Mallory's Hunt

by Jory Strong

  "Did the LAPD withhold drugs? See if he'd talk for a fix to stave off withdrawal?"

  "The guy is nuts without the H or methadone. Barks and howls like a freaking dog, snaps and clacks his teeth. If he's not strapped down, he repeatedly hurls himself against doors and windows, trying to escape."

  "You sure he can talk?"

  "Positive. He's been observed having lucid conversations with the others. He's got no history of violence or psychotic behavior while living on the street. Institutionalized—if some civil rights organization didn't take an interest and get involved—he wasn't going to be any use to us. When I got through the files, I had the LAPD cut him loose, figuring he's a weak link you might be able to exploit once you're on the inside."

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence. How many more?"

  "One. I saved the best for last."

  Zack dropped the photo in front of Caleb and it was like taking a round to the chest without wearing Kevlar. If he was the type to drool over drop-dead gorgeous, the spit would already be hitting the paper.

  Long hair slid downward in an inky fall. Dark eyes were a match in color to the men's, except instead of blank or merciless they held warmth and a hint of humor.

  A smile had her lips curving upward and begging to be kissed. Hell. Every inch of exposed skin demanded acknowledgment and worship.

  One of these is not like the others.

  That was dangerous thinking, the kind that could get him killed.

  "Who is she?"

  "Mallory Cassel. Until his disappearance, she partnered with Dane Mora. Most of their income comes from chasing bond skips. By far, Larsen Bail Bonds is their biggest source of income. But they also take on a fair amount of missing persons' work, a lot of it done pro bono, or for expenses only. She's the driving force behind the non-skip-chase work. She's got a good relationship with an LAPD detective by the name of Nathan Davidson."

  Caleb's gaze lingered on the laughter in her eyes, the lips tipped upward with the beginning of a smile. Maybe she hasn't gone bad yet.

  He squelched the thought with the image of his parents opening the door to Zack, their faces crumpling as they understood the visit was a next-of-kin notification. "Garnering favors with the police? Against the day she gets arrested? That'd be reason to look for missing persons."

  "If only it were that simple. Here's another little unique twist to all this, and I'm including every person known to wear the brand. Other than those individuals whose origins can't be determined, all the rest of them disappeared sometime in childhood. The boys were logged in as runaways. Mostly they'd already been tapped for truancy, gang affiliation, charges that were dealt with in juvenile court, but Mallory, she's different."

  Zack leaned back in the chair. "She was kidnapped when she was eight, taken from the grocery store when her mother's attention was diverted. It got major media coverage and plenty of hours of police work. There were never any leads. Then eight years later, she came home. Showed up at the front door about an hour before her mother went into labor."

  "What'd she have to say about the eight years she went missing?"

  "About what you'd guess considering the company she now keeps. Nothing. When she showed up, the brand on her arm was fresh, as if it'd been seared into her skin moments earlier. The general consensus was that she was too traumatized to talk about where she'd been and what happened to her there. We know she wears the brand because of the medical records. Unlike the men, she keeps it covered."

  Caleb glanced at the other faces, and the eerily similar likenesses. "What about her father?"

  "Bio-dad was out of the picture before she was born. Isn't even listed on the birth certificate. Apparently he took off as soon as Mallory's mother—who's a nurse by the way—said she was going to carry to term. The story is similar on the others, sperm donor only, no known or admitted contact after the child was born. Her stepfather is a prosecuting attorney. He's on record as saying Mora, Loban, Welker and Kerr are her half-brothers."

  Caleb braced himself before looking at Mallory's picture. It didn't help. He still felt the impact, the armor-piercing warning that his reaction to her would be worse in person. "So she's the key."

  "Definitely. She was overheard talking to Welker. She's looking for someone to take up the slack until her partner gets back. An educated guess here based on what's in Mora's juvie record, he's got a real talent for breaking in where there's good security, something right up your alley."

