“It’s okay,” Josh said. “Go home. We’ll ride back with Caine.”
“You’re sure?” Her voice sounded troubled as she hugged herself, needing to do something with her hands.
Josh smiled at her. “Yeah, go on. We have to take special care now to keep you safe.”
We do? Am I missing something?
She returned to her VW, driving away. We started up the road. I didn’t see sentries, but knew they were around. Wolves are as paranoid as they are arrogant. Besides, they couldn’t be too secure without an Alpha around to tell them what to do. You get used to things like that: pack mentality. As we neared the two cabins, their doors opened. A thin man with heavy stubble and bushy eyebrows moved to the edge of the porch on the right. A woman with wide hips and small breasts came out of the cabin on the left. They studied us all, but their eyes remained on Josh. From the tension in their lean, starved-looking bodies, they might have been waiting for the end of the world.
Josh offered them a pleasant nod in greeting. “Who’s running things now?”
The female wolf ignored the question, saying, “No one here wants to see you.”
“This isn’t my show.” Josh jerked his head my way. “This is Caine Deathwalker. He’s here to speak on behalf of the L.A. Courts.”
The male wolf stepped down off his porch, his gaze coming back to me, acquiring a bit more calculation. “And he needs a cat and a half-bat to feel safe?”
I sighed. “Too bad we can’t be intelligent about this. Apparently, I need to make an example out of someone.” Both my guns were in hand. I raised the one in my right and shot the male wolf in the balls. He grabbed himself and slammed his knees to the ground, screaming like he’d lost something important. Several more wolves came out from behind the cabins, looking mean and pissed, but happy to have something to play with. If I’d actually killed the wolf instead of giving him a flesh wound, they’d be coming in much faster, looking for blood.
I pointed my left gun at the woman. “We’re using silver ammo. The rest of you might want to think about that before irritating me.”
“We don’t have anyone in charge,” she said. “Not really. We got some bone-heads fighting it out, but until someone gets on top and stays there…” She shrugged.
Vivian took a few steps toward the female wolf. “How are they deciding things? Ritual combat, one challenger at a time?”
The wolf bitch nodded.
The wolf I’d shot was dragged away. The rest of the wolves spread out, a half-moon around us. One of them with red-tipped blond hair scowled at the female wolf. He said, “Marsha, shut up.”
She didn’t. “Standing around and beating your chest may feel good, but it comes with a hell of a price. Not cooperating with the liger got five wolves killed last time, including our old Alpha.”
The male wolf glared until she dropped her eyes. He said, “Doesn’t matter. Wolf business is for wolves.”
She shrugged and headed back inside her cabin, muttering over her shoulder, “Whatever.”
I pointed a gun at Red-tips. “You—take us to where the dominant wolves are fighting, or I’ll sic the liger on you.”
Josh raised his eyebrows at my statement, but didn’t contradict me.
Red-tips looked me over. “Who’d you say you were?”
Josh’s voice casually boomed out, “He’s the Red Moon Demon. I’d step lively if I were you. Cars everywhere fear him.”
Shoot one VW…
Red-tips looked doubtful. “Really, I thought you’d be taller. Well, you better be who you say, or it will go badly—for us both. I’ll just get beaten, but you? Well, the top three have been working up a hell of an appetite.” He pointed at Josh and Vivian. “You stay, but the bitch can come.”
“You know,” Josh sounded slightly whimsical, “there aren’t a lot of you wolves left. You don’t really want to get in my way.” He stared at the wolves.
One by one, they dropped their gazes. Josh headed between the cabins. No one tried to stop him.
He smiled to himself. “That’s what I thought.”
Taking point, Josh strolled ahead. I followed with Vivian at my right side, and took the opportunity for a closer look at the wolves escorting us. When a pack loses their Alpha, it hurts them all—there’s no core to their pack magic, no sense of stability to their ties—but these wolves took starved and dirty to a whole new level. They didn’t seem to notice my stare, keeping attention on Josh. Their eyes betrayed no fear, but I smelled its stink on the air. They were easily cowed, like puppies beaten into timidity.
