The Wolf, page 3
It was carried.
* * *
She was a human female, Lucan thought as he picked up the woman he’d been told to meet and carted her farther away from the shooting.
When the appointment had been made, he’d assumed that Rio was a male, and the fact that the “he” was actually a “she” was a goddamned inconvenience. In an exchange of bullets, he’d have let a male die, but it seemed, well, rude, or at the least ungentlemanly, not to save the fairer sex—
“Ow!” he barked.
As that Charger was put into gear, and its set of four rubber grabbers tried to claw into the damp asphalt, his damsel in distress squirmed around, grabbed his nuts, and cranked down on his hey-that’s-personals like she wanted him to sing something from Saturday Night Fever for her.
Instantly incapacitated, he let go of the woman and went bull rider, sinking into his knees around an invisible saddle—and thankfully, the grip was released. While Lucan blinked his eyes clear and tried to stand up straight, the woman shoved herself off of him, backing away—
Right into the path of the screeching muscle car with its pixelated safety glass, probably dead driver, and copilot who was apparently remaining under the dash while he or she steered an escape.
“No!” Lucan yelled.
The image of the woman wheeling around to face the car and getting spotlit by yellow running lights was going to stay with him forever: Her eyes popping open, her short dark hair a helmet that would do nothing to protect her skull, her reflexes not enough to save her.
She was hit fair and square, right in the legs, her body tumbling up onto the hood, her somersaults taking her in a roundabout over the busted windshield and across the roof and down the trunk: Hands, boots, hands, boots, her dark head the fulcrum around which the momentum carried her torso and spun her limbs.
The geometry was pretty damn clear. She was going to end up hitting the pavement on a headfirst landing—
Lucan sprang forward, putting all his strength into the surge, and just as he got in range, gravity won out over her forward motion, and her tender flesh started to fall with her skull leading the way—
He went airborne, throwing his body parallel to the pavement because it was his only chance to get there in time. With the wind in his ears, the stink of car exhaust and burnt rubber in his nose, and a pounding in his chest, he flew… flew… flew…
Like he was a bird instead of a wolven.
He grabbed whatever he could of the woman, locking his arms around her and rolling in midair so that his back and not her brains took the impact of their combined weights. As they began their joined descent, he tightened his left arm, and leveled the gun in his right to the shadows just beyond the fire escape.
The shooter there was still focused on the Charger, pumping bullets into the car, pings! and bursts of Roman candle sparks turning the thing into a deadly disco party.
Lucan got as many bullets off as he could before he landed so hard, the breath knocked out of him and his vision went on the fritz. He told himself that the distant shout of pain was the shooter going down, but he had no proof of it. He might have made the sound.
Now… no more shots. Just a soft moaning.
His? The human female’s? Not the shooter, too far away.
Meanwhile, the Charger was no more. The engine roar was dimming… and now disappearing.
Breathing. His. Hers.
Then he felt the pressure on his chest ease up and that on his hips increase. He opened eyes he hadn’t known were closed.
The woman was sitting up with her back to him. Right on his pelvis.
Talk about bull riders.
As his thoughts went to places where they were naked, she was yee-hawing all over him, and things were on the hot and sweaty side of hi-how’re-ya—she cursed and put her hand up to her head. Then she looked around. Twisted around. Met his eyes with ones of her own that went wide as paper plates for a second time.
“Oh, Jesus—” she barked.
The woman pushed herself off the cradle of every bright idea he’d ever had—and it was pretty clear she meant to leap to her feet. That was a no-go. She slumped to the side and grabbed for one of her legs.
“Are you okay?” he said. Or at least, that was what he meant to say. He wasn’t sure what kind of fruit salad’s worth of syllables came out of his mouth.
“It’s not broken.” She hissed as she rubbed her calf. “It’s not broken, dammit.”
Sitting himself up onto his elbows, he thought about pointing out that if a cast was required, that pep talk wasn’t going to do shit for the situation. But really, why waste breath on the obvious—
Boom!
They both jumped at the explosion. Putting his arm out to shield her even though he didn’t know what or where the threat was coming from, he looked down at the far end of the alley. Flames. A bonfire’s worth of them. About six blocks away under one of the city’s twin bridges by the river.
The orange strobe-lighting was impressive, and courtesy of the flickering show, he could see that the black muscle car was at the center of the bomb burst. And as street people ran away, he knew that soon there would be flashing blue and red lights, and all kinds of humans with badges, and spectators with camera phones.
“We gotta get out of here,” he said as he stood up—and put a palm to the small of his back with a curse.
When she just looked at him, he extended the hand that didn’t have a gun in it toward her.
“Do you need a doctor?” he asked.
“No.”
As she left his palm out there in the breeze, he’d really had it with the way things had been going tonight.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he muttered. “I saved your life, twice. And if we keep hanging out in the middle of this fucking street, you and I might have to go for a threesome.”
There was an awkward pause and then Lucan shook his head.
“Wait, that came out wrong.”
Or did it, he wondered to himself.
