Mercy Blade

CHAPTER 20 Dang. Brass Knuckles are Cool!

It was Sunday, and I left for church in plenty of time for the early service. I hadn’t gone since Rick and I started dating, maybe because he was Roman Catholic and I was nondenominational, or maybe because I was sleeping with him without the benefit of a ring on my finger and guilt pricked me every time I thought about God. Guilt was one big drawback of religion, I thought sourly as Bitsa pootered along.

I got there at sunrise and parked under the tree in the little parking lot of the strip mall where the church rented space, set Bitsa’s kickstand, pulled my Bible out of the saddlebag, and went inside, using the little ladies’ room to change from riding jeans into a skirt. Not that anyone would have said anything about my jeans, even on Sunday morning, but I hadn’t been brought up that way.

The church was empty and dim, though I could smell the preacher, an earnest, slender little guy who looked about twelve, so he was here someplace. I sat in the third row and closed my eyes, the Bible on my lap. I had a lot to repent of before I’d be clean enough inside to take the sacrament. And some of the things I’d done, like fighting, saying a few cuss-words that had seemed appropriate at the time, and sleeping with Rick, I didn’t really want to repent of, so I had some praying and thinking to do. I’d been brought up to be better than the person I had become. I knew my housemother never imagined, not in her wildest dreams, that I’d be a rogue vamp killer for hire, sleeping with a cop outside of wedlock, making out with a blood-servant in my shower, letting a witch live under my roof . . . Yeah. She’d be unhappy with me. I was unhappy with myself, especially the part about making out with Bruiser.

Light was diffuse in the small church, let in by high windows blocked by overgrown foliage, shrubs that had been left unpruned until they had grown into small trees. The building smelled of paint, dust, mice living in the walls, and the fainter scents of the previous worshippers. The muffled engines of cars going by was the only sound, even the mice were quiet.

Here was one place I could never hide from myself. Not “here in a church.” But here inside, when I stopped and thought about God. I didn’t think he’d be ticked off that I had begun to study my Cherokee heritage, even the more mystical aspects of it, which were a lot more like counseling than about religion. I didn’t think he’d be ticked off that I had let a woman of a different species—a witch—lead me into meditation, despite all that “Suffer not a witch to live” stuff. I didn’t think he’d be ticked off that I killed and ate things when I was Beast, or that I shifted. But the stuff with Bruiser in the shower. And sleeping with Rick. That kind of stuff I figured he’d be ticked off about, despite the fact that the Bible said all sins were equal, lying equal to murder, gossip equal to hating, a healthy roll in the hay equal to drinking one glass of bubbly too many. So it was the cultural part of it all, not the “What God thinks about it” part that was giving me trouble.

Tell that to my brain. Can you ask forgiveness for something you intend to continue to do if you get the chance? Smokers know they’re going to smoke again. Hard drinkers know they’re going to drink again. Did they ask for forgiveness? Was it a waste of breath? Did it amount to lying to God, another sin on top of any sins not being repented for? Something dark and guilty squirmed inside me, like a mass of blind snakes, cold and scaly and hissing softly.

I sat with my head down as the small early service crowd gathered, deliberately projecting a keep-away aura. And kept my eyes down through the service, not singing, not following along in the Scripture reading. Just listening to both the preacher and the silence in my heart. I had issues. I needed to address them. But later. After I solved this dead were-cat case. And found Rick. And decided what to do about Bruiser—who was being spelled by Evangelina. Would a spell have made me more attracted to Bruiser? Had the mad make-out session in the shower been spell-induced? Troubled, I passed the Lord’s supper without partaking when it came around, and slipped out during the last prayer so I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

I changed clothes in the parking lot, pulling the jeans up under the skirt and slipping the skirt off over them. And drove out of the strip mall lot just as the preacher opened the church door, no doubt looking for one of his flock who was clearly troubled.

