Marked Clan #2 - Red

by Maurice Lawless

  He said a prayer in Spanish, and then turned to me. “Most people from my neighborhood, yes. These men were not from here.”

  “What did they want?”

  He blew out his incense and sat down on the messy bed. “Does it matter? They’ll be dealt with. These things have a way of working themselves out.”

  “I don’t follow you, Manuel.”

  “No need to, chica.” He held up his bandaged hands. “Karma, she is a bitch.”

  I laughed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I thought you were Catholic, not Buddhist.”

  “Karma, sin, whatever you want to call it. But you didn’t come here to shoot the shit with me. Are you out of pens already?”

  I shook my head. “I’m okay for now. I guess I just…needed a familiar face. One that I don’t have to watch my back around.”

  “Strange things happening with the wolves?” he asked.

  “Dree is back. She brought her whole clan.”

  He hissed a breath. “That is bad juju. She didn’t try to hurt you, did she? What am I saying? I forget who I’m talking to. Did you kill her?”

  “No. It’s…complicated.”

  “I imagine it would be,” he said, and got up. He walked to the door and motioned me to follow. “Come on, I can’t smoke in the house with the baby. Let’s take a look at that backyard for a minute. Survey the damage.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Manuel and I stood outside his back patio door as he lit up a fresh cigar. The yard was every bit the jungle his wife hinted at. It looked like it hadn’t been mowed in months.

  “Why do you smoke those?” I asked. “Younever told me the whole story.”

  Manuel laughed. “Mi padre smoked these. I’d sit on his lap every night growing up and watch him savor it. I honor his memory with this ritual."

  “I’ve been thinking about my mom more lately,” I said. I don’t know why it just spilled out like that.

  “Perhaps she’s trying to tell you something.”

  “Like what?”

  Manuel took a long puff and let it out slowly. “Don’t know, chica. The dead do speak to us though – and not without a good reason. What do you see when you think of her?”

  I shuddered. “At first it was just little things. The look she used to give me when I disappointed her. Today I saw her the way she died. It wasn’t pretty.”

  He nodded and crossed himself absentmindedly. “Car wreck, right? Pretty nasty one if I remember.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I wasn’t even home. Connor had to track my friend and me down at the mall. I remember being so mad that he just barged in on me like that. I thought my mom had asked him to come get me. I was out past curfew.”

  I stared at a tall weed that danced in the breeze. Manuel puffed away silently.

  “The look on his face shut me up pretty damned quickly. I’d never seen him so serious. Any time I hung out with him back then he was always half-smiling, like he knew the world’s funniest joke and just couldn’t wait to tell you. He looked old that day. The look scared me more than what he said, I think.”

  “I never heard the details about the accident,” Manuel said. “Was it a drunk driver?”

  “Yeah,” I said flatly. “My dad. They had already split up by that time, but he never really let go. He took Mom to some new restaurant that hadn’t got their liquor license yet. They couldn’t sell liquor, but they could sure as hell give it away to butter up potential new customers. He was sloshed before their appetizers came, from what Connor told me.”

  Maria opened the patio door and came out with two glasses of iced tea. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I know that look. Don’t let him fill your head with too much philosophical nonsense.”

  “Thanks,” I said. She went back inside and shut the door behind her. I heard the baby crying.

  “Do you want to go back inside?” I asked Manuel. He shook his head and wagged the half-gone cigar at me.

  “Not done yet. Go on, if you’re up to it. I figure this is important to get off your chest.”

  I hadn’t realized it until he said something, but it really was. Besides Dree, I don’t think I’ve told the story of my mom’s death to anyone else in so much detail. What was Slate doing to me, and why?

  “He split their car up the middle, right into a barrier on the freeway. Mom died instantly. Small favors. He stumbled around and nearly died in traffic. Sometimes I wish he had.”

  “Don’t say that,” Manuel said. “Curses are serious business.”

