The Wolf, page 2
The wolven glanced over his naked shoulder and flashed fangs white as morgue shrouds, sharp as surgical instruments. “I’m going.”
“Just keeping you on time. You know what you have at risk.”
“Yeah,” was his muttered response. “You’re good like that.”
CHAPTER TWO
Trade & 29th Streets
Caldwell, New York
Ainhoa Fiorela Maite Hernandez-Guerrero knew she was being watched in the alley. As Rio stood in the shadows thrown by a fire escape, she could feel the eyes on her, and she slipped her hand into the pocket of her leather jacket. The nine millimeter autoloader was small enough to hide, deadly enough to defend.
What more did you need in a gun, really.
Looking around, she was aware that she was alone in a way that made things dangerous. It wasn’t that nobody was around. She just couldn’t trust anyone who—
Spaz came shambling around the corner into the alley, his stained peacoat and paper-thin jeans the kind of wardrobe he’d have to go to a landfill to update. The man was only in his mid-twenties, but the drug lifestyle was a nonbiological cancer, eating his body and mind away, only a husk remaining.
Until such time as even addiction couldn’t animate the shell anymore.
“Hey, Rio, you got anything?” he asked.
She glanced behind her and prayed that the supplier contact she’d come here to meet was late. “Not on me, no.”
“So, yeah, listen, Rio, you gotta give me some business. I mean, I’m good. I can handle myself. I mean. Come on. I can sell for you regular.”
Spaz’s watery, bloodshot eyes circled the alley in the manner of bats, flapping around in a disorganized way. She was willing to bet that the last time he truly focused on something was the first time he’d put a meth pipe to his lips.
As a wave of exhaustion came over her, she said, “You think Mozart doesn’t know what you did with that last piece we gave you to move?”
“I told you two days ago, the guy jumped me. He took the shit after he got me.”
Dirty fingers lifted up an old Soundgarden t-shirt that had more holes than cotton fibers to it. “Look.”
She didn’t need to lean forward to see the line in his skin. It was about an inch long, off to the side above his hip, and the thing had the red puffy profile of infection.
“Spaz, you gotta get that looked at.”
“I don’t have medical insurance.” He smiled, showing cracked teeth. “But I could get some. If you give me—”
“It’s not up to me. You know that.”
“So talk to Mozart.”
“He does what he wants.”
Spaz’s Ping-Pong-ball pupils got in the vicinity of her face and hovered around. “Can you give me some money, then.”
“Listen, I’m not—”
“I gotta pay someone back. You know how it goes. And if I can’t get the product or the cash, they’re going to…”
The words drifted, and not because he was trying to do with innuendo what was obvious even without the syllables. There was such hopelessness in his gaunt face, his capitulation to his countless bad decisions now impossible to reverse or probably even comprehend, his life nothing but a speeding car swerving toward him while all he had on his feet were a pair of broken roller skates.
“Who do you owe?” she asked.
“Mickie.”
Oh, shit. “Spaz. You know better than that.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Rio looked left. Looked right. Checked her watch. “I gotta go, I’m almost late.”
Except she was in the right place and on time. Spaz was the one who had to leave—
“Mickie’s gonna kill me. After he uses me for a while.”
There was no need to do the math on that. No way she could live with herself if she didn’t help.
Cursing, Rio linked her arm through his and started walking. And not even half a block into the parade, Spaz struggled to keep up, even though she was going only slightly faster than a Sunday-stroll speed.
“Where we heading, Rio?”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Ahh, Rio. You’re not gonna make me go to the shelter again.”
“I sure am.”
As a flash of lightning licked across the sky, she looked up—and half expected a meteor to be gunning for her head, the fireball targeting her and her alone, poor, desperate, dying Spaz collateral damage from her predestined destruction.
Except no, it was only a freak thunderstorm on Halloween night about to smack Caldwell around with wind and rain and volts of sky-born electricity.
“You always take care of me.” Spaz rested his head on her shoulder. “Thank you, friend.”
Closing her eyes for a second, she took them around a corner and looked twice before she piloted them across the street.
“You’re welcome, Spaz. And you gotta take better care of yourself.”
“I know, Rio. I know.”
* * *
Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, watched the human woman redirect the drug addict away from where she’d been standing at the back of the nightclub. As it was Monday and the den of iniquity was closed, he could easily hear their conversation, no bass thumping in the background, no stumbling drunks or loose-jointed Molly users kibitzing and crowding the air with their inane dissertations on nothing at all.
The junkie who’d approached her was not part of Caldie’s club crowd. Maybe he had been at one point in time, but he’d fallen through the net of high-functioning to the homeless level below. Next one down for him? Grave site.
Stepping out of his lean, V lit up a hand-rolled and casually smoked as he trailed her and her social services project. You didn’t see a lot of dealers trying to get their customers into recovery. That was like a fry cook urging diners to watch their cholesterol. But humans, you know. They were multifaceted in so many boring ways, and this woman had herself a secret—
As his phone started vibrating, he took the Samsung out of the ass pocket of his leathers. When he saw who it was, he answered immediately. “Tell me.”
