"You said you had proof."
"Do you really need it?" Jasmine purred. "Tell me you don't believe I have her."
"Oh, I believe you." He turned. "I suspected as much before I came down here. That's why I'm here. You know that. But I have my doubts. And if you can't offer me proof, they're going to grow a lot stronger."
Jasmine stared at him then, her head hung almost sadly. In the dim light of the candles inside the train car, her hair cast deep shadows across her face so that all he could make out in that moment was her mouth, those perfect lips. When she smiled, her teeth were too long, too sharp. He wondered if she had shown her fangs on purpose or if she simply had that little control of her emotions. It was the smile of a gleeful killer.
"Very well," she said.
She pushed open the door and beckoned to someone outside. A moment later a Prowler came in, a skinny little beast who was one of his guards. He carried an iPad in his hands.
"Go," Jasmine told him.
The guard frowned, glanced at Bill worriedly, and then handed him the iPad.
Jasmine snarled quietly and the guard fled.
"The video's already cued up," Jasmine said. Then she took up her former position against the wall, cruel and alluring all at once.
Something twisted in Bill's gut but he forced himself to press the arrow on the iPad to play the video. It flickered white at first and then the picture resolved. It was a dank, concrete room, probably a basement from the look of it. A man — or a Prowler, he could not tell the difference from video — placed a tray of food down on the concrete.
"Come and get it, honey," he said, taunting the darkness deeper in the basement.
And the darkness erupted. A girl with long black hair lunged across the room at the man who had brought the tray. Her face was pale and she was much older than the last time Bill had seen her, but he would have recognized her anywhere. Especially when she began to change, her fur bristling as she tussled with the male, clawing at him. He started to transform as well, and then others entered the view of the camera, two dark figures who kicked at her, grabbed her arms, drove her backward so that the bearer of the tray could retreat.
The iPad screen went dark and then bright white.
Bill closed his eyes and breathed evenly, needing now more than ever to control the beast within. Jasmine snatched the iPad from his hands. She seemed to float only inches away in the candelit train car.
"It doesn't have to be like this, Guillaume," she whispered, gazing up at him with those strange, beautiful eyes.
"Explain."
A smile played at the edges of her lips. "They were in awe of Tanzer, you know? Part of that was his own charisma, but part of it was his heritage. His father was among the greatest warriors in our history, a legend. All Tanzer wanted was to unite our race, to take back the freedom and primacy that was once ours. Is that so terrible a dream?"
Bill studied her carefully. Jasmine breathed deeply, edged even closer to him. He could almost feel her pressed against him, and yet there was still the slightest of distances separating them.
"That depends on the means used to achieve it. And the cost."
"Does it?" she asked. "Isn't it worth any price?"
He could see in her pout, hear in the rasp of her voice, that she meant it. That this dream truly was hers now as well. Bill did not respond.
"I don't have the legacy that Tanzer did. The packs and the prodigals are starting to come around out of curiosity, some out of fear. I am Alpha, but there will be challenges. I know there will," she said, sadly. Then that smile returned, sharp and deadly. "Tanzer's father was a great warrior, Guillaume, but your father was the most respected leader we have ever had. You have that in your blood. You could be that. You could have that."
A shudder went through him as she reached up to run a finger along his face.
"How do you figure?"
"I am Alpha. If you were my mate, we could truly unify the packs. We could have it all." Jasmine gazed up at him expectantly.
Her proximity was too much for Bill. He turned and walked again to the other side of the train car. When he faced her again, he saw that Jasmine had not moved.
"I just want Olivia. When she's free, I'm gone."
Into the lion's den.
The taxi dropped Courtney off a few doors down from the entrance to the Lotus Club and as she stood on the sidewalk and watched it pull away, she wondered how difficult it was going to be to find one to take her home. After another moment's hesitation, she glanced up the street at the sign for the Lotus and straightened up, steeling herself. There was nothing she could do to hide her infirmity, no way to ditch the cane. Instead she used it, drew from it a certain dignity and strength, and she started toward the club, relying as little on the stick as possible.