CHAPTER FOUR
Vishous re-formed on the roof of a walk-up apartment building that had trap house written all over it. As his full weight of nearly three hundred pounds solidified in his boots—hey, he’d been working out hard, and all that iron humping was paying off—there was a creaking that suggested he needed to step carefully. Easing forward, he checked out the raw tar paper, the pockets of leaf debris that were ossifying into topsoil, and some twists that looked like clothes caught up in a crime scene.
’Cuz human flesh would be unlikely. Not a lot of Buffalo Bills in Caldie at the moment. That anybody knew about, that was.
The rooftop was long and thin because the five stories’ worth of crappy flats was a shotgun, the building sandwiched between two others of equal merit and distinction. On a lowbrow domicile such as this, it went without saying there was no HVAC venting of any size, not that he felt like rolling his mortal dice on a ghosting trip down an unknown system of ductwork. But there also wasn’t a set of stairs or even a hatch, and this left him with having to find a way into the top-floor apartment. Not a big deal, though. Plenty of broken windows he could dematerialize through—
Whoop!
There it is.
Without even a snap, crackle, or pop of warning, V went into a free fall, his shitkickers breaking through the mushy roof, his body sucking through the hole they’d created, the drop so lightning fast that he barely had time to put his hands up so that his arms didn’t snap off at the pits.
The weightlessness lasted one blink and a single inhale of powdered urban rot long—and just as he was wondering if he was going to keep busting through until he hit the basement, his soles hit something solid, his knees went into a bend—
And his butt bounced. Twice.
As a cloud of dust blurred the air, his forearms flopped onto padded rolls.
“Fuck me!” Rhage hollered from the far side of the debris bloom.
V glanced down at himself. Well, what do you know. An armchair.
“You want to give me a heart attack?” Hollywood demanded. “Scaring me like that?”
Across a fetid war field of stained mattresses, empty liquor bottles, and drug paraphernalia, the brother was clutching his chest like a little old lady in church who’d just learned premarital sex was a thing.
V crossed his legs at the knees and moved his gloved palm around as if he was on a throne. “You can act like a man. What’s the matter with you.”
“Don’t you Vito Corleone at me.”
“At least you caught the ref.”
Rhage jabbed a finger forward—and kind of blew the tough-guy confrontation by sneezing. Three times in a row. But big, blond, and always-hungry recovered like the fighter he was.
“I liked you better before you got a sense of humor. And I know The Godfather by heart. Also, before you ask, no, I’m not kissing your ring. You don’t wear them, anyway.”
“Oh, but I do. And wouldn’t you like to know where they are.”
Rhage shook his head. “That’s an anatomy chart I do not need to see.”
“Fair enough.” V stood up. Looked to the hole in the ceiling. Well-fuck’d to himself. “What’re the chances.”
Through the ragged wound in the roof, the rain that had started to fall sprinkled his face as flaps of tar paper caught the storm’s gusts and sounded like bird wings.
Rhage came over. “So you didn’t plan it?”
“How the fuck am I going to plan falling through a—”
The groan brought both their heads around. Slumped in the low corner of an off-kilter sofa, a man who was twenty-five-going-on-early-grave was twitching like he was hooked up to a faulty electrical socket, his hands inching toward the red river running out of his lower abdomen.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Hollywood said in a cheerful way. “Great. I thought you were dead.”
“Who’s your friend,” V asked as they went over and loomed above the guy.
Clicking now, from the slack mouth. Followed by a cough. Closer up, the human was meatier than V had first thought, and not from being fat. He was also greasier, which V supposed made him a quarter pounder, instead of a single. He had on a t-shirt that had been white probably three hundred and sixty-five days ago, and a pair of jeans that could probably stand on their own without his help.
He was armed, too—well, almost armed. There was a gun about four inches outside of his immediate reach, on a couch cushion that was a sponge for bodily fluids V would just as soon not have to culture. To be sure there weren’t any more bullets flying into soft tissue that wasn’t going to grow back, V confiscated the weapon, took out the clip, and pocketed the components.
Rhage leaned down and tapped the man’s shoulder. “Hello?”
“I don’t think he’s being shy.” V took out a hand-rolled and made sure the wrapper was still tight. “And that’s an observation unrelated to my medical training, given that he’s leaking like a busted fuel pan.”
“We only want to ask you a couple of questions.” Rhage raised his voice as he held a little plastic baggie marked with a cross symbol in front of that going-gray face. “You’re selling this on the streets—hey, don’t worry. We’re not pissed and we’re not your law enforcement. We just want to know where you got it.”
As V patted around for his lighter, dust floated up from his leather jacket. And yeah, there was a hint of rat-vacuation to it.
Right on cue, Rhage sneezed and startled the dying man, but the revival didn’t last long.
“We’re out of time for talk therapy,” V muttered. “I’m going in.”
After he lit his cigarette, he exhaled in a stream and burrowed into the man’s mind—
V cursed. “Damn, son. You gotta chill with the pipe.”
Even on the lip edge of death, the guy’s neurons were so overstimulated, it was impossible to isolate the memory areas, either short- or long-term. And then it didn’t matter. The man gritted his teeth, reared back, and stiffened into a seizure.
