Under the Gun

by Hannah Jayne

  Feng cocked a challenging eyebrow. “Do I really have to say it?”

  “I thought werewolf hunting was in your DNA and she”—I jutted my chin toward Xian, who blew a raspberry on ChaCha’s dog belly—“was some amazing tracker. Isn’t coming to me for help like cheating?”

  Anger covered Feng’s face like a veil, her features going even more sharp and hard than usual. “I’m not asking you for help. I was giving you an opportunity.”

  I barked a ridiculous laugh. “Really? Well, I appreciate the gesture, but I’d appreciate it more if you’d get the hell out of my house.”

  Feng pressed her lips together so hard all the color drained from them. She stood for a beat, her almond-shaped eyes challenging mine, before she hissed over her shoulder, “Come, Xian.”

  Xian reluctantly set ChaCha right on her feet, then stood up, straightening her puffy pink skirt and trudging behind her sister.

  “Your puppy is absolutely adorable,” she whispered to me.

  Feng’s nostrils flared and her whole body stiffened as if she had just smelled something awful. She leaned into me so her nose was just a hairbreadth from mine. “When you find what is left of your friend after I tear him apart, just remember that I came here, offering you the opportunity to turn him in and give him a respectable, single-bullet death.”

  I blinked, working to absorb the weight of Feng’s words. “Wha—?”

  “Don’t worry.” She grinned, pushing aside a sliver of baggy T-shirt to show me the gun at her waist. “I’ll be sure to tell him that Sophie Lawson said ‘game on.’”

  I stood, dumbstruck, watching Xian and Feng disappear down the hall when Nina snapped the door shut. “I don’t like your new friends, Soph.”

  I glared at her.

  “Sorry!” She pulled me close to her in an ice-cold embrace. “I know how hard this must be for you. I know how much you love Sampson, and it must be killing you to think about turning him in.”

  I struggled out of Nina’s hug and pushed her back. “You actually think Pete Sampson is guilty? You think he’s capable of something like this?”

  Nina shoved a lock of dark hair over her shoulder. “I just don’t understand why you insist on putting yourself in danger all the time.”

  I felt my jaw drop open. “I don’t insist. I’m helping a friend.”

  Nina looked back at me, quiet.

  I shook my head. “You always think the worst of people.”

  Nina’s expression didn’t change; it remained soft, with the slightest bit of yearning sympathy in the eyes. “I’ve been around a long time, Sophie. I’ve had more experience than you have.” She reached out and touched her hand to mine. “You know what I love about you breathers? No matter what happens, no matter how much evil and ugliness you see every day, most of you still hang on to this unyielding belief that people are basically good.”

  “And once you lose your soul you lose perspective?”

  Nina licked her lips. “No. You gain it.”

  Nina turned on her heel and was gone in an instant, her weightless body not making a sound.

  I sighed, and leaned against the closed door. ChaCha came trotting over and stood on her popsicle-stick hind legs, doing her the-world-is-a-happy-place dance. I swooped her up.

  “People are good,” I whispered into her fuzzy muzzle. “Right?”

  I waited a good twenty minutes until I was sure that Feng and Xian had left the building—and the general vicinity—before changing out of my sundress and swapping my floppy hat for a Giants cap. I stuffed my shoulder bag with my bass knife, a Taser, a granola bar, and two packages of Juicy Fruit before I paused, my hand hovering over my gun.

  I wasn’t chasing demons this time.

  I snatched the gun and the bullets, swung the bag over my shoulder, and closed my bedroom door.

  “Geez, Nina, you scared the crap out of me.”

  She was standing dead in front of me, silent. She blinked at me. “You’re going to need this.” She opened her hand, a flashlight rolling in her palm. There was a glossy black and white SOPHIE LAWSON label stuck to it.

  “Why do you think I’ll need a flashlight?” I gestured toward the bright sliver of light that was peeking through the blackout curtains.

  “Because I know that you’re going to do whatever it takes to prove that Sampson is innocent, that I’m jaded, and that you can save the world.” Her cherry-red lips quirked up into a knowing smile that showed off her sharp incisors. “I count on it.”

