The limo driver collected the cardboard tube from me. “We recycle,” he explained.
Calhoun and I trod through the pieces of wrecked car over to the truck. The other two werewolves, now in human form, had been stretched out beside each other.
Calhoun addressed his bodyguard. “Any ID?”
Dan said, “Driver’s licenses,” and recited a couple of names. “Both are from outside the territory.” He and Calhoun went back and forth discussing what pack and clan they might have been from. They agreed these werewolves had to have been freelancing for Bourbon.
A patrol car zoomed up the road, emergency lights flashing but without a siren. The patrol car skidded beside us.
A female police officer opened the front passenger’s door and got out. She projected a have-no-fear, I’m-in-charge demeanor. She had an attractive face, though her wide bottom showed a career cruising too many doughnut shops.
The driver, another cop, climbed out. He hustled to the middle of the street. A passing car slowed to gawk. He waved: Move along.
The female cop asked, “You okay, Mr. Calhoun?”
“Yes, considering.” He brushed dirt from his trousers. “Make sure this incident stays quiet.”
“As always.” She saluted, turned, and busied herself talking to the bodyguard and the limo driver.
An unmarked car, red and blue lights flashing from inside the grille, halted next to Calhoun.
The driver, wearing ordinary civilian clothes but with a badge clipped to his belt, scrambled out of the car like he was late for duty. He opened a rear door. Calhoun started to get in and motioned for me to join him.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He answered, “Our original destination. My office.”
An ambulance circled and parked beside the truck. Two men—weres?—climbed out of the back with a gurney. A third passenger carried a stack of orange traffic cones and a push broom. He arranged the cones around the wreckage and began to sweep the debris.
No one took pictures. No one wrote anything down.
I thought of the were’s head in Bourbon’s office. Bourbon had mentioned he didn’t want the police involved in the killings among werewolves. This attack had to have been his attempt at revenge and therefore kept off the official records.
I got into the police car, and we proceeded to Royal Avenue. Dense, mature trees shaded tidy houses behind white picket fences. Pure Norman Rockwell in the land of Lowcountry werewolves.
The driver twisted his mirror to scan the backseat. He squinted at where he should’ve seen me but couldn’t. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure I was still in the car. I waved at him. He must not have had much experience with vampires.
Calhoun took a cell phone out of his coat’s inside pocket. He made calls as he massaged his thigh with the curved side of one claw of his prosthesis. He spoke in crisp phrases, replying with variations of “Yeah. Yeah. Get on it. No. That’s your job.”
He closed up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. He stretched his leg, his face pinched in discomfort.
I said, “Tell me what you know about Julius Paxton.”
Calhoun’s face went, Huh? He asked, “Who?”
I explained my history with Paxton. I included the details about the vampire attack and that I had found his name on the back of Bourbon’s card. I finished by saying, “Maybe that attack that just happened wasn’t against you, but me.”
Calhoun kept massaging his thigh. “An interesting assumption, but I assure you, those werewolves were after me.”
We made a couple of turns. The neighborhood stopped abruptly at a sign that said PRIVATE ROAD. NO TRESPASSING.
The road narrowed to a single asphalt lane that wound under a canopy of elm and maple trees and through a gap in a boxwood hedge as thick and imposing as a concrete wall.
The road circled before an enormous mansion of pink stucco iced with white trim. Hickory and beech trees hugged the front of the edifice. The foliage was a lush green, as if it had been planted with freshly printed money.
I asked, “What’s this place?”
Calhoun answered, “My office.”
A man and a woman in green polo shirts and khaki shorts stood beside the road. Weres, no doubt.
They had radios clipped to their shirts and hunting rifles slung over their shoulders.
The were cop driving the police car looked for me in the rearview window. His eyes hunted back and forth until he asked, “Know anything about guns?”
“More than I should. I’ve been shot a few times.”
He grunted, like I’d beaten him to the punch line. But he continued, “Those are .458 Winchesters. The African Safari model. They can take down anything with one shot. Elephants. Cape buffalo. Hippos. And we got ’em loaded with silver bullets.”
