“Where’d he go?”
“You got any more cash?”
I didn’t, but it didn’t matter. As a car went past me, I recognized the figure in the passenger seat; Talbot, now back in human form and as handsome as I remembered. Though the car was going fast – still in pursuit, I guessed – I saw it was being driven by a man who was as handsome as Talbot, or at least, a close second. He was brown-haired and wore a knowing smile on his face. They were gone before I could see any more.
“So are you paying us or what?” asked the kid.
“You’ve got quite a racket going here,” I commented.
“Is that a no?”
I sighed. “Have you ever seen either of those wolves before?”
I saw the same expression pass over the faces of all the kids; a tightening of their features, something like fear.
“No,” said the leader, louder than he had to. “I have never seen them before. Never. Don’t know them. Not saying nothing.”
So he definitely knew at least one of them and that one presumably had powerful and scary connections. But which one? That might be a question for another day.
I rubbed my shoulder, still feeling the ache where the wolf had twisted it.
But Talbot had saved me.
Which suggested… what?
That we were on the same side? That was a nice idea but I didn’t even know what side I was on, beyond my own. Maybe if we met again he could let me know what the sides were and then I could know if I was on his. Perhaps he was just on the opposite side to the wolf who had attacked me. And so was I. I am automatically on the opposite side of anyone who tries to kill me – call it an unreasonable prejudice if you like, but that’s my rule.
Maybe he saved me because he needed me alive for something.
Maybe he saved me because he liked me.
I rolled my eyes to myself at that ridiculous thought. He had met me once, and briefly, and for all that ‘most beautiful woman’ bullshit, he had been following me. You can’t trust guys who follow you. And yet, there was something about him. And he had saved my life.
I took the matchbook I had found in Dog’s empty apartment out of my pocket and stared at the note on it once more.
‘Her b.day. M+M base.’
The words didn’t mean a damn thing to me, but clearly Dog had been to The Silver Fox club recently. He had been there sometime between getting out of jail and coming to see me. That was my next stop, then. But it would have to wait until the evening; The Silver Fox didn’t open its doors during the day.
And to humans, it wasn’t really open at all.
Chapter 4
The face of the doorman who loomed over me looked like the wind had changed when he was halfway between wolf and human. His cheeks were both marred by scars, one of his nostrils was missing and two of his teeth curled out over his lips.
“You’re human,” he said, proving that his one remaining nostril was working just fine.
“Thanks. I’ve been wondering.”
The doorman’s eyes didn’t leave me. “You’re human,” he repeated, not having a wide repertoire.
“We’ve established that. I’d like to come in.”
“You’re human.”
“Do you say anything else?”
He leaned down so his messed up face was close to mine, his foul breath hot on my skin. “You got a lot of balls for a little girl.”
“They teach you that when you join the Werewolf Squad.” There was no need for him to know that I was no longer on the squad, and this bit of name dropping had the desired effect as I saw the flicker of anxiety pass across his face. It was a large face so it took some time.
“Werewolf Squad.”
“How long have you been out?”
Even if I hadn’t been able to guess it from his face, clubs like The Silver Fox always hired ex-cons as their bouncers. It was cost effective and very threatening.
“Three months,” the doorman growled.
“Keeping your... nose clean?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m guessing you don’t want to go back.”
Werewolf jails were ugly places where wolves with different pack loyalties were lumped in together, leading to horrible and near-constant violence. Unless you were someone like Dog, making it through prison alive was a game of beating the odds.
“I can’t take responsibility for what happens once you’re inside,” said the doorman, as he unchained the door.
“Understood.”
“Whatever happens to you in there is on your own head.”
It would more likely be sunk into my neck, but I took his point, nodded my understanding, and passed inside.
The stairs that led down to the club proper were dark, lit for wolf eyes, not human, a distant thumping of music led me on, accompanied by the smell. Wolves have a far sharper sense of smell than humans and one on one a wolf has a definite advantage as they can always recognize a human, while a human can seldom spot a wolf. Even someone as experienced as me, someone trained to make that judgment, can only get it right most of the time. But when you experience wolves in numbers, and on their own home turf, then there is a smell that even humans can’t miss. I wouldn’t have called it unpleasant – they weren’t pissing up the walls to mark their territory or anything like that – it was thick and rich, a musky smell. It even had a sexuality to it, heavy with pheromones, plugging straight into a wilder side of human nature that we don’t use so much anymore, making it all the more vulnerable.
At the bottom of the stairs, I pushed through another door and entered the club.
You know those Western movies where the hero enters the bar and everything stops; the poker games, the dancing, and of course, the piano player in the corner. That was how I felt. Everything in the room seemed to stop and every face turned to look at me as they caught the scent of the human in the room. Three lean wolves resting on the bar lowered their drinks to stare. The woman behind the bar, an enormous, buxom wolf with a cleavage you could ski down, put down the bottle she was holding with a purposeful thud. There was a mass scraping of chairs from the many seated wolves watching the dance show on the little stage at the far end, and the dancers themselves froze, legs wrapped around their poles. The music stopped, the live band – werewolves are old fashioned like that – putting aside their instruments. Even the gamblers in the curtained booths on the raised level around the wall stopped in their deals to check me out.
