by C. T. Adams
With those words, she started to bend me over backward to the floor. I twisted in her grasp but the sheer weight of her body was all the momentum she needed to complete the throw. She lay on me and methodically began to use all four sets of claws to rake down my back and legs. I couldn’t stop the scream as my clothing and skin burst open in a wash of blood. Pain ripped at my mind and I felt Sue scream along with me through wave after wave of agony as Asri mauled my body. Bobby and Nikoli were both headed toward us when I mercifully blacked out.
Chapter 6
A JOLT SIDEWAYS awakened me from nightmares of pain and chasing prey that I couldn’t catch. The sound of studded tires on squeaking snow warned me I was in a car before I even opened my eyes. The brakes protested slightly as the vehicle reduced from highway speed to a sliding stop on gravel. I was lying spread-eagle face down on nylon carpet. It smelled like other people and cleaning chemicals. The shampoo couldn’t completely erase the underlying lapdog urine. I opened my eyes cautiously without moving. I knew I was going to hurt when I moved.
The driver’s door slammed and I was alone in the back of a rental passenger van. All of the rear passenger seats had been removed. A glance upward showed thick red twilight edging the tinted windows above the door latch. Hunger gnawed at my gut. I could smell fresh meat somewhere in the van, but I was really hoping it wasn’t mine. That would seriously gross me out. I tentatively moved my hand to my face. The palm had healed from the knife burn. A second experiment with my other arm revealed slowly closing wounds from Asri’s claws. I tentatively flexed and found I had reasonable range of motion and strength. Not as bad as I would have thought.
I was hoping Sue would be able to stand the pain of me rising to my knees when I realized she wasn’t there. My heart began to trip like a jackhammer and worry flooded over me. I pressed my mind outward, searching for her frantically. I found a barrier that felt and smelled like fur and jungle. It’s hard to describe something solid in your head. I couldn’t tell what was beyond the barrier or why it was there. What the hell?
The scent of chapstick and aftershave flowed in an icy wave as the door opened. Ah, Bobby was my driver. I couldn’t smell him directly but I knew it was him from the chapstick. He’s worn it for years to heal the damage from constantly licking his lips to scent the air.
I hate that damn cologne Wolven uses. It masks an agent’s natural scent, as well as anything they feel. He was again as I’d always known him—a mystery. It never used to bother me before I was Sazi.
“Where’s Sue?” My mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton and my voice was hoarse and cracked. An abrupt cough reminded me of the wounds on my back and sides. My head started to pound and I suddenly wasn’t interested in being vertical anymore.
“You’re finally awake. Good.”
“Where’s Sue?” I asked again with a dangerous edge.
“We had to cut you off from her.” Bobby’s voice was flat and as angry as I’d ever heard it. The sound was slightly muted by the thick woolen muffler wrapped repeatedly around his neck. “That fucking lizard almost killed you. It took both me and Nikoli to pull her off. Sue was in shock when the Duchess found her.”
He turned and looked down at me from the driver’s seat with fierceness in his eyes. “Another thing to keep in mind, Tony. Your mistakes can kill your mate.”
We wouldn’t go there. None of his business.
“Should we be driving this close to nightfall? I’m about ready to chew off my own arm. And where are we going?”
“Check the window, Tony. You’re looking at the wrong horizon. Night’s come and gone. You slept away the whole second night of the moon. Like I said, she almost killed you. But you’re right about being hungry. You turned but didn’t eat, so I have no doubt you’re ravenous.” He moved his head slightly back and to the left without taking his eyes from the road.
“There’s some packages with raw beef back there that I bought for you. Sorry, no deer.”
I found the packages in a paper bag near my shoulder. My head has always preferred rare to raw—anything to give the impression of humanity—but my stomach wouldn’t listen to reason. I tore open the white butcher’s paper and bit down hungrily into a thick, meaty rib roast. The first one disappeared in seconds. I tore and swallowed as fast as I could and tried not to be repulsed by how much I enjoyed the taste of bloody flesh.
“I thought you told her well enough to travel.” I finally said, when my mouth was full of the same rich beef from the second package.