I pulled up the map app of the hotels where Reach said Rick had been, and followed them to the east side of town. The first place I came to was the right hotel. It looked just like the pics I’d been given, and it smelled like sick, wet dogs. Like a kennel left unattended for weeks. Like dogs. Not cats. Werewolves, not were-cats. I parked and tucked my helmet under my arm, walking around the half-filled, cracked pavement lot, watching for a sentry and checking out the cars and trucks, trying for nonchalance. No new vehicles, nothing green, nothing high dollar. Most had bumper stickers proclaiming the owners supporters of legalized marijuana, promising themselves capable of lead-based self-defense, and advertising various brands of beer, vodka, or tequila. Only half were English, the rest were Spanish. I was really going to have to take a good Spanish class. High school was no help at all anymore.

I rounded the building. In the side lot, I spotted Rick’s Kow-bike. Shock raced up my spine, stinging like fire ants. It was suddenly hard to breathe. The bike looked like it hadn’t been moved in days, leaves and debris on the leather seat. He would never have left the bike here, outside, in last night’s storm. Not if he was alive and uninjured.

Adrenaline poured into my bloodstream as I walked around the bike, but any lingering scents had been washed off in the deluge. Parked next to the bike on either side were pickup trucks, a rusty blue one and a rusty red one. And they smelled like werewolves.

Crap.

Trying to still the fury and fear in my bloodstream, trying to look less menacing than I felt, I walked along the row of hotel doors, sniffing. I smelled wolf, strong and fresh, and the scent of Rick, weaker, older. My heart skipped a painful beat. I stepped into the small hotel office, which stank of stale cigarettes, old beer, fresh marijuana, and air freshener strong enough to make me gag. Pulling up a pic of Rick on my cell, and a twenty out of a pocket, I slapped the bill down on the counter and held the cell out to the clerk even before he said hello. “Know this guy? Seen this guy? I’m not here to cause trouble.” Leaving the bill on the counter, I thumbed open my PI license, tossed it beside the twenty, and added, “He’s missing. Cops think he’s dead.”

The guy behind the counter was mid-twenties, stoned, lank-haired, with bloodshot eyes that stared at the money. He licked his lips like Pavlov’s house pet before turning his eyes to the cell. He studied the picture a long moment before putting his fingertips on the bill and meeting my gaze. “I’d get fired if I told you he’d been staying with a girl and some other guys in rooms 114 and 115. So I can’t tell you that.” He picked up the twenty and put it in his pocket. “Sorry. And I can’t tell you the rooms adjoin either.”

I chuckled and said, “Hypothetically speaking, if someone busted in a door, and wanted to pay for it to avoid the cops being called, how much would that cost a girl?”

“Last time the repair bill was two hundred. But the cops got called.”

I dropped two hundreds and a fifty on the counter. “Write me a receipt for a door for two seventy. No one sees it but my accountant and Uncle Sam at tax time.”

The kid thought about it a moment, his brain on slow-mo. He scratched his butt while thinking, and finally nodded. “Make it an even three and you got a deal.”

I added enough bills to make him happy, but kept my hand over them. “For this, you also turn off the security cameras for ten minutes. No one dies, no blood, no cops, no press.”

“I’ll leave it on just in case you get carried away and I have to cover my butt,” he said, still scratching the object of his discourse, “but you can come back and steal it from me.” He pointed at an old-fashioned VCR player under the counter. The kid might be stoned but he was still thinking. He gave me a receipt on a hotel letterhead, which had been photocopied on a machine in desperate need of toner. His signature was illegible and I was guessing it wasn’t his, not that I cared. I’d be turning it over to Leo for reimbursement and to my accountant. A partial lie, another sin to add to my growing burden of them. I dropped an extra twenty on the counter to sweeten the pot. He said, “Business doing nice with you,” and laughed as if he thought it was really funny. Stoner humor had always escaped me.