  Zack dropped a driver's license and bank card on the table, along with a flash drive. "You're Matthew Wright for this one. There's an apartment two down from the woman's, rented over a year ago by whoever is behind this investigation. Your choice whether or not to move in. Everything you need to know is on the drive."

  Caleb gathered the materials.

  Zack said, "There's one more piece to all of this. The M1911 is missing. The LAPD can't find it."

  Caleb froze, cold sliding down his spine. Somebody walking on my grave, his grandmother used to call it. "Any explanations?"

  "No. Let me know when you go under. Watch your back, Caleb. I don't like the feel of this one."

  Neither did he.

  Last undercover assignment. He intended to survive it.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 4

  The hot night didn't reduce the number of street prostitutes or the men trolling for sex. Exhaust fumes and the smell of desperation ebbed into the Jeep in a relentless tide, adding to Mallory's frustration.

  She tapped her fist where the window disappeared into the door. Irritation slithered up her neck and into her jaw. Even if Amanda Edson was hustling for drug money, finding her this way was a long shot. The web had changed the way business was done. But paying Hayden to look for Amanda hooking online would be costly. Paying Hayden in any currency beyond a promised favor wasn't an option, and she didn't jump into that kind of debt, especially not with Hayden, the ultimate pragmatist.

  This was a waste of time. She knew it. She should be at the party on Mulholland, hunting Jeffery Carlisle. Bring him in and she could replace the Jeep, though she wouldn't, not with Dane wearing fur, not when the only money coming in was what she earned.

  Her chest constricted. It felt like the events of the day had formed a shrinking box around her.

  The close call with Dane and Henderson.

  The unthinking quickness of pulling her knife and sliding it across Henderson's throat.

  Bastian with his mocking smile and implied secrets.

  Nathan with his wariness and limits.

  Hunter with his warning about not sending business their way.

  Phillip's threat.

  Her heart clenched tighter than her fist against the window frame. "He can't take them away."

  Next to her Dane growled.

  She forced a slow exhale. If Phillip listened to the recording of the conversation with Bastian, and she was almost positive there was one, then he knew she could contact her "father."

  Maybe she could use that with a threat of her own, that Phillip risked having his wife and Sorcha disappear. Her stomach roiled. I won't let that happen.

  But she understood why she'd been returned to this world on the very day of Sorcha's birth. The instant she'd held her newborn sister, the Reaper Lord had gained another way to exert his control.

  Her thoughts flowed to Amanda Edson, and her resemblance to Sorcha. That was why she was here, and not on Mulholland.

  It might mean Nathan would stop taking her calls, or calling her, but… "I'm going to have to contact Amanda's family."

  Dane's sigh was loud enough to flutter his lips, a Hound version of the duh, you think that would have come if he'd been in his human form.

  She parked the Jeep near a stretch where she'd seen under-aged girls clustered like kids prowling a mall, except these were selling, not buying.

  "You staying in the Jeep? Or with it?"

  Dane stood. She closed the windows, hesitated, decided against carrying the 9 mm. A jacket
would make her look too much like a cop or a crusader. A gun jammed into her waistband and visible would spook the prostitutes and invite trouble.

  She got out, touched the pocket holding the switchblade. Dane jumped onto the pavement and settled into the darkness next to his Rubicon.

  Her pulse sped. This was risky, so risky. Being in the Jeep with the windows opened wouldn't make Dane any less of a threat, but it'd reduce the chance of something setting him off.

  "You could come with."

  He lifted his lip, showing a hint of canines.

  "Suit yourself."

  She headed toward three girls, two white and one Hispanic, sixteen, maybe seventeen, their ass cheeks hanging out of short shorts and their breasts displayed in tight tanks.

  They scattered like quail.

  She kept going, reaching an older prostitute, a thin blonde with junkie arms and junkie shakes.

  Mallory pulled the picture of Amanda from a back pocket. There was no subtle here, and names were worthless while the offer of cash would buy plenty of lies.

  "Have you seen this girl?"

  "No."

