until I had a clear line of sight, then stepped out of the shadows. Harkins started to shift, I could see it in the way he tensed.
I had the gun aimed directly at his chest. "If you change right now, I'll put so many silver bullets into your heart you'll be able to start your own jewelry shop."
Harkins eased a little, and I could tell he knew I wasn't bluffing.
Keeping my eyes on him, I asked Jennifer, "Are you all right?"
"Thank God you found me," she said, and I could hear the tears starting to flow.
"Jennifer, I want you to come over to me. Harkins, don't touch her, or even breathe in her direction, or you're going to die."
There were no words, Harkins just glared at me as if he wanted to rip out my heart and eat it.
Jennifer moved slowly toward me, like a woman a thousand years old.
"It's going to be okay," I said as she neared.
"I know," she said as she got behind me.
Keeping my eyes on Harkins, I said, "Go up the stairs and tell the first person you see you need Detective Dalton. He'll take care of you."
"What are you going to do with him?" she asked, her voice suddenly husky.
"If he behaves himself, I'll turn him over to the police. If he doesn't, he's going to die right here."
That's when she hit me from behind, knocking the gun out of my hand and freeing Harkins from my sights.
Harkins and I both started to shift at the same time, and if I hadn't been a split second faster, I would have died right there. My instincts told me to fight, but the part of me that was human shouted for escape. Harkins was enhanced, and I was no match for him in werewolf phase. I had been stupid not asking for help, letting my pride stand in the way. She had helped him, but after learning what I had about her behavior at the pawnshop, a part of me had suspected she might all along. That was still no excuse. She'd fooled me with her tears. I turned toward Jennifer to try to get her out of there alive, when I suddenly realized just how wrong I'd been.
She was phased as well, and if I didn't break free of them in the next two seconds, I was going to be fighting two werewolves, and not one.
I made it to the door just as Harkins leapt for me, and I barely managed to get up the stairs before he nearly brought me down. Ripping through the first floor, I didn't care who saw me phased, and Harkins must not have, either. There was a crowd outside of the hotel, and I was a block away before I realized that no one was following me. Phasing back into human form, I was angry and shaken as I hurried to the police station. It was out of my hands now. I had to bring in the biggest guns I had.
Dalton was gone for the day, and I wasn't about to tell anyone else what I knew. That option was not viable anymore. It was time to bury the hatchet with Bowen, and get every friend and ally I had. The mission had switched from a search-and-rescue to a werewolf hunt, and there were two on the list instead of one.
But I had to get another gun first. I went back to my office, and was surprised to find the black armored Hummer sitting in front of my place.
Emmett, the bodyguard, was out front, and he nodded as I approached. He grunted out, "She's upstairs," as his gaze kept sweeping the street.
"Good. I need to talk to her."
I found Stephanie standing outside my office door. "You should have told me everything before I almost got myself killed. You owed me that much."
Stephanie Granger's face crumpled as I spoke. "So now you know the truth."
"Yeah, she shifted right in front of me, so it was kind of hard to miss. I could have used that information when you hired me."
I was yelling now, and didn't really care. She'd put my life in jeopardy, and there wasn't enough money in Dogtown for me to let her get away with doing that.
"I thought she'd grow out of it," Stephanie said. "If I can get her back home, we can find doctors to treat her."
I laughed, then said, "She's a freak, a sport, a genetic mutation. It's not like she's got VD, or acne. How long have you known?"
"Not long. You're not quitting, are you?"
I walked around my office. "It's making more and more sense why you came to me in the first place," I said. "This wasn't something you wanted to share with the cops, let alone the FBI. Why'd you even call them?"
"I didn't, it was my idiot husband. He thought we could keep it from them, and we couldn't even keep you from finding out. It's more important now than ever that you bring my baby home to me."
"Lady, I hate to break it to you, but your sweet little girl is home right where she is. She belongs in Dogtown, just like the rest of us."
