Seven Kinds of Hell (23 page)

A moment later, a creak of the door, and a pair of women’s shoes were visible beneath the stall.

“Go away, Claudia. I…just give me a minute.” No response, but a folded piece of paper slid between the door and the stall partition.

I took it, realizing that the feet I saw didn’t match Claudia’s. She wouldn’t wear green suede sneakers.

I took the paper and unfolded it.

It read:
The phone on the sink is now yours.

As I stepped out, the phone rang. I slipped the earpiece on and pressed the button.

“Yes?”

“You are speaking to an agent of the United States government.”

It was Dmitri. How the hell—?

“Yes, but I didn’t know he—he found me! How did
you
find—?”

“You must leave him. Immediately. Very much depends on it.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” I wasn’t about to offer up that I was with two Fangborn. Shedding them wouldn’t be easy.

I heard a scream. My blood stopped in my veins and froze to ice.

It was Danny.

Dmitri came back on the line. “Tell him you are going to meet me at the Natural History Museum, near the Berlin Central Station. One hour. This is what he expects, no? When the time comes, I will give you your true destination.”

“What
time?
What are you talking about?”

“There will be trouble; I have unearthed one traitor. Do your best not to be killed or captured.”

Captured?
“Killed? By
who?
And you’d better let me see Danny, or I swear to God—”

The discussion ended with a click.

“You stupid, goddamned—”

The door opened, the same creak as before alerting me. I had just enough time to shove the new phone into my pocket.

It was Will.

“—showing up with all these demands on me!” I turned, glared at him as if he was the one I’d been cussing.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wire and a small battery pack. A roll of surgical tape. While he was distracted, I grabbed the earpiece and shoved that into my pocket, acting like I was ready to pull my hair out.

It wasn’t hard.

He held up the wire, waiting.

I lifted my hands in resignation. Between Will and Dmitri, what choice did I have? “I need to know one thing first.”

“What?”

“Tell me you weren’t dating me because I…of what I am.”

Will closed his eyes, tilted his head, and pursed his lips. It was the face he made when he was trying not to smile. I’d seen him employ it a hundred times with freshmen. “You asked me out, remember?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But what? But I made you want me? I made you wait for nearly a whole year? Yeah.” He nodded, letting a faint smile appear. “I’m that good.”

I shrugged. I was too confused and upset for humor.

“Zoe, I dated you, I lived with you, I loved you for no other reason than
you.
Right up to the point where you broke my heart.” He thought about it for a moment. “However unselfishly, you broke my heart.”

His words were simple, but they felt real, honest to the core. It wasn’t the Beast but knowing Will that told me that.

Will cleared his throat. “The wire is just a precaution,” he said, back to business. “We have plenty of circumstantial evidence on Dmitri, but if we can add Danny’s kidnapping, so much the better.
Much less likely he’ll wiggle out of extradition if the Normal authorities get hold of him first.”

He paused, looking uncomfortable. Not knowing where to start.

There was no time to process my misery. Dmitri was waiting. I lifted my shirt. “Go ahead. It’s not like you haven’t seen them before.”

I tried not to jump when I felt his hands on my skin. I noticed he tried to touch me as little as possible.

The flood of happier memories—so out of place at the moment, so badly missed—made me turn away from the mirror. I couldn’t look myself in the eye. I sure as hell couldn’t look at him, not when I was about to spoil his plans for capturing Dmitri.

“You know,” Will said as he worked, “I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought there was any real danger to you. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

He let his hand rest on my side. I let him. It felt warm, the skin of his hand a little rough. I wanted to embrace him; it felt right, but I didn’t have time for right. Neither of us did.

He nodded, then turned away, gathering up his materials. “But what am I saying? You were almost always brave. Maybe not trusting, but brave.”

He said it kindly enough, factually, trying to be nice, trying to reassure me. Maybe trying to mend what was between us, and just for that, I wanted to kiss him. I owed him something, at least for what I was going to do, which would probably ruin his career and cause havoc with the international antiquities and Fangborn communities, but never mind.

He hadn’t heard Danny’s scream.

