“That’s actually not a bad idea.”
“We need a jewelry store and a sporting goods store. No problem.”
“We drove by a bunch of antique stores when we first got here.”
“Perfect.” George smiled, but then he remembered the little boy who might be crouched next to his dead mother right now, and his smile disappeared. He hoped the kid and his brother wouldn’t be separated if they went into foster homes.
“You okay, George?” Lou asked.
“I’m fine. Delightful. Come on, let’s go save our lives.”
* * *
The first antique shop was an absolute dump of a place. Granted, any shop that sold old crap fit George’s definition of “dump,” since he had a whole head full of bad memories about his mom and grandmother dragging him around from shop to shop, squealing in delight when they found more rare garbage to display in their curiosity cabinets. He couldn’t prove it and didn’t want to, but he was pretty sure that the first female orgasm he’d ever witnessed was at the moment his grandmother found an old coffee table. It stayed in her living room for twenty years and wasn’t any better than one she could have bought at a furniture store for less money and without Grandpa having to spend six months fixing it up.
The decrepit guy behind the counter had asked if they’d been in a car accident, and George explained that, yes, they had, and that they appreciated his concern. George asked about silver, and the ancient guy had stared at him for a while, trying to think. “No,” he finally said, “but I’ve got some Silver Age comic books. A buck each.”
“No, thank you.”
“Seventy-five cents.”
“Sorry.”
They thanked him and left the store. The next one was only two shops down, so they jogged over there and went through the rickety door. A bell tinkled as they entered. An old lady sat on a rocking chair on the other side of the small shop, reading a paperback novel and smoking a cigarette. George didn’t like or care about antiques, but he was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to smoke around them.
“You’re not going to get blood on my stuff, are you?” the old lady asked.
“No, ma’am. We’ll be careful.”
“Were you in an accident?”
“Yes. None of us are going to die, though. In case you were worried.”
“Anything I can help you find?”
“We’re looking for silver. Pure silver, if you’ve got it.”
The old woman nodded and tapped some ashes off her cigarette onto the ashtray that rested on the rocking chair arm. “I’ve got plenty of silver. What do you want?”
“Anything you’ve got.”
“Sounds desperate.”
“No, we’re just late for a wedding, mostly because of the car accident.” He gestured at Lou. “This jackass forgot to pick up a gift.”
“Please don’t curse in my store.”
“Jackass?” George decided to let it go. “Anyway, we need a gift. The bride loves silver.”
“All right.” The old woman took another drag from her cigarette, then stood up and walked over to the counter, moving at an excruciatingly slow pace. George wanted to ask her to speed it up, since people might be horribly mutilated while she ambled over there, but figured that wasn’t such a good idea.
“Do you have a restroom?” Michele asked.
“No.”
George gave her a dirty look. She probably assumed that George and Lou wouldn’t prevent her from going to the bathroom when this old lady was around to hear their conversation. She really was going to end up in the cage if she wasn’t careful.
The old woman hobbled behind the counter, then ducked out of sight. A few moments later, she stood back up and set a wooden box on the counter. She raised the lid, revealing dozens of rings.
“Great, great,” said George. “Which ones are silver?”
“The ones colored silver.”
As a rule, George didn’t hit old ladies, though it was a rule for which he was momentarily inclined to try to find a loophole. He quickly went through the selection, plucking out ten or eleven of the rings.
“By the way, I don’t take credit cards,” the old lady said.
“You don’t?”
“Nope.”
“In the twenty-first century, in a store full of high-ticket items, you don’t take credit cards?”
“The credit card companies charge me service fees. Nobody ever got charged a service fee for cash.”
“Actually, ATM’s do usually charge a service fee for cash withdrawals. But that’s fine. I’m not going to tell you how to run your place.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“What else do you have in silver?”
The old woman looked around. “Over against that wall, there’s a silver mirror.”
“Good. Lou, go get that.” Lou nodded and went over to retrieve the mirror. “What else?”
“Well, let me see...are you Catholic?”
“We’re whatever religion worships silver.”
“I’ve got this,” said the woman, taking out a silver crucifix that was about six inches long.
George picked it up and examined it. “This Jesus kind of looks like Kenny Rogers.”
“Don’t blaspheme in my shop, please.”
“I apologize. I was just commenting on the fine production values here. How much?”
The lady thought for a moment. “Two hundred dollars.”
George looked at Michele. “Is that a good deal?”
“How should I know?”
“Don’t women know standard pricing on all precious metals?”
“Sorry, I don’t buy a lot of silver crucifixes.”
“Two hundred, deal,” said George, “under the condition that you never saw us. Plus we’ll take the mirror and all of the rings.”
“This mirror isn’t silver,” said Lou, scraping his fingernail along the edge. “It’s just painted.”
“Stop scraping my merchandise.”
“Forget the mirror,” said George. “But we’ll take all of the rings.”
“Must be one big wedding.”
“It is.”
“Is that thing real silver?” asked Lou, gesturing to a very small cross that dangled from a chain bracelet on her wrist. “I mean, more real than the mirror?”