  This time the lump in the back of my throat wasn’t accompanied by fervent terror or a weighted bladder. “I love you, Neens,” I said, pulling her into a hug.

  I poked my head into the stairwell in true sleuth fashion, craning my head to see if there were any traces of Xian and Feng still lurking in my building. I found a stack of discarded Thai menus and someone’s left shoe but no Du sisters, so I tapped gently on Will’s door.

  “Sampson?” I stage whispered into the jamb. “Sampson, are you in there?”

  I pressed my ear up against the door when I got no response and listened intently for any movement inside. Nothing.

  If I was going to take Sampson out of the prime suspect spot, I was going to have to do it on my own.

  I hiked up my shoulder bag and headed down to the underground parking, feeling the adrenaline begin to trickle through my body. By the final flight of stairs I was doing my own Shaft walk, my own personal soundtrack blaring “Eye of The Tiger” in my head.

  I was less enthusiastic when I got to my car, unable to recall any awesome crime fighters or sleuths who drove dented in Hondas with the word VAMPIRE spray-painted across the hood.

  So much for staying incognito.

  I pushed my key into the ignition but didn’t start the car. Instead, I stared at my cell phone, feeling the gnawing need to call Alex, to make things right.

  But what would I say? I couldn’t come clean about Sampson just yet. And I couldn’t tell him that I’d never meant to hurt him when I was with Will.

  I quashed down the guilt, the need, the unease that I felt. I need to help Sampson, I told myself. I can make things right with Alex when this is through.

  It was late Saturday afternoon so cars clogging the city streets were mainly the out-of-state kind that slowed in front of every big building and changed lanes repeatedly. Two carloads of people in I HEART SF sweatshirts rolled down their windows to take cell phone pictures of my car, what they undoubtedly believed was one of those wacky SF artist’s statements.

  I was overwhelmingly happy to turn into the police station parking lot, where my car was quite at ease amongst the other criminal junkers. Once parked, I raced into the station, doing my best to keep my eyes on my shoes and look as unassuming as possible. I hopped into the elevator, typed in my weekend code—the Underworld Detection Agency is strictly a Monday through Friday gig—and gripped a lock of my hair, twisting it furiously over my finger. It was the one nervous tic I had yet to break.

  The doors slid open at the Agency and I poked me head out. “Hello?” I asked. “Anyone here?”

  When no one—and nothing—answered me, I took a tentative step out, doing my best to stay in the darkness. Deserted and bathed in yellow emergency lights, the office looked like any other office waiting room, but tonight there was something eerie about it, as though every creature, every feared legend and boogeyman, were lurking in the darkened corners, jaws at the ready, just waiting to attack. The silence was overwhelming, oppressive, and the heavy beating of my heart seemed to echo in the darkness, ricocheting off every dim wall.

  I steeled myself against my nervous twitter and slipped down the main hallway, taking the stairs to the absolute bowels of the building—and possibly of the earth.

  There was a file room down there—it was a spot where paper files went to die and where Vlad and Kale would make out when they thought no one would notice.

  I pushed open the door and was greeted with the scent of mildew and general age. The room was enormou
s and impossibly black; it seemed to swallow up the meager sliver of yellow light from my flashlight. I stepped into the room, hearing the ground creak under my feet, a drip in an overhead pipe. I was acutely aware of my breathing and everything in my body was on high alert as I pushed the door closed behind me. I couldn’t shut it all the way, feeling as though the click of the door and the shadowed depths of the room would swallow me whole.

  Though—or possibly since—the UDA has been around in various iterations since the medieval times, our filing system was woefully behind and every bit of paranormal information ever produced seemed to be housed here. Also, no one was ever able to agree on how to create a copasetic filing system with the paper documents, stone tablets, and the occasional indenture carved into human bone. Hence, our file room was part business typical, part Halloween superstore.

