Chapter Twelve
Perry was still coming deep inside his friend. Sasha could tell by the way his eyeballs rolled up inside his skull. Truly, really, there is nothing sexier than a man in the throes of orgasm. Sasha just leaned back on her little rock ledge, thighs wide open, letting love course through her.
She knew it was just the endorphin rush that Rowan was so expert at giving her, but it certainly felt like it had an emotional component. Well, of course. Endorphins acted on the hypothalamus, releasing dopamine. It had always been her “feel good” drug of choice when she worked out or ran, or even as an analgesic when she’d hurt herself in some way. But to use it like this, no, she’d never dreamed of doing that!
Still, with Rowan’s sweaty manly torso plastered to her naked chest and his penis still throbbing deep inside her, she had to wonder. Am I in love with Rowan? She tested it out. “Rowan…love.”
He lifted his head slightly. “Yes?”
It felt good. It felt natural. And she had never felt such a rush of longing, affection, and…well, plain old love when she’d been with Colin. And she’d married him! She stroked Rowan’s prickly buzz cut. The strength of her affection—love—for Rowan was beginning to frighten her. She loved him more strongly than a man she had married, yet in a week from now he’d be back in DC, happy as a lark, stalking some other terrorist.
So instead, she said, “We should get back. It’s almost pitch dark now.”
“I’ve got a flashlight,” gasped Perry. He’d pulled out and staggered a few steps away, the weight of his duty belt dragging down his pants. “Whew! Holy hell!”
Sasha stroked the side of Rowan’s face. He was so handsome it almost hurt to look at him. “Leif is serving up some bangers and mash in the restaurant tonight. Wouldn’t that remind you of your—”
Something fell on Rowan from the overhang above. One second she was staring into Rowan’s baby blues, the next some enormous animal was on top of him, its claws dug into his back, snarling like a saber-toothed tiger.
It knocked Rowan face-first to the ground, roaring and trying to rip his shirt from his shoulders. But the detection dog was on it in a flash. These dogs were probably not trained in particular to attack, but Fubar knew when one of its own was under fire, for he launched himself at the hindquarters of the giant cat, ripping a giant chunk of…fabric?
“Ah!” bellowed the saber-toothed tiger, turning its attention instead to punching the poor dog in the head.
This gave Rowan enough room to flip onto his backside and pull his Glock from his shoulder holster. Instantly he covered the cringing Sasha with his body, and she only had a vague view of the puma rolling with the sniffer dog in one giant ball of snarls, spit, and limbs. Perry had pulled his Taser, not his pistol, but it was difficult for him to get a good connection on the “animal” due to the ferocity of the dog fight. Rowan must have had a similar problem, as he soon broke away from Sasha in order to circle the rolling ball of fur, fake or real, gripping his Glock in both hands. Sasha was fairly certain she heard a “god damn!” emanate from the feline creature.
Just as Sasha was certain Rowan was about to pop off the saber-toothed tiger, at least in the leg or something, the ball of teeth and limbs flew off the edge of the cliff. All three of them raced to the edge of the dune. Although Rowan put a hand on Sasha’s stomach and shouted, “Stay back!” she was able to see in the dim shadows the ball roll down the other side of the dune. The two combatants separated, and Rowan finally squeezed off a round into the—well, whatever it was.
It uttered an ungodly wail, the sound robbers in western movies made when falling off the edges of stagecoaches. The cry movie Indians made when shot off their horses. Then the cat got up to run on two legs, and Rowan plunged over the cliff to follow it.
“What the fuck!” cried Sasha. She didn’t often swear, but the situation was so far beyond anything reasonable she had experienced in years. It just came out of her. “What the fuck was that, Perry? Have you ever seen anything like that?”
Perry had replaced his Taser, and now stood with hands on hips. “No, never. Not until the Great Utah FurFest, that is.”
“So you agree, it is someone in a fursuit.”
“No doubt. Did you hear him say ‘god damn’?”
“Yes!”
