Wolf Hunt (Book 2)

by Jeff Strand

  "Well, yeah, but I'm thinking of the mission."

  "Let's say that a local orphanage needed somebody to play Santa Claus. Who would they pick?"

  Lou shrugged.

  "It would be you, right?"

  Lou shrugged again.

  "I've got a harder edge. You're fluffier. If I were a fourteen year-old girl and I saw me in a dark alley, I'd freak."

  "You're a better conversationalist."

  "This isn't My Dinner With Andre. We don't need to...actually, you know what, if you're this nervous about it you might accidentally say something scary. I'll talk to her."

  The front doors to the school opened, and students began to pour out. George and Lou both sat up straight, watching closely. There wasn't much of a chance that they'd be so lucky as to see her in the crowd, but you never—

  "There she is!" said Lou, pointing.

  It was her. She was wearing a simple white dress that didn't seem anywhere near warm enough for this weather. Did her parents really let her go out like that?

  The target was talking to another girl as they walked. George couldn't yet tell if they were headed toward one of the busses. If they were, great—a bus would be extremely easy to follow until it dropped her off.

  What would really be helpful was a frickin' name and a frickin' address. If the timeline really was this tight, it made absolutely no sense that Mr. Reith would make their job more difficult than it needed to be. Why was George and Lou's "redemption" more important than actually getting the task accomplished?

  "She doesn't look like a werewolf," said Lou.

  "What would she look like if she was a werewolf? Fuzzier?"

  "I mean that she doesn't carry herself like a werewolf. Ivan was all filled with attitude and stuff. She just looks like a normal kid."

  The target, who was now laughing with her friend, did indeed look like a normal kid. Not a cheerleader, not a super athlete, not a brooding loner, not a cutter...just a normal kid.

  "Yeah," said George, "but we've only ever met one other werewolf. If we use Ivan as the baseline, all werewolves are smug assholes."

  The target and her friend disappeared from sight behind the busses. George watched closely to see if they would emerge on the other end. This really wasn't George and Lou's area of expertise. They were outstanding at the art of intimidation (well, except when George was tied to a chair being doused with gasoline) but they weren't private investigators. Tracking people wasn't their thing.

  "You know, my worst childhood memories are from being on the school bus," said Lou.

  "Really?"

  Lou nodded. "I was the fat kid, at a time before every other kid was the fat kid. I got picked on non-stop. It was awful."

  The girls emerged on the other side of the busses. They weren't headed toward the parking lot, so it looked like they were walking home. George started the engine.

  "Ready?" he asked.

  "They called me The Blob," said Lou.

  "Lou? Focus."

  "Sorry."

  There was a lot of traffic from parents picking their kids up from school, but as long as the girls didn't turn for the first couple of blocks, George was sure he could keep them in sight.

  A block away from school, both girls stopped, laughed about something, and then went their separate ways. Though there were still far too many witnesses around to just nab her, this could be a lucky break.

  They weren't going to be able to follow her directly with this many cars around, so George pulled into the parking lot of a small library that was next to the school. They watched as the girl walked alone for a few blocks, and then George drove back onto the street.

  "We're following an underage girl in a van," said Lou.

  "I'm aware of that."

  "Not the direction I thought my life would ever take."

  "Nope."

  "There's just no upside to this situation. There will be no point in my life where I think 'Ahhh, good times.' There's nothing to look back on fondly in my old age."

  "What do you look back on fondly? All of the thumbs we broke?"

  Lou ignored him and sighed. "I vote we just bail. Floor the gas on this van and get the hell out of here. Screw Reith and Dewey and those other pricks. We can hide. We'll be more careful this time."

  "They found us twice and we weren't even in the United States."

  "So we hide in a completely different continent. We could live in Australia. Or New Zealand. C'mon, George. This is awful. Let's not do this."

  "How are we gonna get to New Zealand?"

  "We'll find a way. We're resourceful."

  "Can't do it," said George. "Look how quickly we found her. You think somebody else can't find her just as easily? Somebody who doesn't see anything wrong with killing little girls? It looks like we're doing something horrible—and we are, I'm not trying to deny it—but we're also probably the only line of defense between her and Psycho Dewey. If we're the ones who kidnap her, we can at least do everything in our power to keep her safe."

  "She got a crap deal on guardian angels."

  "Tell me about it."

  "You're right, you're right," said Lou. "We'll stick to the plan. But if we do this and she dies, that's it for my mental health. Just put me in a strait jacket and hide me away. I'm done."

  "Fair enough."

  The girl turned right. They followed her, pulling into a nice suburban neighborhood.

  She was alone. There didn't really seem to be anybody lingering outside of their homes, shoveling snow or anything. If they were going to just grab her and speed off, this was probably their best opportunity.

  "I'm gonna loop around the block and get out at the corner," said George. "Don't open the back door until I've got her—we don't want anybody to see the van with an open back door and get suspicious."

  "Got it."

  "But open it as soon as I've got her. We can't be struggling outside the van waiting for you to open the door."

  "Got it."