Bobby’s voice lowered to an angry mutter. He moved his fingers expressively on the wheel as he shook his head. “Oh, I did. I need him fit for travel, I said. Just rough him up a little, I said. But oh, no. Let’s give him to the dragon with no self-control who ‘hasn’t tasted human blood in a century,’ instead. Yeah, let’s let Bobby use all of his magic to heal him. Great idea!”
I managed to stop myself from licking the waxed paper clean of scraps. After I wiped my mouth and hands on some paper towel from the roll tucked under Bobby’s seat, I folded the butcher paper and returned the bones and trash to the paper bag. The meat would curb my hunger for the moment. Every muscle in my back, butt and legs screamed at me as I rose to my knees. I was probably bleeding all over the back of the denim shirt and blue jeans I was wearing. Not a big concern, since I didn’t recognize them. “I don’t exactly feel healed, Bobbo. I think maybe your magic’s broke.”
He didn’t turn his head. The slapping windshield wipers told me that it was snowing. Bobby’s always hated driving in snow. The heater was blasting hard enough that the air nearly burned my lungs as I inhaled.
“Oh shut up! You’re as healed as I’m going to make you. You’re not lying in a pool of blood, are you? Just getting you back from the edge of dying was plenty, thank you very much. I feel like a truck hit me.”
I had crawled forward and managed to get my feet under me enough to slide one leg over the center console and onto the passenger seat. My hip lightly brushed Bobby’s shoulder.
“Jesus! Watch what you’re doing!” He kept his death grip on the steering wheel with both gloved hands. His multi-colored neck wrap slipped down a little.
“Well, why don’t you pull over? I’ll get out and go around.”
“No time. We should have been there by now, as it is. Damn this snow!” He raised one fist toward the roof and then snapped it back down to clutch the wheel.
I checked my options as I stared down at the long route into the front seat. Well, hell. There was going to be no good way to do it. I held onto the tops of both of the head rests and carefully lifted my other leg over Bobby’s soda. My boot sole got stuck briefly. Hmm. Didn’t recognize the shoes, either. Guess they didn’t dress me from my own closet. In freeing my boot, I nudged the gearshift into ‘neutral.’ I reached forward and used my heel to shift it back into drive. The back end slid the tiniest bit as the tires caught.
Bobby nearly panicked. “Stop it, Tony! I mean it!”
“Relax, Bobby. Even if you went off the road you wouldn’t hurt anything. Maybe we’d get wherever we’re going quicker if we were going more than twenty miles an hour. I never understood why you’re afraid of winter driving. You’re Sazi, stupid. ‘You’ll heal’—isn’t that the line?”
He ignored me, other than a nasty glance my direction. I had both of my feet down on the passenger side floor, but the rest of my body was half way in between. I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes and slid down the upholstery. White lights filled the back of my eyelids and pain seared through the wounds on my back. My breath was coming in little gasps, and I could feel wet warmth trickle down my spine as I finally sat down on the soft velour. We wouldn’t get back the damage deposit. I blinked to get my vision to focus. I tried to leaned back, only to leap forward again as pain sliced across my back. Shit.
“Buckle up,” Bobby ordered.
“Sorry. Ain’t happening.” I scooted forward on the seat and braced my hands over the glove compartment. I took a second to o
pen it, and found what I hoped was there. Breath mints. If we were going “somewhere,” I’d rather not smell like bloody meat.
“This is the best you’re getting unless you feel inclined to heal me more.” I said as I popped a mint into my mouth, closed the compartment, and braced my hands again.
“You’ll heal on your own eventually. If I fixed you up, you wouldn’t learn the lesson.”
“Oh, I learned my lesson.”
He spared me a glance and his tongue started to flick out of his mouth. “Oh, yeah? What was the lesson?”
I raised my brows and crunched down on the mint before swirling it around in my mouth. “Don’t piss off the pack leader.”
“Damn it, Tony. What am I going to do with you?” Bobby tightened his grip on the wheel as an SUV smoked by us in the left lane. Of course, anything over forty was “smoking” right now.
“Well, fine.” I snapped. He was beginning to royally tick me off. “What lesson was I supposed to learn?”
