Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives

An Ace in the Hole: A Sazi Story by C. T. Adams & Cathy Clamp

“I said … empty your wallet.” I glared across the table at Carmine Leone and let a slow growl roll up and out of my chest. Blame the werewolf in me. When I get annoyed, my mask of humanity slips a little, even with my former employer

“And I said, go to hell.” He matched my growl with one of his own. No werewolf in him, but mob boss isn’t that far of a leap. “Nobody touches my wallet. Not my wife, not my staff and not even you. There’s nothing in there that’s of any interest to anyone.”

I let out a sigh, and looked over at Lucas Santiago, who was sitting in the corner of the room. He was my new boss, for Wolven, the law enforcement branch of the shapeshifting community known as the Sazi, and up until a month ago, had been arguably the second most powerful being on the planet. But he’d been attacked, like I’d been two years ago, and now he was a vanilla human, trying to get a handle on not being the toughest dog in a fight. I’d thought coming on this case with me would make him realize he didn’t need to be a wolf to stay boss of the organization. He’d saved my butt a couple times and I figured I owed him.

Lucas had been trying to stay out of this, but I could smell that he was getting fidgety. There were three emotion scents in the room right now — determination, which smells similar to a heated cast iron pan; and anger, which reminds me of hot peppers roasting. The final scent was frustration; which is a weird mix of scents, including boiling water, black pepper and other stuff.

I shook my head. “See, there’s a flaw in that logic, even if you’re too stressed to see it.”

Carmine narrowed his eyes, but then he grudgingly nodded. “Go on.”

“First, neither of you are going to like me blabbing all this, but you both need all the information at hand to see my point, so just get over it.” Now both sets of eyes were mere slits under narrowed lids. “You called me up here to Canada to find out the status of the job you gave me, which is finding and killing the guys who beat the crap out of you, using the knife they sliced you with. Just so we’re clear, I don’t have that knife anymore, but the job’s still on”

Carmine made a small, strangled noise, and then started scanning the ceiling and walls — probably looking for some sort of bug.

I shook my head again. “This isn’t some sort of trap, Carmine. I’m not state’s evidence material. I’m just laying out the facts. The job’s already been approved by the Sazi Council, so while Lucas might not like that it’s been allowed, he knows why I’m here. No, the question is … why are you here?”

He shrugged. “Vacation. Just a quick get-away with Linda and Barbara before the baby’s due. Calgary’s nice this time of year.” The black pepper scent told me he was lying.

“Just knock it off, okay? Lying isn’t going to help any of us.” I held up a hand to forestall further bluster. “You own a flippin’ island in the Caribbean where there’s no extradition treaty. The feds know it, so you’re a flight risk. What odds would you give me that there’s an order out there restricting your movements?”

Lucas crossed his arms over his chest and let out a light growl. It wasn’t precisely a wolf growl, but close enough. While Carmine was a full human, he was also the significant other of Barbara Herrera, an alpha werewolf … and the woman about to give birth to his son. He had thus become a fringe “family member,” who Wolven and the Council would keep an eye on.

Carmine didn’t respond at all. But I noticed he didn’t deny my guess.

“So,” I continued, “It’s unlikely you’d be allowed on a commercial flight out of the country, meaning you snuck here, probably in the middle of the night — and I know you’re not stupid enough to do that without a damned good reason.”

“There is one.” A simple acknowledgment with a short nod. At least I didn’t have to dig on that point deeper.

“Now, when I walked in the hotel room, we shook hands.” He stared down at his hand suddenly like I’d infected him with something, or passed him some poison. I snorted. “No, it’s nothing like that. But I did do a hindsight on you without your knowledge.”

Now Lucas glared. That was supposed to have been a secret.

“Goddamn it, Giodone!” The same words came out of two mouths as they both rose to their feet and advanced toward me threateningly.

“Knock it off!” I had to yell over the blue language that was now searing the paint off the walls. “Would you please give me a second to explain why it’s important you both know?” After a moment, their scents settled down, but they still arched over me like vultures waiting for a death twitch.

My head tipped up until I could watch Carmine’s face. “I figured that my arriving would put your mind on the day you were attacked and stabbed in the condo in Colorado, so I snuck into your head to watch what happened. It is a hell of a lot easier to find people when you know what they look like, y’know.”