"You're wrong. She's not like you," Stephanie shouted.
"What, because you've got money, you think you're immune to the curse? Wrong. The mutation can show up anywhere. She's a werewolf, and your daughter is in the worst company she could be in. You've got to prepare yourself for the fact that when they catch her, she won't be going to New Pitcairn. She and her boyfriend are going to be executed in the town square on prime time television."
"It's all his doing," Stephanie said, the tears pouring down her cheeks. "She was the victim here."
"She didn't look like one when she hit me from behind trying to save her boyfriend," I said. "You've got more problems than you know."
"It's not too late. Please. You can save her."
"As far as I'm concerned, she's past all redemption," I said, letting my words slam into her. "It's time to face it. Your daughter's gone."
"She's not," Stephanie said as she slammed her fists into my chest. I put my arms around her, and held her as the rage slowly leaked out.
After a few moments, she said, "I couldn't tell you the truth, you see that, don't you? You can bring her home to me, Trask, I know you can. Please."
"There's not enough zeros in your checkbook," I said. "I don't work for people who've lied to me."
"I was desperate. I love my daughter. You've got to help me. Hire an army, I don't care, but don't let her die like a criminal."
The tears were getting to me, but then I remembered her sweet little girl knocking a gun out of my hands. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head, wiping away the tears. "I'll pay you whatever you want." Stephanie took her checkbook out and scribbled in some figures before signing it. She tore it out of the book, then shoved it into my chest.
It was more than I made in five years.
"It's not enough," I said.
"That's just the first half. You get the rest when she's back in my care. You have to help me. Please."
I stared at her, trying to ignore the check, and tried to put myself in her shoes. How would I feel if my daughter changed on me, turning into something the world hated? Would I give everything I had to try to protect her? I knew without a doubt that I would. What Stephanie Granger didn't know was that there was nothing on earth that could keep me from seeing this through. I'd take her money, but it was more as punishment for her lies than my bank account, no matter how anemic it was at the moment.
Finally, I'd had enough. "I'm not sure what I can do at this point, but I'll try."
"Thank you, Trask, thank you."
I held her shoulders before she could hug me. "It's not the money, it's important that you realize that. You didn't just buy me, you bought my help. There's a difference, and if you don't know what it is, I'll tear this up and help string her up myself."
"I know, I understand. Please, just save her."
"It's going to be ten times harder now," I said. "They had a trump card, and I forced their hand."
"I don't care what you have to do. Just bring her back to me."
I nodded. "I'll do my best."
I walked her to her escort, then I went straight to the bank before they closed. What I had in mind was going to be expensive, and I needed cash in hand to recruit the kind of help I was going to require.
"Where's Bowen?" I asked Jasmine as I hurried into the diner. "I need to see him."
"He's not here," she said as she slid a plate of food in front of a customer. "Give me a second and we can talk."
"I don't have a second," I said, "I need him now."
She pulled me into the kitchen. "He doesn't want to talk to you. He's furious with both of us."
"This isn't about you and me. It's about your brother and me."
Jasmine wiped her hands on her apron. "Would you stop a second and listen to me? You need to hear this."
I paused and really looked at her. She was crying.
"What is it?"
"I can't see you anymore."
"Jasmine, I can't talk about this right now. If Bowen thinks he can stop us from being together, he's wrong. You're a grown woman. You can make your own decisions."
Her next words were like a slap to the face. "I did. This isn't coming from Bowen, it's from me. We're not right for each other, I know it in my heart. I'll be your friend, but I'm not going to be your lover, never again."
I shook my head. "Lady, you have a rotten sense of timing. I'm trying to keep myself alive, and you're dropping this on me."
"I can't help it. You had to know. It's how I feel."
I shook my head. "I think it's a mistake, but I'll respect your wishes."
"That's it? You're just giving up?" Her tears were gone now, and anger had taken their place.
