Fool Moon (24 page)

The evening had obviously been moving along entirely too smoothly, I thought.

Something had gone wrong. I was alone.

Chapter
Twenty-nine

A
lone.

It’s one of those small words that means entirely too much. Like fear. Or trust. I’m used to working alone. It goes with the territory. Wizards of my level of skill and strength (well, my usual levels) are few and far between—maybe no more than two dozen in the United States, with a slightly higher concentration of them in Europe, Africa, and Asia. But there is a difference between working alone and finding yourself facing a hatful of foes, on a cold night, while wounded, and in the dark, and practically helpless. It took me about ten seconds to become acutely aware of that difference.

Fear settled in comfortably. Fear was something I was used to. I was able to think past it, to focus on my predicament. Yay for me. My body reacted the same old way, keying up for fight or flight, while I forced my breathing to stay even.

The smart thing to do would be to run, to turn around and go back to the van and to have Susan drive me the hell away. Granted, I probably couldn’t even climb the wall on my own, but I could have tried.

But I was already committed. I was here to do battle with the forces of evil, such as they were. I had dropped the challenge to them, not the other way around. Besides, if Tera and the kids were in trouble, I was the only one who could help them.

I climbed to my feet, getting out the gun, and moved forward through the woods, in a direction that seemed perpendicular to the line of the stone wall behind me. The woods were thick, sycamores and poplars giving way to evergreens with scratchy, low branches. I slipped through them as best I could, moving as quietly as I could manage. I didn’t think I made more noise than the wind did, as it rattled the branches and the fallen leaves, and stirred more droplets of water to fall. In time, maybe three or four minutes, I came to the edge of the woods, and looked out on to Gentleman Johnny Marcone’s estate.

It was magnificent, something out of a home-and-garden magazine. You could have put a small golf course in Marcone’s backyard. A long ways off, at the front of the property, Marcone’s huge white house stood serene and flawless, artistically illuminated by dozens of lights, with a veranda or patio larger than a dance floor plotted out at its rear. Behind it, three enormous square plots, side-by-side, contained lit and lovely gardens, terraced down a gently sloping hill toward me. At the hill’s base was a pretty little vale, and there lay a small pond, which I realized after a moment was an enormous, concrete-lined swimming pool, lit from beneath the surface. The pool was irregularly shaped, and one corner of the pool stirred, near the surface. Steam lay thick over the water.

Standing stately sentinel toward the center of the vale was a ring of evergreens, thick and stocky trees that concealed whatever was at their center. Two rounded hillocks decorated the left side of the vale’s landscape, one of them surmounted by what looked like a replica of a small, ruined shrine or temple, all cracked marble and fallen columns.

The whole place was well lit, both by silver moonlight and by lighting placed at strategic intervals. The lawn was immaculate, and trees dotted the grounds in the sort of careless perfection that only an army of expensive gardeners could have maintained.

And they say that crime doesn’t pay.

I took a position behind a screen of trees and brush and looked around the grounds with careful, stealthy caution. I didn’t have long to wait.

There was a rush of motion from beneath one of the trees on the far side of the estate, and a swift form, a dark-furred wolf, Billy, I thought, flew from beneath one tree and toward a patch of dark shadow on the grass, not twenty feet from me. I tensed, and started to rise from my hiding place in the brush, to call out to the wolf as he ran.

A bright red dot of light appeared against the wolf’s fur. There was a hollow sound, something I could barely hear, like a politely covered cough. I saw the wolf jerk as a flash of blue feathered against its fur, and then the beast tumbled into a roll and fell to the ground. It struggled for a moment, back to its feet, and reached for the dart in its flanks with its jaws. Its balance wavered, and the wolf staggered to one side and fell. I could see its chest heaving, and one of its rear legs twitched spasmodically. I thought I saw the beast’s eyes, Billy’s eyes, focus on me for a moment, and then they glazed over and went vacant.