“It’s not like I had a camera handy while they were slicing me up.” His mouth was bitching, but his scent was impressed I’d thought to do the hindsight.

The Sazi magic that turned me into a werewolf also did other stuff to me. Most shifters get heightened senses — better eyesight or super-sensitive hearing. But a very few become ‘seers,’ those with a sixth sense. Lucky me. In my case, I don’t get the future popping into my head. No, I get the past. Usually it’s a specific past, an event that’s important or emotional to the one who lived it. I’ve learned to be able to step outside the memory to see tiny details that happened, but which aren’t readily evident until the person is pressed or under hypnosis.

“Precisely. But your mind is a perfect camera.” I tapped my forehead. “It just takes the right software to download it.”

“So what’s my wallet got to do with anything?”

“One of the guys nicked it out of your pocket while you were getting slapped around.”

Now he frowned, with his whole body. His muscles stiffened and there was a scent that told me he was hiding something. “I checked it after I came to. It was in my pocket and nothing was missing.”

“Precisely. They put it back. Interesting, huh? Those South American guys didn’t come to the condo to rob you. They were looking for something. And from the expression on the guy’s face in your memory, he found it. So, I say again … empty your wallet. Let’s find out what they wanted.”

“There’s nothing to find! There’s personal … stuff about business that’s none of yours.”

I glared at Carmine, meeting those cold eyes with steel blue ones that were beginning to glow with magical fire. “So you’re telling me that even though I’m positive the reason you were beaten up was only to distract you from the real reason for their visit, you don’t care? You want me to just kill them, without finding out what they wanted or why? Jeez, your personal and business life have already been compromised! Are you positive that the damage hasn’t already been done, while your people had no idea you were laid up in the hospital?” I paused while his pulse pounded under his skin so loud I’d swear it was coming out of speakers in the walls. “Tell me, Carmine. Be honest. Are you really pig-headed and stubborn enough to risk everything you have just to keep your little secrets — that I don’t give a damn about anyway?”

Sometime in the middle of my little rant he went still and thoughtful. The gears I knew he had in that grey matter finally jump-started. He raised up one hip to sit partway on the table. His face, and scent, went through a dozen emotions, before finally settling on the dry heat smell of embarrassment.

“Okay, so what’s the plan? Let’s say I give you my wallet.” He shot a glare at Lucas, who glared back — two junkyard dogs sizing each other up. “Just you. Do you know what you’re looking for?”

I nodded. “The last thing he pulled out was a slip of paper, about the size of a post-it note with fringed edges. An old photograph, maybe? It was on the left side and he had to dig to get it out.” Actually, I knew it was a photo. I’d even seen the image, but it didn’t make sense. It was just a photo of a long brick wall with no other identifying marks.

Carmine had gone still again, but this time he wasn’t embarrassed. He was nervous. He pulled out his wallet like a snake after a mouse. Any inhibition he’d had was lost as he nearly tore apart the soft suede. Pictures, credit cards, money, receipts and all manner of cryptic notes were tossed on the table as he frantically looked for whatever wasn’t there. A solid five minutes went by while he opened every paper, made sure the missing item wasn’t attached to anything, and re-probed every pocket, pouch and slit in the leather.

When he finally gave up, he stood staring at the pile of papers that constituted his life, looking older than I’d ever seen him. It only lasted a moment and then he smiled. The flash of teeth was completely empty of meaning and everyone in the room knew it. “Eh. No big deal. Wouldn’t mean anything to anyone but me.”

“What’s missing?” Lucas demanded. “I’d suggest you talk to us before you start talking to those who can make you talk.”

Carmine shrugged, the patently false smile abandoned. He turned his back so we couldn’t see his face. “Just an old photo of some architecture. Something my dad took years ago. Like I said, only important to me.”

I didn’t know much about Carmine’s father — only that he was raised in Chicago around the Capone era. He didn’t settle down and get married until he was nearly sixty, and most of Carmine’s friends thought Marco was his grandfather, instead of his dad.

Lucas made a gesture, pointing to my hands and then to Carmine. I knew what he wanted and I didn’t disagree. This conversation would go a lot faster if I just did another hindsight. I don’t really like doing two in one day on a person, but this was taking for-freaking-ever! I pulled off one of the black leather gloves I have to wear to keep from getting accidental images from people — but then froze and raised my nose in the air. Lucas did the same, but got a frustrated look on his face. He can’t smell things like he used to anymore, and it drives him nuts. But he’s still got eyes, and he used them … scanning around the room to try to see anything out of place. I shook my head and pointed toward the door and then thumped Carmine on the shoulder hard enough to make him jump and turn around.

