Dark Hunt

by Naomi Clark

  I felt guilty for resenting the three of them, but the beer helped numb my conscience. Didn’t Shannon and I deserve more than babysitting and dealing with their traumas? Hadn’t we come to La Marais to get away from just that?

  “I love you,” Shannon said suddenly, kissing my cheek.

  “I love you too.” I stopped walking to swing her into my arms and kiss her properly. “Do you feel like... You don’t think this holiday was a mistake, do you? What with everything that’s happened?”

  We started walking again, hand-in-hand, while she contemplated her answer. “I know it’s not going quite as planned,” she said. “But you know, it has made me rethink a few things.”

  “Like what?” My stomach knotted, sudden worry filling me.

  “The whole Pack thing,” she gazed down the street, all the love and desire gone from her eyes and replaced with a thoughtfulness that didn’t help the knots in my stomach at all. “Wherever we live, you’ll still be a werewolf. You’ll still be drawn to other werewolves and you’ll still be involved with Pack politics, just as wherever we lived, I’d still be a PI and still be getting involved with cheating husbands and junkies.”

  “Yeah,” I said cautiously.

  “So...maybe I was being unreasonable, blaming everything that happened on the Pack. I mean, obviously some of what happened was the Pack’s fault,” she added. “Or Eddie’s, specifically, but does that mean I should be holding it against you? I love that you want to help everyone you meet solve their problems. I love that you care that much. It’s one of the things that first attracted me to you.”

  Some of the anxiety drained away. “Oh.”

  “It’s just...” She hesitated, as if the next words were thorny and tough to spit out. “When we were up north, you didn’t bother with the local Pack, really did you?”

  I wondered if that would always be the sticking point. I’d had wolf friends when we lived in Northumberland, but I’d kept away from getting too involved in Pack life because I was living as a lone wolf. It was a deliberate choice, one I’d made as a seventeen-year-old running away from the rigid, old-fashioned expectations of the Pack and my parents. Lone wolves answered to themselves and owed the Pack nothing. It was the right kind of life for me then.

  Sometimes I wondered if I’d been wrong to give it up, but rejoining the Pack had given me a second chance at a relationship with my parents, given me back my friendship with Vince. I’d always think those things were worth giving up a bit of independence.

  “No,” I answered Shannon finally. “But it was different then.”

  “I know.” She kissed my cheek again. “Look, you know why I get so angry and upset about it, don’t you? It’s because I get scared for you.”

  “I know. Like I get scared for you when you’re off stalking potential wife-beaters and rapists,” I countered.

  “And that’s my point,” she said. “I know I’m not being very clear about it, but what I mean is, we are who we are and we both know that—have known it as long as we’ve been together. And you’ve never asked me to give up my job. So I can’t ask you to give up the Pack.”

  Relief warmed me. It was exactly what I’d been waiting for her to say ever since we moved back home. That she understood. That she accepted. I still sensed a ‘but’ lurking behind her words though. “But?” I prompted.

  She sighed and smiled wistfully. “But I still miss Northumberland.”

  There would always be that. I bit my lip, wondering if there was a solution that would make us both happy.

  I didn’t know if I felt better or worse about our future, but I definitely wasn’t feeling amorous anymore. I clasped Shannon’s hand tight and sighed as we moved away from the crush of late-night revelers and towards empty, silent shops. “We should find a taxi,” I said.

  She nodded, scanning the streets. “Could just take the Metro?”

  “I’d rather take a taxi,” I said firmly. Away from the club, with a cool night breeze starting to penetrate my alcohol haze, the threat of Le Monstre was firmly back in my head.

  We hailed a taxi at the end of the street and twenty minutes later we were back in Montmartre on our own doorstep. The journey had passed in silence—not awkward or unhappy, exactly, but both of us were feeling reflective, I think. Shannon looked tired again; her cheeks flushed with the effort of getting herself up the stairs. I slipped my arm round her waist and she leaned against me gratefully as I unlocked the door. Sun’s apartment was silent and no light showing under the door. I hoped for her sake that Thérèse had left her in peace.

  Shannon shut the front door behind us and turned, pushing me against the door and cupping my face in her hands. She rested her forehead against mine, eyes wide and bright in the darkness. “Bed?” she whispered.

  I Eskimo-kissed her, stroking her hair. “Bed,” I agreed. I lead her through to the bedroom, stripping off her clothes slowly. The smells from Mixer clung to the fabric, strangely intoxicating. Shannon lifted my t-shirt to skim her nails down my stomach, sliding her fingers down the waistband of my jeans and plucking at my underwear with a sly smile that made my breath catch in my throat.

  She moved me back gently until I was forced to drop onto the bed. She went to her knees, pulling my jeans off and making her way up my legs with soft butterfly-light kisses. I leaned back, eyes closed, whimpering with pleasure. Her fingers eased slowly inside me, slowly out again, drawing out the pleasure and firing me up until I was twisting and writhing on the sheets, begging her to either stop or to go further, much further.

  She complied, teasing me with lips as well as fingers. I couldn’t take much more. I was going to burn up. The world was spinning and Shannon was driving me crazy and I wanted to howl her name out...