“Nice shot,” called a deep, tense voice. In the ring of evergreens, there was motion, and then Denton appeared, walking out across the grass toward the fallen wolf. His dark, short hair was still immaculately rigid. I couldn’t see the veins in his forehead, despite the bright light. It was a subtle change in him, one of several. His tie was loose. His jacket was unbuttoned. He moved with less steel in his backbone, more fire in his belly. There was an animal quality to him, a surety and savagery of purpose that had been uncertain before, and what it meant was a lot more significant than the changes that showed on his exterior.

His restraint was gone. Whatever last remnants of doubt or regret that had enabled him to maintain his own self-control, and some measure of control over the other
Hexenwulfen,
had vanished with the blood frenzy in the Full Moon Garage. It was in every line of him now, in each step and every flicker of his eyes.

The man had become a predator.

From the evergreens behind him appeared the rest of the
Hexenwulfen:
Benn, now dressed only in a white dress shirt and a grey business skirt, her legs dark and rippling with muscle in the moonlight; Harris, his ears still sticking out, his freckles dark spots against pale skin, his manner restless and hungry; and Wilson, still in his wrinkled suit, but with the shirt unbuttoned, his potbelly overlapping the belt of dark fur around his waist. He stroked and patted it with his fat fingers. His mouth was set in an odd, dangerous grin.

Denton moved across the grass to the fallen wolf, and nudged it with his toe. “Six,” he said. “Did you count six?”

“Six,” Benn confirmed, her voice throaty. “Can we have them now?” She reached Denton’s side and pressed up against him, lifting one leg to rub against his, baring it to the top of her thigh as she did.

“Not yet,” Denton said. He looked around him thoughtfully, and my gaze followed his. Scattered around a circle of perhaps fifty-yards diameter were several dark lumps I had taken to be indentations in the ground, shadows cast by the moon and the grounds lighting. I looked again and saw, with a surge of fearful understanding, that they weren’t indentations. They were the wolves, my allies. The dark patch Billy had been running for gave a little whimper, and I thought I saw the moon glint off of Georgia’s tawny coat. I looked around and counted the fallen.

Six. I couldn’t tell them apart very well, couldn’t tell which of them, if any, was Tera, but I counted six fallen wolves upon the ground. All of them, I thought, with a panicked rush of fear. All of them had been taken.

“Come
on,
” Harris said, his voice tight, strained. “Fuck MacFinn, he isn’t showing up. Let’s take them out, all of them, and go find Dresden.”

“We’ll get to your belt soon enough, kid,” Wilson snorted, his fingers stroking at the fur belt over his belly. “If you hadn’t been so stupid as to lose it—”

Harris snarled, and Denton shook Benn from his side to get between the other two men. “Shut up. Now. We don’t have time for this. Harris, we’ll go after the wizard as soon as we can.

Wilson, keep your fat mouth shut, if you like your tongue where it is. And both of you back off.” The men made low, growling noises, but they took steps away from one another.

I licked my lips. I was shaking. The gun felt heavy in my hand. There were only the four of them, I thought. They weren’t more than thirty feet away. I could start shooting right now. If I got lucky, I could down them all. They were werewolves, but they weren’t invincible.

I slipped the safety off of the pistol, and drew in a steadying breath. It was a damn fool thing to do, and I knew it. Life is not the movies. It wasn’t likely that I would be able to shoot them all before they could draw and shoot back. But I didn’t have much choice.

Denton turned toward the first hillock, with its artfully ruined temple, and waved. “All right,” he called. “That’s all of them.”

A pair of shapes appeared in the lights that shone on the temple, and then came down the hill toward Denton and the
Hexenwulfen
. Marcone was dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and a hunter’s vest, and he bore a gleaming rifle, an enormous scope mounted on it, in one hand. Hendricks, hulking beside him in muscle-bound silence, was dressed in what looked like black military fatigues, bearing the gun I’d seen earlier, a knife, and various other gear. Hendricks’s eyes flickered over Denton and his associates warily.

I stared at Marcone in shock. It took me a moment to pick my jaw up off the ground and to piece together what was going on. Marcone didn’t know. He didn’t know that Denton and company were out to get him. They must have blamed the other killings on MacFinn and the Alphas.

