Master of Wolves

by Angela Knight

  Brooding, she rested her chin on the window and watched the night zoom by.

  Jim had offered to Link himself to her so thoroughly, he wouldn’t survive her death. If any other man had made an offer like that, she’d think he was nuts.

  But Jim meant it. He’d decided it was the right thing to do, and he seemed to feel no doubt at all.

  Then again, he rarely seemed to doubt himself. He just determined what to do and did it, no second thoughts. No wavering. Which was fine as long as he was right, but what if he was wrong?

  Faith lifted her head and turned to watch his big hands on the wheel as he took a curve with easy skill. He was so damned good, she felt no hesitancy about putting her life into his hands. He was one of those rare leaders she’d follow through any door he cared to kick down.

  But love was different. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d loved Ron with a blind, hot passion. Just the way he looked at her in those first days made her feel good about herself. For a woman who’d always felt too tall and just slightly too masculine, there’d been something highly seductive about feeling so feminine.

  Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure which she’d really loved—Ron or the way he made her feel.

  Either way, it hadn’t lasted. Ron had the attention span of an amorous hamster, and soon he was off to other conquests. Subconsciously, she’d felt him slipping away even before she’d known it for sure.

  Of course, Jim was a lot more man than Ron had ever been, in virtually every way. Maybe that was what scared her. Nobody could have held Ron for long—that was just the way he was wired. But Jim…If she lost Jim, that would say something about her, wouldn’t it? Something she really didn’t want to know.

  So okay, she’d been really clumsy in her refusal. He’d caught her off guard. But that didn’t mean she’d been wrong.

  The thing to do was keep it light and professional, Faith decided. Gently make it clear to him that she wasn’t interested in anything more permanent than a little passion and catching bad guys—without stomping his ego. She could do that.

  How hard could it be?

  Korbal looked out over the angry, fearful faces of his congregation. “Arthur’s monster has taken the grail. We must go to Avalon and recover it, or we die.”

  The group burst into appalled shouts.

  “Avalon?” one bellowed over the din. “You want us to follow Arthur to his very stronghold? Are you insane?”

  “What other choice do we have?” Korbal demanded coldly. “They have obviously not yet destroyed the grail—we’d all be dead if they had. As long as we live, there is some chance we can track and recover it.”

  “You don’t know they took it to Avalon. You don’t know they took it at all!”

  “Don’t be more stupid than you can help,” Korbal snarled. “They attacked us. While we were distracted, a creature that smelled of the Mageverse took our grail. Do you think this is coincidence?”

  “But—Avalon!” a female vampire whined. “Even Geirolf himself did not dare attack Arthur’s capital!”

  “I assure you, he’d have attacked it if he’d faced what we do—immediate destruction if we don’t.” Korbal’s hands curled into fists as he considered incinerating the twit where she stood. Unfortunately, they needed every fighter they had, even fools. “Would you rather stand here dithering while they destroy the grail and wipe us all out? Or would you rather fight and seize the chance to survive?”

  “It’s not much of a chance,” another woman said dryly.

  “It’s better than nothing!” This was a man, lifting his voice in a shout. “Korbal is right. I’d rather die fighting than wringing my hands. But we’ve got to move now!”

  The crowd went silent, and Korbal saw his chance to seize control again. “Unit leaders, start generating your gates. We march on Avalon!” He raised his voice in his congregation’s battle cry. “Geirolf lives in us!”

  “We live in Geirolf!” they shouted back. Korbal hid his relief.

  He had them again.

  The Silver Bullet was a long, low white cinder block building with flashing neon signs hanging in the windows. Across one side, a bad mural depicted a cowboy riding a bucking bronco in chalky, gaudy florescent paint. It was lit by three floodlights, one of which was either broken or had burned out. Knowing the Bullet’s clientele, it was probably busted.

  In the patch of darkness left by the absent spot, a woman stood smoking a cigarette. From past experience, Faith knew Sheri Miller got off shift about this time. She’d said once that she liked to have a smoke to steady her nerves after a night spent dealing with amorous drunks.

