by Cutter, Leah
Maybe someone other than Kai could have found the hidden key. Maybe Caleb would have been able to sniff it out, except that it was close to the top of the door, and he probably wouldn’t have been able to reach it, even standing on hind legs.
It made her more suspicious that this was some kind of setup. Was Blind Randall up to something? Was he pissed at her for some unknown slight?
“Caleb,” Kai whispered. She didn’t need to speak loudly when he was in dog form. He loped back to her side instantly. “Did Randall ask about me?”
Caleb tilted his head to the side and his tongue lolled: the perfect picture of an innocent dog.
Except Caleb wasn’t really a dog, and even as a boy Kai doubted he’d ever been innocent.
“We’re gonna talk about this later,” Kai promised.
Caleb pawed at the door.
Kai shook her head and unlocked it. Caleb pushed ahead of her, tail out, posture guarded.
After shutting the door quietly behind her, Kai took a moment while her eyes adjusted to the dark, letting her nose and other senses map everything else: dust, wood, concrete, industrial cleaning fluids, broken ceramics, plastic, rice, and sautéed veggies, all overlaid with incense. Long lines of tall shelves rose almost to the ceiling, twenty feet above Kai’s head, with three levels on each. Dishes and ceramic goods, dusty and dirty, sat stacked on them.
Kai paused as a familiar odor tickled her nose. It was almost identical to her own scent. But that wasn’t possible. She’d never been here before. She wasn’t about to mention it to Caleb, though. First, he couldn’t actually answer her in his current form. Plus, he’d probably just suggest she use better deodorant if she was smelling herself.
The wide, garage-like doors at the front of the warehouse, big enough for a semi, rattled when a heavy truck blew by. An empty office stood to the side, filled with a massive desk covered in papers. Another door, people-sized, opened up to the street just past the office.
Above the office, a second office had been built, probably not to code given the rickety stairs leading up to it and the slant of the railing surrounding it. That was where the real business of the warehouse was conducted; the sharp tang of chemicals and cold drugs floated down.
Kai and Caleb positioned themselves halfway between the front and the back, waiting among the shelves. Caleb stretched out on the cool concrete floor, and Kai sat next to him. Her feet hurt from all the walking she’d done that day, as did her lower back. But the cool floor felt good against her bare legs. She laid a hand on Caleb’s warm, scratchy fur. She knew better than to pet him—he wasn’t a dog, no matter what he looked like.
Barely five minutes had passed before Kai smelled the intruders entering the warehouse, coming through the front door.
Shit. They were xita, like Caleb, similar, but not the same.
Kai couldn’t tease out what breed they smelled like, though she had this image of the stupid dogs from the Asian knickknack shop she’d stopped at this afternoon, suddenly coming to life.
Caleb rose slowly. Kai joined him. Silently, they made their way toward the front of the warehouse to see who’d come.
Three creatures that looked like dogs paced beside a short Asian man. He wore a simple black Chinese jacket, loose black trousers, and black slippers, like what some kind of grand kung fu master might wear. A shiny, dark red amulet, shaped like a teardrop, hung from his neck.
The dogs looked like a blend between a Chinese pug and a Rottweiler: big as ponies, sturdy, with smushed-in faces, eyes merely slits under folds of skin and fur, and brown and black coloring.
Kai sighed. She couldn’t fight them, not any of them. That had never been her style. Even if she’d trained hard, she’d always be short with delicate hands. Plus, these creatures all had great noses on them, she was certain. She couldn’t bluff her way out of here as a drunken tourist, which had been their original plan: She’d act as distraction, while Caleb came from behind and took the guys out.
Though their original plan had stunk, Kai didn’t see any choice. Three creatures and some kind of super-fighter were beyond Caleb’s wild side, no matter how ferociously he attacked.
After a last, pointed finger at Caleb—we are so gonna talk about this later—Kai pulled her hair looser out of her ponytail and opened another button on the top of her shirt.
Here went nothing.