V jumped out of that brain quick. “I got nothing. And he’s too far gone for CPR.”
“Dammit.” Rhage looked over at a ragged table strewn with baggies marked with that iron cross malarkey—as well as a lappy and a phone. “I guess we take everything over there and ghost out.”
In the center of the stained wooden square, there was a blue plastic-wrapped block, the corner of which was torn open, like a mouse had eaten into cheese. White powder, fine as the shit you’d brush onto a model’s face, had spilled onto the table.
No wonder the guy’s brain was a sparkler.
“Quite a supply,” V murmured.
“He’s a big dealer.”
“Not anymore.”
Hollywood picked a Target bag up off the floor. Shaking the thing out, he forearm’d what had to be two hundred little packets of white powder into it.
“How’s this asshole hanging here by himself with all this coke?” V headed back to the couch and went face-to-face with the gaping, twitching human. “I’d think he’d have backup. Unless you shot anybody else?”
“Nope, just him,” Rhage said agreeably. “He must have a reputation and a half.”
The dealer’s watery, bloodshot eyes rolled back as he exhaled his last breath. After which he became just like the piece of furniture, another used-up object in the squalor.
“Well, that’s that.” V straightened. “And maybe you and I should do some target practice in the training center during the day, true? You know, perishable skills and all that.”
“I need Zyrtec.” Rhage sneezed. “The problem is my nose, not my aim.”
“We can get that down in the clinic, too. Come on, Hollywood, let’s blow. With the blow.”
As V browed-up a couple of times, the brother shook his head. “Like I said, I liked you better before you got a sense of humor.”
“Why, you jealous I’m good at something else now?”
* * *
Down on the ground in the alley where she’d been hit by a car, Rio was trying to rub the pain out of her left leg—and thinking of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Windex. If only she had some Windex.
So maybe she had a concussion, too.
As the Charger had come at her, she’d managed to jump-and-roll just before impact, and her timing had saved her legs from being totally shattered at the shins. But that didn’t mean she didn’t break something or that she wasn’t going to be a quilt of bruises in the morning—because the human body was not supposed to act as a squash ball.
“—have to go for a threesome. Wait, that came out wrong.”
As the male voice registered, she looked to the source.
It was the supplier she was supposed to meet. The one who had saved her life. He was talking to her, but for some reason, she couldn’t hear what he was saying—
All at once, the words that had registered were properly deciphered by her brain. “I’m not sleeping with you,” she blurted.
As he stood up, he waved his palms, all just-forget-it. “Like I said, came out wrong. Do you need a doctor or not?”
“Not. Most definitely not.”
It was a surprise that someone in the drug trade wanted to pull the rip cord on a call to 911 for anything, but then he knew she was one of Mozart’s top lieutenants. So maybe he was just preserving the potential revenue stream. If she kicked it, or was taken out of circulation, he’d have to find another contact.
Like Mickie.
As Rio went to stand up, she braced for a lot of pain. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be, just a matched set of bass drums in her legs. Meanwhile, the supplier—Luke was the name he was using—looked at her like he was expecting her to list to the side and knock herself out cold on the pavement. When she held her balance, he whistled under his breath.
“You’re impressive as hell, lady.”
Whatever, she thought. A couple thousand pounds of metal and glass coming at you gave you wings.
Talk about a Red Bull ad.
She kept all that to herself. “So let’s talk pricing.”
“Um, yeah, do you see that fireball down there?” He nodded to the river, where the Charger had exploded on some kind of impact, and a bright orange fire was showing no signs of burning out. Then he cupped his ear. “You hear those sirens? Shit’s about to get complicated around here, especially because I shot the shooter, even if I didn’t shoot the deputy. You want to talk, we’re going somewhere else.”
Rio hell-no’d that. But not because she was injured. She needed to find out whether the phone call she’d gotten before the shit hit the fan was connected to what had just happened. Had she been a bystander… or a target?
“I gotta go. We’ll meet tomorrow.”
Luke, likely not his real name, just stared at her. “You fuck me off, I’ll go to Mozart myself.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. He doesn’t meet directly with anybody.”
“I got special skills.”
“So do a lot of people.” Her bored tone was a cover-up for the stress prickling under her skin. “I’ll be in touch and we’ll try this again tomorrow night.”
And like the Caldwell Police Department patrol units had read her mind, those sirens the guy had pointed out doubled in volume, either because twenty more squad cars were coming in their direction or because the twelve dozen that were on their way had just turned the final corner.
“Suit yourself,” the supplier said. “But I was willing to make the deal tonight—and I’m moving on to someone else if you don’t take more of what I gave your organization last night. Also, you owe me.”
“Excuse me?”
“I saved your life, twice.” His golden eyes narrowed. “You owe me, Rio. And I collect my debts.”
“I didn’t ask you for a damned thing.”
“So you’d rather be dead.”
“Than indebted to anybody? You better believe it. And you need me. You can’t do the kind of business you want to with anybody but me. Mozart’s is the only organization that’s going to buy at the levels you’re talking about moving.”
“So let’s get the deal done.”
