Devil's Paw

by Debra Dunbar

  There were four occupied tables, and two at the bar for a total of twelve in the place — embarrassingly vacant from the maximum capacity of the room. I sat at the bar and was promptly ignored by everyone. There was no staff to be seen, so, after ten minutes, I gave up and wandered behind the bar to survey the offerings. I’d tossed a bottle of vodka into the ice bin and grabbed a cold beer when I heard a door squeak and saw a youngish man emerge from a room behind the bar.

  Damn. Busted helping myself to the booze. I stood awkwardly with a beer in one hand and a shot glass for my chilling vodka in another. The man stared at me with blank eyes.

  “They said it was a self–service kind of establishment,” I lied, motioning to the two guys at the bar. Neither one had tried to stop me, or said anything to deter me. Clearly they were accessories to the crime.

  “Good,” the bartender slurred. “If I’d a knowed youse didn’t need me none, I wounna botered commin outta.”

  Wow. The guy was hammered. And it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. I was starting to like Alaska a whole lot.

  “Dude. What are you drinking? Sit down and I’ll pour you one.”

  The man sat hard on a stool behind the bar, nearly sending it backward into the lower rail of hard liquor. Bottles rocked, clinking together. Thankfully none fell off. “My ssshift started at eight, cause of all these peoplesh ins shere off da cruise shipt.”

  His hand waved around, encompassing the huge room. I didn’t see how twelve patrons were “all these people”, but was willing to allow that he might have had a rush of customers earlier. I poured him a shot of cheap whiskey, figuring he was too far gone to waste the good stuff on and climbed over top of the bar, beer and shot glass in hand. This place was pretty dead. No wonder the guy drank.

  “You guys play cards?” I asked the other two at the bar, making an attempt to look friendly and not like I’d try and cheat them out of every cent. They ignored me.

  “Hey, is there a more happening place around here?” I asked the bartender. His head was beginning to loll around, his eyes fluttering shut briefly before he jerked awake and upright on the stool. Any moment he was going to fall face down on the floor. I foresaw stitches in his future.

  “Fuck this,” I said, downing my beer and reaching over the bar to grab the bottle of vodka out of the ice bin. “I’m going to head over to the revival at Fijords Landing. Maybe I’ll spike the holy water.”

  Once outside, I pulled out my little map, cradling the bottle of vodka under my arm and peering up at the street signs. Three miles of walking and I found myself standing outside a ramshackle, one–story building that didn’t quite look residential, but didn’t quite look commercial. I’d had to practically climb up the side of a mountain and hack my way through a forest of bushes to get here. Nearly half my vodka was gone, but the sign beside the door clearly said Fijords Landing.

  It didn’t look like a church. Although I’d seen plenty of churches use a fish symbol as their logo, I’d never seen one with x’s in his eyes holding a bottle with a fin. It didn’t sound much like a church, either. I didn’t hear any hymns. The only noise coming through the thin walls was laughing, shouting, and stamping of feet. I shrugged, thinking this must be a special kind of Alaskan church, and waltzed up the steps and through the front door.

  “Is this the revival?” I shouted to be heard over the din. “Cause I’m here for some saving.”

  Silence crashed over the room and every pair of eyes turned to me. It was then I realized my mistake. This wasn’t a church; it was a drinking establishment, and it was full to the brim with werewolves.

  If I’d been in a biker bar in the lower forty–eight, I would have just held my energy tight inside and played the I’m–a–human–woman card, but no matter how good I was, I couldn’t hide my smell. Every wolf in this place knew exactly what I was. Candy had told me long ago, demons were easy to pick out a mile upwind, and that weres tried to keep their distance. This time there was no avoiding me as I’d crashed their gathering in the middle of the day.

  There was that typical moment of assessment among predators, where the atmosphere grew thick with tension and we all calculated our odds and potential next moves. One or two I could take. Possibly a few more now that Gregory’s protection allowed me to use demonic means to defend myself, but there had to have been over thirty wolves in this building, and every one of them was itching for a fight.