At the door she paused to take a breath, to set her features, to calm the flutter of trepidation in her belly so that her face revealed nothing. This was not her element. It was rare for her to take time off from the pub, rarer still for her to dress for anything but comfort or business. Though she supposed this was a kind of business. Yet the memory still existed in her of what it had been like to float through a dance club, wrapped in leather and tight cotton, and to feel the spotlight upon her. Before her mother's death, though underage, Courtney had done her share of clubbing.
With the lion's head of her cane, she rapped hard on the door.
By the count of three, it swung open.
The music that poured from inside was an incessant, repetitive techno beat that thumped her chest with the sheer force of its sound. Courtney did not flinch. She could not afford to, not under the gaze of the doorman who peered at her from within. He was tall, his hair neatly trimmed, and handsome in a grimly serious way. He appeared to be Chinese, but she knew that was only the masque, the illusion the Prowler wore.
Her heartbeat tripled, now matching the rhythmic backbeat of the electric drums in the techno jam that pounded from the open door. Only months earlier her abdomen had been torn open and by one of these things and she had nearly bled to death. Her body remembered those wounds, remembered the searing pain of it, even better than her mind did. The skin on her belly where doctors still needed to repair some of the scar tissue stung, now, and she hissed through her teeth as she offered the doorman a coquettish smile. Cane or not, though she rarely had opportunity to think about it, Courtney knew she could still grab the spotlight if she wanted to.
The doorman had a toothpick jutting from the corner of his mouth and for a moment he only glared at her. Then an enormous, clowning smile blossomed on his face as though he wanted her to know he had only been joking with her.
"I think you came to the wrong place, sweet one."
Courtney lifted her chin, used the leverage on the cane to arch her back a little. "I don't think so. I'm here to see Winter."
She stared at him, and let him stare back. His eyes roved over her body, the caramel pants she had zipped herself into, the creme top and the soft, stylish leather jacket whose cut flattered her so well.
In the end, he stood back with a playful, courtly flourish to let her pass. "His booth is at the back on the left." But as she moved by him, forcing her bad leg to obey, steadying her gait with the cane, the grinning doorman slid up next to her with inhuman speed. His fingers clutched tightly to her bicep and he whispered, not unkindly, into her ear.
"I hope you know what you're getting yourself into."
Though the urge to flee tugged at her, and she found it difficult to catch her breath, she swiveled her head to gaze steadily into his eyes. "I don't have a choice."
The grin vanished and his eyes narrowed. His lips parted so that she could see the toothpick pinched in his teeth. "Watch yourself, then, sweet. Just because our clientele wants to blend, wants to get by, doesn't mean there aren't some who cheat once in a while. It's like a diet, you see? There are vegetarians who aren't adverse to sneaking a little red meat now and again."
He released her and Courtne
y walked through the inner door into the club. It was clear to her that he had truly wanted her to be cautious, but his warning shook her. As if it had not been difficult enough to disguise her fear. She emerged into the club proper, the unrelenting rhythm hurting her ears, the lights painting a nightmare of reds and greens that drained all other colors from the spectrum. And on the dance floor, where dozens of bodies twisted to that primal beat, those nearest to her paused and glanced over at her, some of them smirking as though they knew.
And of course they did.
They could smell it.
The hell with you, Courtney thought, her anger burning off some of her fear. She glared back at those who had looked at her and one by one they turned away, swept back into the rhythm on the dance floor. Not until the last had averted his eyes did she continue on across the club, skirting the bar and cutting through the lounge area to the far left corner, to a booth where a lone figure sat, a scarecrow-thin man with skin as dark as his hair. A streak like bleach in his hair reflected back the flashing multi-colored lights in the club.