“My lead is dead.”
V rolled his eyes. “Quick point of clarification, Hollywood. Was he breathing when you got there, or did your beast bust out the A.1. steak sauce again.”
Of all of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Rhage was the one with the biggest appetites. Well, appetite in the singular now that he was happily mated to his Mary. The guy had given up all excesses except for food—which would have been fine and dandy if all he ever pounded were half gallons of Breyers ice cream and the occasional six-pack of roasted turkeys with all the trimmings. But Rhage had long ago on-boarded one hell of a chaser when it came to takeout consumption, and sometimes you couldn’t be sure if his beast was going to recognize who was friend and who was lunch.
“That is so judgy,” the brother said.
“I’m just asking. That flying purple people eater you carry around under your skin like luggage has been known to turn whole stadiums of people into a charcuterie board. So it’s not an unfair question.”
As V brought up tall, T. rex, and noshy, he stayed in the wake of the human woman and her twitchy BFF, following them to what he was going to bet would be that new shelter set up by Our Lady of Perpetually Doing Good Shit on 27th Street.
“No, I didn’t eat him. And I meant to only cap him in the knee.”
“With your fist or your gun.”
“I sneezed when I pulled the trigger.”
“Oops.” Overhead, more lightning skipped along the undersides of the restless clouds. “Entry wound is where?”
“In my defense,” Rhage interjected, “this place is filthy. If rat poop were nickels, this motherfucker would be Jeff Bezos.”
When V’s goiter reflex raised its little hand in proverbial class, he swallowed that quick. He was a real male, dammit, not someone who ew’d at things. But God, rat shit?
“So where’d you shoot him?”
“Well…” The word trailed off, like the brother was tilting in for a closer look to make sure the anatomy description was right. “Let’s just say he’s going to have some blood in his urine.”
“Not if he’s dead he ain’t.”
“Do you have to be so literal. Fine, if he were still alive and capable of beer’ing himself into a stupor, he’d be pissing blood out of what’s left of his sausage and two eggs. But whatever. You try and pull a gun on me, it’s not going to go well for you.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Hollywood,” V muttered. “I’d miss our stimulating conversations. Plus, I invested in the Tootsie Roll company years ago, and I enjoy beating the S&P 500.”
“Actually, you would miss the shit out of me.”
The brother was right, of course. But like the rodent-related excremental bleurgh back there, V saw no reason to airtime any kind of awww-ain’t-that-sweet emotion.
Instead, he crossed the street, and played paranormal gumshoe as the woman went—yup, he called it—right up to the shelter’s double doors. As she hit the call button, and then spoke into the intercom, the guy next to her was looking around as if he were assessing opportunities to bolt. She knew better than to let go of that tattered sleeve, however.
“Anyway, can you come over here? I’ve got a cell phone and a laptop.” Rhage sneezed again. “And my sinuses just have to share this wealth with one of my nearest and dearest.”
“Aren’t I lucky.”
Up ahead, the shelter door opened, a man in a SUNY Caldwell sweatshirt opening things up and beckoning the pair inside.
“Okay, yeah, my target is going to be tied up for a while.” Vishous glanced down the street. “So I got time.”
“This shouldn’t take long.”
“I don’t have a tracer on her yet, but she’ll be easy to find. She covers a given territory.”
“I can help after you come here.”
“Roger that. ETA two secs.”
As V hung up the phone, he looked behind himself. Caldwell was damp and dreary tonight, the twinkling spires of the financial district’s skyscrapers doing nothing to relieve the oppressive doom and gloom of the freak weather front.
Then again, maybe that was just his frustration talking.
He wished like hell the Brotherhood had a better strategy for finding where that prison camp had gone. After the species as a whole had lost track of the place, and the now-defunct glymera had used the underground labyrinth as a dumping ground for vampires it disapproved of, there had been a recent rediscovery—which had occurred just after the location had been abandoned. The near-miss had done little but confirm its existence, and now Wrath, the great Blind King, was determined to find the lawless holding tank and render some much-needed justice to the falsely accused.
The only clue came from the drug trade that was apparently used to sustain the camp’s infrastructure and population. Drug-product packaging that had been found in the underground site was now starting to turn up on Caldwell’s streets again. The second Trez had found the iron cross trademark back in circulation, they’d alerted the Brotherhood.
Was it possible someone else was using the branding? Sure. Likely? Nah.
And as if they had anything else to go on.
Whatever. One way or another, the prison camp was going to be located—and Wrath was going to establish a proper penal system for the vampire race, one that would be far fairer than the aristocracy’s secret racket. But when you were as impatient as V was? Everything took too long.
On that note, he moved two steps back into the shadows, double-checked that there were no eyes on him, and up-up-and-away’d himself, ghosting off to Rhage’s coordinates.
Just another night in Caldwell, vampires moving through a city choked with humans, with the latter being none the wiser.
Which was one thing that could never change.
