by Bonnie Dee
“The mark suggests a cult to me,” I said. “Think she was some kind of sacrifice?”
“Could be.”
Together we walked down the sidewalk toward Amy’s car. I suddenly realized I had no way home but on foot or by streetcar. “Could you give me a ride to my apartment?”
Amy didn’t reply, just unlocked her car.
I slid in on the passenger side and buckled up as she pulled away from the curb with a sharp twist of the wheel. A second into the ride, I remembered why I never rode with Amy. Her driving was like her personality. She drove aggressively on the tail of the guy in front of us and barely slowed as she took corners. My fingers dug into the upholstery as the brakes screeched and the car stopped right on the rear of a semi truck.
I breathed a sigh of relief when she finally pulled up in front of my place. Before I got out, I remembered my mom’s invitation. “My family’s having one of their big shindigs for Grandpère’s birthday tomorrow night. Wanna come?” It wasn’t like I was asking Amy out or anything since the request came from my mother.
“Did your mom ask me?”
“You know her. She’s got some crazy idea about us. I’ve told her there’s more chance of a ‘possum and gator mating than you and me ever hooking up, but she’s relentless.”
“Does that make me the opossum or the gator?” Amy asked. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. I’ve got nothing better to do. I like your mom and your family puts on a great spread.”
That was true and the only thing that made family dinners palatable for me. “Good. See you tomorrow.” I got out of the car.
“Um.”
“What?” I leaned down to look in the window.
“Tomorrow night won’t you still be in the middle of your phase?”
“No. Last night was the end of it for this month.” It hated talking about it with Amy, but at least she didn’t ask endless questions like my family did.
“Okay. See ya.”
I watched Amy’s car until the taillights disappeared around the corner then walked up the path to the gate enclosing the courtyard of my apartment building. I live way above my means thanks to Onc Louis the real estate entrepreneur. He gives me an unreasonable break on an apartment on Royal Street.
Barney, the tabby who lives in the courtyard garden and belongs to everyone in the apartments surrounding it, ran up to me and coiled around my legs, begging to be fed. You’d think a cat would sense the my wolf aspect and fear it, but the stray seemed oblivious. Of course, I’d never encountered Barney on one of my nights out or our friendship might have been severed violently.
“Hey, boy.” I bent and scratched his broad, flat head between his pointed ears. “Want some leftover paella?”
The cat meowed and followed me into my apartment. I forked a little food into the dish I used for him and placed it on the floor. His loud rumble resounded in the small kitchen.
Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I threw myself down on the living room couch so hard it creaked. It felt good to stretch out. Resting the bottle on my chest, I closed my eyes and the face of an angel floated across the screen of my closed lids. Angela Addington.
It was a pain in the ass that most of the women I met were through my job and therefore suffering heartbreak. I felt dirty when I took advantage of their vulnerability, but sometimes did it anyway. Otherwise I never would’ve gotten laid. And it was a symbiotic relationship: I was a comfort fuck for them, they were a nice diversion for me. No one was hurt by it. I couldn’t have a long-term relationship with anybody because of my lycan issue so these little flings suited my needs. I wondered if I’d get with Angela before this case was over and sure as hell hoped so.
An image of Amy, sneering at me in disgust for my crassness, popped up in my mind. I was instantly ashamed. The girl had that effect on me. She was like Jiminy Cricket with attitude and a really hot body.
I knew why she despised men. She’d given me a thumbnail sketch of her relationship with that bastard Jesse. I hoped some day she could get past her pain and learn to trust again, some nice guy who’d treat her as she deserved. Maybe I could set her up with my cousin, Remy at Grandpère’s party.
Amy was my rock. I counted on her to run the office, keep me organized and just to be there. I knew that despite her sharp tongue and snide comments, I could trust her implicitly. She was who I went to the time I got shot. Even in my wild state I knew she was a safe haven.
I sipped my beer and relived the morning I’d regained consciousness on her living room floor. Amy’s face had been pale but she registered no other sign of the shock she must have felt on seeing my transformation. She cleaned the blood off me, bandaged me and put me to sleep in her bed as if this kind of thing happened every day. She didn’t immediately demand answers, giving me time to rest and heal. The grilling would come later.
I’d awakened very late that afternoon when Amy came into the bedroom to check on me. My leg had almost completely healed already.
Amy unwrapped the bandage and poked at the red scar. “That’s amazing!” She covered my leg back up and pulled the blanket over me once more. “You ready to tell me about this now?”
“Guess I have to.” I accepted the glass of water she handed me and drank it down. “I haven’t always been like this. About a year ago, I was bitten. You’ll appreciate this. It was a girl I’d dated and dumped. She found me while in her wolf form and tore into me. Literally. I was lucky she didn’t rip me apart, but a bite was enough to ruin my life. Payback’s a bitch.”
Amy sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor as she listened. “A werewolf,” she murmured. “Unbelievable.”
“Shapeshifter. Werewolf makes me think of B horror flicks with bad 80’s soundtracks.”
“So you change into a wolf whenever the moon is full?”
