by Alyssa Day
“The secret about tigers,” he said, blinking owlishly, “is that tigers bounce.”
Before I could even process the ridiculousness of that, he leaned forward and kissed me. Jack was a champion kisser, even while drunk. I threw my arms around his neck, because my brain started to melt into my shoes.
That’s when the universe exploded around us, and Jack threw me on the floor and jumped on top of me.
Whoa.
Stunned, even though he’d cushioned my head with his arm, I looked up at him. “What the—”
“Gunshot. Rifle,” he said tersely, jerking his head toward the big bay window, which now had a jagged hole in the center, right around the height of our heads.
So. An actual, not a metaphorical, explosion. Not from the kissing, at all. I wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“This time, I’m going to get the son of a bitch,” Jack snarled, and seconds later he was gone.
“Jack—” But I was talking to an empty room. I ran over to the door and slammed it shut and then carefully peered out the side of the window, in case the shooter was still aiming at it—me—us. Jack was nothing but an orange and white blur bounding into the trees by the time I caught sight of him, and I closed my eyes and wished, hard, for him to be safe. And then I went back into Jeremiah’s office and retrieved the loaded gun I’d found in the top right drawer of his desk. I might not be a very good shot at target practice, but right now I had excellent motivation to hit whatever I aimed at. Then I walked back into the living room, turning lights off as I went, so I wouldn’t make such a good target.
Pulling a chair over against the wall facing the window, I listened, hard, for any sounds of somebody trying to sneak up on the house, but heard nothing. Those swiveling tiger ears would have come in handy right about then, but I’d have to settle for my own. Placing the gun carefully on my lap, I sat in the dark and waited, hoping that my massively drunk tiger wasn’t going to get himself killed, and trying not to think about what had just happened.
He’d kissed me.
He’d kissed me.
And it had been amazing.
I touched my mouth with my fingertips, still stunned, but then I put it away to think about later, when nobody was trying to kill us.
A long five minutes later, Jack called my name from out in the yard. I opened the door and went outside, but I brought the pistol with me. He was dragging a bearded, sullen-faced man in coveralls who had blood running down the side of his head, and what looked like a broken arm held against his chest.
“He’s hurt,” I said, stupidly, wondering how drunk Jack was going to handle this situation.
“He’s lucky not to be dead,” Jack said, all the more terrifying for being so calm. He held out his hand for the gun, and I handed it to him, relieved to be free of it when I suddenly wasn’t sure I could actually use it on a human being. Especially an injured person, like this pathetic excuse for a man.
“You’re…okay?”
He glanced at me. “Shifting shape boosts the metabolism. The whiskey is completely out of my system, all the more bad luck for this asshole.”
Jack tossed the man down on the ground, where he promptly curled up in a ball, cradling his broken arm, and hurled a litany of vile threats at us. I realized a few moments into his rant that threats—vile or otherwise—didn’t have the same effect on me that they had in the past. Now, instead of scaring me, they were pissing me off.
I wasn’t sure what that said about me, and I didn’t have time to worry about it now, anyway.
Jack nudged the man’s leg with his foot.
“Why did you shoot at us? And you’d better think hard about your answer, because whether or not you live through tonight might depend on it,” Jack told him in a voice like ice.
“Jack, his arm is broken. I’m going to go in the house and look for some kind of wrapping—”
“Stay where you are, Tess. We don’t know if he had anybody working with him or not, and I don’t want someone sneaking up on you through the back while I’m out here with him.”
It made sense, so I stayed, and tried not to wince as I stared at the man on the ground. “What’s your name?”
“Name’s none of your damn business, bitch,” he spat at me.
In a heartbeat, Jack was crouched down next to him, grabbing him by the throat. “Don’t ever speak to her like that again, or the next time I have my fingers wrapped around your neck, they won’t be fingers.”
He demonstrated with his other hand, holding up deadly sharp claws.
