Big Bad Beast

by Shelly Laurenston

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s that look mean? What do you mean by that look?”

  “That—and I’m only suggesting—that you let Cella and Dez handle interviews.”

  Slowly, Dee stood up straight, her hands resting on her hips. “And why would you suggest that?”

  “Let’s just say your strengths aren’t in that particular area.”

  “I am damn good at interviews.”

  “No. You’re good at interrogations. Interviews are not your strong suit.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since you made that six-year-old cry.”

  Dee stamped her foot. “She was hiding something!”

  “And she was six!”

  He made her use the front door like some common guest, walking her to it, and handing her a paper bag with several slices of that angel food cake she loved from his restaurant.

  “You still mad at me?” he asked.

  “Probably.”

  “The cake didn’t help?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  He leaned up against the doorway. “Don’t be mad at me, Dee.”

  “You accused me of terrorizing children.”

  “No. I accused you of being really good at your job, where little things like age or infirmity or the inability to count past ten without your mommy’s help don’t really stop you from getting the truth.”

  “Man,” she griped. “You kick one walker out of an old sow’s hands and suddenly you’re all levels of evil.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to the Group and to shifters. You’re a protector, and I can’t think of anything that means more to me or to the people you protect.”

  Damn him! Damn him to hell and back! Being all nice and well-spoken. Thank the Lord he was actually a good guy, because if he decided to become a serial killer, he could be worse than Ted Bundy! Luring girls in with his supermodel looks, sexy body, polite ways, and damn waffles!

  “Are we okay?” he asked, and she hated him a little for making her want to ease his worry.

  “Yeah. We’re okay.”

  “Good. I’ll talk to you later.” Then he leaned in and kissed her cheek, taking Dee completely by surprise because he’d never done that before. He kissed his female friends all the time, like Teacup and Gwen, but Dee usually just got a little pat on the shoulder or back.

  Before she did something weird like analyze what a kiss on the cheek from Ulrich Van Holtz meant, she simply walked away.

  Once she was outside, she realized that she didn’t want to take the long trip home. Especially since the cabbies would never take her all the way to her apartment. God, when was the last time she’d been at her apartment anyway? It didn’t matter. She’d go stay with Rory. Maybe she’d get to toss another full-human female out on her ass. Much to her private shame, she enjoyed doing that sort of thing way too much.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Coffee! Coffee! Coffee!” Dez MacDermott barked until Cella Malone handed her the Starbucks cup.

  Once she had several sips, she smiled at the taller female and said, “Thanks.”

  “Are you like this every morning?”

  “Not a morning person until I get the coffee.”

  “Then maybe you should have coffee before you come to meet us.”

  “I would have, but my fuck session with Mace this morning lasted longer than I thought it would, and then I had to shower, walk the dogs because Mace was all, ‘They’re not my dogs’ and I was all, ‘Fuck you, we’re married, they are your dogs’ and then I had to feed the baby and he was all fussy and clawing and then I had to feed Marcus, who was busy imitating his father by being all fussy and clawing.”

  “Wow,” the She-tiger said. “You really needed that coffee. And kind of deserved it.”

  “That’s my feeling.”

  Dee-Ann walked up to them and now that Dez had her coffee, she greeted her with a cheery, “Hey, Dee-Ann!”

  “Am I intimidating?”

  Since Dez had bent back to nearly a U-shape because Dee was all up in her grill, Dez decided to lie. “Of course not.”

  “It’s your freak eyes,” Cella told Dee-Ann while she buffed her dark-red painted nails and popped gum. Dee always wondered if that was a skill taught in all Long Island high schools. Like in Home Ec or something.

  “My freak eyes?”

  “Yeah. They’re freaky.”

  “My eyes are not freaky. I got my daddy’s eyes.”

  “Heard his eyes are freaky, too.”

  Dez quickly stepped between the two females. Something Mace had made her promise not to do from the moment he’d heard about this new assignment.

  “My eyes,” Dee-Ann said over Dez’s head, “are the same color as yours.”

