Chapter Seven
Greg waited in his office for Des to arrive. Since he was going out, he’d added a couple extra guards, who would patrol the first floor, covering the entrances and stairways. Fee and Lana, who’d both at first demanded to come along, were tucked upstairs. After grousing about getting no feedback from her hacker friends about Beowulf or Nightshade, Lana mentioned something about showing Fee websites for wedding dresses, which was fine with him. While making love to Fee might have been a mistake, he’d decided to put his doubts behind him. After the way she’d stood up to his grandparents, it was full steam ahead.
Being back at pack headquarters had also let him see how unsettled everything was in the region. Like it or not, Greg did have a responsibility not only to his own small pack, but to the rest of the wolves in the area, as well. His grandfather wasn’t going to live forever, and this was a bad time for instability within the pack leadership. One way or another, he and the old man were going to have to mend fences, and that meant it was time for Greg to settle down.
Seeing Sofia again had helped clarify that for him, as well. He wanted Fianna, not any other werewolf to help guide the pack. She’d stand beside him and back him, not try to push him aside or push him around. He was still reeling from her fierce defense, but despite the strength of her spirit, he knew she’d never try to push her own interests ahead of the pack. In short, he trusted her—with his pack, with his children—hell maybe even with his heart.
While he waited, he sulked. Here he was, headed out into the cold with the damn mage, when all he really wanted to do was peel Fee out of her satin gown and fuck her blind. Preferably with the high heels still on.
A knock at the back door interrupted that train of thought before it could go too far. The guard let Des in, and Greg heard booted footsteps heading down the stairs.
“Ready?” Des smirked as he held up a collar and leash. “Hope you don’t mind black.”
Greg snorted. “Hope you don’t mind black eyes if you keep this up.”
“You’re in a good mood for someone who just got engaged.” The mage leaned against the doorjamb. “Bring your clothes with us. I want you to talk to someone after we sniff out the crime scene.”
“Got it.” Greg stripped, not caring that Des was in the room flipping through a magazine someone had left in the office. He stuffed his clothes and sneakers into a plastic grocery bag and left it on his desk. “As for my mood, you met my grandfather last night. Imagine how much fun it was taking Fee to meet the whole damn clan.”
“Cry me a river.” Des picked up the grocery sack while Greg focused his mind inward and allowed himself to change.
Bones and muscles shifted and reshaped themselves. It hurt, but it brought a rush at the same time. His skull elongated and his fangs and claws emerged even as his senses sharpened. Moments later he was fully wolf, standing as tall as his desk while Des clipped the leash and collar around his neck. “Gods, I wish I had a camera.”
All Greg could do was growl.
“Don’t piss in my car, furball.” With that, Des led the way up the stairs and out to the street, where he’d left his flashy sedan with the guards nearby. A couple of them smiled and saluted as Greg walked past. He stared straight ahead, choosing to ignore them. When Des tried to open the back door of his car, Greg growled, until Des gave in and let him in the front. Greg sat on the passenger seat as Des joined him in the car.
Twenty minutes later, they emerged onto a quiet residential street. A block of townhouse apartments filled most of the area, with the entrance around the corner from where they’d parked.
“Try to act like a real dog.” Des opened the door and let Greg out before picking up the leash. “And don’t eat anybody.”
Greg considered lifting his leg on the other man’s shoes but decided against it. Instead, he started sniffing the air, trying to pick up the baseline scents of the neighborhood. Mostly human with a strong stench of residual smoke coming from the townhouses. If he thought too hard about that, about the families that had been killed, the odor would make him vomit as he got closer. He forced himself to stop thinking and get the job done. With a nod, he tugged on the leash, letting Des know he was ready to go.
