Several people in the basement turned in his direction, and an Asian woman pointed at him. “Look!”
Carl lowered the camera and made eye contact with the woman, then he leapt to his feet and fled. As he neared the corner of the building, a high-pitched howling from the basement made the frigid night air seem even icier. Feet pounded the walkway behind him. Carl sprinted across the front lawn and through the gate and slammed it shut with a clanging sound. He glimpsed the sentry from the other side of the building racing toward him, and he charged across the street to his parked car. The gate opened behind him.
Carl ran faster, knowing he would have a hard time stopping. Footsteps pummeled the pavement behind him. He crashed into the car, jerked out his keys, and unlocked the door. His pursuer bore down on him. With his heart pounding, Carl opened the door and left it jutting out at an angle as he jumped into the car. The sentry rammed into the open door and rebounded off it with a howl of pain. Carl shut the door, then activated the locks. The sentry lunged at the window, his face only a foot away, and Carl stared into the man’s eyes. The irises expanded, blotting out the whites, and as the man roared his teeth elongated.
Carl jammed his key into the ignition and turned it just as the sentry pounded on the glass, shattering it. Pieces of glass flew around Carl, who shifted the car into Drive. A clawed hand groped the front of his coat. Groaning, Carl stomped on the gas pedal, and the car lurched forward. The sentry clung to him.
As he drove across the street at a forty-five-degree angle, a growl caused him to look to his left. A lupine face surrounded by tufts of black fur snarled at him, lips peeling back to reveal deadly teeth. Carl screamed, and a moment later he plowed into a parked sedan, triggering the vehicle’s alarm. The impact hurled the sentry headfirst into the sedan, and Carl slammed into the steering wheel.
Without waiting to see if the beast had been killed, Carl backed the rental car up, then twisted the steering wheel in the opposite direction and stomped on the gas, rocketing the car forward. He heard a wet-sounding bark, then nothing but the alarm behind him. Ahead, the light changed from yellow to red. Ignoring it, he raced into the intersection and peeled left toward Manhattan.
“Look!”
Gabriel released Raphael and shoved him back. Turning, he saw Anne Wong pointing at the window across the basement. A man holding a video camera peered inside. Then he disappeared.
Raphael collided with Gabriel, knocking him to the floor. Raphael snapped his jaws at Gabriel, who forced his head back. Gabriel unleashed a howl, alerting the guards of danger.
George pulled Raphael off him. “Stop it,” he said, then Bennett and Elias got into the middle of the fight as well. “We have bigger problems than who’s alpha.”
Gasping for breath, Gabriel transformed into his human form. “Everyone, get out!”
The council members ran for the door.
Gabriel stared at Raphael, who remained in Wolf Form.
“We have to leave,” Elias said.
With hatred still blazing in his eyes, Raphael turned human.
Micah handed Gabriel his shoes, which he had removed in the hall, and Gabriel sat on a chair and pulled them on.
“This isn’t over,” Raphael said, plucking a clump of fur from his mouth.
“You’re wrong,” Gabriel said. “It’s all over. We have to make a new beginning. You and I need to work together, not against each other.”
Elias gave Raphael’s shoes to him, and Raphael put them on.
“You’re going to ruin everything we’ve built,” Raphael said.
Gabriel stood. “The house is already coming down around our ears.”
Raphael took his coat from Elias. “I’ll be in touch.” He strode from the building, followed by Elias and Eddie.
Bennett handed Gabriel his coat.
“Outside,” Gabriel said.
They hurried into the hallway and up the stairs to the side entrance to the building. Out front, they stood shoulder to shoulder with a handful of council members who remained on the sidewalk while cars drove away. A car alarm blared to their left.
Renny, the sentry, limped forward in human form, clutching his shoes. “I was too late. He got away.”
Gabriel scanned the windows of the buildings around them. Silhouettes gazed down at them.
“We all need to get out of here now,” Gabriel said.
Nineteen
Carl weaved between cars as he raced into Manhattan. Adrenaline caused his arms and legs to shake, and he squeezed the steering wheel.
