Damn owls, he thought. Couldn’t you just shut up?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Franco Lupo
On the Freighter Zeniča, crossing the Atlantic Ocean
January 1946
The companionway corridor was empty, as if everyone had already disappeared.
When they arrived at their respective cabin doors, Franco hesitated then reached for his. But her long hand also reached out and enveloped his. He looked from her red fingertips, along her arm, and up to her face. When his eyes met hers, she—perhaps subconsciously—licked her lips and exerted the slightest pressure on his hand.
“It’s cold in my cabin,” she said softly. “It’s a new year and no one should be cold. Or alone. Come keep me warm.”
“What about…?” he stammered. He inclined his head in the direction of his door.
“I trust your priest friend will understand, and if he does not…he can always pray for guidance.”
Her smile softened the blow of the words. She pulled and he let her lead him to her side of the empty corridor, where she opened the door.
And then, without knowing exactly how it came to be, they were inside her cabin and kissing passionately. Picking up where they had left off up on the bridge.
Franco had no idea how much time passed, but suddenly it seemed they were naked on her bunk, and she was pulling him gently onto her, her thighs held spread wide. Gently at first, then more intensely, almost violently, she drew him in, and when he pierced and entered her she gasped and arched her back. She licked his shoulder as he bore down on her, then she moved her face beneath his and their lips met again, old friends from before, on the deck, and they tasted each other as he began to thrust into her slowly, fully, pacing himself.
Her breathing increased in speed as he increased his rhythm, filling her and then withdrawing before once again thrusting to the hilt as her hands on his shoulder blades urged him deeper. And he tried, driving into her as if his life depended on it, or hers.
Then, sweat dripping from their bodies, they uncoupled and as if their thoughts were linked they reconfigured with Caterina on all fours and Franco behind her, the dark mane of her hair in his hands as if he rode a wild horse. And the new rhythm began to build as they rocked on the bunk, their bodies in sync and their groans increasing in speed as their pleasure rose with each thrust, each withdrawal, until finally they reached the crest together and screamed out as they climaxed. Franco collapsed on Caterina’s back and thus they lay, still united, until their sweat began to dry.
Franco closed his eyes when he thought he saw a ripple on her skin, like a wave, but he chose not to see it or acknowledge it, and perhaps he had seen nothing at all.
Later, they coupled again, this time finishing face to face as Caterina bit her lip and nipped at Franco’s until she drew blood, which she wiped off with one long finger.
It was dawn of New Year’s Day when her hand found him, coaxing him to fullness yet again, and then she rode him as if he were the horse, her hair falling wildly onto his face, their eyes fixed on each other…and he thought he saw a flicker there, in her eyes, but it was a trick of the new light streaming in from the nearest porthole, and he ignored it.
By the time Franco found his way to his own cabin, the sun was high on the horizon and the ocean air had picked up a slight warmth that even the day before had seemed unlikely. It didn’t last, but it pointed the way to South America. The connecting door to the priest’s cabin was pointedly closed, and Franco shrugged, climbed under his covers, and lay shivering until he fell into a fitful sleep.
The next several nights found Franco again in Caterina’s bunk, covered in a heady mixture of sweat, musk, and spent sex, while during the days Father Tranelli avoided him.
The fourth night after New Year’s Eve, an accident occurred that left a crewman dead. At least, the boiler crew chief called it an accident, but Franco had his doubts. When he peered past the crowd that had gathered, it looked to him as though the crewman had been slaughtered. His neck was torn open, his belly an eruption of blubbery flesh and entrails, and parts of his limbs were missing.
“Teeth marks,” Franco whispered to the priest in one of the rare moments they occupied the same orbit.
Tranelli made the sign of the cross. He muttered something, but Franco couldn’t catch it.
The funeral service and the burial at sea for the man with no family were mercifully brief, and Father Tranelli officiated on a gray day in which the much warmer air was pregnant with the coming rain. When the fat droplets started to pelt the ship, the few assembled mourners escaped to their cabins or crew’s quarters and the sinking human vessel that had been a werewolf’s meal quickly disappeared below the ship’s hull.