The closer they got, the thicker and oilier the acrid scent of the smoke became. He picked up trails of the various inhabitants of the complex. Mostly human out here toward the street, then intermingled with lupine as they walked deeper into the complex. In the very back, one unit had apparently housed the pack. The blackened ruin was roped off with yellow tape, but there were no police left on the scene. Greg tugged Des behind a nearby building and waited until the mage had removed the leash. Des also cast a spell, one Greg had heard him use before, to keep anyone from noticing their presence. Together, they crept toward the burned-out building.
Greg got to work, sniffing and tracking the various scent trails. He could detect the continuous presence of a good-sized, closely related pack. Along the curb, he found what he’d been looking for. An unrelated wolf had stood in this spot and paused, more than once. Two trails ran around the building, one a few nights old, one more recent. Both were too trampled by the human firemen and police to be clear enough to identify the wolf. Some other, vaguely bleachlike, chemical taint kept him from even being able to tell if the scent was male or female.
“I’ve got two things,” he said as he climbed back in the car after shifting and pulling on his pants behind a tall hedge near where they’d parked. “There was definitely a wolf involved, but the scent is distorted with some kind of chemical. It wasn’t a drive-by. Whoever killed that pack planned it out and took their time about it.” Greg couldn’t wait to get that murderous wolf’s throat between his jaws.
By the time they reached the bridge to Belle Isle, Greg was completely dressed and still pissed.
“I want you to meet Luther, petty dope dealer and all around low-life. He’s got just enough mage in his family tree to know we exist, not enough to pull off more than cheap card tricks.” Des zipped through the darkened streets faster than would have been safe for someone without highly developed reflexes, magic—or both.
Greg would lay odds there was a spell on the car to make the cops ignore it. He wondered briefly if he could talk the mage into casting one on his pickup. “Is this the same guy you and Ric talked to last night?”
Des nodded.
“So why do I need to join the party?” Ric had been an agent of the Seelie queen for something like six hundred years. Des was an active member of the paranormal cops. Why the hell did they need Greg’s input?
Des shrugged. “He has info on the drugs that are targeting paranormals. There was something funny about the scent of what he showed us, something we thought you might be able to narrow down.”
Greg grunted and tied his shoes.
Des pulled the car into a shadowed space in a deserted parking lot behind the fake African huts of the old zoo. Belle Isle, a long narrow spit in the Detroit River, used to be a vibrant urban park, but now it was mostly run-down and abandoned, with only a few of the once-stately buildings still in use. The wild part of the islet encroached steadily on the formerly manicured lawns and walkways of the old aquarium and yacht club. A shabby beach still provided some recreation for local residents, along with a couple of playgrounds. There were efforts in place to revive the islet, but right now it was still a damn good place to hide.
Greg followed Des onto one of the old, overgrown footpaths, deeper into the shadows. About a hundred yards in, a shape detached itself from the surrounding darkness and stepped onto the path.
“This the wolf you talked about?” He didn’t move close enough for even a lupine to make out his features, but his scent was clear. A minor drug user, but nothing serious. He mainly smelled of weed and cheap beer, though his clothes carried the stench of stronger stuff which must have passed through his hands in the recent past. Over it all was a vinegary tang mingled with the odor of unwashed human and a faint whiff of chlorine. “He don�
�� look like nothin’ much.”
Greg snarled, extending a hint of fang. He angled his face to catch a glint of moonlight. “Satisfied?”
“Sure.” Luther took a few steps closer. “You got the money, wizard-man?”
“Give the wolf the package you showed me, and you get your cash.” Des pulled two bills from his front pants pocket. “Two hundred, as promised.”
Luther snatched the cash and shoved a plastic bag at Greg so fast it was a blur. “Keep that shit away from me—I don’t ever want to see it again.”
“Tell us again how you got it.” Des’s tone held a hint of command, maybe even a spell to freeze the dealer in place until he answered.
“This junkie I know traded it for his weekly crack fix. Said he got it off some bigwig down by Cadillac Place, was worth at least a grand. So I figured, what the hell and tried some. Just one little crystal, under the tongue, like he said. Was high as a kite for about an hour.” He grinned as if remembering absolute euphoria. “Only problem was afterward I thought I was dead. Sick as a dog for almost a week.”