I walked to Bitsa, took out three handguns and belted two into a special holster at the small of my back. I checked the loads on them all, chambering silver shot rounds. I slid two knives into my waistband. I could have called for backup—either Derek Lee or the cops. I didn’t. Rick’s scent was fading. So I’d check the place out first. I did slide a pair of brass knuckles over my right fingers. I had never used brass knuckles, but right now, they felt good. I probably needed my leathers for protection, but I wasn’t going back home to change.

I took a breath, studying the door locks. Settled my grip on the H&K 9 mil in my left fist, though I was a far better shot with my right. I’d be up close. Aiming wasn’t essential. I’d need the power behind my right hook; I wanted to wound, not kill. I strode up to 114. Drawing up Beast, letting her flood my system. Unleashing just a bit of the fury boiling inside me.

I swiveled around and forward. Weight perfectly balanced with momentum. Lashed out, transferring power through torso, hip, thigh, knee, leg, foot. And kicked the door, my boot hitting just under the lock. The door jamb splintered. The door slammed open. Broke the security chain. Wood slivers and lock parts flew, catching the morning light. The door hit the back wall. The smell of werewolf hit me. I was inside before the two wolves in human form were half awake.

One went down at the foot of his bed with my boot heel imprinted on his jaw. The other one tried for a gun that I slapped away. Punched him in the face. I was pretty sure I broke his jaw and a few teeth. He was out cold, his remaining teeth not aligned right anymore. I looked at my fist. It didn’t even hurt. Dang. Brass knuckles are cool!

Four seconds after I kicked in the door I was in the next room. Pivoted, weapon ready to fire at either door or window if needed. It was empty. It reeked of werewolf bitch, sickness, and sex. A lot of sex. Under that was the taint of Rick’s blood. I broke into a hot sweat, but forced myself to stand and observe, taking everything in, with all my senses. Overlapping impressions bombarded me, visual and olfactory, the taste and texture of the air on my exposed skin.

The room was trashed, as if a pack of rabid dogs had torn it apart, dissecting the furniture into its component pieces, with only the bed still standing, though it was severely wounded. From the stink, the wolf-bitch had routinely bedded down and mated with all of the male weres in the nest of torn sheets and mattress stuffing. And with Rick, a lot.

Wolves mate for life, Beast thought at me. Sick bitch.

I scented old beef blood and saw a bowl filled with water in the corner, a bloody place on the carpet and a scrap of rancid meat against the wall where a were had eaten in wolf form.

The stink of were-bitch had a sickly smell, even to my human nose, as if I could sniff out the virus or bacteria that was making her crazy. It smelled stronger and more virulent than that running in the male werewolves’ veins. The were-cats hadn’t smelled like this. Sabina’s old Roman scholar’s info was starting to smell real likely.

The closet doors were missing. Female clothing hung on several hangers, the rest rumpled on the floor beneath the rod. The bathroom was neater than the rest of the place, maybe because it hadn’t been used much. There were girl toiletries everywhere, spilled, dumped, half empty. The toilet lid was up, and an image of the were-bitch drinking from it made my lips curl with savage humor. A blond wig was half hidden under the counter.

Rick had been wooing a redhead in the photos, a girl I’d assumed was Safia. But by the stink of sex, he’d been with more than one were. If there was one wig there might be two. I turned slowly. Spotted a red wig, long tresses matted with crusted stuff I didn’t want to examine. Fake prepackaged change of identity. I pulled it out with a toe and flipped it over to expose the mesh underside. A brunette hair was curled inside. I leaned in and took a whiff. Yeah. Were-bitch. At some point in his undercover investigation, Rick found the wolves. And ended up . . . their prisoner?

Air moved through the open window on the back wall, and I went to it, unsurprised to see it broken out, blood on the shattered shards. I sniffed, parsing the pheromones. Rick’s blood, by the smell; I could almost taste his fear. He’d tried to get away. He had gone undercover and found trouble. Rick was a prisoner, or had been. Beast growled deep inside me.

I went back to the bed. Rick’s wallet and badge were under a pillow, on an undamaged spot of mattress. His blood was on the bed too. Rick wasn’t undercover anymore.

