“Yeah, no shit he didn’t think it through. Because he tried the same thing with Oz this morning.”
“Yep. Not arguing with you—dumb moves on Brennan’s part. It put your wind up, and it got Gomph’s attention. So we had to pull back and we had to get Caro off-site. The whole thing was a pain in the ass all the way around, and everything we did made it worse.” This in the tone of someone aggrieved because their dry cleaning came back a day late.
“Meanwhile, after you killed Lund, you were a busy, bitchy bee, calling Lund’s apartment manager, calling Annette’s boss… You knew everything Gomph did, so we thought he was the mole.”
Taryn smirked. “Not bad, right?”
“And the attack at Annette’s house?”
“Would have solved a lot of problems for us. If it, y’know, had worked. I knew Caro’d be there. But I didn’t know you and Annette were bone-buddies or I’d have sent more guys.”
“Saved by my slutty instincts,” Annette declared. “Who were they?”
“Free soldiers from SAS. Brennan was afraid you might be able to trace them back to his family—”
“I knew that species-ist pack of jaded sociopaths had something to do with SAS.”
“—so we had to get rid of the bodies. And don’t bother asking. They’re gone. Burned. The way you’ll be. They’ll never turn up. The way you won’t turn up.”
“Oh.” Annette sighed. “Nice segue to our double murder, I guess.”
“Aw, c’mon. I answered your questions and let you play Sherlock Holmes. I even monologued for you! Don’t cry about it now.”
“I never cry,” Annette said hotly, “except for that time at Old Country Buffet and the first time I read The Long Winter.”
“C’mon, you two.” Brennan had joined them, flanked by five werewolves, three of whom Annette recognized from the memorial.
“Well, look who took the time to change into his murder clothes.” David grinned. “Nice sweatpants.”
“That suit was expensive,” Brennan replied, offended. “Why wouldn’t I change? Let’s go.”
“Go?” Annette sighed again. Some people yawned when they weren’t breathing deeply enough; Annette sighed. “Can’t you just mow us down in an unseemly display of gratuitous violence right here?”
“Oh, you’d love that. You’d be thrilled if we murdered you here, wouldn’t you, Annette?”
“Uh, not really.”
“You’re so desperate, you’ll do anything to bring more attention to what’s been happening here. Forget it. We’re going for a drive and dump.”
“Sounds like a fast-food joint.”
“Why would you make that comparison, David?” Annette complained. “Now I want fast food. A Big Mac. No! A Whopper. Two Whoppers.”
“I said, we’re going to drive you far, far away, and murder the shit out of you and dump your stupid corpses, and that’ll be fucking that, finally.”
“We appreciate you taking the time to go over the procedure with us. But we’ve got no incentive to come along quietly,” Annette pointed out. “Now, I won’t say I’m dying to be murdered in this filthy warehouse—”
David snickered. “Pun.”
“That’s not a pun, but I appreciate your input. Simply put, Taryn, I’m not interested in helping you murder me in a more convenient place. So. I’m staying planted. I can’t speak for David, of course.”
“I’m sticking with Annette.”
“Thanks!”
“You’d do the same for me.”
“That’s right. I would. Because I’m not a worthless, gutless sociopath. That’s a slam directed at you, Taryn. In case the subtlety escaped you. In case you have the slightest doubt that you’re a revolting jackass who only seems smart compared to your moronic coconspirators. How dare you come to the Patty Wagon and eat meat with me under false pretenses!”
“Oh my God. Too much talking.” Taryn was rubbing her eyes, hard. “Brennan, shoot Annette in the kneecap.”
Before Annette could protest, there was a grinding noise as the loading door rattled up to reveal another SAS merc and, parked behind him, a familiar car.
No.
“What now?” Taryn snapped. “Can one thing this week be easy? Just one?”
“I know precisely how you feel,” Annette replied. “And I hate knowing how you feel. About anything.”
