by Tim Myers
“Well, it looks like you were wrong, doesn’t it?” I reached into my pocket and retrieved the gun I’d taken from Sue Ellen. I put it in his hands. “You don’t have a gun, do you?”
He tried to give it back to me, and when I refused, he dropped it on his desk. “You know I don’t, and I don’t want one now.”
“Yes, you do. I can’t watch over you all the time, and Harkins might be back for more serum. Is it permanent, or does it wear off after a while?”
“It wears off, eventually.”
“I don’t suppose you know how long it takes, do you?”
He frowned. “No, I’m not sure. My studies were interrupted before I could conclude my testing.”
As I headed for the door, Bailey asked, “You’re not going after him, are you? If Harkins took some of the serum, he could be extremely dangerous.”
“That’s what I’ve got to find out first then, isn’t it? Write Kyle Porter’s address down on a piece of paper for me. I need to talk to him before I keep looking for Harkins. I’ve got to know what I’m going up against.”
“I’m sorry, Jacob,” Bailey said as he did what I asked and handed me the slip of paper.
“So am I. I just hope I can fix it.”
I didn’t need a score-sheet to know what must have happened when I found Dalton at the address Bailey had just given me for Kyle Porter.
There was no sense hiding my presence. I approached Dalton and said, “I don’t even need to ask, do I? Kyle Porter’s dead, isn’t he?”
Dalton nodded. “His landlord called in. What are you doing here?”
It was time to lie to Dalton again. I didn’t want him-or any of the police force-to start patrolling Dogtown looking for some kind of super wolf on a homicide tear. “He was Bailey’s assistant, and when Porter didn’t show up for work, Bailey asked me to look in on him.”
Dalton accepted it, but I had to remember to bring Bailey up to speed on my story. If there was one thing I knew about Dalton, it was that he was thorough.
He explained, “The kid was late with his rent, and the landlord was looking for some other kind of payment in the apartment when he found the body. It’s pretty nasty, even for Dogtown.”
“Was his throat ripped out?”
Dalton shook his head. “I don’t even know how to describe it. Come on, you might as well see this for yourself.”
I followed him into the apartment, past a few cops who looked like they wanted to put me down on the spot. It wasn’t like the attitude wasn’t something I wasn’t used to. Most norms felt that way about my kind.
Inside, the kitchen looked normal enough, with a half eaten bowl of cereal still sitting on the table. That was where normalcy ended, though. In the bedroom, I saw what was left of Bailey’s former lab assistant. His head had been raggedly torn from his torso, and the jagged edges of the wound were clear enough to see from across the room. The killer hadn’t stopped there, though. Arms and legs were thrown around like broken tree limbs in a storm. Whoever had done it hadn’t just wanted Kyle dead; he’d wanted to make some kind of statement.
“He’s crazy,” I said.
Dalton nodded. “You know who did this, don’t you?”
“I have an idea.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Who’s at the top of your list?”
Should I lie, or tell him the truth? Keeping Harkins’ identity secret had been one thing when all I had were suspicions, but this bloodshed suddenly made it very real. “If I had to guess, I’d say Matthew Harkins did it.”
Dalton nodded. “That’s my guess, too.”
His answer shocked me. “How’d you know about him?”
The detective shook his head. “Believe it or not, I do actual real police work around here now and then. I’ve heard the rumors around Dogtown about him being on some kind of warpath. You’re after Harkins too, aren’t you?”
I nodded. There wasn’t any reason for confidentiality now. If Jennifer Granger was still alive, it would be a miracle on the order of parting the Red Sea. I had a feeling I was looking for her body now, and her killer.
Dalton frowned at me. “You could have told me that this morning.”
“I could have told you a lot of things, but I didn’t think it was prudent,” I said.
“So why decide to tell me know?”
I gestured around the apartment. “It’s escalated to something I don’t feel good about keeping quiet. There’s something else you should know. Harkins is tougher than you think. He’s on something.” I couldn’t give Bailey and his magic elixir up, but I couldn’t send Dalton after him blind, either. There had to be a fine line there somewhere, and I was adamant about dancing across it.