“Yes, but it’s not for sale.”
George snorted. “It’s not for sale, or you’re going to charge us a lot for it?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“We’ll stick with the rest of the stuff, thanks.”
“No,” said Lou. “We’ll take it.”
The old woman shrugged, removed the bracelet, and handed it to Lou. Lou put it around his own wrist. George rolled his eyes.
“All right. Anything else you’re looking for?”
“Do you sell nets?”
“You mean like fishnet stockings?”
“No. God no. Like a big net that you could use to catch a...bear.”
“Sorry. There’s not a huge market for antique netting.”
“Thanks. Pay her, Lou.”
Lou held the briefcase with the sixty-three thousand dollars they’d taken from Douglas that morning. They’d decided that leaving it unattended in a van with a broken-out windshield was not the wisest course of action. Stealing from it was probably not the best way to keep their own thumbs unbroken, but they could replace the missing money before they handed over the briefcase, and considering the extreme circumstances it seemed perfectly justified.
Lou popped open the top of the briefcase, keeping the contents hidden from the old woman’s view. He snatched out a few bills then closed the briefcase.
“Are you involved in organized crime?” the old woman asked.
George nodded. “Knock twenty bucks off the price of the crucifix, and nothing happens to your business.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
More Prey
“Why’d you do that?” George asked, starting up the van.
<
br /> Michele was relatively certain that she knew what he was talking about. However, she didn’t want to accidentally confess to something else, so she feigned ignorance. “What?”
“You know.”
“Really, I don’t. And do we have time for guessing games?”
“You asked the old woman about the bathroom.”
“So? Am I not allowed to pee?”
George cracked his knuckles, one at a time. Next to her, Michele felt Lou’s leg muscles tighten, as if he were cringing. George drove away from the antique shop, looking extremely stern. He was good at it. “You were trying to escape.”
“Did you see the place we were in? Did it look like the kind of place to have a secret rear entrance? Let me give you Women 101, George: when we go into a store, we usually have to pee.”
“This guy Ricky, who sets up our jobs--he told me to lock you in the cage. I don’t want to do that. Right now, we can pretend that we’re business partners, but when you try something sneaky, it makes me feel that I need to take an extra level of precaution.”
“You don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Just needed to pee. I had to go before the dogs attacked.”
She was, of course, lying. The antique store might have had a back exit. If not, she would’ve used the opportunity to steal some kind of weapon. Unfortunately, George had kept her close during the shopping adventure, and she hadn’t been given the chance.
To be perfectly honest, the cage seemed like the safest place to be. If Ivan couldn’t get out, he probably couldn’t get back in, and Michele was very close to raising her hand and politely volunteering to be locked in there. It wouldn’t be that uncomfortable.
The problem, of course, would come when they met up with the other bad guys. If she seemed to be on relatively even ground with George and Lou, she might be able to still talk her way out of this. If she was locked in a cage while George and Lou introduced her...well, it was going to be difficult to sell the idea of them being newfound business associates.
She really did have to pee, though.
The positive side to this whole thing, and she did indeed feel that it was a positive side and not merely self-delusion, was that there was an incredible story here. If she survived the werewolf ordeal, she’d be on television twenty-four hours a day for at least the next week. Book rights. Movie rights. She’d donate a generous portion of her proceeds to the gas station attendant’s family, and perhaps to the families who’d tragically lost their household pets in the dog attack, but as long as she didn’t get killed and her injuries didn’t go much further than the slashed-up shoulder, the danger would be worth it.
That said, she’d still try to get the hell away from George and Lou, given the opportunity. She wasn’t crazy.
“We have a lot of problems right now,” said George. “Please don’t cause more for us.”
“I won’t.”
* * *
Ivan Spinner sat in a tree, feeling good about life. He hadn’t felt so good half an hour ago, when he climbed up this tree; in fact, he’d been pissed off and even a little ashamed. Why did he run away when that bozo Lou cut him? Yeah, it hurt, but he should have ripped Lou’s heart out, stuck it on the end of his talon, and licked it like a Tootsie Roll Pop. It would’ve been fine to murder Lou. That still left George as his plaything.
Of course, he couldn’t forget Michele. He had no ill feelings toward her, but he was certainly going to enjoy devouring her fine ass, even though he wasn’t really a cannibal. He’d be romantic about it. He’d tell her he loved her first.
He reached back and touched the cut. It felt almost healed. The one on his chest had faded to a red scratch. Both cuts still hurt, but that was typical--the wounds went away before the pain.
He wished he hadn’t been forced to reveal the full scope of his power. Unfortunately, though being a werewolf made his life much easier and a lot more fun and was quite honestly absolutely fucking fantastic, it did not allow him to bend bars. He’d been a little worried--not too much, but a little--that George and Lou would take him all the way to Tampa without giving him a chance to escape. Ivan didn’t know much about Mr. Dewey and his crew, and though he was relatively certain that he could’ve gotten away even after George and Lou made their delivery, it was much better to be on the loose here.
