"Del Orton. Jace Castillo sends his best."
Dumbfounded, Jack glanced at Molly, who looked just as bewildered as he felt. How the hell did Castillo know we were in trouble? Jack shook Orton's hand and was about to ask that very question when the State Police detective — or Jack assumed he was a detective — went on.
"Your Jeep is totaled, I'm afraid," Orton said. Then his voice lowered. "The weapons you were carrying are gone and so are the ones you dropped at the site. According to Castillo, we're on the same side in this, but we couldn't just give them back to you. Maybe that makes you an easier target and if so, I'm sorry. At least you won't have to worry about any of the mutts from this place catching up to you."
As if to punctuate that sentiment, more gunfire could be heard around the front, along with shattering glass.
"Kind of at a loss for words," Jack told him, still stunned.
Molly stepped up beside him. "Thank you, Del. You might just have saved our lives."
"Might?" Orton said with a chuckle. "Yeah, I guess you kids are tougher than you look. At least from what I've heard. Let me get you a ride back to your hotel. I can have an officer run to the pharmacy for you, too, get yourselves cleaned up. Have a rest. Tomorrow morning, call your auto insurance company, get a rental car, and get the hell out of Dodge. That's all the thanks I want."
Orton pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to Molly. "And next time you've got a pest problem in New York state, you can just let me know instead of traveling."
He turned and walked back toward the cars, laughing softly and muttering "might have saved their lives." A uniformed officer stepped forward from the car on the right and beckoned for them to get into the vehicle. Olivia hesitated for a moment until Molly whispered something to her that Jack couldn't hear. Then the three of them got into the back of the police car, separated from the cops by a cage between the seats that made Jack feel like a criminal. He didn't mind, though. At least they weren't being arrested for real. Once again, they had been saved by a conspiracy of silence among law enforcement agencies keeping the truth from the public. He understood the need for that conspiracy, but it made him bitter nevertheless.
Still, the biggest question looming in his mind was how Castillo had known they needed help, never mind where to find them. It was impossible, and yet it couldn't be coincidence.
As they pulled from the parking lot, he stared at the front of the obscenely blue diner. All of the windows had been shattered. Several Prowler corpses could be seen on the pavement in front, where a semi-circle of police vehicles acted as a barrier for the armed officers who had cordoned off the building. Silence had fallen and nothing moved within. It was not over, but it was close.
Then, just before he lost sight of the diner, Jack saw several figures standing in the parking lot, their backs to the carnage. Ghosts. The phantoms stared after the police car as it rolled away and Jack stared back. One of them had shaggy blond hair and wore a torn sweatshirt; the ghost of Artie Carroll raised one arm and waved.
Jack understood, then. Somehow, Artie had gotten word to Castillo. Somehow. He smiled and waved back.
"What the hell are you waving at?" Olivia asked in a harsh whisper.
"The cavalry."
The taxi cruised north on Amsterdam and Roger Martelle slumped against the seat, completely ignoring the tinkling bells of the music that played soft and low on the sound system and the smell of incense that barely covered the driver's body odor. He was too tired even to crack the window for fresh air, and a little bit drunk as well. Scotch on the rocks had been his drink of choice tonight, and he had lost count of them.
His eardrums still thrummed with the music that had been played at the Club Clandestine earlier and everything sounded muffled to him, like he had cotton stuffed in his ears. Which might have explained why he did not ask the driver to turn down the Scheherazade bump-and-grind that was coming out of the taxi's speakers. His mind was still back in the club, grooving to the true funk of the LA-based quintet whose showcase he had gone down to see. The band was called Nevermore, and the singer was a long-limbed, exotic goddess by the name of Katya Raven.
Martelle smiled to himself. Quoth the raven, Nevermore. That poem by Edgar Allen Poe. More than likely where they'd gotten the name, and he felt like an idiot for not having picked up on it earlier. They were a hell of a band, too. Nevermore played a kind of moody groove music that was part Billie Holiday, part funk 'n' roll, and part hardcore blues. It wasn't like anything else Martelle had ever heard. From the moment he had walked out of the Club Clandestine, he had been determined to sign them to his label. It wasn't going to be an easy sell to his own superiors, but Martelle didn't care if Nevermore wasn't a smashing success. They were good, and that had to count for something.
