by Geonn Cannon
“Mm?”
“I can’t do a yoyo. If you really do ask them for something, I’d take a deck of cards.”
Val smiled and winked. “I’ll see what I can find.”
***
Dale went into the bathroom to wash her hands before they left Keech’s office. Hayden looked around with a sneer that said he didn’t blame her, so she was fairly confident he didn’t suspect anything as she slipped into the small en suite next to the office. The pipes roughly rattled the whole sink when she twisted the taps, letting the water spray into the basin as she dropped to her knees next to the toilet and threw up with as little noise as possible.
She didn’t think simply saying words could provoke nausea, but her stomach had twisted from the bullshit she’d spewed a few minutes ago. Throwing up became an urgent need when she took off her precious bracelet and threw it in the garbage. It didn’t seem to matter that it was a decoy, fashioned earlier that morning, and that the real bracelet that Ari had presented to her all those years ago was safely tucked in her jewelry box at home. Just the ceremony of removing it and discarding it was enough to make her physically ill.
She went back to the sink and splashed some water on her face before turning off the tap. Ari had changed the plan that morning in the shower, whispering in Dale’s ear. “We don’t know how long Hayden has been watching us. We don’t know how much he’s seen or heard. Act like you’re going through with the plan, but then turn on me.” Dale still couldn’t believe she’d gone through with it, couldn’t believe she’d done it well enough to convince the bastard she was still under the influence of the essays.
There’d been doubts in her mind. She’d stayed awake some nights wondering if it was just dormant, waiting for something to trigger that vileness again. But she could say, definitively, she didn’t have anything to worry about. She cupped her hand under the water and brought it to her mouth, slurping it up and rinsing before spitting into the sink.
“Everything all right in there?” Hayden said from just outside the door.
“God, give a girl a minute,” she snapped. She turned off the faucet and stepped out. “I’m turning my back on the past decade of my life. My job, my girlfriend, my home. Forgive me for taking a second to process the enormity of that, okay?”
“Of course, Miss Frye. My apologies.”
Hayden gestured for her to lead the way out of the office. Keech was sitting where a receptionist would have been stationed, and he glared at her as she walked by. She winked at him, forcing him to look away. Once they were outside, Hayden put on a pair of sunglasses.
“You can come with me or follow in your own car. I don’t mind taking you, but leaving your car unattended in this neighborhood for an extended period of time is... not advisable.”
“Where exactly are we going?” Dale said.
“Well, obviously I’m not taking you to Miss Willow’s mother. I don’t trust you quite that much yet. But there’s someone I’d like you to meet. I think you can help him see the light.”
Dale was irritated but unsurprised. Hayden would have to be an idiot to take her to the prisoners so early, but she’d kind of hoped against hope he would do it anyway. They stopped next to his car.
“I like meeting new people. Who is he?”
“He’s the man I was taking you to meet last time, when our departure was so rudely interrupted. His name is Gabriel Roemer, and I’m really hoping you can convince him not to commit genocide against the canidae.”
Dale swallowed a lump in her throat. “No pressure.”
“I told Ariadne that my goal isn’t death. It’s understanding. I’m hindered by the fact that the foremost authority on their species is also the group that’s spent most of the past thousand years trying to kill them.”
“Ari said you threatened to kill her.”
“I was frustrated,” Hayden said, a look of frustration on his face. “I want this to be a true partnership, Dale. And who knows, maybe there’s a way you and Ariadne can still work together when all this is over.”
Ari and I will be together long after you’re gone, you putz, she thought. Out loud, she shook her head. “I tried. That ship has sailed.”
“The book is really that manipulative?”
Dale said, “Look at the world we’re living in. We have people willing to go full insurrectionist to support a failed reality show host because of something they read on Facebook. I don’t know if the book has special powers or if it’s just an example of very, very manipulative writing. Either way, I know I’m not the woman I was before I read it. I tried to be her again. I really did. But if I don’t put some distance between me and Ariadne, I worry about what I’ll do to her. And I definitely don’t want to be that person. So come on.” She gestured at the cars. “Lead the way.”
