Wild Card (12 page)

We were cutting across sites. Like runners on some obstacle course, we vaulted and climbed fences, sprinted across yards and ducked between trucks and buildings.

A couple of yells followed us, but night watchmen were there to keep people out. By the time they knew we were around, we were leaving.

We came out on 60
^th
Avenue and the lead Matlal charged across the junction with Vasquez, veering to the left towards an empty mall. Horns blared as a Mac truck bore down on Alex, making my chest squeeze, and then he was past. The second Matlal followed and I followed him, more convinced than ever that there was something ahead of us that they were aiming for.

A Dodge Ram came alongside, pacing me.

Olivia saw the Matlal Were ahead and gunned the engine. He snatched a glance over his shoulder, saw the Dodge. His steps faltered.

I still couldn’t use the gun, even if he headed away from the others. We were back in areas with people living nearby. People running after each other was one thing; firing guns was completely different. This had to be kept quiet.

Hunt!

Not a word. A feeling. My body was like a bell that had been struck with this hammer of a word. My vision clamped down on the werewolf turning in front of me, but my head was full of presence. Alex, others, even a distant Ricky and an unsure Olivia.

Pack!

A second strike rang through me. He was turning, turning.

Threat!

And I was on him, with human form and wolf brain. He was struggling to raise a gun, as slow as if he were drowning in mud. All caution thrown away to save his life.

I smashed his arm away. His gun dropped and skidded on the sidewalk as I lowered my shoulder and took him square in the chest.

He rolled.

Submit!

His tumble brought him upright, crouched with his feet under him. No pup, this one.

Submit!

His eyes told me he wouldn’t. He leaped for his gun, hand outstretched, touching it as I landed on his back, breaking ribs.

Submit!

His fingers closed over the gun and he started to twist around.

I wrenched and snapped his neck. Clean, quick.

There was danger ahead for Alex. I didn’t spare the body a glance. Olivia would have to deal with it. I sprinted after Alex’s scent. I’d lost sight of him at the next turn. The night around us felt full of unseen dangers. The thought I would be too late clawed at my guts, drove my legs harder and harder. My wolf scrabbled inside, wanting to be released, to
run
, to
hunt
, but I needed hands to shoot with, if it came to that.

I was on 62
^nd
, pounding eastwards. I could see them again, a block ahead, their bodies trailing heat to my wolf eyes. It looked like smoke curling behind them.

There were gates; the Matlal werewolf turned and my sense of danger shot up. I called out to Alex, my voice weak from effort, but he turned too.

A minute later I reached the gates. It was a cemetery. The streetlights barely reached inside. I ran in, every sense straining to penetrate the gloom.

It was a trap all right. They’d used their comms to call in someone to wait in the cemetery. It was our good fortune that their backups were spread too wide and only two had made it here.

Still…
Pack! Threat!
It was like a huge wave, lifting me up and hurling me forward. I grabbed one of the Matlal Were and threw him into another, tangling them both.

I felt rather than heard Alex’s killing blow to my left and a cold joy flashed through my gut.

“Submit,” I growled.

No use. The nearer one leaped at me, snarling, with a knife held stiffly out in front of him. He was a foot taller than me, probably twice my weight. That knife would go through me like a lance if I let it. I deflected his wild strike, crouching enough to get below his center of balance and as he fell over me, I surged back up. He flipped and tried to spin around, but I had a grip on his arm, dragging it down. Unable to control his arc, he crashed into a headstone and slumped at its base.

I turned.

The last one was backpedaling rapidly into the night.

The shadows seemed to grow solid and monstrous behind him. He thudded into something immovable that grew arms and reached and twisted. There was a sound like wooden sticks breaking. The Matlal werewolf fell to his knees. Blood spurted from his mouth and he collapsed into an untidy pile.

Oh, shit.

I drew the HK. What the hell was this?

“Amber, stop! It’s okay.” Alex called. “It’s okay.”

I held the gun in front of me, panting and shivery with adrenaline. I let the barrel rise to point at the sky.