Keeping my voice low, I said, "We had one night together, it's not like we were together for years. You changed your mind. I get it."
"Bowen was right. You are a cold hearted bastard."
I shrugged. "I've been called worse. Now, are you going to tell me where your brother is?"
"I'm right here," he said as he stepped into the kitchen behind us.
Jasmine turned to him. "You were right. He doesn't even care that I just dumped him."
I said, "Hang on a second. That's not fair, and you know it. I'm respecting your wishes, and you're upset with me because of it. Jasmine, I never wanted to hurt you, but I'm not sure I can say the same thing about you."
Jasmine looked at her brother. "Are you going to let him get away with that?"
"I haven't heard anything he's said that isn't true," Bowen said softly.
"You're a perfect pair of assholes," she said as she stormed out.
I looked at Bowen. "How much of that did you hear?"
"Enough." He struck out his hand. "I'm sorry. I let you down. How can I make it up to you?"
I took his hand and shook it. "Don't worry about it. We're good. How would you like to join an army I'm putting together? I'm going after Harkins and the girl. She's one of us too, a sport that somebody missed."
Bowen didn't look surprised; he only nodded at the new information. "I'm ready."
"Good," I said. "I can pay you now, the mother's financing it."
"Keep your money," Bowen said. "This one I owe you."
"We'll talk about that later. Right now, we have to get everybody else together."
"Who else do you want?"
I ticked them off on my fingers. "Let's keep this in our circle. Belle's chomping at the bit to do something with me, and I want to use Jim, too."
"Are you sure about that?" Bowen asked carefully.
It was my turn to look hard at him. "Do you think he's weak because of what happened in that abandoned house?"
"I think his body's fine, but I'm not so sure about his heart."
"More reason than any to include him," I said. "I took that part of his spirit from him, and I'm going to do my best to get it back for him."
Bowen nodded. "It's your call. Who else?"
"I need Bailey, too."
"I'm drawing the line there. He'll get killed if we take him into this fight with us."
I shook my head as I started for the back door of the diner. "He's not going, but I need him to make up some kind of super tranquilizer so we can capture Jennifer Granger alive."
"That's going to make it tough, not killing her outright. How about Harkins? Are the gloves off with him, too?"
"We can handle him however we want to," I said with a smile.
"That's more my style," Bowen said.
"I thought it might be."
Bailey said, "I still don't see why you are insistent on including me. I'm not going to go on your wolf hunt, so there's no reason to ask."
It had taken less than fifteen minutes for me to get my team together at Bailey's lab. That was what I loved about my friends. They would have been there whether I was paying them or not to work under such a heavy cloud of danger.
"Would you shut up for a second and listen to me? You don't have to come with us," I said. "But we need some kind of tranquilizer if we're going to get Jennifer Granger back to her mother. You can give us more for Harkins too, but I'm not sure we'll use it on him. I'm kind of partial to a silver solution to that problem."
Bailey asked, "What is this woman planning to do with the girl once we deliver her? She can't keep her daughter chained up in the basement."
Bowen asked, "Is that really our problem, Bailey? We deliver the girl, and it's over for us. Can you make the tranquilizer or not?"
"Of course, I've got something you can use. I just want to be sure it's the right thing to do."
"Come on," Belle snapped. "We're wasting time."
Jim was remarkably silent, just checking his gun again and again as the rest of us talked. I worried that maybe Bowen had been right to question how fit Jim was to go with us, but I stood by my decision. There was no way I could tell him he couldn't go now. I'd have to keep an eye on him, though, one more worry that I didn't need.
I said, "Bailey, it's the best we can do. We need to stop Harkins before he kills again. If we can get the girl away from him, we will, but our first priority is stopping him."
"Did you tell the girl's mother that?"
I snapped, "This goes beyond my job. I'm worried about the safety of Dogtown. The cops can't deal with it, so we're going to, with or without your help. If you have reservations, fine, nobody here's going to hold it against you. I just thought it might be neater with your help." I turned to everyone else. "Let's roll."