The scent that was coming under the door was a peculiar one that I’d smelled before. I wasn’t raised on a farm, but I’ve stood in a field of cantaloupes, right at the point when the whole lot was about to turn and go moldy inside. The smell is nearly overpowering — musty, sweet and slightly rotten. I carefully drew my Taurus back-up revolver from my ankle holster and wasn’t at all surprised that Carmine and Lucas produced guns as well. I smeared the polish on the clean, shining mahogany table by using my finger to write: snakes.

There was a polite knock on the door, followed by a woman’s voice. “Room service.”

I raised my brows at Carmine and he shook his head firmly. He didn’t order, and we didn’t order, so it was a trap. He got the hint of me rolling my finger at him and called out “Just a second,” as if he was in the bathroom.

Snakes don’t have the best hearing, so they probably wouldn’t hear if we kept our voices to the barest whisper. “Is there a back way out of here,” I said, “or do we take them on? I’m pretty sure there’s more than one out there.”

Carmine paused longer than I liked, and I leaned so close to his face that he could probably smell cinnamon toothpaste. “Unless you want your kid to grow up without a dad, you’d better start spilling. I can take one of them, maybe two, barehanded, but understand that even one shot will bring the cops.”

A second knock turned his head toward the door and to the shadows that moved across the sunlit carpeting, showing there were at least four feet on the other side. With a tiny, disgusted noise from the back of his throat, he turned and hurried into the separate bedroom. It was a gorgeous room, befitting a hotel of the Fairmont Palliser’s reputation. But I was pretty sure that most rooms didn’t have a bookcase that swung out from the wall when a portion of the baseboard was pressed.

He waved us through just as I heard a cardkey being inserted into the door in the outer room and the tiny high pitched whine as the lock released. He got the wall closed just in time and the thick, flat steel bar that slid into the oak header would make sure that nobody followed us — at least not quickly.

We had to squeeze against the wall to let him pass, then followed him down an old iron staircase that seemed like it might have been attached to the outside of the building once upon a time. I knew Lucas was burning up with curiosity, just like I was. But now wasn’t the time to ask. Not until we were in a more defensible position.

The staircase descended several floors and when the temperature of the walls changed, I was pretty sure we were at the basement level, or below. In a moment, I was proved right. The sounds of metallic thumping and hissing came from behind the wall at the end of the staircase and Carmine put his eye up to what appeared to be a peep hole into the outer area. After a long moment, as I listened to the snakes tearing things apart in the upper room, he slid back a steel bar that was a twin of the one above. The door pushed outward smoothly and we stepped out, into a back corner of the boiler room.

There was something about the boiler room of the Palliser Hotel that set off alarm bells in my mind, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. So, rather than do something as potentially fatal as asking one of the people in the room with me, I went to the ‘intercom’ in my head.

While it’s taken some getting used to, one unique thing about werewolf mates is that they’re telepathically tied to each other. In sticky situations like this, being in instant contact with my wife was often more useful than an extra clip of ammo.

Sue?

Hey, lover. What’s up? Her voice was warm and slightly sleepy. She’s been working a lot of late nights, also for Wolven, and supposedly had the day off. So I’ve been trying to stay out of her head. We’re getting better at shutting out the other person from our day to day thoughts. It had been making both of us a little squirrely.

Palliser Hotel, in Calgary. See if you can find anything online about the basement. I’m remembering something in the back of my head, but since we’re being chased by snakes right now, I don’t want to spend the brainpower to figure it out.

Snakes? Uh-oh. Not good. The word made her nervous enough that the walls were breaking down in our heads. I was starting to see our bedroom overlaid on the machinery. The furnace grate was wearing a burgundy coverlet and the brick walls had drapes.

Whoa, we’re fine. Okay? I’m here with Lucas and Carmine and we’re all armed. I don’t think they even know where we are. We booked it out of the room as soon as I smelled them. But Carmine’s hiding something and I need to know what. I’m going to shut the vault door now, so knock before you come back in.