Dalton rubbed his forehead gently. “What’s he on, horse tranqs?” It had become a common way to get high in our part of town-getting doped up on horse tranquilizers-and a werewolf was twice as tough to subdue when he was stoned.
“Something worse,” I said.
“It sounds like you’ve got some inside information,” Dalton said.
“I’m just guessing, from something I heard. You should be careful if you run into him.”
He stared at me, then must have realized that was all he was going to get. “Anything else you decide you want to share, you’ve got my number. Now take off. I’ve got work to do.”
After I left the crime scene, I realized I hadn’t said a word about my client, or why I was hunting Harkins myself. It wasn’t that hard a decision to keep it from the detective. If Dalton found out a werewolf had abducted a norm and brought her to Dogtown, the full weight of the police force would fall on us, and they wouldn’t care who got crushed. I had to keep looking for Harkins on my own, and Sue Ellen had given me a place I could check.
But first, it was time to get some reinforcements, then go see if I could track Harkins down in his lair. I had a pair of friends I called on whenever I got in over my head, and if I ever needed backup, this was it.
I found Jim Valentine first. We’d grown up together, and I’d watched him endure the double whammy of being born February 14th and inheriting the surname Valentine from his old man. Kids stopped joking about his name in the seventh grade when he grew six inches and put on fifty pounds. Nobody made fun of his birthday or his last name anymore.
He was at the gym, a place he’d hung out in since high school. It was a mix of the old style gymnasium with free weights and barbells, but the owner had added some of the universal machines, but we never used them. Jim owned a couple of businesses around town; I was his best friend and even I didn’t know everything he was into. The only office I knew he had was on the weight bench. I worked out there, too whenever I got the chance, but Jim was sculpted into his peak shape. He was working the free weights, lifting the equivalent of a small car over his head with ease, while a gallery of onlookers watched. As always, his thick brown hair was perfectly in place, something he really prided himself on.
I waited until his workout was finished, then grabbed a clean towel from the stack and tossed it to him, not that he needed it. He hadn’t even broken out into a sweat during his routine, and I wondered how much of it had been for his audience, and how much for the training.
“I didn’t realize you were doing matinees now,” I said.
He smiled. “Nobody likes free weights anymore. It’s all belts and pulleys. When you actually lift something over your head, people tend to notice.”
“Some people actually believe that you can still get a good workout that way,” I said. “I don’t mean me, but some people think it’s true.”
“Yeah,” he said as he flexed his biceps, “but you can’t impress a crowd that way. What’s up? I hear you’re in your usual jam around town.”
“Word gets around fast in Dogtown, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged. “I know a few cops, and when your name comes up in anything official, they give me a call. So, did you finally get sick of his whining and whack Tommy Grace?”
“I didn’t, but it see
ms that somebody else took care of it for me.”
He shrugged. “You had reason enough yourself, so I wouldn’t have held it against you.” That was Jim, a natural born pragmatist.
I hated asking, so it was best just to blurt it out. “I need your help.”
He smiled. “Can I take a shower first, or can’t this wait?”
I nodded. “Yeah, if you need to, go right ahead, but you might get your hands dirty on this one.”
Jim shrugged. “So, no shower, then. Let me throw on some clothes and I’m ready.”
“Don’t you want to know what it’s about first?”
He shook his head. “I don’t need to. You want my help, you’ve got it. You’ve asked me, what, four times in our lives to help you out? I’ve leaned on you at least thirty, so I figure whatever it is, I’m in.”
I’d hesitated telling him who else I was asking, since Jim and Bowen didn’t get along. “There’s going to be three of us,” I said softly.
Jim looked like he wanted to spit. “You sure the two of us can’t handle it? We don’t need your thug friend around.”
I would have loved to defend Bowen, but Jim was right. He was a thug at times-a werewolf who crossed the line more than he had any right to survive-but the two of us had formed a mutual trust, though there wasn’t a great deal of friendship to it. Still, we needed all the manpower we could get. “Yeah, I’m afraid we do. Can you two get along until this is over?”