This was Winter. Bill had not told her much about him, save that he was a kind of mediator, that he was old and powerful and had kept peace with the underground as well as those Prowlers still wild. Courtney hated him for that. Winter might not be a killer, a monster like Tanzer and Jasmine, but he apparently had no objection to their predations.
Trepidation mingled with indignation but she would not be stalled. As she strode across the floor, at great pains to keep from appearing to rely too much on her cane, his gaze never touched her. The thin creature sipped from his drink and watched the club as it was as though she were invisible, a ghost to him.
Courtney blocked his light, throwing a shadow across this venerated beast. At last he looked up at her, but there was neither warmth nor hostility nor even curiosity in his features. He spoke before she could open her mouth.
"It's your fault, you know."
Thrown off guard, she faltered. "What?"
Winter glanced away a second, annoyed and impatient. "Sit."
She wanted to argue, but who else could she have gone to? If she wanted to find Bill, figure out what had happened to him, Winter was her only choice. Courtney slid into the booth.
"Can I get you a drink?"
"No, thank you."
He smiled at her manners and swirled the ice around in his whiskey glass before sipping from it. "We disappear," he told her, studying her face. "That's what you have to understand. Most of my people who go underground . . . an ironic turn of phrase, isn't it? I mean, in many ways by living amongst your people, they're going above ground, aren't they?" He mused on that a moment before focusing on her again. "Look out at the dance floor."
Courtney did as she was asked. Smiles and laughter, knowing looks between partners, it might have been any dance club in the world.
"Nearly all of them have disappeared. They have joined the world of humans, become part of it. Lawyers, waiters, accountants, even actors. But they remember what they are. They may not wish to be wild now, but they still love their wild brothers."
Ah, she thought, I see where this is going. "But Bill doesn't."
Winter nodded. "Guillaume allied himself with your people against his own."
Courtney bristled. "What, are you all dense?"
The thin Prowler sat up straighter, mouth twisted into a snarl.
She leaned forward and fixed him with a withering look. "I'm serious. Go ahead, attack. Tear me up. Wouldn't be the first time. Or maybe you should think about it for a second. If Bill hadn't helped us kill Tanzer, he would have kept going, kept drawing attention until the public figured out what was going on. And then what? A witch hunt, my friend. Villagers with torches. Paranoia ensues and everyone's looking at each other differently, trying to figure out who's human. And when they realize you're not, do you think they'd have cared about your diet? About how long it's been since you bellied up to the buffet table? By helping to take Tanzer down, he might just have saved you all."
The snarl dissolved into a contemplative, faraway look, and then Winter sat back in the booth and sipped his drink again. He watched the dancers, ignoring the way Courtney glared at him. Her words had been propelled by righteous anger and by fear, but not fear of Winter or of the others. Bill had gone off the map, incommunicado. Jack and Molly weren't answering their cell phones. That might be because they were out of range or the batteries needed a charge. It could be anything.
But it could be bad. It could mean the worst. At the moment Courtney had no way to track her brother, but Winter could find Bill. She had to pray that Jack and Molly were just out of reach at the moment. But if they weren't, once she found Bill, he would be able to track them.
She didn't know what else to do.
"How did you know who I was? Why I was here?" she asked, much of the fire gone from her tone.
Winter still did not look at her. "The one I sent with Guillaume, Lao, has disappeared. None of my contacts know what has happened to them, but I suspect that some know and will not say because they fear Jasmine."
"She's the same, you know? She'll be the death of all of you eventually."
"Perhaps," he replied thoughtfully. Then he glanced at her as though he had forgotten she was there. "I will find him. Not because you love him, or because you have come here, but out of respect for a friend long dead. Yves Navarre was the finest student I ever had."
"You were a teacher?" Courtney asked, eyebrows raised.
Winter seemed almost hurt. "Why should that surprise you?"
She said nothing. Anything reply she might have given would only have alienated him further. Winter seemed not to notice.