  “Fuck, Manuel, you don’t understand. She annoyed the shit out of me, but she was my mother. Just because my asshole of a dad couldn’t manage his liquor she got bashed around like a rag doll, and he walked away with scrapes and bruises.”

  “May I ask where he is now?”

  I took a sip of the tea. Much too sweet, but I drank it anyway. My mouth was dry, and I wished it was just from talking so much.

  “Fuck if I know, or care. Connor threatened him within an inch of his life. Poppa declared him persona non grata. Neither one ever forgave him. Poppa took the grudge to his grave.”

  “Did you?” Manuel finished his cigar and stomped it out on the concrete of the porch.

  “Did I what?”

  “Forgive him.”

  I had to think about that one for a while. After the drama of the funeral, moving in with my uncle, and dad skipping town, all I’d wanted to do was forget. It wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

  “No,” I said. “I guess I never did.”

  Manuel never said what happened to his hands. I went back to Celtic Knot and found the day’s paper sitting on my kitchen table. Here’s to a little normalcy. I plopped down in my chair and opened it up to scan the headlines.

  Three Dead in Apparent Gang Initiation was the first. Moving on. No new suspicious cases of women turning up dead today. Maybe Donald and his crew took the night off to hunt me. That was a comforting thought.

  My usual investigations would probably have to be put on hold until I could track down this new pack. I hoped Slate and Lupin knew more about where to look than I did. Someone knocked on my door and I stood to get it.

  Justin grinned at me, holding two sandwiches and a two-liter soda. “Quick lunch, maybe?”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you were just in the neighborhood, wandering around with lunch and no one to share it with?” I said. “How did you know I was even here?”

  Justin coughed and nodded downstairs—Connor. Well-meaning, nosy asshole. Damn it if I didn’t love him anyway. “Come on in, Doc.”

  He set down the sandwiches and proffered me the soda. “Glasses?”

  “Bottom shelf, left of the sink, Doc,” I said.

  They weren’t sandwiches at all—they were wraps from Camille’s. Connor had really outdone himself with this one. I had to wonder how long the briefing took. Did the dear doctor know my bra size too?

  “You call me that a lot,” he said as he brought out two tumblers and started filling them. “Is there something wrong with just ‘Justin’?”

  I shrugged. “You look like a Doc to me. So what’s up, Doc?”

  “I’d like to get some samples of your friends’ blood. And yours too, for comparison.”

  And here I thought it was purely a social call. “Why?”

  “Like I said before, professional curiosity. I got a good look at the man last night while I was stitching him up. Their healing ability is amazing. I’m wondering if there might be a biological reason for it. Something I could reproduce.”

  “Well, Doc, I’m impressed that you didn’t go running for the hills after you met the wolves…but I hate to break it to you. Science has nothing to do with this.”

  He didn’t slow down. “Hear me out. A lot of unknown science was considered magic, or curses, before we fully understood it. Maybe there’s something else at work here. I want to run some tests. Maybe get a sample from the human form and the wolf form to compare. Do you think they’d let me do that?”

&
nbsp; My favorite wrap, the Daredevil, sat uneaten. I just looked at him, head tilted to the left. “You’re serious.”

  He nodded and dug into his own lunch like he hadn’t eaten all day. “It’s a fascinating thing, this transformation. It must affect them on a genetic level somehow.”

  I finally took a bite, and then another. Damn, this was good. I hadn’t had one of these wraps in a long time. “Doc, you’re assuming a lot. For starters, the wolves aren’t my friends.”

  “But the one our age—Dree was it? You two seemed familiar.”

  “Dree was my friend, before the wolves got her. Now she’s something else entirely. Not human, that’s for sure.”

  “What about the other one? The older woman.”

  Slate would so not appreciate him calling her “older.” Then again, I could be wrong. She didn’t always react the way a human would. Too much time on all fours would be my guess.

  “Slate. I don’t know. She might be okay with it. I’d mention the possibility of a cure though. She’s not the happiest person in her predicament. Just between you and me, she asked me to kill her.”

