It was a quarter after nine and they had been inside for nearly an hour already. Thornbush was late going on and each minute that ticked by before the music started was another notch up the paranoia scale for him. The crush of humans and Prowlers — he made a game of trying to guess which was which — mingled their sweat and pheromones. They were counting on that to keep Jasmine from being able to sort their scents out of the hundreds of others stewing together in The Voodoo Lounge. As far as they knew, she was the only one among her pack they had ever encountered before, the only one who would be able to recognize their scents.
Their faces, though, that was something else. Jasmine would likely have given descriptions to her pack. Winter and Olivia had insisted that most humans looked much alike to Prowlers, for they never focused too long on their own false faces. Still, better safe than sorry.
Before coming to The Voodoo Lounge, Jack and Molly had changed their appearances. The bouncers had not given her a second glance, nor had they paid any attention to Jack; not even to card them. Apparently the owners of the club weren't terribly concerned about getting busted for serving minors.
Now Jack stared at her and marveled at how completely different Molly looked. They stood together by the bar to the right of the stage and held abandoned drinks they had snatched off the counter, unwilling to directly address the bartender, but wanting to blend in. Though Molly's gaze drifted around the club as she surreptitiously scanned the place for Bill, Jack could barely keep his eyes off her. With a quick dye-wash, Molly had bleached her wild red hair a golden blond, saved for a pair of tightly twisted pigtails that hung down on either side of her face. These had been dyed purple.
Her hair was pulled back into a tight tail with half a dozen rubber bands, evenly spaced, so that it looked more like rope than anything else. Though she normally wore little makeup, a lavender eyeshadow had been daubed liberally under rather than over her eyes. She wore a silk shirt tied in a knot beneath her breasts to show off her gently sloping belly, and she wore black leather pants supplied by Olivia's roommate, Mags.
As he watched, she swirled the ice in her appropriated glass and glanced up at him. She blushed slightly and then glared at him.
"You're staring. Do I look that ridiculous?" she whispered, leaning in close to be heard over the music.
Jack smiled and moved closer to her, sliding his arm around her waist. "You kidding? You look amazing. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad the dye job's gonna wash out. But in the for-one-night-only category? You look smokin'."
A sly smile spread across her features and Molly turned away, trying to keep a straight face.
"What?" Jack asked, frowning.
Molly shook her head, but he poked her in the ribs.
"Nothing," she said. "Just sorry it's going to take longer for you to look like you again."
Jack opened his mouth but no reply came out. He couldn't exactly be offended, since he agreed with her completely. With his sister's help, he had cut his hair. Shaved it, more like. There was little more than an inch of hair left on his scalp. At the same time, he had kept the beard stubble on his face, using a razor to shape it so that it seemed like something he had done on purpose.
He had temporary tattoos up and down his forearms, and wore an extremely tight blue cotton shirt and leather pants to match Molly's. Never in his life had he imagined circumstances in which he would have put on a pair of leather pants without a gun to his head, but here he was. From a certain perspective, he knew that both he and Molly looked good, save for the scratch on his cheek. It was healing, but the wound was still obvious to anyone who looked at him. And yet, that was the point. Jasmine and her pack would be looking for them to try to be unobtrusive, inconspicuous. To hide.
Instead, they were doing the opposite. Hiding in plain sight. Instead of wearing some sort of a disguise that would cover their features in hopes of going unnoticed, they had altered their features in such a way as to attract attention. And they did. Neither of them was really comfortable with the kind of looks they were getting from the guys and girls who passed them, but that was the very idea of it.
In unconscious imitation of Molly, Jack swirled the melting ice in his glass and scanned the club again. No sign of Jasmine or Bill, not yet, but in the crush inside The Voodoo Lounge it was not going to be easy to spot anyone.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, his gaze fell upon his sister's face. Courtney looked slick and stylish, hair and clothes perfect, not like a club kid at all. Bowden was at her side, and Courtney leaned into him as though the two of them were semi-drunken lovers. The Prowlers would have their eye out for a woman with a cane, and so Courtney had left hers behind, using Bowden to keep from stumbling. Jack had been terrified to have her along, but she loved Bill and had already gotten her hands dirty in her quest to find and free him. He wasn't about to tell her to stay behind; as if she would have listened.
