Marked Clan #2 - Red

by Maurice Lawless

  Connor was busy in the private room, so I walked onto the floor to greet him. He was very tall, well over six feet, and built like a wrestler. Scars ran up his neck like he’d been burned and had skin grafts. I tried not to stare.

  “Evening. What can we do for you?”

  He spoke with a rumbling voice that sounded like he’d smoked most of his life. I backed toward the counter when I finally saw his eyes. They were amber. He cracked a smile and showed me teeth much too large for a human face.

  “I’m looking for something in a tattoo,” he said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a dagger very similar to the one Slate gave me. “I took the liberty of bringing my own tools.”

  I felt the counter ram into my back and rang the little bell next to the register. Nothing happened. Where was Connor? No clit piercing was that important.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” the man said. “We’re not to be disturbed. I’ve made sure of that.”

  I whipped myself around the counter and reached for the gun Connor kept there. It wasn’t silver, but a headshot would disorient him enough to get to my pens upstairs. Maybe.

  “Someone call for help?” a woman’s voice said. I looked over and saw Connor’s latest client, naked from the waist down and holding the grown man like a rag doll. It was Laurie Loveless, from the derby bout. How the hell did I let her past me? Was I that distracted?

  “What did you do to him, bitch?” I screamed at her.

  “He’s still alive,” the man said. He didn’t advance any more, just stood there with his arms crossed, tapping the dagger against his shoulder. “We don’t like to kill if we don’t have to. But that’s not really a problem for you, is it PJ?”

  I pulled out the gun and fired. It should have been pretty much point blank—he was only a few feet away—but by the time the second bullet left the barrel he was behind me, pulling my shoulder out of its socket. I dropped the gun.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Donald Patterson,” he said. His English was just a little bit too unaccented, which made me think he had worked to lose it. Why?

  “Tired of losing your pups, Donald?” I asked. I tried to see if Connor was hurt. The woman held him by the neck, but I didn’t see any bruising. Nothing was bent at an odd angle. He looked like he’d just passed out—or been smothered. I held my breath as I watched for his. Eventually I saw his chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm.

  “As a matter of fact, I am,” my captor said. He prodded me toward the front of the store with excruciating twists of my arm. He knew just the threshold before it popped out of the socket, and he was riding the line expertly.

  “Lauren, if you please? My hands are full.”

  The woman held the door for us and we stepped out into the night. We weren’t alone. A ring of people surrounded the front of the store, blocking off everything but an old, black Monte Carlo. Donald posed me in front of the group and spoke to them.

  “That is how you do a simple pickup, you imbeciles. How the fuck could you have screwed it up so badly? She’s practically a goddamned teenager! Now somebody show some initiative and open it up!”

  The trunk to the car popped, and I decided to hell with my shoulder. I turned so it finally dislocated, and my vision went bright with pain. I didn’t have any other weapons, so I bit down on my tongue and spat the blood at Donald’s face.

  He apparently didn’t expect it, so he didn’t dodge this time. I tried to run back into the store and the woman socked me in the jaw hard enough to drop me to the sidewalk.

  She pinned me down and one of the others bound my hands and feet. Before they slipped on a hood, Donald took my head in his hands. They scraped like concrete.

  “Oh, you have some spirit, little pup, but you’re not the first of your kind I’ve dealt with. You’re not nearly ready to take me on. There’s too much confusion in your eyes. You’ll understand all this better soon enough. Just do us a favor—don’t bleed too much.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I rode in darkness, struggling against my bonds the whole way. My wrists became slick with blood from where the ropes had rubbed my skin raw. Whoever drove must have taken lessons from Slate. Several times the car’s back wheels launched into the air and slammed me down against the floor.

  As soon as they stopped, I heard muffled voices. The trunk opened, and something pricked me in the neck. Things were already black, but I went out just the same. I woke up facedown, my cheek pressed against a cold metal surface. I tried to pick up my head, but I was strapped down. From what little I could see, it looked like a mortician’s table.