  “They are so not the same color as mine. My eyes are a beautiful, feline gold with a touch of green for mystery. Your eyes are a direct, blunt canine yellow.” She pointed to a pitbull tied up to a fire hydrant outside the café. “Like his.”

  “You’re comparing me to a pitbull?”

  “No. I find pitbulls sweet and cuddly and misused by man. You . . . not so much. Except maybe the misused part.”

  “Ladies,” Dez cut in, desperate. “Can we please get to work?”

  Dee-Ann held up several sheets of paper. “A list of fight locations that are owned by our own kind with addresses.”

  “Great. I have a list, too,” Dez said, patting her backpack. “I had Mace take a look at them, see if he recognized anyone or had any juicy gossip.”

  “Oooh,” Cella cheered, eyes gleaming. “Anything really good?”

  “As a matter of fact, you will not believe what he told me about Lattie Harlow of the Harlow Pride out of Queens—”

  “Work,” Dee-Ann pushed. “More work, less bullshit.”

  Cella snapped her gum. “Fine, Working Dog.” She snatched the pages out of Dee-Ann’s hand. “Let’s get to work. Especially since I have an exhibition game tonight with the Carnivores.”

  With one more snap and pop of her gum, Cella walked out.

  “Don’t let her get to you, Dee-Ann.” Dez told Dee.

  “I’m not. And maybe I can handle a couple of the interviews.”

  “Or,” Dez hastily countered, “you can start off with basic questions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d like to hit public records before we see these people directly. See if there’s anything else there.”

  “Okay, but what does that have to do with me—”

  “If you can handle public servants, Dee-Ann, you can handle interviewing anybody. As a cop . . . I know this.”

  Dee-Ann grunted in reply and walked out, and Dez went back to the counter and ordered herself two more cups of coffee. Because she knew this was going to be a really long day.

  It was a busy, midweek lunch rush and Ric’s kitchen was one dropped pan away from being “in the weeds.” Thankfully, they’d managed to avoid that and keep the food going out as quickly as possible without any major errors that would have his head exploding and him ripping into one of his crew.

  He slammed two plates down on the board. “Table ten up!” he called out and spun toward his oven, but stopped short when he scented one of his own through all those meats, herbs, blood, and other breeds.

  Ric looked up, his eyes narrowing, fangs sliding from his gums. With one leap, he was over the kitchen island, ignoring his scrambling-away crew, and latching on to the arm of the wolf trying to slink in. He yanked him into the hallway and out the back door into the alley. With one shove, he sent the kid slamming into the opposite wall.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Stein?”

  Stein Van Holtz, one of Ric’s younger first cousins, winced and moved his shoulder around. “No need to be so pushy.”

  “Out,” Ric ordered. “Or I’m sending my chief sommelier after you. She’s a sloth. She’ll beat you to death with one of the wine bottles.” Ric turned to walk back into his restaurant.
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  “Wait!”

  Ric stopped, his hand on the alley door.

  “Please.”

  Ric glanced back at the kid. He didn’t look good. He was too lean, looked too old. He wasn’t getting enough food and his body was beginning to feed on itself.

  “I know how you feel about me,” Stein said. “I know how all of you feel about me. And . . . and you’re right, too. I fucked up. I know.” He scratched his forehead, struggling to find the right words. “I just need you to give me one more chance, Ricky. I hate that I have to ask. I hate that I have to beg, but I need—”

  “What?” Ric demanded, facing him. “Money? How much do you owe this time?”

  Stein winced. “I don’t want money.” He stopped, shook his head. “That’s a lie. I do want money.”

  “Of course.”

  “But I want to work for it. I’m not asking for a handout.”

  “You expect me to trust you in my kitchen again? After last time?”

