Successors (27 page)

She raised her hand to wave, but Leona spotted her the instant she walked in, and she didn’t look happy.

She walked over and sat across from Cori at the counter high table. “What the hell is this?” She looked to Vince who was already squirming in his seat between them: the third wheel and the object of desire. “I won’t be in heat for much longer. Soon, civility will be off the table.”

“Tonight,” Cori said to ease her anger. Saying it made her stomach sick. Thinking about it made her heartsick.

Leona paused. “Tonight?” She glanced at Vince to see if this was indeed the agreement.

Cori grabbed Vince’s hand and he nodded. He couldn’t seem to manage looking either of them in the eye.

The waiter came to the table to offer Leona a coffee. She kept her eyes on Cori as she flipped her mug over to accept the offer. He left without offering a refill to anyone else.

“Where?” Leona said, sipping her coffee. She grimaced at the strength of the brew, but went back for another sip.

“Our apartment.” Cori pushed the cream over, and Leona diluted her coffee with it.

“When precisely?”

“Seven o’clock.” Cori looked to Vince for approval but he was no longer a factor in this negotiation. “We prefer to think of this as if it never happened.”

“Of course. I can be in and out in an hour, or at least, he can.” She smiled at her own joke.

Cori ignored the baited humor. “What I mean is, I will leave at 6:45. I will come back after.”

“You know, maybe you’re going about this the wrong way. Maybe you should stay and participate. Perhaps that wouldn’t make it feel so underhanded. It could just be the one crazy night you had a threesome.” Leona’s eyelids perked for effect.

Cori had no doubt that she was serious about the invitation, but Leona only said it to incite her anger. Anger that was useless to her, since she had no recourse. “I won’t have to see you ever again after tonight.”

“Paris is not that big.”

“No.” Cori tapped her coffee cup. “But you know my scent. You could certainly avoid me.”

“Yes.” Leona sat back and sipped her coffee demurely. “Why would I make such an effort?”

“Because I’m asking you to.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “We are not friends.”

“No, for all intents and purposes, we are enemies, but since I am not a threat to you… I concede. I surrender.” Something sparkled in Leona’s eyes, no doubt a tinge of that werewolf ego. “I think you know how hard that is for someone like me. I hate to lose. I hate even more to never put up a fight.”

Leona cleared her throat. “I still don’t see how that makes me owe you anything.”

“You don’t, but that’s the point. I am the loser in this scenario. The least the winner could do is be gracious and not rub my face in it. So, I ask you one simple solace: let this afternoon be the last time I see you.”

Leona laughed and coughed. She sipped her coffee to settle her throat. “You are a stubborn woman.”

“So I’ve been told. I hope you can respect that in me, because as much as I hate the situation we are in together, I think I respect you for yours.” For a moment, their eyes locked. Leona nodded and sipped more coffee. “May I have your word, Leona? When I leave this coffee shop, I will never see you again?”

“Yes,” she said rather hoarsely. “I promise. Excuse me.” She cleared her throat again, more ardently this time. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. The air is so dry.”

Cori frowned at her. “I hope you’re right about the silver. It won’t actually kill you, right?” Both Vince and Leona looked at her, baffled and horrified. “You said it would just make you sick.” She raised her brow, hoping to verify her interpretation.

“You poisoned me?” Leona asked as she grabbed at her stomach.

“Colloidal silver and a very well-paid waiter.”

“Cori.” Vince stood looking between her and Leona. He looked worried for Leona, who was now looking dreadfully ill. He was probably more concerned for what punishment would arise from this act. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“I had to try, Leona. I couldn’t just let it happen. Not without a fight,” she explained with a certain pleading in her voice, an imploring for Leona to respect her actions rather than take revenge on them. “Trickery was my only option. I imagine you will be sick long enough for you to go out of heat, but if you are not, I hope that you will respect your promise to me. I meant what I said to you. I do respect you, but I’ve made my choice to be with Vince, and I can’t let anything stand in the way of our happiness.”

