“He took the Rascals away from you did he?”
TC nodded miserably.
“What caused it?”
“He’s wanted this for a long time, but the thing with Lil’ Tina was the capper.”
“J-bone said something about her.”
“He got in Trigger’s face over it.”
“J-bone did? I didn’t know he had it in him.”
TC shrugged and winced as abused muscles protested. “Neither did he, but he had your backing, so he thought he could get away with it. He was dead wrong.”
She frowned worriedly. “Is he all right?”
“About as right as I am I figure.”
“That bad?” she asked in concern.
TC grinned and spat blood on the step. “Maybe not, but close.”
Damn. “Where’s J-bone now?”
“In his apartment?”
“You’re not sure?”
“I had other things on my mind,” he said, indicating his face with his good hand.
She nodded sympathetically. “Want me to call an ambulance?”
He shook his head. “I know someone; she’ll fix me up. I wanted to tell you what you’re heading into first.”
“So tell me.”
“Cruz and Trigger used to be pretty tight, but then Cruz got it on with Lil’ Tina, and suddenly he ain’t got so much time for hanging out with Trigger. Trig goes around bad-mouthing Tina for a while, but then he settles down, and I think everything’s fine. We go on like that for a couple of months. I figure Cruz will get tired of Tina, but he don’t.”
She groaned. “Don’t tell me, Lil’ Tina dumped him.”
“You got it. Cruz was really busted up about it. It was kind of embarrassing the way he went on, you know? Anyway, Trigger starts bad-mouthing Tina again; only this time he says some stuff that starts real trouble. He goes on about how Tina is hanging out with another guy. Cruz don’t like it, but Trigger don’t stop. He’s rubbing Cruz’s face in it you see?”
“And Cruz goes after Tina?”
“Yeah, but that ain’t the worst of it. Tina admits it straight out. She says she don’t want Cruz no more, but worse than that, she don’t want us no more.”
She whistled silently. “She wants out of the Rascals?”
“Yeah, screwy huh? Even worse than that, the guy she’s hanging with is an Alley Dog!”
“That’s not good.”
The Alley Dogs were a set of the Eighteenth Street Crips, one of the largest gangs in the Republic. Worse, all Alley Dogs were shifters. What in the nine hells was Tina doing hanging with one of those animals?
“I wanted to fix it on the quiet—no way do we want a war with shifters—but Trigger took me down before I could do anything. The last I heard, he was planning to go after Tina’s Alley Dog and drag her back.”
“You think they plan to kill him?”
TC shrugged.
“You got a name for this Alley Dog?”
“Yeah. They call him Loco. It’s some shifter thing to do with the moon. I don’t know about that stuff, Sis, but maybe you do?”
She scowled. “Don’t go there, TC. I’m not in the mood.”
TC smiled uncertainly. “After Trigger put me down, I went to look for Tina.”
“You warned her? Good thinking.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t find her, but Loco found me easily enough.” He held up his broken hand. “This was from him.”
Bastard. She would have to take care of Loco when she found Tina. No one hurt her kids.
“I’ll fix him. You’re lucky he didn’t bite you.”
“Yeah I know,” TC said with a grimace. “He said something like that after busting me up. I don’t feel very grateful just now.”
“Can’t say I blame you, but next week you’ll look back and thank him.”
TC shook his head. “I guess you would know. Listen, Sis, I’m sorry about what happened to you. When I saw it on the news, I was ready to hunt the bastard down for you—”
She raised a hand. “We’re talking about you not me. Besides, hunting Ryder is my job.” She stood. “Are you sure you don’t need an ambulance? I’ve got my link, I can have one here in less than ten minutes.”
TC struggled to his feet. “Don’t need it.” He started down the stairs. “Call me on my link if you need me. I’m going to get my hand fixed. I’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”
She regarded him sceptically. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. My friend’s a witch.”
“Handy.”
“She’s a great lay too!” TC called cheerfully over his shoulder. “You be careful in there, Lil’ Sis. The Rascals ain’t your kids no more.”
She watched him out of sight then turned to go back upstairs.
Getting into J-bone’s apartment was not a problem, simply knocking on the door sufficed. One of the Rascals answered, a girl everyone called Squeeze.
“How’s it going?” Chris asked, stepping inside when Squeeze failed to invite her. “You still hanging with Jaybird?”
Squeeze nodded and shut the door.
Chris followed Squeeze into the apartment. She glanced around, counting twenty or so people lounging about the place. Their ages ranged from late teens to mid-twenties. Most of them ‘belonged’ to her, but those that didn’t were easy to spot. Over the last couple of years, new and older faces had popped up to join the Rascals.
Her arrival met varying degrees of welcome. Some smiled and nodded, others looked uneasy. Some ignored her, while others were openly hostile. What surprised her was the source of much of the hostility. She expected it from the newcomers; they didn’t know her as a friend. They knew her as a cop, which she no longer was, but that wouldn’t change their opinions. What she hadn’t expected was the distrust she saw on the faces of some of ‘her’ kids, and it hurt.
Squeeze collapsed onto the sofa next to Jaybird.
