I couldn’t let it go. I would find whoever killed him and punish them, if not for Greg, then for me, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye.
WHEN LIFE BACKS YOU INTO A CORNER AND OFFERS you no escape, when your friends, your lover, and your family abandon you, when you’re at the end of your rope, panicked, alone, and losing your mind, you know you’d give anything to make your problems go away. Then, desperate and eager, you will come to Unicorn Lane, seeking salvation in its magics and secrets. You’ll do anything, pay any price. Unicorn Lane will take you in, shroud you in its power, fix your problems, and exact its price. And then you will learn what “anything” really means.
Every city has one of those neighborhoods—dangerous, sinister places—so treacherous that even the criminals who prey on other criminals shun them. Unicorn Lane was such a place. Thirty city blocks long and eight blocks deep, it cut through what used to be Midtown like a dagger. Half-crumbled skyscrapers stood there, mute witness to the past’s technology, the husks of GLG Grand, Promenade II, and One Atlantic Center, gnawed down to the bones by magic. Rubble choked the streets and sewage overflowed from the busted pipes in foul-smelling streams. Magic pooled there, lingering even in the strongest of tech waves, and hideous things that shun the light found refuge there, among the dark carcasses of gutted high rises. Lunatic mages, vicious, perverted loups who feared a death at the hand of unforgiving Pack, Satanists, and rogue necromancers all ran to Unicorn, for if they could make it there and survive, no lawman on this earth would force them out. Unicorn Lane held on to its own.
Hell of a place for a rendezvous.
I drove up Fourteenth Street, parked Karmelion in a secluded alley, and walked the two remaining city blocks. Ahead a stone wall had crumbled, a pitiful attempt of some fool on the city council to contain Unicorn Lane. I climbed over the wreckage. A large block of concrete barred my way. It looked slick, almost slimy, and I leaped over it.
Here, even the moonlight snapped and growled like a rabid dog, and magic bit without warning.
Five minutes into the Unicorn a sign on the side of an abandoned house announced that I had reached my destination, corner of Thirteenth and Unicorn. In front of me, an old apartment complex stared at the street with empty windows. To the right, a tangled mess of concrete and steel framework marked a collapsed office building. The debris blocked the street, burying the pavement beneath the rubble. The street was open on the left, but shrouded in darkness. I stood very still, waiting, listening.
The moonlight spilled onto the ruins. Thick, inky darkness pooled in the alcoves and burrows and stretched forth, mingling with light, spawning half-shadows, and blurring the lines between real and illusory. The eerie landscape appeared false, as if the ruined buildings had vanished, leaving behind treacherous shadows of their former selves. Ahead in the depths of Unicorn Lane something howled, giving voice to a tortured soul. My heart skipped a beat.
Someone or something watched me from the darkness. I felt their stare press upon me like a physical burden. Moments dragged by, with minutes in tow. After a while I glanced at my watch. It had stopped.
Somewhere in the darkness the Beast Lord prowled. I didn’t know what he looked like. I didn’t know the species of his beast. Few people outside of the Pack claimed to have met him and nobody seemed willing to discuss the experience. The only thing certain about him was power. By the latest count, he commanded a force of three hundred and thirty-seven shapechangers in Atlanta alone. He wasn’t in charge because he was the smartest or the most popular; he ruled because of those three hundred and thirty-seven he was unquestionably the strongest. He was in charge by the right of might; that is, he had yet to meet anyone who could kick his ass.
Among the shapechangers, wolves were the most numerous, then came the foxes, the jackals, the rats, and then the hyenas and the smaller felines: lynxes, bobcats, and cheetahs. There were the exotic forms too, the were-buffalos and wereserpents, but the buffalos formed their own Herd in the Midwest and the serpents were solitary. All of the beast-forms were larger than their natural counterparts; an average shapechanger in a wolf form came close to two hundred and twenty pounds while the natural gray wolf weighed a hundred pounds less. From a biological point of view, the transformation of a hundred-and-seventy-pound human into a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound animal made no sense, but then when it came to shapeshifting, the fluctuating mass was the least of the anomalies. Magic could not be measured and explained in scientific terms, for magic grew through destroying the very natural principles that made science as people knew it possible.
Another howl ruptured the quiet, still too far away to be a threat. The Beast Lord, the leader, the alpha male, had to enforce his position as much by will as by physical force. He would have to answer any challenges to his rule, so it was unlikely that he turned into a wolf. A wolf would have little chance against a cat. Wolves hunted in a pack, bleeding their victim and running them into exhaustion, while cats were solitary killing machines, designed to murder swiftly and with deadly precision. No, the Beast Lord would have to be a cat, a jaguar or a leopard. Perhaps a tiger, although all known cases of weretigers occurred in Asia and could be counted without involving toes.
I had heard a rumor of the Kodiak of Atlanta, a legend of an enormous, battle-scarred bear roaming the streets in search of Pack criminals. The Pack, like any social organization, had its lawbreakers. The Kodiak was their Executioner. Perhaps his Majesty turned into a bear. Damn. I should have brought some honey.
My left leg was tiring. I shifted from foot to foot . . .
A low, warning growl froze me in midmove. It came from the dark gaping hole in the building across the street and rolled through the ruins, awakening ancient memories of a time when humans were pathetic, hairless creatures cowering by the weak flame of the first fire and scanning the night with frightened eyes, for it held monstrous hungry killers. My subconscious screamed in panic. I held it in check and cracked my neck, slowly, one side then another.
A lean shadow flickered in the corner of my eye. On the left and above me a graceful jaguar stretched on the jutting block of concrete, an elegant statue encased in the liquid metal of moonlight.
Homo Panthera onca. The killer who takes its prey in a single bound.
Hello, Jim.
The jaguar looked at me with amber eyes. Feline lips stretched in a startlingly human smirk.
He could laugh if he wanted. He didn’t know what was at stake.
Jim turned his head and began washing his paw.
My saber firmly in hand, I marched across the street and stepped through the opening. The darkness swallowed me whole.
The lingering musky scent of a cat hit me. So, not a bear after all.
Where was he? I scanned the building, peering into the gloom. Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the walls, creating a mirage of twilight and complete darkness. I knew he was watching me. Enjoying himself.
Diplomacy was never my strong suit and my patience had run dry. I crouched and called out, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Two golden eyes ignited at the opposite wall. A shape stirred within the darkness and rose, carrying the eyes up and up and up until they towered above me. A single enormous paw moved into the moonlight, disturbing the dust on the filthy floor. Wicked claws shot forth and withdrew. A massive shoulder followed, its gray fur marked by faint smoky stripes. The huge body shifted forward, coming at me, and I lost my balance and fell on my ass into the dirt. Dear God, this wasn’t just a lion. This thing had to be at least five feet at the shoulder. And why was it striped?