Cori grabbed Vince by the sleeve of his trench and pulled him along. Dumbfounded and shocked, he followed her lead. Leona doubled over with stomach cramps as they moved past her.

“Cori!” Leona called to her when she reached the door. She looked back. Leona looked up from her bent position. “Well played,” she said through gritted teeth.

She nodded and pulled Vince out the door behind her.

She ran from the café with Vince in tow. They dodged cars to get as many streets as they could between them and the woman who could rip her open with her bare hands. As they distanced the scene, Vince slowed to a stop, becoming dead weight to Cori.

She looked back at him. His compliant shame had worn off and he was looking at her with anger. She let go of him and backed away. “I didn’t kill her. She said it wouldn’t kill. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“What if she comes after you?”

“She won’t.”

“Why, because she gave her word?”

“Yes. Tell me werewolves don’t have honor.”

“You shouldn’t have risked yourself,” he said firmly.

“I did it for us.” She stepped toward him to take his hand.

“Bullshit!” His voice boomed and she backed away again. A few passersby took notice and gave them a wide berth. “You did it to prove that you’re smarter than her. You wanted to prove that even though she is stronger than both of us physically, you can still beat her mentally.”

She bit back her lips, but she had no defense. Her ego was far more to blame for this than her claim to Vince. When she put aside her insecurities about herself, the only issue she had with the affair was that she couldn’t let another woman have her man. It was territorial instinct.

“And you did it. You beat her.” Vince’s face softened as that realization finally sank in.

She nodded.

“She will be sick for days. She will be out of heat before she is well enough to mate. She will probably keep her word and avoid you.” Vince looked to the ground.

Cori shrugged. “Isn’t that a good thing?” She started to question whether he really hated the idea of being with Leona.

He looked up and smiled at her. “It’s a great thing.” He jumped forward and picked her up in a bear hug.

“So, you’re not mad?”

“No, I’m fucking furious.” He kissed her. “I’m just too happy to care, right now.” He put her down.

She looked behind him. “We should probably stay in a hotel for a while, just in case.”

He looked around. “Yeah, good idea.”

51

Danato reached for the phone. His hand touched the receiver and he pulled away. He picked up his newspaper and started to read it. He soon peeked from behind it to check the clock.

Belus sat on the short file cabinet with one foot propped up while the other swung freely on the side. He watched Danato’s every move.

Danato sighed, put down his paper, and rubbed his hands together. He checked the clock on the wall, and checked his wristwatch. When neither said what he wanted, he compared them to an old pocket watch he pulled from his desk drawer.

Belus twisted his red beard, eyeballing his boss.

Danato took a deep breath and picked up the phone. He set it down again. “What does your watch say?”

“You know what it says.” Belus nodded to the phone.

“He’s never missed.”

“The truck came in an hour ago. Are you going to call, or am I?” Belus pried.

He glared at the suggestion. “I am the warden here.”

“Yes, you are.” Belus crossed his arms and nodded to the phone.

“He would have no way to contact me if something had gone wrong.”

“
Something
is not a valid excuse to change protocol even if he did contact you about it.”

“Why are you telling me things I already know?” Danato barked.

“Why are you stalling?” Belus barked right back.

“Because he’s my friend.”

“Make the call!” Belus ordered.

“Stop telling me what to do!” Danato fumed.

“I’m just your right hand, guiding your left hand!”

“If I call, it goes on permanent record. I’ll have to report it to corporate.”

“Yes, you will,” Belus agreed.
“You can see why I would want to avoid that paperwork.”

Belus hopped off his cabinet and leaned over the desk; all of his 56 inches loomed
over
Danato. “He’s a good guy, Danato, but he’s also a werewolf. We can’t let him miss check-in. We are minutes from being to the point of no retrieval.” Belus picked up the receiver and offered it to him. “You have to make this call, or people will be in danger, including Cori.”