  Justin stopped eating. “What? Why?”

  I shrugged. “She sees the wolves the same way I do, and my grandfather did. They’re a menace. A mistake my family brought into this world, and I intend to take out. Right now the only weapon I have is my blood.”

  And that dagger Slate gave me, but no need to get into that with the good doctor. He didn’t strike me as being okay with murder, no matter how badly someone needed it. I hoped it wouldn’t end up being a liability.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I never really stopped to consider the psychological toll this must take," Justin said. "With their healing ability, they must live a long time. It would get lonely.”

  Don’t make me feel sorry for them, Doc. I’d hate to have to dump you over this.

  “I’ll ask Slate the next time I see her if she’ll be your lab bitch.”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, I would. Get used to it.”

  We finished our wraps and downed the last of the soda. As we were cleaning up, Justin saw the paper I was reading. “I’ve worked on gang stuff before. Victims they didn’t finish off. Those aren’t like the ones we usually get around here.”

  I gave the first story a second look. The victims were sliced open and their heads were missing. How did I miss that before?

  “What’s odd about it?” I asked.

  “Well for starters, gangs around here use bullets, not knives. Worst I ever saw was a machete, which might work for the heads, but they’re not really great for slicing someone up.”

  “I won’t ask how you know that.”

  He held up his hands. “Occupational hazard. I’ve done my fair share of slicing in the name of science.”

  His phone beeped, and he looked at it like a nagging spouse. “Damn it. Time’s up. I’m back on rounds. Sorry we couldn’t have more time.”

  I put the tumblers in the sink and washed my hands. “Oh yeah, quality time talking about carving people up. That’s my kind of a date. Or are we counting the wolf chase too?”

  He came up behind me and slipped his hand over my waist. I felt him warm and firm against my back, and couldn’t help but lean back a little. “Why Doctor, I thought you said you had to be back on rounds? What will all those patients do if you get sidetracked examining little old me?”

  He leaned in and nuzzled my neck. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  I thought it was just a line, but he actually pulled away and dragged me with him. “Wait, what? You actually want to show me something?”

  He nodded. “I think you’ll want to see it.”

  “Whatever gets you going, Doc. But you owe me a good examination soon.”

  Justin drove me to one of the side entrances to the hospital. It didn’t have a handle on the outside, so someone had propped it open with an empty lab cart. From the sea of cigarette butts I figured this was where the staff took their breaks.

  “If anyone asks, you’re a pre-med looking for some extra credit,” he said as he led me inside.

  “Ooh, Doc, got a coed fantasy do we? Should I be wearing a sorority shirt and twirling my hair?”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me, but didn’t respond. I filed his reaction away for later. I’m pretty sure I had a college shirt in my closet somewhere for a rainy day.

  The hospital must have been designed by a goddamned goblin for all the twisty passages and random turns we took. Finally, Justin pushed through a set of stainless steel doors into the morgue. Neat rows of metal storage units lined the walls, each one chilling a ripe human. I tried not to think about it too much. Yes, I fight wolves. I see lots of dead bodies, but they’re all still pretty much warm when I leave them. Pardon me if cold human meat on a slab kind of weirds me out.

  Justin looked around one last time to make sure we were alone and pulled open one of the shelves. The man’s face was uncovered. Justin pulled the sheet down to his waist.

  “I’ve seen a few gang tattoos in my time, but this one is new to me. Doesn’t look like the kind of mark the Hispanic gangs around here use.”

  That’s because it was Celtic. My uncle could have done the work with this eyes closed. Of course, Connor’s medium of choice wasn’t blood. Rather than a tattoo, it looked like a brand. The skin was almost glossy like it had been burned. The traditional Celtic cross wound around in precise concentric lines, surrounding a rune. I didn’t know the meaning of it offhand, but I knew I’d seen it in Poppa’s book. This man was a wolf.

