by C. T. Adams
Maybe it was time to talk to Rick, before anything else happened.
Ellen’s father grabbed her brutally by the arm and began dragging her away. Josette tried to follow, but he used the crowd and the deepening shadows between the vehicles to his advantage. She didn’t dare use Sazi speed to keep up. They were lost from sight in minutes, and she could not follow their scent without being more obvious than she dared.
Frustrated and angry, she made her way back to the hotel, determined to use whatever means necessary to find out just what in the hell was going on. As she was putting the key in the lock, she heard a hiss and light snarl that she recognized. She turned her head to see Rick, in his cat form, peeking around the corner of the building. He motioned with his head for her to follow him and then ducked into the shadows, before a group of teenagers cutting across the parking lot to get to the drive-in noticed him.
Curiosity beat at her and she had a strong suspicion the same was true of Rick. Ellen had apparently planned to meet him, for reasons unknown. She couldn’t imagine he would be interested in the girl, nor would Ellen be likely to ask her to give him a message about a date. So, clearly, it was business—but what sort of business? She entered the room and opened the bathroom window, then stripped off her clothing, shifted into cat form, and sailed through the curtains. As she expected, Rick was waiting for her next to the Dumpster. He still looked great, nearly identical to when they were married. Maybe he had a little more girth around his ribs, but it was all muscle. His gray, mottled fur blended into the dappled shadows until it was like talking to the Cheshire cat. Only his eyes and teeth were visible when he spoke.
“We’ve got trouble, Josie.”
She nodded and slapped a paw at a fly that kept trying to land on her nose. The stench from the Dumpsters was terrible and a variety of bugs seemed intent on bothering her, but comfort wasn’t very important right now. “I figured as much. Ellen said to tell you that plans changed.”
“They sure did, and that’s bad news for us. Just to bring you up to date, Ellen dropped by my back window earlier. She said she found where she’d seen your picture in her house and she wanted me to stop by the office tonight, before the movie started, so she could show me. She said you were in danger and she was very obviously worried. Since you were…asleep, I decided to take a nap, too, in case life went to shit later.”
She felt her ears flinch when he said asleep. It had cost him a lot not to bring up that same old subject—still sore after all these years. What he felt was foolish risk she considered clinging to normalcy. Even if it was only an illusion, it was important to her to be able to live her life like other Sazi and humans. To barricade herself inside her home 24/7 on the off-chance that she might have a vision strong enough for her to get lost inside her own mind would make her feel too much like a prisoner. “Thank you for that.”
He didn’t have to ask for what. He knew and shrugged one shoulder. “Not my place anymore, if it ever was.”
Before she realized she was doing it, she reached over and gave his whiskers a quick lick. “It was. And, for what it’s worth, I did appreciate your concern. But it’s one of the few things I get a choice about, so it’s important to me.”
He met her eyes and they just stared at each other for a long moment. There were so many things that they’d argued about when they were married that had been born of true caring for the other person. But their own goals and, well, egos, sometimes got in the way.
Memories of good times and bad, flitted across her mind, until all that was left was the raw emotion behind the events. She cleared her throat, sounding for all the world like she was about to cough up a hair-ball. He snorted lightly and it relieved a little of the tension. Looking out past the Dumpster toward the drive-in, she motioned with her head. “So what happened after you woke up?”
He moved closer to her, tipping his head so he could keep watch on one particular area of the parking lot. She could feel his magic playing over her fur like a cool wind. It gave her shivers.
“I heard Ellen and her father arguing as I was walking toward the office to grab a pop from the machine. Apparently, someone spotted her talking to a guest, but the informant couldn’t remember who or where. But she started talking about some cards and how she wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.”
Josette felt her whiskers twitch ominously. “What kind of cards? Do you have any idea?”
“I didn’t then, but I do now. Ellen’s dad—named Ray, by the way—said he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight until it was time, whatever that meant. But, after they left for the drive-in, I forced open the window and did a quick search. I found them in her bedroom, under some lingerie. Come over here.”
He walked away and she followed, not certain what to think of Rick casually searching through Ellen’s undies. But ever the cop, he probably didn’t think about it at all.
Rick started digging at the base of a small cactus in the xeriscape garden. He pulled a small plastic bag from the hole and emptied it by holding the bottom in his teeth and shaking it.
“See for yourself. Something big’s going on down here.”
Reluctantly, she pulled the cards from their box with teeth and claws. The back of the cards had a glossy black background with a stylized pawprint made to look as if it had been printed in blood. But it was the face side that was so shocking. Josette felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at the familiar faces on individual playing cards: Charles Wingate was the ace of clubs, a photo of his face superimposed over the image of a polar bear; a huge bounty was listed beneath his name. The ace of spades was Lucas Santiago. Her own face appeared on the Ace of Hearts, although the name listed was Aspen Monier. With growing dread she moved each card aside, seeing on each a face and the image of an animal along with a…bounty. Some cards had been printed with a black X over the central picture. She recognized the names as Wolven agents who had gone missing recently. It was something Amber had talked about in their last phone call. Josette tried to swallow, her throat suddenly, painfully, dry.