She took a deep mental breath and calmed. Okay, sorry. I’m just still having nightmares about snakes from the attack last fall. It’ll pass. I’ll find what I can and get back to you.

I felt a bump against my shoulder and turned my head before I turned my gun. Sure, it was only Lucas, but still — Getting sloppy, Giodone.

He must have noticed that I was having trouble focusing, because he stopped and waited for a moment. “You back with us? Getting a vision?”

One of the nice things about Lucas is he’s been around seers his whole life, and he was mated up until he turned back human. “Having Sue do some research on her end while we’re getting out of here.”

He looked at me for a long moment, likely wondering just what I was having her research, but he didn’t say anything in front of Carmine. Instead, he motioned around the room with his Ruger. “Getting anything?”

I had done a quick scan when we stepped through the hidden door, but did another just to be safe. “All clear … although there have been snakes down here pretty recently. No more than a week.”

Carmine frowned, as well he should. The guys who beat the crap out of him were snake shifters. He was damned lucky he wasn’t turning on the moon like me. He’d originally attributed the attack to a South American mafia trying to get back an ancient artifact one of his people stole. Now, it looked like it might be something entirely different. “I just got here a week ago. Think it’s coincidence?”

Lucas and I turned at once and both stared at him. I mean … duh. “You tell me,” I said.

He didn’t respond, but just stared at me, which was weird. Here he’s worried about snakes, who have been in the room recently, and he’s only got my word the room is clear, but he’s not looking around the room, checking out every shadow. That’s very unlike him. He’s even more paranoid than me.

Tony? I’ve got your answer.

Not the warning I asked for, but there isn’t anything critical going on anyway. What’cha got?

There’s a secret tunnel in the boiler room of the Palliser.

Ah! That’s where I remember it. It was in one of those ‘Secrets of’ series of books — strange things about major cities. Okay. Just came down the tunnel. Staircase to the fourth floor, right?

There was a pause. Um … no. That’s not mentioned. This one is an old laundry tunnel that goes under the railroad tracks and veers east for a few blocks. Seems that years ago, the hotel cleaned all the linens a couple blocks away. It’s sealed off in the boiler room, but the tunnel’s still there.

Little pieces were starting to fall together in my head, but it would require a little private detecting later, when nobody was around.

There are a lot of times when the local police are handy to our kind. One of those times is when people ransack rooms looking for things. It was short work to install Carmine at a different hotel and have Babs — my private name for Barbara Herrera, call the hotel and complain that someone with a master key broke into the room and robbed her while she was napping. We got her back up to the room the same way as we got out, long after the snakes were gone. The security cameras would definitely show the door being opened with a key. Apparently, they’d been coming and going through the secret staircase to avoid cameras showing Carmine and Linda out of the country, so as far as the cameras were concerned, they’d never left the room.

Less than two hours after I’d left, I was back in the laundry room.

I didn’t smell anything I hadn’t smelled before and saw no glowing evidence of other Sazi in the room before I slipped inside. But when I felt the cold press of a gun barrel to my temple, I knew I hadn’t been careful enough. I dutifully raised my hands while I was relieved of my weapons. But since she was human, and it was the first night of the moon I still had an advantage.

The thick Russian accent from the woman was a surprise. “Where is the box?”

“Box?” This was news to me.

The question earned me a swipe across the back of the skull with the gun, hard enough to make me realize this was no human. I wound up sprawled face down, spitting blood from kissing the concrete. “Do not toy with me, wolf. Why else would you return to the tunnel?”

She knew I was Sazi? That lowered my brows and made me push off hard from the floor to try to take her feet out from under her. Her reaction was fast enough to avoid my leg sweep. That told me she was either a cat or a spider in her animal form. But it did give me enough time to get my feet under me and face her. She should have an aura, but didn’t. No scent, no magic aura, but a shifter? That was just wrong on so many levels.

We squared off in the small space, but neither of us attacked. Yes, she could shoot me, but she didn’t seem inclined. Apparently, she thought I had information. Unfortunately, all I had were guesses. I was betting she had actual answers.

I took off the gloves, both metaphorically and physically. All I had to do was get close enough to touch skin and she was mine. But then the hammer cocked back and her eyes narrowed.