Chris looked but didn’t spot J-bone. “Where’s J-bone?”
“He’s in the kitchen—” Squeeze began, but Jaybird elbowed her arm to shush her.
Chris shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and leaned down to Jaybird’s eye level. He was slumped on the sofa with one leg hooked over the arm. Jaybird was one of her kids and used to be one of her weasels like J-bone, but this past year he had stopped calling her. It had happened before of course. Kids grew up and things changed. Sometimes they came back to her, sometimes not.
“How’s it going, Jay?”
He shrugged. “Was going great until you showed up.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She flicked a glance at Squeeze. “He taking care of you?”
Squeeze snuggled closer to her man. “Oh yeah, is he ever!”
Chris grinned at Jaybird’s blushes. “In the kitchen you said?”
They both nodded.
When she entered the kitchen, she found J-bone sitting at the table with his back to her. China was kneeling beside him with a damp cloth in her hands and trying to clean him up. China glanced up as Chris entered, but didn’t say anything. After a moment, she went back to her nursing.
Chris smelled blood and pain on the air. “How bad is he?”
“I’m okay,” J-bone mumbled.
“Shut up, J-bone, I wasn’t talking to you. How bad?”
China shrugged. “Take a look for yourself.” She stood and moved out of the way.
Chris rounded the table to get a good look, and tried to keep the dismay off her face. J-bone had been through the ringer. He looked even worse than TC if that was possible—there was more blood for one thing. His hands clutched each other on the table. Purple bruising covered his hands and his knuckles split and sore; he had obviously fought back. His right eye was badly bloodshot, but it remained open. The other eye had swollen completely shut. China had cleaned him up some, but already the cuts were seeping blood. They needed stitches.
J-bone tried to smile. “You came.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
Chris sat at the table opposite him, and China went back to work with some Band-Aids. “He needs a hospital.”
China shrugged and kept working. “He won’t go.”
“I ain’t going to no hospital,” J-bone lisped through cut and swollen lips. “I’ll be fine, I’ve had worse.”
Her eyebrows shot up. He was telling the truth. She hated it, but she could tell by his reactions. She had always been good at reading people, but now it felt like she could read them from the inside. She had Ryder—that bastard—to thank for her new talents. Her senses were ridiculously keen. Like earlier with TC, she could hear J-bone’s heartbeat. It was slow and even. His scent and body language was full of pain, but there was no evasiveness in him.
“I’d like to hear about that sometime, but not now. Where is Trigger?”
J-bone’s heart sped at the mention of his nemesis. “I told him what you said, but he wouldn’t listen. I tried to stop him.”
“Idiot,” China said. It sounded like something she had said more than once today.
Chris agreed. “I told you to tell him not to leave. I didn’t tell you to get your butt kicked over it!”
J-bone winced when China dabbed at his face a little too hard. “He was going after Tina, Chrissy. I had to do something. TC went to warn her. I had to give him time to find her.”
“I’ve already talked to TC.”
J-bone’s good eye brightened. “You’ve seen him? Is he all right?”
She shrugged. “He looks better than you do. He didn’t find Lil’ Tina.”
“Damn.”
“He did find Loco, or rather, Loco found him.”
China bit her lip. “He’s not… Loco didn’t…”
“Bite him? No. TC got off easy with a busted hand.”
China relaxed a little. “Where is he?”
“He said he knew a witch who could fix him up.”
China’s lips thinned at hearing that, but J-bone took her mind off the news. He groaned and clutched his head. She turned her attention to him.
“You want some aspirin?”
“Yeah, thanks, China.” He waited for his friend to leave before continuing. “Don’t mention the witch again, Chrissy. China has a thing for TC, and she don’t like hearing about his latest catch.”
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s get back to Tina. TC said she wants out of the Rascals.”
“I don’t think she knows what she wants. She had it good with Cruz. He would have done anything for her. What she thinks she’s doing, I don’t know.”
“Got any ideas where I should start looking for her?”
J-bone frowned and then shrugged. “She’s probably with Loco.”
“What about Trigger?”
“He took Cruz and went gunning for Loco. Cruz wants Tina back, Chrissy. I don’t think they’ll take no for an answer.”
China chose that moment to come back with the aspirin. She filled a glass with water and gave it to J-bone along with two tablets.
J-bone swallowed the aspirin and chased them with water. “So, what do we do?”
“We? You’re in no shape to do anything. I’ll sort this mess out.”
“You can’t go after Loco alone.”
“Sure I can.”
J-bone just stared at her.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
“But what about Trigger and Cruz? They’re bound to show up there if they haven’t already.”
“I’ll worry about that when it happens.”
“Chrissy—”
She patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”
“Chrissy, you can’t—”
She ignored him and hurried to leave the apartment, but China followed and caught up with her near the elevator.
Chris hit the call button. “Will you stick with J-bone for me?”
“Of course, but he’s right. You can’t go up against Loco alone. He’s a shifter.”
Her face twisted. “So am I.”
China stared. She had obviously forgotten that little bombshell. Chris didn’t laugh at her shocked expression. It wasn’t in the least funny.
