Strange City Page 4

  From somewhere below, in the main chamber of the club, he thought he heard a woman's appreciative laughter.

  Donovan was lost to the music. The Saturday night crowd was always the best. He had forgotten how sweet the release had been when he had played the circuit, traveling from city to city, playing a live gig here, a studio set there. Always moving. Calle Ann had changed all that. She wanted a stable environ­ment in which to raise their son. He gave her that.

  It cost him everything.

  "Man, you make that thing weep," one of the other musicians whispered to him as he continued to play. The band had accepted him without reser­vation. The evening was passing in a haze of soft, sensual music, pierced by the haunting wail of his anguished guitar.

  The club was about three-quarters filled. Only a few tables were empty. Donovan waited patiently for his visitors to arrive. They would be cautious, on the look­out for any kind of trap. Only when they were assured that no danger waited inside the Blue Note Café would the pair of men enter the club and find the table that had been reserved for them.

  Another hour passed, and finally they arrived. Donovan did not miss a note. He played two more blues standards and a scorching rendition of "Hellhound on My Trail" before he bothered to glance their way. His senses had not betrayed him. The two men seated at a table in the far corner were indeed the ones he had been hunting for close to a year.

  The Choirboy and the Pilot.

  The killers of his pack, the monsters who had shattered the sanctuary he had found, and all for a few hours of amusement. He had used all his tal­ents, all his Gifts, to learn their names and how to contact them. Returning to the world of man had been jarring, but Donovan knew there was no other way.

  His friend Leitch, a man with money and contacts, had made all the arrangements. The assassins didn't like the idea of meeting their "client" face-to-face. Leitch had insisted. If they wanted the job, which paid a million dollars, ten times their usual fee, they would arrive on the Saturday before Halloween, at the Blue Note Cafe in San Francisco.

  Despite their misgivings, the killers had made their appearance. A sizable wire transfer of funds from one of Leitch's dummy corporations had ensured their cooperation. Whoever said Glass Walkers were good for nothing had never met Archibald Leitch.

  An odd sensation came over Donovan—a strange longing for the life he once led. After turning his back on his friends for ten years, Donovan had worried that they would want nothing to do with him. Instead, they welcomed him back and agreed to help. Explanations were unnecessary and unwanted.

  It was Calle Ann they all loved, he tried to tell himself. They're doing it out of respect to her memory.

  The velvet notes he coaxed from his guitar told another story.

  Donovan looked over to his guests, joe Entwhistle and Larry Santos. The set ended and he put down his guitar, smiled perfunctorily as the crowd applauded, and stepped off the stage. On his way to the men's room he walked past them. Once inside, he reveled in the foul scents he had taken from each of the men. The redhead, the Choirboy, smelled like embalming fluid. The black-haired one, the Pilot, bore the odor of copper-tainted blood. He had them now. They could run to the ends of the earth and never escape him.

  Soon, the hunt would begin.

  He left the men's room, took a longer route around the men, and was pleased to see them fidgeting ner­vously. Their "client" had already shown, only they would never know that.

  Donovan picked up a snippet of their conversation. The redhead was bothered by some people he had seen on the street. A few had a single red eye, always the left one. He had never seen anything like it. Bunny eyes, he called them. Weird.

  "You ain't seen nothin' yet," Donovan whispered as he walked back to the stage.

  Another hour passed. The assassins were getting ready to leave. Before they could rise from their table, Melinda appeared. She wore a sexy red dress that revealed her hourglass figure. Contacts covered her crimson eyes, making them look bluish black. It wasn't much effort for her to talk them both into a night of fun in her hotel room. They negotiated what they believed was a fair price, took one more look around for their absentee client, and left the club with Melinda.

  Donovan's second set was almost finished. The last chord was played and he set down his instrument.

  There was no reason to hurry. He knew exactly where Melinda was taking them: Straight into the jaws of hell.