“Sorry, but this car just pulled up, and the guy’s got Caro Daniels with him. And some other kid.” The merc looked embarrassed but resolute. “We can handle them, but they’ve locked the doors and they’re yelling about how the cops are on the way. And Jaegar isn’t answering his comm. It’s probably bullshit, and we can break into the car in about two seconds. What do you want us to do?”
No.
Taryn snorted. “Caro Daniels isn’t calling the cops, trust me. And Jaegar’s close to useless on a good day. Why d’you think we put him on the perimeter? Half the time he forgets he’s even got a comm.”
“It’s a trick. Or a decoy. Or some dumb kid’s half-assed idea of a rescue. Goddammit.” Brennan turned to Taryn. “Kill ’em all, I guess?”
NO.
And there was no time, no time, and it took too long to shed the fake salmon skin so she just shifted on the spot and everything ripped and it hurt wonderfully it was pulling the tooth that was hanging by a bit of flesh it was biting nails too close to the quick it was scrubbing the dead skin of a sunburn leaving new pink, gleaming flesh beneath and she was on the
(cub killer)
were-elk she was in the were-elk she was drinking the were-elk she’d opened up the prey’s throat and pulled and pulled and the other bear
(protector)
had the wolf who was still a man, a wolf too slow to change and now he’d never change and that was good
and there was a crash and a burning smell and somehow a big hot needle drilled into her shoulder but it didn’t matter the cubs mattered and another bang and another needle and she surged to her hind legs and bit off the top of that bad man’s head
and then two wolves hit her from behind and there were gnashing jaws and howls and yowls and she slashed at one of the wolves she knocked him away knocked his guts out they were trailing like wet ribbons and she roared as the other wolf bit down she swung she slashed she bit and told them and told them and told them
(LEAVE MY CUBS ALONE)
and everything was blood and bone and guts
(I WILL EAT YOUR HEARTS)
and it was terrible and it was wonderful because the beasts can’t hurt the cubs if they’re down if they’re dead if their hearts stop their everything stops
and it would stop it would all stop which was good which was right because it had to stop before she could save anyone
and that was fine that was worth the drilling pain of a hundred needles, it was, it was and that good bear, that David, he was hurt, but there were only two left one for each and she turned to face the last and then heard nothing, nothing but thunder.
Chapter 34
Carnage, it was literal friggin’ carnage and it would’ve been cool except this was real life, so it was mostly horrifying.
Also, Dev decided that Pat was an evil genius. They hadn’t roared up with guns (well, gun singular) blazing. They hadn’t snuck into the warehouse for an ambush. They hadn’t tried to drive over any bad guys or crash into the warehouse for a noisy distraction at the exact right time.
No, Pat had simply led them out of the studio, had a quick chat
“Fine, we’ll leave your precious car here so bad guys won’t scratch it and I won’t accidentally pump three shotgun shells into your engine block, can we get the hell gone now?”
with Oz, who was doing a lot of yelling about warehouses and floodplains, drove them to the river, let Oz out
“Don’t forget to tell Annette I wanted to leave the ki
ds behind!”
to do whatever the hell he was gonna do (something about a perimeter?), kept going, drove up to the guard, parked, and yelled that he had Caro Daniels with him, all ready to testify to anyone who’d listen, and cops were coming and shouldn’t the guard go tell his boss? Or something?
And waited. Waited while Caro and Dev traded What the hell do we do now? glances while Pat hummed under his breath, calm as a clam, and after a few seconds Caro scribbled (on the small pocket-pad Pat had given her).
He’s humming the theme from the Pink Panther movies.
Because the whole thing wasn’t surreal enough, apparently?
Dev should have placed the humming a lot quicker, because last night Pat had watched The Return of the Pink Panther and The Pink Panther Strikes Again, and they were old and boring as shit. Except for the fight scenes between Clouseau and Cato. Those were kinda balls-out awesome.
But anyway, so Pat was humming and waiting and he and Caro were just sitting there, also waiting, and Dev was thinking that if social work was just a bunch of parking and waiting, why was Net so tense all the time? And was he gonna have the Pink Panther theme in his head the rest of the day? Because that would suck to the extreme.