Were I capable of mercy, I might have felt sorry for them.
THIRTEEN
Throw a wolf a bone and
he’ll take your hand too.
—Caine Deathwalker
We curved around a ranch house with stucco walls the color of butterscotch. The inside curtains were drawn, no sign of life. Oddly, our werewolf escort grew silent, scarcely seeming to breathe. None of them looked at the structure. The backs of a few of the wolves shuddered with the twitchiness that comes from a close threat.
Interesting.
A change of wind brought a charnel house smell—old, rotted blood, decomposing flesh. I gave Vivian a hard look, then shifted my eyes to the building, my way of saying we need to check that place out—discretely.
She nodded subtly.
Threading a grove of oak, she slid around a tree bole and vanished in a moment when only I watched her. As we broke between two natural columns of white-gray granite, one of the wolves noticed her absence.
“Where’s the dhampyr?” he asked.
“She stopped to take a piss,” I said. “She’ll catch up soon.”
“I should go find her,” the submissive wolf said.
I smiled. “Yeah, you go do that. Walk up on a high-strung dhampyr with her drawers around her feet. Startle someone whose guns are loaded with silver ammo. That’s real smart.”
Another wolf told him, “It’s just a bitch. Forget about her.”
The wolf growled annoyance, but dropped the issue, staying with Josh and me, and the rest of the wolves. The misogynistic attitude didn’t surprise me. While European wolf packs were matriarchal, the American ones were patriarchal. They had dominant females among the higher males, but they were skilled warriors who’d fought for respect, claw and fang. Having pumped iron and learned martial arts in their human form hadn’t hurt.
We broke into the open and walked over to the edge of a depression too shallow to be called a pit, though it had a coliseum feel. The far lip had a shell of rock along it. Our side had a couple more pillars, pointed at the top like fangs sticking out of the ground. Down in the flat center of the bowl were four wolves. One was on his knees, off to the side. His neck was mending from a terrible wound. We seemed to have arrived during an intermission.
Josh noticed the injured wolf. “He’s out of the running. Looks like he had to offer his throat in submission to stay alive.”
Red-tips nodded. “It’s the way of the challenge. The defeated wolf must yield or die.” He pointed at the center wolf among those standing. “That’s our shaman. He isn’t fighting to lead the pack, more like a referee.”
“What happens in case of a draw?” I asked.
Red-tips answered after a long pause, “The shaman gets to kill the one he thinks is weakest.”
I huffed something close to a laugh. “I wouldn’t mind that job.”
“Trust me,” Josh said. “Killing gets old fast. The worst part is when they beg for their lives. I mean, I believe in the milk of human kindness, when appropriate, but wolves tend to be too stupid to learn from their mistakes, not like natural wolves at all. There are times when mercy is simply pointless.”
“I’m right here, you know?” Red-tips growled under his breath. “C’mon, let’s get this over with.”
The forty-foot basin sloped gently to its center, covered in a dry brown grass that needed watering with something other than blood. We kicked over an occasion
al skull on the way down, crunching assorted bones underfoot. The two contending wolves looked up at our approach. Both were bare-chested and in human form, but with claws and wolf teeth in evidence, faces twisted and bestial. They took in the liger and froze, eyes flooding with golden rage. The tension in their bodies doubled. I smelled adrenaline hitting their system as we stopped a few feet away.
The air also reeked of pack magic, strongest around the shaman. He gave no sign he was worried about anything. His human face displayed only mild curiosity with the slight lifting of his brows. He wore torn jeans, boots, and a black, sun-faded Metallica tee shirt. His long brown hair fanned behind him. The only mystic items I saw on him were a copper wristband with crossed eagle feathers made of turquoise, and a necklace of teeth, wolf teeth. His facial features didn’t look Native American, but a lot of Indian blood was thinner these days.
Unlike the other waiting wolves, the shaman’s stare was fixed on me. I figured he was sensing the dormant dragon magic of my tattoos. He’d know I was a special threat the others might overlook. “Why have you come uninvited into one of our most sacred ceremonies?”