Franco set out to determine who among passengers and crew was a werewolf, but his determination was hampered by the voracious Caterina, who demanded the youth occupy her bunk longer and more often. Like her namesake, her wild horse’s body was too luscious for Franco to ignore, and became his forced playground as she coaxed more and more of his once endless stamina for her own pleasure. Though Franco had to admit that his satisfaction was not ignored, as she used her lips to revive him time and again, drinking from him while staring at him from below with those mesmerizing, otherworldly eyes. He learned that besides being ridden hard, she loved when he thrust deeply down her throat, and she held him at bay with such games for seemingly hours on end, after which she required him to service her while her thighs squeezed his head and her feet rested on his back.
As the crossing neared its end, Franco found himself more and more exhausted, sleeping during the days because Caterina’s insatiable needs had taken the nights hostage.
Tranelli mumbled curses when he saw the sallow-looking youth skulking about the deck on the increasingly sunny, warmer days.
And then came the day, less than a week from sight of port, that Tranelli—who had been investigating either with the help of the nervous Havlav or on his own (when not imbibing some of the surprisingly tasty rum he had discovered by spending time with the crew)—decided he was right and informed Franco that he had determined who their shapeshifting killer was. And what they were bound to do about it.
Franco shook his head, but inside he knew they could let no werewolf survive this voyage. As far as he could figure out, there was only one, and Tranelli had identified him after shadowing him and having Havlav also keep an eye on him.
Tomas was the last passenger to board, taken on at Genova just an hour after Franco and Father Tranelli had made their own switch with the two original Nazi officers. Perhaps Tomas wasn’t acquainted with the two Franco and Corrado had killed, as the ratlines out of Europe often brought together both escaping Nazi war criminals and shapeshifters and in many cases they were unknown even to each other. Corrado had learned in the weeks before finally attempting to infiltrate the escape route that the ratline operating through the port of Genova tended to involve shapeshifters from the Werwolf Division, therefore Franco was already inclined to suspect this bland-looking Tomas, last name unknown, who kept to himself and rarely appeared on deck even when the weather was pleasant. He was one of the reclusive passengers who rarely turned out for communal meals.
He appeared to have come from one of those German-occupied areas of lower Europe in which collaborators had been hunted down savagely as the war ended, and Tomas seemed to have been through the wringer. Although he might just as easily have been a victim himself.
Uncharacteristically, Franco was indecisive and dismissive when Tranelli could hold back no longer. They were nearing port, the priest begged, and they needed a plan. Franco waved off the concern. He was trapped in a web of his own desires and Caterina’s sexual escapades, a novelty for a boy who had had no childhood and indeed had been a killer for years by now.
When the knock on Caterina Cavalli’s cabin door came, Franco was on his knees, his tongue exploring her scandalously shaved sex while she reclined on her bunk, her head thrown back in abandon. He f
altered, and she looked at him, fixing him with her penetrating stare.
“Why are you stopped?” Her sensual lips were set in a red frown. “We agreed you were free to spend this afternoon with me.”
Franco thought, Am I a lover or an errand boy?
I am not ‘with’ her—I am here ‘for’ her, a servant wearing a tight leash.
But then he set the thoughts aside and deferred, knowing he could feel no anger with this woman who had opened his eyes to the sensual world—one he hadn’t known existed. He’d known men took their pleasure with women, often violently, but her version of the sex act transcended the hurried, awkward experiences of his youth, approached the level of art, and deprived neither of the ultimate satisfaction.
Whoever she was, however she had ended up here, Franco saw her as a goddess, and he was all too willing to worship.
When he opened the cabin door, the enraged priest turned red and—speechless—slapped the boy soundly across the handsome face.
“You smell like a brothel, boy! You’ve become a tramp, a plaything for that creature behind you!”