“Werewolves,” he said over and over. “They’re all werewolves!”
And he had seen one up close. It had almost killed him. He wished he had videotaped the sentry’s attack on him, but he knew that if he had, he probably wouldn’t be alive now. He found it impossible to shake the image of its long teeth.
What about the Lourdeses and the Wilsons? Detective Williams? His mind raced faster than the rental car. There was still so much to figure out, but he didn’t intend to wait to connect all the dots. He had waited too long with his background on the Brotherhood of Torquemada and had been burned because of it.
Twenty minutes later, he found a parking space in front of his building and got out. Inspecting the car for damage, he grimaced at the dents and scratches in its front. A small price to pay for glory. For the first time in his life, he felt like a real journalist.
Carl entered his building and ignored his mailbox. Inside his apartment, he turned on the lights, peeled off his coat, and sat at his computer. He removed the memory card from his camcorder and inserted it into a port on his laptop. As the footage downloaded, he took out his phone and searched for a number. When he didn’t find it, he brought up the website for Manhattan Minute News and went to the contacts page, then he keyed in the number he found.
“Manhattan Minute News desk,” a woman said.
“I need to speak to Colleen Wanglund. Tell her it’s Carl Rice and it’s important.”
“Just a moment, please. I’ll see if she’s left for the day.”
Elevator music replaced her voice. Drumming his fingers on his desk, Carl watched the progress bar for the download.
“Hello?” Colleen said. Her monotone dampened his excitement. They had attended Columbia and had worked on the Columbia Spectator together before following related career paths. He considered her a colleague, and it hurt to realize she didn’t hold him in the same regard.
“I’ve got something big for you,” he said.
“Do you know how many times a week I hear that?”
“I’m talking earthshaking this-episode-changes-everything news—the story of a lifetime.”
Colleen sighed, and he knew she intended for him to hear that. “What have you got?”
“Not over the phone.”
“I was just getting ready to leave for the night. I’ll be in tomorrow morning at seven.”
The Post had already screwed him; Carl didn’t plan to take another chance. “That won’t do, darling. If you don’t air this story tonight, we’ll both be sorry. But if you do, we’ll make beautiful history together.”
Silence.
“How soon can you get here?”
Carl glanced at the progress bar for the download again. “Forty minutes.”
“I intend to be drinking hard liquor in thirty.”
“What are you in the mood for? I’ll bring it.”
“Scotch.”
“It’s a deal. Sit tight.” He ended the call, then sprang to his feet and pumped both fists. “Hell, yes, baby!”
Rhonda’s bedroom door whispered open because she had oiled its hinges and those of the front door earlier in the day while Karol was at work.
It’s not my bedroom, and this isn’t my apartment, she told herself. It was as much of a prison to her as her cell in the Brotherhood’s Newark base. She had no home.
She took a deep breath, then stepped into the hall and waited. Gazing at Karol’s bedroom door, she counted sixty seconds before
reaching behind her and shutting the door. She counted to sixty again, waiting to see if she had awakened Karol, then tiptoed through the dark apartment in her socks. She wore her coat and carried her sneakers.
Rhonda took her time unlocking the front door, then slipped into the building’s hallway, deserted and quiet except for the buzzing of the fluorescent lights. She shut the door, wincing as metal rubbed against metal, then locked the door and ran to the emergency stairway. She hurried down two flights of gray concrete before she sat on a landing and put on her sneakers.
Outside, Rhonda breathed in fresh air and ignored the three teenage thugs who loitered near the door, smoking cigarettes and laughing. One of them wore a Taft High School jacket. She glanced in their direction, and they turned quiet. Maybe they knew she stayed with Karol, or maybe their instincts warned them not to mess with her. She didn’t care.
When she reached the sidewalk, a police car cruised by her. She didn’t care about that, either. Nor did she give a damn about the gang hanging out in front of the bodega across the street. Not a single person dwelling in the night summoned her fear or interest. She liked being outside, away from her temporary prison.