Hayden nodded and got into his car. Dale got into hers, waiting for him to back out of the spot. When they were on the road, she took out her phone without looking down and dialed Ari’s number without looking at the phone. She switched it to speaker.
Ari answered on the second ring. “Hey,” she whispered. “Everything okay?”
“I love you, puppy.”
“I love you, too,” Ari said. “Are you okay?”
Dale blinked back her tears and breathed in deep. She let it out through her lips, then spoke without moving her mouth in case Hayden was watching in the mirror.
“I knew this would be hard,” she mumbled, “but some of the things I have to say really fucking hurt. And taking off the bracelet...”
“I know.”
“You’re positive the real one is safe...?”
Ari said, “Cross my heart.”
“Are you still at home? Can you please go look and make sure it’s the real one?”
Ari chuckled. “It’s not in the jewelry box. After you left, I took it out.”
“Why?” It was suddenly hard to see the road until she wiped at her eyes.
“It felt wrong to leave it at home. It’s been in my pocket all morning.”
It felt like a rubber band around her chest had suddenly snapped. She took a deep, full breath and flexed her fingers on the steering wheel, suddenly revitalized.
“Smart puppy.”
“I have my moments. I’ll wait for a full update when you can speak freely.”
“Okay,” Dale said. “Hey, before you go...”
“Yeah?”
“Who am I?”
Ari was silent for a moment. “You...”
“What am I,” Dale clarified.
Ari chuckled. “You’re my wife, Dale.”
“And you’re mine. Be safe, puppy.”
“Be strong, babe.”
“Easier now,” Dale said. “Love you.”
“Love you.”
Dale hung up and moved the phone to the passenger seat. Just a few days, with any luck. She could manage this for just a few days if it meant saving the lives of three women. She braced herself and focused on the back of Hayden’s truck, preparing herself for her next performance.
Chapter Twelve
Ari had a hand in her pocket to finger Dale’s bracelet, only stopping herself when she realized touching it too much might cause the threaded hair to fray. She was sitting at Diana’s desk, flipping through photos of mug shots, men who matched the description she gave of the hunters she’d encountered. She could barely focus on each photo since talking to Dale on the phone. Diana had gone to get coffee and finally came back, two cups in one hand and a file tucked under her other arm. She placed one cup in front of Ari as she sat down in the visitor chair even though it was her office.
“Anything?” Diana asked, hopeful.
Ari shook her head, eyes narrowed with frustration. “That’s the downside of playing detective as the wolf. Sometimes I can recall everything with crystal clarity. Sometimes trying to remember a person’s face is like... well, like most people trying to remember a dog’s face.”
Diana nodded. “I got a call back about the black van y
ou described. It was involved in a fender-bender outside the Safeway on Madison.” She tossed the file onto the desk. “Driver was named Earl Foster. Does he look like someone you know?”
Ari opened the file and looked at the DMV photo. “That’s him. That’s the guy who broke his arm when he fell.”
“Hey! Progress,” Diana said. “We might be able to learn more of their names from this. Known associates, see when he arrived in Seattle and how. Pieces of the puzzle.”
“I’d settle for just finding the box and seeing the whole picture at once. I don’t have time to gather all these little pieces. Not this time.” She rested her elbows on the desk and pushed her hands into her hair. “How are they masking their scent? When I’m the wolf, it should be impossible for them to cover up. And if they tried, I would smell that. I would smell whatever was covering them up. But it’s a void. It’s nothing. Eva and her pack couldn’t smell anything, either. So I know it’s not just that I’m getting a cold. But how the hell are they doing this?”
“You told me Roemer is from a line of hunters who have been doing this a long-ass time. Even if they haven’t been actively fighting a war, they’ve probably been developing new weapons. Hell, that book of essays was written at a time when humans and canidae were technically in the middle of a truce, right? Apparently they found a trick they’ve been keeping up their sleeve for the right time.”