So now Denton had Marcone and the Alphas there. Once MacFinn arrived, he would be able to kill everyone he wanted dead, everyone who knew what was going on, and be able to make up any story he damned well pleased. Everyone but me, that is. He did not, as yet, have his hands on me.

“These are all we saw on the monitors,” Marcone corrected. “There was a malfunction in camera six, at the rear line of the property. Mr. Dresden and such malfunctions tend to go hand in hand.”

Dammit.

“Are you sure the wizard isn’t one of them?” Denton demanded. “One of these wolves?”

“I think not,” Marcone answered. “But I suppose anything is possible.”

Denton scowled. “Then he’s not here.”

“If he truly offered you a challenge, he’s here,” Marcone said, his tone completely confident. “I’m certain of it.”

“And he just watched his werewolf friends get shot down?” Denton asked.

“Wolves run faster than men,” Marcone pointed out. “Possibly, he hasn’t caught up to them yet. He could even be watching us now.”

“You’re giving him too much credit,” Denton said. But I saw his eyes shift instinctively toward the blackness of the growth of woods. If I stood up, he would be looking right at me. I froze, holding my breath.

“Am I?” Marcone smiled, and leaned down to pluck the feathered dart from Billy’s furry flank. “The tranquilizers likely won’t hold these beasts for very long. Decisions need to be made, gentlemen. And if you are to hold to your end of the bargain, you had best get to work producing.”

I don’t know if Marcone noticed Benn’s sudden tension, the way she slid her hands over her stomach, but I did. “Kill these dogs now,” she said in a low, heated voice. “It prevents complications later in the evening.”

Marcone tsked. “Shortsighted. Let MacFinn tear them to pieces when he arrives, and any medical examiner won’t bother to look for the tranquilizers. If one of you does it, it will create awkward questions once forensics takes a look at things. And I thought that was the point of you coming to me with this offer. Reducing questions.”

Benn lifted her lips away from her teeth, and I saw the tips of her breasts stiffen beneath her white shirt. “I hate slimy scum like you, Marcone,” she purred, sliding her hand from her thigh up over her hip and beneath the buttons of her shirt. Marcone’s eyes narrowed on her, and as though connected to the crime lord by a telepathic leash, Hendricks made one simple motion, a shift of his forward arm, that chambered a round on the gun with a cold little
click-clack
.

Denton gave Marcone a sharp look and took hold of Benn’s wrist with his hand. The woman tensed for a second, resisting him, but then she allowed Denton to draw her hand away from the belt that was surely beneath her shirt. Denton released her, and Benn lowered her hands, visibly relaxing. Marcone and Hendricks never so much as blinked, or broke a sweat. Fragile situations like this one were evidently second nature to them.

I let out the breath I’d been holding for a long time. Six to one and ready for a fight. If I attacked them now, I didn’t have a prayer. If I tried to move, to fade back into the trees, they would be likely to notice me. Damn.

Denton glanced at the trees once more, and I held my breath again. “Don’t worry, Marcone,” he said. “We’ll turn the wizard over to you, once we find him. No questions asked.”

“That being the case,” Marcone said, “I suggest you start looking, while I make preparations for Mr. MacFinn. Please remember that I want Dresden alive, if possible.”

My throat constricted, and if I hadn’t been holding my breath, I think I would have let out a squeak. What in the world could John Marcone want with me, after the incident in the parking garage? Nothing good, certainly. Nothing I wanted to think about. Damn, damn. This night was getting spookier all the time.

“Of course, Mr. Marcone,” Denton said, his tone a little too polite. “Do you have any suggestions of where we should start looking?”

Marcone ignored the sarcasm, flicked a switch on the sight on his rifle, and pointed it negligently at the tree line. “Over there ought to do.”

The red dot of the laser sight settled onto a leaf six inches to the left of my head, and the thready pulse of fear in my chest turned into an icy white streak of terror.

Damn, damn, damn.

Chapter Thirty

I
f I ran, I would be seen and pursued, and likely torn apart. If I remained where I was hidden, I would be found and
then
torn apart, or shot, or tranquilized and given to Johnny Marcone. A poor set of choices, but I wasn’t going to get any better ones by sitting on my ass. So I got my feet underneath me and started easing back into the woods, the confiscated semiautomatic still in my hand.

