Wolf's Blind (The Nick Lupo Series Book 6)

by W. D. Gagliani

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Right then the ground was shaken by an explosion.

  Christ, Jessie and DiSanto!

  But he shook himself and tottered off in the direction of Rabbioso’s desperate escape, splashes of blood and whatever was leaking from his ruined eyes marking the way through the trees.

  Lupo caught up to him just as he reached one of the several rickety piers that jutted into the channel. Rabbioso didn’t seem aware of the piers, only of the channel and the current’s rushing gurgle. He half-tripped and landed hard halfway along the pier, becoming aware of it when the planks creaked.

  “Goddamn it, you sonofabitch, where are you?” He was scrabbling for his combat knife.

  “I’m right here,” said Lupo, and he visualized himself crossing over again, and this time the wolf was right there—it’s-a-fact-Jack!—and he lunged for the wildly swinging killer. Snarling, his huge wolf’s body had almost reached Rabbioso when the mobster twisted away and was struck a glancing blow, sending him careening off the pier and into the swift black current, where he disappeared. An arm broke the surface momentarily but was dragged down again and then the water took a gentle curve and it was out of sight.

  Lupo allowed his Creature-self to stand at the pier’s edge, peering downstream to catch another glimpse, but the enemy was gone. Blind and unable to change, he would have been too weakened to crawl out of the current’s grip, or so Lupo hoped.

  He let the healing touch of his magical form work some of its wonders on his bruised and battered body, then he loped back to the log cabin. By the time he reached her he was human again, subdued due to his wounds. When he ducked into the doorway, she held out his clothes.

  “Better not ask, Doc,” he said gruffly. “You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “After the last few hours,” she said, raising an eyebrow, “I’d pretty much believe anything.” She looked away and he looked there, too, and maybe that was Ghost Sam flickering out of sight.

  Then he set off on a painful run up past the cabins to see what had happened to Jessie, and his partner, all the while trying to hope the explosion was a good thing.

  Colgrave

  The last thing she remembered, she was emptying the Uzi’s magazine upward, into the belly of the blue helicopter.

  It was so low that she clearly heard some of the slugs twanging off the rounded body, but she also heard glass exploding and some solid-sounding hits. The Uzi went silent when all 32 rounds had been fired. The chopper hovering above her was wobbling crazily, like a dragonfly trying to hold its course, and its Pratt & Whitney engines were stuttering as they misfired badly, a thick tendril of black smoke pouring from under the rear rotor. The nacelles below the pilot had been blown out, and somebody half-hung from the still open side door. Suddenly the helicopter’s body itself started to spin rapidly as its hovering power faltered and the unchecked main rotor took control.

  The pilot seemed to try and right the craft, but it was spinning and tilting too quickly, and the ground was just too close.

  Colgrave realized too late that she was standing exactly where the blue machine would crash in seconds.

  Gathering her wits, she leaped as far as she could downslope, hoping the extra space would get her away from the smoking helicopter before it hit the ground.

  With a mighty crash, the helicopter dug itself into the hillside, its rotor disintegrating on impact and sending out a hail of shrapnel. The air was sucked out of the scenery as Colgrave rolled downward, never realizing that a six-foot sliver of jagged rotor carved a rut right next to her, close enough to cut the sling off her shoulder and turn the empty Uzi into unrecognizable junk. The explosion slammed her back into the hillside and nearly ruptured her eardrums, and then she was rolling away again, as the metal body behind her blew apart in a ball of flame.

  Gee, I did that, she mused as if looking down on herself from somewhere else.

  By then Jessie and DiSanto were running up and screaming at her, but all she could do was sit up, groggy, and watch their lips move because she couldn’t hear anything at all. The blue paint blackened and peeled off the Agusta as she watched, bemused, too stunned to bother worrying about the heat of the fire. Only when she was dragged away did her ears pop and then the entirety of her hearing came back with a painful whoosh that made her cry out and hold her ears, and she heard the helicopter immolating itself like some phoenix out of a fantasy tale. Except this one would never rise again.