"It's about time," Belle said.
"Wait a second," Bailey snapped. "I didn't say I wouldn't help you." He shoved a small cluster of darts in my hand. They were taped so that all the points were in the same direction, and they became one massive dose. "It's not the most elegant delivery system I've ever worked out. Sorry, but it was all I could come up with on such short notice. Just jab it into her hide, and it will bring her down."
"This should be fine," I said, not really knowing if it would be enough or not. If Harkins had dosed Jennifer with the same go juice he'd taken, it might take a great deal more than that to knock her out, but I owed it to her mother to try, though putting another rogue wolf down might be the best solution for everyone involved. There was no doubt in my mind now that the Stockholm syndrome wasn't at work here. Jennifer Granger-no matter what her mother might think-was as guilty as Harkins in the slaughter that had cut through our community.
Rain was falling as we went outside. It had taken less than an hour to gather the team, but a lot could have happened since I was jumped in the basement.
Belle asked, "Do you think there's any chance they'll still be there?"
"I don't know," I said. "But we should be able to pick up their trail if they're not. They haven't been gone that long."
Bowen said, "It's time we finish this. I don't like looking over my shoulder all the time waiting for Harkins to make a try for me."
I looked over at Jim, who was strangely quiet. After I moved closer, I asked softly, "It's not too late to go back to Bailey's and wait for us."
He shook his head. "I'm seeing this through."
"The three of us can handle it," I said.
"If I'm not there with you, I won't ever be the same," he snapped, and I didn't say anything else.
There was no need for stealth as we walked into the hotel and down the basement stairs. Harkins either knew we were coming for him and he'd laid a trap, or they'd be long gone. I still felt better having my friends with me as we revisited the scene of my recent route. I could have stayed and fought-and maybe I should have-but the chances were good I would have died then and there, and I wasn't ready to check out just yet.
I led the way, turning lights on as we went. As I suspected, the place was empty, and the pallet of clothes were gone. They'd had time to pack up and go, but where?
Belle said, "Okay, this is a dead end. What now? Do we go out into Dogtown looking for them until we find them, or do we wait for their next move?"
"There's nothing here," Bowen said. "I say we go to the top of the building and work our way down."
Jim asked, "Do you think they could still be in the building?"
Bowen shrugged. "Where else is Harkins going to go? With the killing spree he's been on lately, I doubt there's going to be too many folks willing to put him up."
I was about to agree with Bowen when my phone rang. It was Bailey.
"Hey, I can't really talk right now," I said.
"You don't have to. Just listen. Harkins is here in my lab, and he's got Jennifer Granger with him. He says if you don't come here right now, and alone, they're going to kill me."
I felt my heart nearly stop. While I'd been mounting a direct attack, Harkins had outflanked me. "Hang tight. I'll be right there."
"You are supposed to come in phase. He doesn't want to see a gun, or I die."
"Is that it?"
"No, I need to talk to Bowen, too."
I didn't understand that. "Why? What's he got to do with this?"
"Jasmine's here."
I handed Bowen the phone, wondering what miserable alignment of the stars had put his sister at risk tonight. She'd dumped me just an hour earlier, but that didn't mean I didn't care about what happened to her. Last night's memories were too fresh in my mind.
Bowen grunted a few words into the telephone, then handed it back to me. As he started for the door, I put a hand on his chest.
I asked, "What did he say?"
"They're going to kill her, too if we try anything tricky."
"So, what should we do?"
He faced me, anger streaming from his glare. "We try something tricky. Chances are they're both already dead, since they've served their purpose, but if Jasmine's still alive, I'm going to get her out of there."
"Do we have a plan?" I asked softly.
"No, I'm counting on you to come up with something."
I thought about it, weighing a dozen possibilities in less time than imaginable, then said, "I have one, but it's going to have to work perfectly, or most of us are going to die tonight."
