by Selina Woods
Making my decision, I stood up and waved in the direction Brand was hiding. I kept on waving as my guards and Brand crept from their concealment and rushed to the pile of rubble I had leaped from. I, with gestures and no sound, ordered them to shift forms and leap across. Many of the guards were wolves, and I wondered if they’d have the strength to cross the distance.
They did. One by one, twenty-one lions and wolves leaped to the rooftop and spread out. Though I listened intently, I heard nothing from below. Freddy was a wolf, and I whispered in his ear.
“Your hearing is better than mine. What can you hear from below?”
He cocked his head, his ears perked as he stared at the rooftop under his paws. Then he glanced up at me. “Snoring, boss.”
“Snoring?”
The other wolves confirmed it. “I hear snoring.” “I hear it, too.” “Damn, that fool is asleep.”
Feeling cheered, I led my troops to the vent. “Now, if we can get this apart, we can drop below and take this guy out. I’m thinking the fumes from his product making has fried his brain, but that’s only a theory. He must use gas masks, but even so, some will have gotten through to screw him up over the years.”
“And you could be wrong, sir,” Brand said.
“I could be wrong,” I agreed. “That’s why I go in first.”
I received the expected protests and offers to go in ahead of me, but I growled them all into submission.
“Go human,” I snapped. “We’ll need your rifles. Cover me, and let’s see if we can take this idiot alive. If he fights, kill him.”
One by one, they shifted forms, even Brand, while I remained in my lion body. The aluminum sheeting around the vent screeched in protest as my people peeled it away, and I leaped down, front first, into the hole they created. I dropped on all fours to a filthy tiled floor that once had been white and immediately jumped sideways to make room for the others. Brand came next and stood beside me as we both listened intently.
The snoring, louder now that it had no impediment, came from further down the hallway ahead of us. The stench in my sensitive nostrils was incredible, and even Brand grimaced in disgust. “This shit is making me nauseous,” he muttered.
“Tell me about it.”
The others dropped through the hole to the floor as I glanced around, finding that we had landed in a converted kitchen, a collection of appliances that included a small refrigerator, a flat gas stove that sat on a table, dirty dishes piled in a sink. “This guy seriously needs a maid,” I grumbled, heading toward the source of the snoring.
We passed old offices with crumbling and dust-laden desks, broken chairs, and entered what I guessed was his laboratory. The horrid odor originated from here, as this was where it was the strongest, and several tables had been pushed together with more of the flat gas cooking stoves on them. Glass beakers stood on the burners, yet none were lit.
I wandered over to inspect a pile of white powder on a table beside a stack of rectangular, wrapped packets. Rather than speak, as we were closer to the snoring, I caught Brand’s eye and jerked my chin toward the dope. Freddy followed close behind him as he strode over to pick up a small bundle then put it back. He gestured toward the hallway further down where the snoring emanated from and lifted his brow in a silent question.
I dropped my chin in a quick nod, then padded silently down the narrow hallway to the drug dealer’s bedroom. At the door, I studied him for a moment, Brand behind me. The skinny, wrinkled, and gray-haired fellow might once have been big and strong, if I were any judge of bone structure. He lay on his back in the midst of tangled and filthy blankets, and I wondered if they were infected with bugs.
The snores came from a mouth of broken teeth surrounded by a wispy mix of dark and gray beard. I paced closer, hoping I wouldn’t catch anything by being near him, and stared down into his face. Naturally, his breath could have choked a moose, and I almost stepped back.
Instead, I snarled.
He jerked awake with a strangled cry, his muddy brown eyes fastening on me. Scrambling in a wild flailing of arms and legs, he pushed himself into the corner made where the bed and wall met. “Who’re you?” he shrieked.
“Outside of your worst nightmare,” I growled, “I’m Griffin. I run this town.”
He blinked, evidently not recognizing my name. “You here to make a purchase?”
“I’m here to put you out of business.”
