Werewolf PI (Paranormal Private Detective)

by Tim Myers

  Scabber said, “He’ll kill me for even talking to you, let alone telling you this, but Harkins was here fifteen minutes ago. Hell, for all I know he’s still watching the place. You have to leave here empty-handed, or I’m a dead man.”

  “Was he alone?”

  Scabber’s eyes glazed over. “He didn’t need back-up, trust me. You should have seen his eyes. He’s hopped up on something, that much is clear, and he’s got a hair trigger now like I’ve never seen before.

  “How about his arm? Was it bandaged?” I had to find out if I’d hit him, or if it just been a case of wishful thinking.

  Scabber nodded. “It was trussed up, and from the way he was scowling, I had to think it was giving him some trouble. How did you know?”

  “I put a silver bullet in him, and he’s walking around Dogtown like he owns the place.”

  Scabber’s face went ashen. “He’s that tough with silver in him? I’m sorry, Trask, I can’t help you.”

  “It’s okay,” I said as I started to get up.

  I was halfway to the door when McGee called out. “Hang on. Come over here a second.”

  I shook my head. “I told you, we’re cool. I understand the situation you’re in, and I don’t want to make it any worse for you.”

  “Would you just do what I ask and drag your ass back over here? This won’t take a second.”

  I walked over to him, curious about what he wanted after brushing me off.

  I didn’t sit down this time. “What is it? Do you want my blessing to screw me when I need you the most? Fine, you’ve got it. I forgive you, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “You always were a pain in the ass, Trask,” he said.

  “Hey, I thought that was just part of my charm.”

  “You would, but you’d be wrong.” He lowered his voice, though there was no one in the deserted place. If he had to depend on the laundry to make a living, he would have been out of business a long time ago.

  “Trask, I could get killed for doing this, but I’m not going to let Harkins tell me how to run my business.”

  “I don’t want to put you in bind. I’ll be fine.”

  He shook his head. “Send your friend Bowen in and I’ll sell him enough for both of you.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said. I wasn’t in any hurry to see Bowen, especially to ask him any favors.

  “You’re determined to do this the hard way, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t do anything about it,” I said.

  “Meet me out back in two minutes.”

  “What?” He’d said it so softly I’d barely been able to hear him.

  “In the alley. I’ll see you there,” he said. “Now get the hell out. I said I couldn’t help you.” The last bit was shouted, though for whose benefit I had no idea.

  “Screw you too, McGee.” I said.

  I walked outside, made sure no one was watching me, then darted into the alley.

  Scabber was waiting for me. “That was a nice touch, yelling back at me. Good acting.”

  “Who said I was acting?”

  He shook his head. “Always with the attitude, aren’t you?”

  He shoved something in my hands.

  I didn’t even have to look at it to know I’d just gotten a new supply of bullets. “What’s this?”

  “Your ammo,” he said. “I just didn’t want to do it in front of God and everybody.”

  “What do I owe you?” I asked as I reached for my wallet.

  “I’ll tell you what. Use one of them on Harkins, and this batch is on the house.”

  McGee hadn’t given anything away in his life. “You must really want him dead. I’m surprised, I’d think he’d be good for business.”

  “That kind of business I don’t need.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I saluted him.

  “There’s one thing, Trask. Don’t spread it around that I’m giving out free samples.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said as I tucked my package into my jumpsuit pocket.

  It felt good, having enough ammo now to take on an army of werewolves. I was probably going to need every bullet for Harkins. Who knew if the silver would even work on him in his hopped up state? I had to try, even if I thought I might fail. Would I have taken the job from the Grangers if I’d known it would lead me to this? Probably, even though their fee was looking a little meager when I thought about what I was going to have to do. The main thing was getting Jennifer away from Harkins, and if that meant putting the rogue werewolf down, I’d do it. I’d agreed to help Stephanie Granger find her daughter. I surely wasn’t doing it for her husband.