Besides, she had a role to play in this. They needed her.
Jack smiled at his sister. Her eyes gleamed in the semi-dark club and a kind of electrical charge passed between them.
"I saw her," Courtney said, voice tight, her face a bit pale.
"Jasmine?" Jack mouthed silently.
Courtney nodded.
"Where?" Molly asked.
As surreptitiously as possible, Courtney inclined her head to indicate the opposite side of the room, the bar across from them, the whole club between them. Jack did not want to stare, but he could not help himself. He peered into the crowd, trying to see over heads and between bodies. The house lights were a golden glow like the light of a full moon upon them. On the stage, the roadies worked in darkness now to prepare the stage. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught Jack's attention. Someone carried a microphone stand out to the edge. A moment later, another, larger figure carried out a crate that looked as though it might be a platform for the performers to stand on for solos or something. The crate was placed on the edge of their side of the stage, perhaps fifteen feet from where Jack stood.
He gazed again over the heads of the crowd, trying to see the other side. Dozens of people were milling around the bar, clustering there in an attempt to get drinks before the show started. There were two bartenders on either side and he could see the two over there, eyes down, working quickly, grumbling. He knew how they felt from experience. Rows of bottles behind the bar glistened in the soft golden glow of the house lights.
Then, to the right, in the far corner of the club near the other side of the stage, a kind of clearing appeared in the crowd and Jack noticed a block of grim-faced men and women who did not move to the beat of the piped-in music, who did not speak to one another, who only stared out at the sea of faces in the audience. They were a living wall, blocking off sight of whatever lay behind them like the entourage of some Hollywood celebrity.
"Over there," he said, just loud enough for Molly, Courtney and Bowden to hear.
One by one, they all glanced over and then turned away, not wanting to be too obvious about it.
"We can't be sure of that," Molly told him.
"I'm sure," Jack replied. He glanced at Courtney. "You ready?"
"Does it matter?" she asked.
Again, some spark passed between them, some silent thing that defined who they were as a family.
"No," Jack said, unsmiling. "It doesn't." He turned his gaze upon Bowden, and was distressed to see how afraid the Prowler seemed. Not that Jack blamed him. There was more on the line this night than merely their lives. The fallout from such a conflict could reveal the Prowlers' existence to the public, destroying the chance any of them had at living peacefully amongst humanity.
Somehow, despite his feelings for Bill, Jack couldn't summon too much sympathy. But he understood the trepidation he saw in Bowden's features.
Still, it was happening. And it was happening now.
"Let's do it."
Bowden nodded once, then reached under Courtney's chin, lifted her face to his, and kissed her. Jack bristled and he could see Courtney
stiffen awkwardly. But this was the signal they had agreed on.
A strangled cry erupted from the middle of the club, perhaps fifty feet away, back toward the entrance. It ululated, going on and on, and voices were raised in alarm as the patrons of The Voodoo Lounge decided if they wanted to move away from that spot or closer in to get a better view.
Mags, Bowden's roommate, had been watching him. The kiss had told her it was time for her to do her part. Though he could not see her, Jack knew that she had fallen to the floor and begun to simulate convulsions as though she were having some sort of seizure. He smiled at the image, the oldest diversion in the world.
But Jasmine and her pack would immediately assume it was Olivia, or even him and Molly. And, as he expected, Prowlers with dangerous looks on their human faces pushed through the crowd quickly, tearing people away to get a peek.
"Do it," Jack said again, voice low.
Bowden seemed laid back and amiable, almost a slacker Prowler. But before Jack had even completed the second syllable, he was in motion, swift and deadly. With all eyes on Mags' performance at the center of the club, he leaped over the bar brandishing a wicked-looking hunting knife in his left hand. The blade had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, like a magician's sleight of hand. But there was nothing magical about what happened next.
