by A. J. Colby
Stunned, I sank down to the edge of the bed in silence, unable to do anything but stare wide-eyed at Johnson. He didn’t just dislike me because of my winning personality, he despised me because of what I was. He’d just as soon see me dead, torn apart by Samson, as safely ensconced in FBI headquarters. The chilling realization made me shudder.
Without saying another word, Johnson spun on his heel and stormed out of the room, the resounding thud of the door slamming shut behind him reverberating down my spine. For a long, silent minute, Holbrook and I stared slack-jawed at each other. Finally, licking my lips, I was able to mutter, “Well, that was about as much as fun as being ass raped with a dildo made out of rusty razor blades.”
CHAPTER NINE
SITTING ON THE end of the bed I idly ran my fingers through the soft, downy fur behind Loki’s ears, his answering purr doing little to ease the stiffness in my shoulders. The calmness I had garnered from letting the wolf out had dissipated, leaving me tired and cranky.
“So, is Johnson always this much of an asshole?” I asked, looking up at Holbrook where he paced back and forth in front of the muted TV, the screen showing the outside of the motel and Chrismer’s perfect, smiling face. Fantasies of pounding her face into a snow bank danced through my mind, lifting the corners of my mouth into a vicious smile.
“He’s not a bad guy, Riley,” he answered, interrupting my daydreams.
“Could have fooled me.”
Pausing in his tireless pacing he ran a hand over his hair and sighed. A curt knock on the door cut off whatever Holbrook had been about to say in reply. The door cracked open just wide enough for an agent bundled up in winter gear to pop his head into the room.
“We’re moving out in ten minutes, Sir.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Holbrook smiled weakly at the agent. “Thanks Tillman. It’ll be good to get back to Denver.”
“We’re not heading down to Denver. The Eisenhower Tunnel is closed due to the storm. We’re just moving over to Dillon until the roads clear.”
“Great,” Holbrook sighed. “Thanks again, Tillman. We’ll be ready.”
It took me a few minutes to gather up my belongings under Holbrook’s watchful eye, tossing my clothes and toiletries haphazardly into my duffel bag. Coercing Loki back into his carrier was another matter entirely, but eventually I was all packed and ready to go.
Turning to give Holbrook a brief nod to let him know that I was ready, I was struck by his transformation. He looked as though he had aged ten years in the span of just a few minutes, his shoulders slumped and his eyes lacking their usual brightness. Nodding, he opened the door and I braced myself for the barrage of cold wind and soulless journalists waiting just outside the door.
I thought being escorted to the SUV by a contingent of stoic agents was a bit much, but I wasn’t going to argue with the weary look on Holbrook’s face, and I did have to admit that they provided an effective barrier between me and the clamoring paparazzi. Not wanting to add to the strain weighing down Holbrook’s shoulders, I got into the back of the SUV without complaint, though I was surprised when two agents climbed in on either side of me, pinning me in the middle with Loki’s carrier perched on my lap. Neither of them so much as looked at me, leaving tense silence to reign inside the vehicle.
My relief was almost palpable when the front doors opened and Holbrook and Johnson got in, Johnson sliding into the driver’s seat without saying a word.
“All set?” Holbrook asked, twisting in his seat to look at me sandwiched between the agents in the back.
Loki yowled in reply, one fluffy paw extending through the bars of his carrier, reaching towards Holbrook.
“As we’ll ever be.”
The drive from Breckenridge to Dillon shouldn’t have taken more than thirty minutes, but with the roads mired by the drifting snow and increased traffic from Chrismer’s soul-sucking ilk, it took us well over an hour to make the short trip. By the time we pulled up in front of the Motel 6, I was desperate to get out of the car, a line of sweat running down my sides where the agents had been pressed against me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t given enough time to catch my breath, let alone cool off a little, before Holbrook and the other agents were ushering me inside. Their vigilance was reassuring, but grated nonetheless.
A harried looking clerk was already waiting for us in the lobby when we entered, trailing snow and malcontent behind us. The clerk handed over our room keys to Johnson, his hands shaking so much that he almost dropped the little plastic cards. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why he was nervous – the stink of pot hovering around him in a noxious cloud.