  “I have no excuse for what I did last time. I know that.” Stein looked down at his feet. He wore Keds. Worn ones that seemed to be holding on by a few threads. His T-shirt and jeans didn’t look much better, and the denim jacket would be too small for him if he were his proper weight. This definitely wasn’t the cocky con artist who had sold spare equipment and expensive cuts of meat and seafood out of the back of Ric’s kitchen for three months. Right under Ric’s nose, too. And, because of that, Ric had felt certain he’d lose his kitchen to one of his other relatives. Losing one’s kitchen was the worst thing that could happen to a Van Holtz wolf, but Uncle Van had stepped in and overruled Ric’s father.

  A decision that, three years later, Alder had still not forgiven Van or Ric for. But dealing with Stein had been left up to Alder and he’d gone even farther with the twenty-year-old-kid—he’d forced him out of the Pack. And the kid had walked off without once looking back, his middle finger raised high in the air, heading right for Atlantic City, and based on the look of him, even more trouble.

  Back then, Ric had wanted to stop Stein. He’d wanted to explain that a wolf needed his Pack, but Alder wasn’t having that either. Because once Alder made up his mind, that was, tragically, the end of it.

  As for Ric, there were few things he would not forgive, but making him look bad in front of his father was incredibly high on the list. So he had no intention of forgiving Stein now or ever.

  But still . . . the kid looked like hell. Ratty clothes, dirty hair, and he kept pressing his left forearm into his side.

  Ric stepped forward and Stein immediately backed away, eyes down, head dipping low. If he were wolf, his tail would be tucked between his legs, and he’d be pissing himself. Definitely not the kid Ric had known.

  Once Ric backed Stein up against the alley wall, he took hold of the kid’s T-shirt and lifted. Stein immediately pulled away from him, eyes still down, but Ric had seen enough.

  Catching him by the neck, Ric dragged Stein back into his restaurant.

  Dee-Ann circled around to the back of the Queens house. She kept low, and stayed down wind. She peeked around the corner, but saw no one in the backyard. She hated dealing with hyenas but it seemed the most logical place to start. At least one of the properties that had hosted a hybrid fight belonged to the Allan Clan, although they’d buried the fact that they owned that property under many layers. Why they would bury that information was what Dee wanted to know.

  True, she could ask that question directly of the matriarch of the Allan Clan, but after what had happened earlier in the day it was decided that wouldn’t be a good idea.

  “If we want them beaten up and terrorized, Smith, we’ll call you,” Malone had snapped at one point, after they’d left a cheetah sobbing in the middle of Public Records.

  All right, so maybe Ric was right. Her strengths lay in other areas. At least she had a supervisor who understood that and appreciated the skills she did have.

  The Allan Clan territory was a simple place. Nothing remotely fancy, although large enough for a Clan of its modest size. The backyard was spacious enough and had its own swing set. There was also a detached garage, locked. Dee got the lock open and eased inside. It seemed the Clan had a healthy taste for really nice cars, but still . . . nothing that suggested they were rolling in money covered in the blood of hybrids.

  Not finding anything that she could yell out “a-ha!” over, she slipped outside, barely ducking in time to avoid the baseball bat aimed for her head.

  Snarling, she looked up into the faces of two male hyenas. The one with the bat was pulling back for another swing, while the other one had a small blade, lashing out with it and slicing across Dee’s arm.

  She felt the first trickle of blood slide down her forearm and, Dee would admit later, that’s when she got a little ornery.

  Cella Malone sat across from the three hyena females in the Clan living room and tried to figure out how she’d gotten here. Not the physical place she was in at this moment, but more a philosophical question.

  She had the full-human sitting next to her, reeking of lion—one of her least favorite scents—and a She-wolf, who’d always annoyed the fuck out of her, outside. And she had to work with them. Maybe her father had been right. Maybe she should have just focused on playing hockey. Or she could have joined the family business.

