Night Howls

by Amber Lynn

  “Enough talk about how messed up I am. How has your week been going?”

  “Boring as usual. As you know, the place I am hiding is outside the normal world and I don't exactly fit in here. I am grateful they let me stay, but sometimes I wish they were a little more civil about it,” he answers.

  He won't tell me where this secret location is, even though Walt and Jonas know. I don't know what he expects me to do with the knowledge, but it kind of sucks being left out of the loop.

  “Sometimes I wish my life could be just a little bit more boring. Jake is in trouble with the Collective because the human girl he had been fornicating with turned up dead. I am working undercover to try to find the real killer before they swoop in and try to take him.” It sounds much more exciting than it really is. Tracking people down is what I do and I don’t imagine this case will be any different than the hundreds of others I have already done.

  “That sounds like fun for you. I am sure you will get everything figured out and thwart the evil villains' attempt to take him,” he says in a dramatic voice reminding me of my earlier thoughts of him reading to me.

  “Tell me a story, Daddy,” I say curling up with Clyde. I never got the chance to act like a little girl and I always hear it is never too late. I wish I had some footed pajamas that I could slip into to complete the moment.

  “I am sure Walt has told you a lot of my best ones, but did he ever tell you about the time he dared me to steal the family crest from our father's office?” he asks. I have heard the story, but I want to hear his version. I am thinking Walt only has part of the story and he tends to exaggerate just a little.

  “No, why don't you tell me about it.”

  “Well, it happened many years ago, when I was twelve and Walt was only eight. We were always getting into trouble and trying to find something to dare the other one to do in hopes they would get caught. How little boys' minds work is beyond me these days. Anyway, in our father's office hung our family’s crest. It was an original that had been around for centuries. Other than my mother, and maybe us kids, it was my father’s most prized possession. This was back when we still ruled the wolves, so our family name meant everything.

  “Being young and stupid, I accepted the bet and started to make plans for my great caper. My father spent most of his day in the office, so finding the perfect time was rather difficult. I finally got an opportunity late one night. I carefully snuck down the stairs making no noise. Well, I thought I was being quiet. It turned out I didn’t need to worry about it. When I reached the office door, my father was sitting at his desk, in the dark, waiting for me.

  “He said, 'You still have a lot to learn, my boy. I heard about your little dare within minutes of it being made. Every night for the last week, I have pretended to go to bed and then made my way back here through a secret passage and waited for you. I am guessing you at least planned a little since you didn’t appear the first night.'

  “I looked at him surprised that he didn't do something to just stop the dare in the first place. I even told him that I was happy that he didn't seem upset. He told me that he had to let me be a kid for as long as I could. Things were changing and the easy life we had been living would come to an end soon. We sat and talked for a while and I learned some of the inner workings of the greatest man I ever knew that night.

  “I am sorry you will never be able to meet him. When he was killed, a dark curtain fell over the paranorm world. Sorry about that, I am getting away from what I was trying to say. I didn't mean for our story to turn glum. I am sure you were really looking for a story about fairy princesses,” he says and the emotion in his voice almost brings tears to my eyes.

  “It was a perfect story, Dad. I want to hear all about Grandpa one of these days, even the parts that are sad.”

  Uncle Walt's version of the story was quite different. There was no sit down and long conversation. Dad ended up having to dust his father's office for a week because he accepted the foolish bet. As a young kid that was not something he relished. Walt told of him taunting Dad while he did his dusting and eventually Walt ended up getting his own punishment for harassing him.

  “You don't know how happy I will be when we can finally be together as a family.”

  “It is something I look forward to. Why can't you just come now?” I ask.

  “There are a couple of reasons and they haven’t changed since the last time I told you. One, I am afraid your mother may be keeping tabs on me and I don't want to lead her right to you. I have a feeling she will find you on your birthday anyway, but I want to keep her at arm’s length until then. The second reason for me staying here is passage in and out of this world is tricky. There are many levels of red tape that I had to get through to be assured an entrance and exit passport. My passport has an exit date stamped into it of January 19, so until then my hands are tied.” Two days before my birthday and a week before the fabled Wolf Moon. It still feels like an eternity away.

  “I hate red tape,” I say wishing I had a giant pair of scissors to cut through it.

  “Me too, Sweetie. It sounds like you have a case to handle tomorrow for Jake, so you should probably get some sleep. I will see you soon, love you.”

  “I love you, too, Daddy. Good night,” I reply hanging up the phone. I don't know how much he really helped me with my problem, but I like hearing his voice.

  “Love, just wanted to say real quick that everything is still good here and I am sorry I didn't call earlier. We have both been busy, but I did want to tell you to sleep tight. No nightmares are allowed,” Sebastian whispers through my mind.

  “I will have Clyde chase them away. I am really spent, so I will call you in the morning,” I reply and feel him disengage from the active conversation. There aren't a ton of hellos and good-byes in my world. We say what is needed and move on.

  Chapter 14

  A new lead in the case

  Happily, I make it through the night without dreams of she demons. The alarm is going off, so I expect it is noon. I am supposed to be on the set at three, but there are a few things I wanted to look into before I get there. Delaying my appearance as long as possible is only a happy side effect.