“Name’s Fred Hughes,” the would-be murderer said, his eyes bulging nearly out of his head. “Don’t kill me, man. It was just a warning shot.”
Jack dropped Hughes back on the ground and stood up.
I bit my lip. “A warning shot—”
“It wasn’t a warning shot, Tess. It was exactly at the right height to blast through my chest and into your head,” Jack said. “If I hadn’t heard the bullet strike the glass and reacted instinctively, we’d both be dead. And by the way, he was running for a black Chevy truck when I caught him. Since I know you’re no more of a fan of coincidence than I am, I’d say it’s a pretty good guess that this is your guy with the vinegar.”
I stared at Hughes. “You’re the jerk who attacked me? Why would you even do that? What did I ever do to you?”
“It wasn’t about you, lady. In fact, they got mad at me because I didn’t kill you that time. I was supposed to deliver a more permanent warning, if you get what I mean, but I just couldn’t do it.” He spat out some blood, and it looked black in the light from the porch. “Because you didn’t ever do anything to me, like you said.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “But why? Why do people keep trying to kill me? I’m not magical, or rich, or anything special at all.”
Hughes clammed up, but then Jack roared, going full-on tiger, and suddenly the man couldn’t answer me fast enough. “You were supposed to die in the car crash tonight, but you didn’t, so I was just here to make sure. I don’t know why. I’m sorry. There’s no way to tell that woman no and live through it.”
Jack turned slowly toward me, and I could almost feel the fury thrumming through his body. “The car crash? Is there something you meant to tell me?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t think now is the right time to talk about it.”
“Now is exactly the right time to talk about it. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were in a car crash?”
Oh, no, he did not just say that to me.
“Maybe it was because you were too busy being drunk and backing me into a corner with your lips,” I snapped.
“Fine. We’ll talk about this later,” Jack said, backing down immediately.
“You bet your ass we will. We’ll talk about all sorts of things later. But for now, what do we do with Fred Hughes?”
“You could let me go,” Hughes said hopefully. “Get back to the lips thing.”
Jack snarled at him. “You’re going to jail.”
I thought the man would be relieved. After all, going to jail, where they had Miranda rights and defense attorneys, would keep him away from whatever horrible fate Jack had in mind. But then I remembered what had happened to the last man who went to jail in Dead End.
“Maybe not,” I whispered.
Hughes must have started to think about Gator too, because he freaked out. He pushed himself up off the ground with his unbroken arm and crouched there for a moment before standing. His eyes were wild, and he was breathing so hard that he started to hyperventilate.
“Look, man, you can’t put me in there. You don’t get it. The sheriff’s—he’s in league with her. If you put me in there, she’ll know I failed, and that’ll be the end of me. I don’t want my head to explode. Just shoot me now and put me out of my misery, man. Please. Nobody deserves to go like that.”
He was absolutely terrified, and I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to die like that,
either.
“Who is her?” Jack demanded.
We knew who she was, but the more confirmation, the better. She could consider her hitman’s confession to be her due process. (Yes, I watch a lot of Law & Order.)
“I can’t say her name. She knows. She knows when you speak her name, and she can target you.” Hughes was so scared that he was babbling.
“Well, she’s already targeted me, so I guess it doesn’t matter,” I told him. “You’re talking about Olga Kowalski, aren’t you?”
He made a strangled noise deep in his throat, but he nodded. This time, he stepped away from me, and closer to Jack, which demonstrated exactly how scary he must consider the witch to be, if he’d rather be next to the tiger who wanted to kill him.
“Jack, he’s right. We can’t give him to Lawless. Maybe Agent Vasquez?”
“Yes. Sure. Agent Anybody. Please,” Hughes pleaded.
Jack looked at me. “Have you been able to reach him?”
I reached for my phone, only to realize that I’d left it in the house. “I left a message, but I don’t know if he called me back while we were dealing with this.”
