“Enough,” I said. “I’ll take a little seduction over this shit any day.”
Slate stood over me, barely winded, and crossed her arms. “If you want to save us, you’ll need body and mind working at their peak. We’ll do this again tomorrow.”
She drove me back toward the south side of town. Judging from the sky, the night was quickly moving from “up late” to “ass-crack early.” And I still need to get back to my car.
I passed the time by examining the dagger a little more. The hilt had a Celtic knot design on it with stylized letters that ran up the blade.
“Luceo non uro?” I read aloud. “What does it mean?”
Slate changed lanes inches in front of a large pickup and drew an angry horn from its driver. She looked over briefly. “It means, ‘I shine, not burn.’”
“Why does that sound familiar?”
“It’s the Mackenzie clan motto.”
My mind flashed to a crest in Poppa’s old house before he moved in above the shop. A mountain engulfed in flames and surrounded by a gold ring—or was it a belt? I ran my fingers along the designs on the blade. I’d used them all this time and hadn’t really paid attention to their fine details. “How old are they? Where did you get them?”
“Quite old. I took them from a crypt in the Old Country.”
I got the strangest picture of Slate tomb-robbing in short shorts and a ponytail, Lara Croft style. Somehow it didn’t seem like that much of a stretch for her. Then, what she said sank in.
“A family crypt? Meaning you stole this from one of my relatives?”
“Son of a bitch wasn’t using them anymore,” she said. “Should have taken more than that from him.”
“Is that how you know so much about my family? You’ve been…stalking us?”
She chuckled. “Hardly. I take it Dree didn’t tell you my story before she left.”
“She didn’t tell me much of anything. That’s the problem. She just disappeared with you and that Lupin guy.”
She took a deep breath. “I—”
A phone rang somewhere in the car’s center console. “Fuck,” she said under her breath and fished it out.
“What?”
I couldn’t hear what the person on the other line said, but her tone changed immediately.
“I’m on my way. PJ is with me. We’ll pick up her doctor friend on the way. Don’t move him. If it’s a Clan wound, it can spread.”
She tossed the phone back into the little cubby under the radio and sped up. I hadn’t thought that was possible. I held onto the dagger a little tighter.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Dree,” Slate said. “Lupin is injured, badly. Will your boyfriend help us?”
“I—he’s not my—maybe? What were you going to say before?”
She shook her head and turned off the freeway in the direction of Justin’s condo. A man in a sports car swerved to get out of the way, laying on his horn the whole time.
“It’s not important.”
“What’s a Clan wound?” I asked.
“The wolves who attacked you tonight were members of a pack that call themselves the Marked Clan. Victims of your family curse, and victims of their own ambition.”
“Is this Donald guy their leader?”
Slate shrugged. “Possibly. Lupin wanted to meet with some of them tonight to see if a peace could be negotiated.”
“Peace between who?”
“You and them.”
“But why am I a target all of a sudden? I’ve hunted them for years before now.”
Slate looked at me, then down at the dagger. “There are more of those weapons. They hold a special power. The ones you have were used to make Lupin what he is. In a way, to make me what I am as well.”
I sheathed the dagger and set it down on my lap. The idea of touching it suddenly made my skin crawl. This was the knife from Poppa’s stories? The one used by the patriarch of Clan Mackenzie to carve up the back of a murderer?
“I still don’t get where I fit into this.”
“Neither do I,” she said. “But they want you for something, and they’ve nearly killed Lupin for suggesting they stop.”
“Why not just let me finish the job? That’s your ultimate goal, isn’t it? All of you dead?”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. We pulled into the parking structure for Justin’s condo, and she turned off the car. Slate took several deep breaths and looked at me. Her eyes were yellow.
“Yes, that is my goal, but you need Lupin for now. He’s stronger than either of us, and he…knows things about the Marked Clan that we can use. Things that will destroy them.”
“As long as I can stay alive in the process,” I said.
“I knew you learned fast.”
Chapter Seventeen
Justin answered his door in boxers and the same confused expression as when I left him. “PJ? It’s like three in the morning.”
“I know this is a lot to ask, but I don’t know who else to go to.”
Slate walked in uninvited, and I gave Justin an awkward smile as I followed her in. He shut the door behind us. “Umm…yeah. Just make yourselves at home. Sure.”
“Slate’s…boyfriend got hurt,” I said. “It’s pretty bad. He’s a wolf like her. I wondered if you might be willing to help.”
“From what I saw tonight, it’s pretty hard to hurt one of them.” He looked at Slate. “You. No offense.”
Slate shook her head. “None taken. We do heal fast, but certain kinds of weapons can slow it down. Silver for one.”
“So the movies got that right?” he asked. “Guess you learn something new every day.”
“Yes,” Slate said. “Will you help him?”
He mulled it over longer than I expected, then nodded and went back to his room. He called out to us, “Just give me a minute to get something on and grab my bag. How far away is he?”
“Not far,” Slate said. “I can drive.”
Justin came out in scrubs and tennis shoes. He grabbed the same bag he used on me earlier that night and turned to Slate. “Lead the way.”