Caterina Cavalli’s sonorous laugh reached them from the bunk, where she made sure to keep her thighs spread wide.
“Really, Father, you flatter me!” she said in perfect Italian.
The shade of red on Tranelli’s face deepened and, for a moment, he appeared ready to brawl his way into the cabin and backhand her like a wayward serving girl.
“What do you want, priest?”
Franco’s voice, full of sarcasm, apparently brought Tranelli back to earth, although his rage simmered visibly beneath.
“Remember your mission, boy?” the priest whispered. “It’s time to finish it. This Tomas is likely to take another victim soon. He can’t survive without fresh meat, and the meals we take are not satisfaction enough. He thinks of the crew as his larder.”
Indeed, by now Franco had all but stopped taking his own meals with the officers, eking occasional sustenance from Caterina’s delivered trays or occasionally the crew’s galley, where food was available for the asking. Franco remembered the hunger he had suffered through the length of the war, and while the lust had dulled the sharper pangs of his appetite, he still suffered from the vestigial hunger borne of near-famine. On those occasions when not dining with the woman as they lolled in her bed, Franco accepted the cook’s platters of excessive food and stuffed himself as if the meal was his last.
Across his face, a flicker of shame that felt like a fever to him, and then his demeanor softened and he whispered, “I will be there in a minute.”
While he closed the door, he ignored Caterina’s languorous query. The priest’s rage had broken through the spell. He made fists and felt his muscles tighten, adrenaline start to flow. When he left her cabin, the blade of the Vatican dagger seemed to burn in his grip.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Marla Anders
After talking to Lupo’s partner, DiSanto (who seemed nice enough, if a little spacey) she had decided she could offer help. She had assumed Lupo was just ducking her, and he had been…but now he was missing. DiSanto said they were stopping just short of declaring him officially missing because his position was delicate, and a manhunt could easily backfire and cause him harm.
DiSanto hadn’t actually said that, but she was good at her job and reading between the lines of dialogue her patients sent her way was something she was very good at. She’d sensed the panic behind his calming words—it sounded as though several people, some of whom should know what Lupo was up to, had lost track of him.
She’d spotted Lupo talking at length to Sergeant Danielle Colgrave, so she figured that was one of his inner circle. Marla called Danni and found her somewhat standoffish, sounding hurried and short of patience.
“Yeah, Lupo and I have worked together on some OC matters, and we’re cooperating on some new information.” The sergeant was widely respected, but she sounded short when she said, “Dr. Anders, is this about anything specific, or are you looking for background? I don’t have a lot of time right now.”
“Can you tell me what he might be investigating?”
“Sorry, I just don’t know.”
The pause told Marla she did know, but wasn’t going to say.
After they hung up, Marla sat and thought at length. In her office, the image of Sam Waters seemed incongruous. He was speaking to her.
“I don’t believe any of these people will include you in their efforts, but it will take them time to get there and find Nick Lupo. You would have an advantage—I know where he is, and I suspect I know how to save the day, but the problem is…there’s always a problem, isn’t there? The problem is that while I can see him, he cannot at the moment see me.”
“What can I do?” she asked in a whisper. “How can I help?” She wasn’t sure he could hear, but his eyes held hers and he waited for her to finish.
“I believe your blood connection to Joseph Badger will cause a change in his situation, in his condition.”
“But why?” she asked. Her door was closed. She didn’t want anyone to see her talking to herself. The police shrink was already regarded with enough suspicion.
Sam Waters—or his ghost, or his spirit, or whatever he was—inclined his head sadly, as if he didn’t want to say the next words. “Because Badger was responsible for making Nick Lupo what he is…”
Marla’s breath caught. “And…what is that? What is he?”
“He is—”
“Yes?”
“Not like us, not like most people. You must trust, and you must be patient.”
“But why?” Marla couldn’t believe she was conversing with the apparition now, and reception was better. But he wasn’t talking enough, was holding back.
