Courtney laughed. "Straight up? It means more hours on some shifts. If, by rare chance, none of us is on duty, I'd expect you to stay until closing. Tim already has a key and all the security system info. I'll get one for you, Wendy, but that's not going to happen very often. On the other hand, when you're on duty, like I said, I'd expect you to handle issues that arise, particularly between employees, disputes with customers, urgent orders that need to be filled. Whatever it might be.
"There would be more money, but not nearly as much as I wish I could give you," she finished. Then she leaned forward and folded her hands on the table, studying Wendy. "What do you think?"
Wendy took a breath, let it out, and then shrugged, a sweet sort of smile on her face. "I'm in. And thanks."
Abruptly, almost as though the business at hand had been forgotten the moment Wendy said yes, Courtney grabbed her cane and stood up. Then she turned to face them again.
"It's a relief to know that we can count on you. I'll talk to you all individually tomorrow, work on the details on your pay increases. I'm going to post an announcement on the bulletin board tomorrow morning, but consider the promotions effective immediately."
Though she claimed to be relieved, all the lightness and good humor went out of Courtney then.
"Molly," she said. "Come upstairs with me. I want to go over some things with you."
With that, she turned and hobbled away on her cane, and Molly had a moment to think how much older Courtney looked when she couldn't see the light in the other woman's eyes. When all she saw was her handicap. Molly congratulated Tim and Wendy, then slid from the booth and started across the restaurant after Courtney. Together they went up the staircase that led to the apartment above the pub. As Courtney worked the key in the lock, Molly nudged her.
"You could have warned me."
A flicker of a smile whispered across Courtney's face. "What would have been the fun of that?"
Then the key clicked in the lock and Courtney pushed it open. It was dark inside — Jack was still out with Bill — and the older woman turned the lights on while Molly locked the door behind them. Both of them stood very still a moment, listening to the sounds of the apartment, wary from painful experience of anything that might be out of place. After a moment they let out a collective breath and Courtney led the way into her bedroom.
If not for the bed, the room would have passed for an office. Courtney had always lived simply, but in the months since Molly had moved in with the Dwyers, what little personal flair had gone into decorating the small space had been overrun by bulletin boards tacked with newspaper articles and computer printouts. When there was no more room there, Courtney had begun tacking them to the bare walls.
The computer was on.
"What is it?" Molly asked, as the tiny twist of unease that had been woken in her downstairs now grew into a dark dreadful weight in her gut.
Courtney rested her cane against the wall and slid into the desk chair. She stared at the computer screen and hesitated a moment. Then she turned to face Molly again.
"Are we serious about this?"
"About what?"
"See, if we were serious, you wouldn't even ask me that," Courtney replied sharply.
Molly sighed. "All right. I'm sorry. Yes, we're serious. I just . . . it isn't exactly pleasant."
"No. No, it isn't." Courtney slid the computer's mouse across a blue pad and then clicked it, and a moment later the printer hummed to life on the desk beside the monitor. She stood up and went to the nearest bulletin board, limping badly without the cane. With her weight against the desk, she pointed to an article pinned to the board.
"Doug and Arlene Rausch. On the way back from eloping in Niagara Falls. Both in their fifties, both on their second marriage, the elopement wasn't a secret from anyone. They have grown children who thought it was sweet, romantic, all that sappy crap. But Doug and Arlene never got home. Last they were seen was in a book store just off Route 87, a couple of hours south of the Falls, where Doug used his credit card."
Molly frowned. "That could be anything."
"True." Courtney pointed to another piece of paper. "Jared Wilkes, fifteen year old runaway, found in the woods at a rest stop on Route 87. All torn up. You don't need the details, but they'd sound familiar."
"All right," Molly said. "We know the signs. It was probably a Prowler, but sad to say, one killing doesn't give us enough to go on. It could be a drifter, or an isolated incident. No way to track the monster just on that."