  Becoming more aware, I smack the alarm to shut it off. Clyde has been replaced in bed with a very warm Alex. There will be no repeats of yesterday's morning interlude, but it feels good to have someone holding me close right now. For a girl that hated being touched, and still does by most people, it is strange to welcome his embrace.

  “What are the tasks you want to get done before your acting debut?” my overgrown puppy asks.

  “I need to do some research on the girl, see if she had any enemies that could have hired this out. I want to get more information on the movie series itself, as well. It has been mentioned that it is struggling, so that might have had something to do with the death,” I tell him as I shimmy out from under his arm and make my way to the bathroom to take a shower.

  The hot water feels really good against my skin this morning. I choose a rather fragrant-less shampoo. I don't want my nose to be confused when I go around sniffing things later today. It is bad enough that, after only having the humans around for a short time, the air in Night Owl City is getting the decay smell I experienced in D.C. a month or so ago. When I got out of my car yesterday near the set, it frightened me how quick it is happening. I hope that once they hit the road things will go back to normal.

  “I think everyone should be with you today,” Alex says handing me my towel as I step out of the shower. I grab it from him and wrap it around me. I don’t rush through the process in shock that he would dare sneak a peek at me without clothes. About a month ago, it would have been a different story. Maybe not the shock part, but I would at least threaten him with some kind of bodily harm.

  “That is a good idea. We need to make sure Jake is safe in case Frank and his goons show up again.” I dry off and then use the towel to wrap my hair up.

  I give Alex a quick kiss on the cheek as
I move past him to get to my closet. I decide jeans are the way to go for the day. I want to try to blend in as much as possible. If I am going to need to change for the movie at some point, I probably shouldn't carry all of my knives. Not knowing what they will want me to wear, I stick with my thigh sheaths. They should be covered no matter what they stick me in.

  To top things off, I grab one of my standard black tops and my boots. Feeling more ready for the day, I go back to the bathroom and take care of my hair, a simple ponytail will do. They will probably want to do some real styling on the set. I am told I have a natural beauty, supposedly from my mother, and I have never bothered with makeup for personal use. I do own some for when I am undercover, but since I am undercover as myself, I don't think it is needed.

  When I go back out to my room, Alex is waiting fully dressed. He is wearing jeans that match the dark blue shade of mine and a tight black t-shirt. I am pretty sure every one of his muscle ripples is visible. Sometimes when I look at my beaus, I think the third part of me is part cat because I always feel like purring.

  “And I think I am a gorilla when I see you because I just want to bang on my chest. Then the caveman part kicks in and I cannot wait to drag you back to my cave,” Alex replies to my unspoken words.

  “Yeah, you look kind of like a monkey. Let's go get me fed. I assume Clyde has already been taken care of since I didn't wake up to sulfur breath,” I say leading the way out of the bedroom.

  “I know we didn't have Clyde long before we found Walt, but I will be forever grateful that he followed you guys home. If you had to take care of all that dog's needs, we would never get any alone time.” Now that is a true statement. Clyde likes a lot of attention and spoiling him rotten hasn't done me any favors. He is warming up to the guards a little bit these days, which gives me even more free time.

  When we enter the kitchen, Clyde is sitting by the stove doing his best good dog impression. As soon as I see him sitting like that, I want to scream it is an act and people should not be fooled. Walt is scrambling up some eggs and frying bacon. I speculate how many pieces of bacon have “accidentally” fallen on the floor. Judging by Clyde’s grin, it has been more than a couple.

  “How is my baby this morning?” I ask walking over to give Clyde a little kiss on the top of his head. He smiles at the gesture. It is sad that I barely have to bend down to complete the task.

  “He is being very well-behaved, as usual,” Walt replies. I have come to believe that it isn't only mine and Walt's similar DNA that makes the Hellhound like him. I think Clyde sees him as a kindred spirit of sorts. I don't know enough about Walt to know why that is, but that is the vibe I pick up. It could also just be all the table scraps the man gives him. It is no wonder the Hellhound is getting huge.

  “Jonas went downstairs to check out some disturbance and Jake is in the shower,” Walt says bringing us up to date on everyone’s location.

  I can hear Jake in the shower, so it isn't exactly a news flash. I hope that he has been in there for a while because the boy likes to play in the water. Two weeks ago, he took a shower that I swear lasted forty-five minutes. What was really going on in there, I don’t want to know, but it was mind-numbing waiting around for him to finish.

  “Any ideas on what the disturbance was?” I ask stealing a slice of bacon real quick from the done pile. We get at least one Collective agent sneaking around once or twice a week, so I am not too worried.

  “The guard that called it in said it was of the human variety. We figured one of the movie people got curious about the high security around this place and tried to sneak a peek.” I was hoping we were far enough away that we wouldn’t get a lot of foot traffic from them.

  “No such luck,” Jonas says dragging a very annoyed looking Will in with him. We don't allow many people in the penthouse, so I am surprised he is allowing it. Phee had to be scanned in every system Alex had before she was allowed the pleasure of seeing where I slept. It was mentioned that they did background checks on all the crew, but I didn’t think even that would get one of them through my door.