That would account for the acidic tang to the man’s scent. Greg sniffed the bag of tiny crystals—about the same size as the sea salt he kept in the kitchen. The bag smelled of salt, too, along with something metallic, vinegar, bleach and something else that was somehow…off.
Des released his hold on the informant. “Okay, Luther, you can go now. And from now on, steer clear of trying your own shit. You’ve got just enough supernatural in you to make it dangerous.”
Luther took off into the woods at a run.
“I’ve never smelled anything like it,” Greg said. “I mean anything. It’s almost unearthly.”
“Demon. That’s what I thought. There’s some twisted magic involved, along with the chemistry. That’s where Nightshade comes into this. He’s the producer and distributor.”
Greg nodded. They’d known the demon Nightshade was tied up in this mess somehow.
After a long bubble bath, Fianna curled up on her sofa in a pair of fleece yoga pants and an oversized New Moon sweatshirt while she brushed her hair out of its updo. She and Lana had talked for almost an hour, mostly rehashing the evening, especially Ivan and Marja’s attempt to buy Fianna off. Lana had been furious and her instant defense had touched Fianna deeply. So why had that made her cry?
Human emotions were exhausting. Eventually, she’d convinced Lana that all she needed was some sleep. She’d gotten little the night before, and between the near miss in the alley and meeting Greg’s family, it had been a long day. Now that she was alone though, the turmoil of her thoughts made sleep impossible. Maybe she should get a cat. Silent, nonjudgmental companionship would be nice right about now.
A laugh escaped her throat. A cat in a building full of werewolves. That probably wouldn’t work, though she’d have to ask Greg. Maybe he could tolerate a dog, something small that would sit in her lap and cuddle, and not fight him for dominance.
From one moment to the next, for no reason she could explain, Fianna’s heart started pounding. This anxiety had nothing to do with Greg, but with basic fight-or-flight survival. Perhaps some vestige of her old magic was still there, bred into her bones, but she reacted without thinking, springing from the sofa and diving out of the living room. The place was small, so it was only a few feet to the hallway from where she sat.
Less than a heartbeat after she landed on the floor between the bathroom and a hall closet, she heard glass crack and something smack into the sofa. Another projectile barely missed her heels as she rolled.
Bullets. Gods damn it, this time someone was shooting at her. Beowulf? Thoughts of the werewolf-assassin flashed through her mind.
One more thudded into the wall opposite her, so she crawled deeper into the hallway, breathing heavily. Was she safe here? There were no windows to illuminate her position, but on TV the bad guys had heat sensors, didn’t they? And guns that could shoot through walls?
Forget learning to drive. The first thing she needed was a gun.
Of course, even if she’d had one, she didn’t have the equipment to sight down on someone who had to be firing from somewhere in the building next door. The good news was that Lana’s apartment was on the far side of the building. A sniper wouldn’t be able to reach Lana from the same vantage point. Still, Fianna should call her, warn her not to come running, in case she’d heard the glass breaking. The only problem was that her cell phone was in her evening bag, which she’d tossed onto her bed. Of course, what she really wanted to do was call Greg, but he wasn’t here to help, so calling him would serve no purpose. Fianna had spent a good part of the last hour listening for his footsteps on the stairs. Besides, she kept saying she was an adult. She couldn’t go crying to him at the first sign of danger.
Warning Lana, though, that was important. Fianna snaked one arm out and edged the bathroom door shut, cutting off the hallway from any windows—even though she’d had the blinds down in there for her bubble bath. Leaving the living room curtains open so she could see the city lights while she sat on the couch and thought tonight hadn’t been the best idea. At least in the bedroom she’d closed the heavy drapes when she’d changed, so she wouldn’t be clearly visible.