Jack studied Hughes for a while, but then he shook his head. “No. I’m going to kill him. He tried to kill you, and that’s an unpardonable offense in my book.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or horrified. Shapeshifter values were apparently somewhat different than the ones Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby had raised me with.
“Wait,” I said, my conscience sparking. After all, Hughes had avoided killing me, the first time at least, on purpose.
“Yeah, wait,” Hughes squeaked, sidling away from Jack and closer to me again.
“What if we just tie him up and lock him in the basement? Nobody will know he’s there, so she won’t be able to make his head explode.”
“I’m still leaning toward kill him now,” Jack said flatly.
“Jack. Let’s think about this.” But before I could come up with a good supporting argument as to why we shouldn’t kill the man who’d just tried to murder us, we heard sirens, and they were coming fast.
We could see the flashing lights before we saw the actual car. It was the sheriff.
“I guess you’re going to have to take your chances,” Jack told Hughes. “Maybe while you’re in that jail cell, you can think about all of your bad decisions that led up to this point.”
That was pretty harsh, but I couldn’t say that I disagreed.
The sheriff’s car raced up the driveway and slammed to a stop in front of us. Sheriff Lawless himself stepped out of the driver’s side, and Deputy Kelly got out of the passenger side. Both of them had their guns drawn, but Jack, I was glad to see, had made Jeremiah’s gun disappear somehow.
“Sheriff, I’m so glad to see you,” I lied. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t glad to see him at all, but it was dark, and I was better at getting away with lies in the dark when people couldn’t see my face very well. “This man just tried to kill me, and he admitted he’s the one who attacked me at my shop last week.”
“Step out of the way, Ms. Callahan,” the sheriff ordered. “And you. You’re under arrest.”
“Freeze,” the deputy shouted, a little overly dramatic, I thought, since none of us were actually trying to run away. But then I realized that something was very wrong.
They were both pointing their guns at Jack.
“No. No, Sheriff,” I shouted. “Not Jack. This guy—Fred Hughes. He’s the one who shot at us, and he confessed to being the one who attacked me last week. What are you doing, aiming at Jack?”
I ran between the sheriff and Jack, not even thinking about what I was doing.
Jack grabbed me by the waist, and swung me aside so quickly that I almost got dizzy. “Tess, stay out of the way of the nice police officers and their guns, or I swear I will pick you up and throw you through that broken window.”
“This is not the time to go all alpha male on me,” I snapped at him. “This is serious.”
“You bet your sweet ass this is serious. We found Sergeant Rawls right where you left him for gator food, Shepherd,” the sheriff said, sneering at Jack. “You got him drunk, and then you shot him in the head, just like you did to your uncle and that poor Nelson girl.”
Deputy Kelly had a doubtful expression on his face, but he wasn’t openly opposing his boss, so I didn’t expect any help from that quarter.
Jack, on the other hand, looked like he was going to tear somebody apart. “You lowlife son of a bitch. You’re supposed to be enforcing the law, not letting those Kowalskis get away with murder. Or did you shoot Rawls yourself?”
I felt sick at the thought of the sheriff being so far gone that he was actually killing people. “Rawls? Was he one of the men you went to talk to tonight, Jack?”
“He was, and I’ll tell you about it later, but right now you need to stay out of the way,” he said, suddenly very calm again.
Since calm Jack was deadly Jack, I could feel every muscle in my body tense up.
“Move, now, Ms. Callahan,” Deputy Kelly said, coming around the front of the car to stand next to the sheriff. “We don’t want you to get hurt.”
But at that exact moment, I was watching the sheriff’s face, and I realized that he didn’t mind at all if I got hurt. And then I started to wonder exactly what he’d done to Jeremiah to get Doc Holliday’s gun away from him.
It took everything I had to keep from shouting out accusations, but I managed it, because if I died now, I’d never get revenge. And I was starting to want that very, very badly. Uncle Mike had been right about closure.
Screw closure.
I wanted revenge.