  "If she changes into a werewolf, shoot her with the tranquilizer dart. Don't shoot her with it unless she changes. She'll probably be scratching and biting either way, but that's okay, I can handle it."

  "Got it."

  "This is the dumbest thing we've ever done, isn't it?"

  "Top three."

  "Wish me luck."

  George parked the van on the side of the street and got out. He didn't want to freak the girl out by running at her, but he wanted to make sure he intercepted her in time, so he settled for a brisk walk.

  They reached the corner at the same time.

  George tried to give her his least predatory smile. "Hello there."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Grab and Go

  The girl gave him a wary look. "Hi." It sounded like a question.

  "You're Britney's friend, right?"

  "I don't know anybody named Britney."

  "Oh," said George. Crap. He'd assumed that all fourteen-year-old girls had at least one friend named Britney. He should've gone with Bella. Too late now. "I was supposed to meet her at school for her audition."

  "School's that way," said the girl, pointing.

  "Okay, yeah, that's what I thought. Just got turned around." George raised an eyebrow. "You look like you can sing."

  "How does somebody look like they can sing?"

  "I mean that you look like you've got stage presence. That's a rare thing. I'm George."

  "Hi, George."

  "And you are...?"

  Her eyes narrowed, as if trying to decide if she should run away screaming.

  "You don't have to tell me," he said. "I understand. You don't know me from Simon Cowell. I just got turned around, and I was supposed to meet Britney for her audition for this new reality show I'm producing."

  "What's it called?" she asked, clearly testing him.

  "We're still doing market research on the title. You're part of our core demographic, so maybe you could help. Would you watch a show called Singers Incorporated?"

>   "Who are the judges?"

  "Nobody has been hired yet. We're still in the early stages of development."

  "Then why are you already auditioning singers?"

  How the hell was this little girl outmaneuvering him in this conversation? George was a good talker. He'd been head of the debate team in high school. He could've been a lawyer if he hadn't discovered alcohol during his first and only year in college. Ninety percent of his job involved talking to people and making conversations go the way he wanted. This was insane.

  "I like your spirit," said George. "Most kids your age would be saying 'Ooh! Ooh! Put me on your show, pretty please!' but you're actually smart. Let me guess. Straight A's, right?"

  "Mostly."

  "The truth of the matter is that I conned my way into this job and I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I'm completely out of my element. Do you think you could take a few minutes and answer some questions...what did you say your name was again?"

  "I didn't."

  "Well, again, I'm George."

  The girl took a step back, but then seemed to decide that, if he lunged at her, there was enough distance between them for her to get away. "I'm Ally."

  "Nice to meet you, Ally."

  Where was Lou? This would definitely look like a suspicious encounter if anybody happened to glance through their window. For all George knew, he was standing right outside of Ally's home, with her mother dialing 911 at this very moment.

  "What questions did you have?" asked Ally, scratching the back of her head. She looked like somebody who was born with straight brown hair but would prefer a purple Mohawk.

  George could hear the van approaching.

  "For starters, who's your favorite singer?"

  "Gigi Kealan."

  "Oh, yeah? Great choice. She's definitely somebody we should contact."

  "She's my aunt. She doesn't sing at all."

  George forced a chuckle. "Now, see, you think you tricked me, but I already admitted that I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm utterly clueless. You are looking at the biggest idiot in the music business. I should be fired. Seriously. My boss should call me up and say, 'Hey, you are literally the least qualified person we could have ever hired for this job,' and fire me. That's why I need you, Ally."

  The van came into view. Ally didn't glance back at it. As soon as she did, George would rush her. They were ten feet apart, but George could move pretty damn fast for such a big guy, and he was confident that he could have his hand over her mouth before she got a chance to scream.

  "How do I know you're not some pervert?" she asked.

  "Do I look like a pervert?"

  "Kind of."

  "I don't have the energy to be a pervert," George assured her. "I'm old and tired and incompetent. I'm so bad at life that I'm standing here asking a teenager for career advice. Believe me, you've got nothing to fear from me. If I did attack you, the encounter would end with me rolling around on the sidewalk clutching my balls."

  She giggled at this.

  Lou stopped the van.

  Ally seemed to notice that the vehicle had stopped behind her, but didn't want to look away from George. If she would maintain eye contact for a just a few more seconds, to give Lou the chance to climb into the back of the van, this would be perfect.

  "So who's your real favorite singer?" George asked. "If you could pick your top three dream judges for our show, who would they be?"

  What was taking Lou so long to open the door? They'd really lucked out on the privacy issue so far, but eventually somebody was going to drive by or take their dog out for a walk.

  Lou slid open the van's side door.

  Ally glanced over her shoulder.

  George charged.

  He lost his footing for a split second and had a horrifying mental image of slipping on the ice and landing on his ass. If that happened, he'd probably just lie there and let Mr. Dewey set him on fire.

  But he didn't slip, and managed to lunge forward as intended. If he could get her in time...

  She looked back at him just as he slammed his palm over her mouth. Her scream was completely muffled—nobody would hear it. Without hesitation, he tossed her into the back of the van, quickly climbed in after her, and slammed the door closed.