  A spotlight flipped on overhead, surrounding me with a halo of harsh yellow light. Donald stepped out from the shadows, holding the dagger he had in the shop. He wore a black robe now.

  He spoke quietly, almost in prayer. I didn’t recognize the words, but I knew the language. Poppa had tried to teach me Gaelic many times, but I just didn’t have the knack for it. Now I wished very much I’d just sat the hell down and tried harder.

  “Mother tongue of the Gaels,” Donald said finally. His usual careful speech, hiding his accent, stood in stark contrast to what he’d just said. “Still the best one for this kind of magic.”

  “What are you going to do to me?” I asked. It came out more desperate than I meant. He answered by slipping the dagger down the neck of my shirt and pulling down sharply. He hit my bra strap on the way, and soon the chill from the room crawled over my whole back.

  “Nothing your family hasn’t done for generations. We are breaking some new ground here though. I don’t believe it’s ever been done to you. I hope the spells are correct. Wouldn’t want you to die on me just yet.”

  Yet? Jesus, PJ, why the hell didn’t you keep Poppa’s gun on you in the shop? Did you just think no one would bother attacking you there? You got comfortable, that’s what it was. Too fucking comfortable. Poppa wouldn’t have made that mistake. He nearly shot Dree on the spot the second he recognized her tattoos.

  The first sting of the dagger ripped me out of my own head and back into the here and now. Donald continued reciting his prayer in Gaelic. I felt every stroke, every slit of the blade digging into my back. I’ve been cut before, but these were like nothing I’d ever felt. They burned as though the blade was white-hot. I lost track of how long he cut me.

  “That’s one,” he said, punctuating it with a deeper stab below my shoulder blade. My vision went blinding white, and then I found myself in a forest.

  I’m hallucinating from the pain. That must be it. But why can I feel the grass under my hands? The wind on my back? Why the fuck am I naked?

  If my brain had invented this world to help me escape the pain, it did a piss poor job of it. I saw a wolf step out from the shadows, and my entire body was wracked with tremors of white-hot agony. My hands and feet buckled, and I landed on my side in the grass.

  My face felt tight, and I tasted blood. The sensation only lasted a second, then my backbone snapped ramrod straight. I tried to look down at my hands, but I couldn’t see past my nose. It had grown straight out from my face. My mouth dropped open, and I felt a warm, much too large tongue flop out.

  The base of my spine cracked and re-formed, and it felt like I’d grown another arm. I cried out in horror as I felt a tail move behind me. My voice had become nothing more than inhuman growls.

  My fingers burned, then cracked and lengthened into long, sharp claws with pads underneath. A million pinpricks nipped at my skin, and I looked down to see it darken. I rolled in the grass to scratch the itches of a hundred thousand thick tufts of fur.

  When it was done, I stood on all fours and looked around. The wolf was closer now. He was much larger than me. I knew he was a male just by his scent. He looked at me, and then loped away. I wanted to follow.

  I don’t know why, but I felt my newly formed paws propel me toward him. He picked up speed, and I ran just behind. The wind in my fur was such a strange sensation.

  What the fuck are you t
hinking, PJ? Dream or not, you’re a fucking monster! This isn’t strange—it’s a goddamned abomination? Wake up!

  I did wake up just then. The room was much less quiet. Someone rammed into the table and I felt it lean precariously to the right, just on the cusp of tipping over, before it slammed back down.

  Growls and shouts from the room around me said something was not going according to plan. Donald staggered into my line of sight. He held the dagger in one hand and pulled off his cloak with the other. He wore nothing underneath.

  He meant to change.

  A gray wolf charged him, snapping for the hand with the dagger. Teeth found purchase, and Donald dropped the blade with a harsh scream. He pulled his wrist free and dropped to all fours.

  His change was much faster than the wolves I’d hunted. It came over him in a fluid wave, the wolf seeming to burn away the man in one smooth motion of a few seconds. His fur was a uniform dark brown, and he was easily twice the size of the gray wolf.

