Wolf at the Door

by Christine Warren

  Quinn froze. “I take it you’re not referring to Ysabel.”

  Richard shook his head. “No, I’m talking about an Other.”

  “What do you mean?” Cristos growled, his lighthearted manner giving way to the angry bear beneath. “Who among us would even think of giving aid to an enemy who wishes to destroy us?”

  “That it doesn’t say, but it is happening. They’ve recorded it all in black-and-white.”

  “If it doesn’t say who it is, then how do you know it’s one of us?” Quinn didn’t doubt Richard, but he had just as hard a time as Cristos imagining anyone in their community who would do such a thing.

  “ ‘Received another call today from the Damned Soul,’ ” Richard read. “ ‘DS claims to have been at recent meeting of monsters. They seem to have a sort of unholy governing body of their own. Told us of decision by this council to destroy an innocent who witnessed one of their many crimes. If allying ourselves to one of the monsters allows us to bring them to everlasting judgment, the Lord will forgive us. These demons must be stopped.’ End quote.”

  “I’d like to see their faces if they ever ran into a real demon,” Cristos bit out, stepping away from the desk to prowl restlessly around the room.

  “But who would do it?” Quinn shoved a hand through his hair and wished he’d been able to concentrate more on the Council at their meeting the other night and less on the woman seated across from him. “Most of them were against the idea of coming out at all, and I guarantee none of them would have lifted a finger to speed it along, let alone gone to the trouble of aiding a group of human fanatics.”

  Richard pulled up another document and gestured toward the screen. “Well, it’s at least someone with enough resources to donate generously. Whoever this ‘Damned Soul’ is, he’s been giving tidy little sums to the cell for at least the last couple of months.”

  Cristos swore vividly in Spanish. “I wonder what else they have done to betray us?”

  “Right now, ‘what’ matters less than ‘who.’ Richard, can you get copies of the documents that we can take with us? I think De Santos is a lot more likely to be able to identify this character than we are.”

  Richard tapped a finger on the tiny USB drive that stuck out from the front of the CPU. “Already got it. I’m taking most of their correspondence and a few other interesting files.”

  Cristos flashed his teeth. It couldn’t be called a smile. “Take everything. The better to hang them with. When we get—”

  “Quiet!” Quinn hissed as a whisper of sound caught his attention. It had come from the back of the store.

  Surprised, Cristos took one look at the Lupine’s face and stiffened. He followed his friend’s fixed gaze to the door to the back room and inhaled deeply. Behind them, Richard was already speeding through the computer files and preparing to power down the system the second he got what he needed.

  Quinn stretched and shifted, shimmying out of his clothes. He ghosted through the door they had left slightly ajar. Cristos accompanied him on two human feet, keeping close to the walls to take advantage of the deep shadows. Nothing in the back room looked out of place, but Quinn’s senses told him something was. The scent of the human who lived here was getting stronger, and again he heard the quiet clinking sound that had caught his attention. He butted his head against his friend’s knee and hunkered down to slink soundlessly toward the back door. That noise had been the jingling of a key ring. Someone had decided to come home before morning.

  The Ursa moved in a blur, covering the distance between the shop door and the back door in two great leaps. He flattened himself against the wall, while Quinn crouched in the shadows under the bed and waited.

  It didn’t take long.

  A few seconds after they’d gotten in place, Quinn heard a human mumbling something on the other side of the rear door and caught a quick, pungent whiff of incense. Their Lightheaded friend had come home. Quinn was betting they could have him down before he drew breath to scream.

  That’s pretty much how it happened.

  In a flurry of time and motion, a key turned in the lock, the door began to creak open, and Cristos darted forward, grabbing the figure and hauling him inside before he knew what had happened. The momentum of the Ursa’s tug threw the human to the floor where Quinn took over. He sprang from under the bed and landed on top of the young man. He smelled the rush of panic from his victim, and his sharp, white teeth clamped menacingly around a slim throat.