“You will put the gloves back on. Now!” I paused and then dropped them to the floor. She backed away. “We have heard of your Sazi mind tricks, seer. I am willing to shoot you if I must and find another way to get the information.” She raised the Taurus she’d taken from me and likewise cocked the hammer. One gun was aimed at my head now, the other at my chest. Simultaneous shots would put me down permanently. She motioned with the barrel pointed at my heart. “Pick up the gloves and put them back on.”

I did as I was told. But as they say, you can’t stop me from thinking bad things.

I threw open the door in my mind. Sue’s consciousness slipped inside of mine seamlessly. I didn’t need to speak. She’d be able to see the guns pointed at me and know instantly where I was. Call Lucas on his cell. Tell him the nice lady with the guns wants some sort of box and thinks I know where it is.

I don’t have to. He’s here with me. Carmine too.

Good. Tell Lucas to lean on him until he spills whatever the hell he’s hiding from us. And tell him to hurry.

It was even money that my former boss knew exactly what the Russian was talking about, and I was pretty sure that even as a lowly human, Lucas was tough enough to drag it out of him.

Being in two places at once isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a lot like trying to hear one person inside a crowded party. It can be done, but it takes concentration. Sue and I were in the same boat. She was listening to Lucas and Carmine argue, and I was trying to hear through her ears. She was also going to try to learn as much as we could from my opponent. “What makes you think I know where it is?”

She laughed. It had a harsh edge that told me she wasn’t buying the stall technique. “You are friends with Leone and came here at his request. We know he has been in the tunnel recently. Either he took something out to give you, or put something in. But the photograph does not show which brick the box is behind.”

Ah! That’s what the photo of bricks was — the inside of the tunnel under the hotel. It’s a map of sorts. Take the photo into the tunnel and hold it up until the pipes line up. Then just pick the right brick and there’s a hidey-hole. And it was something his father hid. Interesting.

“You can’t just sniff it out?” I asked the question with a slightly sarcastic tone, just to see how she’d respond. It might tell me what sort of shifter she was. Cats have pretty good noses. Spiders have none at all.

“Do not play dumb, wolf. You know he defeated that by putting his hands on each and every brick in the picture.” She motioned with the guns toward a batch of boxes in the corner. “Go. You will show me where it is, or I will give you to my comrades … for dinner.” She paused when I glared instead of begging for my life. “It will be a slow meal.”

I shrugged, which made her blink. “Whatever. I’ve been tortured more than once. Snakes, spiders and even a dragon have taken chunks of my hide. I’m getting pretty jaded to threats.” She just motioned a second time. At the moment, I was getting more information than I was giving. But I was starting to hear bits of information through Sue’s ears now, so I turned and walked to where she was pointing. I was hoping a doorway would become evident as I got closer, and it did.

The tunnel was dark, but wolves see in the dark really well. Still, the comrade behind me apparently wasn’t willing to risk me disappearing into the blackness, so she turned on a pen light. A quick glance behind revealed it was held in her mouth. Damn. I was hoping she’d put down one of the guns.

I listened through Sue as I walked and got more nervous as I progressed. It wasn’t just the darkness, but the scents and sounds that came from far ahead of me. There were snakes, all right. Lots of them, and the sounds of whimpers and screams that echoed off the walls. The fact that the lady behind me gave off the citrus scent of happiness with each scream wasn’t the best encouragement for sticking around.

“What do you need from the box? Maybe we can make a deal.”

I was surprised when she answered calmly. “We want the virus back, of course. But we shall see what else is inside. No doubt there are other things of value, as well.”

The virus? What the hell!? Pass that along, would you? What the hell is Carmine up to? I want answers, Sue. Get them however you have to before I reach this box.

I felt her body race for the next room where Lucas had taken Carmine to chat. It annoyed me he wouldn’t let her attend, but he’d always been really protective of Sue. I heard when she told him and heard his swearing when he threw open the bedroom door again and slammed it behind him. I needed a minute to talk to Carmine myself, so I paused and spoke with my back turned.

“Let me see the photo. I need to orient myself. I’ve never actually been here without a guide. By the way, do you have a name?”

Hell, I hadn’t been here at all, so I was actually doing pretty good so far. I felt a barrel press into my spine and kept my hands in the air. She didn’t speak, but there was a fumbling with my back pocket and when the metal left my shirt, I reached back. There was the photo I’d seen.

“My name isn’t important. Now, orient yourself and let us finish this.”

I had a feeling that finish this didn’t just mean getting the box. Clearly, I’d seen too much to live.