  “You don't have to be so rough,” Will says extracting himself from the bigger man's grasp. I won't point out to him that it looked like Jonas was being a kitten compared to his usual manhandling. I am not seeing any dislocated shoulders, so he is lucky. “I would have called, but I didn't have your number. There was another crew member killed last night and I thought you would like to know about it before those other paranorms you were fighting with yesterday found out.” I guess he missed my number on my building when he visited yesterday. I will have to look into making it bigger and maybe adding some flashing lights.

  “Has the body been moved?” I ask excited about this new development. Without Stacy's body, I was going to have problems tracking down the culprit, but now I should be able to pick up the trail. I can usually pick up something from the scene of a crime, it isn’t a total guarantee, but I like my chances.

  “No, we left it where it was and tried to keep people away. Only a few of us know about it, so far, and we were trying to keep it that way for you. The dead guy was one of the sound crew. Not many people knew him well, but we hung out a few times. He was liked a lot more than Stacy, so there may be more of a ruckus about this death.”

  “Do you know if the body looks the same as Stacy's?” I ask grabbing a couple more slices of bacon. It doesn't look like I will be hanging out at the apartment doing research after all.

  “It looks like it was attacked by a wild animal, so I would assume they are similar. Big claw marks are pretty apparent on it.”

  “Did the two deceased have any connection that you know of?”

  “I doubt it. Justin was a bit below Stacy's radar. She has been sleeping with a lot of higher up people to get where she is, so I doubt she would let Justin have a taste. I don't think they had ever talked in any other capacity either.”

  “Great, let's go,” I say running to grab Clyde's leash. I do that a lot. “Mommy will give you three steaks later if you don't complain about not getting more breakfast.” I know he is not going to be very willing to just leave, so I am forced to try bribery. At his size, it is hard for me to make him do anything. I thought he was supposed to obey his mistress, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If he didn’t reply to many of my words with his actions, I would think he only understood demonese.

  “I am bringing the bacon with us,” Walt says wrapping the paper towels up and chasing after us. “That should keep him happy.”

  Clyde gets a move on it when he hears that. “What's going on?” Jake asks walking out of his room, thankfully already dressed.

  “We got a corpse to examine. Move it or lose it,” I tell him as I pass.

  The whirlwind swirling around me seems to capture them all and they fall into line like good soldiers. When I get to the Suburban, I yell, “Lead the way,” to Will. I doubt he walked all the way here, so he has to have a car somewhere.

  I pull out of the garage and see a bright red sports car, of the Ferrari variety, waiting for us to join it. Boys and their toys. Maybe I should point out to him that it is a well-known fact that the more zeroes in the price of a car, the smaller the penis. I am pretty sure there are studies on it.

  For now that will wait. I have my first lead in getting Jake off the Collective's radar, so my mind needs to get in the game. With any luck, I might be able to solve this thing before I have to pretend to be an actress. I just make a mental note to find an article about one of those studies, so I can email it to Will later. I am sure he will find it a thrilling read.

  Chapter 15

  Standard issue werewolf attack

  Will drives us past the main set area and to a trailer on the west edge of the human camp. I hadn’t realized just how far they were spread out. They might as well annex this part of town and give it its own name. I have quite a few ideas for names, but I don’t think I will share them at this moment. We park our cars and I get out. I wonder if the annex could get a dome put ov
er it to keep all the stinky air to themselves. Why my mind thinks up these things, I will never know.

  “Walt, do you mind keeping Demon Dog?” I ask. “I would prefer to keep him away from another dead body. The look of glee in his eyes when he sees them is really creepy.” Earnestly, one of these days I am not going to be able to stop him from jumping in and treating a body like a new chew toy.

  “Sure, we are good back here for a little while. I still have some bacon left.” Maybe he should have also brought a cow with him. I will try to make this quick because a few slices of bacon won’t hold him for long.

  Alex, Jonas, and Jake join me following Will into the trailer.

  “I am glad you are here,” Gene says in way of greeting. “When it was just Stacy, I wasn’t really worried, but Justin will be missed. He was good people and was well liked on the set.” Well liked, but not exactly well-known if Will’s earlier comment is to be believed.

  “There is also the issue of more of us potentially being killed,” Will adds. “Did you round up any witnesses while I was gone?” The idea of a witness excites me.

  “I am pretty sure Millie saw something, but you know how she is. When I asked her, she got a weird look in her eyes before shaking her head no.”

  “Well, it is a start for Nyx. It probably won’t help that much, though. The body is in the bedroom back here,” Will says moving us towards a curtain.

  Behind the curtain, I find a body of a young man. His face is still in good shape and I would put him around thirty. His neck is ripped open and he has claw marks along his torso. It isn’t anywhere near the worse thing I have seen, in fact I would call it mild.

  “Since there aren’t a lot of other kinds of animal shifters in this part of town, I believe you are looking at a werewolf attack.” I say just for fun. It is obvious what happened here and I doubt the humans are even aware of the other kinds of shifters out there.