  DiSanto left Jessie to tend to Colgrave, and he rushed up and pulled the pilot out of the burning wreck, only managing to do so because he’d been tossed out when it hit the ground.

  The gunman, she noted, had been turned to bloody mash—something had first sliced him to ribbons, and then the copter’s body had crushed what was left.

  Jessie was checking her pulse and her limbs and she smiled at the doctor, wanting to thank her.

  Instead Colgrave lay down and when her head hit the ground she blacked out.

  Jessie

  After making sure Colgrave was okay, that she’d only fainted, Jessie finally stood and pulled DiSanto into a kind of embrace as they watched the helicopter burning itself out.

  In the distance, she heard sirens.

  The sheriff and his group, arriving just in the nick of time, she mused, thinking a little like DiSanto.

  And Nick?

  She realized then that her face was sodden with shed tears she hadn’t been aware of until now.

  Whatever had happened here, it had taken over her tiny universe for the last three or four minutes, probably no more than that. In that amount of time she had gone from seeing Nick still alive, to not seeing anything else and not having time to think about anything other than the trauma happening to her universe—DiSanto and Colgrave both putting their lives on the line for Nick. And for her.

  She was profoundly grateful.

  But she was profoundly sad, because she sensed this time she had lost everything.

  She knelt, weeping, and DiSanto awkwardly put his arm around her. For once he was at a loss and not even one cliché came out of his grim face.

  “Look at him, this guy always comes out looking good.”

  It was Colgrave, unaccountably awake again, and staring behind them.

  Jessie turned, not daring to hope.

  It was Nick, making his way gingerly toward them on the hillside, his clothes half-trashed and his features obscured by blood and open cuts. He was aided by—

  Dr. Marla Anders, from police headquarters!

  She held him steady as he walked like John Wayne after a bad gunfight toward them. He was smiling, though, and instantly her head cleared and she ran to him, almost knocking him over in her haste to wrap her arms around him. He was shivering and unsteady, but she sensed that he’d been worse not long before.

  He winked at her.

  “When you throw a surprise party—” he began, and then she slugged him.

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Heather

  She had picked up her recent conquest and they’d gone out on the town. Not exactly clubbing, these were more small restaurants than night clubs, although half of them featured live music on weekends. As they were in the Third Ward, they were easy to get to. The two of them dressed and made up to impress from afar.

  Heather was nothing if not practical. There was nothing better for her than finding a way to benefit from something on two levels.

  And she was in the middle of working an angle, which made her genitals hum with constant tension.

  Displaying out in public was such a rush. She was reminded of her cozying up to that cop, Sheila Falken, and how they’d put on a show in the bars.

  Nothing turns on boys more than seeing two amazing woman brazenly flirting, eating each other up with their eyes, and playing footsy.

  Except this new one was a whole new animal. Falken had been dangerous, but Marina was a question mark, and this implied she might be even more dangerous.
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br />   Sitting on padded stools in one of the narrow drinking establishments, trading sips of their different martinis, laughing at the surreptitious looks headed their way by the many single guys trolling for company, they made a point of being hands-on—hands on each other’s thighs, hands on each other’s elbows, hands caressing each other’s hair…there were a million ways to intrigue.

  “All this flirting is making me horny, I’m warning you,” Heather whispered in her ear. She pushed her point by licking the earlobe before nibbling at it. She winked at a middle-aged man in a rumpled suit who was staring at them from down the bar and drinking fast.

  “I hear you, honey,” Marina said, her voice a little boozy, almost husky. “I want your tongue and your teeth somewhere else.”

  “I’m all for that.”

  “I’m ready, you know. My panties are soaked.”

  “I know,” Heather said. “I can smell them.”

  “You cannot!” Marina giggled. Her wide mouth was perfect for kissing, and Heather leaned forward and they touched lips. The guy at the end of the bar squirmed. They shared a little tongue, just enough to catch every guy’s attention. The place was rocking, but they were in a bubble all their own.