China rallied her wits and tried again. “Yeah but—”
The elevator door slid aside, and Chris stepped into the car. She held the door open when it tried to close. “One more thing; get the others out of his damn apartment so he can rest. I don’t know what the hell they think they can do there.”
“Trigger told them to wait for him.”
She clenched her jaw making the muscles jump. “Get them out.”
She let the doors close.
* * *
11 ~ Dealing with the Devil
Chris parked her car outside Lost Souls, and sat listening to the tick-tick noise of cooling metal. The club was something of a landmark in the area, and was very popular among the fashion conscious children of Los Angeles. It was a four-story neon bedecked brownstone edifice—a temple dedicated to pleasure. The club took up half a city block and stood out like a peacock among drab sparrows.
Monster Central was not an affluent area by any stretch of the imagination. Apart from a few high spots like Lost Souls, most of the Waterfront District needed major renovation. Considering the cost of such a programme, and everyone’s indifference to non-Human concerns, it wasn’t surprising that the mayor had turned a deaf ear to the resident’s pleas.
She watched the long line of patrons flowing into the club, wondering how many of them were rich kids, here to mingle with the monsters—monster groupies. Probably quite a few. She shook her head slowly. They didn’t know the risk they were taking, or maybe they did, it could be part of the attraction. Lost Souls was owned and operated by Stephen Edmonton—a vampire not a shifter—but influential in the non-Human community and could help her if he chose.
And she did need help.
After leaving J-bone’s apartment, she drove into Alley Dog territory intent upon finding Loco, but the streets were ominously quiet. People she talked with professed not to know anything. Worse than that, his gang’s usual haunts were conspicuously devoid of Alley Dogs. Something was up; something big enough to call them off the streets. Tina wasn’t important enough for that kind of reaction. At least, she didn’t think so. Everywhere she went, she met blank looks and walls of silence.
Coming here was a last resort.
It was still day outside, but only just. Sunset was minutes away. Edmonton would be ‘waking up’ soon. She pulled her link out of her pocket, and punched in TC’s number. He picked up on the second ring.
“Yo!”
“It’s me.”
“Where are you, Sis?”
“Outside Lost Souls.”
“What the hell are you doing there? You’re not thinking of going in are you?”
She ignored the question. “Listen. Has anything gone down I should know about?”
There was a long silence broken only by TC’s breathing.
“Whatever it is, you know I’m going to find out. You might as well tell me now as later.”
TC sighed. “Trigger and Cruz are missing.”
“What?”
“They’re missing. The word is they tried to kill Loco. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Probably is, but I can’t be sure. It don’t matter anyway. Trigger has got his damn war, but he ain’t going to be around to fight it.”
She gritted her teeth. What else could go wrong? “Why didn’t you call me?”
TC snorted. “How would that help? You would have gone charging in and got yourself killed for nothing. Trigger and Cruz are dead already. No point in you following them.”
“They’re dead?”
“They must be.”
“But you don’t know for sure,” she said intently. “Do you know for sure?”
“No, but if they ain’t, they’ll wish they was. Stay out of it, Sis. The others say that now Trigger is gone, they want things back the way they was. I’m gonna let Lil’ Tina go if that’s what she wants. I want to calm thing
s down. We can’t fight the Alley Dogs, Sis. They’ll bury us, or worse, make us like them.”
The thought of her kids facing something like Ryder was unacceptable. “You’re right, you can’t fight them.”
But we can.
She jumped. Her knuckles whitened on her link, threatening to break it. “I’ll see what I can find out and get back to you.”
“Stay out of it, Sis! You hear me—”
She switched off her link and stuffed it into her pocket. She climbed out of the car and headed toward the crowded main entrance of the club.
Lost Souls was a club in that its clientele was heavily biased toward non-humans, but for all of that, it was an upmarket place on anyone’s scale. Had she not known its reputation, she would have thought it a place for the rich and the beautiful to rub shoulders with each other. Its theme, strictly adhered to by visitors, was the 1920s era. All the men wore flashy tuxedos under their topcoats; the women wore long dresses and dripped with fake jewellery… at least she assumed it was phony.
The uniformed gods guarding the doors were alike as twins and perfect specimens of maleness. One whiff of them had her neck hairs at attention and her heart pounding. Her passenger started humming in the back of her head. In her mind’s eye, she saw a huge wolf grinning at her.
“Don’t even think about it,” she muttered under her breath.
We need a mate.
“I’m not talking to you about this!”
Amusement radiated from her passenger.
It was intolerable the way it watched everything. It was like having a reporter on her shoulder ready to comment on anything she did. Damn! She joined the other club patrons, and trotted up the steps toward the doors. Before she could enter, a huge hand descended on her shoulder to cut her out of the herd. She brushed the hand off with a snarl.
The doorman smiled pleasantly, but his eyes were empty. In a bored voice he said, “Dress code.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Code,” she said, flashing her badge in his face. “Do we have a problem?”
He frowned, not understanding the joke. “No jeans, no sneakers, and no…”
“Trench coats?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “How about no license?” He blinked in confusion and she sighed. Some people just didn’t understand her brand of humour. “I’m here on police business. Is that any clearer?”
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