I couldn’t bring myself to kiss Will, though I knew the signs: he wanted to kiss me. A little human, hell, even superhuman contact wouldn’t have been amiss, as I might be dead within the next few hours. Almost, I leaned in—I could smell his hair, remembered how his lips felt—but I just couldn’t do it. If I did, I’d give in to my emotions, and I needed to stay sharp.

“Look. I’m…sorry.” I took his hand, not trusting myself to move closer. “I’m sorry for leaving you. My God, I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to figure out what was going on with me sooner. I didn’t know whether I was a mental case, a murderer, or a werewolf, or some of each.”

I shuddered, remembering the recurring nightmare where I savagely turned on Will and killed him. “All I could think was that I needed to protect you. There was nothing permanent in my life then, not even my human shape. But now I know: I’m a monster, not just a ghost who passes through other people’s lives. At least a monster can apologize.”

“Zoe, you’re not a monster. I understand. I
know
all about the Fangborn.”

“Yeah, but I don’t.” Damn it, now I was starting to cry. I snuffled and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. If I started now, I wouldn’t stop. “That’s the problem. I have no time to learn what I am, what you and I…”

“Zoe—” He leaned toward me.

What the hell,
I thought. I tilted my head up—

The door opened. It was Claudia this time. She was holding the cell phone I’d originally been given by Dmitri. It was ringing.

“I think it’s time, guys.” She handed it to me, along with the bag I’d ditched when I’d fled Will.

I hit the button and juggled the phone as I confirmed the figurines were still safe. “Yes?”

A voice, gruff, accented, but not Dmitri’s. “Don’t forget what you were told before.”

“Yes.”

“One hour.”

The connection was broken. I turned to them and shrugged. “I have to be at the Natural History Museum in an hour.”

“OK,” Will said. “We know what we’re doing.”

I most certainly do not. But with any luck, I’ll figure out how to keep Dmitri from killing Danny.

Will hadn’t noticed I’d checked out. “I’ll get my people into place; they’re already making sure we’re not being tracked ourselves. Claudia, if you and Gerry are still willing…?”

She nodded. “We’re on it.”

“Then let’s get going.”

Their plan was this: I’d do just as I was told. Will’s people from the TRG would be surrounding the area, ready to snag Dmitri and his men, or, barring that, follow me if I got further instructions. Gerry and Claudia would wait in reserve, ready to follow me if a change of tail—as it were—turned out to be necessary.

Doing as I was told, by anyone, was not my strong suit. I began to sweat. Will might have loved me, but now the only thing he wanted was to catch Dmitri. I couldn’t risk him jeopardizing Danny. I had no intention of obeying Will, and would shortly dodge out to my real rendezvous with Dmitri. And since I was going to use every bit of guile I had to thwart Dmitri once I got there, I wasn’t feeling very sanguine. The minimum I could hope for was to rescue my cousin, giving up the figurines in return.

And if all else fails, maybe Dmitri’ll take a broken werewolf in exchange for Danny.

I wasn’t thinking clearly about my plan, but at one point, when I stopped to retie my shoe, I grabbed a loose half of a cobble and stuck it in my hoodie pocket. I also inserted the earpiece to the new phone.

It wasn’t a long walk back to the Oranienburger Strasse S-bahn stop, but it took longer than it should because everyone following me was trying to stay at a distance from everyone else. Even though I was nearly jumping out of my skin with impatience and fear, Fangborn instinct told me it must be obvious to anyone we were all moving in a big block, heading to the same destination. Every once in a while, I would see Will mumbling something to no one in particular, and I knew he was talking to unseen others. Thing was, I could start to
sense
these others, fit them into the grid they’d learned in whatever training they’d had. Once or twice I tried to sniff the air, but I couldn’t smell anything over the city smells. Even when I couldn’t see them directly, the idea of Will’s team surrounding me was very strong.

I purchased my fare and got on the next train. I had barely settled into my seat when my phone vibrated. I turned it on, as nonchalantly as I could, as if I was looking at a map route. There was a hiss in my earpiece.

“Get out at Friedrichstrasse. Lose them there. Then go to Brandenburger Tor.”

