“They surprised us," he said simply. I could imagine him shrugging. "It was a slaughter. A few of us were able to escape—Dack dragged me out of there himself. Charlie and Violet made it out. Impeccable survival instincts in those two. But…that's all. All I've been able to contact."
"Hardin has ten dead lycanthropes and three dead vampires."
"Damn," he whispered. "That's everyone. And some of theirs."
"Rick, have you considered that someone gave Arturo your location and the timing of your attack?"
"Of course I have," he said. "Mercedes maybe. Or one of Arturo's people followed us. I wasn't careful enough. Obviously." He sounded anguished.
"We have to talk. Where can we meet?"
After a pause, he said, "It's too late for that, Kitty. It's over. I made my move and lost."
I wasn't going to let him get away with that. "And what now? You run away? Like I did? I thought you were doing this out of a sense of righteousness, not for power. You don't want Arturo running this town."
"The cost has already been too high."
"Rick. Please. Just talk to me, face-to-face."
"What made you change your mind?"
"Hardin has ten dead lycanthropes. Only seven of them were yours. Two were Carl's. The tenth was mine."
"Oh, no. Ben—"
"Ben's fine. This was someone else. I'll explain later. Tell me where and when."
He gave me the name of a bar on Colfax. The time: midnight.
As I ended the call, I looked up to find Ben standing in the doorway. "Do you want me to go with you?"
"Only if you want to," I said. I wouldn't look at him.
"I want to."
"Okay. I have another errand to run before then. I'll come back to pick you up." I was already headed for the door. I had to keep moving, letting the adrenaline push me forward. Otherwise, I'd melt.
But I managed to turn to him before I left and said, "Thanks."
Next, I wanted to find out what happened to Jenny. Why had she left the airport when she was just an hour away from being free forever? Then how had Carl found her, and why had he seen her as enough of an enemy to tear her throat out?
I used to be part of that pack. I expected that I still knew most of its members, and that I still knew how to find a few of them. But I couldn't be sure of trusting any of them. That approaching any of them wouldn't get Carl on my tail.
Before I left, I checked the glove box. Yes, Ben's gun with its silver bullets was still there. Ben was so utterly practical, and I was still mad at him. I slammed closed the glove box and hoped I wouldn't need the gun, thereby proving him right again.
I knew Shaun from my days in the pack. He kept to himself mostly, and that was why I looked for him first. Like most werewolves, he was part of a pack for safety, for the protection of numbers, the reassurance of a regular territory to run in on full moon nights. He didn't make trouble, he paid proper respect to the alphas, and thereby maintained an equilibrium. He wasn't one of the ones so blindingly loyal to Carl that he'd fight and die for him. I was counting on that—and counting that I could run fast enough if I'd judged wrong.
Conversely, I had to hope that even though he was a loner, he knew enough about the pack to tell me what had happened to Jenny.
Back in the old days—only a year ago, I had to remind myself that I'd left the pack less than a year ago—Shaun had worked at a trendy bar and cafй in Lodo, near the baseball stadium, as a cook, usually during the late shift. Funny, how many lycanthropes liked working late. First, I called to ask if he was still working there. He was, and in fact had been promoted to the head of his shift. The guy had some ambition, it seemed. I showed up at the place a little after the evening rush and made my way to the back entrance. An open doorway in the back alley led to a clean, white work area and kitchen. A busboy dropped a bag of trash in a nearby dumpster, and voices, rattling dishes, and the sound of spraying water drifted out, a counterpoint to the sounds of traffic nearby. The smell of rich food and wonderful spices overpowered the city smells entirely, wafting out on the hot air spilling from the kitchen. The comforting scent made me smile.
"Hey," I called to the kid as he turned to go back inside.
"Yeah?" He was surly, wary, bent on his task, and probably not used to seeing blond chicks wandering out back.
"Can you tell Shaun someone's out here to talk to him?"
"He know you?"
"Tell him it's Kitty." I decided to be honest. If Shaun didn't want to come talk to me, I'd march inside and talk to him instead.
The busboy nodded and went back in, leaving me to scuff my sneakers on the asphalt for several minutes. I didn't want to go in there. I'd prefer doing this outside, in the open. Neutral territory—plenty of escape routes.
I shouldn't be doing this. Leaving town was a perfectly viable option.
A young man of average height and solid build appeared in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, arms crossed, shoulders hunched. The watchful, defensive posture suggested he wasn't going to start a fight—but he wasn't going to give ground, either. He had short, dark hair, and coffee-and-cream skin, wore a chef's white smock over his shirt and jeans, and had the wild, fur-under-the-skin scent of a lycanthrope. Someone who didn't know what to look for would never see it in him.
"Hi, Shaun," I said, hoping I sounded friendly and non-threatening. "How are you?"
"What are you doing here?" he said by way of greeting. Didn't bother trying to sound friendly, and I couldn't blame him.
"Tell me about Jenny."
Shaking his head, Shaun looked away. "I can't talk to you. Carl is pissed off. I've never seen him as pissed off as he is at you." And that was saying something. A lot of things pissed Carl off.
"Not as pissed off as he's going to be," I said, donning a terrible sweet smile.
Shaun had pulled himself from the doorway and started to walk back inside, but my words stopped him. Slowly, he looked back over his shoulder. His body was taut with fear, uncertainty—the stiff shoulders, the clenched fists. Ready to run, ready to fight if cornered. I recognized the stance because I'd felt it myself so many times. He studied me, his dark eyes shining.
"You're going to do it," he said. "You're going to take him down."
Not "you're going to challenge him," or "you're going to try to take him." He said "you are." Like he believed I could. That sent a charge through me, a brush of static that made my hair rise. He thought I was stronger—maybe I could get him to side with me. Maybe.
"Right now, I just want to know what happened to Jenny. I put her on a plane. She was supposed to be on a plane and away from Carl. How did he get to her?"
His stance changed. Some of the caution slipped, replaced by…something. I couldn't read the new tension that creased his features. Could it be grief? I waited for him to collect himself.
When he finally spoke, his voice was soft and hesitant.
"She called him from the waiting area. I think she chickened out. She talked a lot about getting away, when he wasn't around. But it was like talking about winning the lottery. Nobody believes it, you don't believe it yourself. Then she'd turn around in the same breath and say how much she loved him. How she wouldn't want to hurt him. Like it didn't matter how much he hurt her." His expression turned bitter. "When she disappeared, I was happy. I thought she'd really done it, gotten away from him, left town. I didn't care how, I didn't care where, just that she was away. But she called him, and Carl talked her out of it. Pulled out all that 'we're a pack, we're family, I need you' shit. He still had a hold on her. I can't really blame her—it's hard walking away. You know that."