  Mallory inhaled, searching for the scent of carrion that marked a lie and not finding it.

  She moved on, collecting honks and wolf whistles from some of the drivers.

  A brown-haired girl closer to Amanda's fourteen hung near the front of a closed pawnshop. The kid edged away, cast a quick panicked glance down the street but didn't bolt.

  Mallory followed the girl's gaze, but couldn't spot a pimp, or the muscle sent to make sure the girl did what she'd been told to do.

  Showing the picture, she asked, "Seen her around?"

  The girl shook her head, the movement big, like she wanted to make sure whoever was watching saw that she wasn't getting involved.

  "You can get out of this life. There's a teen outreach center not far from here."

  The girl retreated, her back brushing the graffiti-covered pawnshop wall, her shoulders hunching, her whimper audible because Mallory was Hound.

  "They can help you get clean, help you get away from whoever turned you out like this."

  "Go away." The girl's lips barely moved. "Stop talking to me."

  Mallory looked at the Jeep. "Place is three blocks that way, five streets to the right."

  "Stop talking to me." The tone was higher now.

  Fear scent bloomed like the mushroom cloud of a detonated bomb, stirring Hound instinct and kicking Mallory's heart into a greedy race.

  She could hunt whoever was working the girl. She could—

  She moved away.

  In front of her a car pulled to the curb and a black prostitute on three-inch heels swayed her way to the open window then got inside.

  Mallory aimed for a cluster of young prostitutes hanging out near a group of twenty-somethings. Hard eyes. Lost eyes. Dead eyes. America's throwaway children, and it pissed her off seeing what became of them.

  A glance over her shoulder and the brown-haired girl was sliding into the front seat of a white truck. She stopped and turned but the angle was wrong, the distance too great to get a glimpse of the driver or the license plate.

  Arms wrapped around her from behind, feminine with inhuman strength. All other scent was obliterated by the smell of Hell.

  "You should give in to the desire," a sultry voice purred, but despite the soft cheek rubbing against Mallory's and the breasts pressed to her back, she wasn't being tempted with sex.

  "No."

  "But you want to. You're quivering with the desire to hunt."

  "No."

  A husky laugh breezed across Mallory's ear. "Oh, you are an amusement."

  The arms fell away, allowing Mallory to escape. And she did, turning to face a redhead with glittering blue eyes and a body created to lure.

  The succubus's lips curved upward. "I could help you. All you have to do is ask."

  "No."

  "Too bad. It wouldn't cost you, not much anyway."

  A street show car pulled along the curb next to her, tire rims spinning and body pumping up and down. Two guys sat in front, one in the back, arms along the top of the seat. He yelled above blasting rap music, "Yo, mama, how much to suck three dicks?"

  The succubus's lips parted slightly, allowing Mallory to see the flick of a black tongue.

  "Why fight instinct?" she purred, then sashayed over to the car, upper body spearing through the back window.

  Mallory moved on.

  Kept asking.

  Kept passing on the location of the outreach center, her nostrils filling with the smell of sex and drugs, hopelessness and despair and desperation. Her nerve endings buzzing and the burn in her gut deepening with every skittish gaze and blossoming of fear scent.

  She imagined the white pickup pulling to the curb and disgorging the brown-haired girl working the spot in front of the pawn ship. She could hunt him with Dane. She wanted to hunt him with Dane.

  That desire cast her into memory, into Hell, into glorious sensation. She and Dane running side-by-side through dense, black forest, embracing their natures, their purpose. Taking down their prey and reveling in the terror they created, in the rip and tear of temporary flesh created out of soul-magic.

  A shudder freed her from the past, from temptation and instinct.

  One more. One more and then she needed to get out of there.

  She stopped next to a girl with Sorcha's on-the-cusp-of-change body, her scarecrow hair streaked with purple and anchored by a strip of hay-colored roots.

  Mallory held up the picture. "Have you seen her around?"

  "Haven't seen her."

  A whiff of carrion said otherwise. "You sure?"