“What’re you expecting?” I asked. “Really fat werewolves?”
The were cop’s smile filled the rearview mirror. “No. Smart-ass vampires.”
CHAPTER 12
We passed the two guards. The female were crouched to peer through the rear window of the police car. We locked eyes for an instant. She squinted and cupped a radio mike to her mouth.
“What kind of a reception are you planning?” I clenched my fists to hide my growing talons. Being among werewolves was like walking a tightrope over a pit of…well, werewolves.
Calhoun looked over his shoulder back toward the guards. “We have to be ready for anything. If you behave yourself,” he joked, “you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
I was surrounded by werewolves; I had plenty to worry about.
Our police car followed the road circling to the mansion. A half-dozen other cars—expensive sedans and SUVs—crowded the pavement along the shoulder.
The road curved under the roof of a tall porte cochere. An attendant in a powder-blue chambray shirt and navy blue shorts waited by a massive bronze door with beveled glass inserts. When our car halted, the attendant sprang for the rear door like a nervous terrier.
He yanked the door open and I gave a quick sniff. Definitely were. In fact, the mansion smelled like a kennel. A very clean kennel, but still, you had better love your dogs.
The attendant held a surprised look and stood aside for me to climb out. Ignoring me, he helped Calhoun.
Blood dotted Calhoun’s shirt collar. He moved stiffly, as if during the ride his injuries from the crash had time to settle into aches.
The cop were got out of the car and joined them, grasping Calhoun’s good arm. Calhoun pulled loose with a snarl. He rolled his shoulders, as though to shrug off both the help and his pain. His posture strengthened and he limped to the entrance door. “Detective Simone, thank you. Give Sergeant Kessler my thanks as well.”
The detective nodded and got back into his car.
The attendant stepped beside Calhoun and opened the door. I followed them into a foyer with a vaulted ceiling and a chandelier as big around as a grand piano. We continued through the foyer to a set of French doors.
Calhoun whispered to his attendant, who in turn said to me over his shoulder, “Mr. Calhoun will rejoin you shortly.”
We were separating? Was Calhoun’s invitation the bait for a trap?
Calhoun went through the French doors. The attendant lingered behind to say, “Please, wait for Mr. Calhoun on the terrace.”
Of course, a place this classy had a terrace. Not a mere deck or a backyard.
The attendant motioned that I go to the right. They weren’t giving me much of a choice, so I went as directed and made my way through the mansion.
I passed under arched door frames separating cavernous rooms, each with a lumberyard’s worth of wainscoting, picture rails, and crown molding. Every ceiling was an example of exquisite plaster relief. An interior designer must have been handed a blank check and told to cram the mansion with whatever looked expensive: porcelain figurines, statues, paintings of antebellum maidens with dogs and horses, furniture that must have boasted historical pedigrees (or
were good fakes).
But nothing showed that someone lived here. No framed snapshots. No magazines or papers casually strewn about. No socks on the floor. The rooms looked as sterile as a bank lobby.
The air carried a scent of fruit and flower potpourri. Didn’t hide the wolf musk, only now the place smelled like a girlie poodle.
So far, no hint of trouble. To make sure, I stopped beside a heavy wooden credenza and laid the palm of my left hand on the top.
Over the years, I’ve learned how to better exploit my sixth sense. Hasn’t kept me from getting smacked around on occasion, but it gives the comforting illusion that I’m ahead of the bad guys.
I kept still and focused on the tiny vibrations that whispered through the credenza. I listened. I analyzed. I linked faint noises to the vibrations and formed images in my head.
Someone walking on hard heels over a tile floor. Quick steps. Female.
Water running. Water turned off—the spigot closing with a squish—and a muted thud from the water hammer effect in the pipes.
The purr of a laser printer.
No threatening clicks like a gun being cocked.
No feet creeping over carpet.
No knife sliding out of a sheath.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.
No poisons. No telltale adrenaline surges.