  “Can you turn him on his side?” I asked. “I need to see his back.”

  Justin nodded and pulled the body over. Sure enough, the same six-rune pattern was on the man’s back. Why the one on the front? It looked much newer than the others.

  “Why did you bring me here?” I asked.

  “I saw that this guy was picked up near where I parked the other night. Is he one of the ones that attacked us?”

  “Probably. The tattoos are a dead giveaway. Come around here.”

  I motioned him over to my side and pointed out the runes. “They’re always the same number but the actual patterns are unique to the clan that made the first of them. This one wasn’t done by my direct bloodline, but definitely by someone in the clan.”

  Justin laid the body back down. “What about that one?”

  “No idea. Most of the ones I’ve seen only had the back. Never the front. It’s similar, but looks a lot rougher.”

  “I’d say the wound is about six months old,” he said.

  “Cut that estimate down a bit,” I said. “They heal in a blink of an eye. He could have been cut last week.”

  “But silver, and your blood, kills them?” he asked.

  “Pretty much,” I said. “You can lop off their heads too, but they don’t like to let you in that close unless they think you’re going to fuck them. Why are you so fascinated by this?”

  He shook his head. “I’m convinced there’s a scientific reason for what I saw. There has to be. I’m not a superstitious person, PJ.”

  “Yeah, Doc,” I said, “I didn’t used to be either.”

  I caught myself chewing on my cross as I said it. I spat it out and turned away from the dead wolf. “Was this the only reason you wanted to see me? To learn more about a new science project?”

  I heard the body being slid back into its locker, and then Justin’s warm arms wrapped around me. “Well, not the only reason. Did I tell you I also have a ‘redhead in a lab coat’ fantasy?”

  Perfect fucking scenery for a romantic interlude, Doc—a glorified meat locker. I pulled him out of the morgue. Once we were in the hallway, I took his face in my hands and kissed him. “Okay. Where were we?”

  He nodded down the hall. “You look a bit shaken, PJ. Perhaps I should examine you further.”

  We kissed and he felt so warm against me. His hands ran up and down
my back, pulling me in close to the front of his scrubs. Fuck, was I really going to do this here?

  His mouth moved down to a spot on my neck just below my right earlobe. He kissed it, and I gave him a breathy whisper. “I hope you don’t have anything pressing to do for the next hour, because I really need to take some dictation.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I really should know better than to have unprotected sex with strange women,” Justin said, as he got dressed. He had to cross my bedroom several times. I’m not gentle when disrobing someone. “I deal with blood-borne diseases all the time. STDs especially.”

  He’d managed to keep me out of his pants long enough to come back to my apartment. His supervisor caught him on the way out, but I made up something about being a relative of one of his patients. He might have bought it, maybe. At that point, I didn’t really care.

  “That’s why you’re so interested in the wolves,” I said. I hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet. No need for a girl to rush the afterglow. “You think it’s some kind of disease?”

  He looked around like he was missing something. I followed his gaze to his keys, which had landed on the lampshade and cocked it askew. He plucked them off and looked at me.

  “Why not? The Black Plague was considered a curse before we understood the nature of infections. Who’s to say there isn’t some genetic or pathogenic cause for this?”

  I shook my head. “You’re saying the transformations, the mysterious tattoos, they’re all part of some sickness? Come on, Doc. Really?”

  He leaned in and kissed me before he left. “Keep an open mind. I have so far.”

  Once he was gone, I showered and did my best to make myself presentable to the outside world. Connor preferred if I joined the land of the living once in a while, and a little time behind the register would keep my mind off of wolf packs, diseases, and (perhaps the most disturbing) a budding relationship with a decent man.

  I stood there in my Celtic Knot shirt and watched the afternoon clients give way to evening. We had one drunken guy we had to turn away, a happy couple looking for wedding bands on their fingers, and only one biker. He wanted a portrait of his infant daughter on his shoulder blade. The man in the suit came in around ten, just about the time I was ready to call it a night.