The elevator ride up to the third floor was as tense and silent as the drive from Breckenridge had been, even Loki remained quiet and still in his carrier. When the doors slid open on the empty hallway Johnson pulled one of the door keys from the stack and thrust the rest at Holbrook before stalking down the hall in search of his room. Apparently, I was still on his shit list.
“You guys are with me,” Holbrook said to the other agents, leading us down the hallway.
My room was a step above the one I’d had at The Knotty Pine, but the garish bedspreads and manufactured feel of the room still left me with a sense of apathy.
“Collins and Hill will be stationed outside, and I’ll be next door if you need anything,” Holbrook said as he swept the room, checking the window and peering into the bathroom. “Do you need anything?”
“I don’t think so. It’s just...” I trailed off, fiddling with the zipper on my jacket.
“What?”
“Will you stay with me?” I asked. Sparing a glance for the doorway I saw the two agents standing in the hallway, their gazes locked on the opposite wall, though I had no doubt they’d heard me.
“Ah...sure.”
“I’m just going to change,” I said, grabbing a couple things out of my bag on my way to the bathroom.
I knew it was silly to run off to the bathroom to change into my pajamas, Holbrook had seen me naked more than once after all, but everything that had happened that evening had left me shaken and vulnerable. I needed some space, just a few minutes to myself to gather my strength, if I wanted any hope of making it through the night without losing my mind. It wasn’t until I’d already stripped off my shirt and bra that I remembered Loki was still in his crate.
Dammit!
Poking my head back into the room, I found Holbrook standing at the window with the drapes pulled aside just enough to let him peer out into the night. “Can you let Loki out?”
Drawing back from the window as if he’d been doing something untoward, he looked back over his shoulder at me, his gaze lingering on my bare arm where it crossed over my chest.
“Sure. Want me to feed him too?”
“That would be great. His bowl is in my backpack with a bag of kibble. He’ll turn his nose up at it at first, but he’ll eat it when he realizes there’s nothing else coming.”
Ducking back into the bathroom, I finished peeling off my clothes, wrinkling my nose at the overly ripe scent of fear and sweat. Donning my pink, fuzzy, leopard print pajama pants and a comfy t-shirt that declared ‘All Your Base Are Belong To Us’ I felt a little more like my normal self, almost as if I would wake up at any minute and find myself curled up in my bed. When that didn’t happen I scrunched my dirty clothes up in a ball and opened the door, and promptly stopped.
Holbrook was sprawled on the bed closest to the window, his hat resting beside him, and my giant cat perched on his chest, purring like a freight train as the FBI agent rubbed one large hand along Loki’s chin.
“Looks like I’ve been replaced,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.
Blushing, Holbrook sat up quickly, dislodging Loki, who meowed to let us know that he was not pleased.
“Uh, hey,” he said, standing up and retrieving his hat.
“Hey,” I replied with a smile, crossing the room to sit on the bed, pulling my knees up to my chest.
I wanted Ho
lbrook to join me, hoping to curl up in the comfort of his arms. Instead, he shifted from one foot to the other, running his fingers along the brim of his hat.
“I need to go check in with the team,” he said after a while, his eyes dropping to the floor. “Will you be okay?”
“Oh, yeah. No problem,” I replied, trying to hide my disappointment behind the ghost of a smile. “I’ll be fine.”
The thud of the door closing behind him echoed through me, reverberating in my middle like a solemn bell. I didn’t want to admit how much it had hurt to see the shadow of guilt on his face, or how eager he had seemed to get out of my room. It had taken more effort than I cared to admit to open up to him and let him see the hurt and broken parts of me stripped bare.
Guess that didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me.
I hated feeling like a spurned teenager, yet I couldn’t do anything to stop the well of emotion that rose to the surface, moistening my eyes and making me feel like a fool. I hadn’t willingly let anyone get that close to me in years, and now I had to wonder if it had been a mistake. Wiping the back of my hand across my eyes I flopped back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Hurt and anger warred in my chest, burning hot and acidic.