Rage boiled through me, building pressure, needing an outlet it wasn’t going to get. I needed to be analytical, methodical, not a raging maniac. But it was hard to breathe, my body felt clammy and cold in spite of the heat. I shoved down my reactions to the blood and semen and were-bitch scent, tamping the edges with cold, hard purpose.

Back in the room with the two naked wolves, one out cold, one in the middle of what looked like a very painful change, his human-shaped jaw crushed, I looked around. And smelled around. Marginally less ruined than the adjoining room, it was still a pigsty, littered with pizza boxes, beer bottles and cans, clothes everywhere. Inflatable mattresses, empty of air, were piled up in a corner as if tossed there when not needed. There was a pile of zip strips, the plastic handcuffs carried by law enforcement for securing subdued suspects quickly. To the side were several that had been cut off, the blood on most of them old and dried. The blood on one severed pair was fresher; it was Rick’s blood.

I sniffed the strip carefully. There was no scent of death in the blood. Rick had been alive when he wore it. Maybe last night. Last night when I had elected not to go back out into the rain. My throat constricted. My chest burned with breath that throbbed and tore as it moved through me, harsh and strident in the small hotel room. A half sob, full of fury.

I opened the closet. Rick’s bike jacket was on the floor. My eyes stung, dry and aching as I nudged the lapels open with a foot. His cell, the battery dead or the cell off, was beneath it. A handful of change was scattered there too. Nothing else.

I checked on the shifting were one last time, to see him lying on his side, fully wolfed out, panting raggedly, his paws running weakly like dogs’ feet do in dreams. I walked to him on the filthy carpet, and his feet speeded up as he tried to pull them under him, panting in fear. I thumped him on the skull with the knucks, and said, “I’m not gonna kill you.” He stilled, as if holding his breath. “The guy you were keeping here. Is he still alive?”

The wolf turned up golden brown eyes to me. He sniffed the air, scenting me as if to determine my species and purpose.

“You’ll live even if the answer is no. But if you tell me yes, and I find out you lied, some marine pals of mine—the ones you met at the big coming-out party—and I, will track you down, and I’ll hang your pelt on the wall of my house.” I extended my fist and drew Beast up into my eyes, into my skin. Her pelt roiled just under the surface, coarse and spiky. When I spoke again, my voice dropped an octave. “But first, I’ll play with you like a rabbit. I’ll make you suffer. Got it?”

The wolf finally got his paws under him and scuttled onto the mattress against the headboard, his tail curled between his legs and under his belly, his head down and eyes rolled up, the whites showing under the irises. It was submissive behavior. He whined and nodded once, the human gesture looking all wrong on wolf.

“Is the guy alive?”

The wolf put his head down further, between his front paws.

I tried again. “Was he alive the last time you saw him?”

Nod.

“Was that today? This morning?”

Nod. Nod.

Disgust and anger wormed through me. If I had skipped the church-and-guilt session I might have been here in time. Maybe . . . “Tap your paw. When did they leave?” Four taps later, I knew I had been sleeping, not guilting, when they left. Four a.m. Why four a.m.? “Were they in a car?” When he whined, I asked, “Car and a truck? Pickup truck?”

Two nods.

“Do you know where they were headed?”

The wolf hesitated this time, and I could see him thinking. I wondered if he thought like a human when he had a wolf brain or like a wolf. My own experience with shape changing might not be the same as weres’. Too bad we didn’t have time to make nice and compare notes. Finally he nodded.

“You know he’s a cop,” I said. “I know he was here. Injured. Kept prisoner. He turns up dead, and got that way after this conversation, I’ll remember you to the cops and to my buddies. Where were they going?” He looked puzzled and I said, “East of the river?” Head shake. “West of the river?” Nod.

That cut my search in half. My gut had been right so far today, so I asked, “Leo Pellissier’s clan home?”