  The gray didn’t move to strike him. Instead, it lunged at the table. I cringed as best I could, but felt no teeth. Suddenly, I could move. The gray had bitten through my restraints.

  I scrambled up and off the table, not caring that my shirt stayed on it. Modesty was for people not fighting for their lives. I searched for a door, a window, anything to get away. I saw a faint glowing EXIT sign against a far wall and a square of light from a door.

  I looked back and saw Donald had the gray pinned. I couldn’t just leave them like this, could I? Rather than run for the exit, I strafed around them so I was at Donald’s back. The dagger was on the floor, forgotten in his bloodlust.

  I picked it up, turning the blade down, and plunged it with both hands into his back. I aimed for his heart, but must have missed. He didn’t immediately drop, just let go of the gray and staggered until he slammed into the wall.

  The gray barreled into me, and I flew back. My mind was a daze of confusion, and then I realized it had pushed me back toward the door. It looked at me with purpose.

  Go!

  I hadn’t so much heard it as felt it. Not it, her. The gray was female and smelled familiar. Wait. What the fuck did I just think? She smelled familiar? What did Donald do to me?

  The gray howled at me, and I pushed my way out the door. I didn’t know if any of Donald’s minions were around, so I reached back, ignored the biting pain, and covered my palm with a swath of my own blood. A hand down the gullet was just as good as an epi pen, provided it killed them before they could bite it off.

  Donald must have been some kind of egotist, because the warehouse we were in was completely empty. Apparently, he’d been so confident in his hold over me that he hadn’t kept around a second.

  I stepped out into the night and saw Dree standing next to Slate’s car. She waved me over in a panic. “Where’s Slate?” she asked.

  “That was Slate? I didn’t know. She’s still fighting with Donald. I tried to help, but she basically threw me out.”

  “I have to help her,” Dree said. She stripped out of her clothes and dropped to all fours. Her change wasn’t as fluid as Donald’s. It was slower, more fitful. It also looked like it hurt…a lot. She hadn’t exaggerated. Soon, I stood looking at a roughly woman-sized wolf with dark, multi-colored fur. Her eyes were yellow, but had a strangely human intelligence behind them.

  “He’s huge,” I said. “Be careful. Did you bring any of my pens?”

  Wolf-Dree padded over to the car and touched her muzzle to the rear passenger door, then loped back to the warehouse. I opened the door and found my bag. I grabbed one pen, then another, and finally settled on the whole thing.

  Wolf-Dree ran much faster than I could, but I found myself able to follow where she’d gone. There was a faint scent of her in the air, like walking behind someone wearing too much perfume. I didn’t have time to be scared by that.

  Just as I came back to the door, I heard sounds of a struggle, a deep growl and a startled yip. Something dropped heavily onto the floor. I pushed into the room and saw Donald, still in wolf form, standing over the prone form of Slate. Her chest was slashed open in four long rows, and she wasn’t moving.

  Donald lunged at me, but Dree intercepted him. He rolled and threw her off like she was nothing, and continued toward me. I held up a pen, and he slowed his advance.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I said. “Not so high and mighty any more, are you? Quote me some Gaelic now, big bad wolf.”

  A very rough-sounding female voice came from the other side of the room. I realized it was Slate. “You should have run, lass. For God’s sake, I took a swipe for you. GO AWAY!”

  Donald lunged, and I readied my pen. Even injured, Slate was wicked fast. She dove in between us before I had a chance to react. The downward strike of my hand sent the pen right into her shoulder. It emptied its contents into her, and I backed away in horror.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Slate dropped to the floor and started convulsing. Donald backed away, but made a sort of strangled chuffing sound that must have been a bad impression of a laugh. As he changed back, it became clearer.

  “Bravo, hunter. You’ve managed to kill off one of the biggest thorns in our collective paw. For that, I’ll leave you be for tonight.”

  He sprinted out the door leaving Dree, a dying Slate, and myself. I knelt down next to her and cradled her head. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I know this is what you wanted eventually, but not like this.”

  Dree looked confused. “What do you mean ‘what she wanted’?”