  "Yeah. Positive." The lie-smell intensified.

  A car jerked to the curb, coming to a rocking stop.

  The driver and passenger doors flung open.

  Two men emerged from the car, one in his late twenties and heavily tattooed. The other a lot younger, lean and wild-eyed with a meth user's rotted teeth.

  The girl put distance between herself and Mallory, joining older prostitutes who'd turned to watch.

  The men came toward Mallory, the wild-eyed one moving faster and pulling a knife. "Bitch, I'm going to cut your fucking tongue out for messing in our business."

  He slashed the air, creating a breeze that carried the stink of unwashed skin and sweaty high.

  She smiled. "Am I supposed to be scared?"

  His enraged scream sounded like a little girl's.

  He charged to the sound of prostitutes hooting.

  Mallory pivoted at the last instant, grabbing his arm and sending him crashing into the bars covering an office-front window.

  He hit with a thud and fell backward.

  She turned, twisting away from the tattooed man's punch, meaty fist grazing the side of her head and bringing with it the scent of a gun.

  She kicked hard and fast, delivering a strike to his testicles.

  He cried out, hunched, grabbing his genitals.

  She punched, a boxer's hook.

  He toppled, out cold.

  The junkie came at her, slashing wildly.

  She swept her leg.

  Struck him.

  Followed him down, straddling him, the front of his body trapped against sidewalk.

  She wrenched the knife from his hand and jammed it between concrete and vulnerable throat.

  The rich smell of blood rose to fill her nostrils and coat her tongue.

  Her mouth watered.

  His continued struggles drove the blade a little deeper.

  The warm flow of his blood over her fingers had her waging war with instinct and eight years of conditioning.

  How many lives was he entitled to impact, to ruin and destroy while he got his shot at becoming a decent human being?

  The succubus crouched next to her with a husky laugh. Elegant fingers combed through the man's greasy unwashed hair, gripped it, snapping his head backward. "Why fight instinct when letting these two live means someone e
lse is going to take the beating they planned for you?"

  Truth. Mallory knew it was the truth.

  A little deeper, just a little deeper and she'd feel soul slip from physical body.

  Dane's low growl was a reminder that this was what their sire wanted her to become. Judge. Jury. Executioner. A killer in this world.

  She replaced the knife with her arm and rendered the junkie unconscious with a sleeper hold.

  The succubus sighed. "Spoilsport," she told Dane, rising from her crouch.

  Mallory wiped her prints off the junkie's knife, dropping it onto him and standing.

  Some of the prostitutes edged closer, after money and pocketed drugs. Others were already slipping into the car with its still-open doors.

  The purple-haired girl stomped on the junkie's hand as she crossed to Mallory. "That girl you're looking for, I saw her around here once or twice."

  "How long ago?"

  "A couple of months, maybe."

  "This time of night?"

  "Yeah."

  "Was she hanging with anyone?"

  The girl shrugged. "Didn't notice. Just saw her getting into the car with Mr. Potato Head. He goes for that look."

  "Underage and blonde?"

  "Yeah." Anger flared in the girl's eyes and scented the air with jalapeno. "He probably takes his kids for ice cream and reads them bedtime stories. Lives this whole other life where everybody thinks he's a wonderful dad. And then he comes looking for one of us."

  "Is he white?"

  "Yeah, with brown hair."

  "What does he drive?"

  "Dark car, blue or black."

  "How often do you see him?"

  She shrugged.

  "You can get out of this life."

  "Yeah, right." She wheeled away, heading toward the car where a girl her age was getting out, victoriously holding up a baggie.

  Mallory followed.

  Eyes on the baggie, the girl said, "You still here? Go away."

  Her white shirtsleeve red with the junkie's blood, Mallory pulled a card from her pocket. "You see the guy, you call me. I'll pay you for the information. I'll pay you more for his license plate number."

  "Yeah, yeah," the girl said.

  She took the card and hurried toward an alleyway with her friend. When she reached it, the card fluttered to the ground behind her.