By now, he’d seen the armed guards filling the room behind me and spilling into the hall. His gaze flicked back to me in clear confusion. “Uh, why?”
Taken aback by his question, I almost gaped. “Why? Because you sell your product to night stalkers, who steal and kill to keep themselves high.”
“I’m just a businessman,” he protested. “Free enterprise, you know? People want what I sell. I’m not hurting anybody.”
I nearly seized him by the throat and shook him until his neck shattered. “You are hurting people, even if you’re not there pulling the trigger,” I snapped. “Your customers kill innocents.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“You’re as stupid as you are ugly. What’s your name?”
“Jingo.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Brand. “Find his cash. He has to have a hoard of it somewhere.”
Jingo came off the bed, outraged. “You can’t steal from me. I’ll complain to the top guy.”
Swatting him to the floor like a bug, I glared down at him. “I am the top guy, nimrod. And I do just as I please. Keep annoying me, okay? I haven’t killed anyone for two days, and I’m feeling the pressure.”
Cringing, curling up into a ball, he started to cry. “It’s not fair,” he whined. “I’m just a businessman.”
“Life sucks, and then you die.”
Leaving him under Freddy’s rifle aimed down at his nose, I left the room, the guards parting the way to let me pass. Brand and several others searched the place, not bothering to keep things intact as they did so. The sounds of shattering crockery and the tumbling of metal cabinets filled the place even as Jingo’s wails rose.
“Here, Griffin,” Brand called. “I found it.”
As he considered the place impregnable, Jingo hadn’t bothered to hide his money very well. Wads of it were packed so tightly into an urn in his makeshift kitchen that it was almost impossible to get it out. “What do you suggest we do with him?” I asked Brand, my voice low. “He’s almost too stupid to kill, but if we let him go, he’ll set up shop somewhere else.”
“Run him out of town?” Brand suggested. “Let him become someone else’s problem.”
“That would be the same as killing him,” I replied, glancing around at the filth. “There’s no other town within a hundred miles of here.”
“Actually, there are some small towns about fifty miles out into the country,” he said. “If he can get there, people will probably take him in. And I doubt they’ll let him set up his dope business.”
“All right. Find a sack or something to put food into,” I told him, “then you personally drive him to the edge of town on the highway. Put a good scare into him so he won’t try to sneak back in.”
“You got it.”
I shifted forms in order to take the urn and then found a steel door to open. The influx of fresh air scented of nirvana, and I breathed deeply of it as Brand relayed my orders. “What do you want us to do with this place?” a guard asked me.
“Find something flammable,” I told him. “We’re gonna burn it.”
Jingo was forcibly hauled out of the building, still weeping and protesting, by Freddy and another guard while someone shoved food from the cupboards and refrigerator into a canvass sack. By the smell of it, turpentine was discovered, and two shifters splashed it everywhere. I suspected that between it and the gas stoves, the entire place would explode.
“Everyone out,” I bellowed, carrying the urn outside.
My people filed out the door, many of them coughing and spitting on the ground a
fter the fumes in the place got to them. Jingo ceased his whining and stood watching, his sack in his arms, while I strode over to him. “You’ll leave Detroit, Jingo,” I growled. “Don’t come back. I find you here again, I’ll kill you.”
Perhaps, at last, realizing what peril he truly was in, Jingo nodded, his eyes wide. “I won’t.”
Brand left the place and gave me the thumbs up. “Everyone’s out.”
“Then you can do the honors,” I told him. “Light it up.”
As a group, we pulled back and behind a protective pile of rubble as Brand lit a book of matches and threw it inside the door. He then bolted toward us as flames shot from the structure, licking the steel, smoke pouring from the hole we made in the roof. “It’s gonna blow,” he yelled, ducking behind the pile with us.
He wasn’t wrong, either. The cement and steel building exploded, sending chunks of metal and debris in all directions. Smaller detonations blasted from inside, flames and smoke pouring from the cracks in the structure. I watched for a few minutes, then looked at Jingo.