  But where should I look? I’d already visited the only motel within shouting distance of Dogtown, and I doubted Harkins would be comfortable enough to leave our area, not with a hostage hidden away somewhere. He had to be at somebody’s house, but he did he even have any friends he could stay with? That wasn’t the right question. Was there anybody in Dogtown willing to risk New Pitcairn for him? How about Sue Ellen? I’d never managed to contact her after our conversation. Did that mean Harkins had gotten to her after his trap had failed, or was she hiding from him before he got the chance? I needed to find her. If she was afraid enough to hide, she might just tell me something that would help me find her ex boyfriend before he found her.

  Marty, her overweight boyfriend and employer, was sitting at Sue Ellen’s desk when I walked in. The man had more hair than a gorilla, and I wondered if you could even tell when he phased into the Wolf.

  He didn’t look all that happy to see me, which was a real plus. That gave me an edge, one I was going to exploit if I could.

  “Man, receptionists in Dogtown just keep getting uglier and uglier, don’t they?” I said as I stood over him.

  “What do you want?”

  I saw his hand reach for the drawer, and I had my piece out before he could get hold of his. “I’ve seen that trick before, remember? Or didn’t Sue Ellen tell you she took a shot at me already? Let’s see your hands, Marty, or today might just be your last.”

  “Easy,” he said as he brought his hands out of the desk. “I just wanted some chewing gum.”

  “So, if I check that drawer, are you telling me I’m not going to find a gun? Do you really want to stick with that story?”

  “Sure there’s a gun there, but I’ve got my chewing gum in there too. GO ahead and look.”

  “Thanks, I will,” I said with a smile as I pulled Marty’s chair back hard enough to slam his head against the back wall. I opened the drawer, pulled out the gun hidden there, then grabbed the chewing gum and tossed it to him. “There you go.”

  “Are you going to keep that one, too?” he asked as he stared at me. “It cost me a hundred bucks.”

  I looked at the piece, emptied the bullets, then slid it back in the drawer. “You got robbed. It’s not worth fifty.”

  “What are you gonna do? Everybody tries to cheat you in this end of town.”

  “Where’s Sue Ellen? She’s not home curled up in your bed, is she? Harkins will find her there, you can bet on it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marty said, the sweat starting to bead up on his forehead. “She’s taking a little time off, that’s all. It’s got nothing to do with Harkins.”

  “Even you aren’t stupid enough to think that,” I said. “Once he takes care of his pressing business, you’re a bigger fool than you seem to be if you think he’s just going to leave your girlfriend free to talk to anybody about what she nearly helped him do.”

  “That’s her business. Like I said, it’s got nothing to do with me,” Marty insisted.

  “You think Harkins believes that? You’re as good as dead, Marty. It’s in your best interest to help me find him, before he finds you or Sue Ellen. Think about it. Go ahead, take your time. I’ll give you one minute.”

  He frowned at me. “Could you put that gun away? It’s making it hard for me to think.”

  I shrugged, and slipped it back int
o my pocket. I had a holster for it that partially concealed it under my jumpsuit, but it wasn’t comfortable, and shifting with it on would have just shredded it.

  That was why there so many jumpsuits in Dogtown. They were perfect for zoning in and out of phase. It was also a sign of being a bad ass, and they weren’t worn lightly. It meant you were a target, and you had to be tough enough to deal with whatever came your way if you were willing to wear a bull’s eye on your back.

  “Tick, tick, tick, Marty,” I said as I looked at his clock. “What’s it going to be? Are you going to give me Sue Ellen, or does Harkins get her first instead?”

  He shrugged, then scribbled something down on a piece of paper. “This is a building I own. Nobody knows about it, and I’ve got her stashed away there until this Harkins thing is dealt with.”

  I took the paper and tapped it to my nose. “If this is another setup, I’m coming back to deal with you.”

