Fair Game aao-3

by Patricia Briggs

  ‘Older than I look,’ Charles said. ‘A lot older.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve asked around about you. We have some werewolves who talk to the FBI. They tell me that you’re a detective for all the wolves. You come in and solve crimes.’

  He wondered if that was all they’d told her – and thought it probably was. He didn’t respond because he didn’t know if agreeing with her was more of a lie than disagreeing with her would be.

  ‘And you know a lot about this world that we’re just learning about. We got Lizzie out of their hands because you knew to bring in witches – and because that witch was scared enough of you to behave herself.’

  That was fair enough. He waited for her to get to the point.

  ‘Lizzie says that there were three of them,’ Leslie told him. ‘Two young men and an old man. One of the young men called the old guy “uncle” before he was shut up. The old man made the cuts on her skin. Both of the young men raped her first, “while she was still pretty.” They told her the old man preferred women after they were broken.’

  He’d hoped that they had gotten to her soon enough to spare her that, but he’d been pretty sure they hadn’t.

  ‘I thought Beauclaire had refused to have her questioned,’ Charles said. He’d heard Lizzie talking, but Leslie didn’t need to know just how good his hearing was.

  ‘I didn’t ask her a question. She just talked. Told me she wants them caught and caged so they can’t do anything to anyone else. Tough woman. She fell asleep mid-word – and I think her father had something to do with that. Can the fae send people to sleep?’

  ‘I am not an expert in fae magic,’ Charles said carefully.

  She turned her head and nodded. ‘You are very good at skirting the truth.’ Leslie sighed. ‘You are an experienced detective and you met the enemy. What are your impressions?’

  ‘I’ve only met the one,’ Charles said. But her request for information was fair – and he wanted the perpetrators caught. ‘The fae is definitely the junior member of the group, even though he’s probably the only one with magic – and he’s the reason they can take on fae and werewolves.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘He’s not a hunter,’ Charles told her. ‘He’s a stag – he’s not a predator, no matter how tough or deadly he is.’ Herne the Hunter notwithstanding, Brother Wolf knew that the fae they’d fought with was prey. Maybe Herne was more huntsman and less deer, but this one … This one ran from his foes. He was not a hunter; he was a tool of the real hunters.

  ‘You think he’s a victim?’

  Charles snorted. ‘No. He’s no angel – but he’d never go out hunting victims. He might rape and kill someone who came too close to him – but he wouldn’t hunt. That’s predatory behavior. Doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. Most years, moose kill more people in Canada than grizzlies do. Moose, though, generally don’t trail people with the intention of killing them like a grizzly will.’

  ‘All right,’ Leslie said. ‘We have a moose, not a bear. What else?’

  He reflected on the fight. The horned lord fought instinctively instead of strategically, seemingly incapable of focusing on more than one attacker at a time. ‘That fae isn’t smart. If he has a day job – and I’d guess that he does—’ Charles tried to verbalize the instincts that allowed a dominant wolf to control his pack. ‘If you are going to keep someone that dangerous under control, you don’t let him start thinking that he’s too valuable. You don’t support him just because he’s useful in your hunt. He has to go support himself.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Leslie sounded doubtful and Charles shrugged. ‘It might be different if our family of killers didn’t come from money – then they’d find some other way to make sure he knew he was subordinate.’

  ‘They come from money?’

  ‘This much traveling, this many years – if you were looking for a group of poor people, you’d have found them. Money makes a lot of things easier. Murder is just one of them. And they had to have money to be able to afford Sally Reilly.’

  ‘Fair enough. Our profilers figured that the Big Game Hunter was well-to-do about fifteen years ago. You were going to speculate about a job.’

  ‘Right. He’s not bright, and because of that his other nature is going to be difficult to conceal.’

  ‘“Other” as in fae?’

  Charles nodded. ‘Yes. So he’ll be a box boy at a grocery store or a stocking clerk. Maybe a janitor or handyman. He’d be very strong. Dockworker, if you still have them here.’

  ‘Would people remember him?’