“A few days a month. The rest of the time--normal.” I didn’t add that there were other times when I felt the beast rising in me. Some nights when the full moon was drawing close, I’d feel the pull of it. Or when I was really angry. The latter didn’t happen often since I was generally a pretty easy-going guy. But once when I got in a fender bender and this asshole got up in my face, I lost my temper and felt my hackles rising. I’d had to force the beast back inside. So even I wasn’t too certain about what precipitated the change.
“What do you do when you’re ... like that?” Amy glanced at me then back down to her hands pressed tightly together on her lap. I could tell she was nervous, but trying to act cool.
“Well, I don’t hurt anybody if that’s what you mean. Lycans don’t run around massacring people like in the movies. Think about the nature shows you’ve seen. Wolves shy away from humans and very rarely attack them.”
“There are more around here? Do you run in a pack? Do you know who they are when they’re in their human form like some sort of secret club?”
I’d been embarrassed to admit my ignorance. When Amy and I had that conversation, I’d been dealing with my condition for about a year and had only recently admitted to myself that my life was never going to return to normal.
“I haven’t really been in touch with ‘the pack’ if there is such a thing. I’ve been kind of trying to play it down and act like it never happened.”
“A lone wolf.” Amy met my gaze. “It must be really hard. I mean, first you have to accept that the fairytale is real then you have to accept it’s happened to you.”
I looked into her dark eyes and for the first time felt someone actually understood what I was going through. “Yeah. That about sums it up.”
Amy rose. “Well, I’m going to fix you something to eat. I bought some clothes for you. They’re in that bag.” She gestured across the room. “Get dressed and come downstairs.”
I loved her in that moment. Her brisk, no-nonsense tone was exactly what I needed to snap me out of my bitterness. I’d spent a lot of time over the past year wallowing in self-pity and Amy was a tonic to it. But she’d made it clear from day one she wasn’t interested in me so I bur
ied any tender feelings I felt toward her and as time passed, managed to forget I’d ever felt anything at all. I had no real future with any woman and might as well get used to it.
My life now was work, solitary evenings because I’d pushed all my buddies away, and an occasional date that never went beyond drinks, dinner and a tumble. How could it? My mother seemed to think I could eventually settle down with a wife and 2.5 wolf pups. It was never going to happen.
Lifting the beer bottle from my chest, I sat up, found the TV remote jammed between the couch cushions and turned on the baseball game. The Zephyrs were being trounced, as usual. I lay back down to watch and soon fell deeply asleep.
My cell phone woke me at about eleven thirty. I didn’t recognize the number of the caller. “Yeah?” I rasped before clearing my throat.
“Mr. Plazier? This is Angela Addington.”
Instantly I was wide awake. “Hello. What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to bother you so late, but it’s happened again. Brian got a call a few minutes ago then went out, giving some excuse about showing property to a client. What kind of person looks at real estate at eleven thirty at night?” Angela sounded close to tears. “Brian left the bedroom to take the call and I followed and listened outside his office door. I caught a man’s name and an address.”
“All right, give them to me and I’ll see what I can find out.” I didn’t feel like going out, but this sounded like a prime opportunity to catch her husband at whatever he was up to.
“Rick,” Angela’s voice was soft and plaintive, “I’m scared. I’m starting to believe this isn’t about cheating on me. With my husband’s business connections, I’m worried he might be involved with illegal activities. I know it sounds melodramatic, but you read about people marrying into the mob without realizing it, and then ... God, that sounds so stupid.”
“Not at all, Angela. If there’s anything to worry about, I’ll find out about it,” I assured her with more confidence than I felt.
I ended the call and went out of the air-conditioned comfort of my apartment into a thick soup of humidity. In a Louisiana summer, the heat and heavy, moist air never let up. Even sunset brings no relief. I cranked up the air in my car as I drove across town.
I parked several streets away from my destination which turned out to be a warehouse in a district of abandoned buildings. Nothing good could be going down between Brian Addington and DuShayne, the man he was supposedly meeting here. I got out of my car and headed toward the warehouse, walking in the shadows.
I’d done enough surveillance work by now that the thrill of feeling like a black ops agent on a dangerous mission had long since evaporated. I’d only been caught taking pictures once and the couple hadn’t confronted me, but disappeared like smoke when they realized they were being tailed. Tonight it didn’t look like I’d be snapping photos of a couple clinched in an embrace. Lovers didn’t tend to meet in dark empty warehouses.
Two men stood in front of a building less than a block away. I raised my camera. Its night vision equaled my own enhanced lycan sight. I watched Addington and DuShayne talking and snapped some photos. It appeared Angela was right in guessing her husband was involved in some shady and possibly dangerous business dealings.
Addington gestured at the building beside them while he spoke. DuShayne was tall, thin and ghostly pale. His shoulders were stooped and he was dressed in a long, black trench coat despite the heat, giving him the appearance of an emaciated vulture. Now Addington was unlocking a door and DuShayne followed him into the building.
I went into the alley alongside the building, searching for a window through which I could continue to observe the men. There were piles of discarded wood pallets and several dirt-covered windows. I scaled a tottering stack of pallets and peered in through one grimy pane.