  ...and then someone was banging on the front door, shouting for us both.

  “Ignore them,” I mumbled as Shannon paused, looking round.

  “What if something’s wrong with Sun?” she asked, standing and reaching for her clothes. “She might have gone into labor.”

  “She’ll be fine.” I sat up, intending to pull Shannon down onto the bed, but she was already dressed and hurrying for the front door. I swore softly, grabbing my jeans and following her. The hot ache between my thighs faded as I recognized Sun’s voice. She sounded frantic. Afraid. What now? My heart lurched as Shannon opened the door and Sun practically fell into her arms, one hand on her stomach, the other clutching Shannon’s shoulder.

  “She’s gone!”

  “Thérèse?” Shannon asked, straightening Sun up.

  The other woman played with the belt of her silky dressing gown nervously, tightening and loosening it as we escorted her over to the sofa. “She’s really drunk and really mad and she just took off! I couldn’t stop her!”

  “When?” I asked, pressing a hand to my forehead at the image of a drunk, angry werewolf on the loose. “Has Clémence been released yet?”

  Sun shook her head. She looked beyond exhausted: face pale, eyes bloodshot. I felt a stab of genuine concern for her. She was suffering more than anyone else involved in this mess and I kept forgetting that.

  “Why do you think Thérèse has gone all batshit crazy on me? She’s been waiting for hear from Clémence all day and there’s been nothing. She started drinking a couple hours ago and I guess she just finally cracked.” Sun shrugged, lifting her hands in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. “I tried to stop her, but she just ran off and I can hardly go after her like this.” She patted her bump. “I hate dumping on you guys all the time, but you’re both just so sensible and calm about all this shit.”

  I didn’t feel sensible or calm. I felt on the verge of a raging headache or a massive meltdown. “When did she take off?” I was amazed to discover I did sound calm and sensible.

  “About ten minutes ago. I thought maybe she’d come back and I didn’t want to bother you guys, but...”

  “Okay,” Shannon said. “So what do we do? I suppose if there’s been no word from Clémence, she’s still with th
e police and she’s not going to be released at this hour.”She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “It’s nearly midnight, after all.”

  “Thérèse might just go home,” I suggested. “Did she say...”

  Sun shook her head. “She was crying and ranting about Patric and the thing that killed him. I don’t think she’s going home. She was in such a mess. God, if she’s out there, drunk and crazy, she’s going to get herself in real trouble.” Sun gripped my arm. “We can’t just leave her in the state she’s in. She’s going to hurt someone, or get herself hurt.”

  Shannon and I looked at each other with a sort of grim acceptance. Shannon shook her head. “I wish I had my bloody gun.”

  ***

  Sun wanted to come with us. “What if I go into labor?” she shrilled. “You can’t leave me on my own!”

  We could. Shannon pointed out that going into labor at home was much better than going into labor on the streets. Sun relented without much fuss in the end, settling back down on her sofa with a few token grumbles.

  Shannon and I dressed in silence, she probably wondering the same thing that I was; what the hell were we doing? It was edging ever closer to midnight, there was a blood-drinking monster on the prowl and we already knew that the pair of us were no match for it.

  “Just so I know,” I said as she fastened up her sturdy walking boots. “You think this is insane too, don’t you?”

  “Completely,” she replied. “But I also know I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to Thérèse and we didn’t do anything.”

  I nodded, throwing a jacket on over my t-shirt. I was ready to go. My wolf scratched inside me, reminding me once again that I needed to shift and that a wolf had a much better chance of tracking Thérèse down than a human. I resisted. Mostly because I was worried I might lose myself in the wolf after going so long without a proper shift. I could forget I was supposed to be tracking Thérèse. There was always the chance the wolf-mind would take over; it was a chance you took every time you shifted.

  “Ready?” Shannon asked me. I nodded, pushing the wolf to the back of my mind for now. Later, I promised. Later, I’d shift. The burns had healed enough and the need to shake off this form was a constant itch in my skull.

  Out in the hall, Thérèse’s scent was strong, splashed with white wine and wolf musk. She hadn’t shifted, but I could tell she’d been close. I was willing to bet she’d be in wolf-shape by the time we caught up to her. We followed her wine-and-wolf trail out onto the street, into the night. For a second I lost her scent. Like the night Sun went missing I struggled with dozens of confusing scents. Then I found Thérèse among the stale odors and the hot oil, fresh flowers and sizzling meat filling the streets. Her scent blazed in my mind, a red hot thread leading down the hill towards the Moulin Rouge and the neon lights of sex shops. Shannon and I followed.

  The urge to run grew stronger. Throw off the human skin, nose to the ground, racing through the streets. Two things kept me from giving in: Shannon’s hand clasped in mine—I didn’t want to leave her exposed and vulnerable—and the sudden surge of people leaving the Moulin Rouge. The dark glass doors beneath the red windmill were thrown open. Men and women dressed to kill spilled out onto the street, laughing, screaming and twirling each other around with glee. The scene at Loup Garou was fresh in my mind: the mob, the fire, how fast it all happened. Confronted with this crowd, I wasn’t sure that the sight of a wolf wouldn’t trigger the same mob mentality.