The wolf’s eyes went wide in a thoroughly human reaction. Bingo. “At four in the morning?” I let disbelief color my tone. “When a vamp is most active?” When he ducked his head, indicating that I hadn’t understood exactly right, I guessed, “To look the place over and plan for later?” He dipped his head into a half nod, half shake. I was warm, but not quite hot yet. Whatever the wolves had planned, I wasn’t going to like it. “And they took Rick with them.”

Again, I got the yes/no body language. His posture said it all. Total submission. And a tail-between-the-legs fear of me coming after him when I figured it out. Whatever the wolf was in his human form, in his doggy-shape, he was no alpha.

I glanced over at the other wolfman who was still sleeping the sleep of the beaten. His naked body covered most of the bed, and I recognized the big guy who had been smoking outside the biker bar when all this started. Fire Truck. He was no prettier naked than he had been fully clothed. I swiveled my gaze back to wolf-boy.

“The were-bitch. She has a use for the guy? A use that will keep him alive?”

The wolf slowly shook his head no, twice, his eyes on mine. His shoulders hunched at what he saw there, and his eyes flicked to the gun in my left fist.

“So, she’s keeping him alive because she likes him?”

To my surprise, the wolf whined and nodded yes. My skin prickled as if my pelt rose. Hot fear slid though me as I made another wild-haired mental leap. From the way his nose twitched, and after the experience inside the bloodhound’s body, I knew the wolf smelled my horror. “She’s trying to turn him, isn’t she?”

He nodded once. Without thought, I struck. Beast fast. Throwing my entire body into the punch. The brass knuckles hit him square in his nose. Throwing his head up and back on the follow-through. He pinwheeled off the bed. Into the wall. And slid down it to lie in a limp heap. I wanted to shoot him so bad it hurt. But I rolled the human-shaped wolf over and handcuffed his hands behind his back with his own zip strips, using three of the strips to make sure they held. I secured his feet, also, with several of the little units. Then I lifted his feet and attached them to his wrist cuffs with several more, effectively hog-tying him.

I did the same to the wolf on the floor, but if weres shifted using the same laws of physics as I did, it wasn’t likely they would hold either guy.

Back in the office, there was a fresh stink of marijuana, coarse and prickly to my nose. I held my hand to the kid behind the counter and he removed the tape, placing it in my palm. But he didn’t meet my eyes, his own sliding to the right. I smiled, knowing it wasn’t a sweet smile. “If I find you made a copy or switched tapes, or anything else that comes close to breaking our agreement, I’ll come back and take my three hundred plus bucks out of your hide.”

Fingers shaking, he lifted a second tape from behind the counter and placed it in my hand. “Business doing nice with you,” I said, quoting him. He didn’t smile when I left.

In the parking lot I dug out my throwaway cell and punched in the number for the cop who had warned me that Rick was missing, Sloan Rosen. When he answered, I could tell he was at work, cop-shop noise in the background.

“You boys still missing a cop?” I asked, hoping they had recovered Rick, alive, since four a.m., and knowing Rosen would recognize my voice.

“Yes,” he said, his tone conveying that he was in the presence of other cops, and holding a warning that told me to be careful what I said.

I gave the hotel name, address, and room numbers. “Rick LaFleur was there until four a.m. He was alive when he left, but the dogs he was investigating know he’s a cop and I’m guessing they weren’t happy about it. If you hurry, you’ll find two trussed-up werewolves to question.”

“Who is this?” Rosen asked. “How did you know about the cop?”

“Cute,” I chuckled, knowing he was protecting both of us with the questions. “And while you’re at it, let me suggest that a sheriff’s deputy drop by Leo Pellissier’s. One of the puppies told me the wolves reconnoitered the clan home of the MOC at four this morning.” Sloan swore and I closed the cell, cutting the connection. I pulled out the battery, put them both in my pocket, and roared toward home.