When Courtney smiled, Molly shivered. The older woman used the wall to steady herself and then indicated a magazine article that looked to have been pulled from Time or Newsweek. There were several pages taped to the wall. The piece was about the safety record of the long-distance trucking industry.
"What am I missing?" Molly asked.
"Truckers fall asleep at the wheel enough to make people concerned, but not as often as the media wants us to think. Still, it happens. They crash, people die, shipments are destroyed. But there's a thirty mile stretch of Route 87 in upstate New York that completely throws off the statistical curve. Incidences of trucking accidents are more than double the national average. But here's the kicker. Percentage of fatalities resulting from those accidents? Eighty-seven. Eighty-seven percent, Molly. Many of the bodies burned or crushed beyond recognition. What are the chances of that?"
The dread had spread all through Molly now. Images of mauled bodies and trucks ablaze with fire flashed through her mind.
Courtney sat back at the computer and pulled the new article out of the printer. She handed it to Molly.
"Chester Aaron Douglas. Independent trucker. Apparently crashed his rig on a hard curve south of Albany. Dumped it in a ditch and the engine caught fire. Two bodies found inside, the authorities assume one of them was a hitchhiker. But Douglas's ex insists he would never have picked up a hitchhiker. And guess what else? His body was thrown from the cab during the crash. He didn't burn. His body was torn up, mauled, mutilated. New York State investigators believe it was bears who got to the body after the crash."
Molly stared at the piece of paper in her hand, but the words all blurred. A prickle of heat like spiders' legs scurried across the back of her neck.
"I guess Jack and I are going to New York."
CHAPTER TWO
Jasmine ran along the paved paths of Central Park, the steel-and-glass towers of Manhattan dark silhouettes in the distance. The breeze carried the scent of decay, as the autumn leaves fell and plants withered. This time of year, when the shadows seemed most ominous, was joyous for Prowlers. So many humans carried the scent of fear on them. Jasmine's blood sang as she ran along the curving path, still wearing a human façade, a masque of weakness. A pretty one it was though, she knew, with her milk chocolate skin and copper-red hair, her eyes bright Halloween orange, mistaken every day for contact lenses.
She raised her face to the stars and breathed in the scents of the wild. Central Park was a most cherished gift to her, a kind of paradise. It was a bit of nature torn out of the heart of the most extraordinary urban forest in the world. An undercurrent of danger ran through the entire city, so that Manhattan was a sort of wilderness unto itself. Now that she had spent time here, the idea of building her new pack anywhere else seemed ridiculous.
Off in the bushes she caught the scent of a raccoon, fat and lazy, nature's little thief. Her stomach rumbled, but Jasmine would never soil herself with such simple, easy prey. She wanted to see terror in the eyes of her prey, wanted to hear it scream. The only animal that would satisfy her walked on two legs, not four.
Once upon a time, the park would have been empty this late at night, the province of vagrants and gangbangers. But New York City had changed. Central Park was cleaner, the paths lined with lampposts, uniformed police strolling about. In the early evening it was common to see lovers walking hand in hand, bicyclists and rollerbladers. Slowly the vendors moved their hot dog and pretzel carts out of the green, heading home. The spe
cter of old violence and the shadow of the unknown remained, however, and as the hour grew later, fewer and fewer people could be found in the park.
But Jasmine was not alone there, even this late.
A homeless man with a winter hat and a scruffy beard lay on a bench with his hands beneath his head, surprisingly alert, staring up through tree branches at the stars. Jasmine bristled as she passed him, and her fingers curled into talons. But as prey, vagrants were less interesting and even less of a challenge than fat-bellied raccoons.
The path curved ahead and Jasmine ran faster, careful not to move too fast. Inhumanly fast. Laughter split the night and she rounded the bend to see a quintet of casually dressed young people, three men and two women. The air was rich with their aromas and Jasmine judged them instantly as college students down from Columbia or up from NYU, probably cutting through the park to get to a more convenient subway line.