  ‘Is he scary, do you mean? Like your husband?’ Charles shook his head, following Brother Wolf’s instincts. ‘I don’t think so. I think people are going to feel sorry for him. Otherwise he’d be in jail. Scared people generally run or attack. If someone ever attacked this one, he’d kill them. If he went around killing people in the open like that, he’d be in jail or dead.’

  ‘All right,’ Leslie said. ‘We’ll see what we can do with that. Run it by our profilers and see if they agree.’

  The condo wasn’t home, but it felt welcoming all the same. Charles pulled some steaks out of the fridge and cut them up in bite-sized chunks. One of them he set down on the floor for Anna and the other he ate standing up. His human teeth weren’t really sharp enough for the raw meat, but he persevered and was rewarded as the aches and pains gradually settled down as the energy from the food entered his system.

  He watched his mate eat with a satisfaction that had never faded since he’d met her, half-starved and wild-eyed. Brother Wolf never forgot how thin she had been, and he would get pushy if he thought Anna wasn’t eating enough.

  When she was finished eating, she changed back to human.

  It always made Charles restless when she changed, seeing her hurting and knowing that there was nothing he could do to help. He paced back and forth a couple of times, then sat down and turned on the TV, idly flipping through channels until Anna, human again, took the controller out of his hand and turned the TV off.

  ‘Bed,’ she said. ‘Or you’re going to be married to a zombie.’

  He’d intended to talk with her, he remembered, to tell her about his ghosts. But neither of them was in shape for talk.

  Charles looked at her and said in his most serious voice, ‘I don’t think werewolves can become zombies.’

  ‘Trust me,’ she said in a passable zombie voice. ‘Another ten minutes and I will eat your brains.’

  He pulled her down onto his lap. ‘I think I’ll chance it.’

  She sighed as if annoyed, though his nose told him she liked being in his embrace. ‘So, can you do this without an audience? Is that what’s been bothering you these past few months? All I needed to do was invite the pack into our bedroom? You should have told me.’

  He laughed. She made him laugh. ‘I don’t know. Let’s find out.’

  A rather long while later, Anna stretched and then flopped comfortably next to him. ‘Urr, brains,’ she said.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ Charles growled, pulling her closer.

  ‘I warned you,’ she said. ‘You didn’t let me sleep.’ She yawned widely and said regretfully, ‘And now I have no choice but to eat your brains.’

  ‘Obviously,’ he said. ‘You need more exercise before you go to sleep.’ He rolled onto his back. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to be a good mate and help you with that.’

  She crawled on top of him, naked and warm and soft, smelling like a miracle that had saved him from a lifetime of aloneness.

  ‘I wouldn’t want you to strain anything,’ Anna told him. ‘Why don’t you just lie back and think of England.’

  His mouth caught the nearest of her body parts – the soft inside of her elbow – and gave it a light nip. ‘England is the furthest thing from my mind.’

  She settled down on top of him, taking him inside her, and he quit talking altogether. Her eyes were blue, her wolf’s eyes, when she came for him for the second time that night.<
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  Flushed and joyous, Anna bent down and nipped his ear. ‘No audience necessary, I see.’

  ‘Move,’ Charles told her.

  She laughed again, her eyes still moonlit azure – but she moved.

  They slept in.

  Charles woke up first and watched her face in the late-morning light. It was peaceful and pleased Brother Wolf even though the moon was waxing nearly full and the urge to hunt always ran strong in his bones at that time. Contentment was still something new for Charles, something he’d never experienced in all his long life before he’d met Anna.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the killers,’ Anna said without opening her eyes. ‘Three people is a pack.’

  Charles waited for her to continue.

  She sat up with a snap. In a voice filled with hushed excitement she said, ‘The fae – he’s the soldier, the bottom of the pecking order. Doing as he’s told, when he’s told to do it. The old guy, he’s the one who started this. He’s the Alpha.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Charles said, when it appeared she needed his agreement. The hunting moon might not be stirring Brother Wolf, as long as he had Anna in his bed, but apparently Anna was feeling it pretty strongly.