Rhonda walked several blocks to the outskirts of Pelham Bay Park, then followed the chain-link fence separating the garage from the field and the wrecking yard behind it. The Doberman yelped at her from a distance, too frightened to approach the fence. She smiled.
In the wrecking yard, she navigated her way through the corridors of twisted metal, moonlight glinting on the surface of the decaying vehicles that provided shelter from the wind. The city’s traffic sounds faded. Orange firelight flickered along the edges of a rusted van, and laughter reached Rhonda’s ears. Making no effort to conceal herself, she strode into the clearing where her teenage friends sat on seats taken from cars and arranged around their barrel furnace.
Friends. The word felt strange. She had never expected to have friends again.
“Look what the moon brought out,” Daniel said.
Raina stood first. “Bitch,” she said without animosity.
“Skank,” Rhonda said.
Raina returned to her seat.
T-Bone pulled on a joint. “You shouldn’t be out on a night like this. Gomez likes the full moon.”
“I don’t sweat him,” Rhonda said.
“He’s a big, bad werewolf.”
“I don’t believe in werewolves.”
“Who does?” Diane said.
Lincoln withdrew a pint of Jim Beam from his coat. “I know why you came out to play.”
Rhonda took the bottle from him, unscrewed its cap, and took a gulp. She handed the bottle back to Lincoln, who slid over on his seat, making room for her.
“Don’t sit there,” Daniel said. “He’s a loser.”
Lincoln made a dismissive sound.
“Sit here. It’s warmer.”
Rhonda felt the others watching her. She had not expected Daniel to make his interest in her known so early. That made him less interesting to her. Turning to Raina and Diane, she tried to read their eyes. Did she see jealousy, dismay, or just curiosity? “Move over, girls.”
Grinning, Raina and Diane slid away from each other, making room for her, and T-Bone laughed.
“Oh no,” Lincoln said, laughing.
Rhonda sat between the females and smiled at Daniel. “I like it here.”
“Suit yourself,” Daniel said, showing no emotion.
“How’s business?” Rhonda said.
Daniel’s expression didn’t change. “I can’t complain.”
“Heads-up,” T-Bone said. “We got another customer.”
A short figure, silhouetted in the moonlight, shuffled toward them from the opposite direction Rhonda had come.
Lincoln and T-Bone stood, then Daniel did too. Rhonda leaned forward to stand, but Diane grabbed her wrist and shook her head.
Alpha male mentality, Rhonda thought. Just like the adults in the pack.
As the hooded figure neared the barrel, a wide nose and full lips came into view. Female. The wind blew toward the newcomer, preventing Rhonda from detecting her scent.
“What’s up?” T-Bone said.
“You selling tonight?” the girl said.
“Who wants to know?” T-Bone said.
The girl pulled back her hood, allowing long cornrows to spill out. “Yolanda.”
Rhonda guessed the girl was fourteen.
“I know her,” Lincoln said. “She’s cool.”
“What are you looking for?” Daniel said.
“What you got?”
“Jamaican gold.”
“Gimme an eighth.”
“Sixty.”
Yolanda took her left hand out of her pocket. She clutched folded bills. “That’s what I got.”
Lincoln crossed the distance between them and collected the cash. He counted three twenties and returned to the barrel. T-Bone turned his back to the fire and tipped his seat. When he turned around, he held a plastic bag containing an eighth of an ounce of marijuana.
Yolanda pulled her other hand free of her pocket and aimed a gun at Lincoln. The flames in the barrel cast orange highlights on the black Glock.
T-Bone and Lincoln flinched at the same time, but Daniel stood cool.
“Hands in the air, bitches,” Yolanda said.
Three figures materialized in the moonlight behind her: tall black men with long dreadlocks, each clutching a Glock. Between the four of them, they had Daniel’s crew covered. Rhonda’s muscles tensed.
One of the men moved into the firelight and studied each of the males. “You know who I am?” He had a heavy Jamaican accent.
“Desmond,” Daniel said.