  I love to scrap it up, but didn’t really want to wind up dead and didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to my presence by fighting hard enough to not wind up dead. So I hesitated, tensed and ready to run away, hit one over the head with my half–empty vodka bottle, or possibly pull their fur while they chewed me to bits.

  They hesitated, too, and it puzzled me. This amount of adrenaline in one room just needed a spark to kick off a berserker–style fight, and I was plenty of spark. I could tell they wanted to jump me and rip me limb from limb, but something held them back. An attractive woman with glossy, black hair stepped forward and placed a calming hand on the forearm of the largest wolf.

  “Angels,” she breathed out in warning.

  I frowned, thinking they’d welcome the angels to come and haul my troublesome ass off. Then I realized their dilemma. There were thirty of them, and Candy had told me once that werewolves needed special license to gather in groups of ten or greater. I was willing to bet they did not have that license, and I knew the angels were ruthless. Especially when it came to enforcing the restrictive existence contract that the werewolves were forced to abide by.

  “I won’t tell if you don’t.” Not that I would be in any trouble if Gregory found me here, but it was best to let them think we both had a lot to lose.

  The big guy snarled. “Or we just kill you and you don’t tell. That way we don’t worry about you blackmailing us.”

  The woman’s hand on his arm tightened, and I was surprised to see him hesitate, turning to her for guidance. Candy aside, I always thought the werewolves were rather chauvinistic, with males in the lead positions. Seems I was wrong.

  “A cornered fox does more than bare his teeth,” she told him in a low voice. “We could kill her, but not before she brought notice. There has been an enforcer spotted nearby today.”

  Gregory. Seems news of his presence had spread quicker than gossip at the county fair. I wondered who had ratted him out? Gina at the inn had known he was around even though she hadn’t seen him. The only people who had seen him were the airport and car rental humans, and they were too entranced to say anything. Whoever spread the rumor had noticed him pretty much upon arrival and sent out the word right away. But as much as I admired their intel network, that did nothing to diffuse the volatile situation I found myself in.

  “Look, I don’t want any trouble with the local pack. I thought this was a church revival and just came for some fun. I’ll even leave my vodka, if it will make you happy.”

  The big male narrowed his eyes, then turned to the younger woman beside him.

  “Who am I gonna tell?” I continued, trying to convince them not to kill me. “It’s not like I’m cozy with any angels. I’m a demon, after all.”

  The woman gave a nearly unperceivable nod and slid her hand down the male wolf’s arm to his hand.

  “Get out,” he snapped. “And take your vodka with you.”

  I spun about and dashed out the door, happy to be leaving with my alcohol and body intact. This town sucked. The inn was adorable, but boring. The taproom was boring. This place was interesting, but I wasn’t so eager to face the terrible odds. There was nothing fun in Juneau. I contemplated heading into the woods to see if there was a bear somewhere I could wrestle. A bear I could handle, thirty werewolves, I couldn’t.

  I was so deep in my depression that I nearly walked into a pedestrian. When I looked up to apologize, I recognized the gate guardian from the airport. He looked agitated, and immediately my mind thought of the worst scenario.

  “Where is my angel?” I demanded in a p
anic. “Is he okay?” I frantically felt through the red purple networked throughout me to see if I could somehow sense his emotions or his state of health. I could when he was near, but who knows where the fuck he’d gone.

  Nisroc took a step backward in surprise. “The Ancient Revered One? I thought he was with you.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, then moved on to the other potential emergency situation. “The demon, the one we’re hunting, did he make it through the gate? Did he slip through?”

  The guardian looked confused. “No. I was just up there. I’ve been up there since you left the airport. No one has gone through.”

  I had another moment of panic, worried that he’d left the gate unattended and even now the demon could be sneaking through. “Then what?” I shouted. “What has happened?”

  Nisroc turned bright red and looked around us, as if someone might notice him talking with a very agitated imp. “Where is the Ancient Revered One? Was he with you this evening? When did he leave your side?”