That thought alone was enough to persuade him. He took the phone and dialed one number. The line picked up. “I have a werewolf late for check-in. Prisoner is non-combative in human form. He may have a human female companion with him. I need both of them… collected.”

52

Cori ran down the crowded sidewalks dodging umbrellas left and right. The rain was coming down heavily, but that wasn’t the only contribution to her wet cheeks. She wiped tears and rain from her eyes as she paused for traffic in the cross streets.

She continued on her panicked flight to a hospital. She lurched through the emergency room doors and yelled for a doctor in hobbled French. A nurse at check-in intercepted her. “Are you hurt?” She asked first in French and then reluctantly switched to English when Cori didn’t understand.

“No, my fiancé needs help.”

“Where is he?” the nurse asked, looking behind her for an accompanying man.

“He is only six blocks away at our apartment.”

“You should have called an ambulance.”

“No phone. We hate phones,” Cori explained.

“They have their uses,” she mumbled as she went back to her station to radio the ambulance.

Within minutes, she was barking directions to the paramedics from the back of an ambulance. Between the cold rain and her adrenaline, she couldn’t keep from shaking. The vehicle pulled to a stop and Cori shouted the apartment number three times. The driving paramedic grabbed her shaking hands and repeated the number to her so she would know they understood. He asked her to wait while he and his partner went in to get Vince.

She nodded. Part of her wanted to go up with them to help, but another part couldn’t bear to see Vince again. She settled on doing what she was told and slipped into the shotgun seat of the ambulance cab.

The paramedics grabbed their supplies and went up.

Five minutes passed.

Ten minutes passed and she began to think of horrible scenarios. She didn’t know what was wrong with Vince, but she knew he was in terrible pain.

Fifteen minutes passed and she knew something was wrong. She slipped out of the cab and shut the door gently behind her. Reluctant to enter a horrific scene of resuscitation she buzzed her apartment hoping the paramedics would answer on the intercom and tell her everything was fine.

No one answered.

She entered her apartment building. Climbing up two flights of stairs, she found the hall light outside her apartment broken, its shards strewn in front of her open door. She crunched through them and went in.

It was silent. When she left, Vince was wailing in agony.

It was dark. When she left nearly every light was on. They had been in the middle of packing his bags for his return to the prison when he started to feel ill. It wasn’t until he started to cough up blood that she realized something more than food poisoning was happening.

The living room was empty. Vince was there when she left, lying on the couch going in and out of conscious seizures. He begged her not to get a doctor. She insisted. When he finally agreed, he begged her not to come back. She asked him why, but he wouldn’t say.

She walked through her living room past her kitchen and bathroom. She felt a breeze on her back. She whipped around but no one was there.

Convinced he had crawled to the bedroom, she continued her search. She knew there was a chance that he had changed forms prematurely, and she would be walking in on a ten-foot werewolf, but she couldn’t stay away.

Peeking around the doorframe to her bedroom, she saw the two paramedics lying face down on the floor. Unconscious or dead, she didn’t know which. She covered her mouth to hold in any audible reaction.

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. A shiver crept up her back as hot breath nipped at her neck. Her eyes watered, a visceral reaction to her fear. She turned to see her fate.

She caught a glimpse of a pallid bald man wearing dark sunglasses. He growled at her, showing his yellow stained sharp teeth. Something hit her from behind. She landed against the soft carpeted floor and then she was out.

53

Cori was revived by freezing cold air on her face. The faint smell of tar and hay registered. She was on a rocking metal floor. A rhythmic thump sounded beneath her. She was on a train, in a cargo car.

She lifted her head, blinking out the stars from her eyes. She saw Vince beside her. Her heart leapt and she scurried to him. He was unconscious, but alive.

At the farthest end of the car, her captors sat back to back on wooden crates, eating. They bit into a fists full of fur and tail with their jagged teeth. The fresh blood from the rodent snacks dripped off their hands and chins. Their bald heads were rutted and their fingers tipped with thick yellow nails. She could smell their body odor from across the boxcar.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

They each looked at her and growled before continuing their feast.