I answered their stare with one of my own. I’d been on the Werewolf Squad for long enough to know that wolves respect someone who stands up to them and shows no fear. I addressed the silent room.
“Who ordered take-out?”
The room erupted in laughter. Werewolves like a human who can laugh at their own vulnerable mortality. It isn’t always enough to stop them trying to eat you, but they will at least think twice about it.
Having delivered my opening line, I strolled to the bar to order a drink, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world and life returned to the club; the music struck up, the dancing restarted and the men in the audience resumed their perusal of pretty girls in their underwear.
“You got a death wish?” asked the woman behind the bar as I ordered a drink.
“Is your bourbon that bad?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“No one here has seen them. And if you want to stay alive, I wouldn’t ask.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“That’s even worse,” the woman replied, as she poured my drink. “Killing a cop is more trouble than it’s worth. Civilians are no trouble at all.”
I took out a picture of Dog that I had kept from the trial. “I know he’s been here. I know he’s dead. I’m just wondering why he came here.”
The woman shook her head. “Are you trying to start a fight? I don’t need this shit. People don’t come here for questions.”
Clubs like The Silver Fox were sort of like we
rewolf speakeasies. They were places wolves could go and just be themselves. However well wolves had integrated into human society and had colonized certain areas of the city as their own, they were still guests in a human world. The city was a human construct, and though wolves had adapted, it was not their own. These underground clubs accepted every aspect of wolfish behavior without question. You want to go naked? Go ahead; no judgment here. Got a score to settle? Sure, you can kill someone in our function room, no questions asked. Much of what went on here was illegal, but as long as it was between consenting wolves, not even the Werewolf Squad troubled them. There was more than enough crime elsewhere to deal with.
“When was he here?” I felt a strange thrill at asking the question. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed being a cop until I got a chance to act like one again.
“Maybe three, four nights ago,” sighed the woman. “Is that all?”
“What did he want?”
“I don’t remember.”
“He was asking after one of your singers.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “If you know the answer then why ask?”
“If you knew the answer then why didn’t you?”
She held my gaze for a long time. “You’re sure you’re not a cop?”
“I’d show you my ID, only ‘not a cop’ ID isn’t a thing.”
“He was asking after Lovely. The two of them were an item, I guess, before he went inside. Always struck me as a pretty strange couple but who am I to judge? He looked after her and a girl like that needed looking after.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
The woman shrugged. “Everyone fell for Lovely. Men, women, wolves, humans. You know how some girls radiate an aura of sexuality and they just can’t help it?”
“Sure.”
“Well, Lovely could help it. She just didn’t. She radiated it deliberately and encouraged every man who showed any interest in her, right up until things became serious, then she pulled back. A proper cock-teaser, that one. Great for business.”
I nodded. “That must have pissed off some men.”
“You think? And that was when Dog would step in to protect her from the big, nasty men who couldn’t take no for an answer.” The woman shook her head. “Men need to learn the meaning of the word ‘no’ and Dog taught it to them, but Lovely sure as hell led them on.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because she could. Because she liked to wind men around her little finger. And because,” the woman sighed deeply, “and because I think she was always looking for one who she couldn’t. A man who could actually control her and be in charge. Father figure maybe, but what the hell do I know? I’m not a psychiatrist. Anyway, that was never going to be Dog.”
“I guess not. Does Lovely still work here?”
The woman shook her head. “She quit. Awhile back.”
“Could you tell me how long?”
The woman snarled and I couldn’t help wondering what manner of wolf this enormous person would turn into. Not a quick one, I guessed.
“Leon?” she called along the bar to a barman. “When did we lose Lovely?”
Leon shrugged. “Two years ago, I reckon.”
“There.”
I nodded. She quit after Dog went inside. Might have been because she had lost her protector and working here without him would have been suicide, or there might have been another reason.
“How long did she work here?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Do you know her real name?”
A stern head shake. “She was Lovely to everyone. That was it. She got shitty if you asked questions about her name, I remember that.”
“Could be a right little bitch about it,” nodded Leon.
“Was Dog working here when she started?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why I thought this was important, but something in my brain insisted that it was.
Leon and his enormous companion hesitated a moment in thought. “Yeah. Yeah, I think he was.”
“Now,” the woman leaned towards me, resting her massive bosom on the bar and sticking a finger in my face, “I’ve told you everything I know, and believe me when I say; that’s all anyone knows. You ask anyone in here, you’ll get the exact same answers.”
I nodded. “Thanks, I think I’ll do that.”