* * *
“Say, boys,” Kai drawled as she stepped into the light at the front of the warehouse.
The dogs locked onto her immediately: They’d already smelled her and been unsettled, just unable to pinpoint her location. They stood with hackles raised like serrated blades down their spines, all black and prickly, and gold-green eyes that shone hard as stone. They growled in unison, a soft dog tone.
No wolf in any of them for all their xita blood. Kai nearly sneered.
Though the dogs had known Kai was there, the human hadn’t. Maybe he wasn’t some kind of freaky Zen master—just a wannabe. Which could be more dangerous, frankly.
He stared at Kai as she approached, but instead of questioning her or telling the dogs to attack, he bowed, then yelled commands in a foreign language that made the dogs look sheepish and tuck their tails in.
In a mixture of English and whatever other language the man spoke, he started apologizing. All Kai could catch was, “Late,” and “Sorry.”
Given his deferential manner, Kai put on her best snob. “Wrong warehouse,” she said haughtily.
“On, no, my lady, no, I beg your pardon, no, but it’s this one,” he said, pointing toward the sloping stairs going up to the second office. He also looked like he wanted to piss his pants.
Kai rolled her eyes heavenward, the universal sign of Lord, give me strength. “No, idiot. Next door. He moved everything next door.” Kai turned and walked toward the door, assuming the man and the dogs would follow.
“You’re not—you’re not her!” he proclaimed, standing stock still.
Luckily, Caleb knew an opening when he saw it.
* * *
Caleb had torn out the throat of the first dog with a vicious bite before the other two were even aware they’d been attacked. Blood spurted in a wide arc, blocking out all the other scents, even the cool night at Kai’s back. It slid like colored rain against the gray concrete floor.
The other two dogs approached Caleb slowly, heads low, snarling and growling. Kai could feel her own hackles raising.
Then Caleb growled back, a warning of death and mayhem.
Even the man paused.
Though Caleb looked like a normal husky, he wasn’t merely a dog nor a transformed human. He was truly inhuman, a pure-bred xita: the kind of thing that made people afraid of the dark and check under their beds at night.
The dogs still attacked, desperate now, wild and angry. One raced forward and ran into Caleb, chest to chest, while the other nipped at his hind legs, seeking weaknesses.
Kai couldn’t help with the massive, snarling mess. Caleb would just have to get himself out of that. She turned to the human and groaned when she saw him pulling a plain green bowl and a bag of red sparkling powder out from his jacket pockets.
A fucking spellcaster. Worse than some kind of martial artist.
Magic didn’t work. Humans—and this guy was one-hundred-percent human—couldn’t do magic. Either a person was born with special abilities, like Kai and Caleb, or they dabbled in things that regularly blew up in their face. Of course, Kai had always heard rumors that just the right spell, or the right ingredients, or the right moon phase, and the spell would do its thing.
Kai had never seen it. Every time, it had been a complete disaster.
Maybe that’s what this guy was counting on. Something to blow up right in Kai’s face.
“Oh no you don’t,” Kai said.
A yelp distracted her.
Caleb was down. Both dogs were on top of him.
Kai moved forward quickly. She had to stop the stupid magic freak first. Then she could look for a b
at or something to beat the other dogs with.
“Oh yes, my lady, I do,” the guy said, grinning at her. His black eyes had taken on a weird blue glow. He dumped the powder into the bowl and snapped his fingers. Fire sprang up in the bowl.
Kai had never seen someone do even that much magic before without spectacularly bad results, but that didn’t mean the next thing the guy tried wouldn’t go completely wrong. She grabbed for the bowl.
The guy pulled back and some of the burning powder spilled over the edge, sparking like fireworks all the way to the floor.
He yelled something in a foreign language. A name, maybe?
More yelps. Caleb was still pinned, snarling and fighting one dog. The other one had pulled away and was now looking at Kai.
Kai had a choice: out the door and maybe lose the dog in the streets, or running into the warehouse and hiding. She knew she could get away in the warren of shelves. She just had to find a good bolt hole.