Bowen nodded. "A chance is all I need."
I turned to Belle. "How about you? There's no shame in dropping out now. The deal has all changed."
She laughed at me. "Have you ever known me to back down from a fight? I just hope there's enough left of him for me after you two are finished with him."
I looked at Jim. "Do I even need to ask?"
He looked sick, but he said in a strong voice, "I'm in."
"Good. Here's what we're going to do."
Ten minutes later, I stood in front of Bailey's lab. It was time to let the Beast out, as much as I dared, anyway. I had two jobs to do, and I had to focus on them with all my might if we had the slightest chance of living through this. There's an otherworldly shift that takes place when I become a werewolf, and my cognizant and reasonable self is buried under a yearning for blood and an instinct for killing. Most werewolves fight these primal urges, but it appeared that Harkins had given into them, body and soul. But what about Jennifer? Was there enough humanity left in her to hold back the beast within, or had Harkins taught her to disregard it? We'd find out soon enough.
Jim was behind me, just out of sight. The others were deployed elsewhere, but I was glad my friend literally had my back.
"I'm going in," I said.
"I'll be here," he replied.
I dove inside my soul, found the place where the beast was chained, then started throwing aside the restraints. He was hungry to be free, but I kept a few chains in place, enough to give me at least some control over my own actions.
The door was standing open, and I shoved it aside, waiting for a trap.
Harkins was there, already phased into wolf form.
"Where are they?" I asked. The words hurt my mouth in its muzzle form, and I doubted a norm would have understood them.
Harkins didn't have any trouble.
"She's got them."
That explained her absence, something I'd been concerned about from the second I slipped through the doorway.
"Why me? Why are you doing this?"
"You ruined our plan," Harkins said. "You die for that."
Without another word, he leapt for my throat.
I was ready for him. I held the cluster of darts meant for Jennifer and waited for him to get close enough to strike. Everything depended on my ability to hit Harkins before he realized what I was doing. No ordinary werewolf could have done it, but I'd managed to keep one hand as my own, and a part of my mind clearly focused on the attack.
At the last second, I lifted my hand toward him, ready to plunge the darts into his heart. I wasn't sure if it would knock him out, but it was all I had.
It would have worked, I know that in my heart, on an ordinary werewolf, but I hadn't fully realized just how fast Harkins' reactions had become under Bailey's serum.
Turning in midair, he shifted position somehow and drove a back leg into my arm, causing the dart cluster to fall harmlessly to the floor.
So much for plan A.
I quickly shifted my hand to wolf form, and took a swipe at him as he passed by.
For once, I got lucky and caught him above the right eye, or in it, I couldn't tell which. It was bleeding profusely in seconds, and I had high hopes I'd blinded him, at least partially.
It didn't matter.
He was on me in seconds, and I felt his bared teeth come closer and closer to my throat, despite my best efforts to stop him. His strength was incredible.
I might die, but I wasn't going to give up. I gave a final lunge and managed to dislodge him, but he was back on me in seconds. I felt his teeth grab hold of my throat, but I managed to pull back enough so he only got the top layer of skin. Pain shot through me as he ripped out a patch of fur and skin as big as a dollar bill. I managed to take a shot at his one good eye, but I didn't do much damage.
I was losing blood from the wound and weakening. I'd told Bowen of a way to get through the back door, and I kept waiting for him and Belle to help, but so far, I was all alone.
It was going to be a bad way to die.
Harkins moved in for the kill, and then I felt his weight come off me in an instant.
Someone else was getting into the fight, and it wasn't a second too soon.
I expected to see Belle or Bowen, but instead, it appeared that Jim had left his post and had come to my aid. He wasn't backing down either, and Harkins swatted at him with an errant paw, sending Jim into a heap against one wall.
It wasn't much of a distraction, but it was all I needed. Before Harkins could turn back to me, I grabbed the dart cluster with my newly shifted human hand and drove the tranquilizers into his shoulder.