With the music and the shouting and the crush of voices, Bowden slipped silently up behind the nearest bartender and slit his throat. The dead Prowler began to change even as he grabbed at his throat, but Bowden drove him to the floor, out of sight behind the bar. An instant later, Jack saw Bowden lunge upward, wrap a powerful arm around the second bartender's neck and drag him down as well.
"Jesus," Molly whispered in his ear.
Jack ran a hand over the thick stubble on his skull and glanced at her, seeing in her wide, haunted gaze what he imagined was a reflection of his own. Then he turned to look at Courtney.
His sister was no longer standing beside him. In the moment he had been looking at Molly, Courtney had climbed over the bar and taken up a place there. She grabbed a rag and began wiping down the counter, moving away from them, not even meeting Jack's eyes.
Further along the bar, Bowden did the same. Anyone looking at the bar from across the club, even walking up to it to get a drink, might notice that the staff had changed, but beyond that, they would have no idea that two inhuman beasts had just been slain. Jack knew that despite the odors of sweat and beer and perfume in the club, it was only a matter of time before one of the Prowlers caught the scent of the blood.
They would just have to hurry.
"All right!" a voice shouted. "Get the hell out of the way!"
Two huge bouncers, Jack figured they had to be Prowlers, lifted Mags off the floor and carried her, legs flailing, toward the exit. She protested, screaming that she had paid to get in, swearing and cussing, and everyone in The Voodoo Lounge watched the spectacle as she was physically tossed out the front door. No one made a move to stop it.
Jack scanned the club again, looked up, nervously, at the stage, and then across at the clutch of bodyguard types whom he was certain were shielding Jasmine. Two grim-faced members of that living wall had let curiosity get the better of them. They had stepped forward and craned their necks to try to see what the ruckus had been about.
Past them, sitting on the bench that ran along the walls of the club, he saw a mane of straight, blood red hair and a flash of smooth copper skin. Jasmine was stunning as always, dressed all in red like some dark and brutal goddess come to Earth. She wore a look of annoyed impatience as she whispered to a male who knelt on the ground before her as though bowing to a queen. Beside her, seated on the bench, Jack saw Bill.
"Molly," Jack said, voice a harsh rasp.
She moved to his side and squeezed his arm, letting him know that she had seen them as well.
Jack tried to mentally will Bill to look at him, but to no avail. There was only a moment when he could see his friend's face, and Bill was quite pointedly studying those nearest him in the crowd. Looking for a familiar face, Jack thought. It's time you got to see one.
Then, just as the pack began to gather around their Alpha and her prisoner again, about to block Jack's view once more, Jasmine glanced across the bar. Her orange eyes gleamed in the dim light as they focused on him. Jasmine narrowed her eyes, obviously not recognizing him but clearly wondering who this was who was staring at her.
Jack smiled.
He waved.
Jasmine could not believe what she had seen. Her pack moved closer around her, blocking out her view of the guy standing in front of the bar on the other side of the club. In her mind's eye, she tried to lay an image of Jack Dwyer over the face she had just seen. The scrub of bristly hair on his scalp, the shadow of a beard on his chin. No way to pick his scent out of all these mingling odors.
But that smile.
And he waved.
A flicker of anxiety, even trepidation, passed through her as she thought of all the stories she had heard about this hunter in the past months. But she had been there at the beginning, before the stories had been told. He and his mate, Molly, had killed Tanzer and nearly killed Jasmine herself, but they were only humans.
Only humans.
Why, then, did her trepidation not fade? That was the question she truly wished an answer for. Jasmine snarled, reached within her own heart, her own mind, and pushed those feelings away. They were replaced in an instant by the rage and hatred she had been kindling since that very night. She could picture it in her mind even now, the gunfire as the police moved in on their lair, herself and Tanzer forced to flee to the rooftop of a nearby hotel. Working their way down through the hotel, furious but also exulting in their escape, their freedom. Only to be ambushed at the door by this boy and his girl, these human children who were armed with guns and luck and had no fear that she could see.