  Donovan stood outside the door. He had been wor­ried that the floor would be teeming with people. Instead, it was deserted. Gaia was smiling on him tonight. He knew that even if a few humans stumbled by at an inopportune moment, the delirium would take care of them. Nevertheless, he wanted to be a nightmare solely reserved for the two men waiting in the room beyond this door.

  He waited a few moments, choosing to give Melinda a little time with them. That way they would be all nice and comfortable. Completely relaxed. That was how the first of his pack had been when the assassins had blown his guts out. The wolf had looked down stupidly, unable to comprehend what had been done to him, why his steaming entrails had sprung out of his belly, when death overtook him and came charging after the other members of the pack. In the beginning, the killers had been on foot. If Donovan had remembered who he was, what he was, just a little sooner, he might have saved at least a few of his wolf-brothers. That had not been the case. It had not been until the hunters were airborne that his human mind had resurfaced, and by then it was too late.

  Now all he had to look forward to was paying these bastards back for the blood and terror they had deliv­ered onto their victims. He thought he would be look­ing forward to their screams, but all he wanted was to get this over with so that he could go back to the wild where he belonged. Perhaps he wouldn't chase them into the streets after all. It might be best to end it quick and clean. Not for their sakes, but for his own.

  He had dressed himself in a long, leather raincoat and his favorite boots. Nothing else. He kicked off the boots and set them beside the door. Shrugging off the raincoat, he folded it neatly and set it beside his footwear.

  Closing his eyes, he willed the change to come over him. A fire raged through his soul, boiled his blood, and consumed his flesh. Hair sprouted on his skin in great gouts, and his bones quickly unfolded and grew into shapes no longer meant for human flesh. His skin bubbled and changed, crawling and expanding. Donovan's ears yanked back and drew long, while his jaws extended and filled with razor-sharp teeth. His forehead became hooded and his snout itched. He touched the doorknob and began to turn it. As they had agreed, Melinda had left it unlocked. In seconds his hands would become sharpened talons and the human part of him, which told him that doorknobs were meant to be turned, not ripped from the wood that housed them, would begin to retreat. He pulled his lips back and could not resist a snarl as he started to push the door open.

  A bright light and a sound like the world's end came to him as the door exploded outward. Splinters and fiery shards of metal slammed into him, sending him back against the opposite wall. His mind scram­bled to reach beyond the surge of agony that had torn through his chest.

  A gunshot! Someone had opened up on him with a shotgun!

  He didn't have to wait long to learn the identity of his assailant. What was left of the door swung inward and the Choirboy stood before him, gun leveled.

  From deep in the room, he heard a cry that could only be Melinda. Stupid, he thought. Walked into it, just like my wolf-brother. Stupid.

  Shuddering, he tried to cover the gaping wound in his chest and willed the change to continue, but the convulsions ripping through him had other ideas.

  Meiinda felt the cold metal of the gun pressed against her skull She had been shocked when her victims had so easily slipped out of her spell. Were they fomori? Is that why her power hadn't worked against them? No, judging from the way the delirium was beginning to affect the redhead, the one who had shot Wakiza, that was not the case. A more simple explanation came to her: The killers
had no souls, nothing for her to manipulate and tempt. She should have guessed that when she had looked into their flat, dead eyes.

  Even more surprising had been Wakiza's dulled instincts. She was certain that he would have sensed the trap waiting for him on the other side of the door. He would have found another way in, some other means to take out this trash that had performed some deep and unforgivable hurt on him. Instead, he had acted like a human in wolfs clothing, forgetting his many Gifts. His sloppiness had damned them both.

  Ahead, the red-haired assassin advanced on Donovan's shuddering form. The man's limited, human mind was shutting down at the sight of the werewolf in transformation. His partner, who could only see a vague, black shape, was far more in control of himself. Meiinda saw that Donovan was still chang­ing, but now the changes were coming very slowly. Given time, his wounds would heal. If the killers had their way, Donovan would be dead in a few seconds.

  Not enough time.

  "What is he?" the redhead asked.