CHAPTER THREE
Rio stepped back out into the thunderstorms twenty minutes after she delivered Spaz through the doors of the Our Lady of Lourdes Shelter for the Homeless. Hopefully the guy would stay longer than the night, but she really didn’t expect him to.
She was going to take care of one of his problems personally, however.
Mickie was going to back off the guy. And she’d confront the fucker now, except she was really frickin’ late.
Even though the drug world didn’t necessarily run to schedule, she went into a hustle, jogging back for where she’d been standing under that fire escape—
Her phone went off, the subtle ringing rising above the rustle and creak of her leather jacket. Stabbing her hand into an inner pocket, she pulled the cell out. When she saw that it was a blocked number, she pulled up short and answered in a whisper.
“Hello?”
The male voice was immediately recognizable. “Rio, you’re in danger—”
“Are you out of your mind calling me on this number?” She looked around. “You want to get me killed—”
“Listen, I’m not anywhere near you, and I can’t go into it right now, but your cover is blown. I’m—”
“I can’t talk about this right now. And don’t call me on—”
“—sending something to you outside of normal channels—”
“I gotta go,” she hissed.
“Rio! You have to pull out. You’ve been compromised—”
“No, I haven’t—”
A lightning strike burst through the night, attracted by the rod on the top of the One State Street Plaza building, which was just a couple blocks to the east of her. The flash was blinding, and the crack and sizzle of impact had her cringing back and lifting her arm over her face like a vampire. As her direct report continued to talk into her ear, she cut the call, shoved the cell in her pocket—
Up ahead, the supplier stepped out from under the fire escape.
And he was the size not so much of a football player, but an entire defensive line.
Zipping up her jacket, she pushed one hand through her short hair as the other burrowed in and locked on the grip of her hidden gun. Good thing she was wearing Kevlar under her fleece.
Rio strode forward, knowing she had to get her shit together. Everybody involved in the trade was rat smart and always reading any room they walked into or up to. She needed to get her affect strapped tight and her energy projection right. There was no way her undercover status had been compromised. There were only two people in the Caldwell Police Department who knew what she was doing, and her fake background was ironclad because she’d come over from the FBI—which had erased everything about her.
She was a ghost, floating through the streets at night, stringing together a case so that Mozart’s stranglehold on the Caldie drug scene could be severed with a lifetime set of iron bars.
“You Luke?” she said crisply.
The man’s golden eyes seemed to glow like candle flames, and as another bolt of lightning skipped above them, his face was briefly highlighted. Well… hello, sailor. He had the high cheekbones of a model, the mouth of an Italian lover, the jaw of a fighter, and the streaked hair of a nineties-era John Frieda ad.
Also, a strange scar that ran around his throat.
That last one was probably the only thing about him that made sense. There were all kinds of reasons people in the big-money sectors of the drug business ended up with things that lingered in their skin, a road map of brutal, bloody sin.
She thought of Spaz and his stab wound. And knew that was true for the underlings, too.
“Rio,” came the man’s low response.
Okay, that voice was smooth as bourbon in the gut, warming, relaxing—in spite of the fact that she was in the middle of a drug zone, with no backup. As usual.
And… was that cologne? He smelled really good.
“Yeah, that’s me.” She lifted her chin. “You want to talk terms.”
“Not here.”
“I’m not alone.” Rio nodded up to the darkened windows of the building across the alley and lied through her teeth. “And I’m not leaving my friends in there.”
“Don’t trust me?”
“Not as far as I can throw you. So do you want to talk terms or not?”
The man stayed where he was—for a split second.
The next thing she knew he’d grabbed hold of her, spun her around, and slammed her up against the damp cold bricks of the nightclub. As his huge body pressed into her back, she was very aware of that smell of him—which, considering things were going bad, bad, bad, she should not have noticed, much less approved of.
“Get off me,” she snarled.
With a yank against the hold on her arms, she tried to get her gun out. Or at the knife at her waist. Or to the pepper spray in her back pocket. Worse came to worst, she was going to bite the back of his hand and then take a course of PEP in case he was HIV-positive.
Baring her teeth, she went for—
The bullet sizzled past the top of her head, somehow charting a course that avoided both her skull and his jawline. And then there was a pinging sound as the slug hit something metal—and immediately, there was another pop! Pop! Poppoppoppoppop—
“I swear to God,” the deep voice in her ear muttered, “if you bite me, I’m going to toss you back out there and you can get plugged full of holes.”
Rio twisted her head and looked down the narrow chute between the walk-ups across the way and the club they were up against.
One of the shooters was using the blacked-out Charger he was parked in as cover. Not the worst idea given the size of its big block engine—and the fact that liquid gasoline didn’t actually explode. But he’d better keep his noggin down.
That safety glass was no better than a paper napkin—
The shattering of the windshield was spectacular, the spidering cracks virus’ing out from a pinpoint hole in the glass.
The immediate blaring horn suggested that someone was taking a little nap in the driver’s seat. But she didn’t have time to figure out who had done the job.
Her body moved without her giving any commands to her arms and legs.
Then again, luggage didn’t animate itself.