And when the guard didn’t come back, and the roars and gunshots started up, then Pat had gotten out of the car and gone right into the noise and blood. No hesitation. Just ran. And then more noise, and the shotgun blast was so satisfying (provided it hit a bad guy).
“We’d better go find out,” Dev said, and he and Caro wasted no time. And there was no one to stop them. All the guards had run into the warehouse. So in they went. Which was how he and Caro came to be dead center in the middle of the carnage. And there in the middle of a whole bunch of maimed/dead guys, some shifted, some not: David and Annette. David had already shifted back. He was streaked with blood and sweat and didn’t care or didn’t notice, because he was running his hands over Annette’s fur, peering into her eyes, patting at her snout, and Dev knew why, because poor Annette was bleeding from just about everywhere. But one of the werewolves was still trying to get up and get away, and Annette wasn’t having it, was growling and glaring with her red, red eyes and she was trying to get to the wolf without hurting David and it was all just a great big bloody friggin’ mess.
Dev cupped his hands around his mouth. “Play dead, dumbass!” Because duh. The werewolf either (a) took his excellent advice or (b) died, because he quit moving. Not that she was satisfied, because the growling hadn’t let up.
And Annette.
His safety Net was terrifying. Not just big. Enormous, the biggest he’d ever seen; well over a thousand pounds. Even slumped on the floor like she was, David was only a head taller, and he was standing upright. Her coloring was odd, too, the fur a deep russet with blond tips that were so fair they were nearly white. She had the characteristic hump of a grizzly, but with a long neck, long body, and a leaner head. He didn’t know what subspecies she was; he couldn’t imagine the bears that made her; he wasn’t even sure, now, that he really knew anything about her. Only that he was ferociously glad she was on their side.
He managed to stop staring long enough to take another look at the
(yep, definitely the word of the day)
carnage. Blood and guts everywhere, like a movie set where the prop and makeup guys went a little crazy. The smell of blood and adrenaline was simultaneously making him gag and his mouth water. And from beneath the stairs, where there was another door he hadn’t noticed, something with gleaming green eyes and a bloody muzzle came loping out, and that’s where Oz had gotten to, he’d chomped the periphery guard, mystery solved, and—shit, was that pile of flesh and Ugg boots Taryn? Judge Gomph’s clerk?
Oh.
Oh.
That’s when he noticed the cages. And the stale smell of juvenile terror, and pee, and more blood, older blood. It was every horror-movie basement he’d seen on the big screen, only a hundred times worse because it was real. “We are gonna be so traumatized by this,” he decided, looking around corpse valley. “Possibly. Doncha think, Caro? Maybe not. We’ve led pretty eventful lives so far.”
To his surprise, Caro was still frozen by the doorway. He thought she’d get in there quicker than anything; he thought she’d shift and bite and bite and bite until all those bad guys were down or she was. He’d even made a mental note to keep out of her way when it happened. Unless she needed help. Then he’d get in the way, just watch.
But she wasn’t, she hadn’t done any of that, hadn’t shifted, hadn’t even moved. Just stood there breathing it all in, the smells and the blood and the shit, her home for two nightmare years. She was stuck, frozen, like someone pulled back into their worst nightmare, only it was real and she wouldn’t wake up because she was awake.
And then Caro was running straight to Annette, throwing herself at 1,200 pounds of injured werebear, sobbing into bloody fur, and Annette’s growls began to taper off like someone was slowly turning down the volume and David sat down quick, like he was worried his legs weren’t gonna do the job much longer, and Dev got another whiff and realized a lot of the blood on David was David’s.