  "Who cares, just finish him off!" The black-haired murderer couldn't understand the reason for his part­ner's hesitation. He tightened his grip on Meiinda and hissed in her ear. "Christ, what did you fuckers think you were dealing with here? Amateurs? This is the oldest goddamned lure on record."

  )oe Entwhistle, the Choirboy, pointed his gun at the werewolf's head. A sudden calm descended on him. For a moment, he had seen the man on the floor as some kind of animal, a creature from a horror show when he was a kid. Fear like only his father could provoke— before he sliced off the old man's hands, feet, and dick, and left him chained to the sink to die screaming—had washed over him, engulfing him, drowning him. He felt a wet stain by his crotch and knew that he had peed himself. Christ, how embarrassing. Maybe the bitch had slipped something into their drinks.

  Right now, he could see his victim for what he was: a mark, a bleeding, spasming human being who had come willingly to his own personal end of the world party.

  "Yeah, pal, only it's your world that's ending."

  He had no idea that his will was so great, his denial so encompassing, that his mind had created this fantasy of a human being at his feet. When the dying man rose to his knees, )oe did not blow his head off, though his partner was hollering for him to do just that.

  "What, he's naked, he got no weapons, what's he gonna do, swat me to death?" Joe asked, cutting a look back to the Pilot. He had phrased it this way because a second before he looked away from his vic­tim, the man pulled his hand back, as if to swat an insect. The image had amused Joe.

  He looked back, about to say, "Fuck it, let's do this asshole," when he saw a blur of motion and felt the shotgun drop from his arms. He looked down and saw that his hand was gone. Blood spurted from the ragged stump.

  "Hey," loe said, his voice high and strained, like that of a confused little boy.

  Donovan roared like an engine out of hell's lowest pit as he sprang up and gutted the man with his other claw. Snarling, he yanked back his hand, unraveling the killer's insides. Joe Entwhistle, the Choirboy, dropped to the floor, jerked a few times, then died.

  The werewolf entered the room, its fur matted with blood. Melinda stared at the creature, wondering if the crimson stain on its pure black pelt had come from his own wound or the flow of his victim. Not that it mattered. One look into the creature's glowing green eyes told her that it would be all right. Wakiza was going to make everything all right.

  The Pilot quaked with fear as the werewolf came closer. "Stay back! I'll shoot the slut, I swear I'll do it!"

  Melinda's fear returned. The way the assassin was shaking, he might discharge his weapon by accident as easily as by design. She had no idea what he was seeing. Wakiza was very strong, he could use his power to allow the killer to see him in his true form. One way or the other, the situation was again becom­ing untenable. If Donovan's rage outweighed his rea­son, he might ignore the gunman's threat and she could end up very dead.

  There was only one thing for her to do. She was actually grateful that she had worn heels tonight, though they were uncomfortable as hell. She brought her foot up then jammed it down on the killer's instep. He hollered and fell back, squeezing the trig­ger. Melinda darted forward, certain that she would be out of his line of fire.

  She was wrong.

  As Wakiza moved forward, a black, inhuman blur advancing on his prey, the bullet cut through her neck, entering on the left side and exiting on the right. She felt as if she had been slapped, but there was no real pain. Only, she couldn't breathe. Shuddering, she grabbed her throat and dropped to her knees. She felt the ragged holes in her flesh and slumped back, quiv­ering, gasping for a breath that would not come.

  For Donovan, it all happened so quickly that he also believed Melinda to be out of danger. He reached out and tore the Pilot's head from his shoulders with one clean swipe of his claw. The severed head struck the ceiling, ricocheted off a lamp, and fell neatly onto a recliner, its jaws quivering as it tried to form a word. The werewolf looked at his dying victim in satisfac­tion, howling as life fled from the killer's eyes.

  His satisfaction was short-lived. He looked down and saw Melinda's bloodied, twitching form. At first, he couldn't believe that she had been hit, then his old training, acquired over a two year stint in the army as a medic, kicked in. Picking her up, he was relieved to note that the wound had only grazed her arteries. She had to breathe. He saw a can of soda with a straw nearby. Somehow he summoned enough presence of mind to snatch the straw as he looked to the window and launched himself, with Melinda in tow, at the glass.