Whatever it was snarled.

Alex was suddenly there, one hand held up to me and the other in front of him.

“Ursula,” he said, “this is Amber.”

There was no response. We were all panting: Alex, me and the smoky bulk that was Ursula.

“Back up, Amber.”

I carefully stepped back, making sure I didn’t go ass-over on a grave.

Ursula followed. She stooped over the body of the Were I’d fought, checked the neck pulse. There would be nothing.

By the time she stood straight again, my wolfy senses were piecing her together. I could smell Denver pack, and I holstered the HK.

When he was sure Ursula and I weren’t going to go head to head, Alex pulled out his cell and dialed.

“Cleanup crew,” he said without preamble. “Rose Hill Cemetery, Commerce City. Three bodies here.” There was a pause. “Well, find him, damn it. You know standing orders at the moment.”

He turned to me. “What about the other guy who was chasing me?”

“Dead. Left him for Olivia.”

“Good.” Alex snorted. “Ricky’s going to be pissed, though. Brand new Dodge and it’ll need the treatment already.” He turned around to Ursula. “Any more?”

“The guy who gave me this.” She held up a comms set. “Underpass, 64
^th
and Vasquez.”

Clever, to use their comms to track them.

“You heard them setting the trap here?” Alex asked after he’d passed the location to the cleanup crew.

“Uh huh. Came in the other entrance. Seems I wasn’t needed.”

She stood a hand width taller than Alex and just as broad.

I couldn’t see her eyes, but I got the feeling she was watching me, and she didn’t like what she saw.

“Ricky?” she asked Alex.

“On the trail next to the creek.” Alex was already calling him on the cell.

“Silas?”

“We didn’t see him,” I said. “They split all ways from the diner. He must have followed a different group. What about the car auction place? Any Matlal survivors?”

She shook her head and turned her attention to her cell.

Crap. I was as guilty as the rest of them, but I needed a live Matlal Were to talk to. Why hadn’t I thought of that a minute ago? I hadn’t paused; I’d just killed.

We drifted apart, the movement echoing the feeling in my head. For a minute back there, I had felt the pack like a physical force around me, even when Ursula appeared like a horror movie monster from the shadows. The pack exalted in my kills, the elimination of our rivals. It gave me strength and speed, lifted me up and flooded me with confidence. It made me a stomping nemesis to our enemies. I’d felt as if I was shining like the sun.

That feeling was gone.

The night was cold and closed and dark.

Olivia drove up, hunched over with a shoulder pressing her cellphone to her ear. She relayed the status from the cleanup crew. They were working their way here, collecting bodies.

Two of them were ours.

One of Silas’ team had been in place near the diner. Three of the Matlal werewolves had taken the route he was guarding.

One of Ursula’s team had been killed at the car auction house.

Ricky and Silas arrived.

Ricky’s group had split until he was chasing one, but he’d got him.

Silas had chased his quarry down a track that passed under Vasquez. An SUV had been waiting on the other side and they’d disappeared.

Six of them escaped. Seven were dead for two of ours. There were no seriously wounded on either side.

I was frustrated and edgy. The sudden loss of the pack feeling made me angry. Our casualties made me angry. There shouldn’t have been any on our side. We’d gone in unprepared and under-equipped. We needed to be smarter at this.

Yearning for that pack feeling to come back made me even angrier.

Should it be
we
or
they
when I thought of the pack?

I tried to talk to Ricky and Silas, but they were distracted by more of the pack arriving.

And I got the sense of being pushed away.

The pack was coming together and it was excluding me. Whatever Alex thought, I wasn’t a member, and neither was Olivia.

When the cleanup crew arrived, Ricky fought his way out of the whirl of the pack. The dead bodies had been taken from his Dodge and he handed the keys back to Olivia.

It was a dismissal. An awkward moment, with both of them wanting to do something or say something that neither of them felt they should start.

I took the opportunity to hug Alex. I could feel his distraction, and a subliminal growl from the pack, so I deliberately held him to make my point. When I looked at him, I waited for the focus to come back into his eyes. The pack wanted him, but they could damn well wait. I still stung from the rejection.