“I won’t start anything if he doesn’t.”
“That’s good enough for me,” I said.
Jim got dressed, then met me out front.
At my car, I asked, “Do you have a gun, or do you need to borrow one?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Okay, so it’s that kind of favor, is it?”
“Yeah. You can back out if you want to. I won’t think any less of you.”
He shook his head. “You won’t, but I will. I think I’ve got something that should work.” He went to the trunk of his Cadillac and rooted around in it for a minute. I saw him tuck a 9 mm into his jacket as he straightened up. “Let’s go. You drive. I don’t want your buddy in my car.”
“Jim, you said you’d be nice.”
“Hey, he’s not here yet, is he?” Jim looked around. “Where is he, anyway?”
“We have to go get him, but I’ve got a pretty good idea where he is.”
Jim didn’t look pleased by the news. “Great. Now we have to go slumming. Let’s get this over with. I can’t wait to hear what’s so bad you need both of us.”
As we got into my car, I said, “I can tell you know, if you want.”
He waved a hand in the air. “No, save your breath. You’ll just have to go over it all again when we pick your buddy up.”
I parked in front of Jasmine’s, the restaurant Bowen’s sister owned. She was his only real tie to the world, and if something ever happened to her, I wouldn’t want to be the one who had to answer to Bowen for it. His presence there gave her a modicum of protection that even the mobbed-up werewolves wouldn’t violate. Bowen was bad, and everyone in Dogtown knew it.
He had light blond hair, an oddity among brothers of the Wolf, and some folks said that was part of what gave him such a deadly air. Most of us hid our scars, but Bowen’s were proudly on display. He’d been in enough fights to kill a dozen werewolves- in both his forms-but no one had managed to bring him down yet, and I hoped they never did.
“Want some coffee?” he said when he saw me walk in.
“I’m in some trouble, and I need your help.”
He nodded. “No coffee, then.” Bowen called out to his sister Jasmine, “I’ll be back.”
She was an attractive woman without her brother’s unusual coloring, but you could see the resemblance between them. Jasmine’s gaze was guarded, as if she’d been hurt by one too many men. Her thick brown hair went nearly to her waist, and it was always pulled carefully back into one long ponytail.
She looked at me, then back at him. “Be careful.”
“I always am.”
Before we got to the door, I said softly, “Jim Valentine is with me. I need you both for this.”
He nodded. “Then it must be bad. Don’t worry, I’ll play nice.”
The two men nodded to each other as Bowen slipped into the back seat of my car. I didn’t even have to ask him if he was armed. Under his jacket, I knew he was carrying more hardware than a gun shop. I hoped we didn’t need it, but I would have been crazy not to bring him along with us. Harkins alone would have been a handful, but hopped up on Bailey’s serum, who knew if we had enough firepower, even now?
It was time to explain what we were going to do. “We’re going into an abandoned house after Matthew Harkins. He kidnapped a norm girl, and she’s underage. Her folks hired me to find her, so it would be a good thing if we could save her while we’re here.”
“If she’s with Harkins, she’s already dead,” Bowen said.
“You don’t know that,” Jim said.
“No, but I know Harkins.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “He’s juiced up on some kind of drug Bailey was working on.”
That got Bowen’s attention. “What kind of drug?”
“It turned him into some kind of superwerewolf,” I said.
Jim tensed beside me, but Bowen just laughed. “That explains the three of us for one werewolf.” He reached a hand forward to Jim and said, “How about a truce until we finish this business for your friend?”
Jim thought about it longer than I would have liked, but Bowen kept his hand out and Jim finally shook it.
“Good, glad we got that settled. Now, what’s the plan?” Bowen asked.
“We go in with our guns drawn, and bring him down if we have to.”
Bowen laughed. “Oh, we’re going to have to, you can count on that.”
Jim just nodded. I felt a little bad involving them, but I’d seen what Harkins had done to Bailey’s assistant, and I needed them both with me when I tackled someone capable of that kind of atrocity.