“You’ll learn the truth, but now there’s no more time to waste. You must head north. Just map it, head for Vilas County, and I’ll lead you. The others will go, too, but only you will give Lupo the jolt he needs. Think of it as Joseph Badger making amends, through you, for what he did to Nick when he was young.”
Marla wanted to shout, but instead she whispered, “What? Tell me! What happened, what is he, what did my grandfather…”
But the image flickered and was gone.
She put her head in her hands. Was she going crazy? Was she nuts if she followed directions from a vision?
She checked her calendar. There were no appointments. It was destiny.
She fired up her browser and searched for a route, printed the map and jotted down basic direction notes, then grabbed her parka.
Somehow she knew she was doing the right thing. If she was wrong, she’d pay the price. It was that simple. It seemed possible that there was some kind of destiny involved here, and she wasn’t one to stand in front of destiny.
Lupo
He was still disoriented and freezing, but his head was clearer. He’d shaken off the effects of the last close slug, but his ear still rang. Yet, he was thinking more clearly now than since the explosion, as if the fog was lifting.
He was starting to suffer hypothermia, having shivered for the past couple hours, but now it was pure numbness. His hands were slabs of cold marble-like meat. It had to be past midnight. How long had he been wandering around? Shit, it had to be well past midnight. He recognized the sounds of the night predators chasing their prey. The wind had picked up, rustling through the bare branches of the deciduous trees and the needle-laden branches of the evergreens.
He could barely believe he hadn’t stabbed himself on a low-leaning branch yet.
Plenty of time for that.
He hadn’t planned on being trapped in the outdoors. He should have been curled up in front of a fire—maybe lonely without Jessie, but at least comfortable as he tried to think through his problems and his choices.
His mind wandered. Anything not to fall down and go to sleep. Therein lay death.
Jessie wanted to become like him.
Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
Well, he h
ad other things to think about now. He tried to think warm thoughts. Jessie’s loving face was in the back of his mind, giving him some comfort now that Ghost Sam was nowhere to be found. Comfort, but no warmth.
Ghost Sam. Where was he?
Something to do with his blindness, Lupo guessed.
Whatever the fuck it was, it was screwing him up. Making what should have been an easy situation into a goddamn crisis.
He shambled slowly, stiffly downhill, movements jerky like those of a movie zombie, but luckily finding that he had a bit of a sixth sense about trees in his way. Occasionally he stumbled on a root, or grazed a trunk with his shoulder, but mostly he seemed to be avoiding them almost as if he could see them. Maybe part of the wolf’s influence was similar to radar, like that of a bat. But if that was the case, why not have the wolf emerge as Lupo had been trying to force?
He heard a rustling not far away, but it couldn’t be his hunter—there was no way he had caught up so quickly. Lupo knew he wasn’t moving fast, but he wasn’t moving at a snail’s pace, either.
The rustling grew louder, and Lupo stopped, listening. He heard it—a low growling.
Jesus!
One of them? Rabbioso?
Did Rabbioso bring a partner?
Lupo had assumed not, that the asshole wanted all the fun, but what if he was wrong?
No, it wasn’t a werewolf.
It’s a wolf. An actual wolf. Not a lycanthrope.
He could hear it sniffing, almost as if confused, maybe catching his human and wolf scent cocktail. Just because Lupo couldn’t smell the wolf’s scent, it didn’t mean that a wolf would be so hampered.
Wolves in Wisconsin had made such a comeback in the last few years that their protected status had fallen out of favor, and politicians pandering to landowners and farmers who claimed the wolf population was dangerous and would cull their herds and domestic animals had given in and allowed sanctioned hunts. Wolves had been massacred by the dozen throughout the northern parts of the state. Lupo’s run-ins with actual wolves had never gone well—two predators meeting in the same territory couldn’t—but he had always respected the wolf. A cousin, after all!
Wolf's Blind (The Nick Lupo Series Book 6) Page 18