Ari grunted her agreement. Her phone rang and she quickly took it from her pocket, expecting Dale even though she highly doubted she would call again so soon. She saw it was an unknown number and answered it.
“Mr. Rigas?”
“Come outside. I need to talk to you.”
“How do you know--” She heard the click of the line disconnecting. “Okay. I don’t think I like that guy.”
“What guy?” Diana asked, then held up a hand. “Forget I asked.”
“Probably a good call.” Ari stood up and let Diana have her chair back. “I guess I need to go outside and find him.”
Diana said, “I’ll look into the fine Mr. Foster and see if he has any known associates.”
Ari paused in the doorway. “You have other active cases, right?”
Diana was already typing. “None with a girl being held prisoner live on the internet, no.”
“Fair enough,” Ari said. “Dale and I owe you and Lucy dinner when all this is over.”
“You already owe us that for not inviting us to your wedding,” Diana said, the corner of her lips curling into a smile. “Congratulations, by the way.”
Ari grinned and left the office. She wasn’t sure which exit to use, but assumed Conrad Rigas had that covered.
She stepped out of the precinct and scanned the street even though she had no idea what the man looked like. She reached the sidewalk and stopped, scanning faces and subtly scenting the air to see if she could pick up a canidae scent. There was something, subtle and completely drenched in some kind of cheap cologne, but unmistakably wolf. She followed it around the corner, where she found Rigas leaning against a utility pole that was covered with peeling and faded flyers.
Conrad Rigas was surprisingly young, bald, broad-shouldered, and built like a football player. He wore baggy clothes that made him look bigger than he was, and he lazily raised an eyebrow as Ari approached him.
“Well, we can confirm your sniffer isn’t broken,” he said. “But I haven’t heard anything about hunters being able to mask their scents. I’ll keep digging.”
“I appreciate that.” She offered her hand. “I’m Ariadne Willow.”
“I know,” he said, pushing away from the pole. “Simon Lehner. Does the name sound familiar to you at all?”
Ari searched her memory. “No. Should it?”
“Canidae from the eighteen hundreds. Around the time Roemer’s family got into the hunting business. He wanted to kill as many humans as he could, and he decided the Napoleonic Wars would be a good cover for widespread death and disappearances.”
“Damn,” Ari said. “What was the end goal? Eradicating all humans?”
Rigas shrugged. “He seemed to want a canidae-only territory. There was already a small village called Wolfsbau, but he wanted more. Think West Berlin. Hell, think Hitler annexing Poland.”
“What stopped him? Wait.” She closed her eyes and touched her forehead. “Wait. Simon Lehner? Agatha Westreich and Johanna Brion. The wolf and the huntress who joined forces to stop a canidae army from slaughtering humans. That story again?”
Rigas nodded. “The very same. Lehner had a book of his own, like the Magnusson essays but for wolves. The Book of Simon. ‘We do as we must, we do as they do, we do what is needed to survive.’” He rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Got a lot of canidae to join his cause. Could have gone very badly if there wasn’t that alliance.”
“My mother tried to recreate that alliance the last time the hunters threatened to have a wolf manoth. It wouldn’t have worked. The hunters would have agreed to a council just to slaughter anyone who showed up.”
“Roemer obviously isn’t looking for any kind of treaty,” Rigas said. “Simon’s book could be the secret weapon we’re looking for. Fire with fire.”
Ari frowned. “Wait, you want to find Simon’s book?”
“The hunters have a book that make people want to hunt wolves. We have a book of our own that makes wolves want to go out and fight back. Seems like the perfect solution to the problem.”
Ari sighed. “Going to war is not going to help anything.”
“We’re not going to war, we’re answering a call,” Rigas said, growing more animated. “They started this.”