Flickering fluorescent lights illuminated a wide open space littered with the ruins of a defunct business. Cardboard boxes, packing materials, conveyor belts and machines lay in haphazard disarray. A line on the wall indicated past flooding. Addington and his tall companion walked through the empty factory and up some stairs to offices that lined the level overlooking the main floor. The realtor appeared to be pointing things out about the building and I considered the possibility it really was simply a late night walk-through of a property for sale.
The men went into one of the upstairs offices and were lost to my sight. Sweating and slapping mosquitoes, I waited impatiently for them to reappear. Several minutes later they did, walking back downstairs, through the factory and toward the front door. I slipped to the mouth of the alleyway, where I caught the tail end of their conversation.
“...understand this must be handled with expedience.” the tall man said.
“Absolutely. Thank you for contacting me, Mr. DuShayne.”
They parted with a handshake and walked to their respective vehicles.
I noted the license number on DuShayne’s black Mercedes as he pulled away, then waited for Addington to depart before walking back to my own car. I thought I hadn’t learned much about Brian Addington’s secret business.
When I got home to my apartment, I uploaded the pictures to my computer to see what I’d captured. They showed nothing more than a realtor leading a prospective client through a building for sale. I flipped through the images quickly, thinking the evening’s work might put Angela’s mind at rest about her husband’s philandering.
Suddenly, my attention was riveted by a detail on one of the pictures. With several clicks of the mouse, I zoomed in on DuShayne’s hand pointing at something in the building. The photo became more pixilated with each enlargement, but I could clearly see that on the back of the man’s hand was an intricate circular tattoo.
It was exactly like the brand on Missy Hardewar’s body.
Chapter Four
Amy
I opened the office early the next day and got as much work out of the way as possible so I could spend some time tailing Angela Addington that afternoon. Rick didn’t roll in until after ten thirty of course. Regular office hours didn’t apply to him.
He walked through the door, stretching and yawning. I couldn’t see his muscles ripple under his suit jacket, but I could imagine them and the image made my stomach flip-flop. This symptom of my mania pissed me off so much I snapped at him.
“You’ve had four calls already. Two from clients. Two from collection agents. I’m not fielding those anymore. You can do it.” I handed him the scribbled phone messages as he strolled past my desk.
“Thanks.” Rick’s fingers brushed my hand when he took the papers and my stomach gave another flip. I was completely disgusted with myself. My symptoms were getting worse not better as time went on.
“Now that you’re here, I’m going out,” I told him brusquely. “I’ve got some errands to run.”
“Okay. See you after lunch then.”
As I reached the door, he called, “Hey, are you still coming tonight?”
I paused with my hand on the knob, feeling buoyant at the idea that he might actually want me to go with him and hadn’t just asked me because his mom suggested it.
“I’ve got a cousin I want you to meet. He’s a real nice guy,” he continued.
Disappointment put a pinprick in my little balloon before it ever took off. Rick clearly didn’t view me as his date for the night if he was trying to match me up with someone else.
“Hey, I’m only going for the gumbo. Don’t try to hook me up with your relatives.” I closed the office door behind me, sick of my stomach’s leaping, churning and clenching from every bit of contact with Rick. I was going to develop an ulcer at this rate.
* * * *
Stalking Angela Addington made for one of the most boring afternoons of my life. Brian had given me a schedule of her days as far as he knew it. She went to a gym for her Pilates class at eleven, followed by lunch out with girlfriends. It surprised me that a woman so new to town already had a clique of friends. I’d lived in New Orleans for several yea
rs now and was still a loner.
The ladies lunched for over an hour then Angela went to the dog groomer to pick up her Lhasa Apso. I tailed her back to her home, a beautiful estate in the suburbs, and sat in my car for a couple of hours, staring at the lush grounds and what I could see of the gleaming white facade of the house through trees. I waited for something--anything to happen. How did Rick stand the mind-numbing boredom of surveillance?
Just as I’d decided to give up for the afternoon, Angela opened the front door and walked out to her glossy Ferrari parked at the top of the curving drive. I could almost hear her high heels click on the pavement from my lowly spot, behind the wheel of my ancient Jetta across the street from the mansion. Scooting down in my seat, I made myself invisible. Not hard to do when you’re only 5’1”.
Angela pulled out onto the road and headed south. I started my car and followed.
The Ferrari zigzagged across the city, avoiding construction areas and heading steadily toward the river. Angela stopped in front of a newly refurbished restaurant near the Riverwalk and let the valet take her car.
Since we hadn’t met yet, she wouldn’t have recognized me. Still, I followed a safe distance behind as I entered the restaurant and took a table near the door. It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner so the restaurant wasn’t crowded. Besides, tourists stayed away from our tropical city in droves during the humid month of July.
I sat in the cool Cajun-themed restaurant and sipped iced tea while waiting to see who Angela was meeting. Only a few minutes passed before a man entered the restaurant and walked to the table overlooking the river, where Angela was seated, sipping some frou-frou drink.
He was tall, emaciated, stoop-shouldered and pale as a corpse. His hair was gray and thinning on top. The man lowered himself into the seat across from Angela like a jackknife folding up. Angela was not meeting a lover, unless she had seriously weird taste in men.