“I sure know how to pick ‘em, huh?” I said aloud to my furry companion.
Like a bull in a china shop, Loki plowed into my side, rubbing his chin along my hand where it lay across my stomach. Grace was definitely not one of his strong suits.
“But you won’t leave me, will you buddy?” I asked, running my fingers along the length of his spine and down his slowly swishing tail.
He answered by leaping up onto my stomach, forcing the air out of my lungs with a loud “Oof!” Like I said, he’s not the most graceful and dainty creature I’ve ever known. Still, he was the closest thing I had to a friend or family, and he hadn’t left me yet. Settling on my chest, tucking his paws underneath him, he began to purr, rumbling like a motor. I shouldn’t have been tired after sleeping the afternoon away as the wolf, but as I lay there scratching behind Loki’s ears, I felt sleep’s siren song calling out to me. Closing my eyes I let the sound of Loki’s contentment wash over me, soothing my hurt feelings and lulling me into sleep.
* * *
I wasn’t sure what woke me, the sound of a car door slamming, or perhaps a truck back-firing. I still wasn’t used to being surrounded by humans; the various sounds of their comings and goings, and the pervasive stink of their existence, grating on my already strained nerves. I knew of weres who had chosen to live in urban areas, but I couldn’t fathom how they could bear to be inundated with the constant cacophony of mundanes scuttling about like a plague of locusts.
Opening my eyes, I glimpsed fat, fluffy snowflakes drifting down through the holes in the roof of my temporary shelter, and beyond, the dark night sky. Drawing a deep breath I let the crisp scent of the winter air slide over my tongue and fill my lungs until they felt fit to burst. It had been too long since I had smelled such pure air, tinged with the scent of pine. Too long my nose had been filled with the stink of piss, shit, and sweat. I’d never let them lock me away in a hole again.
Stretching limbs sore from over-exertion and cold, I rose with a groan that worked vocal chords rough from disuse. Swaying on my feet I reached out blindly for the wall, fingers dark with dried blood and dirt splayed against the rough wooden planks of my shelter. I shivered as another blast of cold air tore through the ramshackle shed I decided it was time I went in search of some clothes, and another meal. The three hunters had sated my hunger for a while, but the beast inside was already eager for more, and I needed fresh meat to replenish the strength it had taken to travel north from New Mexico into Colorado.
Emerging from the shed I surveyed my surroundings, cast in pale reddish twilight as the clouds overhead reflected the distant lights of Denver. A frozen creek gurgled behind my daytime shelter, the frigid mountain run-off flowing sluggishly beneath the thick ice and snow. Looking in the opposite direction I saw the small two-story house I had glimpsed when I had crawled, exhausted and sated, into the shed hours before. Between me and the house stretched a steeply sloping yard blanketed in a layer of snow, the inorganic shapes of rusting car parts and an abandoned swing set poking up through the snow like ghosts of the past.
The icy ground crunched beneath my bare feet as I stalked towards the distant light, drawn forward by its warm glow. Even out here I could hear the loud boom of explosions and the fast pops of gunfire coming from the TV inside. How strange mundanes are, thriving on the thrill of Hollywood violence when the real thing freezes them in pants-shitting fear. I caught the clatter of pots and pans from the back of the house, glimpsing the silhouette of its single occupant through the window, while the scent of frying meat and oil drifted to me on the breeze.
Too bad he won’t live long enough to enjoy it.
I was halfway across the yard when the flap in the back door swung outwards, and a large black and tan head emerged to lift a twitching black nose to the sky. Catching the first traces of something foreign, the German Shepherd shot through the flap, filling the air with his booming bark, letting the interloper know that this was his territory. Little did the dumb beast know that the intruder was far more dangerous than a curious Poodle. Coming out to the edge of the deck, he stared out at the yard from the top of the steps, trying to catch my scent on the wind that blew towards me, full of fat swirling flakes.