  Slate laughed and it brought on a fit of bloody coughs. “You didn’t really think I’d change my mind about what we were just because I buried the hatchet with Danny, did you pup?”

  Slate began to change, just like the wolves I’d hunted and killed a hundred times. Her last death throes weren’t spent screaming, however. She just looked at me with her yellow wolf eyes, a sense of peace in them.

  Dree was crying. She nuzzled her head against Slate’s chest, like a puppy to its mother. I suppose it was kind of an apt description. Slate was Dree’s den mother, her alpha female. I’d never understand that kind of bond.

  “We should get her out of here,” I said. “She deserves better than this place.”

  Dree didn’t move for a long time, but eventually stood and helped me move Slate’s body, still in wolf form, outside and into the back seat of the car. With every pull, the wound on my back screamed at me. Was I losing a lot of blood? I wasn’t woozy yet, but it might come at any moment.

  I climbed into the driver’s seat and looked at Dree. She slipped into her track pants, but just held her top like a security blanket. She looked back at the prone wolf. It was strange—normally the wolves I killed changed back once they were dead. Why was Slate different?

  “Where do we go now?” Dree asked. “Your shop isn’t safe. Not tonight.”

  “I know a place,” I said. “I just hope he doesn’t dump me after tonight.”

  Justin’s condo wasn’t quite fancy enough to have a twenty-four hour guard, but Dree and I still found ourselves having to sneak around to avoid grabbing the neighbors’ attention. I slipped on a top from Slate’s trunk, and Dree finished dressing—two women dragging around a wolf corpse was odd enough without adding the fact that they were topless. Dree scouted and I scooted. Slate wasn’t light.

  “Are you sure she isn’t gone?” I asked as we pulled her out of the elevator on Justin’s floor. She wasn’t leaving a blood trail. I’d read somewhere that blood stops flowing once you’re dead. “I put a whole pen inside of her. That’s enough to kill any wolf I’ve come across.”

  Dree shot me a withering look and I kept dragging. What had the two of them done in the last five years that had bonded them so closely? I surprised myself with a little tinge of jealousy. Dree had been my closest friend. Now she and this…woman were closer than I ever was.

  I knocked on Justin’s door for what felt like the hundredth time in the last two days and prayed he wasn’t out on ca
ll. He didn’t come to the door for a while, and my anxiety grew with every second. The throbbing in my back got worse as we waited.

  Justin opened the door with what looked like a very stern expression all ready to go, until he looked down and saw Slate. He threw the door wide and helped us bring her inside.

  “Jesus, what happened to her?” he asked.

  “Fight with another wolf. Much bigger,” I said. The three of us got her as far as the kitchen before my shoulder gave out. I sat down and reached into the neck of my top. My hand came back bloody.

  Justin looked over at me, “You too? Are you always getting into this much trouble, or did I just come into your life at precisely the wrong time?”

  He went and got his kit, and then knelt next to Slate. “I’m not a veterinarian, but from what I can tell she’s dead. She’s not breathing, and I don’t feel a heartbeat. I’m sorry.”

  Dree let out a mewling cry and slid down the wall to her knees. I wished I could comfort her. Justin was busy trying to undress me. It struck me as inappropriate, given the circumstances.

  “Strip,” he said. “I need to see that back wound.”

  Oh yeah. That. I took off my top and turned my back to him. He didn’t say anything, just got to work swabbing, stitching, and wrapping. By the time he was done, I looked like I’d just got a large tattoo on one shoulder blade. I shuddered at the thought. I may have. I’d have to see when it healed more.

  Dree’s sobs were quieter, but she wouldn’t let me approach her. I walked over, and she turned away. “No,” she said. “Not now.”

  I gave up and sat down carefully on Justin’s couch. He joined me once he’d finished washing up. “Is this going to be normal for you? Should I just count my losses and move on?”

  “Honestly, I wouldn’t blame you. It’s not usually this bad, though. Dree has been gone for a long time—I thought forever. Then she shows up and all this shit happens. Typical Dree.” Despite how I felt, I laughed.