"It isn't only Guillaume. Jasmine likely has Olivia as well. After what he did, the underground might have stood by and let Guillaume be killed, no matter how much respect his father's memory holds, but the girl has done nothing. Once word gets out what Jasmine's done, things are going to get bloody. It's going to cost me a lot. I can't be neutral anymore. But if they're still alive, I will find Guillaume and his niece."
Winter chuckled as though the idea of the chaos he referred to amused him.
Courtney hesitated a moment before going on. "I can't reach my brother, either."
The Prowler stared at her, brow knitted in consternation. "What a pity. But what's that to do with me? Either he's all right, or he isn't? Maybe he's tracked the wrong prey, that brother of yours. You see us as killers. You want to stop the ones who still hunt humans. But that's what we are, Miss Dwyer. We're predators. And so, by the way, are you. That's why I have no feelings about your brother one way or the other. I understand what he and that redheaded girl hope to accomplish. Good for them. Hunting the hunters.
"May the best monster win."
He tilted his glass back, polished off the rest of the whiskey, and stood, unfolding his long, thin frame from the booth.
"I'm coming with you," Courtney said.
Winter smiled, offered a curt little bow. "I had no doubt that you would."
"You're not going to try to stop me?"
The beast feigned a hurt expression. "Who am I to stand in the way of love?"
He turned and walked off, and Courtney had to hurry to keep up, unmindful now of relying on her cane. Winter paused and looked back at her, eyes glancing from her face to her walking stick, then roving over her body, the stylish clothing she had worn.
"We'll stop so you can pack a bag and change into something more suitable for travel," he said, a grave expression on his face. Then he spun and marched off again. When he spoke to her with his back turned like that, she could only just make out the words over the blaring techno beat.
"Come on," Winter said. "Let's go start a war."
Eden nearly always knew when she was dreaming. Aware of that, she could often change the course of a dream, guide it and shape it so that it became a kind of exploration. Often she dreamed of days gone by, lives lived, passions and fears that had once lived in her heart. Sometime
s these journeys were nightmares, but as visits to the past they held no lasting terror for her. In dreams she might choose to face them, or turn away. Wake up.
But not always.
On the battlefield with a rifle in her hands. Smoke from cannon fire swirls in the air and night is coming on. Caleb is her name here, but still she wears her own face, her current face. Her uniform was gray once, but it has become so matted with dirt and blood that it is nearly black.
From across the field the blue coats advance, the Union soldiers with rifle and cannon, tired horses carrying men with swords drawn. The Union flag flies and it strikes her that the flag looks clean and new, and how can that be?
Now she is retreating, Caleb's legs moving beneath her, Caleb's hands raising the rifle to her shoulders and firing; reloading as she walks backward, raising the gun and firing again. The constant barrage has deafened her. Backward and backward and further still, long strides and careful steps and the gap between North and South, between Union and Confederate soldiers, is closing tighter.
One glance back, only one, and she sees that they are near the trees, and she knows that they have lost this bit of ground, that she has bled for it, that all around her friends are dying for it. Elijah Samuels goes down with a scream and a spurt of blood from his chest. Will Kent is erased in a cannonade and his leg lands nearby, foot still in its boot. There is a small hole worn through the sole of the boot.
Backward, backward, tears streaming down her face, she raises the rifle and fires, steps back and reloads and retreats some more. Trees, where are the trees? Her heel catches on something and Caleb falls, Eden falls, and the rifle flies from her grasp. As she scrambles to rise she realizes that she has fallen over the broken remains of a gray-uniformed soldier, a member of her battalion, but she cannot tell whose corpse it is because there is no face. Only shattered skull and bits of gelatinous brain and a flap of blond-haired scalp. There is no cap over it, but they all have lost their caps by now.
She cries out and pulls away and only then does she glance around to see that the retreat is over. The battle is over. She is the last. And the Yanks march toward her, one last rebel on a field of blood, and they are still firing.
Prowlers: Wild Things Page 14