  The file area for werewolves was near the very back of the room and blanketed by two inches of dust. I set my flashlight on a nearby box, doing my best to angle the light in a useful direction. While there were entire walls dedicated to the documents and records for vampires and a growing catalog for newly turned zombies, the werewolf corner seemed woefully miniscule—nothing but two metal filing cabinets and a lopsided stack of books that looked garage-sale ready. I wrinkled my nose and very delicately yanked on the metal drawer pull of the first cabinet. Four feet of mashed-together manila folders sprung out and I finger walked through, looking for the most recent and the vilest.

  I frowned as I pushed through the year-by-year dividers, my sadness growing as the number of files shrunk. By the two thousands, I was down to a mere handful, and for the past year, there were only two files. I pulled them out and scanned the name tags—SAMPSON, PETE and HARRIS, SERGIO—and put them aside, poking into some of the previous files.

  I pulled one open at random, my fingers and eyes going over the glossy black-and-white photograph that was stapled to the side. It was of a handsome-looking man dressed in early fifties garb. He was clean cut with an easy smile and ears that stuck out over the top of his white sweater. The goofy smile and big ears made his age impossible to pinpoint, but I supposed he was young, my age at the oldest. I yanked at the picture stapled behind this one and sucked in a sharp breath at the beady eyes of the wolf that peered back at me. Because of my job and my familiarity with the way Agency files were kept, I knew that the wolf in the photo was the man in the previous photo, even though there was nothing left of the goofy-looking guy. The ears that were big and off centered in the first picture were sharply angled and alert in the second. The easy smile and soft eyes of the boy were lost in the jagged canine teeth, the menacing gaze of the beast. I flipped through a few more pages of the file, noting that this client had signed his Agency agreement faithfully on the same day each year—which meant that he was willing to abide by our rules and allow himself to be safely contained at night, would not hunt human flesh, and would not be a threat to any person or demon he ran across. And then I saw his death certificate.

  Wolf, someone had written in under Manifestation at death. And, under that, Slain. There was a newspaper article clipped to the back of the death certificate. It was yellowed and written in grainy Chinese. I didn’t need to translate to know that the article credited the Du family with this wolf ’s death.

  I had read my way through the first half of the files in the drawer when I heard it. My entire body went on high alert and I cocked my head, holding my breath, listening. A rustle. The flutter of papers. The deep murmur of voices being kept low. I slipped my flashlight into my pocket and the records room dipped into immediate and overwhelming darkness—all except for a yellow sliver of light that poured through the two-inch crack of the open door. Someone had turned on the hallway lights.

  I crab crawled toward the light, keeping one hand on my flashlight, the other pressed against my chest, doing my best to muffle the sound of my clanging heart. I heard footsteps then, and I stopped in mid-step, my whole body stooped, aching, protesting the awkward stance.

  “. . . could become quite a problem,” I heard.

  “Not something I’m entirely worried about,” someone responded.

  Dixon. I wet my lips. But who is he talking to?

  I took a hesitant step, certain that my every motion would ring out like china crashing. Footsteps. Conversation moving closer. Then, silence.

  I held my breath and clamped my eyes shut. Sweat beaded at the back of my neck and I knew the scent beckoned like a lighthouse strobe. There were a thousand scents in a deserted office—daily clients, cleaning solution, Post-It notes, toner . . . the metallic scent of human blood, heavy with adrenaline, pulsing through veins.

  Dixon knew I was there.

  The tiny sliver of yellow light grew as he pushed open the door to the records room. I slipped behind a file cabinet and crouched low, pressing my palms to my cheeks, trying my best to absorb the heat that I knew was wafting from me in waves. I did my best to slow my heartbeat, to make my breathing shallow, barely discernible. I knew from living with Nina that the attempt could be futile, so when Dixon stepped into the room I prepared myself to face him, every inch of my skin tightening, the excuses and explanations spasming through my head. I watched from my crouched spot as his dark eyes swept over the file cabinets and boxes in the room while one pale hand rested on the light switch.

  I licked my lips, then bit down hard on the bottom one as Dixon’s light flashed toward my imperfect hiding spot. I glanced at the stack of files I had shoved aside with my foot. They were low and scattered, decently hidden by the darkness and boxes.