He glanced at me with those fake human eyes and sighed. “You’re supposed to learn that you’re part of a community now, Tony. We’re all in this together. Your actions have a direct effect on those around you. You need to figure out that you have to start playing by the rules.”
I was getting sick of this b.s. I’d been told how to live my life—where I could live—what I could do, for just about long enough.
“Okay, ya know what, Bobby? Maybe I don’t like your rules. I was doing just fine by myself. I didn’t ask for this shape-shifter shit, but I adapted. I was living my life. Doing what I do. I’d figured it out. I wasn’t endangering your precious secret any.” I quavered my hands and made my eyes go wide. “Ooo, don’t reveal the secret, kids.” I shook my head and snorted. “Jeez, I mean—you teach your people that they’re better than us poor lowly humans and then you hide like cockroaches when the light hits you. I just got the shit kicked out of me for not hiding a bunch of deer bones. Yeah, there’s superior for you. If that’s the attitude of all of the Sazi, then I don’t want to play by your rules. I don’t want to be part of your fucking community. We’re not all in this together. ’Cause you know what? It doesn’t take a village, Mr. Secret Agent. Not your definition of one.”
I leaned back in the seat and let the pain be what it was going to be. The pain fed my anger and made it stronger.
“If you’re going to lean back anyway, at least buckle up.” The words were soft and thoughtful. Bobby deliberately kept his eyes on the road. I reached around and grabbed the belt and hissed as fabric abraided my skin. I stretched the belt across my chest and buckled it.
We drove in silence for some time. The wipers kept a steady beat against the falling snow. It was growing light enough to see. A road sign whizzed past. We were only forty miles from my old home town. I thought about asking Bobby why we were going there since I’m wanted for murder—and supposed to be dead—but didn’t really feel like talking to him.
“Babs is missing. She’s been kidnapped,” he answered me as though he’d heard my thoughts.
“Why would I care?” I hated the woman ever since she turned me into a frigging animal. I tried to kill her four times but she kept healing. I finally got bored.
Bobby’s voice was flat and annoyed. “Didn’t figure you would. But Carmine cares. He’s going to go looking for her.”
“Bully for him.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared out the window. The snow was slowing and turning to tiny pellets of ice.
My peripheral vision caught Bobby’s fingers doing a tap dance on the steering wheel. “We’re here to stop him.”
My voice was an angry hiss. “The hell you say! Why would we want to do that?”
“Linda was at home when Babs was taken. She said someone came in, threw Linda across the room, knocked Babs out and took her. We’re looking for a Sazi.”
“Did Linda say it was a Sazi?”
“For Christ’s sake, Giambrocco! Get over being pissy and use your brain. Babs is a powerful alpha wolf. Who else could have knocked her out long enough to get her out of Carmine’s fortress?”
“That still doesn’t rule out a human, Bobby.”
He gave me a withering look, so I continued. “Granted, I didn’t manage to kill her, but I could have knocked her out any time I wanted to.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “We heal too quick, Tony. You don’t understand what you’re saying. Alphas can’t be knocked out.”
“Anyone can be knocked out if you know what you’re doing, Bobby. You just have to know your animal. They’ve got stuff on the black market that will put down an elephant. She wouldn’t be out for long—just long enough to get her away. If Linda was unconscious, she wouldn’t know.”
“Then what, Tony? How do you keep down someone who can lift a car? Chains—nope. Steel cable? Only for a few minutes. You can use silver, but as a metal, it’s not very strong. It burns our skin, but only until it breaks. No, it’s one of ours.”
“Fine,” I replied with exasperation. “I don’t know the bad guys of your world, Bobby. You tell me—who could have done it? And again, why do we care?”
“We’re almost there. Get in back and keep your head down. There’s still an all-points out on you.”
I shook my head and unbuckled my belt. I started again to climb over the seat. My back and legs were a throbbing pain that wouldn’t stop. Probably better that I wasn’t connected to Sue right now. At least the migraine was gone. I was miserable, but I could think—clearly enough to know that this trip was just a bad idea.
“Yeah. My precise point. The one thing I’ve learned is to keep a low profile. This isn’t helping. If you don’t want Carmine to look for Babs, just go and tell him. It’s not like I’ll have any great influence over him that you wouldn’t, Bobby. He’s known you almost as long as he has me.”