“What does victory look like to you, then?” Ari asked. “Kill every human in Seattle and declare it a canidae safe zone? You can’t honestly think that will ever happen.”
Rigas said, “The alternative is having the humans wipe us all out. That’s a lot more plausible, because there are so few of us, comparatively. I’d rather go out fighting.”
“Do you actually have the Book of Simon?”
He stared down the street for so long that Ari started to think he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he took a deep breath and shook his head.
“No. But I have leads.”
“Don’t use it. Please, I’m begging you. If you try to go against the hunters, they’ll just use it as an excuse to be more brutal than they’ve already been.”
“I can’t make any promises. A lot of my contacts are already looking for a fight, after seeing what Roemer is doing to that poor girl. They consider it a challenge, and the longer they don’t answer it, the weaker they’ll feel.”
Ari nodded. “I know. I just need a little time.”
“Well, the clock is ticking, Miss Willow. Eventually Marin Cardoso is going to be forced to transform, and thousands of eyes are going to see it happen live on their phone. The light will be shining on us then. And no matter what the truth is, no matter what heinous lengths Roemer has gone to in order to reveal the truth, nothing will change the fact that we look like the monsters from the fairy tale book. Once that genie is out of the bottle, it won’t be easy to put it back in.”
Ari closed her eyes, suddenly feeling very, very tired.
“So?” He shifted his weight and looked down the street as if he was waiting for a ride. “You need anything else?”
Ari opened her eyes. “Yeah. You know a good copy place?”
***
Dale parked behind Hayden on Third Avenue and followed him to Regrade Park. Dale hated this park; it was in a terrible neighborhood, and the ground was littered with broken glass and garbage from the homeless encampment nearby. It was billed as a dog park, but the ground was a combination of cement and gravel that would wreak havoc on sensitive paws. They were almost two miles from where Ari had encountered the hunters, and where Milo had been recovered, close enough that Roemer could get there quickly but not so close it would be in spitting distance of where the women were being held.
She tried to act nonchalant a
s Hayden led her toward a bony man with silver hair who was seated on a bench near the back of the park. He wore a green polo shirt tucked into khakis, looking like they’d just interrupted his golf game.
“Gabriel Roemer,” Hayden said, turning to gesture at Dale, “meet Dale Frye.”
Roemer stood up and examined her with far more scrutiny than she was comfortable with. He finally extended a hand, smiling through a thin gray goatee.
“It’s a pleasure to meet such a unique individual. Hello, Miss Frye.”
Dale ignored his hand. “Mr. Hayden tells me that the two of you are at an impasse when it comes to the wolf problem.”
Roemer lowered his arm. His expression soured a bit at the slight, and he struggled to keep his voice upbeat. “Yes. Isaac seems to believe we can coexist with the beasts. I assume that’s why he brought you along with him, someone who has been coexisting with one of them for over a decade. Hm. Perhaps it’s better that you refused to shake my hand...”
Dale immediately clocked four things in her field of vision that she could use to take the bastard’s head off. She killed the impulse and swallowed her initial response.
“You can’t honestly believe it’s feasible to kill every wolf in Seattle, let alone the world. Even they don’t know how many canidae there are.”
“You believe it’s more plausible to coexist?” Roemer asked. “You claim this even as you’re fleeing the wolf you’ve been living with?” He raised an eyebrow and smirked. The urge to decapitate him grew stronger. “Let’s be as unbiased as possible, shall we? There is no perfect solution. Do I think exterminating the entire species is possible? Of course not. But a little population control is very overdue, and it will be proof to the others that this world was made for humans, not the abominations. We will show them that humanity will defend its rightful place as the dominant species and, if they try to rise up against us, they will find themselves very swiftly reminded of their rightful place.”
Dale’s skin crawled, and she fought the urge to scratch at her arms. He was touching on themes from the Magnusson book. She didn’t think she was still vulnerable to those heinous words, but it didn’t make it easier to hear the tenets preached like this.