“I felt something back there,” I said. “Something from the pack. Like a huge boost.”

“I know,” he replied. “And they know it too. That’s part of what’s got them so riled.” He kissed my forehead. “We don’t howl to communicate. What you felt was the Call. Any Were can feel it, but to get strength from it like you did means you’re in the pack. It’s what gives us home advantage here.”

“So I’m in, or not?”

“I’d say you’ve proved it.” He glanced back at the gathering swirl of pack members. I felt the pull on him like a physical thing. “Give them a chance to get used to it. Felix won’t hold out if everyone thinks you’re in.”

Maybe.

“I’m in trouble with Felix again. I got involved.”

Alex frowned and shook his head. “The pack approved of you joining in, otherwise you wouldn’t have got the boost from it.”

A thought struck me. “Does the rogue
call
?”

“No.”

That felt strange. Wrong.

Silas came over. “Guys, Felix is on the move.” He jerked his thumb at the pack. “We have to get these guys away now to meet him.” He turned to Olivia. “Make sure Doc knows that you had bodies in the back of Ricky’s Dodge when you see him.”

Olivia rolled her eyes.

Finally he came to me.

He stood close enough that I was going to get a crick in my freaking neck from looking up. He was all dark but for the gleam of the distant streetlights in his eyes. I eased my weight onto the balls of my feet. If he thought he was going to intimidate me he was going to find out—

“Good hunting,” he said, and turned away.

The pack split up like fat on a hot frying pan. By the time Olivia swung the Dodge around, the cemetery was empty.

Chapter 12

We got back on Vasquez, heading for my car down in SoCo.

“What was that about Doc?” I asked.

“Doc Noble. He can’t manage the physical stuff as well as the others,” she said. “He’s just not big enough. But he knows what he’s doing with forensics, so he’s the natural choice to run the cleanup team. He’ll treat the back of the truck, make sure there’s no evidence.”

It made sense. Noble was half the size of someone like Silas, but, as a doctor, he would be useful on the cleanup team. With my old police hat on, removing evidence made me uneasy, but the pack couldn’t afford to bring attention to themselves.

“I’m normally on the cleanup team too, seeing as I can’t—” She stopped and took a sudden interest in her wing mirror.

“And what happens to the bodies?” I asked, to change the subject.

“Fertilizer. The pack owns a couple of plants for emergencies like this. Bodies go in and come out as pellets. We sell bulk and trade, all over the country. We also have a couple of farms with incinerators.”

Neat. Not perfect, but efficient and good enough for the odd occasion. I wondered what the Altau did, and whether it was time for both Athanate and Were to think more about the advances in forensics.

But that was for another time. Olivia needed distracting. I changed tack and started talking topics I was sure would work. Like Ricky, and what she should be doing about it.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

We turned into the street where I’d left my car. Halfway down, there were sidelights flashing and a horn beeping.

“Someone’s alarm’s gone off,” Olivia said.

“Shit. It’s mine.”

Olivia slowed.

“Keep going,” I said quickly. “Drive past. Go around the block.”

I pulled my HK out and my fingers checked it while my eyes scanned the cars and buildings around us.

We turned and I got a good look down the length of the block. Nothing.

“What’s up?” Olivia asked.

“Maybe nothing.” I huffed. “Maybe some of Matlal’s crew.”

We passed it twice more before I told her to park on the crossroad approach and wait. I pressed the alarm reset and the car didn’t explode as I half-expected.

Holding a flashlight I’d found in Ricky’s toolbox, I walked down the street, listening and looking, taking deep, even breaths through my nose. There was nothing out of place.

A smell of cooking came from a takeout place around the corner, a hint of someone’s cologne, long passed by. The noise of passing traffic, a distant siren. Buildings and cars dark and still.

I played the flashlight over and under the car. Nothing, except a damaged trunk lid.

Gingerly, I lifted the lid. The trunk was empty.

Oh, crap.

I waved to Olivia and she drove up alongside.