At first, I didn't think it worked. Harkins turned to me, roaring with anger as he fought to dig the dart cluster out of his shoulder. He was still fumbling with the darts when he finally collapsed.
As Harkins shifted back into his human form, the cluster fell harmlessly to the floor, its purpose served and its package spent.
"Is he dead?" Jim asked. The impact of Harkins' blow had shifted him back to human form, but I was still in full wolf phase.
"Don't care. Watch him. You okay?"
Jim nodded, and I went in search of Jennifer and my hostages. What had happened to them? Were my friends all dead? If not, what was keeping them? Without Jim, I wouldn't have made it, and I was very glad he'd insisted on coming with us.
When I finally found her, Jennifer was in human form, a gun in each hand. She turned them on me, and I ducked back as bullets ripped into the doorframe.
It was time to shift back. I caged the beast, forced it back into its chains, then called out, "He's finished, Jennifer. It's time to go home."
"I am home," she said. "You didn't kill him. You couldn't have."
"He's not dead. I knocked him out with a tranquilizer."
I heard something behind me, a noise away from Jennifer. Had Harkins managed to drag himself out of the fog of the heavy dose I'd given him? I turned back and saw Bowen round the corner. He was in human phase, and he didn't look happy.
"Where's Belle?" I asked softly.
"She's getting ready to create a diversion. That bitch pinned us in back there. She was waiting for us."
"What's the diversion?"
When the last syllable left my mouth, I felt the building shudder. I ducked my head through the doorway and saw my car was now sitting inside Bailey's apartment where Jennifer was entrenched.
Without thinking, I shifted into wolf form and leapt for her while her back was turned.
She was turning around as I jumped, and I felt one of her bullets graze my shoulder as I reached her.
It was all I could do not to rip out her throat, but instead, I knocked the gun to the side and pinned her down before she could shift.
Bowen was there a split second later, the gun in his hand.
I told Jennifer, "Shift, and you're dead. I mean it."
"I don't care," she said, starting to cry. "You killed him, didn't you?"
"I don't know," I said. "Where are they? Did you kill them before we got here?"
"They're in the bathroom," she said as I put pressure on her chest with a sharp set of claws. "He wanted to kill them, but I wouldn't let him." She cried a little more, then asked, "What happens to me now?"
"Your mother wants you home," I said.
"I'd rather die than go back there."
I grinned at her. "Good."
Was there a flicker of hope in her eyes? "You'll do it? Please?"
As she braced for my claws, I said, "No, I want you to suffer. I wasn't sure before, but Mom it is."
Bailey came out a few seconds later, followed by Bowen and Jasmine. Bowen had an arm around his sister, and though she looked shaken up by the ordeal, she wasn't hurt.
"We would have shifted, but they had us bound in silver," Bailey explained.
"I'm just glad you're okay."
"What about Harkins?"
I started to answer when we heard Jim's cry from the other room.
I bound out, knowing my friends could handle Jennifer.
Jim, one of the best friends I'd ever had, was lying there on the floor, his neck snapped, and Harkins was gone.
With one last glance back at Jim's body, I took off into the night to find his killer and put him down for good.
Chapter 11
"Go back," I said as I heard Bowen approach from the rear. "I'm doing this alone."
"You're hurt," he said.
"I can handle him."
We were both shifted into wolf form, and it was difficult to talk, to focus on the words, even to think. I was in full killing mode, something I'd fought to keep from experiencing since I'd first joined the brotherhood of the Wolf.
But tonight was a night for killing, and I was ready.
"We go together," Bowen said.
We followed the trail of blood as we ran side by side, and I was glad I had managed to wound Harkins in my battle with him. I was leaving a trail myself, from the shoulder and from the throat, but I walled off the pain and ran on. It was easier to do than I would have imagined, and the only thing the small part that was left of me worried about was ever being able to come back from the blood lust once it was satisfied.