The taxi came to a stop in front of his building and Martelle paid the driver, probably too much but what the hell, it was only money. With the music of Nevermore still rolling through his head like the echo of distant thunder, and the singer's sultry voice laid over it with the lilt of a lullaby, he dug out the keys to his townhouse. Despite the scotch, Martelle was sober enough to wait until the outer door had closed and the lock had engaged before unlocking the inner door.
He hummed to himself as he shut the door behind him and began to unbutton his shirt. As he walked from the foyer into the living room he frowned and sniffed at the air in the dark room. Alarmed, he reached for the light switch.
"Leave it dark," said a female voice.
A growl rose up in Martelle's throat and his teeth began to elongate and sharpen, but he fought back the change. Again he reached for the light. Powerful hands grabbed him from behind, laden with a familiar scent that terrified him enough that he nearly lost control of his bladder. Martelle was lifted off the floor and thrown across the room. He crashed down upon the glass coffee table and it shattered, cutting him, drops of his blood sliding on glass shards down to stain the carpet.
He looked up into the face of a Prowler whose fur was so dark it might have been the night itself, save for the white streak across his head.
"Winter," Martelle murmured, frightened. "Why . . .?"
Lips curled back from Winter's fangs. "The lady said to leave it dark."
Martelle sucked in long breaths, trying to hide his fear. But this was Winter. Even if he could have defeated the creature in one on one combat — which he doubted — Martelle would not have dared to raise a hand to him.
"She's a human," Martelle whined. "Why would you bring her here?"
The woman stood up then, with the aid of a cane. She was young and petite and in the light from outside he could see that she was naturally pretty. Her chestnut hair was pulled back into a ponytail and a cascade of freckles fell across her face. Those things ought to have made her look cute, but her expression was severe and unforgiving. With the cane at her side, she hobbled toward him and stood over him.
"Mr. Martelle. Sometime in the last couple of days you talked to a man named Bill Cantwell. Maybe you know him as Guillaume Navarre. He was with an associate of Winter's called Lao. Winter himself told them to seek you out, so we know they came to you. The question is, what did you tell them? Where did you send them? Who else did they see?"
His hearing was still muffled, but the music in Martelle's mind had ceased. Now all that was in his head was a kind of birdlike trilling, a constant tingle of fear. It made him want to throw up, made him want to tear out this woman's throat. He had never been afraid of a woman before, but her tone and the ominous presence of Winter shook him. Desperately, he tried to figure out what answer would keep him alive.
"I know who Guillaume Navarre is," he said quickly. Martelle could taste the scotch in his mouth, but its effects had burned off. "But I've never met him. I don't know what you're talking about."
For a moment he thought the woman would cry. The corners of her eyes crinkled with emotion and her lips pursed together as though she were trying to hold in a whimper. Then her countenance changed completely. Her li
ps pulled back into a rictus grin and in that moment he thought that she looked for all the world like a Prowler.
"Lying son of a bitch," she snapped. Then she brought the silver lion's head tip of her cane down across his skull.
Pain shot through his head and Martelle recoiled, snarled and began to rise from the shattered glass of the coffee table. The change started to come upon him again and his hands curled into talons, claws jutting from the tips of his fingers as he lunged for her.
Winter slammed him to the carpeted floor and stood staring down at him. Fury nearly overwhelmed reason, but after a moment, Martelle lay still. The human woman tapped him with her cane and he growled but did not move.
"Where did you send them?" she demanded.
Martelle laughed, mostly in disbelief, but also in surrender. "Fine. You want to know? I didn't send them anywhere, really. They came to me and I told them to go down to the Voodoo Lounge, that that was where Jasmine had been recruiting. Navarre's niece had wanted to play music there and I put the two of them together. Jasmine and Olivia Navarre. I had no idea what Jasmine would do but I'm not going to stand in her way either.