I started to answer, but paused, noticing that when he spoke the bone splinters in the grass vibrated, giving off a soft whirr. Yeah, this guy is for real. “I may not have an invitation, but I do have a get-outta-jail card. Here…” Slowly—not wanting to provoke an attack—I drew a crumpled envelope from my side coat pocket and held it out.
He smiled. “If that’s a court summons from my ex-wife, no thanks.”
The bigger contender for Alpha stood over by Josh. The wolf’s baleful glower caught Red-tips. “You know better than to bring them here. I will speak to you about this later.”
The other contender, a man with dirty blond hair and mean eyes, interrupted. “I will speak to him later, once I’ve been confirmed as the new Alpha.”
In my mind, I nicknamed the first contender Big Stupid. He laughed without amusement. “That is not going to happen.”
I continued to hold out the envelope. “I’d read it if I were you. It’s from your Fenris.” The title brought a shocked silence. “Whoever becomes Alpha here will still answer to Achill.”
Red-tips brightened. I’d just proven myself to be here on wolf business. Our submissive escort was off the meat hook, so to speak.
Mean Eyes reached out to snatch the envelope.
The shaman smacked his paw away and took the letter. He opened it and read silently.
Big Stupid frowned at the shaman. “Well?”
“The letter identifies its bearer as a personal friend, one Caine Deathwalker, also known as the Red Moon Demon. We are instructed to render him ‘all assistance.’” The shaman folded the letter and stuffed it back in the envelope. He looked at me. “I will, of course, have to authenticate this.”
I nodded. “I would.”
Big Stupid was glaring at Josh now. “I suppose the liger is with you?”
“Yeah, but I’m the one you ought to worry about.”
Josh looked at me, lips twitching with humor. “You think highly of yourself.”
“Nobody I love more,” I said.
The shaman spoke and the bones in the grass rattled in a threatening manner, “We’ll be in touch. Meanwhile, if you’ll leave, we have business to wrap up.”
I took the hint, backing away.
Josh paused another moment. “I don’t care who your next Alpha is. Walk softly around my cats, and I’ll walk softly around you. That’s all I came here to say.”
The shaman nodded curtly. “I wasn’t here when our wolves took your woman, and you ripped out the heart of our Alpha getting her back. I’d have done the same, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let you get away with it again.”
Big Stupid grinned in an evil sort of way. “Liger, you did me a favor, opening up a position for me to move into, but don’t expect gratitude.”
Showing no fear, Josh turned his back on the wolves and followed me up the bank. He spoke over his shoulder, “Where you’re concerned, my expectations are real low.”
As we crested the depression, snarls broke out behind us. We turned to see who’d win. Big Stupid leaped, coming down with his heavier body, but Mean Eyes pivoted, sliding away. Not too far away. His claws lashed out and red, dripping furrows appeared, winding around Stupid’s torso.
Stupid lashed out with a back hand that almost spun Mean Eye’s head clean off. I winced in mock sympathy. Mean Eyes spun with the blow, borrowing its energy for a back-fist of his own. Stupid’s head rocked, a ribbon of red blood flying from his split lips. The two wolves closed, tearing chunks from each other. Even with the werewolves’ rapid healing, this wasn’t going to drag on much longer.
Big Stupid stumbled and fell.
With a shout of triumph, Mean Eyes pounced. Only to impale himself on a splintered piece of thigh bone.
Big Stupid twisted his improvised knife, and ripped it upward to widen the wound.
Despite what had to be horrible pain, Mean Eyes gestured with clawed fingers. Wolfen pack magic in the air made my tats tingle, without quite coming awake. The bone exploded in Big Stupid’s hand like a grenade. In that moment of distraction, Mean Eyes completed his change to full wolf form. Such a thing normally takes minutes. For it to happen so quickly meant that Mean Eyes had wrested the pack magic to himself, leaving nothing for Big Stupid to use.
A wave of crushing power rolled off Mean Eyes.
The shaman dropped to his knees and bowed in submission.