  Sheri was a pretty woman, so petite and generously curved Faith always felt like an Amazon standing beside her. She and Reynolds had gone together hot and heavy for most of the year Faith had been in Clarkston. He was nowhere to be seen now, though.

  Faith waited for Jim to park the convertible, then hopped over the door and trotted across the parking lot. Sheri loved dogs; she’d never failed to give Rambo a pat. With any luck, she’d react the same way to Faith’s Irish setter, giving Jim a conversation opener.

  “Oh, aren’t you the gorgeous thing!” As she’d hoped, Sheri tossed aside her cigarette and dropped to her knees to give the dog a good ear rub. “You’re beautiful! Yes, you are!”

  Faith froze, feeling a little uncomfortable as the woman stroked her ears and rubbed her head. It felt…surprisingly good, if deeply weird.

  “Better watch out,” Jim said, strolling up. “She’s a heartbreaker.”

  Sheri looked up with a moment’s wariness at the strange male voice, then blinked as she registered Jim’s stunning looks. A hint of calculation entered her smile. “She yours?”

  “Or I’m hers. We’re still working that part out.” He gave Sheri that lazily seductive grin of his.

  She rose to her feet with one more absent pat for Faith and offered Jim her hand. “Sheri Miller.”

  “Jim Galloway.” The last being a cover identity. He turned to look out across the parking lot, where the moon was just beginning to rise. “Pretty night.”

  “Yeah. Better enjoy it now—it’ll be hotter than blazes in a couple of weeks.” She studied him with dazzled eyes, scanning from his handsome face to broad shoulders and down his narrow hips. “You’re not from around here.” Her tone said she’d have noticed him by now if he had been.

  “Nope. New in town.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall, his torso bending in an easy masculine curve. “I don’t know a single soul.”

  Sheri took the opening and ran with it, giving him an eager smile. “You know me.”

  “I’d certainly like to.” He hooded those seductive eyes and purred, “But a pretty girl like you probably has a boyfriend.”

  The laughter vanished from her face. “I did, but not anymore. He dumped me for this witch.” She tossed her blond hair. “Probably just as well, considering some of the shit they’re into.” Despite the defiant tone, there was pain in her blue eyes.

  “Drugs?”

  “Nah, he’s a cop. That’s what makes it so bad.” She forced a flirtatious smile. “But you wouldn’t be interested in that.”

  “Actually, I am.” He crossed one muscular ankle over the other, the picture of indolent power. “I’m a reporter for the Atlanta Mirror. I’m here looking into Tony Shay’s death.”

  Faith’s head whipped up, but fortunately Sheri didn’t seem to notice.

  “A reporter?” The waitress looked uneasy. “Shay—that’s the guy they found dead behind the Bullet.”

  “The cops say some of your customers did it. But the paper here said it was Satanists. What do you think?”

  “Look, I don’t want to talk about any of that. I need to get home.” She turned to walk off.

  “I won’t use your name.” He reached out and touched her shoulder, a light graze of the fingers that stopped her in her tracks. Uncertain, Sheri looked back at him, and he gave her that warm, seductive smile again. “I just want to talk t
o you. You know Keith Reynolds, and you know he’s involved in this up to his neck.”

  A car pulled into the parking lot, tires crunching on the gravel. Sheri’s head whipped toward it. Nervously, she licked her lips. “I don’t want to be seen talking to no reporter.”

  “We can go somewhere else. Your place. Or we can get a cup of coffee.”

  She shifted from foot to sneakered foot, trying to make up her mind. “You got ID?”

  Shit, Faith thought. That blows that.

  “Sure.” He straightened away from the wall and started toward the Jag, the two of them at his heals. Faith noticed Sheri’s gaze dropping to his backside and lingering. Apparently Faith wasn’t the only one who thought Jim had an outstanding ass.

  They reached the car and waited while Jim slid in and opened the glove compartment, pulling out a laminated card on a neck chain.

  Where had he acquired that?

  He handed the card to Sheri, who looked it over and handed it back. She hesitated a moment. “I guess we can go to my house.”