While I held up the photo and stared, I slipped into Sue’s mind. I’d only done this a couple of times before, but it was time I got some answers from Carmine.

The bedroom door was locked, but it wasn’t a high end hotel. It would only be a hollow core door with a flimsy lock. I pushed into her further, almost too much. I nearly dropped the photo. Stepping this way and that, all with the light trained beyond me into the darkness, I stepped forward in one body and kicked outward in another. The door to the bedroom slammed open and Sue caught Lucas with both hands clutching Carmine’s shirt, mid-threat.

It was Sue’s voice speaking, but my words. “Goddamn it, Leone! I’ve got a gun pointed at my head and another at my heart, and if you don’t spill what the hell this is about, I swear to God that I’m going to rip your chest open and shove your beating heart up your ass!” He’d be able to see Sue’s eyes glowing blue. They always did when I slipped into her body.

I advanced threateningly toward the bed and Lucas backed up a little in surprise. He probably knew I was subject to Sue’s physical limitation as a human, but those limitations had extended somewhat recently, ever since she’d done a magic ritual that saved her life. Nobody was really sure what we were capable of together. I didn’t want to find out right this second, but nobody else had to know that. Trouble was, I was starting to feel hot, and that wasn’t a good thing. On the first night of the moon, I may or may not shift, and have no control over the process.

Carmine scrambled backwards on the bed, apparently believing whatever he saw. I didn’t want to look in the mirror to see what that was. “Okay, okay! Fine, Tony. I’ll talk.”

“Be quick about it. I’ve only got a few more minutes to stall here.”

I slipped back into my own body and stepped forward a few paces, then zig-zagged and pointed for the woman to aim the light at the ceiling where the pipes were. “This would be a lot easier with more light.”

“Just keep walking. We have time.”

The scent of snakes was getting stronger, and I was liking this less and less. I slipped back into Sue. “How do I find the box? I won’t turn it over if I can avoid it, but I need to know what I’m looking for.”

Carmine sighed. “Right wall, six rows up, and look for a thumbprint in the mortar.”

“Tell me about the virus. What the hell, Carmine? When did you get involved in bioweapons?”

I couldn’t really smell through Sue’s nose, but he actually looked contrite. “It wasn’t intentional. We raided a warehouse to get hold of an ammo shipment we heard was being stockpiled. It was in a briefcase that was handcuffed to the wrist of a guy with a Russian diplomatic passport. We couldn’t figure out what he was doing there, but decided it needed to be in safekeeping while I decided what to do with it.”

The logic escaped me. “Uh, turn it in to the CDC maybe? Why would you keep it? Jesus, Leone. Are you insane? What kind of virus is it?”

He shrugged and stood up before starting to pace back and forth. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Tony. That whole situation put me in a hell of a bind. There was stuff in that warehouse that I don’t want, but also don’t want anyone else to get hold of.” He paused and stared right at me through the eyes of my wife. “Not even our government. Y’know? Stuff that ought to not exist at all. So, I put it in the box my dad started. He called it his ace in the hole box. It started out with a bunch of gold coins. He’d been transporting them from Capone’s vault to a new location, when the Feds started moving in. While he was en route, Capone was arrested and the place Dad was going to was raided. So, he headed north and wound up here in Calgary. Over the years, he put in other things that made life easier — blackmail photos, audio tapes of corrupt politicians and cops, and anything he fenced for people that was too hot to handle for a while. By the time Dad died, I was already doing well enough that I didn’t need to raid the gold.” He shrugged. “I’ve added to it a few times. It keeps life … comfortable.”

Yeah, I’ll just bet it does. I know a dozen people who would love to get their hands on that box. I was smelling Carmine’s cologne in the tunnel now and understood what my Russian captor meant about him spreading his scent. It was everywhere. He must have brought down a bottle of cologne and sprayed it across every brick. I’ll bet Babs taught him that. It was quickly burning out my nose.

That’s when I spotted the thumbprint. I tried to give no sign of it, but scuffed my foot sideways, like I had tripped, and caught myself against the tunnel wall. Hopefully I’d be able to find it again. Once I was another dozen feet further down the tunnel, I stopped again and held up the picture. Apparently, Lady Russia was getting antsy, because a moment later I heard her let out an annoyed sound and then her voice rang out into the darkness. “Boris! Andrei, come here! I have the wolf seer, and he’s stalling. I think we will have to cut some … pieces … off him to get the location.”