“I also heard him say ‘get that thing off me!’” Perry whistled piercingly like a little boy without sticking his fingers in his mouth. “Fubar! Come, Fubar! Damn. Now I have to go get the dog. Did you see where it went?” Perry clicked on his flashlight and swept it over the dune below them, but the spotlight fell on nothing other than sagebrush.
“I’m coming with you. I’m not staying alone on this mesa. Who knows how many other deranged Furries have it out for Rowan.”
“I got the feeling it was jealousy, Sasha. He singled out Rowan. Notice how he didn’t attack me. I think that was our man, our Dickhead.” Again, he whistled, hurting Sasha’s ear. But maybe the report of Rowan’s massive Glock had already made her ear ring. “Fubar!”
“Crap,” said Sasha, grabbing Perry’s arm. “Someone just pulled up behind your truck, down on the road.”
“Shit,” Perry agreed.
He pivoted on one foot for awhile, unsure of which way to go. But the fellow in the truck behind Perry’s got out and started chanting at the top of his lungs in a foreign language. It was a rapid ululation that filled the surrounding air with trills. Perry’s question was apparently answered, for he grabbed Sasha’s arm.
“Come on.”
They raced down the sand dune, sliding and surfing more than running, making great avalanches of still-warm sand. The fellow behind Perry’s truck, who Sasha assumed by now was a Navajo fellow, waved his arms in a symbolic pattern, ululating the crap out of his mystical song. It could not be a coincidence that Rowan had been attacked by some maniac wearing a Puss in Boots costume, and this Navajo was now wandering around hysterically with a mountain lion attached to his back. His only other clothing was a pair of cowboy boots. When Perry shined the light on his face he protected himself with his hands, shying away as though the light was painful.
“Sir!” called Perry. “Department of Wildlife Resources! What can we do for you?”
But just then another truck roared by, weaving groggily over the line in the center of the road. In the brief glimpse Sasha had when Perry shone his powerful light on the driver, it did look possible it was their culprit. He had obviously taken off his Garfield the Cat head, but his shoulders did look furry as he furiously sped away.
“Wah dineh mahoke!” shrieked the Navajo, or something similar.
“He’s not a real mountain lion. His eyes aren’t glowing red. Just another native on psilocybin shrooms,” Perry told Sasha. “Happens all the time.” He was probably the guy seen carrying “bomb parts” from a cave. The bomb the citizen had seen was probably a bong.
Sasha opined, “Perhaps the story of the glowing red eyes came about due to the dilation of the eyes. When a photograph is taken, his eyes would appear as red balls.”
“Sir, what is the problem?”
The skin-walker slapped his thighs in frustration and spoke with a perfect American accent. He couldn’t have been over forty, yet he was obviously in thrall to some timeless traditional ceremony. He reminded Sasha of films she’d seen of people who claimed to have seen aliens land—and she turned out not to be far from the truth.
“I was over there by Secret Ravine just minding my own business. Not done shape-shifting yet, sort of having a hard time of it tonight due to planetary interference. So I got back into my truck and started driving toward the state route here, when bam! My truck was completely attacked by another skin-walker!”
Perry frowned. He was now politely directing the beam of his light down at the cowboy boots. “Does that happen often? You’re attacked by a fellow skin-walker?”
“Never! Only, once one came to my bedroom window and peered in with the face of a coyote. But I think he was only watching me ha
ve sex with my wife. Never has another one attacked my truck so viciously! Look at the dents he left on the cab roof!”
Perry shined his light, and indeed it looked as though a man-sized thing had made several indentations. “He just jumped out of the sky onto your truck?”
Sasha knew that was impossible. The Dickhead had probably leaped from an overhanging cliff ledge, as he just had when jumping Rowan.
“Yes, out of the clear blue sky!” protested the skin-walker. “He was coming to steal my skin because his was so crappy. I was going about fifteen miles per hour, so he quickly rolled off and into the underbrush, and I never saw him again. But I wanted to warn you to beware! There is a vicious mountain lion flying about these skies. I heard a shot just now. Was that you?”
“Yes,” admitted Sasha. She knew she shouldn’t wrest control of the scene—it was, after all, Perry’s scene—but it was her habit, especially when people started spouting bizarre, supernatural stuff like this. “My—ah, my friend had to take a shot at it because it jumped him, too.”