  Jim nodded. “Sounds good. Want to take my car?”

  She looked back at the Bullet’s door nervously. “No. I’ll take my own.”

  “Great. I’ll follow you.”

  A moment later, they were driving through Clarkston, following the taillights of Sheri’s battered Toyota.

  Faith sat in the front, her head buzzing with a frustrating set of questions and no way to voice them in dog form. She didn’t dare transform, either, because Sheri might look back and catch her.

  “My cousin works at the Atlanta Mirror,” Jim said, apparently reading her mind, “He made me a set of credentials, just in case I needed them. And since reporters can ask all the nosy questions they want without raising any eyebrows…” He shrugged. “I’d considered using the reporter thing as my cover to begin with, but the chief knows me, so that was out.”

  Up ahead, the Toyota’s taillights took the turn into a trailer park. Jim followed, driving down the narrow road between the mobile homes. Most were single-wides, aging and dingy, surrounded by abandoned children’s toys, battered cars, and bicycles lying on their sides. Lights glowed from narrow windows, as voices rose in shouts, arguments, and laughter.

  Sheri stopped in front of a blue and white double-wide. After pulling in behind her, Jim and Faith followed her to the trailer’s cinder block steps. As Sheri dug for her keys, a frantic, high-pitched barking sounded from inside the mobile home.

  Sheri gave them an apologetic look. “That’s Snowball, my poodle. Your dog won’t go after her?”

  Jim reached down to give Faith an infuriating pat on the head. “Red’s too well-mannered to eat her hostess, aren’t you, Red?”

  Depends. The attempted sarcasm emerged as a soft woof.

  But when Sheri got the door open, Snowball spotted Faith and Jim through the screen. Her doggy brown eyes widened. She whirled and fled, yelping, painted pink toe-nails clicking on the vinyl floor, her white puffball of a tail tucked firmly against her woolly butt. Apparently Snowball knew a couple of werewolves when she smelled them.

  “Wow.” Sheri frowned after her. “She never did that before. I’ve seen her try to jump a Doberman.”

  Jim shot Faith a significant look. Faith laughed, though it ended up sounding like another woof.

  She was still grinning when she followed Jim and Sheri inside. “Want a beer?” Sheri asked her handsome guest. “Or I’ve got Jack Daniels.”

  Faith narrowed her eyes. What was the waitress planning to do—get him drunk and take advantage of him? She suppressed a growl.

  “Beer’s fine.” Jim gave Sheri an easy smile and sauntered into the narrow living room.

  The trailer looked like every other mobile home Faith had ever been in over the course of her law enforcement career. The kitchen was cramped, with avocado appliances and green vinyl flooring that was peeling in places.

  The long, narrow living room held a brown plaid couch and a couple of worn armchairs, one of them patched with silver duct tape. The carpet was a gold shag in desperate need of a good cleaning. Faith lay down on it cautiously, trying not to inhale the sour smell from an old spill.

  Jim and Sheri exchanged chitchat while the waitress opened a couple of Buds. Finally they settled down on the couch together. Sheri’s knee brushed Jim’s. Faith suppressed a growl.

  “So what can you tell me about what happened to Shay?” he asked.

  Sheri drew back and took a sip of her beer as if buying time to think. “It wasn’t our customers that killed that guy, no matter what the chief says.”

  “So who was it?” He looked at her, his silver gaze steady and honest.

  Sheri was no more immune to it than Faith herself. She cleared her throat. “Maybe the paper was right.”

  “About what?”

  She licked her lips, her gaze anxious. “About it being magic.”

  Jim said nothing, letting the silence build with a skill Faith had to admire. He might be an artist by profession, but he knew how to work a witness like a cop.

  Sheri finally gave in to the need to fill the silence. “I’m hearing stuff that ain’t natural. Crazy stuff. Like about the guy they found with his guts ripped out.”

  “What about him?”