“That’s right. You know who I work for?”
“Big Kwamie.”
“Good. Now who the fuck are you?”
“Daniel.”
“When I heard some punks were slinging Jamaican gold in our turf, I said, nah, that can’t be right. No one who lives around here could be that stupid. You live around here, white boy?”
Daniel shrugged.
“I didn’t think so.” He looked at Lincoln and T-Bone. “But I seen y’all before.”
“We’re small-timers,” Daniel said. “We only sell to our friends. We’re not cutting into your action.”
Desmond swung his Glock in Daniel’s direction. “Who’s your supplier?”
Daniel bit his lip. “You wouldn’t know him.”
“How the fuck do you know what I know?”
Digging her heels into the cold earth, Rhonda dove straight at Desmond. By the time she reached him, she had transformed into a Wolf, and she sank her canine fangs into one of his forearms. Desmond fell screaming to the ground with Rhonda on top of him. Snarling, she shook her head, breaking his arm, and he dropped his gun.
“Oh, shit,” Yolanda said.
The other two Jamaicans fired their Glocks at Lincoln and T-Bone, opening holes in their torsos. Blood spilled out of the wounds, and they gasped and collapsed on their seats. Raina and Diane leapt into the air as human females and landed on the earth before the assassins as Wolves. The Jamaicans pointed their weapons at them, but before they could fire, Daniel howled at the moon. They turned in his direction and saw a Wolf where he had stood. Raina and Diane pounced on them, tearing the men’s throats with their teeth.
Desmond beat at Rhonda’s side. She released her hold on his arm and sank her fangs into his face, tearing half of it off. Then she forced her muzzle beneath his jaw, fastened her teeth on his neck, and tore out his throat, tasting hot blood. All three men issued strangled gargling sounds.
Yolanda backed up, aiming her Glock at each of the Wolves attacking the Jamaican men. She turned to run, and Daniel sprang after her, driving her facedown to the ground. She tried to crawl away, but he tore into her buttocks, and she screamed.
Rhonda shredded Desmond’s chest with her front claws, and when he stopped moving she pushed herself up. She found it difficult to stand with her paws
and extended legs confined in her sneakers and almost tipped over. With the sound of her beating heart throbbing in her brain, she reverted to human form, her chest rising and falling and her clothes dripping with blood.
“That’s enough,” she said to Daniel, who had worked his way up to Yolanda’s neck, leaving a wide, glistening trench in her back that separated fabric and flesh. He continued to gnaw on her meat. “I said that’s enough.”
Daniel bared his fangs at Rhonda.
“We have to get the hell out of here.”
Daniel stood erect and reverted to human form, blood and gristle dripping from his lips.
Rhonda turned to Raina and Diane, who chewed their victims with wild abandon. “That’s enough, bitches,” she said.
Raina and Diane looked at her, then returned to their feeding frenzy.
“Chill!”
The females stopped, shook their heads, then turned human, their faces smeared with blood. They looked at each other, faces two feet apart, and smiled.
Rhonda hurried over to where T-Bone and Lincoln lay. They stared at her in wonder.
“You’ll both live,” she said.
Daniel joined her.
“We have to get them out of here before the cops show up,” Rhonda said. She expected him to rebuke her for giving orders.
“That was good,” he said.
Twenty
Carl took a taxi to the headquarters of Manhattan Minute News on West Thirty-second Street. He didn’t want to be seen getting out of the damaged rental car by anyone who worked there, and it occurred to him the werewolf people might recognize the vehicle from its scratches and dents. Were they looking for him? He doubted they even knew Carl Rice existed, let alone recognized him in the seconds they had seen him through the window.
Inside the lobby, he signed in at the front desk and boarded an elevator, which he rode to the third floor. The Manhattan Minute News bull pen didn’t impress him: four people manned desks in a sea of deserted cubicles, two of them speaking in soft voices on their phones while MMN played on two monitors suspended from the ceiling. He felt no excitement, no sense of urgency in the station’s hub. He had chosen such a small operation for his launchpad.
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