  “It’s not. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”

  “Come on, Marty, everybody knows you don’t have a mother. You crawled out of the sewer with the rest of the rats.”

  I thought about getting back-up as I walked out of Marty’s office. It would be good to have Bowen-even with our current situation-or Jim by my side. For that matter, I could take Belladonna and feel better about the situation.

  But if I showed up at Sue Ellen’s with an army, I doubted I’d get a word out of her.

  No, I’d have to do this alone.

  “Sue Ellen, you might as well open the door. If I have to break it down, Marty’s going to take it out of your pay, and you know it.”

  I’d been knocking for three minutes, but so far, I hadn’t heard a sound inside the apartment. Marty owned a real dump, and it proved to me that Sue Ellen was truly afraid for her life if she was willing to stay there.

  Finally, I heard movement inside. The door unlocked, and slowly slid open.

  “What do you want?”

  Sue Ellen wasn’t at her best, not by a long shot. Her right eye sported a fresh bruise, and her dress was torn. “What happened, you and Marty have a fight?”

  “Something like that,” she said. Her eyes were wild with fear, and they kept glancing toward the back bedroom.

  “Is Harkins here?” I asked softly.

  She nodded, but wouldn’t say a word.

  “You should dump Marty. He’s nothing but a bum, and he’s no good for you,” I said. Should I shift into my wolf phase, or use the silver bullets in my gun? If I killed Harkins outright, I might never find where he had Jennifer stashed, and she could die from starvation as easily as by his hand. The problem with that was, if that happened I would be responsible for her death, and not Harkins. I could always aim for his arm or leg. The silver bullet had to go into his heart, or close enough not to matter. The real question was, could I take him on while he was shifted into his super wolf phase? The internal debate lasted a split second, and I knew I couldn’t go up against him in werewolf form, not unless it was my last choice. It would be like volunteering to die, and I wasn’t ready for that.

  I walked softly to the back of the apartment, my gun drawn. I motioned for Sue Ellen to say something, but she just stood there, mute and frozen in place. She was so terrified, she didn’t even try to get away.

  My hand was on the doorknob when wood exploded in front of me. Harkins was fully phased into werewolf mode, and I took a shot at him as I fell backwards. I’d made the right decision. If I’d tried to match him in werewolf phase, he would have slaughtered me.

  I wasn’t sure if the bullet hit him or not as I picked myself up, ready to shoot again.

  But instead of staying and finishing me off when I was down, he’d fled the apartment.

  I looked down at the bloody mess where Sue Ellen had been standing, and knew she should have run when she’d had the chance. Harkins had taken a quick swipe at her on the way out, and he’d cut her throat with savage precision. There wasn’t anything I could do for her.

  I moved quickly out into the hallway, following the trail of his blood. Either I’d hit him with my shot, or the blood on the hallway floor belonged to Sue Ellen.

  I hoped Harkins would bleed to death, but it wasn’t anything I could count on.

  It was time to finish the job.

  I never would have thought it was possible for a werewolf to get away that fast with a silver bullet lodged anywhere in him. While a shot to the arm or leg wasn’t lethal, it was extremely painful, debilitating to any werewolf I’d ever known. And yet Harkins had managed to flee with a silver bullet in him. I replayed the scene as I searched for him, and I was certain my shot had caught him in the arm. So why wasn’t he writhing in the street in pain? What kind of monster had Bailey created with the serum?

  I caught another sign of blood farther away than it had any right to be. How was he doing it? The trail ended, or at least I lost it, two blocks away. Had he shifted back, or was Harkins waiting for me somewhere in the shadows? The next shot would be straight for the heart. It was the only way I had an even chance of putting him down, and if it meant that Jennifer Granger had to die somewhere hungry and alone, then that was how it had to be. Sometimes the good of a town outweighed one person’s survival, and I knew if Harkins kept up his rampage, he’d manage to bring all of Dogtown down with him.