“Hold it,” Denton said. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” Benn asked. I could hear the sudden, eager tension in her voice, and I struggled not to make any more noise as I hurried my pace back into the shelter of the deeper trees.

“Quiet,” Denton snarled, and I froze in place. Wind and rain were the only sounds for a few moments, in the chilly autumn night. “Over there,” Denton said after a moment. “I think I heard it over that way.”

“Could be a raccoon. Squirrel. Or a cat,” Wilson suggested.

“Don’t be naive,” came Marcone’s voice, laced with scorn. “It’s
him
.”

There was the immediate sound of a slide being worked on a handgun, a round being chambered into place. “Move forward,” said Denton. “That way. Fan out and we’ll take him. Watch yourself. We don’t know all of what he can do. Don’t take any chances.” His voice came closer as he spoke, and I nearly bolted. There was a chorus of assenting sounds, and another couple of weapons being readied. Footsteps came toward me through the grass.

After that, I did bolt, just stood up and ran bent over as low as I could. There was a shout from behind me and a bark of a gun being fired. I pointed the semiautomatic above me, afraid to fire back at them for fear of hitting Tera or one of the Alphas by mistake, and pulled the trigger twice. The gunshots must have surprised them, because Denton and the others scattered for cover behind the nearest trees.

I ran deeper into the woods, marshaling my thoughts. I had gained a little time, but time to do what? Running would only put me up against a stone wall. I doubted I’d be able to climb it, with a bum foot and a wounded shoulder. And I could only play the rabbit in the woods for so long before I was found.

Dammit,
I thought.
I’m no rabbit.

It was about time the hunters became the hunted around here. I moved ahead, silent and intent now, and scanned around me, searching for the sort of place I would need. I found it almost at once, an inward-curving hollow at the base of a large tree, and slid into it, nestling into the wood’s embrace. I put my head down, hiding the paleness of my face and the gleam of the whites of my eyes. And Listened.

They came forward quietly, and without any lights flickering around at the edges of my vision. Maybe Denton and his cronies were getting used to the darkness. They were moving forward in a ragged line, twenty or thirty paces apart, and somehow keeping mostly parallel. They were all still on two feet, by the sound of the steps, thank my lucky stars. If they’d gone to wolf form they might have had me—of course, on two legs, they still had hands free to hold guns of their own. There are pros and cons to everything, I suppose.

I held my breath when footsteps approached me. They came within ten feet. Then five. I felt the brush stir when someone walked past no more than a foot away, making leaves brush up against me. They stopped, right there, and I heard a little, whuffling sound. Sniffing. I thought of the aroma of my brand-new leather jacket, and clenched my jaws down slightly, tension thrumming through me and making my legs shake.

About ten billion years went by. And then whoever it was began walking again, forward and past me. I would have let out a sigh of relief, if the most dangerous part of my plan wasn’t still to come.

I got up from my hiding place, stepped forward and jammed the barrel of the semiautomatic against the back of the neck of the person before me. It was Denton. His back arched and he sucked in a stunned breath.

“Quiet,” I whispered. “Don’t move.”

Denton hissed, but froze in place. “Dresden, I should kill you right now.”

“Try it,” I said, and thumbed back the hammer of the gun. “But after the loud noise, remember to keep going down the tunnel and toward the light.”

Denton’s shoulders shifted a fraction and I said, “Don’t move your arms, at all. Reach for that belt and I’ll kill you before you’re halfway to furry, Denton. Drop the gun.”

Denton moved his fingers enough to close the safety on his gun and let it fall. “Not bad, Dresden,” he said. “But this isn’t going to do you any good. Put the gun down, and we can talk about this.”

“Smooth, polite, nice delivery,” I said. “They teach you that at the FBI?”

“Don’t make this any harder on yourself than it has to be, Dresden,” Denton said, his voice toneless. “You can’t get out of this.”

“They always say that,” I said and used my free hand, though it made my shoulder twitch, to take him by the collar and hold him steady. “My arm’s feeling a little weak,” I said. “Don’t do anything to make me slip.”