He wondered if the werewolf element had made it into the news, or if they thought it was just a regular old human serial killer who’d cut up Diane. He loved the idea of some hillbilly being interviewed: “Why, I saw it, and that thing, it was half-man and half-beast! I ain’t done seen nothin’ like it in my life, even when I’ve sucked down a couple quarts of my county-famous moonshine!”
Ivan climbed down from the tree. Logically, he knew that he should make a run for it and move to another part of the world--again--but what was the point of being a werewolf if you couldn’t terrorize people? George had probably dropped a great big loaf in his oversized underwear, but Ivan hadn’t come close to being satisfied with the thug’s comeuppance.
He’d loved George’s expression when he slid that blade through Diane’s silky neck. Fifty percent horror, fifty percent guilt, mixed into a delicious concoction of misery. George was sitting in that van right now, wailing “It was all my fault! It was all my fault!”
Yeah, George, it sure as hell was.
And this whole killing spree is going to be your fault, too.
Ivan’s shirt had fallen off completely, though his pants had held up fairly well thanks to the elastic waist. He could probably break into somebody’s house and steal a change of clothing without too much trouble, but, no, it felt like the kind of afternoon where he should murder somebody just for their clothes.
Murder them slowly.
Make them die a lingering, horrible, excruciatingly painful death simply because they wore the same size shirt as him.
He sat down next to the tree. It was a pretty desolate piece of road, but three cars had driven by while he was up there, so another one was bound to approach before too much longer.
He wondered if any of his four-legged friends were around. He closed his eyes and put out the call. Nothing heavy-duty like before; just a mild little dog-call to see if any showed up.
Ivan didn’t have the slightest idea how this power worked, whether he was sending out some frequency that only dogs could hear, or if one of George’s guesses was right and it had something to do with his scent, or if he could control dog brain waves, or whatever. Unlike the transformations, which he’d mastered in a ridiculously short timeframe--okay, eight years, but that was damn good for a werewolf, since most of them never learned to control it--he still hadn’t quite figured out the whole dog thing. It was sort of like being able to move a pencil with his mind, except that he didn’t know if the pencil was going to roll across the table or twirl up into the air and poke out somebody’s eye.
He sat there for about five minutes until a small gray Schnauzer walked along the side of the road toward him. No collar. He wondered if it was a stray.
He heard the engine of an approaching car. Sometimes, things just worked out perfectly.
The dog looked at him and let out a sharp bark.
“Fuck you,” he told it. He continued to concentrate.
The dog walked into the middle of the road and began to happily move in the direction of the oncoming car.
Poor, poor doggie. Ivan chuckled as the dog, its tongue hanging partly out of its mouth like a complete moron, trotted along toward its doom. I think I’ll name you...Roadkill.
The car, a white sedan, came around the corner. The driver swerved at the last instant, missing the Schnauzer by the length of its stubby tail, and then careened off the road.
The dog ran off.
Well, shit. He’d hoped to see the dog get creamed and to disable the vehicle. Oh well.
Ivan stood up, jogged over to the car, and opened the passenger-side door. The driver, a bald man who was too young to be naturally
bald, seemed shaken up but not hurt. He’d been wearing his seatbelt. Smart lad.
“You okay?” Ivan asked.
“Yeah...stupid dog ran right in front of me...” The man sounded kind of dazed. That wasn’t any good. Ivan wanted him fully aware of what was about to happen.
“Did you injure yourself?” Ivan asked. “Do you need me to seek the services of a medical professional? If you have one of those new cellular phone devices, I could probably call for assistance.” He climbed into the car next to the man, who looked shocked at both Ivan’s shredded pants and the fact that he was getting into the car uninvited.
“I don’t need--”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ivan told him, pulling the door shut. He gave him a wide smile, revealing his werewolf teeth. “Spooooooky, huh?”
The man immediately reached for his door handle. Ivan decided to go half-werewolf. The one bitch he had about his lycanthropy was that he couldn’t talk as a wolfman, so he went for the not-quite-as-hairy, not-quite-as-muscular, but still clearly wolfish and scary look. It was actually kind of demonic.
The man screamed.
Ivan laughed at him, a low, sexy growl of a laugh that the ladies found ever so alluring. Then he showed him his claws. “You try to leave this car and these are going right into you.”
The man kept screaming, so Ivan said it again, louder. Then he raked his claws across the man’s chest. “Shut up!”
“Oh, God, please don’t hurt me!”
“I just did hurt you, dumb-ass. Do you like your head?”
“What?”
“I said, do you like your head? It’s not a challenging question. Yes or no. Do. You. Like. Your. Head?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t make me rip it off and drink from it like a juice box, all right? What size shirt do you wear?”
“A...a large.”
“I look better in a medium, but I prefer large for comfort, so that’ll work just fine. What’s your name?”
“What are you?”
“What the fuck do you think I am? A Martian? Come on, buddy; I know you’re scared, but think before you ask stupid questions. Now apologize to me for wasting my time.”
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