Humans are not welcome in clubs like The Silver Fox, for obvious reasons, and humans asking questions are still less welcome. But my years on the Werewolf Squad had taught me a thing or two about questioning wolves. I didn’t try to be clever or pretend I wasn’t after information; I peppered my questions with jokes and references to my humanity; and I never asked about the gang connections I knew Dog had. It was exciting to learn that I was still good at this, and a little frustrating that I didn’t learn any more than the woman at the bar had already told me. If anyone knew where Lovely was now, or what her real name was then, they weren’t telling me.
Did that mean something? This was a district in which people came and went without leaving much of a mark and didn’t always want others to know who they were. It wasn’t so unusual. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something suspicious about the mysterious Lovely vanishing straight after Dog went to jail, and his dying as soon as he started asking questions about her.
Questions I was now asking.
Well, that was something to think about.
I was about to head off, to sleep on the few new facts I had been able to glean, when I heard raised voices. That wasn’t odd in one of these clubs but when I glanced across, I realized that I recognized one of the men involved. It was Talbot’s driver, whom I had seen in the car with him earlier that day.
“I answered these damn questions once, I’ll be damned if I answer them again,” snapped a wolf I had spoken to earlier.
“Well, you haven’t answered them for me,” Talbot’s friend snapped back.
I could have told him that was a mistake. When questioning wolves, strength is good, but arguing is bad. Especially when the man you’re arguing with has a bunch of friends with him.
“I’ve got all night,” Talbot’s friend continued. “Now, did you speak to Dog the other night?”
“Don’t make me kick your ass.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
Really not smart. I’d like to think that Talbot’s friend recognized his mistake when the man he was arguing with stood up, backed by three of his friends.
“You’d like to see that, would you? Well, that can be arranged.”
I had to give Talbot’s friend credit, he moved like lightning when the first punch came his way, dodging like he had never even been there. He caught the arm before it was withdrawn, twisted it round and used it to propel his attacker into two of his friends. The third grabbed him by the shoulders, but Talbot’s friend reached back and pulled the man over his head, smacking his body down into the table, which shattered under him. By now, his other adversaries had recovered and now made for him, grabbing bottles and chairs as improvised weapons.
I had no stake in the fight. Just as importantly, I had no gun on me because you don’t bring silver bullets to a werewolf club unless you want to leave with them inside your skull. And yet…
Maybe it was because he was Talbot’s friend and he might know something. Maybe it was because I hadn’t broken up a barroom brawl in a while and was itching to see if I still could. Maybe it was because he was cute, albeit in a slick and smooth sort of a way.
I ran into the fray just as Talbot’s friend sent one of his assailants sliding along the bar, taking out the glasses of angry drinkers as he went. As another wolf reached for him, I grabbed the man’s arm, twisted it behind his back and kicked out his legs.
“What the hell?”
“Stay down,” I advised. “People are trying to drink.”
One of his friends didn’t like me taking an interest and wrapped his arms about me, tugging me back. I hurled myself hard backwards, knocking him into the wall, expelling the air
from his lungs and breaking free from his grip. Spinning around on my toes, I landed a left and right in quick succession on the man’s temples and down he went. Behind me, Talbot’s friend was taking out the last one. I watched him for a moment. He fought like a dancer - if you could imagine a dancer with a punch like a mule kick - light on his feet, springing athletically out of the way of his attacker and then going in hard.
As the final man hit the floor, Talbot’s friend looked up at me. “My name’s Kessler. I think we should leave.”
“Marley. I think you’re right.”
We made for the door, me leading, Kessler just behind, the bar watching us to see what might happen next.
What happened was that the door of the club opened and I was presented with a familiar face.
“You,” snarled the entrant.
I couldn’t place him exactly, but he clearly knew me.
“You put me away for five years!”
The woman at the bar slammed down her hand. “You said you weren’t a cop.”
“Retired,” I called over my shoulder, my eyes not leaving the man whose name I now recalled was Lex.
“You’re going to be permanently retired.” Lex shifted to wolf form faster than I could blink and, for the second time that day, I had a wolf leaping at me. I sprang aside but Lex landed and lunged towards me, claws slashing viciously for my abdomen. Before I could react, Kessler pushed me aside and Lex’s claws slashed across his chest, ripping his shirt and drawing blood, making Kessler growl in pain.
If Lex had thought that would slow Kessler down, he was mistaken. That hammer blow of a punch lashed out and caught the wolf in the jaw, knocking him sideways, in my direction. I spun on the spot, picking up a chair as I went and bringing it down with elegant brutality onto the wolf’s skull. On the floor, he involuntarily turned back to human – which is kind of the werewolf version of wetting yourself - gasping and bubbling as blood erupted from his mouth and nostrils.
Kessler sagged and I rushed to grab him. “We gotta get you to a hospital.”
Her Guardian Harem: Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance Page 3