I felt his body tense at my words. “What are you doing, Dresden?”

“You and me, we’re going to turn around,” I said with a little shove of the gun against his neck to emphasize the point. “And then you’re going to order all of your people out of the trees and back into the light. They’ll each call to you from there, so that I know they’re in front of me, and then we’re going to go see them.”

“What do you hope to accomplish here, Dresden?” Denton said.

I let go of his neck, pressed close, and reached around him to remove the wolf-pelt belt from around his middle. I saw his jaw-line shift as I took the belt away, but he remained still and quiet, his hands in the air. “I was just going to ask you the same thing, Denton,” I said. “Now, call your buddies out of the trees.”

Denton might have been a cool customer, maybe a treacherous sneak, maybe a murderer, but one thing he wasn’t was a fool. He called out to the other three agents, and told them to get out of the trees.

“Dent?” Wilson called. “Are you okay?”

“Just do it,” Denton answered. “It will all be clear in a minute.”

They did it. I heard them move out of the woods and call to him from the cut, level grass of Marcone’s estate. “Now,” I said. “Walk. Don’t trip, because I swear to God I would rather blow your head off over a misunderstanding than get suckered by a trick and killed.”

“Maybe you should put the safety on,” Denton said. “Because if you kill me, you’ll never get out of here alive.”

I hate it when the bad guys have a point, but I chose to err on the side of Denton getting blown apart, and left the safety where it was. I slung the wolf belt over my shoulder, took Denton’s collar again, and said, “Walk.” He did. We walked out of the deep darkness of the woods and into the light.

I kept at the edge of the darkness and put a tree’s trunk to my back, keeping Denton between me and the bad guys. They were spread out, the three of them, in a half circle about thirty feet away, and they all had guns. It would have been one hell of a marksman who could get at me with Denton’s broad, solid form in front of me, and the shadows veiling me, but I didn’t take chances. I crouched down behind him some, leaving nothing but the corner of my head and one eye showing. At least that way, I thought, if they shot me, I’d never feel it.

“Uh. Hi guys,” I said a bit lamely. “I’ve got your boss. Put the guns down, take your belts off, and walk away from them nice and slow, or I kill him.” A part of me, probably the smarter part, groaned at my course of action and started cataloguing the number of federal and state criminal codes I was breaking into tiny pieces by taking a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation hostage and threatening to kill him and attempting to take hostage three more. I stopped counting broken laws at ten, and waited to see the
Hexenwulfen
’s response.

“To hell with you,” Benn snarled. The silver-haired young woman dropped her gun, and ripped off her shirt, revealing a torso that was impressive in a number of senses—and another wolf-hide belt. “I’ll tear your fucking throat out myself.”

“Deborah,” Denton said, his voice strained. “Don’t. Please.”

“Go ahead, bitch,” growled Harris. His big ears created little half-moon shadows of blackness on the sides of his head. “Denton buys it and we all get promoted. Hell, the wizard will probably shoot you, while he’s at it.” Benn whirled toward Harris, lifting her hands as though she would strangle him, fingers clenching like talons.

“Shut up,” I said. “Both of you. Put your guns down. Now.”

Harris sneered at me. “You won’t, Dresden. You don’t have the guts.”

“Roger,” Denton said very quietly. “You’re an idiot. The man’s in a corner. Now. Put
down
your gun.”

I blinked, surprised at the unexpected support. It made me instantly suspicious. That Marcone was out of sight did not mean that he was out of mind, either. Where was he? Crouched somewhere, aiming that rifle at me? I kept an eye out for bright red dots.

“That’s right,” I appended to Denton’s statement. “You
are
an idiot. Drop the gun. You too, Wilson,” I added, glancing at the overweight agent. “And you and Benn, take the belts off, too. Leave them on the ground.”

“Do it,” Denton confirmed, and I got a little more nervous. The man was relaxed now, not resisting me. His voice was solid, confident, unimpressed. That was bad. Denton’s pack obeyed him, if reluctantly. Benn dropped the belt to the ground in the same way Scrooge might have let fall a string of diamonds, a visible ache in the motion. Wilson grunted as his belt came unfastened, and his belly flopped out a little as the catch released. He left it on the ground by his gun. Harris glared at me, but he lowered his gun, too.