The plan had been for me to change lines for the train at Friedrichstrasse to the Natural History Museum. I hoped to be able to lose Will there, then continue underground. “Got it,” I mumbled, moving my lips as little as possible.

Late afternoon crowds started to fill the platforms. I stood up and paced, as if I was anxious. Not a stretch. I could see Will watching me, and sensed there was at least one other of his people nearby. I smiled briefly, nervously, and tried to focus on the map of the subway line. I couldn’t keep anything in my head for more than two seconds.

The stop came, the platform teeming. I was pushed aside by a group of schoolchildren, and trying to find a clear spot, I slipped out.

It was just a moment, then I could feel panic radiate around me as Will and his team realized I was no longer on the train. I pushed through the crowd, losing myself, and before he could get out, Will was trapped on the departing train.

I wasn’t alone yet. I sensed others nearby, so I dashed across the street, entering the main part of the station. I hoped I wouldn’t lose my own way in the snarl of U-bahn, S-bahn, and tram lines, a maze of concrete and yellowish tile on several levels. To make matters worse, there was an underground mall so commuters didn’t have to go above ground to shop on their way home. Eventually I felt Will’s teammates fade from my awareness and, with a few false starts, wound my way back to the correct line.

Shortly after, I got out at Brandenburger Tor. It was a relief to get above ground again. It didn’t take long to see my destination, a large, open space several blocks straight down the shop-lined Unter den Linden.

I hurried, not knowing how much time I would have before they found me again. I wasn’t so sure I wanted Dmitri to find me either, but I had to see him.

I hoped to hell I had the heart to do what I was about to do.

The phone buzzed again as I walked down the historic street, past the restaurants and coffee shops, trying not to look like someone for whom the world was about to end. I answered.

“Look up. The Hotel Adlon is on your left. Three floors up.”

I pulled off to the side of the sidewalk, out of the flow of tourists. I was looking in the right direction a moment before I saw it: a hand was waving out an open window above the ground floor canopies.

I held up my own hand.

Suddenly Danny appeared.

“I see him.”

He looked dazed, his eyes not focusing on mine; he’d been drugged. There was a bandage on his hand, and I could see a bruise on his face, but apart from that, he was alive and intact. The facade of the hotel was far too elegant a setting for a prisoner exchange, I thought. He was pulled back, the curtain falling back into place.

“Now go straight into the Pariser Platz,” Dmitri whispered into my ear. “It’s the open pedestrian square directly ahead of you. I’ll walk to the far side with you, by the Brandenburg Gate, to make sure you weren’t followed. When I see you’ve given me what I’ve asked you for, I’ll let your cousin go.”

I glanced down to the square, a wide space surrounded by low, modern buildings, the famous neoclassical eighteenth-century gates topped by a chariot driver and horses. I walked in.

I stopped just inside the square, found one of the concrete stanchions meant to stop vehicular traffic, and pulled out the figurine. And the cobble I’d stashed in my pocket. I set the figurine on the top of the stanchion and rested my hand on the cobble.

“Your cousin’s life—”

“Is about to improve, big time. You bring him down here, let him go, and I don’t smash what you’ve been making me work so hard for.”

“But—”

“And you’d better do it quick because Will MacFarlane and his people will find me any minute.” I hoped to hell Gerry and Claudia, with their superior tracking abilities, wouldn’t find me too soon and spoil my plan.

A large man appeared out of nowhere. How he’d been concealed, I couldn’t have said, because there was no place to hide. And he was enormous, like something out of the circus, dark-haired with muscles that looked like the result of chemical enhancement. Though he was clean-shaven, Dmitri filled me with the same kind of dread I felt as a child seeing Stromboli in
Pinocchio.
He was dressed like a tourist from anywhere, but I knew he wasn’t as soon as he moved. Everything about him said predator, and there was an attitude that seemed to create a force field around him. People, not even aware of doing it, were giving him a wide berth.

My Fangborn instincts roused. My fingernails and teeth
ached,
as if the only thing that would ease the pain would be to tear his throat out. There was a thin, disagreeable smell filling my head, like mustard gas in my brain. I forced myself to be calm. I couldn’t afford to Change, not here.