We found him spread out on the ground against a dumpster, and he wasn't moving.
Bowen said, "Don't trust him."
"I'll go," I growled.
Bowen nodded, and leapt to a stack of pallets where he could look down on us.
I approached slowly, smelling the air, searching for some sign of life. Had Harkins' blood spree finally ended like this, curled up dead in an alley?
As I neared, I could feel every hair on my back stand to attention. He'd fooled me before, and I wasn't going to let it happen again.
I nudged him with my muzzle, and Harkins suddenly came alive. He rolled onto his back and arched it in a way that flipped him up onto his feet. He wasn't dead at all, apparently only waiting for us to find him.
As his teeth snapped in the air where my neck had just been, I noticed blood spilling from a new slash over his one good eye, and realized that Jim hadn't gone down without a fight. My friend had died valiantly, and I felt a moment's burst of pride as I worked my way closer for a kill shot.
This had to end, here and now.
Harkins and I circled each other, our fangs bared, low rumbles coming from each of us. We were true brothers of the Wolf now, fighting for our lives.
I was fighting for something else, too.
Retribution for what he'd done to my friend.
Harkins made his move and went for my throat with a mighty jump.
I was ready for him. I waited until the last possible second, then slashed out with my claws.
The blow was so strong, it separated his head from his body, and the two masses fell at my feet.
Harkins had made his last kill.
Bowen shifted as I did and joined me. We watched in silence as Harkins slowly transformed back into human form.
Finally, Bowen put a hand on my shoulder. "Let's go back to the others."
"You go. I have to call somebody to take care of this first."
"Throw the body in the dumpster like the trash it is," Bowen said.
"It's what he deserves, but I have to do this the right way."
He nodded.
I found a telephone and called Dalton.
He said, "What is it? I'm eating dinner."
"I got Harkins. He's dead."
"I'll be right there."
As I waited, I kept staring at the head. Harkins' eyes were opened, what I could see of them. The damage Jim had done to his last good eye had helped me kill the werewolf. I thought about my friend, and how much I'd miss him. Still, he'd died a noble death, and that was something. Jim had often wondered about his strength, worried that he wouldn't have what it took to make a stand. He would have been proud to know that he'd helped put a bad one down.
As for Harkins, there was nothing noble about him. He'd brought shame to Dogtown, and he had deserved a worse death than he'd gotten. Bailey's serum had enhanced his physical skills, but they'd also magnified his basic character flaws. Everything had been magnified, and a monster was still a monster.
Dalton drove up in a squad car a few minutes later, and I was glad to see that he was alone.
He nodded to me, then looked down at the body. "You do that?" he asked as he pointed to the severed head.
"I did."
Dalton patted me on my good shoulder. "Good for you. It needed doing. Where's the girl?"
"She's safe enough," I said. "I'm taking her back to her parents."
Dalton frowned. "I need to talk to her first. She was a witness to what happened."
I had a feeling she was a great deal more than that, but it wasn't my job to enforce the law. I'd been hired to find a daughter and return her to her family, and that was what I was going to do.
I nudged the torso on the ground with my foot. "There's not going to be a trial, so why push it? Her family has money and power. Step lightly."
Dalton nodded after a moment. "You're probably right." He kept looking down at the body. "He doesn't look so tough now. Did you take him down by yourself?"
"I had help from some friends," I said. "Jim Valentine's dead."
"That's too bad," Dalton said. "I know you two were close."
"We were like brothers. Is that it? Can I go now?"
He looked at me closely for the first time since he'd arrived. "You okay? I can take you to the hospital, if you need me to."
"My friends will take care of me," I said.
"What happens in Dogtown stays here, right?"
"Something like that," I said.
As I started to walk away, he said, "I'll get the reward for you in the morning."
"I don't want it," I said.
"You sure? It's ten grand."