  Heather ran a hand up Marina’s thigh, stroking the tight leather pants she wore so well. She wondered if there would be another visitor later. She made a mental bet. Yes there would be.

  Once you hook a fish, you can pretty well plan on dinner. If you handle him carefully, she thought. Very carefully.

  Heather stroked the inside of Marina’s thigh, laughing. Her plans were coming together in all the right ways.

  DiSanto

  He had tried to stay away, God knew he had, but there was some sort of magnetism drawing him there.

  He sat in his car one hour, then two, then three—hoping to see her jogging by again. But when she didn’t show, he gathered his courage and went into the lobby. Buzzed her. He knew she was home, her lights were on and her silver Lexus SUV was parked in its slot in the garage. Yes, he had checked. Unless she was on foot, she was home.

  “What?”

  He leaned into the tiny speaker grille. “It’s me.”

  “I’m supposed to know who ‘me’ is?” There was amusement—no, mockery—in her tone.

  “DiSanto.” Maybe he shouldn’t have growled.

  “Ooooh, sounds like you’ve been practicing. Come up.”

  He pushed open the buzzing door and rode the elevator in a haze of lust and expectation.

  She opened her door and stood framed in the doorway, nude. She smiled lewdly when his eyes nearly popped out of his head. It was just amazing, how incredibly sexy she was. He was straining the front of his trousers, almost trembling with the lust. She reached out and took him none too gently in her hand, pulling him inside by his groin, grinning at his discomfort.

  “I guess you really are happy to see me,” she whispered into his ear, her breath hot and her scent overpowering. The door closed behind him and she continued to pull him inside. Her fingers were like a live wire wrapped around his manhood, and he let her maneuver him toward one of her deep sofas, this one facing the wall of windows.

  DiSanto had lost his connection to reality, the physical world. All he could think of was raw sex, the slap of flesh on flesh, the slurping sounds and the moaning, all things he had experienced here, with her.

  “It’s nice that you came back,” she said, and her words were deep down in her throat, giving her voice a husky, whiskey quality. If he tried, he could hear the wolf side of her, he mused.

  “I…I couldn’t stay away,” he said, and immediately wanted to slap himself silly. “That is, I was in the neighborhood…”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid…

  “If believing that makes you feel better, it’s no fucking skin off my teeth.”

  “Well, I…” His voice ground to a halt. After all, her amazing breasts were thrusting toward him, those perfect nipples waiting for his lips, his tongue, his teeth. That cleft below her navel, with the jewel now hidden, the landing strip above it signaling the way in. Those hands, tipped in crimson and waiting to grab and tease, manipulate and milk him. Her raven hair was tied in a loose pony tail today. Her lips shone in the intimate lighting of her place.

  She pulled him a little farther, around the sofa.

  He was startled.

  On its length was another woman, also nude, reclining as if she’d been asleep. But her dark-rimmed eyes were open, and she was licking her lips.

  Heather said, “This is my friend Marina.”

  “Hey,” Marina said, her eyes like slits but a sly smile curling her lips upward.

  He nodded dumbly.

  Heather said, “We’ve been discussing this urge we had for some three-way action. And then the bell rings and it’s you. Imagine our surprise, and the pleasant shock of you arriving just in time to help us with our…discussion.”

  DiSanto’s eyeballs were going to burst. He thought the guilt would give him a heart attack or a stroke. It seemed all his major organs were racing toward failure. But honestly, his lust was winning the war, and he was simply wallowing in the view of these two naked women who were so out of his league that if he had stopped to think about it he might have had second thoughts about the whole scenario.

  He stood there awkwardly as Heather released him, then bent over and gently lowered her lips over her friend’s and they kissed long and hard.

  Wet, sloppy kissing, guaranteed to arouse.

