by Jory Strong
Bodies piled up in front of him, forcing him to retreat further where their attack hadn’t. The machete blade glowed blue in the moonlight, its color spreading, deepening with each ghoul he struck down, until finally it was like holding a shard of dark ice.
Even as the last of those from the alleyway was dealt with, Tir could hear the shuffling sounds of more ghouls coming toward him, drawn to the battle. With a start, he realized he would spend all night battling them if he chose to make a stand.
He lowered the machete and sidestepped the massed corpses to jog through the alleyway, past the half-eaten remains of the humans who’d thought to kill him and take Araña back to the maze.
At the end of the alleyway he paused only long enough to ensure he didn’t emerge in a crowd of ghouls. When he found it clear, he continued forward, alert for the icy breath of air that would warn of a vampire’s presence.
He felt it against his skin as he neared the pier where Araña’s boat was tethered. He stopped, once again lifting the machete in silent warning, its blade continuing to glow blue in the moonlight.
The vampires emerged from darkness worn like a cloak. Three of them. All male. All elegant and beautiful where the ghouls had been misshapen and revolting.
They halted in front of Tir, just beyond the reach of the blade. One took a step forward, not in threat, but to serve as a spokesman.
He lifted his hands, palms out, saying, “We wish no argument with you. Your business here is your own and we won’t interfere.”
“I intend to take a boat.”
“As I said, we won’t interfere. In any way.”
They pulled the night around them and ebbed away like a cold spot in the ocean. Tir lingered for a moment in contemplation, his eyes going to the camera positioned on top of the lamppost. Would it capture his likeness if he stepped foot on the dock?
He’d never seen a picture of himself, though over the years his captors had come into his cell on occasion and photographed him, sometimes repeating the action several times during a single day and making him wonder if, despite being held to a human form, something of his true nature prevented his image from being trapped on film.
There was risk if he was mistaken. He’d seen the consequences earlier when a simple meal led to an attack in an alleyway.
Tir’s attention shifted to the water. He was very much aware of the nuances the vampire’s promise held—neither to hinder nor to help.
If he chose to avoid the dock in favor of swimming to the boat, he’d survive. That was a given. But he didn’t know what predators lurked in the water, and instinct urged him to avoid its cloying embrace.
Decision made, he strode forward. If there were watchers, he didn’t feel their eyes on him.
Wood creaked underneath his feet. His steps echoed staccato-sharp in the darkness.
There were lights along the pier where emptied cargo ships waited to be loaded. Beyond it was the muted sound of a boat engine as guardsmen or police patrolled the channel.
Tir reached Araña’s boat and sheathed the machete in favor of freeing the mooring lines. The sound of the patrol boat grew louder, though the cargo ship continued to block it from view. A floodlight’s beam danced along the water, spearing through the night like a harpoon hurtling toward prey.
The cabin was locked. Tir didn’t take the time to open it.
He moved quickly to the engine and used the smaller of the keys Araña had taken from the wallet. He slid it into place, and hesitated only a heartbeat before turning it, deciding to make a run for the outer harbor rather than chance that the patrol boat was merely making a routine pass.
The engine came to life with a powerful throb. Knowledge pulsed through Tir, information beyond what any acolyte had shared with him, as if anything a human could know belonged to him as well.
Tir maneuvered the boat away from the dock and headed toward the mouth of the harbor. The floodlight speared him just as he prepared to accelerate.
“Halt!” a voice blazed over a loudspeaker. Tir ignored the command. He gunned the engine so the boat surged forward aggressively. Bullets struck the water behind him. The patrol boat’s growl increased, matching that of Araña’s boat. Tir increased his speed further. A machine gun rattled. Then something louder fired. A projectile soared overhead, landing a hundred yards in front of the boat and exploding. Tir altered his course, abandoning the straight line in favor of weaving back and forth. The boat shook as it hit turbulent water and Tir fought to maintain control of it.
More projectiles were fired.
The voice continued to order him to stop.
Tir pressed forward, racing along the inner harbor channel, passing what had once been the middle harbor. At the point of land separating middle from outer harbor, he saw another boat speeding toward him, as if it sought to cut him off before he could reach the security of open waters.
He veered right, as he’d intended, and sped along the debris-filled mouth of the outer harbor.
Bullets slammed into the water inches behind him, warning him he couldn’t decrease his speed until the last instant, when he changed course abruptly and slipped through a narrow passageway formed by the rusted, wrecked hulls of boats destroyed in The Last War.
Behind him the patrol boats stopped, no longer in sight. The growl of their engines seemed to deepen in frustration at the escape of prey and the inability to attack further.
Tir turned his attention to navigating the treacherous waters. The landmarks on Rimmon’s map rose up, marking his passage as he moved farther into the harbor.
Cormorants perched on buoys and abandoned vessels, their turquoise eyes noting his presence, their inky blackness broken by flashes of white on their necks.
Some of them launched skyward at his passing. Tir pressed on, expecting a boat piloted by Rimmon’s men to emerge from the darkness. But when he reached the place he was to wait, one of the cormorants landed on the bow. And then another. And another. Until there were five of them.