  Done. Only a few seconds' worth of criminal activity for anybody to have witnessed. Unless somebody with too much free time had been peeking through their windows all this time, George felt pretty good about how this had gone.

  Inside the van, Lou scrambled up into the front seat as George held Ally against the floor and put his hand over her mouth.

  "We're not gonna hurt you," George told her. "I promise."

  "He's telling the truth," said Lou, getting behind the steering wheel and driving away from the scene of the crime.

  Ally's frantic struggling seemed to indicate that she did not believe them. Fortunately, George outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, so keeping her under control was not an overwhelming challenge.

  "I need you to calm down for us," said George. "Can you do that?"

  Ally continued to struggle and scream beneath George's hand, offering no evidence that she intended to, at this particular moment, calm down for them.

  Normally in this kind of situation George would give the victim a good thump on the head or briefly remove their access to oxygen, but their victims were almost always sleazeballs. A sweating little weasel who was stealing drug money from his boss deserved a very large hand on his throat.

  Though they still had over an hour left before Mr. Reith's deadline, they had to assume that once Ally was reported missing, somebody would come forward and say that they'd seen an unfamiliar van before the abduction. So it was in their best interest to resolve this as quickly as possible.

  "Ally? Hey, Ally? I need you to listen to me."

  She wasn't listening to him. George decided to give her five minutes of freak out time to get it out of her system.

  After five minutes, she was no more calm, so he decided to make it ten.

  These icy roads sucked, and Lou's one-handed driving always made George nervous, yet there was no sign that anybody was pursuing them. Yeah, this whole thing could still come to a horrible, horrible end, but for a rushed, half-assed kidnapping that he and Lou wanted no part of, it had gone far better than George could have hoped.

  After about eleven minutes of being held down by George, Ally stopped screaming.

  "So I'm not producing a music show," George informed her. "We're taking you to meet somebody, but we're not going to let him hurt you. Do you hear what I'm saying?"

  George removed his hand from Ally's mouth. She spent a few seconds gasping for breath, then said, "My mom will pay you. Anything you want."

  "This isn't about ransom."

  "Are you going to kill me?"

  "No. I said, we're not going to hurt you. You'll be back home before you know it."

  "Are you going to...?" She burst into tears.

  "Absolutely not. I swear to you, Ally, nothing bad is going to happen to you."

  "I want my mom."

  "You'll see her. You may be back before she even knows you're gone. We're going to take you to see this guy, and I won't deny it, he's a piece of crap. But we'll be there with you, I promise." Since they'd just kidnapped her, this probably wasn't the most soothing thought that George could offer.

  "We won't let him hurt you," Lou said, looking at them in the rear-view mirror.

  "Then why are you taking me to him?"

  "He wants you to bite him," George said.

  "What?"

  "He wants you to bite him. That's all."

  Ally's confusion seemed to outweigh her terror. "He wants to, like, make a video?"

  "No, no, no, it's not a fetish," said George, immediately wishing he hadn't said "fetish" in front of a fourteen-year-old girl. "He thinks you're a werewolf."

  "What?"

  There was no reason not to spill the whole story. "He wants you to bite him so that he can be
come a werewolf too."

  "Is this a fucking joke?"

  "So you're not a werewolf?"

  "No, I'm not a werewolf! Are you retarded?"

  "I'd like to think not."

  "Oh my God! Oh my God!" Ally began to sob, presumably devastated that her life could end at the hands of a couple of superstitious idiots.

  "Has anybody ever accused you of being a werewolf before?" George asked.

  "No!"

  "Have werewolves played any role in your life thus far?"

  "No! I don't even like werewolf movies! What the fuck is the matter with you?"

  "Okay, I'm not going to give you our whole life story, but we were in a situation where we were extremely skeptical about werewolfism—"

  "Lycanthropy," Lou corrected.

  "Shut up. Lycanthropy, and our skepticism worked out badly for us. I'm not saying you're a werewolf. You're probably not. But the guy who's making us do this does believe, so the easiest way to put this behind us is to deliver you, let you bite him, and take you back home."

  "You want me to bite a crazy person?"

  "It would help us all, yeah."

  Ally sniffled.

  "I'm really sorry about this," said George. "You seem like a great kid and you don't deserve this."

  "If I was a werewolf, I'd change right now and kill both of you," said Ally.

  George nodded. "And I wouldn't blame you one bit."

  "I'd rip you to pieces and eat your guts."

  "Of course. Why would you not?"

  "You should've put me in a cage."

  "I know, I know. They even had one. Lou and I rode in it all the way from Ontario. It doesn't make any sense."

  It really didn't make any sense. There was clearly some animosity between Mr. Dewey and Mr. Reith, but considering that the last werewolf-related job had gone so terribly wrong when the wolf was in a cage, it was mind-boggling that they only had a couple of tranquilizer darts this time, fourteen-year-old girl or not.

  Shit, it was as if Mr. Reith wanted them to fail.

  George considered that.

  Shit, Mr. Reith wanted them to fail!

  George could not immediately come up with a good motivation for this. And he had given them the darts, at least. So maybe Mr. Reith didn't want them to fail. Still, something was very wrong here.