I swept my sixth sense around me like a radar beam. My intuition would further link my senses and draw new pictures.
But nothing new. Nothing suspicious. Only that pervasive werewolf smell that reminded me in bold highlights that I was here as a bit player in the struggle between Bourbon and Calhoun.
Yet I had to relax. Concentrating too hard would make my brain cramp. I continued my walk through the mansion and ended in a room in the northwest corner. Sunlight streamed through tall multipaned windows and yet another set of French doors on the back wall.
I grasped the brass handle of one door—it was unlocked—and stepped onto the terrace.
Colored pennants along the perimeter of the terrace flapped lazily in the breeze. A banner hung from a pole next to the doors. The banner showed a crescent moon rising above a howling wolf superimposed over a palm tree.
I breathed the aroma of moist, fertile soil. Fluffy clouds paraded across the sky. The sunlit landscape shimmered in hues bright as fresh watercolors.
The terrace was made of hexagonal slabs of terra-cotta flagstone bordered with concrete planters and benches. The terrace looked over a garden that sloped to a lawn the size of a football field. An S-76 helicopter, sleek as a torpedo, sat on a concrete pad in the center of the lawn. A man in a blue flight suit stood beside the open cargo door of the helicopter.
A path of square paving stones snaked from a porch on my left at the opposite side of the house. The stones led to the helicopter pad and continued through a line of magnolia and cypress trees that separated the lawn from a flat muddy beach. The path ended at a long, narrow pier extending from the beach into Charleston Harbor. Speedboats and a yacht, a sixty-footer I guessed, were moored to the pier.
Something bothered me.
Everything seemed new. Not brand-new, but the mansion and grounds looked recent, unlike similar buildings in Charleston that dated back centuries.
Along the northern boundary, a wall of dense shrubs and trees masked the view of the neighbors and, in turn, kept them from looking in. I got the impression that Calhoun and his patroness, the late Inga Latrall, despite her promise to keep the Lowcountry pristine, didn’t hesitate at bulldozing the locals out of the way and carving out a place for this mansion.
What the werewolves wanted, they took.
CHAPTER 13
One of the French doors at the back of the mansion opened. Calhoun came onto the terrace, alone. He wore a white terrycloth bathrobe over black nylon track pants with his white socked feet tucked into shower clogs. The left sleeve of the robe was pinned to his shoulder, and it made him look unbalanced and incomplete. I wondered how much he missed his arm.
His hair was slicked back and raked with comb marks. His cheeks and nose looked red and irritated, as if he’d scrubbed his face with a scouring pad. A gold chain necklace lay across the gray athletic shirt peeking between the lapels of the robe.
How long had he been gone? Fifteen minutes? Considering he’d been tossed about in a car wreck, he appeared fresh and full of vigor.
Calhoun extended his right arm and gave a toothy smile so perfect it looked Photoshopped. He smelled of bay rum and tea-tree oil. “It’s belated, but thanks for saving me.”
We shook hands. His grip was feverishly warm. Maybe weres ran hot while we vampires ran cold.
“Your bodyguard Dan and his big gun did the saving. You need to thank him.”
Calhoun noticed my glance at his empty sleeve. He said, “It’s getting cleaned and adjusted.”
“Don’t you have a spare?” I figured he’d have a closet full of bionic arms.
“I do, but switching prosthetics is like trying on a new pair of stiff shoes.”
I swept my hand across the view along the back of the mansion. “Fancy office.”
“Actually, my office is at the other end of the mansion.”
“Let me guess,” I said, making sure to emphasize the Miss when I continued, “this was Miss Latrall’s house.”
“One of her many holdings. It’s corporate headquarters and was her private residence.”
“You also live here?”
“I have a suite for when I have to sleep over.”
Sleep over for what? Pajama parties?
He answered like he’d sensed my questions. “Late-night meetings. Receptions.”
The helicopter’s engine started with a groan and interrupted Calhoun. The rotor blades began to spin. The blades turned faster and faster and the helicopter let out a high-pitched whine.