  So I gritted my teeth and held onto my human shape, clinging to Shannon’s hand and focusing on Thérèse’s scent. She’d past the Moulin Rouge, heading down the street past bars and sex shops, towards the centre of Paris. Was she heading for the police station, Loup Garou, or just home? God, I’ll feel stupid if she’s just gone home. Relieved, but stupid.

  “Where do you think she’s heading?” Shannon asked, as if reading my mind. “Where would you be going, if you were her?”

  “To find Clémence, I suppose,” I said. We’d left the noise and bright lights of the Moulin Rouge behind and had come to a crossing; a pharmacy and steak house to one side, dark, unlit streets to the other. The crowd had thinned; we saw small groups of people moving quickly from one patch of light to the next, nobody walking alone. My skin prickled as I wondered if they were thinking about Le Monstre too, thinking about the new bodies showing up night after night, bloodless and mauled.

  Unconsciously, I pulled Shannon closer as I paused to sniff the air. Thérèse had stopped here for a while, maybe deciding where to go next. In the end, she’d headed right, down the unlit street. Of course she had. Why stick in the safe, well-lit parts of the city when you could creep off down dingy back streets?

  “This is the opposite direction to Loup Garou and the police station,” Shannon objected as I tugged her down the dark and sloping street. “Know what I think? She’s heading for where Patric was found.”

  “Oh?”

  She nodded. “Just a guess, but if she was looking for Clémence, surely she would have started at the police station?”

  “Or she’s just gone home,” I offered. We didn’t know where Thérèse lived, or where Patric had been found. I wished we’d thought to ask her earlier today. “If she’s as drunk as she smells, she probably just wants to sleep it off.”

  Shannon shot me a skeptical look. “If you believed that, we wouldn’t be out here.”

  I glanced at the buildings bordering the street. The shops here were boarded up, their signs faded and worn. There were no cars anywhere, but rusted bikes were chained to lamp posts. Abandoned by their owners, I guessed. Overflowing bins dropped empty beer cans and cigarette butts onto the cracked pavement and the smell of damp wood and rot hung over the buildings. It was hard to believe we were in Paris and hadn’t been transported to some crappy London council estate or the set of a horror movie.

  No, there was no way I’d be here right now if I thought Thérèse was curled up at home nursing a wine-induced headache. “She definitely came this way.” I stopped by one of the abandoned bikes, inhaling sharply.

  “And she shifted, too.” Shannon scooped up a bundle of clothing from near a bin. They reeked of Thérèse. “Just dropped them on the street, didn’t even try to hide them.”

  If Thérèse’s human scent was a hot, red blaze in the night, her wolf scent was an explosion. A rich, deep scent like berries and spices, dry autumn leaves and dried fruits. It was like a drug for my wolf. She loved it, wanted to drop down and roll around in it. I felt my fingernails shift . Glancing down, I saw black fur flowing over my fingers, down from my short claws to my wrists. A shiver of pain ran through me as bones contracted, shrinking down to wolf-size paws.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “You okay?” Shannon peered at me. “Your eyes have gone wolfy.”

  I blinked and the world, already dark, was drained of color. Wolf vision. “I need to shift.” Panic welled in me. I was already shifting, the choice taken from me by Thérèse’s gorgeous musk and my wolf’s mounting frustration and impatience with my human body. The shiver of pain became a fire of agony ripping through me as my spine bowed and I fell to my knees, joints locking, bones stretching and shrinking.

  My clothes shredded and I kicked my shoes off as my feet and legs shifted. My senses lifted and sharpened, making Thérèse’s berries-and-leaves musk even more intoxicating, drowning out the stink of rot and rubbish that filled the street. My eyesight adapted fast to the change, my hearing too, so every distant sound hit me, briefly making my head spin. The distant chug of a car engine stalling, the music and laughter spiraling down the street from the Moulin Rouge. Somewhere up ahead, a train rumbled by.

  My burnt skin stretched painfully as the shift completed and shockwaves of agony rolled through me as my body ripped the tender flesh apart and then pulled it back together again. It couldn’t have taken more than a minute, but it felt like forever. Then, mercifully, it passed and the night wind rushed over me, ruffling my fur and cooling my to
o-hot body.

  For a few seconds, I lay on my side, lungs heaving as the change set in. Wolf instincts filled my head and I forgot about Shannon, forgot about Thérèse, despite her scent clinging to the pavement where I sprawled. All I could think of was running. Hunting. It felt so good to be in wolf shape after so long caged in human skin. I needed to stretch my legs, to work off some of the energy burning through me.

  I stood, testing my back legs cautiously. The bare skin ached from the burns, but I knew a good run would work the aches away. The street stretched out before me, empty and narrow, leading away from the tumult of city noise and chaos that was so familiar, promising more interesting corners to explore.

  Tail wagging, I trotted off, ignoring the lure of another wolf’s scent. I made it a few feet before my mate jumped into my path.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded, kneeling in front of me to bring herself down to my eye-level. I stepped back with a whine, surprised to find her there. I didn’t want a human tagging along; she’d never keep up and she’d shout at me if I tried to kill anything.