She felt a nudge on her leg and turned wide-eyed to Rick. “C’mon, he’s leaving. We need to follow him.”
“Who’s leaving? Follow him where?”
Rick quickly stepped past her and slid the cards together into a reasonable stack, and then tipped them back into the bag before returning them to the hole and filling it in.
“Ray. He makes my whiskers twitch. There’s just something about him that…anyway, I think we need to follow him.”
She couldn’t help but agree. There was definitely something going on. And it was far too big for Ellen’s father to be the ringleader. He just didn’t seem to be more than a lackey, regardless of his master.
Josette followed Rick into the desert, feeling the darkness envelop her like cool velvet. Ever so slowly she felt the tension begin draining from her body as she concentrated on her breathing and on running in the larger bobcat’s wake. It might help them for her to force a vision. Maybe she could get some insight into his plan if she concentrated on Ray personally. She thought back to that brief meeting, remembering the smell of him—harsh with an unknown chemical, along with something pungent, like lingering death.
She’d learned to center herself, control her magic by controlling her mind and body. The old familiar thrill of fear ran up her spine as her mind began slipping through the confines of time and space, but she crushed it with an effort of will. She would control this. She would come back. She would know the here and now. The visions had not claimed her yet, and they would not claim her this time.
She closed her eyes, shutting out her surroundings, and forced herself to remember every detail of the man’s features. Her magic touched him inside the truck cab just ahead. As she passed Rick to take the lead, he stifled a gasp at the power that pushed past him into the night.
The high beams cut through the darkness, but not well enough. He could see deer moving at the edge of the road. They oughta put some streetlamps out here.
He let up on the gas, reminding himself that it was better to arrive a couple of minutes later than to wreck the truck and not get there at all. But damn it was hard. It was her. He was sure of it. If he was right—well, no more worrying about money. No more listening to the old lady bitch about how hard she was working and how he wasn’t “contributing to the household.”
A scowl lowered his brows. He loved Ellen, he really did. But she just didn’t get it. She didn’t understand that they were animals, monsters. Live and let live my ass. She hadn’t seen what had happened to his brother because of those things. But it would be better soon. Once Ellen was made right again, she’d understand just how much her daddy loved her.
He was so preoccupied that he almost missed his turnoff, a narrow dirt road mostly hidden by the rough brush that grew so plentifully around here. He stomped on the brake pedal, jerking the steering wheel hard to the left. He felt the truck slew sideways, but managed to correct his course well enough to keep control of the pickup as it lurched over the rutted trail that snaked between the prominent “NO TRESPASSING” signs.
Josette felt her speed slow as the truck lost control. It wouldn’t do to have him notice the bobcats following. He already knew she was a shifter, and a bobcat. The card said so, and the look he gave her at the drive-in said he recognized her. Rick slowed along with her, content to let her lead. That was one nice thing about him—his pride wasn’t wounded by her taking the lead just because she was female.
He slowed even more, shifting into low gear. Almost there now. He could hear the frantic barking of the guard dogs, deep and menacing behind the tall fence topped with razor wire that encircled the area.
A few more feet and the motion sensors picked up the movement of the truck. Spotlights came on, showering the area with light bright enough to damned near blind him. Not that he needed to see the place. God knew he was well acquainted with every inch of it, including the huge metal shed where the actual cooking was done, and the small shabby trailer that had the bathroom and kitchen, which all the men shared.
He heard the trailer door slam and saw Harold appear on the front step. Ray fought down his irritation. Harold was an even bigger pain in the ass than John.
He was a big man, not only tall, but bulky with muscle, so that the camo pants he wore were stretched tight over his thick thigh muscles. His stained sleeveless T-shirt struggled to contain the sheer mass of him. He wore a dog whistle on a chain around his neck, a pair of pistols holstered beneath his arms, and was carrying a rifle in his left hand. His head was shaved completely smooth, without even a hint of stubble to give a clue what color it would be.
Ray sat still and silent behind the wheel, making damned sure that Harold recognized that it was him.
Harold scowled at the sight of him, but pulled the whistle to his lips to call off the dogs. Then he hit the switch for the motor that opened the gate to the property.
After driving through, he pulled the truck to a stop, taking his time. Harold strode toward the door of the vehicle, his expression wary. He stepped close enough to the door that it would be impossible to open it without hitting him and gestured for the other man to roll down the window.
“What’re you doing here, mate? I thought you were going to the drive-in with the wife and kiddies.” He spoke with a heavy Australian accent that never seemed to sound friendly. But that was okay, he didn’t give a shit about whether they were friends.
Josette heard the dogs barking and didn’t dare get any closer. Right now, it could be assumed they were barking because of Ray. But if they started to track their scent, the tone would change. No, it would be better to wait until he was safely inside or left before they inspected further. With a flick of her ears to Rick, she explained her thought and how she was connected in a real-time vision, in low enough tones that someone even a foot away would struggle to hear.
“I agree,” he said with a quick nod. “You keep relaying what you see. If we need to bust the place up, we can—but I’d rather wait until we’re armed. We don’t know enough details about the situation there.”