“Get on your knees and put your hands on top of your head,” the sheriff barked at Jack.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just let this happen, or Jack might be the next victim of Olga’s black magic. But I didn’t how to stop it. I wasn’t a soldier; I was a pawnshop owner.
I hadn’t even kept the gun with me.
Jack slowly shook his head. “I don’t think I’m going to let you arrest me tonight, Sheriff.”
Before I could even take a breath, Jack was in motion. He picked up Hughes and hurled him into Lawless and his deputy, knocking them down like bowling pins. Then he gave me one last long look and leapt into the air—transforming into his tiger shape mid leap—and raced around the corner of the house.
By the time the sheriff, the deputy, and the criminal had untangled themselves from each other, Jack was gone.
Sheriff Lawless actually jumped up and down like a five-year-old having a temper tantrum, incandescent with rage. “I’m taking you in, Tess Callahan,” he shouted. “Obstruction of justice. Assisting a fugitive.”
Deputy Kelly stepped in between me and his boss. “I don’t think so, boss,” he said quietly and reasonably. “We don’t have any reason to arrest Ms. Callahan. She was just standing here, being an innocent bystander. I think she’s been through enough.”
I would never think of Kelly as a little kid again, because clearly he had balls of steel to stand up to the sheriff on a rampage.
Lawless put his hand on the butt of his gun, and for a moment there it was touch-and-go as to whether he was going to agree with Kelly, arrest me, or shoot us both. Finally, he gave me one last scornful glance and turned around to grab Hughes by the back of the neck.
“You. You’re going to jail for sure.” He opened the door and shoved Hughes in the backseat, but before he got in his car and drove away, he offered one parting shot.
“You can tell your tiger boyfriend that we’re going to find him, and we’re going to put him down.”
Rage swept through me in a burning flood of adrenaline that made me sick and shaky. I wanted to scream at him.
I wanted to shoot him.
Instead, I did nothing. I said nothing. I just stood there and watched them drive away, and then I walked back in the house and went to work. Somebody was going down, all right, but it wasn’t going to
be Jack. I only had a little more than twenty-four hours until the Blood Moon, when the magical crap was supposed to hit the magical fan, so I needed to make a plan.
And I needed another gun.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I found Jeremiah’s spare truck keys on the hook in the kitchen where he’d always kept them, and I headed for my place. I wanted to hug my cat, and I needed to get the Remington. Hopefully Uncle Mike hadn’t forgotten to leave it at my house. I was numb, not even shaking anymore. Everything that I thought I knew about the way the world worked felt like it had been turned upside down. The sheriff was supposed to be the good guy. Incompetent, maybe. Even an idiot, possibly. But not actively on the side of evil.
That was something that happened with rogue CIA agents in melodramatic TV dramas, not something that happened in my town.
I was woefully naïve, and that had to change. The sheriff who’d tried to arrest Jack on trumped up charges was not a man who would waste even an ounce of energy on trying to save Shelley from a power-hungry witch. Especially one he was teamed up with.
That would be up to me. To us, if Jack could find a way to get back to me before the Blood Moon tomorrow. I carefully locked Jeremiah’s door and then felt stupid because there was a hole in the window. But it didn’t matter, anyway. If the next twenty-four hours went badly, somebody breaking into the house would be the least of our worries.
I slammed the truck into gear and headed out at a speed only slightly lower than NASCAR racing. What were they going to do, give me a speeding ticket? I laughed, and then I shuddered when I realized that my laughter sounded a little maniacal.
Maybe the secret wasn’t that some people were so much braver than the rest of us. Maybe the secret was that you just quit giving a damn when you had nothing else to lose.
There was nobody at my house when I got there. No masked men, no robed witches, no law enforcement personnel. I didn’t know why, but I’d had vague visions of having to fight my way through my yard to my house. Maybe Olga would try again to kill me tonight. Maybe she wouldn’t. Either way, nobody was here right now to do it. I decided to count that on the positive side of the balance sheet.