But first, Kai had a magician problem. She ran forward, directly into him, mowing him down as she raced for the stacks. She’d smacked the bowl from his hands and it had tumbled onto the lowest nearby shelf, still blazing, as she took off, a giant dog on her heels.
Kai ran for the closest metal ladder, leaping up the stairs, heading for the top shelf.
A scrambling noise made her look behind her.
Of course, the fucking dog followed her. He wasn’t really a dog, was he?
Kai raced across the top shelf, the cheap plywood banging under her heels, dipping under rafters and racing around piles of pottery.
A menacing growl followed her, close, too close.
At the ladder at the end, Kai threw herself over the edge, tripping and sliding down the rungs before she caught herself and pushed onto the second shelf. She shoved at the ladder with her foot. Miraculously, it rolled away, out into the middle of the aisle.
Kai stood for a moment, panting. She heard the clicking of claws above her head, and a whine.
When Kai looked up she was a snout and two paws coming over the edge. The dog lowered its body slowly, moving in a way that dogs didn’t.
Kai searched wildly for a board or even a stick, something to hit it with.
A stack of plates sat open amongst the boxes. Tape held them together, with bits of Styrofoam between each. Kai tried using her nails but the damned tape wouldn’t break.
The low growl from the dog sent shivers down Kai’s spine. She smelled saliva, musky hound, and blood.
Kai had to get out of there.
Tearing into her bag, Kai dug out her keys and finally ripped through the tape.
Kai whirled and threw the first plate, missing the dog by a good foot.
The shattering sound of the porcelain when the plate hit the concrete below made Kai jump. Shit. Now she’d given her position away, if the other dog started hunting her.
Kai threw another plate anyway, hitting the dog solidly mid-body.
He growled again and swung himself in toward the shelf.
For a long moment the dog fell, twisting, and Kai thought he’d make it.
However, he couldn’t bring his rear legs around quick enough. Just the front paws held the shelf.
Kai moved quickly before the dog could scramble up. She brought another plate down on its head, hard. Then, with all her strength, she kicked his smooshed-in face. “Not here. Bad dog,” Kai muttered as she kicked once, twice.
With a loud whine, the dog fell back, off the shelf.
Kai scrambled to the edge and looked down.
Stupid thing hadn’t even landed where the first plate had fallen, so it hadn’t cut itself or anything. It just gave a great body shake, glared at her, then raced off toward the other ladder.
Great. He was going to climb back up.
Kai looked over the edge, calculating the distance. She couldn’t drop to the ground, not without hurting herself.
Instead, she turned back to the shelf, trying to find a weapon.
Nothing. Plates. Boxes. No handy long pole or some kind of knife.
The sound of claws against the cement made Kai stick her head back out.
Caleb looked up at her. Blood dripped from his body onto the concrete—from him or the others, Kai couldn’t tell—the black fur hid his injuries too well. But he stood solidly on all four paws and didn’t look like he needed stitches.
“What took you so long?” Kai grumbled before she made her way back down the shelf to the ladder at the other end, promising herself that after she checked Caleb for injuries she was going to inflict a few herself.
* * *
When Kai tried to lead them up the narrow space behind the warehouses so Caleb could change back, he shook his head at her, leaned back on his haunches.
“We can’t go back to the Quarter with you like that,” Kai hissed. Caleb had to change. The last thing they needed was for a cop to stop them due to some damn leash law. All she could smell was blood and fire. Hopefully, the stupid magician was burning, along with the warehouse.
Caleb took Kai’s hand gently in his mouth and tugged, wanting to go the other direction.
“Fine, fine,” Kai grumbled. “But I don’t have any money to get you out of the pound.”
Then Kai remembered she did, but she wasn’t about to tell Caleb that.
It was easy to avoid people while they still walked along warehouses, harder as they drew near the Quarter. Drunk tourists spilled out into the street, the constant party well on its way. Caleb drew them north, along the quieter, residential streets. Kai’s legs ached as the adrenaline drained out of her. How long had she walked that day? She wished they could take a cab, but they couldn’t, not with the blood-caked monster who walked beside her.