  ‘Who is the second young one?’ she asked. ‘Do you think he’s the obedient second? Loyal, dedicated? Or is he the Alpha in training, waiting until the old man is too old to control the pack so he can kill him and take over?’

  ‘Neither of us is a trained profiler,’ he felt obliged to point out.

  She bounced in the bed, her brown eyes glittering with excitement. ‘Now that Lizzie is rescued, all we have to do is solve the rest.’

  ‘As they have been trying to do for longer than you’ve been alive,’ he told her dryly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but they didn’t have you and me on the case.’

  They had a TV now, and satellite – mostly so Anna could watch her detective shows. She was enjoying this. Charles … He supposed he was enjoying it, too. More now that the innocents were safe, in the hospital or the morgue.

  ‘Motive,’ she said in the same voice he imagined Archimedes might have said, ‘Eureka!’ in his bath all those years ago.

  ‘Doesn’t work the same way in serial-killer cases as it does in most murders,’ he said. ‘Serial killers are addicted to the hunt and they aren’t capable of stopping, most of them. Their lives are controlled by the kill.’

  ‘He’s tagging his victims,’ Anna said. ‘What does that say?’

  ‘These are less than human,’ said Charles, repeating what they both knew. ‘Animals I have killed.’

  ‘Right. Animals that he has killed. He’s claiming the kill with that tag.’ She frowned. ‘Aren’t serial killers supposed to try to step into the investigation? To watch people struggle and fail to solve the case – or to control the case better?’

  ‘I’ve heard that,’ Charles agreed. ‘For some kinds of killers.’

  She grinned at him.

  ‘All of which the FBI knows better than we do,’ he said. ‘We’ve probably helped the case as much as we can until someone else is taken.’

  Anna sobered. ‘It’s too bad we weren’t able to hurt the horned lord worse than we did. He was mostly healed by the time he hit the top of the stairs – did you notice? The police don’t have a chance against him.’

  ‘We’ll stay here for a while. Leslie and Goldstein seemed to be sensible people. They’ll call us in if they need us.’

  She tilted her head and asked, ‘What does Brother Wolf say about all of this?’

  ‘That these hunters didn’t get what they want; we stole their prey. They’re going to be hungry and even more dangerous. On the other hand, I, Charles, say that we ought to eat something, as it is long past morning and we missed breakfast and are in danger of missing lunch – and Brother Wolf is pleased to concur.’

  ‘You are always trying to feed me,’ she accused him without heat as she got out of bed.

  ‘No, that’s Brother Wolf.’ Charles smiled. ‘I’ll cook.’

  Charles had meant to talk to her about his ghosts over breakfast, because he’d been tired last night, and then he’d been distracted. But something she had said nagged at him.

  ‘Charles?’ Anna asked patiently.

  ‘Sorry,’ he told her. ‘Thinking.’

  ‘Do you want some more bacon, or should I put it in the fridge for later?’

  There were four pieces left. He took two and ate them. Then he took the other two and held them up to her mouth. ‘You need more protein.’

  She rolled her eyes, but ate them anyway.

  ‘I need to look something up on the Internet,’ he said. ‘Can you get the dishes?’

  ‘You cooked; I’ll clean,’ she said.

  He took his laptop into the spare bedroom where there was a small writing desk. It was slower than his desktop at home and the screen was too small to let him pull up as many images at a time as he liked to – and the Internet connection here was not too fast, either. He growled in frustration as his fingers flew over the keyboard, as if by moving faster he could coax the machine to greater effort.

  He started out with the legitimate things he had access to – Goldstein had sent him a file on the case, as he had promised – and then dug deeper. These killers, these UNSUBS, they had money – had power. Anna was right: they would not be able to stay out of the investigation.

  At some point Anna brought him a pizza – though he hadn’t noticed her ordering it. A little later she came in to tap him on the shoulder.

  ‘You, Isaac, and I have been invited to a celebration for Lizzie’s safe return,’ she told him.

  ‘I’m waiting for two phone calls,’ Charles said.

  ‘This would be an excellent time for some PR with the Boston Police Department – which is important for the Olde Towne Pack. Isaac told me they’ve had some issues this year.’