  “They’re saying he was killed by a werewolf. People say they saw it. Big fucker. Head like a wolf. And claws. Running through town in the moonlight.” There was something haunted in her eyes that suggested she wasn’t just reporting a rumor. She forced a laugh and looked away. “Like I said, crazy stuff.”

  “Maybe it’s not as crazy as it sounds.” Jim’s voice was calm and quiet, and his gaze was sympathetic.

  Sheri studied him a wary moment before she went on, talking faster and faster as she gained confidence that he wouldn’t laugh at her. “And there’s other stuff, too. Like rumors about people being fine one day, and the next they’re walking around like zombies with their souls sucked out.”

  “I heard something about that.”

  Sheri looked down at the beer in her lap and began to nervously peel the label away with her long red fingernails. The polish was cracking. “I did see something one night. Something…weird.”

  He waited patiently, his gaze encouraging.

  Finally she worked up the courage to finish her story. “There’s this old house outside town. It was some kind of plantation or something. They say it goes all the way back to the Revolution. Burned down five, six years ago. Some kid arsonist.” She raked the label down the center with a nail. “I heard it was whole again. Between one week and the next, it just reappeared. But it wasn’t like somebody rebuilt it. This guy I know, he said it was magic. And he said the cops was over there all the time. I told him he was nuts, but I wanted to find Keith, so I went over one night to take a look.”

  “What did you find?”

  She looked up, her eyes wide in a pale face. “I went to that place once when I was a kid on a dare. It always looked rundown and haunted as all hell. But now…now it looks like something out of an old movie. There was red stained glass windows with light shinin’ out. Looked like fires burnin’. And…” Sheri broke off.

  “And what?”

  “I heard screams.”

  Despite her thick fur, Faith felt a chill roll over her skin.

  She knew the house Sheri was talking about. Keith had taken her out there one evening, apparently in an attempt to spook the rookie. As the waitress said, it was widely reputed to be haunted. It was easy to see why, with the boarded-up windows and sagging porch barely visible through the briars and overgrown bushes that surrounded it.

  If she’d been a vampire, she could think of nowhere better to hole up during the day than a haunted house.

  “I don’t think I want to talk about all that anymore.” Sheri had eased over next to Jim. Giving him a seductive smile, she ran a long red nail across his wrist. “That’s the kind of thing that gives me nightmares, you know?”

  He studied her, his gaze compassionate rather
than lustful. “I can see how that would be a problem.”

  “Yeah, it gets right lonely here all by myself.” She looked up at him through the screen of her eyelashes.

  “I know.” He leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. Faith’s werewolf hearing picked up what he breathed in her ear. “But I’m afraid I’ve misled you. I’m spoken for.”

  Anger flashed through the waitress’s eyes, to be replaced by resignation. “Yeah. You would be.”

  He rose to his feet with easy masculine grace. “We’d better be getting home.” Faith stood and headed for the door, eager to escape the role of doggy companion.

  “Are you sure?” Sheri said, a hint of a whine in her voice as she followed them to the door. “Your girlfriend doesn’t have to know.”

  “But I would.”

  The waitress sighed heavily and opened the door, letting Faith slip past them and down the trailer’s cement steps. “Yeah, guys like you are always spoken for.”

  Jim paused, then pulled a notebook out of his pocket and scrawled a number on it. “Look, this is my cell. If Reynolds comes back and starts giving you a hard time, give me a call, okay?”

  Sheri took the paper, but her expression was bitter. “I doubt he’ll ever be back. I hear he’s taken up with somebody else.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said. “But just in case.”

  Faith remained a dog all the way home, mostly because she was in no mood to talk. Knowing she couldn’t continue to stall, she transformed once he closed the door behind them.

  “I know what house she was talking about. Sounds like a good, solid lead.”

  “It also sounds like the place is going to be swarming with cops,” Jim said, tossing his keys onto the coffee table and dropping onto the couch. “I suggest we follow the tradition of great vampire hunters everywhere and hit the bitch after the sun comes up. Once we kill her off, we can pick off the rogue and figure out what to do about the cops.”

  Faith considered the idea a moment, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, that makes sense.”