A sudden shift in the wind carried my scent towards the house, cutting off the dog’s barks in an instant, transforming them into a low whine of fear. The sound of liquid splattering the snow covered boards at his feet was accompanied by the sharp, sour smell of urine, and I couldn’t hold back my low, chuffing laughter. Tucking his tail between his legs, the German Shepherd turned and ducked back through the flap into the house, no doubt in search of a hiding spot.
“What’s wrong, Max? Is that skunk out back again?” the man inside asked as the dog shot past him, nails clacking on the floor.
I guess the beast isn’t so dumb after all.
Continuing to weave a path up to the back door of the house, my stomach rumbled in anticipation, my mouth already flooding with saliva at the thought of fresh meat writhing hot and bloody between my jaws. A hissing breath rolled out of me as my fingers began to elongate, my fingernails falling away as dark and thick claws erupted from my nail beds, slicing through the tender skin, raining crimson droplets of blood down on the snow. Arching my back I ground my teeth against the pain of my spine shifting, the sensation of a partial change somehow so much more painful than a full shift from man to wolf.
In a matter of seconds I stood as the epitome of the Hollywood Wolfman, a hulking beast on two legs covered in thick dark fur, armed with vicious claws and grinning fangs. Yet, as close as human fantasy came to envisioning the partial shift, they knew little of its reality. Only an Alpha such as I could achieve the balance between man and wolf needed to allow them to coexist in time and space.
Stupid humans.
Curling elongated fingers around the door handle I pushed the door open, the flimsy bolt giving little resistance. I took in the small, dimly lit kitchen in the blink of an eye. Cheap cabinets ran around the room in an L, broken up by a small stove and a dented almond colored refrigerator. A chipped Formica topped table and two chairs sat in the middle of the tight space, half of the table’s surface covered in old newspapers with dismantled engine parts sitting on top.
The sound of my sudden entrance drew the attention of the house’s owner who stood at the stove, dressed in stained jeans smelling of engine grease, and a tattered, once white t-shirt with dark yellow pit stains under the arms. He was muscular in a slender, sinewy way, and I hoped that he’d put up more of a fight than the hunters had.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, rounding on me with a fork in his hand, a slab of meat hanging from its tines, dripping oil to the floor. His voice faded away to a startled gurgle, his eyes growing wide, as he took in my
appearance.
The fork fell to the floor with a clatter and wet sounding slap, and in a rush he reached for a knife on the counter, wielding it like a weapon. My laugh came out as a low, rumbling sound, making the foolish man wince and shrink back against the stove.
“You really think that little thing will hold me off?” I asked, my voice distorted by the razor sharp teeth crowding my mouth, but he understood me just fine.
“Get the fuck out of my house!” he yelled at me, even as the hand holding the knife shook.
The staccato clack of my nails on the floor sounded loud in the small space as I took one step, and then another, towards him, challenging him to fight me. The scent of fear rolled off of him in dizzying waves, pungent and sweet as I drew in a deep breath, savoring the taste of it on my tongue.
Lunging at me in a panicked rush, he swung the knife in a wide, clumsy arc, missing me by a mile. Throwing my head back, shaking the shaggy mantle of thick fur on my shoulders, I laughed, the sound rolling up from my gut.
“You mundanes are so pathetic,” I said through my laughter, batting aside his arm holding the knife as he slashed at me again.
The fury in his eyes faded to fear as the knife fell uselessly from his fingers.
“Get away from me! Get away!”
I had hoped that he would put up more of a fight, that he’d prove to be somewhat of a challenge, but the first swipe of my hand across his face reduced him to a blubbering mess, the tears streaming from his eyes mingling with the blood pouring from the ragged shreds of his cheek. His weakness infuriated me, fueling the hunger that burned white hot in my gut. Lashing out I struck him again, raking claws across the front of his throat, delighting in the hot bubbling fount of blood that sprang up to meet my fingers.
Falling towards me like the useless sack of shit that he was, he pressed a trembling hand to the gash in his throat while extending the other towards me as if for support or some glimmer of mercy. Splitting my lips in a wide grin, I stepped back out of his reach, watching him fall to his knees before slumping over to his side where he lay in a widening pool of blood. Sinking to my knees I leaned over him, inhaling deeply to savor the scent of his death.