Bloodlines (2 page)

“Oh, how I missed your wit,” Victor said, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Randall, I don’t believe you properly met Journey Walker. Jed, Randall Lewis.”

“Don’t call me Journey, sweetcheeks.” Jed’s gaze went to Randall, looking him up and down. Recognition sparked. The last time he’d seen Randall, he’d been bloodied up and in a dank vampire cave. People tended to look a bit different in the daylight. “Course I remember the kid. Got his blood on my shirt. Don’t often forget shit like that.” He held out his hand, which Lewis took, giving him a firmer handshake than Jed would have expected from someone wearing a waistcoat.

“Yes. Thank you for that,” Randall started, but Jed waved him off. He hated that part. The thank-yous, the gratitude, the talking about shit like pulling people out of buildings or the details of what they’d been saved from. He just wanted to do his job and be done with it. The aftermath was what he’d always been bad at.

“I’m sure you remember my partner, Redford Reed.” Jed moved aside slightly, drawing Redford in. “Best nose in the goddamn business. If it wasn’t for him, you’d be vampire chow.” Redford shifted his weight, his shoulder bumping up against Jed’s. When Randall’s hand was offered, Redford took it tentatively—the man had made a lot of progress in becoming more confident, in becoming his own person, but he still shied away from people that he didn’t know all that well.

“Then thank you to you both,” Randall said quietly, a very real strength under his words. Jed had met a lot of people in his life, had dealt with a lot of men who thought they were strong. Whether it was due to money or position or just how much they fucking loved themselves, there were a lot of people who mistook bullying for power. This kid, though, all soft eyes and hair in his face, reminded Jed of Redford, of the wild, feral
something
that was wrapped in a mild cloak.

Then again, maybe it was a wolf thing. According to Redford and David, this kid was one of the real ones. Jed had no fucking clue what that was supposed to mean and how it was different from werewolves in any way, but with the way Redford was staring at Randall, he thought it might be an important distinction.

“Don’t suppose you showed up at our door to sell cookies?” Jed really hoped the answer was yes. “’Cause if it’s anything else, we’re fresh out of it. We are two hours away from a well-deserved vacation.”

Victor, ignoring things like personal space and the lack of an invitation, pushed his way past Jed into the apartment. His gaze fell upon the mess of clothes on the couch, the duffel bags, and the cat staring venomously at them. “Where would
you
go for a vacation? Somewhere you can play with your guns all day long? I’m sure you can do that perfectly well here.”

“Fishing,” Jed said, arms folded, eyes narrowed. “As in sun, sand, and nothing to do with whatever it is you’re here to ask. The answer is no.”

Randall blinked at him. “We didn’t even ask for anything.”

“Yet,” Jed pointed out. “Don’t think I don’t know what it means when people knock on my door all puppy eyed, with the princess over there pretending to be civil. You want something. And the answer is no.”

Walking over to the couch, Jed started grabbing the rest of his stuff and shoving it into bags, like if he did it fast enough, the inevitable wouldn’t happen. People didn’t just
show up
at Jed’s apartment. In fact, people
never
showed up at his apartment. Not unless they were delivering food, trying to shoot him, or asking for help. And he didn’t see Victor carrying a pizza or a gun. “Thanks for stopping by. Really. It was a blast. Now you and Professor Sunshine can just skip your way back to wherever you came from. Redford”—Jed struggled to zip up his duffel—“and I”—he stomped his foot down on one end of the bag, yanking the zipper harder—“are going goddamn
fishing
.” There. The bag was stuffed full and zipped up, Knievel was wearing her float vest, and Redford had shoes on. They were leaving.

“I need your help.” It was Randall’s voice, soft but firm, saying those four goddamn words Jed hated more than anything. Well, almost anything.
I forgot the lube
was still number one.

“Yeah, well”—Jed turned, leveling Randall with a glare—“I’m on vacation, sweetheart. You’re outta luck.”

There was an awkward beat as Randall glanced between him and Victor. Jed got that sick little jerk in his gut, the one that told him he was missing something. He hated it when he missed shit. Usually that wound up with him hungover in Thailand, surrounded by six passed out sumo wrestlers, without his goddamn pants. And missing his favorite gun.

He still mourned that gun.

“I wish you a good vacation, then,” Randall said, choosing his words delicately. “I actually wasn’t speaking to you.” Before Jed could get a word in edgewise, Randall turned to Redford. “Mr. Reed, I need your help. Please.”