He shook his head and gritted his teeth. “I told Lucas you’d be like this.” He dropped down the visor as the sun crested the horizon. “But he insisted.”
“Yeah. And what about this ‘Lucas’ character? Who the hell is he and why is he so interested in me?”
“Lucas is one of the old ones, Tony. He’s got his finger on the whole world. He works with the seers. Knows the past, the future—everything.”
Oh, great. They’ve got psychics too. Figures. I snorted lightly. “But he doesn’t know where Babs is. Some seer.”
Traffic was heavier the closer we got to town. It was a work day. A little snow never stopped the town before, so ramps began to feed multitudes of cars onto the freeway. I could see Bobby flinch as people went zooming by on the right and left of our lane. Bobby quickly released the wheel long enough to flip on the right turn sign. Then he clutched it once more as he eased into the slow lane.
“Lucas isn’t one of the seers, Tony. He just works with them. The reason we’re going in is that they don’t know where Babs is. That’s the problem. We’ve checked up on known rogues but nobody knows anything.”
“Rounded up all the usual suspects, huh? Fine. But that still doesn’t explain why you don’t want Carmine’s help. He’s got a lot of resources, you know. I know it’s probably amazing to you since he’s only a human, but he might actually be able to help.”
“Knock off the sarcasm. Yes, I know that Carmine’s connected. But we can’t let him help. It’s too dangerous.”
A short bark of laughter erupted and pulled at the wounds on my neck. “Too dangerous for Carmine? Get real, Bobby! He’s a mob boss. I wouldn’t worry about him.”
The turn signal began to click again as the van eased onto the exit that would take us to the center of town. Carmine lives in the ’burbs. I still didn’t know where we were going. Bobby pulled into the nearest shopping center lot and stopped. He shifted into park and put on the emergency brake. Then he turned around in his seat so he could see me.
“Look, Tony. I’m going to level with you. I’ll probably get my ass chewed, but so be it. The person took Babs. We don’t have many Sazi with that muc
h firepower. The few we have all had unshakable alibis. We’re a little afraid that it’s one of our agents gone rogue. Several have disappeared lately without the bodies being recovered. A rogue agent will turn Carmine into chopped liver if they don’t eat him first. Linda would start a war with the Sazi to avenge him.”
“If Babs is dead they might anyway. I mean, she’s just their latest toy but she’s their toy.”
“Precisely. Carmine is too well known not to be noticed if he goes missing. He’s too well known not to be noticed if he goes to war. And, if he or Linda bring in boys from other areas, too many people will find out about shape-shifters and the world will destroy us.”
“This isn’t the days of the Salem witch hunts, Bobby. I adapted to knowing about the Sazi. So would the rest of the world.”
“Oh, yeah. We’ve adapted real well to different cultures since 9/11, haven’t we? Ask your average Pakistani cab driver. Or some innocent Arab immigrant who’s sitting in Gitmo for no reason—no charges, no accusations.” Bobby’s eyes were flashing and his voice was harsh. A snowplow noisily scraped by, carving a path around us.
“They can hold him forever that way with the new PATRIOT Act, you know. Maybe he did something. Maybe not. He might have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. But as long as he’s deemed a ‘security risk,’ he’ll sit there until they decide, in their infinite wisdom, to let him go or put him on trial. That’s not just my vivid imagination, Tony. It’s real. And forever’s a long time to us.”
Okay, he had me there. I’ve read some of the case files about the Act. I knew he wasn’t kidding.
“Most of the Sazi are just like you, Tony. They didn’t ask to be born like this. Those kids you met may be aggressive, but they’re not bad kids. They don’t deserve to be rounded up like anthrax-ridden cattle and destroyed just because people fear magic. And that’s what would happen. You know it!”
I thought about it. A group of powerful people who can’t be killed, who can mask themselves with illusion so you don’t see them go wherever they want to. Wow. Talk about your security risks. Then I imagined the faces of those little kids and thought about what would happen if the troops arrived like they did in Florida with the Cuban kid. Shit. I’m not stupid and I’m not completely heartless. I threw up my hands and was annoyed when Bobby smiled.