Big Stupid resisted, fighting to advance against the unseen current. The pack magic wrapped around Stupid, crushing his arms to his side, driving his face into the ground. Mean Eyes leaped and bit the fallen man’s neck, severing vertebrae with a loud crunch. Bigger than a normal wolf, Mean Eyes used his grip to whip his opponent over. The transformed wolf stared, nothing more, but Big Stupid’s choking breaths stopped. His eyes clouded in death, going dull. The only thing that made sense to me was that Mean Eyes had used pack magic to keep the fallen wolf from healing, opening the door to death.
“Well, I guess that settles that,” Josh said. “Now we know who we’ll be dealing with.”
“Saw it coming,” I said. “It’s always the small ones you have to watch out for.”
Josh looked me over. “I’ll remember that.”
Red-Tips had watched beside us. He turned to us now. “You guys ready to go, or what?”
“Sure, I can use a drink.” As we headed back into the oak, I shot Josh a sidelong glance. “Know a good place?”
“The Zone,” he said. “A lot of shape-shifters hang there. Good food.”
We retraced our path back past the ranch house. Vivian was waiting out in the open for us. Her clothes now stank of old death. She’d been inside the house. From the white, tight look of her face, I figured she had hella bad news to tell us. She fell in as we went by with our escort. At one point she started to say something.
I held up a hand. “Later.” The wolves had heightened senses. They already knew where she’d been. What they didn’t know was what conclusions she’d drawn, and what we’d do next. I wanted to keep things that way for a while.
She nodded.
We passed the two cabins, and went on without the wolves around us. The female wolf from the cabin was back outside on her porch. I caught her eyes as we went by. They were dark with knowledge, full of secrets she didn’t want. Vivian’s eyes were like that now. Something very bad was going on, something I wouldn’t like. I’d have to come back later, alone, under magical concealment to check this out in more detail.
I really do need a drink.
I stopped by the Jag sedan I’d come in. Josh started toward the back passenger door. I stopped him with a hand in his path, turning my head to Vivian. “Someone may have messed with it while we were gone. None of us are without enemies.”
Josh gave me a knowing look. “Bomb.”
I shrugged. “Maybe, they didn’t know we were coming and haven’t had time to get too fancy,
but even cut brakes would be a problem.”
Vivian said, “I’ll check it out.”
“Wait.” I invited a moment of intense, soul-searing agony, activating my Dragon Sight tattoo. My mind flared with heightened clarity, my senses on overdrive. Nothing felt wrong except… There was something under the car that radiated an amber feeling of threat, but not outright danger. I told Vivian where to look, as I stared back toward the two cabins. All the wolves were gone, but I knew they were still watching, listening. Vivian took her time, doing a thorough search under the car, checking the brakes and fuel lines. She finished up, brushing her knees off, and returned to me.
She held out a small black box with a blinking red LED on it. “This was under the back bumper.”
Josh studied it. “Transmitter. Someone wants to know where you go while in town.”
“The wolves?” Vivian said.
I shrugged again. “Can’t say for sure; the car is borrowed. Someone might have been keeping track of Mason.” I moved to the driver’s door and opened it. “C’mon, let’s go.”
“Where,” Vivian opened the door behind the driver. Josh circled to the other side. We all slid in, slamming our doors. I turned on the radio to make it difficult for the wolves around here to hear us.
I said, “This is no good. It’s been over an hour since my last drink.”
“Oh, heavens,” Vivian said, “the world just might end.”
I slipped the transmitter in a pocket. Might be fun to see who shows up following this bad boy around.
FOURTEEN
I don’t mind being dead drunk,
but I draw the line at dead.
—Caine Deathwalker
Intent on hooking up with the werekitties, Kat headed off in her VW bug. Vivian, Josh and I drove to Old Sac where we treaded the dusty boardwalks with shoppers and tourists from the outer reaches of the Sacramento area. A couple blocks from the waterfront with the riverboats and the fancier restaurants, the crowds thinned quite a bit.
Soft-voiced, Vivian said, “I can’t get over that house. All those street people drained of blood, dumped like emptied juice boxes. It wasn’t the wolves. They’d have eaten the flesh. And no scent from the killer or killers on the bodies—”
Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2) Page 10