Slate wasn’t kidding—Lupin and Dree were hiding out in some woods just off the trail in Memorial Park. Slate pulled a duffel bag from her trunk before leading us to them, and I soon found out why—they were naked. Justin dutifully ignored Dree until she could slip on a tracksuit. She draped a jacket over Lupin’s waist.
He had a long gash from his collarbone down to his hip. It was deep enough that I could see what looked like bone in the glint of my flashlight. His breathing was shallow.
“What happened?” I asked Dree.
“They didn’t agree with our terms,” she said. “They tried to kill me, and Lupin stepped in the way. They have these…knives. I guess that’s what they were. Silver with runes on them. They cut deep. We had to change to escape.”
That explained the nudity. I watched Justin immediately go to work on sealing up Lupin’s wounds. Slate knelt next to him and patted sweat off of his forehead with her sleeve. It felt like a private moment, so I pulled Dree aside.
“Slate says they’re after me for something. Did they say what?”
Dree crossed her arms and shot me a look. “Oh? Suddenly we’re friends again?”
“Your Alpha took a knife for me. I’m willing to call a truce for the moment.”
She looked at me, really looked for the first time since we’d reunited. Her eyes were the same yellow as Slate’s, but she hadn’t developed the mask of emotionless detachment yet. Maybe that was just Slate’s personality.
Dree swayed and had to brace herself on my shoulder for balance. “Sorry,” she said. “Changing quickly like that kind of fucks with my equilibrium.”
For just a moment I felt like we were just two regular girls again, taking a walk through the park after a long day at the call center. I wanted to hug her. I didn’t.
“What’s it like?” I asked. “Changing, I mean?”
Dree sat down on the g
rass and hugged her knees. Her hands and feet were caked with mud. “God, it hurts so much. You’d be amazed what you can get used to over the years, but honestly I spend more time as a wolf these days just to avoid the pain. Slate and Lupin…they’ve dealt with this for decades, alone. I couldn’t have done that. Without their help, I don’t know what I would do.”
I had to ask. “Have you ever considered…ending it?”
She looked at me like I’d just killed her beloved pet. “What the fuck kind of question is that, PJ? I mean, I know you’re all ‘kill the wolves’ and shit, but suicide? No pain is enough for that. I deal with it. I can’t do anything else.”
“Are you still you, as a wolf?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It’s hard to explain. Yes and no. There’s a whole new set of instincts that kick in. They’ll take over completely if you let them. Some days I forget I was ever human. Maybe that’s a good thing.”
I sat down next to her and watched Justin work. He was about halfway done stitching up Lupin, and Slate was busy covering the stitches with bandages. Dree sighed.
“You’re different, PJ. I don’t know what I expected to come back to. Maybe you married, with a kid or two. Settled down after all of our wild nights. Now all my nights are wild, and you’re a hunter.”
“You could have called,” I said. “Fuck, sent a postcard even. ‘Thinking of you, still hairy. Dree.’ Anything to let me know you were alive.”
She turned to me. “And what then, PJ? I killed a man in front of you, changed into a creature, and ran off with a pack of wolves. That’s not exactly the sort of thing you discuss over gladiator movies and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.”
She had me there. What would Poppa think of me sitting here in the woods with three wolves, getting a friend to patch the strongest of them up instead of just plunging the silver dagger into his heart and calling it a night?
“I heard about Poppa,” Dree said, reading my mind. “I’m sorry.”
“It was quick.”
Justin saved us from any more awkward conversation. He walked up, pulling off his latex gloves. “I did what I could. He’s lost a lot of blood for a human, but I don’t know how much is a lot for a wolf. I’d recommend at the very least a couple days of bed rest.”
Slate helped Lupin to his feet, and Dree got up to brace him under his other arm. He walked toward us, wincing with pain from every step. Somehow they’d managed to get him into some pants while he was being stitched up.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Lupin said.
Justin nodded, and started gathering up the pieces of his kit. I did what I could to help, but I felt a lot like a fifth wheel at that moment. Dree and Slate helped Lupin to the car and sat him carefully in the back seat.
“We should get you all back,” Slate said once her mate was settled. “It’s late…or early. PJ, do you want to go back to your car?”
“Do you think it’s safe?” Justin asked.
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I said. I had several extra pens in my car, not to mention I’d only paid for parking up to five a.m. We were pushing it.
Slate nodded, and we all piled in. I got the front passenger seat, Dree sat next to Lupin, and Justin packed in behind Slate. He handled himself pretty well considering all that he’d witnessed. Then again, maybe he was just in shock. I wouldn’t blame him.
We drove back into downtown. Thankfully, Thermal was still open. The place was pretty much dead. I looked for Henry behind the bar, but he must have gone home already. I fished out my coat check ticket and got my purse.
The lot where I’d parked was nearly empty. Slate turned off the car and waited for a few minutes before getting out. She looked around with her headlights off, searching the shadows. The yellow streetlights made her eyes almost glow.
“We are alone,” she said finally.
Justin and I got out, and Slate followed us to my car. Dree and Lupin stayed where they were. As I ducked into the driver’s seat, Slate leaned in and spoke quietly. The others were a good thirty feet away and inside a car, but apparently their hearing was good enough that she had to whisper.