A golf cart trundled down the path from the house to the helicopter pad. A man in the uniform of the house staff drove. The woman passenger clasped her hand over the scarf on her head. The cart halted just outside the arc of the main rotor blades. The man in the flight suit helped the woman passenger from the cart to the helicopter. She wore gogglelike sunglasses, a loose blouse over a tank top, and Capri pants. As she climbed aboard, I recognized the overtoned figure and the teardrop face drawn to a severe chin.
“Is that Madonna?”
Calhoun nodded, unimpressed that I’d mentioned it. “Here to attend a private remembrance for Miss Latrall, her mentor.”
Madonna climbed into the S-76. The crewman followed her aboard and slid the door closed. The whine of the engine and the beat of the rotor blades echoed against us. The helicopter lifted to a hover, blowing a circle of grass and dust from the concrete pad. The tricycle gear retracted and the helicopter zoomed in the direction of the harbor, darting through the air like a shark through water. The golf cart circled and returned to the mansion.
I asked, “Any other celebrities?”
“Not today. Earlier in the week we had Deepak Chopra, John Malkovich, and Diablo Cody.”
“You’re mixing rather cozily with humans. I’m sure you’re taking precautions at keeping the Great Secret.”
“We do. Miss Latrall had many admirers, and none of them had a clue about us.”
“What’s with the ‘Miss’ anyway? Some corny Southern mannerism?”
“Corny? To you maybe. Simply my way of paying homage to her. I owe her much, and it’s my duty to make sure her wishes are respected even after her death.”
A conscience. Or pretending to have one. I had no doubts that however Calhoun took care of Latrall’s estate, he’d wind up standing tall on a big pile of moolah.
A compelling reason for Bourbon to hate him.
“I understand your allegiance to her, but what was Bourbon’s? What kept him from taking his clan and going renegade while she was alive?”
“Bourbon rose through the ranks of the Palmetto Clan when Miss Latrall was the territory alpha. Every were in every clan was behol
den to her.” He pointed to the banner with the howling wolf. “That was her standard, the Lowcountry Territory.”
“Now she’s dead.”
Calhoun repeated, “Now she’s dead.”
“You brought me here to broaden my understanding of your situation.”
He motioned across Charleston Harbor. The water was a swath of turquoise green dappled with silver. “See that speck on the water?”
“I see lots of specks.”
“The dark spot in the middle of the entrance to the harbor,” he said. “Fort Sumter.”
I noted, “Where the Civil War began.”
“There was nothing civil about it. The War Between the States, if you please.”
“What are you getting at?”
“The animosity between myself and Bourbon is one crack of a much larger fissure in the werewolf community.” He groped absently in front of himself as if searching for his missing prosthesis. He reached across his chest and touched his robe’s empty sleeve. “Sides are being drawn among werewolves.”
“Among werewolves,” I noted. “That sounds like your business. I’m here with you because hopefully you can help me learn why a couple of vampires tried to kill me this morning. That in turn has something to do with a good friend who I’m certain is also in trouble.”
“Wendy?” he asked.
I nodded.
He scratched his neck. “Let me explain what’s ultimately at stake.” His voice dropped to a somber whisper. “Beyond my and Bourbon’s ambitions and the fate of Miss Latrall’s property. Perhaps that will shed light on why all of us are in danger.”
CHAPTER 14
Calhoun turned his back to me and walked to the edge of the terrace. “You must help me prevent an enormous catastrophe.”
I asked, “What kind of catastrophe?”
“A war.” He turned around to face me. “A war that would betray the Great Secret.”
A shiver radiated from my kundalini noir.
If the Great Secret was revealed, the repercussions would surge through society like the blast wave of an atom bomb. Humans would have to contend with the existence of the undead, shape-shifters, and all the fantastic paranormal creatures. The overlap of the psychic world with the natural one. Magic was real. The foundations for science, religion, and philosophy would collapse. And in that chaos, humans would have a tangible excuse for all of civilization’s evils: us supernaturals.
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