  Dixon didn’t turn on the light.

  He didn’t come after me.

  He simply stepped out of the room, clicking the door shut behind him.

  I stayed hidden in the records room until my thighs screamed and I was certain that Dixon and whomever he was with had left the building. Then I jammed the files into my shoulder bag, clicked on my flashlight, and tried to straighten up. My legs and nerves betrayed me and my new, heavier shoulder bag threw me off. I felt myself falling, vaulting backward. I saw the boxes and the file cabinets going up as I went down, and before I could think better of it, my arms shot out, my hands grabbing for anything that would halt my fall.

  I heard my flashlight crash to the ground as my fingers wrapped around the metal bars of a shelving unit and I tried to shift my weight à la Angelina Jolie in one of her kick-ass roles—the darkness and my surge of adrenaline must have covered up the fact that most of the things I do are à la Paula Deen—as in requiring butter—and are slightly less shiftable in the weight area. My failed kick-ass move just sped up my fall, and I slapped down hard on the industrial-grade carpet, pulling the entire bookshelf on top of me. Books and papers sailed off the shelves and flopped on me, around me, everywhere; I let out inelegant “oafs!” each time a hardcover nabbed me in the chest.

  I was nearly covered by a mountain of books when a sheaf of papers fluttered down like graceful, gossamer winged doves, landing in a heap about my face. One of the loose pages blanketed my eyes and nose and though I couldn’t make out the words at that distance, I was able to see the writing.

  I felt my eyes grow.

  I recognized the writing—the curl on the tails of the Y’s, the curlicued question mark.

  I knew it because it was mine.

  “What the—?” I struggled to sit up, rolling my flashlight toward me and gathering up the papers. My mouth dropped open with each new sheet. All of them were mine, all of them oddly inane. A high school report card. A letter to my grandmother from sleepaway camp. A series of photocopied Post-It notes, personal bills, an e-mail I had written to Nina.

  I pushed the bookshelf back up and shoved the books back into it, finding a stack of stapled papers mashed between So You Think Your Partner’s a Vampire and an embarrassingly over-read copy of Twilight. I thumbed through the papers and recognized those as well. Not mine.

  My father’s.

  Chapter Eleven

  I shoved eve
rything into my shoulder bag, did a quick once-over to make sure the room looked the same, and took off like a shot. The angst that I��d felt when I’d first come down the elevator was back, only this time it was squarely focused not on getting found out by Dixon, but on wondering what it was that Dixon was trying to find out about me. The pages were beyond any personnel file, and the stack that belonged to my father were photocopies from a book that Alex had stolen from the uber-evil Ophelia and I had only seen once: my father’s journal.

  How the hell had they found their way to the Underworld Detection Agency?

  My cell phone chirped as I waited for the elevator, the jaunty tune so oddly terrifying that I clamped my legs shut and willed myself not to pee.

  “Sampson?”

  “Hey, Sophie, are you okay? Nina told me about Feng and Xian.”

  “I’m okay,” I said slowly. “Where were you though? I thought you were hiding out.”

  Sampson paused for a beat. “I was following up on some leads. I thought it would be safe.”

  “And did you find anything out?”

  “I found out that Alex and the rest of the police force are certain that a werewolf is responsible for these killings.”

  “So is Dixon,” I mumbled.

  Sampson let out a measured sigh.

  “Do they know about Nicco?”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the lingering adrenaline, a book-induced head wound, or something more intuitive, but I thought I sensed a bit of defeat—or admittance—in Sampson’s voice.

  “No. Sampson, we need to find Nicco. We need to find him and stop him and let everyone know that he’s responsible. Not you.”

  There was a slow pause and Sampson breathed in. Then out. “I can’t do that. I can’t give him up.”

  Because he doesn’t exist? The thought flew through my head before I had the chance to grab it, to savor it. No, I thought. I saw the other wolf. . . . But it had been dark, and I didn’t know where Sampson was that night, and moreover, I wasn’t completely certain of what Sampson looked like in wolf form.