  The human drew breath for a scream, and Quinn’s jaws tightened in warning.

  “I suggest you keep quiet.” In the dark, Cristos’s deep voice and threatening posture were enough to make the human go instantly still. Well, except for the trembling muscles, which Quinn supposed he really couldn’t have helped. “If you manage that, I can promise you are unlikely to come to any harm.”

  If Cristos was surprised by who their zealot turned out to be, he didn’t show it. Quinn didn’t know what they’d been expecting, but a skinny kid barely out of high school and two sizes too small for the rough black monk’s robe he wore hadn’t been it.

  “Who . . .” The human tested the freedom he was likely to be given, which allowed speech at nothing above a whisper. “Who are you?”

  “Given the circumstances, don’t you believe we’re the ones who’ll be asking the questions, laddie?” Richard asked as he appeared in the other doorway. He stepped forward until he stood over the young man’s wolf-pinned form and glared down at him. “What’s your name?”

  A slight tightening of Quinn’s jaws elicited a stuttered response. “D-David.”

  “Well, David, my friends and I are wanting your help with something. You will help us, won’t you?”

  David trembled, and the sharp stink of fear filled Quinn’s nostrils. He snorted and concentrated on blocking it out.

  “W-what do you want?”

  “Just some information, laddie. For instance, who is this person you call ‘the Damned Soul’?”

  Quinn felt the kid’s surprise at the question and smelled the suspicion that followed. “Where did you hear that name?”

  A growl rumbled in Quinn’s chest, and Richard made a soft tsking sound. “Remember, laddie. We ask, you answer. Who is he?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “My friend doesn’t like liars, you know.”

  Quinn emphasized Richard’s point with a subtle flexing of his jaws, as if testing how difficult it would be to tear out David’s throat.

  It would be very, very easy.

  The kid gulped in fear. “I don’t know.”

  “David . . .”

  Richard’s voice wasn’t half the warning that Quinn’s teeth were, or Cristos’s menacing step forward, but it didn’t hurt.

  “I swear!” David squeaked. “I don’t know who he is. He’s never told us his name.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “I don’t know that, either. Brother Daniil put us in touch. We talk on the phone, and I only handle some of the calls. It’s always a different time, so whoever is in the office answers. We don’t meet him in person. You can’t trust a monster that close.”

  None of the Others liked the answer, but the rush of words and fear from the young man made it difficult to disbelieve.

  “I’ll let that comment slide just now,” Richard said in a low, unhappy voice. “Tell me what he sounds like.”

  David frowned. “Like a kidnapper in the movies. Like he’s using one of those machines to disguise his voice. He probably knows what we’d do to him if we knew how to find him.”

  Considering the human’s current position, the threat lacked force. Quinn snorted, and the kid nearly jumped out of his skin.

  “Can you tell us anything that could identify him?”

  “No. Like I said, it’s not a normal voice. It’s all mechanical and distorted. I don’t even really know if it’s a man or a woman.”

  Richard muttered something under his breath. “All right
, then let’s try something different. Where is Daniil Yukov?”

  “I don’t kno—”

  “Spare us. You can deny whatever you like, but the money for your rent comes from an account whose only signatory is Daniil Yukov. Is he Brother Daniil?”

  The kid squirmed, and Quinn added a broad, furry paw to his chest to keep him in place.

  “Brother Daniil is a holy man. I won’t—”

  In his shadowed corner, Cristos pressed his right fist into the opposite palm and cracked his knuckles one by one. “If he won’t give you a straight answer, let me try. He can scream once for yes and twice for no.”

  Quinn wrinkled his nose and hoped Cristos would leave the threat at that. He wanted the kid to cooperate as much as anyone, but he didn’t want to be this close if young David lost control of his bowels out of sheer terror.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Richard said, his voice as quiet as his footfall when he took one deliberate step forward. “Will it, David?”

  “No, but you’re too late,” the human whispered, trembling. “Brother Daniil is gone. He left Wednesday to do God’s work.”