What do I do? They’re the adults, they’re supposed to… I dunno. Call for help? Should I call? That’s what an upside-down week this had turned into; people called the police on Dev, it was never the other way around. But his Net and David were hurt, and Caro was kind of in the middle of a breakdown and Pat was calmly reloading the shotgun while watching the exit, like he was focused on getting ready for a whole bunch of new bad guys and blocking out anything else, and Oz was prowling the interior, dead silent but eyes glaring like he’d love to get his teeth into another bad guy and everybody kept bleeding, so…I guess it’s up to me? Any other day, that would have made him feel cool and grown-up.
That was when Nadia appeared out of nowhere—well, through the loading door Pat had been watching, he must’ve smelled them coming—with Judge Gomph and a bunch of cops in tow. And Nadia took one look around the carnage and declared, “I’ve brought the cavalry, darlings. Feel free to make an embarrassing amount of fuss over me.”
Chapter 35
Annette slept but she didn’t mean to, not sleep, not really, but she was so tired and her eyes closed by themselves but not for long and then strangers were coming strangers were touching her and she didn’t know she couldn’t remember if
(Dev? Caro?)
her cubs were safe, something had happened something deeply terrible had just happened and she hurt all over but here were new threats new wolves and a big stomper
(?judge?)
and she had to get up but she couldn’t, she couldn’t make her legs work and she couldn’t see out of one eye so she swatted at the strangers, heard a curse, heard something smash, smelt fresh blood
(not her own though so good that’s good)
and showed them bloody teeth
(I can still hurt you I can I can and and and where are Caro and Dev where where)
and turned toward faint voices
“…s’okay, honey, they’re here to help us…”
lovely familiar voices but one she could hardly hear there were too many too many voices and smells and too many things hurt
“Wow, Net, you gotta stop clawing up the EMT guys…”
and oh oh oh everything hurt but she would get up again and again and again and AGAIN WHERE ARE MY
but before she could complete the thought a shrill fearsome voice cut through her cloudy confusion like claws through honeycomb
“Annette Garsea! You hirsute brute, you will shift back immediately, immediately, and let these paramedics help you or I will get Mama Mac down here to make you!”
(!!!!!!!!!!)
And then she was shrinking and getting lighter and weaker and curling into herself and she hadn’t thought it possible but now everything hurt more and cold, ah, God, it was cold, and s
he blinked up at Nadia who was either an angel sent by the denizens of heaven
(she’s glowing!)
or was simply standing with the sun at her back.
“I wrecked the salmon dress,” she managed, and then everything went dark and stayed that way for who knew how long.
* * *
The upside: rainbow trout, steak, gazpacho, butter-basted morels, sugared raspberries and cream, fried chicken, shellfish kebabs, pasta, lemonade, tea, cake, and KFC gravy to wash it all down.
There didn’t appear to be a downside, though. That was new.
The only dead person in the room was Opal Adway, and that was new, too. She had topped the cake with raspberries and was washing down bites of dessert with milk tea. “Well, hiya,” she said in her high, piping voice, just like Oz did back then, and still did, even though his adult voice was neither high nor piping.
“Hi, Opal.” Annette sat across from her long-dead friend.
She grinned, green eyes gleaming. “You lost the bet on purpose.”
“Yes.”
“Dummy.”
“Yes.” She watched Opal relishing dessert, something she’d never seen the girl do in life. “Nice to see you digging in.”
“Took a while, y’know? For me to trust food again.” Annette nodded, like she and the dead girl were having a sane conversation. “Oz, too. Well, he didn’t trust people. Remember?”
Vividly. She’d been at Mama Mac’s for two years by then, long enough that thoughts of her parents would sometimes make her smile, which was an improvement over the sobbing and much less exhausting, too. Twelve year-old Oz and his sister, Opal, had come to stay for a few weeks while IPA tracked down a permanent solution for them, preferably one involving competent blood relatives.
The twins had been “saved,” which didn’t mean what she thought it did back then. The bad guys were in cages, and lawsuits were happening, but much of the damage caused by the months of malnutrition would prove to be irreversible in Opal’s case, and made worse by the fact that she no longer trusted any adult trying to feed her.
Bears Behaving Badly Page 25