He stared as his life’s work burned, his expression a mixture of anguish and anger. Meeting my eyes, I knew he’d have tried to kill me at that moment if he could have. “Brand,” I said, still gazing at the drug dealer. “Take him to the highway and cut him loose.”
Brand and three others hustled Jingo toward the cars parked a few blocks away, Jingo watching his building burn for as long as he could. I wondered if by letting him live, I’d create new problems, then shrugged. If it did, I’d deal with them then.
“Now, the stalkers will go nuts without their fixes,” Freddy murmured from my side.
“Yeah.” I watched the building burn. “It’s time to hunt them into extinction.”
Chapter Nine
Craving Iliana’s presence and a plateful of excellent food, I drove Freddy and a few other guards to the Devil’s Headmaster. The others went back to the penthouse as I didn’t want that many around to protect me. We’d left the fire to burn as there was nothing nearby to ignite from it. The big urn of money sat in the rear hatch, and I wondered what to do with it.
Driving around the corner near the restaurant, I came head to head with a huge crowd milling in the middle of the street, smoke pouring from the Headmaster. “Shit,” I exploded, jamming the brake pedal to the floor.
“What the hell?” Freddy asked.
Throwing the SUV into park, I ran from it, pushing my way through the throng, my heart racing faster than my feet. Iliana! Toward the front, I discovered people throwing buckets of water through the broken front window, putting the fire out. Hyde, his flesh blackened by soot, directed the operation. And Iliana stood watching several paces away, safe and unharmed.
She saw me and immediately ran toward me. “Griffin!”
Within seconds, she was in my arms, hers around my waist and her head against my chest. I hugged her tight, feeling her heart thud almost in time to mine. “What happened?”
“Enforcers,” she told me without looking up. “They threw a bottle with a rag stuffed into the neck. They lit it, and threw it through the window.”
“Are you hurt?”
She glanced up. “No. I was in the back as usual. A few customers were burned.”
I swore under my breath. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know. I think friends and neighbors took them.”
Hyde came over, wiping his face with arm, his expression grim. “The fire’s out. Fortunately, customers helped put it out the instant they threw the bottle. The damage isn’t extensive, but now people will be afraid to come eat here.”
“Why would the enforcers target you?” I asked, just as grim as he was.
His gaze lowered to Iliana. “Because you’re protecting her is my guess.”
I half-turned, staring around at the whispering crowd of onlookers, seeing no enforcers among them as there usually might be. “Are they angry with you or with me?”
“They wouldn’t dare go after you,” Iliana said, pushing out of my arms. “They’re too scared of you.”
“They might be realizing there are more of them than of me,” I grated, still seeking enforcers in the throng.
While I didn’t see any, I did, however, catch a glimpse of the two shifters with the tattoos at the rear of the crowd. When they saw me watching them, they drifted away. I wanted to run after them, but I would not leave Iliana. Nor did I want Freddy or any guards leaving her, either.
“Where are the two guards I sent to watch over you?” I asked her.
She gestured with her chin. “Right there. They were inside at one of the tables when those guys threw the bomb in. They came straight for me and got me out.”
The pair saw me looking at them and pushed their way through the watchers. “Sir,” one of them said. “Enforcers did this.”
“So, I’m told,” I replied. “Did you happen to recognize them?”
“Yeah. They’re buddies with the one you killed and hung up. Names are Jesse and Simon.”
“I don’t suppose you happen to know where they live, do you?”
One grinned as he nodded. “In fact, I do, sir. But they won’t be stupid enough to go there again.”
“They might if they think no one recognized them. Tell me where, and then I want you two to go and watch the place. I’ll bring reinforcements.”
The shifter gave me explicit directions, and then the two of them shifted into a wolf and a lion to gallop away. Catching Hyde’s eyes, he said, “I want to be there, Griffin.”