  Quinn stiffened and his teeth sank deeper into the boy’s throat, drawing a strangled scream. He hadn’t intended to hurt the human, but a very unpleasant thought had occurred to him.

  It occurred to Richard as well. “And what kind of work is that?”

  “A mission of salvation.” David’s words were defiant, but his tone had weakened with fear. “He returned to a stronghold of evil to gather evidence against the monsters among us, so that the world can know they must be destroyed.”

  Ysabel.

  It couldn’t be coincidence. Daniil Yukov had flown back to Europe on Wednesday so he could assist in Ysabel’s kidnapping in Moscow on Thursday. Quinn wanted to howl in frustration.

  “I would not speak so eagerly of destruction, if I were you,” Richard bit out. “You might find yourself reaping what you sow.”

  He gestured to Quinn to release the young man. Quinn complied reluctantly, but more because David’s polluted mind left a bitter taste in his mouth than because he didn’t want to tear the human’s throat out. Such blind hatred enraged him. He lifted his head, but kept a paw firmly planted on the kid’s chest to keep him from going anywhere.

  “This has been useless!” Cristos snapped. “Yukov is gone and whoever this ‘Damned Soul’ is, he’s covered his tracks too well for us to find him.”

  “Not useless. We still have more information than we had before we got here.” Richard patted the pocket containing the USB drive. “It would be convenient if the lad could tell us more, but the files will help.”

  David jerked under Quinn’s paw. “You stole our computer files? You can’t do that! You—”

  “Oh, shut up.” The impatient order came with another foot on David’s chest, but this one landed on his solar plexus with more force than absolutely necessary. Quinn grinned a wolfish grin. “You can’t tell us anything else, so the least you can do is keep silent. Quinn, let him up. We need to get back to the club and give these records a more thorough going-over. And we need to let Gregor know about Yukov. Maybe if he can find this maniac, he will also find his Ysabel.”

  Cristos frowned. “Do you think it’s wise to just leave the human here, my friend? The minute we are out the door, the imbecile is likely to try and follow us, or to call the police. Or call some of his less lawful and more violent friends to seek us out.”

  “No he won’t. You’re going to stay with him while Quinn and I start back. I’ll call De Santos and ask if his wife or one of her other witchy friends can meet you here in a few minutes and do a little something about young David’s memory.”

  The human started to launch a protest, but Quinn hadn’t shifted just yet. He pressed his muzzle into the kid’s face and drew his lips back into a snarl. David went quiet.

  “Come on, Quinn. De Santos needs to hear all this.”

  With one last grumble, Quinn lifted his paws off the human’s chest and took a step away. Then he arched his back, lifted his head, and shifted back into his human form.

  David passed out in the middle of a girlish scream.

  Chuckling, Cristos went to the front of the store to retrieve Quinn’s clothes, his good humor beginning to recover. “Leave the intrepid monster slayer to me,” he said, handing over the rumpled garments, “but not for too long. I haven’t eaten in hours, and even if he is skinny, he’s better than nothing.”

  Quinn dressed quickly. The threat was meaningless, but he knew Cristos’s talents would be better used dealing with the crisis at hand than babysitting a zealot-in-training. “Try the peanuts over on the table. They’re more likely to fill you up.”

  Beside him, Richard flipped his cell phone closed and nodded to the door. “Come on. De Santos is going to meet us back at the club, and he’s sending someone here right away, Cris. He said it won’t be more than thirty minutes.”

  “Damn it, Richard, why didn’t you let me talk to him?” Cristos grumbled. “I could have asked him to make the witch stop and pick me up a pizza.”

  Nineteen

  Cassidy never did make it to her grandmother’s house for cocktails that night. She had intended to, had even pushed Quinn out the door around seven-thirty so she would have time for a hot bath. She needed to soak away the soreness inspired by the overuse of long-neglected muscles, but first she sat down on the edge of her rumpled bed just so she could catch her breath.