"But Lao was playing along," Martelle said, sneering the words at Winter. "Your boy was playing both sides against the middle. Maybe he learned that from the best, eh? He told me to let Jasmine know they were coming."
The woman gripped the head of her cane more tightly and Martelle winced. Winter knelt down beside him then, and all thoughts of the human were gone as he gazed up into the face of this ancient warrior, this seasoned diplomat.
"And you told her," Winter said. It was not a question.
"I told her," Martelle confirmed.
Winter's eyes narrowed and he bared his glistening, needle fangs. "You should not have acted against the Navarres."
"At least I picked a side."
"So have I," Winter snarled. "At long last, so have I."
Martelle stiffed as Winter tore out his throat. His last sight was of the human woman with the cane, staring down at him. She winced, but did not look away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
My car, Bill Cantwell thought. The bastards are using my car.
He sat in the back seat of his Oldsmobile, pressed between a pair of Prowlers who had also guarded the old subway train he'd been imprisoned within in that subterranean lair Jasmine had established. They were both light-skinned males, one blond and one with a stubble of red hair, and they wore dark sunglasses even though they were in the back seat of a car rolling through Manhattan at going on three in the morning. Men in black, Bill thought. You look like a couple of idiots.
And they did. Their arrogance was so completely absurd it was tempting to treat them like the fools they seemed to be. But like their human appearance, he suspected this ridiculous affectation was merely that, a façade. In the time they had been guarding him, Bill had not even learned their names. Mister Blond had spiky hair and wore small steel hoops in each ear. Mister Red allowed several days' stubble on his chin and had a symbol comprised of interlocking circles that looked vaguely Celtic tattooed on his forearm.
The driver was a tall Prowler with dark skin and a goatee. He wore no sunglasses but his eyes were glazed and dead. In the front passenger seat was a female whose raven black hair was stylish and short. Everything about her spoke of power, but a human sort of power. She was a Prowler, no doubt of that, but from the jut of her chin and the cut of her suit, it was clear she was a professional in every sense. Bill guessed that in her human guise she was a lawyer. There was just something about the way she carried herself.
They were silent as the car moved south. Bill had a feeling he knew where they were going, but he said nothing to disturb the quiet. Rather he stared out the window at the darkened streets of Manhattan, at the store fronts flashing by. The City That Never Sleeps, he thought. And it was true, there was activity even this late, after hours parties and all night delis. But by three a.m., it seemed, the witching hour had finally come to Manhattan. The city might never sleep, but Bill guessed it nodded off now and again.
He shifted his weight and felt Mister Blond and Mister Red stiffen in alarm on either side of him. Bill ignored them. He wished desperately for a shower. Not that he smelled particularly bad, but after the time he had spent locked in that ancient subway car he felt filthy. The only saving grace was that in a painfully transparent pretense of good will, Jasmine had sent one of her pack to fetch his suitcase, so he had clean clothes to wear. Of course, that was probably the same time they had decided to use his car.
My car, he thought again, jaw tight with the urge to hurt them. But he would do nothing to put Olivia's life in further jeopardy. The weight of his situation was heavy upon his shoulders and he knew there would be no clean way out of it. The time he had spent in that hole in the ground had been filled with regret and fear and rage as he tried to figure a better way to resolve this mess, a way that would leave everyone he loved alive, even if it cost his own life.
Bill scratched at his beard and Mister Red twitched. From the front seat, the lawyer slid sideways to regard him more closely. There was a kind of sparkle in her eyes as though the entire scene amused her, and it only added to the fire of his rage. The driver remained completely impassive, behaving as though he were alone in the car.
As Bill had guessed, the Oldsmobile pulled up at the curb in front of the Voodoo Lounge. The lawyer and Mister Blond stepped out onto the street and stood waiting for Bill. He hesitated a moment and Mister Red lashed out, grabbed a handful of Bill's hair, and slammed his forehead into the door frame. Bill felt the other Prowler's breath, hot and fetid with the stench of raw meat, on the back of his neck.