The skin-walker held out hands like claws. “The only way you can really kill a skin-walker is by dipping bullets into white ash! I am surprised his weapon didn’t jam. It is possible his bullet had no effect, too. That happens when someone’s pistol doesn’t jam.”
“Now, listen here,” said Perry. “I don’t want people randomly running around shooting at anything they believe to be a skin-walker. My friend is a professional, and that thing that attacked him was likely more dressed as Garfield the Cat than doing any serious skin-walking.”
“It did look like Garfield,” said Sasha. “Besides, we think we know who this person is. We have no idea why he’d be jumping your truck—”
“Maybe he thought it was mine,” Perry pointed out.
“—but we think he jumped us because he’s become pretty twisted in the head.” She was explaining this to a naked man wearing the full body skin of a mountain lion.
“What is his name?” asked the mountain lion.
Sasha knew she wasn’t supposed to give out that information. “What does it matter?”
“If I know who is behind that skin-walker, I can pronounce his full name. A few days from now, he will die from the wrongs he’s done to us.”
“Really?” Sasha was intrigued. She knew it was a lot of superstitious hooey, but she also believed in the power of the mind. There was mounting evidence that religious people were healthier than people who did not pray, and Sasha had always been intrigued by the power of positive thinking. “This man has done many wrongs to many people. Perry, give this man your business card. Call Officer Donovan here if you ever see that skin-walker again.” Sean Hinton, Sean Hinton, she thought over and over, because she also believed in mind-reading. Who knew? Maybe this mountain lion had spiritual powers.
“Do you know anything about a cave?” Perry asked as he handed the big cat his business card. “Someone said they saw our subject coming out of a cave with, like, mechanical parts in his hands.”
“Rowan!” When Sasha saw the vague form of Rowan jogging down the dune, she skipped over to meet him. The dog Fubar, although it belonged to Perry’s Department of Wildlife, sat at Rowan’s feet, obedient. “Are you all right? Did you see The Dickhead?”
Rowan exhaled mightily, running a hand over his closely-shaven skull. His scent of fresh sweat imbued her nostrils and seemed to go straight to her pussy, beginning the cycle of arousal all over again. Damn you, pheromones. Go away. We’re busy here.
“I never found it, and the next thing I knew a pickup was tearing down the highway. Did you see it? Get plates?”
Sasha was ashamed to realize it hadn’t occurred to her to get plates on the pickup. “No, but it was a late model, dark, king cab. Do you think you hit him when you shot? What’s that you’ve got?”
“Impossible to tell. The speed with which he got away leads me to believe I didn’t even hit him. Fuck!”
Rowan tossed the round object angrily against the ground, where it bounced a few times before coming to rest against Perry’s tire. Sasha immediately clung to him like a heroine in distress, but immediately she only felt as though she were annoying him. “Rowan, love, don’t take it out on yourself. Fubar here was wrestling him over the edge of the sand dune and you didn’t want to risk hitting the dog. It’s commendable that you refrained from nabbing your culprit just to protect the dog.”
Rowan exploded. “I refrained from nabbing him because I was too slow on the uptake! What if it was a real mountain lion that had pounced on me? I’d be dead right now, that’s what! I’m just lucky it was some crazed fucking bomber and they don’t usually carry firearms! Who is Fubar?” He gestured at the poor Navajo, now shivering under his mountain lion costume. “This half-assed moron hiding under this moldy bobcat’s skin? Listen, Fubar, unless you have any kind of hard fucking evidence, we don’t want to look at your mildewed mug.”
“This was his head,” the skin-walker said with awe, going for the round thing by Perry’s tire.
Perry explained to Rowan, “This guy was attacked by The Dickhead, too. The truck that roared past us didn’t even have any plates, so there’s a good tip right there. Looked like a Dodge Ram.”
“Is this the head of a dick?” The skin-walker held the round head between his hands as though it was a crystal ball. The beam of Perry’s flashlight danced over the shiny black plastic eyes. The true eye-holes were small compared to the plastic pupils.