  Donovan landed three stories below, the impact hurt­ing his ankles, but not shattering them. The street before the hotel was filled with traffic. A car was stopped before him, waiting for a light to change. Donovan reached out, tore the passenger door from the vehicle, and stuck his head inside as he let out a terrible roar. The driver scrambled out of his seatbelt as Donovan slammed the gearshift into Park. The man was in tears as he fled the vehicle, almost running into an oncoming car. Donovan was beyond caring about anyone except Melinda. It was happening all over again. He had been careless and because of that, someone he cared about was dying.

  Forcing himself to concentrate, he willed the change to reverse. As his body slowly lost some of its bestial aspects, Donovan gently set Melinda down on the car's backseat. People were watching, but he didn't care. The delirium would keep the Veil from being pierced. He tore a section of fabric from her dress and wound it around her neck, cutting off the flow of blood. Then he took one of his sharp nails and poked a hole in the hollow of her throat. The straw he had somehow managed to keep hold of was delicately inserted and he started to relax as he heard her breathing through the tube. He ran around to the driver's side, half-man, half-wolf, wholly unrecogniz­able, and shoved the gearshift into Drive.

  He drove through traffic like a madman, his inhu­man senses allowing him an edge against the other drivers. He screamed and cursed in his guttural, inde­cipherable speech at the limits of the foreign import at his command.

  In his mind, he cursed himself again and again. It had been such a simple set-up and he let it all get away from him, just like before. Melinda was dying, like Calle Ann, like his son, like the other members of his pack.

  A bloody hand reached out from the backseat. Donovan was so startled that he nearly lost control of the car. He swerved into a lane of oncoming traffic then back again instants before he could be hit. Melinda was shuddering, spasming, trying to speak.

  Lie still! he commanded in his Mindspeak. You're not going to die! You're not!

  in the rearview mirror, he saw her blood-red eyes. She seemed desperate to tell him something. A mes­sage screamed out from her stare, but he refused to listen. He took a sharp turn and Melinda fell back. Cutting a glance over his shoulder, he saw the bloody straw on the seat beside her and heard her gasping for breath.

  Ahead, the lights of a hospital winked into view.

  Take the straw, he commanded in th
e confines of her thoughts. Put it back in! Do it'

  He leaped the car across two lanes of oncoming traffic and kept advancing until the tires squealed to a stop a few feet before the hospital's emergency entrance. Donovan turned back, saw Melinda holding the straw to her throat, gasping for breath. Relief surged through him as he jumped out of the car, opened the back seat, and pulled her out.

  The seat was soaked through with blood. The wound on the right side of her neck had torn wider, allowing a steady flow of blood to drip upon the seat. Was this what she had been trying to tell him?

  He hauled her into his arms, and ran into the emergency room. The doctor on call shuddered as he saw Donovan's inhuman form.

  Help her! he screamed in his Mindspeak.

  No one moved near him. He considered changing back to human form, but there would be too many questions and his presence would be too great a distraction. The delirium was already striking the emergency room personnel. Setting Melinda down on a table, he turned and ran, praying that the effects of the delirium would fade once he was out of view.

  An hour later, after he had stolen some human clothing, Donovan returned to the emergency room and asked about Melinda. The news made his heart slow and almost stop. She had died a few minutes after being admitted. The blood loss, the shock—it had all been too much for her.

  The nurse asked if he was a relative, if he would be the one claiming the body.

  "A distant relative," he said softly, tears welling up in his emerald eyes. He knew that by dawn there would be no body. Others of her kind would come and collect her. They always did. The Garou's was not the only Veil that must never be pierced.

  On the way out, he heard an orderly and a nurse talking. They stood just outside the doors of the emergency room, staring up at the stars.

  "Look at that," the nurse said. "I haven't seen a moon shine that bright in a long time."