“We’ll train again. I will come to you.”
I nodded, and started up the car. Justin stowed his bag behind his seat and rubbed his hands down his face. “God, this was so not what I pictured when I decided to surprise you at the club.”
I laughed. “I am a girl who’s full of surprises. Straight back to your place?”
“Call me crazy, but I don’t think I can sleep right now,” he said. “I have rounds first thing in the morning…which is in about four hours. Might as well just wait it out.”
I pulled us out of the parking lot and turned in the direction of Celtic Knot. “I think I know something that will keep you awake.”
Chapter Eighteen
The best laid plans for getting laid often go awry. By the time we made it to my apartment above the shop, neither one of us felt particularly sexy. I ended up passed out in my clubbing outfit in a very unladylike sprawl, and Justin collapsed beside me.
Sunlight on my eyelids woke me up much too soon, and my doctor was gone again. I got up, showered, and changed the dressing on my arm. It wasn’t seeping, so that was a plus. After my morning coffee I went downstairs to pretend to do some work.
Connor was busy looking through a book of flash with a young lady who didn’t seem to have any space left for another tattoo…at least anywhere that was visible. Her short shorts and tank top didn’t leave much to the imagination, and I did my best not to imagine what was left untouched.
“Burning the candle at both ends, Bon?” he asked as I came in.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I had a date. That doctor you like so much is proving to be more tenacious than I thought.”
Connor gave me his full attention for a second. I saw his eyebrows go up. “Really? That’s great. Let me know where you want the wedding.”
I gave him a single digit response and logged into the point-of-sale computer to run the numbers from the night before. Connor was busy. I let my mind wander as I added and subtracted, going through the reports as I had a hundred times before.
Slate reminded me a great deal of my mother. I hadn’t really thought this much about her in a long time. I pictured her face, framed with the same unruly red curls and a generous splash of freckles. She had more lines than she used to—I’d given most of them to her.
Even though I tried very hard not to see it, the face in my mind changed. The skin went paler, gray and slack. A bloody gash split her forehead open and spilled its horrible payload onto her cheeks, coloring them darker than her hair. I was fifteen the night she died.
“Bon? Are you okay?” Connor asked.
I snapped out of my thoughts and locked the point-of-sale. His appointment was gone. “I’m fine. Done with Skanky McTinyPants?”
He chuckled. “Repeat customer. Might be getting a piercing or two as well.”
I knew by the cock-eyed grin on his face exactly where those piercings were going. I sighed. “You old perv. I’m going to see Manuel today. Do you want anything?”
Connor shook his head. “I’m good on candles of the Virgin Mary for now. Wouldn’t mind one of those cigars he prides himself on. Under the table of course.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The street outside Manuel’s shop was strangely deserted. When I got to the front door, I found it locked. Something was very wrong—Manuel worked every day of the week out of some weird sense of duty to his community.
A young Hispanic woman walked over to me from across the street. She had a washcloth draped over her shoulder, like she’d just been feeding a baby. “We’re closed today, Miss. Sorry. Manuel isn’t feeling good.”
As she came closer, I recognized Maria, Manuel’s wife. She must have been feeding their daughter. Her eyes lit up when she saw who I was. “Oh, PJ. Come on inside.”
She motioned me to the house across the way and I followed. “What�
��s wrong with Manuel?”
Maria wore her long black hair below her waist in a carefully done braid. Someone had woven flowers into it. She took a deep breath before she answered. “It’s probably better he told you. Bad juju around here lately. Hope you didn’t bring it on us with your blood magic.”
She was joking…I think. Maria was kind of hard to read. One minute she was the doting wife and devout Catholic, the next minute she ripped Manuel apart for something seemingly inconsequential. Sometimes I could see why he spent so much time in his shop.
The Fraga household was neat, furnished in old, dark-wood-and-leather furniture that someone polished regularly. Maria paused in the living room to pick up her infant daughter, and then led me back to the bedroom. She knocked on the door.
“I hope you’re decent, mi vida. You have company.”
She didn’t wait for a response. I walked in behind her and saw Manuel sitting in the corner of the room next to a nightstand that had been turned into some kind of altar. The air smelled of incense. His hands were bandaged. He looked at me in the full-length mirror to his left. “Ah, PJ. Come, sit for a while.” His wife came over and gave him a kiss on the forehead, and he kissed her back along with a peck for his tiny daughter’s hand.
“Thank you, Santa Maria,” he said.
She shot him a look. “Don’t Santa Maria me. You’re well enough to work on the yard today. No olvides.”
“I won’t forget this time, I promise.”
He waited until the door was closed before he went back to his ritual. I didn’t recognize it, but it involved parts of a chicken I’d rather not think about. I looked at the pictures on the wall instead.
“What happened, Manuel?”
He looked at his hands as though he just noticed the bandages himself. “Oh this? Nothing. Misunderstanding with the powers that be. We’re square now. Looks like you had a scrape too.”
He pointed at my bandages. “Oh,” I said. “Just a scratch. I thought most people were afraid to hurt a santero?”
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