“Now, step back. All of you.”

“Yes,” Denton said. “Harris, Wilson. Step back to the trees and bring out what we left there.”

“Hey,” I said. “What the hell are you talking about? Don’t move, any of you.” Harris and Wilson smirked at me, and began walking toward the trees. “Get your asses back here.”

“Shoot at them, Mr. Dresden,” Denton said, “and you will have to take your gun off me. I think I can reach it, if you do that, and turn this into a fight. You are resourceful, and intelligent, but you are also wounded. I don’t think you could overcome me in hand to hand.”

I glanced between the two men and Denton. “Dammit,” I said. “What are you up to, Denton? You try anything funny, anything at all, and you’re not going to live to regret it.”

“I’m with the FBI. I don’t do anything that could be construed as funny, Mr. Dresden.”

I swore quietly, and could all but feel Denton’s mouth stretch into a smile. “Why?” I asked him. “Why did you get involved with these belts? Why are you doing this?”

Denton began to shrug, but evidently thought better of it. “Too many years of seeing men like Marcone laugh at the law. Of seeing people hurt by him, death, misery brought on by him and people like him. I was tired of just watching. I decided to stop him. And men like him.”

“By killing them,” I said.

“I was given the power. I used it.”

“What gives you the right to mandate their deaths?”

“What gives them the right,” Denton asked, “to kill? Should I stand by and let them slaughter, Dresden, if I can stop it? I have the power, and the responsibility to use it.”

I felt a little shiver run through me, as the words struck close to home. “And the other people? The innocents who have died?”

Denton hesitated. His reply was quiet. “It was unfortunate. An accident. It was never my intention.”

“The belts do more than make you fuzzy, Denton. They change the way you think. The way you act.”

“I can control my people,” Denton began.

“Like you did last month?” I asked.

He swallowed, and said nothing.

“And you knew, didn’t you? You knew that I’d find out. That’s why you sent me to the Full Moon Garage.”

The vein on his forehead pulsed. “After the deaths, I was warned about a governing body. A sort of magic police. The White Council. That you worked for them.”

I almost laughed. “Yeah, well someone told you part of the story, anyway, Denton. That’s why you messed up MacFinn’s circle, isn’t it? You needed a patsy and you turned MacFinn loose knowing that the Council would suspect him. The Streetwolves for the cops, and MacFinn for the Council.”

Denton snarled. “Necessary sacrifices. There was work to be done, Dresden.”

“Oh yeah? As one of the aforementioned sacrifices, I don’t find myself agreeing with you,” I said. “To hell with the law, right? That’s what you’re saying—that you’re above the law. Like Marcone.”

Denton grew tense again and turned his head a bit toward me. Like he might have been listening.

I pressed him, hard, desperate to reach him. If I could, I might get out of this situation after all. “These belts, man, the power they’ve given you. It’s
bad
. You can’t handle it. It’s gotten into your head and you aren’t thinking straight. Give them up. You can still walk away from all of this, do the right thing. Come on, Denton. Don’t throw away everything you fought for all those years. There’s a better way than this.”

Denton was silent for a long time. Harris and Wilson disappeared into the thick ring of pine trees. Benn watched us, her eyes bright, her body muscled and firm in the moonlight, her breasts rather pretty and distracting as she breathed. She looked from the pair of us to the fur belt on the ground, alternately, and her breaths became ragged. “Look at her,” I said. “Those belts are like a drug. Is this the kind of person she was? Is this the kind of person you want to be? Wilson, Harris, were they always like they are now? You’re turning into monsters, man. You’ve got to get out of this. Before you’re all the way gone.”

Denton closed his eyes. Then shook his head once. “You’re a decent man, Mr. Dresden. But you’ve got no idea of how the world works. I’m sorry you’ve gotten in the way.” He opened his eyes again. “Necessary sacrifices.”

“Dammit,” I said. “Don’t you see that this won’t do you any good? Even if you do get away with wiping out everyone here tonight, Murphy is going to piece together what happened.”