Feathers dissolved into tanned flesh, beaks into aristocratic noses. Birds became men wearing feathered headdresses.
Skin-walkers.
“Drop anchor here,” one of them said. “We’ll remain with you until first light. Then Rimmon will come for you.”
RAOUL held the mug of beer to his mouth and finished the last of it, liking the flush of euphoria the drink gave him, the feeling of empowerment. He needed to slow down, he told himself, then immediately shrugged off the thought and lifted his hand, signaling the bartender to send a waitress.
He could handle the alcohol. And he had all night to take care of business, as long as he didn’t cause trouble.
The doors were locked. He and his prey were trapped together. There was plenty of time to approach the lion he now knew was named Levi.
Raoul smiled in the darkness of the booth. Seeing Levi enter the brothel moments before sunset was pure luck, considering how he’d almost given up his search. It was as if the hand of fate and justice had touched him.
After the failure this morning near the Mission, he’d worked all day to come up with a better idea for finding out where the demon-possessed human and the branded female were, and capturing them without involving guardsmen. Levi was key to that plan.
Humans. He could understand how the lion had escaped the trap Anton and Farold had arranged, but a woman burdened with a child—pathetic.
A waitress stopped next to the table. She was topless, revealing two rows of teats down her torso, ten in all, though they were tiny and her chest flat. She was available, for a price—there to serve more than drinks and food.
Raoul could smell semen on her and see it streaking the insides of her thighs beneath the short skirt. But there was no answering trace of feminine arousal.
“You wanted something?” she purred, mouth opening to show tiny fangs, her eyes glowing catlike in the dim light of the brothel bar.
Barefoot she would be much smaller than him, making him think she was lynx or bobcat, or
perhaps the descendent of cats who’d once tied their existence to humans. On heels she was the right height for patrons to bend her over a table and take her from behind.
Raoul wasn’t interested, not in taking some grotesque cat-shifter caught between forms. Before the night was over he’d pay for a fuck, but he intended to visit one of the whores who looked human.
“Another beer,” he said, handing the waitress his mug.
She took it and walked away, heading toward the bar. A rank-smelling human stopped her midway. One hand snaked under her skirt to fondle her buttocks. The other pawed a row of teats, fat fingers settling to pluck at the nipple above the waistband of her skirt.
A sluglike tongue licked over his lips. “I’m in the mood for pussy.”
“Payment up front,” she said. “The bartender collects.”
“I want to see what I’m getting first.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond. The hand on her teat dropped to the hem of her skirt. With a quick jerk upward, she was bared to the man and his table companions.
“Show me your hole,” the human said, his sluglike tongue making another pass over his lips and leaving them glistening with spit. “If it ain’t small, I’m not interested.”
A sharp bark of laughter escaped Raoul. But in a bar full of shapeshifter outcasts and human perverts, no one gave him more than a fleeting glance.
The human probably has a tiny cock, Raoul thought, his lips curling in disgust.
There’d been times when he’d been desperate enough to take his wolf form and fuck one of the female mongrel dogs Hyde used for tracking, but he wasn’t so desperate that he’d stick his cock into this whore, even if it was hardened at the sight of her cunt.
The bartender gave a subtle nod, and one of the bouncers sitting at the end of the bar rose from his stool and moved to the table. “Touching the girls costs money. Consider yourself warned.”
The human let the waitress go. “How much if I want this one?”
“Negotiate with him,” the bouncer said, tilting his head toward the bartender.
The human took a moment to hold a discussion with his companions, then stood and went to the bar. The waitress followed, lingering there long enough for Raoul’s mug to be refilled.
The bouncer had reclaimed his stool by the time she got back to Raoul’s booth. He paid her for the beer. She remained next to the table, a finger toying with one of her teats, drawing attention to the down fuzz surrounding it.
“You sure I can’t do anything else for you? Maybe give you something to eat?” She leaned down and purred. “Or eat you.”
He didn’t doubt she’d prefer to service him instead of the fat-fingered human—even if there was no hint of sexual interest in her scent. “I’m full,” Raoul said, thinking about the man he’d killed as the sun began to set. Whose shoes he now wore and whose money lay folded in a thick wad in his pocket. Whose entrails had been a satisfying meal for a wolf, the stomach heavy with steak and potatoes.
With a shrug, the waitress returned to the bar. There was a brief conversation with the bartender before she went to the table where the slug-tongued human stood waiting.
His clothing was stained and dirty, his fly open, allowing more of the stench from his unwashed flesh to fill the room. Stubby, thick fingers curled around a cock that reminded Raoul of sausage-sectioned pig intestines.
He expected the waitress to bend over. Instead she crawled onto the table and splayed her thighs, the movements making the skirt ride up to reveal her slit.
Despite himself, Raoul’s hand slid beneath the table. He gripped himself through the pants that had once belonged to Hyde, stroked up and down as one of the human’s companions positioned himself in front of the waitress’s mouth and his penis disappeared between her lips.
The man who’d negotiated with the bartender came at her from behind, his pants riding low, revealing the dark shadow of his crack against pale white skin. He thrust into the woman and began pumping violently—as if he’d been too cheap to pay for more than a few minutes of time.