Still crawling along the floor, she crept into her bedroom and behind the bed, putting another barrier between herself and the outside wall. A shot shattered the bedroom window and ripped through the curtains as she reached up to grab her purse, but the bullet missed her arm and struck the mattress. Keeping the bed between her body and the window, Fianna backed up until she had her back to her closet. Deciding it was better to err on the side of safety, she slid the mirrored door open and backed all the way into the closet as well, closing the door behind her. Maybe the reflective surface would mess up whatever gadgets were being used for targeting.
Her fingers shook as she dialed Lana’s number.
“Hey, Fee, what’s up? I just opened a carton of Mackinac Island Fudge ice cream, if you want to come over.” Loud rock and roll blared over the connection. No wonder Lana hadn’t heard the shots and come running.
“Someone’s shooting at me,” Fianna whispered. “Through the windows. Stay where you are.” The aged hotel next door was vacant now, except for a used bookstore on the first floor, and it was one story taller than the New Moon. All those empty room gave a killer plenty of vantage points to choose from.
“What?” The music went silent. “I don’t think I heard you right. Did you say someone was shooting at you?”
“Yes. Should I call the police, or would that be bad?” Sometimes the regular police could be more hindrance than help when paranormal issues were involved.
“You stay on the line so I know you’re all right. I’m using my computer to call Greg.”
Fianna hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t fully mastered the digital technology of the modern environment in the months she’d worked for Aidan.
“Greg, this is Lana. Someone’s shooting into Fee’s apartment from the hotel.”
“What? Is she okay?” Fianna heard Greg’s voice over the connection.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “I called to warn Lana not to come in here.”
Lana relayed the information to Greg, adding, “Greg, it’s got to be Beowulf.”
“Thank God.” The relief in Greg’s tone touched her heart. “We’ll be there in five minutes. Where is she in the apartment?”
Again, Fee answered and Lana repeated her reply. “Bedroom closet on the floor. They shot through the curtains and the window, so they’ve got some kind of high-tech equipment.”
“When was the last shot?”
“Two minutes, maybe three.”
“Tell her to stay put, as low to the ground as possible.”
“She can hear you,” Lana said. “She says fine. You want me to call the cops or not?”
“Shit.” Fianna could picture him running his hands through his hair. “Yeah. Somebody might have heard the shots and called it in. Might as well be us.
And Lana? You get your ass to an interior space and stay the hell down, too.”
“Already done, though there’s no place on my side of the building to snipe from.” Greg’s building was a corner one, and across the side street was a single-story drugstore. “I’m on the floor of my hallway.”
“Okay, we’re about a mile out. See you in three minutes.”
“Fine. I’m hanging up now so I can call the cops.” Lana clicked some keys. “Fee, I’ll call you right back.”
“No, I should do it, since it’s my apartment.” She clicked the end button, took a deep breath and dialed 9-1-1. The operator assured her that officers were already en route, having been called by the security team—which they’d all forgotten about.
As she came to that realization, a fist pounded on her door. “Ms. Meadows, are you all right?” She could hear someone else yelling at Lana across the hall.
How was she supposed to let them in without exposing herself? Apparently it didn’t matter. She heard her door open and the sound of a man swearing. “Ms. Meadows?”
Since she recognized the voice as Jensen, she held her thumb on the microphone of the phone and called, “In the bedroom.”
“Our officers have arrived at the scene, ma’am,” said the voice on the phone. “There’s someone on the way up right now.”
“The security people are here, too. Is anyone checking out the abandoned hotel?”
“The officers know their jobs, miss. Don’t worry. I’m going to hang up now that we know you’re safe.”
With that, the operator disconnected. A second later, she heard a voice calling her name in the bedroom and slid open the closet door to face Jensen. “I’m fine.” She didn’t stand up since she had no way of knowing if the shooter was still out there.
“I’m going to walk you to the hallway,” the man said. “I’ll stay between you and the windows.”
“We’ve got an all clear on the building next door,” called someone from the hallway. “The shooter’s gone. Is anybody injured?”
Motor City Wolf Page 11