And somewhere, down deep, a part of her wondered if that wasn't what gave her pause. She remembered that night so well, and she had not seen any fear in Dwyer or the girl. No fear. Jack the Giant-Killer, some of the whispers called him. But he had killed Tanzer, had created his own myth, and for her to achieve all she dreamed, she had to avenge that murder, and remove Jack Dwyer as an obstacle once and for all. And if he had built himself a myth, all the better, for that would make her slaughter of the boy all the more impressive to the wild ones. Jasmine would turn his reputation to her own purposes.
Damned child, Jasmine thought. You'll watch your mate die, just as I did.
"What's the matter?" Guillaume Navarre asked at her side. There was a playful tone in his voice, almost mocking. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Her lips curled and she growled at him, though only softly. Jasmine rose and pushed through the gathered members of her pack, sniffing the air and trying to see if Dwyer was still at the other bar, and who else was with him. She thought she spotted the back of his close-shaven head, and she started for him.
Then the house lights went down, and The Voodoo Lounge was plunged into near total darkness.
The music on the sound system cut off abruptly. In the darkness, Bill tried to see past the Prowlers who had gathered all around him, Jasmine's pack, to see where she had gone. His skin prickled with the body heat in the club and the urge to change, to yield to the wild fury that wanted to tear loose from within him. Somewhere in the club, he knew that Jack and Molly were about to start something. Nothing else would have garnered such a reaction from Jasmine. If either of their lives were endangered, he would be forced to act. But if he did, he would forfeit the life of his niece, the only blood relation he had left on Earth.
"It's a hell of a night, boys and girls," came a voice from all around.
No, Bill thought. From the stage. He glanced up there and saw six figures in the dark, shadows against shadows. Thornbush, he thought. And the band played on.
The crowd surged toward the stage, clustering there, whistling and applauding and shouting their support. Bill was jostled
by Alec, Jasmine's mate, as the slender, dangerous beast uncoiled from the ground and tried to follow his lover.
"Jasmine?" Alec called. "Jas?"
On the stage, a drumbeat began, a thunderous, marching rhythm that seemed almost a call to arms. The bass guitar began to fill the gaps in the beat with a jazzy syncopation that should not have worked, but somehow did. These girls were good. Bill looked up at the still-darkened stage again.
"The rain's falling, the wind's howling. Winter's around the corner, but we thought maybe we could heat things up in here!" shouted the female voice, an echo filling the room. Too much reverb.
Then the bass and drum cut off abruptly. There was a moment of utter silence in The Voodoo Lounge, and then a beautiful, lilting acoustic guitar filled the club, as a figure on stage picked out clear, strong notes that were part blues, part folk, part rock. In the dark, the crowd was enraptured, and the guitar picking went on for nearly half a minute. Then with a single, strummed note, she stopped, and Bill could see the girl toss back her hair.
The stage lights came up, the drummer brought her sticks down in a single beat, and then the band roared into an electric, shuffling rhythm with a jazz melody laid over it, a fusion of musical styles that was instantly engaging.
But Bill was no longer listening to the music.
He was staring at the girl on stage with the electric acoustic slung around her shoulders. Her long black hair draped across her eyes as she picked away at the guitar strings, swaying and grinding to the beat.
Olivia.
Bill Cantwell — Guillaume Navarre — smiled, but only for a moment. For centuries he had controlled the beast, practiced holding it in. Never in all his life had he so relished setting his wild heart free. With a low growl that built in his chest, Bill stretched and his muscles shifted and expanded. With a shudder, he felt his snout push out from his face, his fangs multiplying, sharp and gnashing. He tore through his false human skin as though it was a prison of flesh and it flaked away like so much dust, leaving only the fur behind.
Prowlers: Wild Things Page 21