Redford took a reactionary step backward in his surprise. “Me?” He stared at Randall, looking like he was waiting for some kind of punch line. “No, if you need help, you should ask Jed. I just help him.”

Before Jed could say anything, before he could figure out what the hell had just happened or kick Victor for that fucking smug expression on his stupid English face, Randall had moved toward Redford again, so much
earnest
dripping off of him it was kind of ridiculous. “I’m afraid Mr. Walker’s particular skills won’t be of any use to me. I appreciate, more than I can ever say, what you all did for me in Cairo. And believe me, I don’t want to be even more in your debt.” Randall’s eyes cut to Victor, just for a moment, color faintly touching the high curve of his cheeks. Why the fuck he was looking at
Victor
was beyond Jed. Unless he felt an obligation to the goddamn
getaway driver
, Jed’s recollection of Cairo was very different. In the “Victor doesn’t do wet work” kind of way.

“And yet you’re here,” Jed pointed out bluntly. “And I’m not sure what your point is. So spill.”

“I need Mr. Reed to help me because I need a wolf,” Randall said with a very slight shrug. “A human—no offense—is not going to be able to talk to the people we’ll need to speak with.”

Redford had progressed to wringing his hands in worry. Jed didn’t like it when Redford got that look, the pinched nervous concern, the expression that said Redford thought he wasn’t good for anything. Before he could even form the thought, Jed was there, right at his side, arm around Redford’s waist. “I—I’m not
really
a wolf,” Redford said in a stutter. “I mean, I was a werewolf. And now I’m not, but I’m not a real wolf like others I’ve seen.”

“I am,” Randall said very simply. “I know what you are, Mr. Reed. And you are exactly who I need. You are of Filtiarn. And you are the only one whom the Gray Lady will speak with.”

“The whosa-whatsit now?” Jed was scowling at, well, fucking everyone. Goddamn people with their
goddamn
problems. “We aren’t going to talk to any of your freaky furry people. We’re going fishing. Both of us. Together.” There was a meow from the couch, and Jed added, without missing a beat or lightening up his frown one bit, “All three of us.” Damn fucking right they were.

Victor gave a low sigh. “Jed, will you at least let Randall talk? He wouldn’t be coming to Redford if the matter wasn’t serious.”

“Office hours are between eight and nine every fourth Wednesday,” Jed returned. “And you must have missed the big ‘fuck off, gone fishing’ sign I put on the door, so why don’t you just see yourselves out.”

“Jed.” Redford’s voice was low. “I know we want to go fishing, but we should at least take five minutes to hear them out. The fish won’t go away if we’re five minutes late.”

Jed closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Fine,” he growled. But he pointed his finger at both Randall and Victor. “Five minutes. Redford is going to get a vacation if I have to
build
an ocean, and I don’t care what you have to say about it. Five goddamn minutes.”

“You’d do that for me?” Redford looked utterly charmed.

“No, he wouldn’t. It’s quite impossible,” Victor said archly, impatient. “He—”

“If Red said he wanted the moon, I’d ride Buzz fucking Aldrin up there and get it myself,” he told Victor in a calm tone, arms folded. “He wants an ocean? I’ll flood the streets until he can swim. Impossible’s got nothing to do with it. Besides,” Jed snorted, “you can too build an ocean. What, you think
Jaws
was real?” Clearly a fake ocean. And a fake shark. And possibly fake boobs.

Victor fell silent with an annoyed little grimace, giving Randall a chance to speak. Randall sighed, sitting, hands folded tightly in his lap. “My brother is dying,” he told Redford simply.

And just like that, Jed shut the fuck up.

He’d gotten a lot of jobs in his life. Most of them didn’t matter. Powerful men wanting more power, rich men wanting more of whatever made them rich. War, all of it, only this time the enemies weren’t clear at all. Jed wasn’t a superhero. He wasn’t even a good guy. No one had ever come to him like this. Of course, the first time it happened, it was for Redford.

“We’re wolves, like you,” Randall continued. “It’s just me and my two brothers, and Anthony is dying. You’re the only one who can help. Will you?” After a beat, he cut a glance over at Jed. “I believe that was less than five minutes.”