My demeanor caused Evangelina and Bruiser to back away, their questions unasked. I shut my bedroom door and went online, pulling up city maps and vamp history and printing it all out so I could look over it one more time. I started at the front and went through everything, not reading, just looking, letting my mind take in it what it wanted. Midway through I saw the photo of a child, olive-skinned, dark-haired and dark-eyed. A pretty, young boy with short ringlets and a lace collar. I studied the photo. Something about the chin, the shape of the eyes, the mouth held in a tight, angry line, looked vaguely familiar. I flipped it over. On back, in the same cursive as the small sample of photocopied journal, was written Terrence Sweets, 9 yrs.

I kept on searching, knowing that something was here. If I just knew what to look for. Vamps didn’t have conflicts that started today. They had conflicts with roots in the past. Sometimes way in the past. This one started back in the early 1900s, and because I hadn’t figured it out yet, Rick might be dead. When I reached the end, I threw the pile of photos and photocopies onto the bed in disgust.

“Think,” I whispered to myself. The cops had heard that were-cats were in town, parleying with Leo in the two weeks before the official announcement and weres came out of the furry closet. They sent Rick in to investigate. The wolves showed up and Safia somehow heard about them. Rick heard about the wolves from Safia and went to visit them too. So far so good.

After a day off in the mountains with me, he dove right back undercover—but something had changed in his absence. Ricky Bo had known there were problems when he got back to town, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t call in official backup. So he’d taken a girl to breakfast at our favorite restaurant—Safia? The wolf-girl?—hoping I’d dig deeper. And I hadn’t. I’d pouted. Working for Leo had done the rest. I’d ended up in the middle of fighting cats and dogs and left Rick out to dry.

Angry at myself, at Leo Pellissier, and at Rick, I reweaponedup—not that I thought I’d need firepower until night, but, since I’d never been very good at walking softly, it might be smart to carry my big stick everywhere I went. Especially if there was a chance I might not make it back before nightfall. I dressed in my leathers, strapping the M4 to my back with the extended butt stock in place. I wouldn’t be target shooting but the extra stability might be handy. The Benelli was loaded with seven hand-packed, silver fléchette rounds, 76 millimeter shell shot, six in the magazine, one in the chamber.

My braided hair I curled into a fighting queue, leaving nothing to grab during a down-and-dirty fight. I added three sidearms to my weaponry and magazines to my pockets. Lately, when I bought weapons, as many as possible used 9 millimeter ammo and interchangeable magazines. Handy in case a gun jammed. And all guns jammed eventually, no matter how well machined.

I added all my claws to sheaths, my favorite vamp-killer—the hilt hand-carved by Molly’s husband Evan—under my left arm. I caught sight of myself in a mirror, my eyes glowing dark gold, my face pale and set.

A shadow on the wall at my back moved, the reflection of a branch at the window, pushed by the slow breeze outside, something I never noticed. But for an instant, it was a shadow on a cabin wall, moving with purpose. I heard again the slapslapslap of the yunega’s body hitting my mother’s. I felt my father’s blood cooling on my face as I added more stripes, blood promising blood.

It was vengeance never satisfied, the empty place in my soul that justice should have filled was still dark and cold. If the wolves had killed Rick, I’d leave none of them alive. This time, the guilty would pay.

I turned slowly, watching in the mirror as my hands found each weapon, practicing the single-move drawing action, checking that each slid easily out of holster or knife sheath. I stared at the crosses I usually carried, leaving them on the hook in the closet. I wasn’t hunting vamp. I wouldn’t need them. But that wasn’t why I left them there. I left them because I didn’t deserve to wear them. I had never hunted thinking beings before, only insane vamps, mindless killing beasts with no hope of sanity.

Weres . . . Weres had human feelings, thoughts, hopes, and dreams. And it was likely I was going to kill some, deliberately, with malice and intent. Vengeance wasn’t Christian. Vengeance was something darker. Older. Vengeance was blood-sworn. Blood promising blood.

I closed the closet. Dialed Derek Lee. He answered on the first ring. “Legs.”

“If I need backup against wolves this evening, are you and your men available?”

“How much?” He meant how much would I pay him. And Reach had taken all my ready cash and then some.