“They don’t speak,” Vince said. He sat up, still groggy.

“Thank God you’re alright.” She hugged him, but he groaned so she let go. “What’s going on?”

“I didn’t check-in. They sent the collectors.”

“Those are the collectors?” she asked, appalled. “You made them sound so dangerous. They’re just gross.”

“They are more dog than human. They’re pack hunters. You never see less than three in a group.”

“Then why are there just two in here?” she asked.

“Because the other two are guarding us from over there,” he pointed.

She looked to the other side of the car and saw two pairs of eyes staring out from behind stacks of crates. “Geez, I didn’t even see them. What are they doing?”

“They’re waiting for us to try to escape.”

“If we…” she started.

“We wouldn’t make it to our feet, let alone the door.”

She nodded. “We’re headed back to the prison, aren’t we?”

“Yes. It’s protocol.”

“Can Danato help you?” She looked everywhere but at him.

“Danato has always helped me.”

“Can he make you better?” she clarified.

“He will take my pain away.”

She nodded, but didn’t look at him.

After a few moments, he said, “You may not be able to leave the prison again.”

“What?” She finally looked at him.

“I may stay at the prison if they find something wrong with me. I need you to understand the obligation Danato is under to keep all knowledge of the prison a secret.”

“Who would I tell?” She pulled her hair from its usual ponytail to let it down over her cold ears.

“I just don't want you to blame Danato. He is a fair man, but the seedy underbelly of the board of directors makes the line between employees and slaves a little thin to begin with.”

“Why does he do it then?”

“He doesn’t know anything else. It's a family legacy that has unfortunately been sullied by certain necessities and moral compromises.” Vince raised his arm to touch her hair, but he seethed in pain.

“Is the pain back?”

“It never left, but they must have given me something, because it’s manageable now.” Vince took in a few short breaths.

“What hurts?” She looked him over.

“Everything,” he grimaced.

“Your arms, legs, head?”

Vince paused as if he didn’t want to answer. “Every bone, every muscle, and every inch of skin,” he explained.

She looked at him in a dazed shock. She hugged her knees and rocked slightly. She wanted to hold him, but she knew it would be too painful. She buried her face in her knees to warm her cheeks and hide yet another round of tears she didn’t want him to see. She wanted to be strong for him.

He lay back down, trying to meditate through his pain. “I love you, Cori.”

“I love you too, Vince.” She didn’t look at him. She kept her face buried in her knees.

54

The alarm sounded after sundown. Danato was still in his office, trying to keep his mind off the situation. He looked up at the clock on the wall. It was before midnight. He shook his head and rose from his desk to join the others trampling through the building.

The hall leading to the loading docks echoed with Cori’s irate screams, shouting guards, and the snarling of an animal.

He arrived on the scene to join twelve other men. Two men held Cori back as she struggled to get closer to the truck trailer. The other ten had their attention on Vince, now in full wolf form.

Several darts hung from the beast’s chest and legs. Still he roared, beating the sides of the semi-trailer he had arrived in. Ethan and three others plied ten-foot electric prods to him. The beast reared and bucked with each electrocution.

“Now,” Ethan yelled, thrusting the prod at Vince when he reared. In unison, the men attacked and withdrew, on his command.

Danato gaped at the events unfolding, far more intrigued by the man than the beast. With his short-cropped hair, tight black t-shirt and army-issue black cargo pants, Ethan blended in with his fellow guards; his leadership was his only defining characteristic.

Somewhere in the last few months, Ethan had come into his confidence. His camaraderie with the guards had paved the way for their respect and devotion. He noticed far fewer problems were coming to his door. Ethan was making necessary changes and repairs that prevented such matters from arising.

“How many more tranquilizers do we have left?” Ethan hollered at the men behind him.