She flopped down onto a small tuft of grass and closed her eyes, allowing her breathing to still once more before slipping back into the mind of the man in the truck.
Ray bit his tongue until he was sure his reply would be civil. There was no point in arguing with Harold. You never won, and there was always the off-chance you’d piss him off. And while he wasn’t exactly afraid of the other man, he wasn’t about to cross him. He suspected that if he pushed Harold too far he’d be pushing up daisies somewhere where no one would ever find the body.
“Yeah, we went. I didn’t stay.”
“Why not?” The question seemed to harbor some unspoken suspicion—like he wasn’t supposed to do nothing except what he said he would. That always pissed him off about Harold.
“I think I saw somebody.”
Harold snorted like he was stupid or something. “You probably saw a lot of somebodies, Raymond. That drive-in’s right popular on a Friday night.”
Ray fought down his annoyance. He wanted out of the truck, but Harold was still in the way and the damned dogs were prowling around loose. Fucking idiot was playing games with him. He was half-tempted. He reached for the door handle, but then looked into the other man’s eyes and stopped mid-motion.
There was death in those eyes. Harold was just looking for an excuse and he wasn’t about to give it to him. “I just want to look at the cards. See if I’m right.”
“Where are yours? You’d best not say you lost them, either, mate. You know what Damon said would happen if you did.”
“He couldn’t find the cards. It’s why he’s out here,” Josette breathed the words in a low tone and heard Rick swear. “There’s an Australian man who controls the dogs. He seems to be Ray’s boss, or at least a supervisor of sorts, but not one Ray likes.”
“Can you see anything about how the yard is laid out? Any way to get in there other than the gate?” Rick moved his mouth very close to her face, easing the words into her ear lightly enough to tickle the sensitive hairs inside. Another shiver overcame her, and he noticed and smelled pleased.
The question itself would have made Josette laugh if it hadn’t been such a serious one. How could she forget something so obvious after poking and prodding Ellen to do the same thing just yesterday! “I can’t tell the size of the compound. The lights are only around part of it. But from the size of the gate we entered, I’d say it’s about fifteen feet wide. There’s a building, more of a shack, to the left and what looks like a cabin from a kit to the right.” She allowed herself to pull input from Ray’s other senses. The effort would probably give him a little headache, but he’d probably assume it was the confrontation with Harold that had done it. “There’s a strong chemical smell that I can’t place. I’ve smelled it before, too. When I was at the drive-in. It floated on the breeze, but I couldn’t pin it to a source.” She stopped speaking as Ray answered the earlier question.
“Hell, no. I just didn’t feel like opening up the safe and looking through them with my wife there. She doesn’t know about this yet. I want her to see it firsthand before I bring her in.”
Apparently that satisfied the other man. Harold gave him a disgusted look but didn’t press the point. “Fine, whatever.” He stepped away from the door and nodded his bald head toward the trailer. He shook his head in disbelief. “You really think you saw some big muckety-muck Sazi out here in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere?”
Ray nodded grimly. His expression soured even further when Harold guffawed. God how he hated that man. He hated most of the people he was forced to work with. Fucking criminals all of them. But the movement needed money. And there was plenty of money in drugs.
Drugs! That was the smell. Some kind of drugs that she’d heard of in the news, but never encountered. “They’re making drugs out there. They’re raising money for some sort of project that Ray calls ‘the movement’.”
He opened the door and climbed dow
n from the cab of the truck. He forced himself to move casually. The damned dogs made him even more nervous than Harold. But showing it would be a sign of weakness the other man would lord over him. So he pretended not to notice the burly furred forms with their wicked teeth; pretended not to see how they moved as a unit, as if they were hunting prey.
Without warning the vision shifted. She barely had time to hiss a warning to Rick before she was sucked inside. “I’m being pulled out to…somewhere else. Keep watch on the truck for me.”
If he responded, she didn’t hear.
She was in a cave, watching as a dark-haired woman stood reading harsh-sounding syllables from an ancient book she held in her hands. The cover was whitish green, the color of mold—or of the lighter scales that sometimes appeared on the underbelly of a snake. The naked woman bound to the stone with silver chains was her new sister-in-law, Tahira. And Giselle—Grandmere, her voice clear and cold—was taunting her captor.
Josette felt a pang of regret. Grandmere was dead. This was the past then. The scene was one that had been described in Antoine and Ahmad’s reports. Amber had sent them as a way to notify her of Grandmere’s death. But why was she seeing it now? What did it have to do with the current problem?
Again and again her eyes were drawn to the book. Was this the same one she’d seen in the previous vision—the one the caster was using? She needed to see more, but the information eluded her. It was incredibly frustrating. There was no pushing into this vision. It had already happened. With a thought, she stopped it as though it were a movie on a screen, and then backed it up several times, searching the narrow view for anything that might give her a clue as to why she was seeing it. But the focus was narrow—on Tahira and the book. The cave looked like any other.
Her muscles tensed, causing a cramp that made the posture she’d taken too painful to hold. Her body rebelled, dragging her mind forcibly back to the present. Rick was there, patiently watching the distant compound, but close by, guarding.