“Free. Unless I can make Leo pay. The wolves have Rick LaFleur. He’s hurt.”

I heard the disgust like white noise breathing into the phone. “I’m in. I’ll bring anyone else who’ll come.”

I ended the connection and headed out of town, gunning Bitsa. I was going wolf hunting, and the best place to start was the last place they had been—reconnoitering Leo’s clan home at four a.m. Maybe I could pick up a scent there. If nothing else, I could tell Leo that Tyler had been framing Bruiser.

Midway across the river, I fished the cell phone out of my pocket and tossed it over the barrier. Hence the name, throwaway cell, I thought with cold humor. Time to buy a new one.

New Orleans’ infamous traffic was light as I sped toward Leo’s clan home, sweating in the day’s wet heat, trying to breathe in air that was mostly water. Last night’s rain had evaporated into the already steamy atmosphere, and I felt like I was drowning with each breath, as much with worry over Rick as with the high humidity.

I stopped on the west side of the river, at a little roadside stand called Best’s, that advertised on hand-lettered signs, BEST BOUDIN BALLS 4 U, BEST BOUDIN IN LA., BEST C-FOOD, BEST BOILED P-NUTS, and BEST GUMBO. The place looked like it had been glued and nailed together with Katrina storm debris, every board weathered, out of plumb, crooked, split, and warped. But they had actually been nailed over a prefab body to make the business look older than it was. Inside, Best’s was clean and neat, sparkling with white paint, and a nirvana of fried and steamed scents. I bought a bag of boudin balls—boudin being meat, most often pork, special spices, and rice stuffed into pork casings, a kinder word than pork intestines. Boudin was removed from the casings, shaped into baseball-sized servings and fried in pork fat. Heart-attack-style food for humans, comfort food for Beast.

I was antsy to get to Leo’s, but hadn’t bothered to eat before leaving the house for church. Fasting or guilt-tripping, not sure which, but I’d used up all my available calories on the wolves at the hotel. I was starting to shake. I ate six balls fast, straddling Bitsa, ignoring the curious and worried small crowd staring at my arsenal, and slurped down a two liter Coke, giving me the basic food groups: fats, protein, and carbs, delivered with a caffeine/sugar kick. I stored the last six Cajun meatballs in Bitsa’s saddlebag, used the little individually wrapped wipe that came in the greasy bag to clean up, and checked the time. It was nearly three. The day was moving much slower than it felt.

I kick-started Bitsa and gunned the bike out of the shell-covered lot, spinning small white shells into a long C-shaped trough as I turned toward Leo’s once again. I had no plan. I was flying by the seat of my pants. The story of my life. All I knew for sure was that I’d park Bitsa downwind of the clan home and proceed in on foot to reconnoiter.

Most likely scenario was that the wolves would be gone, in which case I’d try to figure out which way they’d gone. Middle case scenario, I’d locate sentry wolves—watchdogs—left behind to survey the joint, probably from the distant tree line in wolf form. I’d take one of them. And make him tell me where Rick was. Then I’d call Derek Lee and his marines in to act as enforcers and backup while I freed Rick. Worst case scenario, the wolves would still be there, in which case I’d call Derek Lee and his marines in to act as enforcers and backup while I freed Rick. But that last state of affairs would be a lot more bloody. And a lot more dangerous.

I was two miles from Leo’s, on a deserted stretch of secondary road with hayfields, pine tree forest, and scrub brush overtaking fallow fields to either side, when I caught a glimpse of brake lights in Bitsa’s chrome. A car I had just passed slowed. Started a hard, fast, three-point turn in the middle of the road. I rounded a curve and decreased my speed, watching over my shoulder. When the car didn’t catch up with me, I clutched, increased speed, and finished rounding the curve.

I saw the shapes first, leaping from a pickup truck, spreading out in a semicircle. Some low and horizontal—wolf-shaped. Some taller and vertical—man-shaped. That’s when the smell hit me. Werewolves.