"We're not supposed to kill you. Doesn't mean we can't hurt you. Jasmine picked us for this 'cause she knows we don't give a shit who your daddy was. Get out of the car."
Bill felt a ripple of tension pass all through him, his muscles tightening beneath the dark green wool sweater he wore. But he kept the beast quiet within him, kept stillborn the growl that threatened to rise in his throat. With a single grunt he stepped out of the car, crossed his arms and simply stood there, breathing in the cold, fresh air of that October night.
"This way," the lawyer said, her tone as sharp as the creases in her suit.
The driver stayed in the car as Bill followed her up the steps, flanked by Mister Blond and Mister Red. The doors opened before they reached them, and it was clear someone had been watching for them. Once they were inside, the doors closed again, and Bill was nearly overwhelmed by the smell of Jasmine's pack, and of many other Prowlers. Down in the subway lair, the wind passed through so much that the scent was not as powerful. But here, in this enclosed space dedicated to music and dancing and sweating, the musk of his kind seemed to hang heavy around them like the dampness of the air before a thunderstorm. It spoke to the wild in him, and Bill felt something shift in his mind as though he were suddenly looking back at himself from the opposite side of the mirror.
This time he could not stop the growl low in his throat. He crouched slightly and padded into the club with his guards on either side of him. The Voodoo Lounge was a wide open space with a bar on either side and a low stage on the far end of the room opposite the doors. Support beams jutted up from the center of the room to the high, arched ceilings giving the place an almost church-like feel. Around the beams were cushioned benches that matched those along the walls, but there were no tables or chairs in the rest of the club. That was not what the club was for.
Above his head were rows of heavy arrays of spots and colored lights aimed at the stage. They creaked on cables that hung from the ceiling, and swayed though there was no breeze inside. There was a rustle in the balcony behind him and Bill did not have to turn to know there were Prowlers there. He had their scent. Four of them, and others in the stairwells off to the side. Others were in the process of cleaning the floor and the bar areas, but they paused as he came in.
His hackles rose and he paused. Mister Red prodded him on and
it was all Bill could do to restrain himself from tearing the Prowler's hand off.
They crossed the enormous room and the lawyer nodded to Mister Blond and Mister Red before disappearing through a door to one side of the stage. Bill kept his gaze resolutely forward and refused to look at any of them. They were beneath his contempt and he wanted them to know it.
Then that stage door opened again, but it was not the lawyer returning. It was Jasmine. She wore black leather pants and a silk shirt the color of cinnamon, the color of her skin. Her auburn hair was a calculated mess and her orange eyes were as remarkable as ever. A kind of invisible aura emanated from her so that her presence was palpable; it might have been called charisma if not for the darkness in it.
She smiled when she saw him. "Hello, Guillaume. Happy to be free again?"
He narrowed his eyes. "Free?"
Jasmine gave a carefree toss of her head. "You saw the sky. It's something, after all. Not to worry, though. It won't be long before you and your Olivia can be reunited, the last of the Navarre line together at last."
A chill passed through him, but Bill did not flinch. "Good."
A mischievous grin flickered across her features. "Oooh, you're so unflappable. And so quiet. You don't want to know what's happened? Why you've been brought here?"
Bill stared gravely at her.
Mister Blond slapped the back of his head. "Answer her!"
He exploded then into a single moment of violence so swift none of them had time to react. Bill rounded on Mister Blond and struck him with one huge fist. The force of the impact cracked the bone in Mister Blond's cheek and drove him to the floor. There was an uproar as Mister Red and several of the other Prowlers nearby changed and lunged for him.
"Stop!" Jasmine shouted.
The beasts halted at her command. Only Jasmine herself had not changed, her cinnamon skin still unblemished. In a room full of animals, she and Bill faced one another. No claws, no fangs, no fur. Bill met her gaze, then turned and spat at the Prowler on the ground.
Prowlers: Wild Things Page 17