His face lifted, growing ruddy with his exertions. His mouth opened and spittle escaped with each panted breath.
The man’s companion came first, his grunts like those of an ape. The waitress turned her head and spit a gob of jism onto the table, ridding herself of it as the man behind her bellowed in release.
He pulled out, his wet cock gleaming like a trophy in the dim light. Raoul turned away, his eyes going to the doorway leading into the area where women waited for clients to select them and negotiate their services with the madam.
His hand slid from his cloth-covered erection to the wad of paper money in his pocket. It would be better to wait, he told himself, and smiled when moments later Levi walked into the bar.
Raoul gave Levi a moment to settle on one of the bar stools before approaching and taking the seat next to him. Levi turned. Lion yellow eyes bored into Raoul’s, telling him to leave.
He fought the urge to bare his teeth, belatedly remembering his show of subservience in the woods. His licking of the healer’s foot before slinking away in order to hunt for the escaped prisoner and the woman.
With a small whine he dropped his head. In the scent-filled bar he hoped the truth of his nature would be lost on the Were.
“I’ve been looking for you since yesterday afternoon,” he said, careful with his words in a room full of shifters who would retain their excellent hearing despite their defects.
He touched his finger to his neck, tracing it along the imaginary line where the witch-charmed silver had trapped him in wolf form. “I wanted to thank you, and the healer. I’d be dead if you hadn’t helped me.”
Levi’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What else do you want?”
Raoul shook his head. “Nothing. Except to thank the healer. Is she here?”
Levi’s face hardened. The air filled with the scent of rage and worry and guilt. “No.”
Raoul’s surprise was unfeigned. “What happened to her?”
“She was taken.”
Raoul suppressed a growl. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d been double-crossed by Anton. It would explain why he’d had to remain in the backseat with Farold as the guardsmen went in pursuit of Levi and the healer. “By who?”
“Guardsmen. Or the maze owner.”
Raoul licked his lips, channeling all his nervous energy into making himself believable, into baiting the trap he thought Levi might willingly enter.
Just like seeing the Were enter the brothel, it was pure luck Raoul had caught the faint trace of a werelion’s scent on Farold’s driver, Gulzar, and with a few questions, a touch of feigned admiration, the tattooed criminal had bragged about trapping two brothers not far from Oakland and turning them into monsters to run the maze.
That one of the created weremen ultimately escaped while the other remained… Raoul could easily guess the reason Levi had ambushed the trapper’s truck. And that reason, coupled with the guardsmen’s failure, had formed the seed of an idea that would ultimately lead to him returning to his father’s compound and mate a wealthy man.
Learning the healer was missing only added greater strength to Raoul’s plan, though now he modified it, using her as well as what he thought he knew of Levi’s motives to bait the trap.
“If she’s in the possession of the maze owner, I might be able to help free her,” Raoul said.
“How?”
Raoul glanced around the room, only partially pretending a wariness of being overheard. But when Levi didn’t suggest they go somewhere to talk privately as he’d hoped, he forged ahead.
“A year ago my brother traveled here by the same route I was taking when you came across me,” Raoul lied, laying the groundwork. “I think he ended up in the maze. From what I’ve been able to learn, he might still be alive. I’ve heard the maze owner is hunting an escaped prisoner whose arms are tattooed with the names of those he’s killed.”
Levi abruptly stood. “Follow me
.”
Raoul hid his smile as he followed the lion out of the bar and into a small office space. As soon as the door closed, Levi asked, “Anton wants the prisoner who was bound to the chair?”
“Yes.” Raoul shivered for effect before embellishing with lies. “I was there when he was brought to the trapper’s compound. The settlement where he was finally captured was afraid to execute him. They thought he was most likely demon-possessed.
“I heard one of them say they’d used the warded collar around his neck to hold the demon inside the prisoner, but they were afraid it would be freed once he was killed. That’s why they offered him to the trapper and paid for him to be transported to Oakland. They’d heard the maze owner has an enslaved demon who hunts. They thought like would kill like.”
Raoul licked his lips, his eyes meeting Levi’s then skittering away for effect. “I heard what you said in the truck. You thought the prisoner was dangerous and should be left with keys to free himself and go his own way. He smelled human enough to me. But it could be because of the collar. When your companion, the one bearing a church’s brand, insisted on freeing him, I thought the churchmen and the settlement police who gave him to the trapper must be right about him being demon-possessed. Then when I heard the maze owner was searching for him and also for the woman—”
“Anton is searching for the woman?”
Raoul retrieved the paper he’d first seen when he went to the maze. He passed it to Levi, reliving his surprise at recognizing her and seeing she was worth money to the maze owner.
As the lion unfolded and studied the reward offer, Raoul sought to close the trap he’d carefully constructed. “If I didn’t think my brother was alive, I’d leave Oakland and never look back. But if there’s a possibility I could free him by exchanging the woman or the escaped prisoner… They’re human. And except for the healer, I’ve never met one whose life is more important than a Were’s.”
Levi glanced up from the paper. Molten gold eyes seethed with turmoil. “Anton and Farold can’t be trusted.”