The aftermath of the rush left Kai shaky, as if coming off a caffeine high. She glared at Caleb when he bumped into her, cold blood staining her legs, until she realized she’d walked into him.
“Sorry,” Kai whispered, running her fingers along the top of Caleb’s head.
Caleb’s family owned an old shotgun house that had been divided into apartments. They rented the front to people who wouldn’t ask questions, while Caleb got the back, as well as the yard. They went into the yard first, sweet night jasmine perfuming the air. High, cinderblock walls enclosed the back, topped with rolling razor wire. Caleb led Kai to the hose. The cool water felt good against her legs, and Caleb endured her spraying him down, too.
Of course, afterward, he shook himself and sprayed her with more water.
The door on the first level was blocked off: Caleb had shown Kai the trick for breaking through it, if they were ever trapped inside. Instead, they climbed up to the second floor. Caleb insisted on going up the stairs first. Kai smelled nothing unusual but she trusted Caleb’s nose more than her own at this point.
To the side of the door, a dozen round, black sensor pads were arranged on the ground. The dog door locked automatically, and only opened when Caleb pressed the right sequence on the pads. Kai had asked why he’d needed the precaution, but he’d just growled and never answered her.
After doing his complicated dance, Caleb slipped through the dog door. A moment later, a naked and mostly human Caleb opened the door. He still bled from more than one bite. “Damn it,” Kai said, reaching for him, intending to take him to the bathroom and patch him up.
Caleb pulled Kai in, slammed the door, then slammed her against it. He kissed her, hard, desperate, and wild.
Kai held more than just Caleb’s clothes at times like this. He needed to remember his humanity, to be a man again. She kept both the outer human covering as well as the inner human.
Despite her exhaustion, Kai responded. She tried to gentle the kiss, slide the frenzy into something more calm. But her own hands were greedy, pulling Caleb closer, her questing fingers needing reassurance that he was alive and well. He’d been bleeding so badly.
Kai whined as Caleb dragged his teeth against her neck, all the nerve endings tingling, every point sparking. Hooking one leg a
round his hips, she pulled him tighter, grinding against him, letting her own wildness meet his.
Caleb pushed Kai’s skirt up roughly. Tugging her panties to one side, he opened her, sliding two fingers into her easily. Kai supported herself, pushing back against the wall, rolling her head from side to side as the fire exploded, melting what little resistance she had.
Kai howled when Caleb finally lined up and plunged inside her, that hard length scratching an unbearable itch, right there. She rode him hard, nails digging into his back, kisses interspersed with bites, holding his head back by his short hair and licking at wound on his neck.
It was frantic, animalistic, and just what they both needed.
Kai’s climax came crashing down on her before she was ready, making her buck madly, shoving herself down on Caleb’s cock, trying to fill herself further.
Caleb wasn’t far behind, picking her up under her arms and slamming her back down hard enough to jar her teeth before he bit down on her shoulder, stiffening as he pumped everything into her.
They stayed like that for a moment, panting against each other, before Caleb growled again. He swung Kai around without letting her go, carrying her easily to the bed.
Then they started all over again, though this time, with more gentle kisses and human passion.
Chapter Three
The poorly balanced ceiling fan beat a steady breeze down on Kai as she slowly woke, but it barely kept the heat at bay. Gauzy, auburn curtains filtered the gray morning light, softening the rough edges of Caleb’s secondhand, marked-up, scarred dresser and shelves. Kai just sighed at the silver crucifix hanging next to the closet door, knowing without looking that a wooden cross hung just behind her, over the plain, 1950s-style headboard.
Caleb had added yet another set of pictures to the photos that covered the remaining space; Kai remembered him talking about his aunt’s barbeque last month. Family, friends, and festivals were all represented in the colorful collage, but there weren’t any pictures of dogs, or even animals: This was a human sanctuary.
Of course, Caleb wasn’t in the bed beside her.