“Looks more like Garfield, with the black stripes,” Perry suggested. “There’s another good tip right there. Some guy running around missing his Garfield head. Shouldn’t be hard to find in the middle of the desert.”
But Rowan would not be placated. “I was just bragging to Sasha that I was a hundred percent convinced I’d nail that bastard within the week.” His frustration seemed to seep from his very pores as he threaded his hands together and placed them atop his head, perhaps to prevent himself from punching Garfield’s head. He walked in little circles, and Sasha slowed him down by clutching his bicep and steering him to the truck.
He practically slammed himself against the truck. She saw the muscles in his jaw clenching. “Listen,” she said soothingly. But he was looking into the distance at the dune. “You were busy protecting me. You didn’t know what that thing was—a banshee, a bouda, or a dybbuk, for all you knew. Perry was doing the same thing, but he only took out his Taser.”
“Perry is trained to use lethal force only as a last viable option,” said Rowan between clenched teeth. “For us it’s one of the first options.”
Sasha doubted that was part of Rowan’s military code of conduct, but she knew he was blinded by rage at himself. It struck her that he wouldn’t even be chasing this Dickhead around McQueen Valley if it wasn’t for his baseless devotion to her. Perhaps he felt guilty at having “allowed” Jane to die in his arms, so he wanted to make it up to Sasha. If his bosses had their way, he would’ve been off on the trail of the next berserker who decided to put C-4 under someone’s doormat.
Was that the only reason he seemed so devoted to her—guilt at Jane’s death? Sasha certainly didn’t want anyone hanging around her like a bodyguard out of a sense of guilt. Rowan most certainly had not been responsible in any way for Jane’s death. The Dickhead had only pinged on his electronic divining rod a few seconds before Jane had been fatally brained. Now she could not console him, or convince him not to beat himself up over “letting” El Zeub escape. He was doing all of this out of a sense of obligation to her, not a sense of love.
Sasha’s love for Rowan had been frightening her, it was so powerful. She had been on the brink of saying the dreaded “L” word to Rowan when they’d been making love. Oh, yeah, that would’ve looked great. So glad I didn’t do that. She had never come across as needy in her life, and she wasn’t about to start! A brief hookup was fine—at least, that’s what the media seemed to have been telling her—and great for her endorphins, but this would have to come to an end sooner rather tha
n later. She had Brooke’s wedding to prepare for, then the underwater CSI symposium to attend. She could not be running around mooning over any Irish assassin. Her friends at the Academy of Forensic Sciences would question whether she was in love, or doing research.
So she put a soothing hand on his arm, like one would to a brother. “You’ll catch him. It shouldn’t be hard when we know what he looks like and he’s running around in a truck with no plates wearing half a Garfield costume.”
Rowan wasn’t in a laughing mood. “Sure, I’ll catch him. The dead giveaway will be the Snoopy costume. Hey, hey,” he yelled at the skin-walker. “Watch it with that head. That’s evidence.”
She had been trying to act tough and slutty, but inside she was the same prim and proper doctor she had always been. What was I thinking? Thank God I used condoms. Sure, she might be in love with Rowan O’Shea, and possibly even the boy next door, Officer Donovan. But did that mean she had to run around acting like a chicken with its head cut off?
“All right, now,” Perry was saying to the Navajo as he took the giant cat’s head from him. “Do you think your powers have returned? If you can shift into a mountain lion you can escape from this guy.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rowan relaxed into the enthusiastic and well-intentioned cocksucking.
He was bitter and angry—emotions that were familiar enough to him. He was channeling these powerful feelings through sex—another activity he was accustomed to.
That’s what he didn’t like. He prided himself on doing new things, on adventuring boldly into new territories and situations. That had excited him about Sasha McQueen. He had probably just imagined he was in love with her because she was a medical doctor of high standing, and that was something new. Sure, he had fucked more than a handful of politicians’ wives in his time while guarding them, but Sasha had felt completely fresh. Maybe it was her innocence, the fastidious and upright demeanor he wanted to strip away. It certainly had been the best fuck of his life, penetrating her against that boulder while she cried and wailed for it.
The Grass Is Greener [McQueen Was My Valley 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 13