  But Cella always believed in protecting her kind. It was a flaw that her parents blamed on Cella’s grandmother. She was another “helper,” and the one who’d suggested Cella should join KZS after her time in the Marines. Katzenhaft Security might sound like any old security company where you get big guys to cover the front door of your daughter’s sweet sixteen party, but it was much more than that. For hundreds of years, KZS had protected felines from all over the world. It was necessary, since most cats were solitary. They might live with their families, if they settled down like Cella’s parents did, but unless they had the power of a Pride behind them, the lone tiger or leopard or any other feline could find him or herself in serious trouble with nowhere to turn.

  She’d been proud of her work over the years and loved that the job still allowed her to play pro hockey, something that meant a lot to the Long Island girl who started skating with her father when she was barely three years old. And with four, not-too-much younger brothers hoping to beat their father’s record, she’d had to learn hard and fast how to survive on the ice. It was worth it in the end, though. She still wasn’t as great as her father, but she held her own and had a great time doing it. Plus, she had a bit of a reputation that she enjoyed. But what could she say about that? Cella loved a good brawl.

  “Why were you trying to hide that you owned the property?” MacDermot asked the three hyenas. Sisters, the one in the middle was the matriarch of the Clan. They were an odd-looking bunch, though. Maybe because if she shut her eyes or it was slightly darker in the room, Cella wouldn’t know if she was talking to men or women.

  “We weren’t trying to hide anything. It was a simple business transaction set up by our accountant.”

  “So you’re trying to evade paying your taxes.”

  “Did we say that?” the matriarch asked. “I don’t remember us saying that.”

  Cella had a feeling this wasn’t going anywhere. Like the bear territory in Ursus County a few months back and the other territories they’d checked during the day, it seemed that someone knew about these properties and used them for the fights—unbeknownst to the owners. But MacDermot had been determined to check the Allan Clan out. The former Bronx girl had a real hard-on for the hyenas and Cella could only figure she must have picked that up from her lion mate.

  As a tiger, Cella found the hyenas annoying and, if she was bored, she had no problems slapping them around, but other than that . . . they just didn’t get to her the way they got to the gold cats. Then again, the wind blew wrong and the lions got bitchy.

  About to shut this meeting down at the first opportunity—especially since she needed to get back to the city and ready for the g
ame—Cella glanced out the big picture window behind the hyena females’ heads. That’s when she saw a male hyena run by, followed by another . . . and then Smith. Carrying a bat. A few seconds later, the males ran by the other way, but this time Smith caught one of them, yanking him back by his sweatshirt and dropping him to the ground. She hit him a few times with the bat and went after the other one.

  Cella glanced over at MacDermot, but the full-human’s focus was still on the females in front of her.

  “So you had no idea what was going on inside your own building?”

  “We never use it,” one of the younger females argued. “It’s there, we own it, but we never use it.”

  Smith stumbled into sight, the bat she held raised as a lead pipe came down at her. She blocked it, but the power of the hit drove her back a few feet. She swung the bat, smacking the lead pipe out of her way and slammed her body into the male’s, knocking them both out of sight.

  Must be like fighting one of the New York Jets. Sure, Cella was always willing to take Smith on, but that’s because she’d been trained to fight opponents four times her size. Like most female felines, Cella was long and lean, just hitting six feet. Only the wolves and bears seemed to grow their females so ridiculously . . . large.

  Cella saw a rope flip up in the air, tossed over something. Smith jogged into view again and grabbed the end of it, hoisting the male up and into the air. She tied the end of the rope off, and proceeded to beat the poor bastard like a birthday piñata.

  Once she was done hitting him, Smith started to walk off, stopped, came back, hit the one on the ground a few times for good measure, then was gone.

  “Okay then!” Cella said, standing. “Time to go.”

  Confused, MacDermot stared up at her. “What?”

  “I’ve got that exhibition game with the Carnivores tonight, remember?”

  “No.”

  “We have to go.”

  “But I’m not done.”

  Perhaps not, but when Cella saw Smith spring by that window again, a gang of vicious, baby-fanged hyena cubs chasing after her, she knew they had to leave. She grabbed the full-human under the arm and yanked her off the couch, heading toward the door. “Thank you for your assistance in this matter. We’ll let you know if we have more questions.”