  He rolled his seat back from the desk and looked at his mate. She looked a little antsy and her brown eyes glowed slightly, highlighted with her wolf’s light blue.

  It was dark outside, which meant she’d been cooped up in here for hours with nothing to do but watch TV. And it was close to the full moon. It wasn’t fair to make her sit around any longer.

  ‘This may be a wild goose chase, but I’m on to something and I’d like to finish it up,’ he told her. ‘Would you agree to letting Isaac be your escort?’ Brother Wolf didn’t like it, but Charles didn’t want to smother her. He might be finished in five minutes – or twelve hours. And Isaac was a good fighter; Charles had seen it last night. He’d been outmatched in sheer size and strength and hampered by not being able to see their opponent, but he’d fought smart.

  ‘I don’t need a bodyguard,’ said Anna, not fooled for a moment by Charles calling Isaac an escort, but Charles hadn’t expected to get away with it. ‘We’re going somewhere that will be filled with cops and FBI agents and werewolves. It should be pretty safe. And isn’t an Alpha above being a bodyguard?’

  ‘Humor me,’ said Charles.

  She sighed heavily – then ruined it with a sly grin. ‘I told Isaac to come pick me up – and that you were going to make him responsible for my health and well-being.’

  ‘If you knew what I was going to say, why did you come in here and bother me?’ He growled with mock annoyance.

  Anna laughed. ‘I’m going to go change.’

  ‘Let me know when you leave,’ he said, already caught up in his work again. Where had he been before she interrupted him?

  When he next emerged, she was gone.

  ‘He lets you out alone?’ Isaac, without Charles to put him on edge, was more relaxed than Anna had thought, but also more pushy.

  ‘I’m with you. Besides, werewolf here,’ she told him with a thumb to her chest. ‘Not exactly a frail princess in need of rescuing.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard about you,’ Isaac said. ‘I asked about you. Omega. I was informed by my second that we should be honored that you were visiting our city. We should brin
g you gifts and see if we can get you to abandon your pack and join ours. When I pointed out that that meant Charles would come, too – and displace me – I was told that the blessing of having an Omega in the pack would outweigh even putting up with Charles.’

  Anna laughed. ‘Old wolves. Think they know everything.’

  ‘And then he wonders why I don’t ask him more questions,’ Isaac agreed. ‘So do it.’

  Anna looked at him just as a raindrop hit her nose. The clouds had been threatening and the air smelled wet, but that was the first drop. ‘Do what?’

  ‘ “That voodoo that you do,” ’ Isaac said. At her expression he turned to walk backward so she could get the full effect of his eye roll and comic exaggeration. ‘What? You don’t know Adam Ant?’

  ‘ “A thrill a day keeps the chill away,” ’ she sang, then said dryly, ‘Not his best song. You want me to what? Zap you with my awesome cosmic super Omega powers?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Isaac turned so he was walking beside her once more. ‘Only my request sounded cool, and yours sounds like it belongs on Saturday morning cartoons.’

  ‘They are more of an anti-superpower,’ Anna explained as the first few drops of water became a more steady rainfall. ‘If I were in a comic book, I’d be the lone stupid girl in a team of awesome, powerfully charged males. Like Sue, Invisible Girl – who was invisible in so many ways – in the Fantastic Four. Which should have been called the Fantastic Three and the Cute and Clueless Girl Who Runs Around Getting into Trouble and Being Rescued.’

  Isaac grinned, his expression lighter, that edge that Alphas always carried with them softened. ‘Not even Jessica Alba could save Sue from being wimpy.’

  Anna sighed in a misery-shared way. ‘I like superhero movies. Still, it was better than Catwoman – and Catwoman had much better material to draw from.’

  ‘So are you going to whammy me?’ Isaac asked again.

  She waved and did something fluttery with her fingers in her best stage magician manner, though she’d already hit him while he was quoting from ‘That Voodoo.’ She contorted her face and made funny gobbling sounds, then said, in the perfectly serious voice she’d picked up from Charles, ‘Consider yourself whammied.’