“No. You have to keep Iliana safe.”
“No,” he said, contradicting me in front of everyone within hearing range. “You’re going to protect her. Take her to your place. Keep her there under the watch of your guards.”
“Maybe after we dispense with these renegades, you should come, too. The penthouse is big enough.”
Before I finished speaking, Hyde shook his head. “Thanks, but I need to keep running my business. Maybe my customers will come back.”
“I hope so.”
Hyde headed back to the restaurant, leaving me to put my arm over Iliana’s shoulders and follow. Inside, the smoke rapidly clearing yet still scenting of burnt wood, we examined the charred floor and tables. “I have wood downstairs to cover the broken window,” Hyde commented, staring through the busted glass as the crowd finally drifted away.
“We can scrub the floor and replace the tables,” Iliana suggested, scraping her shoe across the blackened tiles. “It wasn’t burned all the way through, Dad.”
“That might be enough to keep us in business for a while,” he agreed.
With the help of the staff who hadn’t fled, we boarded up the window and cleaned up as much of the mess as we could. There would always be a black area near the window until the floor and the nearest wall was replaced, but otherwise, things had improved greatly. Yet, no customers drifted in off the street to dine at the Headmaster.
The single remaining cook prepared steaks and fries for us while the waitresses, with nothing to do, gossiped in low whispers and uneasily watched the street outside.
I told them about Jingo and his drug operation, and how I banished him from Detroit and burned his building. Iliana smiled at me. “I’m glad you showed him mercy and didn’t kill him.”
“I wonder if I should have,” I replied. “He might come back, and next time, it’ll be harder to dig him out.”
“Not likely,” Hyde commented. “Not with you waiting to kill him.”
I shrugged. “We’ll see, I guess.”
“Do you have a plan yet, Griffin?” Hyde asked. “About those enforcers?”
“Take Iliana to the penthouse,” I replied, chewing the juicy steak. “Then grab a handful of my people and pay a call on them. If they haven’t gone back to their place by now, they probably will after dark falls.”
“Without their drugs,” he went on thoughtfully, “the night stalkers will get very violent.”
“So will I,” I returned, my tone bland
. “They’ll come out into the open, even in daylight. My enforcers will take them out.”
“Let’s hope they stay loyal to you,” he said, his eyes on me. “They’re growing more pack like these days, dedicated to each other rather than you.”
While that didn’t surprise me at all, it did raise alarm bells in me that someone like Hyde would have noticed it. That the shifters who worked for me would turn on me one day was a prospect I expected, for hadn’t I turned on my predecessor and killed him? Perhaps the gang decided that as I sided with Hyde and Iliana over them, it was now time for me to be executed.
Hyde seemed to read my thoughts, though I worked to keep them from my expression and eyes. “They always turn on the leader eventually,” he said.
Once, I might have shrugged it off and welcomed the fight, but I now had Iliana to think of. I looked at her and found her staring at me, her expression both fearful and grim at the same time.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she told me, her voice hard. “That you have to protect me. But I’ll fight beside you all the way.”
I grinned slightly. “I knew you would. And that’s why I can’t put you into a position where you might get hurt or killed.”
“So, what will you do?”
I gazed out the window and into the afternoon sunlight. The neighborhood returned to normal, people passing by on the street, and yet still no one came in to dine. “Maybe tonight’s show of force will cow them,” I replied. “Let them know I’m still the boss. They might think twice about messing with me, or either of you.”
“Or it may piss them off,” Hyde said dryly.
“Are you asking me to back down?” I snapped, glaring at him.
“Never.” He wasn’t the least bit intimidated by my show of anger. “Just keeping things in perspective.”
I pondered the notion of simply packing my things and driving the SUV out of Detroit, leaving all this behind. As it happened any time, I thought such thoughts, the powerful urge to head southwest to the mountains hit me. The same song I’d heard singing in my blood for as long as I could remember came back and tried to tug me toward them.