“How am I the only one that can help?” Redford looked confused. He glanced at Jed quickly, seeking help, before looking back at Randall again. “I’m not a doctor. If he’s dying, you should go to the hospital, shouldn’t you?”

“Ah.” There was a wry twist of Randall’s lips. “That, I’m afraid, will take much longer than five minutes to explain.”

Jed hesitated before heaving a sigh. He already knew how this was going to end. Some wolf, some bright-eyed kid, comes to Redford claiming he needs help saving a dying brother? Yeah, they weren’t going fishing. Maybe he’d known that since they opened the door. All his bitching and moaning, all his talk of leaving, he’d hoped that Victor and Randall would give their polite excuses and be gone.

It never worked out that way.

Jed scooped up Knievel, unbuckled the life vest, and set it aside. “Okay,” he said, the cat prancing off his lap over to Randall, sniffing him curiously before sneezing at him and heading back to Redford. “So talk. Apparently we’ve got all day.”

Randall sagged back a bit. Even Jed hadn’t noticed how tightly wound the guy was until his shoulders eased and some of that tense worry lining his face relaxed. Randall nodded at him, glancing again at Victor. If it was for reassurance, Jed was pretty sure he was looking in the wrong place. Victor just looked satisfied that they hadn’t gotten kicked out.

“In order to understand what’s happening, you have to know why my family is rather unique among the wolf world,” Randall started, taking off his glasses to clean them. “Most wolves, true wolves, are parts of a pack.”

“And you’re a true wolf?” Jed asked, frowning. He was standing next to the wall, leaning against it, arms folded, looking almost lazy and half-asleep. His gaze, though, kept cutting between the three other men, trying to figure this out. It hit him then, all at once—he was the only human being in the room. Now that was a goddamn trip. “Which is different from a werewolf… how, exactly?” He knew the basics, but Jed figured more information couldn’t hurt.

Randall gave him a slight smile, shrugging. “How is a Homo erectus different from Homo sapiens?”

Jed burst out with a laugh, rubbing a hand across his mouth in a very failed attempt to hide his smirk. “One of them sounds like a very personal problem?” he guessed, grinning. “Or a porn title. I’ve got a little homo erection going on right here.”

Randall just gave him a vaguely bemused look. “I was more referring to the fact one of them shat in caves and drew on walls, and the other created the Louvre.”

“The former sounds exactly like Jed,” Victor mused idly. “Perhaps we have history standing across the room from us.”

Randall laughed at that, low and husky, grin crinkling up the corners of his eyes. Jed had no fucking idea what was so funny, but he glowered at them both anyway. “Okay, homo nerd-us,” he shot back. Even Redford had a small smile on his face. “How about you use non-prissy-professor language for ten minutes.”

“My apologies,” Randall said. He didn’t look sorry, though. “My point was that the werewolves are a decidedly less evolved version of a true wolf, or Cano, as named in the old Gaelic. They are the result of the Cano mixing our blood with humans.”

“But Fil was trying to fix that,” Jed said, eyes going to Redford. “Shooting them up with his blood.” Turning werewolves, who were probably
lesser
in the eyes of someone like Fil, constrained by the moon cycles, unable to hold their own minds, into wolves that could turn when they wanted to. And Redford, without the full dose of whatever freaky mojo, was stuck in between. He could shift to furry form when he liked, but not without pain. And his instincts were all haywire. Hell, even a shrink couldn’t seem to make that part of it better.

“That is what I gather from what Victor has told me, yes.” Randall nodded. He turned back to Redford. “And that is why you can help. My parents left their pack when my mother found out she was pregnant with my eldest brother, Anthony. They never told us exactly why, but my father talked about disagreeing with the direction the pack leaders were going in. The Gray Lady is the mother of us all, the eldest of all the packs, and she was the one in leadership when my mother and father decided to leave.”

“You realize that none of that makes sense, right?” Jed was frowning, looking over at Victor for a moment. Maybe this was more smart-people gobbledygook. “Gray Lady?”

Redford was looking intent, leaning forward on the couch. “You mean she’s the
actual
mother of all wolves? Was she the first? She must be incredibly old.”

A very faint smile touched Randall’s lips. “It depends on who you ask. If you study the texts, the old stories of the Cano, it talks of a pair of wolves who were the first. Filtiarn and Liadan. They brought forth the first wolves. They started the first pack. But Liadan and her mate fought, and Filtiarn was cast out, taking his favored pack mates with him.”