  I was going to have a stroke if this stupid angel didn’t get to the point. “He left this morning when we got to the inn. Said he had something to do. I haven’t seen him since. Is he in trouble? For fuck sake, tell me what’s going on!”

  He closed his eyes and breathed out. “So you didn’t tell him about Fijords Landing.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Why the fuck would I tell him …oh.”

  It suddenly all made sense. He was protecting the werewolves, covering up for them. Here Gregory was proudly putting him forward as a protégé and Nisroc was warning the local werewolves of his presence so they could lock their misdeeds firmly in the closet. Not that any of this bothered me. I covered up Candy’s misdeeds all the time. I hated the whole one–sided existence contract. Nephilim or not, the werewolves had as much right to an autonomous life as any other being on this planet.

  The gate guardian turned to the side and motioned for me to walk with him. I fell in beside him, and we strolled for a bit in silence, the sun still fairly high on the horizon.

  “I found them when we first began construction on the gate. Right after the other portal was destroyed. They didn’t want a gate to Hel in their backyard. They knew it would bring angels to an area of the world they hadn’t frequented before.”

  I looked around at the stunning landscape. It was sparsely populated, and demons liked to be where the humans were. “No demons, no angels,” I commented.

  He glanced over at my perceptive comment. “Exactly. Once the demons figured out the location of the new gate, all that would change. The werewolves made my life very difficult for a few decades. Some are especially talented.”

  I made a sympathetic noise. “So you made a deal? Overlook some infractions, give them an early alert, and they let you do your job?”

  Nisroc sighed. “Not all of us are in favor of the restrictions placed upon these people. I’m merely a gate guardian, not even technically an angel in status. My opinion would carry no weight with the Ruling Council. Still, I do what I can to ease their lives, even if it means I may lose my wings.”

  I shuddered. “That’s quite a price to pay. Are they worth it? These people you hardly even know?”

  He halted and faced me again. “I’ve come to know them quite a bit over the last fifty years. And there are principals that are worth paying the ultimate price for. If I didn’t, I’d be no better than a dem…an animal. I’d be no better than an animal.”

  I nodded, and walked forward, ignoring his slip. “There are an awful lot of werewolves here. The existence contact regulates how many are allowed to live in what areas and tends to put larger populations in urban settings. It’s odd that so many are here in such a wild setting. Odd that they received permission.”

  He stiffened, and I heard him take a shaky breath. “There are not so many,” he said hastily. “Some are visiting; they get permission for that.”

  As a member of the Ruling Council, I had a copy of the existence contract. It was somewhere in my house, all six thousand pages of it. I’d not read it, but I was willing to bet it allowed no more than five werewolves in Juneau and the surrounding area. And I’m sure it did not allow for that many visitors. I got the feeling those thirty werewolves in Fijords Landing were just the tip of the iceberg.

  “Umm,” I replied in a noncommittal tone.

  “Iblis, I respectfully ask that you not mention this to the Ruling Council, or to the Ancient Revered One.”

  I let him squirm a bit. I might be somewhat reformed, but I was still a demon.

  “So you’re asking me to lie? Lie as a member of the Ruling Council, and lie to the angel I’m bound to?”

  His distress was palatable. “Then blame it on me. Say I exceeded my authority and gave them permission. Please, I beg of you not to let the children suffer any more than they already have.”

  Gregory kept stuff from me all the time, and I did the same to him. I’d become rather fond of Candy, and sympathized with the plight of her people. Plus anything that might annoy the Ruling Council of Dickheads was all right in my book.

  “I won’t mention it to him, or to the Ruling Council. I’ll keep their secret, and yours too.”

  Nisroc sagged in relief. “Thank you, Iblis. I owe you a great debt of gratitude.”

  ~21~

  Gina was uncharacteristically nervous at breakfast, her hand shaking a bit as she flipped French toast on the portable griddle and put out massive plates of meat and fish. I was one of seven guests. Two were human tourists cheerfully pouring over guidebooks and discussing their planned hike around the Mendenhall Glacier. The other four were werewolves, there for breakfast and supposedly to protect Gina from my infernal presence.