I parked behind an abandoned store a block from the address Sue Ellen had given me. “We go the rest of the way on foot.”
As the three of us got out, I looked around. We were in the worst part of the worst section of Dogtown, and I doubted a cop had been within a mile of the place in twenty years. It was an area where the only law was that of the jungle. It was eat or be eaten, and I wasn’t planning on being on anyone’s menu today. A light mist was falling, and the sky was full of gloom. Though it was barely past two in the afternoon, there was murkiness to the air that made it feel closer to midnight. I’d come up with a thousand plans on the way over, but in the end, I decided that the best approach was the direct one. We’d come in through the front, our guns drawn, ready to deal with whatever we found.
We were finally there, and there were no sounds of anyone inside. Bowen asked softly, “Do we shift now, or wait until we get into close quarters? I’ve got silver chambered up. How about you two?”
I nodded, then asked Jim, “Do you?”
“No, I didn’t know what kind of party I was being invited to. Don’t worry about me.”
I handed him my gun. “Take this.”
“What are you going to use?”
I shifted before he finished his sentence, letting the beast within come out as much as I dared. It was dangerous shifting like that in broad daylight, and I could have been arrested for that alone, but I wasn’t about to send my friends into what could be an ambush without giving us every chance to succeed.
My reason started to fade as the beast took over. Jim started to go in first, but Bowen put a hand on his arm. He knew, better than most, that the werewolf in me had a better chance than either one of them did.
The door was locked, but a solid push with my good shoulder broke the lock. I was on all fours now, lean and sinewy, with teeth made for ripping and claws designed for slashing throats.
And it was a good thing for all of us that I was in my
werewolf form when we broke in.
Before I got through the door, a weight slammed against me, and I could feel a set of fangs closing in on my throat.
Chapter 4
There was more than one werewolf waiting for us, but I didn’t know immediately just how many were lurking in the shadows. As I fought with the one facing me, I could sense Jim and Bowen coming through the door behind me. I growled a warning, but that was all I could manage. I had my hands full with this wolf. He was trying for a quick kill, and I was doing everything in my power to stop him. As we battled, I realized that there had been three of them waiting for us, and I was very glad I’d gotten help before charging into the house. I couldn’t tell if Harkins was one of the other wolves or not, but he wasn’t the one I was facing.
I twisted in the air a split second before his teeth closed in on my throat, and kept the rotation extended until I was facing him again.
It appeared that Sue Ellen had set me up, and if I’d gone in there alone, they would have never found all the pieces of me. I’ve been used to being the quickest wolf around most of my life, but I’d met my match in this adversary. He was just as fast as me, if not faster, and if I didn’t come up with a way to put him down-and fast-this was going to be my last fight. My opponent didn’t wait to circle me as was our custom. He didn’t even hesitate as he launched himself at my throat again. It was clear he had murder on his mind, and I was going to use that to my advantage. I’d trained a part of my brain to keep hold whenever I shifted, and it was something no one else could do, at least not that I knew of. There wasn’t time to think yet, though. I was too busy saving my own life.
I shot one paw into the air as my attacker flew at me, and I managed to knock him off course from my throat, though he did hit the shoulder I was still nursing. I felt stabs of pain as he went past, and the blood began flowing freely again. I just hoped he didn’t have tainted claws, or I was going to need Bailey again, and soon.
The wound gave me an idea. Though it hurt to kneel, I did just that, favoring the shoulder he’d just hit. Was that a gleam in his eye as he watched me? I struggled upward, feigning more injury than I felt. If I could get him focused on my bad shoulder, I might have a chance to finish this. All around me, I could hear sounds of struggle, and I knew my friends needed me. But first, I had to take care of the werewolf trying to kill me. I showed him my bloody shoulder again, and just as I’d hoped, he threw himself toward me, his teeth open for a finishing blow. The second he was in the air, I rolled onto my back and shoved all four paws upward, with claws extended. He saw the trap too late, and I could see a hint of panic in his eyes as he fought to throw himself off course, but there wasn’t time to react.