Great. Just great. Well, I had what I needed from Carmine. I turned Sue’s head toward Lucas. “However you need to do it, you need to get back to the Palliser and give me a hand. I’m about to be overrun with Russian and South American snake shifters. I’ll do what I can, but bring enough ammo for an army.”

That was all the time I had to talk, because the moon had finally reached full height in the sky and we must have been just barely under the street, because it cut through me like a laser. I’m pretty sure I screamed. I definitely dropped to the floor of the tunnel like a puppet with its strings cut. “Get up!” She shouted at me, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.

I tried to choke out words, because I knew her fingers were getting itchy on the triggers. “If you did your research, you must know I’m a three-day. You want the box, you need to shield the moon.”

She swore in Russian and tucked one of the guns in her waistband. Only the very best alpha shifters can shield a lesser animal from a distance. Most need direct touch to control a shift. She reached out to grab my sleeve and at the last second, I pulled off my glove and grabbed her hand.

The moon faded with her power and I latched onto her mind in a hindsight. Her eyes glazed over as she slipped into her own past. I dragged her backwards with me and extinguished the light. I could hear the footsteps ahead of me increase in speed and a bright flash of light told me someone else had shifted. The low buzzing sound that resulted said there was at least one rattler among the snakes.

Terrific.

Once I was back at the spot where I’d stumbled, it wasn’t hard to find the place where Marco’s thumb had dug into soft mortar. As I suspected, the brick was loose in the wall. It would be tricky to pull it out with one hand, but I couldn’t afford to let go of the Russian babe to use both. I did, however, take back my gun, and hers to boot, before yanking the brick loose to let it drop to the ground. The sound echoed and the voices, boots and scales moved faster still. The snakes sounded big.

The box was just behind the brick and had a handle on front that made me think of a safe deposit box. Maybe it was. All I knew is that I only had time to drop Natasha, grab the handle, and take off running. I couldn’t risk that box staying here, even if there was only a slim chance of them finding it before we could get back to retrieve it.

The moment I let go and started to run, I felt the moon slice through my skin once more. Just to be safe, I put the handle of the box in my teeth. It was a good thing I did, too, because it wasn’t more than a dozen feet before I couldn’t stand the pressure anymore. The howl that tried to leave my mouth was forced to escape through locked jaws and then I was running on four legs instead of two, pulling behind the tattered remains of my clothing as I ran.

Bullets started to ricochet off the brick and I felt a flash of pain in my ribs. There were shouts behind and the scent of rotten cantaloupe enveloping me as I made one final leap through the door of the boiler room, tearing at least two leg muscles in the process.

But I was luckier than my pursuer. The giant snake ran fang first into the boiler I barely missed and cold-cocked himself. Lucas and two wolves I’d never seen before rushed past me into the tunnel shouting for everybody to give themselves up, as I crawled under the massive machine with my prize.

A week later I was still nursing an ACL tear and broken collarbone from a bullet, which had felt like my ribs at the time. As a three-day, I don’t heal very fast. But I’d be back on my feet a lot faster than a full human.

Even Lucas hadn’t been able to get the box away from me that night. He said he’d have had to break my jaw to unlock it. We went through it together the next morning. There was lots of interesting reading. Most of the blackmail evidence was destroyed, but Lucas saw no reason not to give the gold back to Carmine. Anyone it might have belonged to was long dead now and he’d need money to pay his legal bills for being out of the country. Turns out the Feds were watching him closer than we’d imagined. The RCMP picked him up at the hotel while we were all out, to deliver him to the Feds. I’ll be laying low for some time to come because it turns out I was caught on film as well. Since I was supposed to be dead, and now I’m not, I’ll probably need a make-over so I don’t wind up in the cell next door. However, Lucas is going to see what he can arrange for us to get a clean bill — a full pardon from the President for both me and Carmine, owing to us turning over the weapons cache and virus we discovered and the terrorist spies … at least the full human ones. The others? Well, the snake attackers who I was able to finger through the hindsight on Carmine will never see trial. Not only is Carmine watched by the Sazi now, he’ll be protected by them. At least, so long as he’s not breaking the law.

That’s Wolven law enforcement, and it’s why I stick around.