  “Sorry,” I murmured to her as I went up, plate in hand, for French toast.

  Her head jerked up in surprise, eyes meeting mine. I knew the other werewolves were listening, with their stupidly acute hearing, but it didn’t matter.

  “I hope I didn’t get you into trouble. If I’d known the place was some sort of Elks Club for werewolves, I wouldn’t have burst in like that. A good friend of mine leads the pack back home. We jog all the time together, sometimes on four feet. I’m not your enemy.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “And that angel friend of yours is going to show up at any minute. Right.”

  She plopped a generous helping of French toast on my plate and dismissed me with a wave of her spatula.

  The other werewolves managed to devour a large quantity of food while sending me menacing looks and waving their knives threateningly in my direction. The human couple rose, thanking Gina for the marvelous breakfast before heading out for their adventure. She gave them a genuine smile and I could tell she enjoyed running this inn, even with the depressing stack of bills next to the computer on the front desk. I hoped these four werewolves were actually paying her for breakfast and not mooching on her hospitality. Thinking of her precarious finances, I glared back at them, raising the tension in the room considerably.

  “Stop!” Gina scolded, smacking her spatula on the griddle and causing us all to jump. “Knock it off right now. I can’t afford to have you all trashing my place.”

  The four wolves looked guiltily at their plates, practically licked clean, as Gina continued, waving the spatula at them for emphasis. I could see her as a school teacher, bringing her rowdy students into line with a wave of her ruler.

  “You four, it’s fifteen each for breakfast. Pay up and get out. I can guard my own den, and I’m willing to accept consequences for my actions if it comes to that.”

  I watched, shocked, as the four hulking men shuffled out of their seats and began counting out money.

  “And you,” she waved the spatula at me, and I looked at her, wide–eyed and respectful. “You get out of here and go cause trouble somewhere else. I don’t want to see you back here until after lunch. Got it?”

  “Yes ma’am,” I replied, backing out of the room and heading upstairs to change.

  T
he best way to explore a new place was on foot, and I was sorely out of shape. Candy and I hadn’t had much time for our regular jogs, and I needed to re–build my stamina if I had any intention of keeping up with her once I returned to Maryland. I threw on workout clothes, tied on my running shoes, and headed out the door, hoping I could find something interesting in this town. Gregory was still MIA (where the fuck was he?), and I’d still had no news from Wyatt. Waiting was not a strong skill of mine, but a good jog might serve to pass the time.

  About half an hour into my run, my phone rang.

  “Hello,” I wheezed at Wyatt. I could barely even manage that.

  “Sam? You okay? You sound like you’re dying.”

  I paused and tried to catch my breath. “I am. This fucking city is practically on the side of a cliff. I swear, less than a quarter mile of it is flat.”

  “Well, I’ve got news, but it’s not exactly good.”

  Great. When was I going to get some good news?

  “Paul Yong tried to get on a plane this morning around nine o’clock. He was buying a one–way ticket, had injuries and seemed very nervous, so they tried to detain him. He took off.”

  Crap. “Any idea where he took off to?”

  Wyatt’s voice was smug. “I thought you’d never ask. He caught the train to Vancouver. Small plane from Vancouver to Ketichikan. There he chartered a seaplane to Juneau. He’s due to arrive in an hour.”

  Fuck! I hung up the phone, adrenaline spiking with the thought that I might miss my chance to nab this guy. Where had Gina said the seaplane base was? I looked at the sky, but no planes were visible, so I started jogging, only to halt and dial Wyatt back.

  “Wait. You said he was injured? Injured how?” A demon should have been able to fix any injury. There had been blood around the hole in Seattle, and Gregory had said the demon had been injured at the gate. I’d just assumed it was due to his fight with the gate guardian. But he should have fixed himself by the time he got to the airport. It had been over twenty–four hours. Was he that low on raw energy that he couldn’t repair injuries, even slowly?