  They teased him with both lips and tongues, putting on a show for him and eyeing him the whole time. His own lips dry, he felt nothing but the pain of exclusion. When Heather finally reached out for him, he barely registered approaching and became a melting puddle in her hands. Somehow his clothing dropped off, forgotten, and when legs opened and musk enveloped his senses he was there, his manhood dipping into the forbidden while other body parts and slick lips found his, and after that his view shifted with the lean, muscular bodies which wrapped themselves around each other and around him.

  Four arms maneuvered him, four hands manipulated him, two questing mouths explored him, and sweat-slick limbs entwined him and each other in turn, and there were moans muffled by wanton flesh, and DiSanto was in another world, one of sensation and pleasure and a tiny sense of guilt that he quickly suppressed.

  They massaged and licked and drew from him his strength and essence again and again until he screamed out and felt sharp teeth on the skin of his shoulder and also on the sensitive underside of his genitals, and he wondered very briefly who was in control, who was devouring whom, and whether he would see the day again as a normal man, or whether he would see it differently.

  Or whether he would die at their hands. The thought niggled, but did not bear fruit.

  It was for him a world where nothing but pleasure mattered, and the only rational thought was a questioning of when the next pleasure would come and what form it would take.

  When he lay between them, spent again, his skin drying, Heather fed him water from a bottle she’d had nearby. It was almost the image of mothering that surprised and disgusted him.

  “Why are you here?” she whispered as he drank. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want,” he said in a strangled voice, annoyed yet grateful for the water. He glanced at the other woman, who seemed to be dozing now. “You said you would think about it…”

  “And I have,” Heather said, coyly. “But I haven’t decided yet.” She stretched languorously. “What’s the hurry?”

  As he watched, a shocking change began.

  There was a rippling of the air around Heather Wilson, as if she were vibrating so quickly that it couldn’t be quite perceived by the naked eye. A long run of thick, coarse fur sprouted quickly in patches along her forearms and thighs, and across her bare chest, first surrounding then enveloping her breasts. Her face, features still sated by the lustful activity, elongated and turned into a snout, her jaws filled with rows of fangs and sharp canines. He
r eyes swirled like kaleidoscopes, pupils changing colors in waves. Suddenly her look was predatorial, but not only sexually. She seemed ready to pounce.

  Just in front of her, Marina dozed on, unaware.

  DiSanto was startled, but also enthralled. Having seen Lupo’s transformation, he wasn’t totally unprepared for this close-up look, but he hadn’t expected it in this context, in such close proximity, and his muscles tightened as the fear swept through him like a river of molten fire. He felt sick in the pit of his stomach and his testicles seemed to shrivel, his flesh betraying him.

  The monster that had been Heather and was now somewhere between lupine and human stared at him with ravenous hunger he could read in the gold-flecked eyes. A low, low growl rose up from the bottom of the beast’s throat and DiSanto thought he would piss himself. His buttocks clenched involuntarily. His hands shook. His throat, just moments ago watered, dried up like a desert.

  The Heather-wolf seemed to smile as she opened her jaws at an impossible angle and slowly, gently pinched Marina’s head in a vise of frightening fangs. Her tongue lolled obscenely off to the side of her snout, tickling her friend’s face until she stirred from her deep sleep.

  DiSanto knew right then, knew that Heather would snap those jaws shut and tear Marina’s head from her body, rip into her neck and shower them all in hot arterial blood. DiSanto tried to close his eyes but couldn’t, caught like a snake in front of a charmer’s basket.

  He gasped as the Heather-wolf smiled despite the lupine snout.

  Marina grumbled, her eyes fluttering, perhaps feeling the further tightening of those jaws.

  DiSanto wanted to shout, to warn her, but he couldn’t generate a sound.

  He stared, helpless, as the Heather-wolf positioned itself to close its jaws like scissors.

  Marina’s eyes snapped open.

  DiSanto blinked, mouth open, tongue bloated and useless…

  And then it was Heather Wilson again, lying behind Marina as she awoke, unaware and blissfully ignorant of what had almost taken place. Marina reached up and scratched her hair—blonde but showing dark roots—where the wolf’s snout had been, her look bemused.