Their laughter stopped when they saw her, and all of them glanced at her as she ran by. Soon, though, she had left them far behind. Moments later her eyes narrowed as she noticed a dark silhouette ahead of her on the path, a figure approaching in the shadows between pools of lamplight. Jasmine slowed only a bit, but then he stepped into the light and she saw the gleaming badge of the policeman.
"Excuse me, miss," he said. "Do you really think you ought to be out here by yourself this late at night?"
Jasmine came to a stop just a few feet away and flashed him a coquettish smile. "Do you think I have something to be afraid of, officer?" she asked.
The policeman looked up at her from beneath the brim of his hat, expression grimly serious. "You never know what kind of animals might be lurking about, miss."
"Ah, but that's what makes life interesting," Jasmine purred. She crossed the space separating them in one long, graceful stride. "The uniform is intriguing, Alec. Makes me want to tear the clothes right off you."
Alec growled softly and pulled her into his arms. Jasmine folded into his embrace, relishing the way they fit, and wrapped one leg around behind him as though she might climb right up onto him. With a small, throaty laugh, Alec removed his cap and slipped it onto her head.
"Don't do that," he whispered, punctuating his words with soft kisses on her forehead, her slightly parted lips, her throat. "I took all the trouble getting it off him without ripping it."
Jasmine sniffed the air, then touched the collar of the police uniform her lover wore. It was damp and sticky with fresh blood.
"This won't wash," she warned him.
"So I'll burn it," he replied, hands caressing her with obvious need. "Bad girl, running on ahead like that. Had to sprint through the bushes to get ahead of you."
"I like to keep you in pursuit," she confessed, gazing into his gleaming eyes. "It never hurts to remind you who leads this pack. Now come on, I have a surprise for you."
With that, she darted forward and gently nipped his nose with her teeth, then turned from the path and sprinted across the green lawn. The land sloped gently upward there to a copse of trees and Jasmine raced for it with abandon now, no longer worrying that she might be observed. She had to let the wild out. The heat rose in her and she felt herself begin to change. As she reached the seclusion of the trees, her false flesh rippled and then tore away to be replaced by sleek copper fur. With a shake of her head, she felt the sweet pain of her jaw distending, her face elongating into a snout. Teeth sprouted in long rows.
At the peak of the small hill, she crouched, concealed from the rest of the park by trees. Her heart beat a new rhythm now, an ancient and primitive tempo like the cadence of paws rushing across hard-packed earth.
Excited, aroused, she turned to find Alec already at her side. His fur was sable black and thick. They sniffed and nipped at one another, and her long talons traced lines on his back.
"This is what you wanted to show me?" he asked, his voice the roll of distant thunder. "Not that I'm complaining."
"No," she said bluntly. "Listen, don't you hear them? Inhale, don't you smell them?"
His pointed ears twitched and Alec cocked his head. A moment later a light chuffing noise came from his throat; the laughter of a Prowler. Together they crept over the other side of the hill and down through the trees and a moment later they found themselves on an outcropping overlooking a wide paved road below. A road that wound its way through Central Park.
It was quiet there, save for the trip-trop clack of hooves upon the asphalt, as a tired horse drew a small carriage through the park. A driver sat at the front, clucking his tongue affectionately to urge the animal forward. In the back were a pair of young lovers who clung to one another beneath a blanket and nuzzled faces. From the look of them, they had time and money to burn.
"Oh, how you spoil me," Alec growled.
Jasmine ran her tongue across her needle teeth.
The horse began to hesitate as the carriage drew nearer, but the driver urged her on with soft entreaties. Jasmine crouched on the edge of the outcropping and sniffed the air for evidence of any other humans. Her fur bristled with anticipation. Alec began to move forward, but she glared at him and bared her fangs and he shrank back.
There was love, and then there was instinct. She was Alpha and Alec would heel to her commands or Jasmine would tear out his throat. When she saw that he was appropriately cowed, she glanced down at the carriage again.