“None, but we have more upstairs,” answered one of the guards.

“Never mind.” Ethan nodded to the back wall. “Rip that breaker box off the wall.”

Two men ran to the circuit breaker and grabbed the sides of the metal box. They pulled. Nothing. They pried with their gun barrels. No luck.

Danato reached past them, gripped the top of the frame, and pulled. The box broke free with a screech, a snap, and a poof of cement dust. The lights in the room went out, but returned with the help of the backup generator lights.

The men looked back at Danato with wide eyes. “Thanks, boss,” they each mumbled.

“Anytime, gentlemen.” He stepped back and let them finish yanking the sparking wire clusters from its base.

They pulled on the slack cables, but they only gained enough to reach the edge of the platform. “This is all she’ll give!” one yelled.

“It’ll do.” Ethan stepped back to meet his cattle prod with the wire. He nodded at the men surrounding the truck. “Let him out!”

The guards distanced themselves, giving the beast slack. The werewolf emerged from the truck. He stood tall, pushed his chest out, and roared at Ethan.

Danato resisted the urge to jump between them. Ethan was past the point of needing a defender. He, like every mentor, had to step back. Ethan had to fight his own battles, even if that meant getting his ass kicked by an incensed werewolf.

“Don’t hurt him!” Cori shrieked.

Ethan glanced at her with a cold glare. The beast lunged. Ethan drove his prod into his neck. The added cable shot a new level of voltage through the beast. He convulsed and dropped.

“No!” Cori struggled with newfound vigor.

Ethan stood over his triumph, kicking his paws. “We’ll need a forklift.” He looked at the mound of a beast before him. “Maybe two.”

Danato approached the guards holding back Cori. “I’ll take her from here, boys.”

They released their grip and she bolted forward toward Vince’s alter ego. He latched onto her waist with his arm and pulled her away. She pulled against him, beating his shoulder until she saw it was hopeless. Changing tactics, she tried to reason with him.

He walked her back to his office ignoring her pleas, negotiations, and curses.

In his office, she collapsed into a chair. When he was sure she was resigned to staying, he poured her a pointed paper cup of water from the water cooler. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.”

She backhanded the proffered water into the wall.

He sat down in his chair and waited. Far too many emotions were at the cusp for him to interject any comfort.

She stared at him. Her sniffles lessened and her cheeks dried.

He waited still.

She took in a stuttered breath. “What’s happening to him?” she eventually asked.

Danato leaned forward on his desk and laced his fingers together. “Vince is a werewolf. He has changed from being human to a wolf creature over a hundred times. The outward physical changes are obvious, but he also changes internally. The stress on his body…”

“What is
happening
to him?” she yelled.

Danato leaned back again. “He’s dying.” Her face distorted. Her cheeks filled with rivers of tears without any audible sob. “He, like all werewolves, has a short lifespan. Thirty-four is rather old for a werewolf.”

“I want to see him.” She strained to get the words out.

“My reservations are the same as when you first asked to see him in this state,” he said.

“My determination is just as high as it was then,” she said resolutely.

Danato nodded. He didn’t want to put her through this again, but he knew she had to do it. If he refused her this right, she would hate him forever and that was something he couldn’t endure.

55

Cori and Danato entered the werewolf complex. She followed the backs of a long line of guards. They parted for her and Danato allowing them audience to the spectacle they were intently guarding.

The beast lurched and bellowed in his confinement. He alternated between slamming the iron bars with his shoulder and biting at them. The structure remained secure, designed especially for him.

She had hoped against hope that there would be something of Vince in the beast, but there wasn’t. Just as before, the beast seemed agitated by her presence. There was no unspoken connection. He wasn’t the man she loved. He was just a beast.

Danato had taken his position beside her, but slightly in front. She knew he did it to give himself a half-second response time, in case she got the bright idea of throwing herself at the cage. “Are you sure you want to be here?” He eyed her over his shoulder.