I shook my head, then said, "Give it to Jim's dad. He's a norm, and he quit talking to his son the day Jim shifted for the first time, but Jim never forgot him. He would have liked his dad to have the money."
"Whatever you say."
I didn't look back as I left.
There was nothing left to see.
Jim's body was covered with a blanket when I got back to the lab. I pulled back the top, patted my friend's cheek gently, then covered him again.
I found Bell and Bailey in the apartment, sitting around another body.
"Did you kill her?" I asked as I looked at Jennifer's supine form.
"No, She got mouthy, so Bailey tranqed her," Belle said. "You okay?"
"No, but I will be. Where's Bowen and Jasmine?"
"He took her home, but he said to call if you need him. She was pretty shook up."
"A lot happened tonight," I said.
I reached for the phone, and Bailey asked, "Who are you calling?"
I looked down at the sleeping girl. "I don't want her here one second longer than I have to."
After Jennifer's mother picked up, I said, "I've got your daughter."
"Is she..." Her voice was wracked with tears.
"She's alive. We had to sedate her, though."
"Where are you? We'll be right there."
I gave her the address, and we waited for them to arrive. I hadn't been looking forward to hauling Jennifer through Dogtown at midnight. My shoulder was aching, and my arm had added its own steady throb. I'd need some of Bailey's vitamin supplement to heal over this.
I just wished he had something for my heart.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. They must have flown in their black armored Hummer to get there that fast.
I met them at the door.
"Where is she?" Stephanie asked.
"In a second. You know you can't keep her chained up in your basement, don't you? She's going to have to learn to control the beast inside her, and your daughter won't be able to do it on her own."
Stephanie looked at me as if I'd slapped her. "I told you before. She's not one of you."
I could see there was no use arguing with her.
"She's in there."
She pointed to Emmett and said, "Go get her."
Stephanie said, "Don't worry about my daughter. There's a new treatment in Switzerland. They can cure her."
I didn't say a word. She would believe what she wanted to, no matter what I said.
Stephanie stroked her daughter's hair, kissed her forehead lightly, and then they all left as she shoved the balance of my money into my hands.
I had a hunch Stephanie's tenderness for her daughter would kill her one day, but we each choose our own destiny, and I was finished with them. I'd done my job, and it had cost me more than I would have willingly paid.
Bailey stood beside me, and kept staring at Jim's body. "It's all my fault," he said. "I might as well have killed him myself."
"We discussed this already. You didn't pull the trigger, you just made the gun. There's no blood on your hands."
"I wish I could believe that was true."
I grabbed his shoulders, felt fire burning where I'd been hurt, but pushed through the pain. "Listen to me. This can kill you, right here and right now, or it can make you stronger. What's done is done. You can't go back and change the past any more than I can."
He was crying now, and I was surprised to realize that I was, too.
I said, "I've already lost one friend tonight. I can't afford to lose you, too."
I felt another pair of arms encircle us, and to my surprise, I realized that Belle was crying as well.
It was a bad night, a hard night full of loss, but we'd survive.
There was nothing else we could do.
The next night, we all stood around a funeral pyre we'd carefully crafted for our fallen friend, Jim Valentine. He was wrapped in white linen atop the mound of sticks and branches, and before we lit the fire that would consume his body, I stood. His father hadn't wanted to come when I'd called him, even after hearing about the reward, and it was just as well that there weren't any outsiders there.
"Tonight we say good-bye to a noble man. He fought through his fears and came to terms with them, and if it hadn't been for his efforts, more would have died before an evil among us was extinguished. I was proud to call him my friend."
I took the torch from Bowen and lit the mound of dry wood. It leapt into life, filling the darkness around us with light, and as the flames consumed his body, I could swear I saw Jim's face among the clouds of smoke, smiling at us all.
I was a fitting end, a respectful farewell, and I knew I'd have a hole in my heart forever where my friend had once been.
The End