  When she woke, the dim green numbers on her alarm clock told her it was coming up on twelve. Judging by the look of her windows, she was guessing midnight. It felt decadent, having slept so much, but she didn’t regret a minute of it. After all, when was the last time she’d gotten so much vigorous exercise?

  Way too long ago, she mused. She couldn’t deny she felt a little bruised and more than a little raw, but she didn’t regret that, either. In fact, it put an exceedingly goofy grin on her face that she wore while she shrugged into her favorite cotton robe and shuffled out to the kitchen for a midnight snack. She seemed to have worked up a bad case of what her mother had always laughingly called “the munchies.”

  She stood in front of the fridge snacking on cheddar and contemplating something more substantial when her phone rang.

  She swallowed the last of her cheese and moved to the living room to grab the cordless. “Hello?”

  “Miss Poe.”

  “Speaking.” She wasn’t all that fazed by a call this late. After all, Others kept some crazy hours, but she was trying to decide if it would be too much trouble to whip up a batch of buttermilk biscuits, so she might have sounded distracted.

  “Miss Poe, we have been trying to reach you for most of the day. Do you have a moment to speak?”

  Cassidy hitched her hip against the end table and frowned. The voice sounded familiar, but for some reason she couldn’t quite place it. “It’s kind of late. Who did you say you were?”

  The man on the other end of the line ignored her question. “It is important. A matter of great concern to the Council.”

  The light bulb over her head went on, and she stood up straighter. “Oh. You’re the one who left me a message at my grandmother’s house. I’m sorry, I was going to call earlier, but . . . er, I got tied up most of the day.”

  “We did say it was important.”

  “Well, these things happen,” Cassidy said, frowning at the caller’s rudeness. It wasn’t a quality she was used to finding in a Council member. “I’m not quite sure what I can help you with, but of course I’ll do whatever I can for the—”

  The caller cut her off. “Then we’ll send a car for you. It will pick you up outside your building in fifteen minutes. Don’t make the driver wait.”

  The hackles on the back of Cassidy’s neck rose. The call had just cruised past rude and made a left turn into creepy. Her instincts did not want her getting into any vehicle sent by this caller. Maybe it was the time of night, or maybe she was just losing her mind, b
ut a feeling was a feeling.

  “Did you say you were calling on behalf of the Council?”

  There was a pause. “No. But the Council would do well to listen to what we have to say.”

  Okay, now Cassidy really wasn’t going anywhere. And she was also feeling a lot less inclined to play whatever game the caller had in mind. The Council had earned her respect, but people who called her in the middle of the night just to freak her out were another story.

  “Unfortunately, you’ve caught me at a bad time. As I said, it’s been a busy day and I was just about to get some sleep. If you want to leave me your name and number again, I can call back tomorrow. I’ll be a lot more useful once I’ve gotten some rest.”

  There was a short pause, and the speaker on the other end of the line somehow managed to make it sound displeased. “This is a matter of some importance, Miss Poe.”

  “I’m sure it is, but I can barely keep my eyes open.” She inserted a yawn for effect. “I would be totally useless to you at the moment.”

  “Miss Poe.” The voice began to sound testy. “I’m afraid you don’t fully grasp the situation that my colleagues and I would like to discuss with you.”

  Cassidy’s temper hit its limit. She scowled into the receiver. “Forgive me if this sounds rude, but since you didn’t say what you wanted to talk about in the message you left with my grandmother’s housekeeper, and since you still haven’t felt compelled to share it with me during this conversation, you’re right about that. I don’t know what it is you want to discuss.”

  “And that is why we should meet right away—”

  “Look,” she snapped, as did her control, “since you seem to have trouble hearing, let me make this clear. I’m not available tonight. End of story. If you want to talk to me about important business, small business, big business, or monkey business, you can call back in the morning.”

  She pushed the phone’s off button and thumped it down onto the cradle. She couldn’t remember a conversation so unsettling since college. And that one had likely involved the use of an intoxicating agent. This time, she’d been stone-cold sober.