  There was something I’d been considering, something rash and dangerous and not at all sure of success, but a possibility I had to explore nonetheless.

  If I was going to go up against Harkins, I needed to be enhanced as well. That meant Bailey had to recreate his magic elixir, and then I had to dose myself with it.

  Only then would I be strong enough to take on this super wolf Harkins had become.

  “I’m not doing it-I can’t-so don’t ask me again,” Bailey said as he paced around his lab.

  “You have to,” I said. “You’re the reason he’s become this killing machine, and we have to put him down. I’m not sure I can do it without your help. You’ve got to give me the same serum he took.”

  “Don’t ask me to, Jacob,” he said. I’d known him forever, but I’d never seen my friend this agitated. “I honestly can’t do it.”

  “Bailey, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. I need you to do this, or I might die,” I said, laying the brutality of the situation out for him.

  “Don’t. That’s not fair. It could kill you, don’t you see that?”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t wash. It didn’t kill Harkins. What makes you think it will hurt me?”

  He stood within an inch of my face. “How do you know it’s not killing him, even as we speak? I don’t know that for sure, and I’m the one who made it. There’s no way to know what’s going to happen to him in the long term.”

  Why was he fighting me? “Can we really afford to wait until he’s got bodies stacked up all over Dogtown? Can you live with that on your conscience?”

  He slumped down onto a chair, and I knew I’d gone too far. I’d come as close to breaking him as the thugs had come to destroying Jim, only I was doing it in the guise of friendship. What a guy I’d turned out to be.

  “Jacob, I destroyed it, and I won’t try to recreate the formula. It’s gone forever. I’m sorry, but I’ve caused enough harm. I couldn’t make more now if I wanted to, not if our lives depended on it.”

  I sat down beside him, stunned by his admission. “They just might. Are you sure you can’t find the formula again?”

  “I’m certain. The process was too complicated to memorize, and if I tried to recreate it, I’d have more chance of killing you than making you into some kind of superwolf.”

  I nodded. There was nothing more to say. “Then I’ll just have to go up against him on my own.” I stood, then said, “For the record, I don’t blame you for destroying it. I just wish you’d done it before Harkins got his hands on it.”

  “You can’t even imagine how much I wish that as well,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”


  That option, my last chance, was gone. I was going to have to figure out where to go now.

  Then I realized I had another lead I hadn’t followed up on yet. If Harkins was walking around with a silver bullet still in him, he had to get it out, and soon. There was only one doctor in Dogtown I knew who could do it, and if I hurried, I might be able to catch him before Harkins had a chance to.

  “I haven’t seen him,” Doc Jenkins said when I walked into his back alley clinic.

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, doc?” I asked as I looked around for any sign that Harkins had been there.

  “I don’t get involved with the politics of Dogtown. I’m just here to help whoever needs it.”

  His hands were shaking as he ran them through his white hair, but that was more the status quo than otherwise. Doc had been a raging alcoholic for most of his professional life in the city, and they’d taken away his license to practice medicine when he’d killed a man with his shaking hands. He couldn’t bear to live without his work, though, so he’d moved to Dogtown and opened up shop among us. No one cared that he didn’t have a permit to practice medicine. He helped whenever he could, and that made him bulletproof in out part of the world.

  “Have you pulled silver bullets out of anyone lately?” I asked.

  “Just a corpse or two. I haven’t met the wolf yet who could take the hit and survive it.”

  I frowned at him. “You haven’t seen Harkins, then.”

  “Nonsense. I’ve treated Matthew for years. I know what he is, what he’s like, but I can’t refuse to help him when he comes to me. I can assure you, he’s no different than you.”

  “I can’t even begin to tell you how many ways you’re wrong,” I said. “Let me ask you something. How hard is it to dig a bullet out of somebody?”

  He thought about it for a second, then said, “It mostly depends on where the bullet ends up.”

  “Let’s say he took a hit in the arm.”