Once more, the beast of burden shied, its hooves clacking on the road as it tried to pull back, to turn. Again, the driver kept rein over it, not trusting the animal's instincts. Humans had been part of the wild at the dawn of time, but nearly all of them had forgotten how to listen to the urgings that whispered at the back of their minds, the ancient knowledge they still retained was useless to them.
The lovers in the back of the carriage giggled like school children and kissed. Jasmine lunged from the outcropping, out over the road. Her claws came down, glittering in the starlight.
The horse neighed loudly in alarm, a scream all its own. Jasmine had already decided that it would be the only survivor.
Saturday morning arrived with a cold northeast wind and a sky the crystalline blue of new snow at dawn. Winter was still a long way off, of course, but the air whispered its imminence and the night had left an early frost upon the city. Jack had been able to see his breath when he had gone to the fish market that morning but now the hint of winter had abated, the wind had subsided, and the sun had begun to warm the brittle grass underfoot.
Allman's Farm was in Ipswich, a rural town forty minutes or so north of Boston, depending upon who was driving. The farm and orchards sprawled over a broad hillside, the acreage impressive enough that many of the families and couples who visited rode up and down the hill in hay-filled carts drawn by bellowing tractors. Earlier in the year the attraction would have been the apple trees, and before that the rows of corn. But this was October, and the wicked promise of Halloween lay ahead. On this beautiful fall weekend, the lure was pumpkins.
Yet the farm had a great deal more to offer than their enormous pumpkin patch. There were pumpkin-carving classes and contests, all sorts of decorative gourds and bunches of Indian corn, and a small petting zoo. At the restored early 19th century barn there was a bakery from which the most delicious odors drifted into combat with the animal smell of the farm. Apple and pumpkin pies, fresh muffins, cinnamon-coated cider donuts, and other homemade pastries were accompanied by fragrant coffees and hot apple cider. Within the barn itself was a gift and crafts shop loaded with country knick-knacks and special Halloween items.
But what drew Jack were the horses.
He and Molly had been to Allman's Farm on a high school outing for the junior and senior classes. During that visit, the only thing he really wanted to do was ride one of the horses at the stable on the premises. Allman's offered guided horseback rides through the trails in the woods back behind the property, even down to the Ipswich River. But that had not been part of the Catholic school's idea of a field trip. Jack had always wanted to come back
and never had a chance. He enjoyed reading when he had time for it, and his tastes ran mostly to biographies and westerns.
Westerns. He knew that it was perhaps a bit childish, but the idea of the western hero on horseback appealed to him greatly. And yet he had never ridden.
Now he leaned against the corral fence and gazed admiringly at the chestnut mare grazing there. Slowly he turned to smile at Molly. She stood half a dozen feet back from the fence, dressed in a burgundy sweater and blue jeans. Though her emerald eyes were bright she had a wary look on her face as she tossed her unruly red hair out of her face and waved a finger at him.
"I am not getting up on the back of that horse."
Jack shrugged. "All right," he said. Then he pointed at a small pen nearby where children were being walked around in circles on the back of a pony. "What about that one?"
Her lips pressed together in a tight line as she tried not to smile and she crossed her arms and gazed at him defiantly. Jack went to her, gazed down into those eyes and pushed a single errant strand of hair away from her face. He lifted her chin and bent down close to her until their mouths were scant inches apart. Molly's eyes closed and he heard her breath catch.
"You owe me, you devious wench," he whispered.
With a cry that was half laugh and half indignation she shoved him away. Jack reached for her, pulled her closer to him again even though she struggled half-heartedly to be free, and though she balked as he tried to kiss her for real, it was only a moment before she leaned into him and he pressed his lips to hers, felt the warmth of her breath in his mouth, and once again he was overwhelmed by her, as he was nearly every day.
Their relationship was complicated, and even that word was insufficient to describe the intricately tangled web of emotions that entrapped them. Half a year before, the Prowlers had killed Molly's boyfriend Artie. Artie had been Jack's best friend. It would have been difficult enough for them to contend with the fondness and developing intimacy between them, but there was so much more to it than that.
Prowlers: Wild Things Page 3